2020-11-08 - Don't Look At It Too Long

Vic cannot stand not having her own place right now. She needs to get this house squared away and to livable status before Thanksgiving, because her father is coming to visit. Right now, she is nowhere near ready. The downstairs has had three rooms torn up, the carpeting gone, the wallpaper down, and wood paneling removed. They still need to be fixed up, floors refinished, walls painted, fixtures replaced, etcetera. But at least the 70s has been evicted from them. The kitchen hasn't been touched yet, still resembling an explosion of awful tupperware colors vomited on every surface.

Today it's the bathroom she needs to get an estimate on. She needs to know what materials she's going to need to round up, and what she'll need to bribe Cavanaugh and his erstwhile police shadow to make it not horrific. Right now it's some sort of not blue but not really green either monstrosity that, if you look at it too long, becomes an optical illusion of terrible.

The blonde is in jeans and a black tee, her hair in a braid, and sporting a healing black eye, healing split lip, and healing knuckle abrasions. Someone was either in a fight or had a really good time.

Joe has not only brought his helpful self, he's enlisted the cop, too. He's in an old gray t-shirt, jeans, boots....and he's surveying the space with his lips pursed. "I'mma tell you right now," he says. "Based on this alone, unless you are willing to shovel money and bring in an army of contractors, you are not gonna have this place presentable by Thanksgiving." His tone isn't the least heated, it's that lazy drawl....but then, this isn't his house. He's got that shiny new apartment, after all.

He scratches at his jaw - the scruff is turning into an actual beard - and adds, "But we might could get the bathroom done. That tile is awful, makes everyone in here look like a zombie. I'd seriously urge you to look into booking a nice B&B for your pops, though, if you really wanna do Thanksgiving in style." He glances at Ruiz, like he's expecting the cop to back him up on this.

If by backing him up on this, Joe expected de la Vega to abandon him after finally ditching that fucking cigarette he promised he wouldn't light up once they climbed out of the truck (and totally did), then he's totally backing him up. Yep, he's nowhere to be seen at the moment. Though a brief glance about might find him having perched himself atop the edge of the kitchen table, scrolling through his Friendzone feed while he waits for his boyfriend to finish what the fuck ever he needs to do here, so the cop can get back to what the fuck ever he has to do that's apparently more interesting than this.

He's in snug black jeans today, that tee shirt with the carton of soy milk on it, and the other confused looking milk bottles who don't seem sure what to make of it, and a very battered ballcap. The tan's beginning to fade from his heavily tattooed arms finally as colder weather really sets in, and an assortment of cuts and scratches and fading bruises decorate his right hand.

Vic grunts and lets out a sigh of sad acceptance. "Yeah, I kind of figured I'd need to put Dad up somewhere that isn't the murder motel for his stay. If I can get the bathroom and one other room done though, I can stay here myself at least. Not like I'm home much to need to cook or anything. And I can only stay at the Kelly place for so long before I lose my mind." Happy couple stuff on display, boss cooking at 2 am in an apron and boxers, boss' ghost mom bitching at her, that's so not her scene. She needs peace, quiet, and alone time to clean her weapons in meditative solitude dammit.

"But I also want to do this right, so I might need to bunk at Joey's a while longer. I only have one bathroom in this house, and I want a goddamned sanctuary. Walk in shower, freestanding soaker tub, storage, all of it. Please. I deserve it after so long in hotel rooms and a 22 foot trailer." She glances at the stairs, as the kitchen is on the ground floor and the bathroom is upstairs. "Maybe I can carve out a powder room under the stairs eventually for the downstairs." She yells down the stairs, "There's beer in the fridge, de la Vega!"

"Looks like you mighta rented out that trailer prematurely," Joe says. "You thinkin' new tile in here, or some other surface on the walls?" He cocks his head. "Could just drop a liner over the tub....but no, you said you want a separate tub and shower. Can't say as I blame you, that's how it is in my apartment, and I gotta say it's nice havin' a tub big enough to soak in."

There's an image for the both of them - Joe, bubble bath. The imagination quails. Then he shrugs. "Either way, tile's got to come off those walls. I got enough goggles, hammers, 'n chisels, figure we can get that off today." Then he's ambling over to the rail, looks down. "Javier, you just gonna sit down there and play Candy Crush, 'r you gonna help?"

"What do you need help with?" comes the grudging response, a few moments later, following the sound of boots on tile, then the fridge opening and shutting and the pop of a bottle opening. Seems Javier helped himself to one of those beers on offer. His phone's shoved back into his pocket, and he ambles over to the stairs, and drapes an elbow against it as he sips his beer, gaze angled upward to try to catch sight of the pair at the top.

Vic barks out a laugh as the image of Joe soaking in a tub of bubbles, with a glass of champagne and a book pops into her brain like something insidious to make her blush. "I'd pay to see you taking a soak," she blurts out before stifling herself with a hand over her mouth, the scrapes stark against her paler skin. "But yeah, I need a tub that I can soak in that covers my knees and my boobs at the same time." She's 5'11", that'll be a feat. "And all the tile has to go. If I look at it for too long, I get dizzy. Maybe some nice slate or something. I'm on like an IKEA budget."

She looks amused as Joe accuses Ruiz of playing Candy Crush instead of helping. "He wants to watch you doing hard labor, Javier. He thinks you're sexy in safety goggles!" she calls down.

"Every Sunday night after dinner, barrin' unforeseen circumstances," he says, easily, giving her a sidelong, amused look. "At the very least. Yeah, it's hard to get a tub worth the name without it bein' a separate one. Most tub-shower combos the tub part really isn't worth it." Joe glances around. "Yeah. We're one buzzing fluorescent bulb away from a David Lynch movie in here."

Then he's peering down at Javier. "As I suspected, tile's gonna need to come off the walls. Assumin' the drywall's good behind it, that might be all we need to do for now." A beat, and he says, "Man, I shoulda told you we're gonna film a porno and needed your help."

Squinting up at Vic for a moment, the Mexican takes a swig of his beer and chuckles. Maybe he caught the remark about paying to see Joe take a soak. He doesn't seem bothered; bemused, maybe. No comment on the safety goggles as he pushes off and starts up the stairs.

"What the fuck makes you think I'd want any part of filming a fucking porno, Cavanaugh?" he grumbles as he reaches the top, thumping the other man with his shoulder. Then he gets an eyeful of the tile and, "The shit is this? You're going to need to rip all this out."

Vic clamps a hand over her mouth as Joe shouts about making a porno, because she knows laughing at Ruiz will likely make him even ornerier. Is that a word? "I don't think even the 70s would want to make a porno in this bathroom, Cavanaugh," she notes with a squinting of her eyes to try and not get dizzy from the colors. "But you make this place my sanctuary and I'll promise to text you in your bath from my bath every Sunday night after dinner to thank you," she quips.

Ruiz's comment has her rolling her eyes. "Duh, why do you think you're here?"

Joe drops a wink. "Fair enough," he concedes. "And, well, aren't those the two career options, post-Marine-Corps? Gay porn or being a cop? And you've done the latter...." He's blithely handing out safety goggles, gloves, and dust masks, first. "Yeah, you're right. Even 70s porn wouldn't work in here."

"That's the plan, big man," Joe says, picking up a hammer and chisel. He sets the chisel tip in the midst of a tile on one wall, taps it relatively gently. Then he's reducing most of the tile around the broken part to shards, dropped in a big industrial waste basket. After that, he's prying the whole line of tile off sideways. "Oh, good," he says, when the backing's exposed. "I was half-afraid you were gonna have drywall behind this that we'd need to rip out....but no, this is looks good. We'll be able to lay tile or some kinna board right over it."

The beer's polished off while Joe gets started on the tile, empty bottle thunked down on the sink, and a pair of gloves tugged on. Seems Javier did actually come prepared to do work. "Oh, fuck off," comes along with a bark of laughter at the accusation of gay porn and police work being his only two available career options. His eyes are on the wall as it's revealed in patches beneath broken tile. "You sure there's no, uh, asbestos hiding in there?" he questions Vic, with a glance toward the blonde.

Vic looks like she doesn't believe there's even that bit of good in the bones of this house. "Really? Huh. But is the board that's in there the good waterproofed kind they make now? Greenboard or whatever? If not, it's just mold waiting to happen, isn't it?" she asks. She puts on her goggles and mask, and begins to chip away and pry off more tiles from another wall. "Demolition feels so good. I get that Chip Gaines guy and his demo day shit now." Vic is a Fixer Upper fan? Whodathunkit?

At the asbestos question, Vic shakes her head. "That's one thing they had to check for on the home inspection. Was clear on that. Apparently the only real reason no one bought the place, other than the decor, was the triple murder that happened in it." And well, the enforcer gives zero shits about murders.

"You really wanna go for broke, we c'n take out the backer. We are in here either way," Joe says. Still hacking away at the tile on the wall. "Right? It sure does, doesn't it. I've never been into those home shows - sometimes I miss havin' a house of my own like I did in Houston, but on the other hand, I don't have to mow a lawn or shovel snow now."

His smile isn't visible around the mask, save as a deepening of the lines around his eyes. "I mean, they do say that the best job is makin' 'em pay you for what you'd do for free." And what Javier does for free is Joe, after all. "What's the story there?" he asks Vic. "If you know."

God, he could've been hanging out with a beer and his social media feed. But instead, they've put him to work remodeling Vic's bathroom for.. what? "I don't know.." A grunt as he tugs on some eye protection, and gets to work on the wall by the bathroom mirror. Which requires half clambering up onto the sink. "..what you're trying to imply there, but I've only ever been paid for sex once." tap, tap, tap "Twice. But the second time didn't count." He flings the cracked hunk of tile into the garbage, and keeps going.

"Haven't looked into it yet, but it happened sometime in the 70s," Vic explains, looking around in disgust, "clearly. I might do some digging once the place no longer looks like a crime against my eyeballs." She nods to Joe. "Let's do it right so I'm not having to do it again in a couple years. From what I've been told about this fucking town, I'm not leaving any time soon."

Ruiz' admissions has Vic staring at him with wide-eyes behind those goggles. "Someone paid you for that? Twice? Really?" Oh she is so getting something thrown at her.

Joe, notably, isn't asking. But then, Vic's taking care of that. "Gray Harbor's always been insane, as far as I can ever tell, and I haven't done a lot of deep digging into it," Joe admits, with a sigh. "Yeah, I hear that. Rate I'm goin', I'll end up buyin' a house, too. Though I swear if I do, it'll be some big fancy ass thing by the bay. I miss havin' a house with a pool...." What a princess. He dumps more broken tile into the garbage can.

There's some tile wedged into the corner between the mirror and the vanity that's being ornery as fuck, and Javier grits his teeth as he tries to convince it to loosen. Muscle stands out slightly along his forearm and bicep, and he leans his shoulder into it, a noisy clatter as he finally topples the hunk of tile. "That's what I said, isn't it? Or did I fucking stutter?" He cuts an irritated look toward Vic, a somewhat less readable one to Joe when he talks about buying a big house with a pool.. then begins attacking the next section of tile like it did him wrong.

"I mean that's what you said, I'm trying to process it. And figure out what circumstances could have possibly lead to...you know what? Just tell me how much you made, and I'll let my imagination take it from there." Vic sounds way too cheerful about this. She nods at Joe, "Yeah I'm thinking of a hot tub in my yard. Not enough space for a pool really. But a jacuzzi after a long day sounds delightful."

"I think a hot tub sounds like a really smart idea," Joe sighs. "I sit in the one at the apartment pool alla time. I know I sound like a creaky old man, but god, it helps with the pain." He's taking the tile out on his wall methodically, line by line. He glances at Javier - perhaps admiring the momentary gun show. Maybe that crack about making porn wasn't so much a joke.

"None of your fucking business," is de la Vega's response to the question of how much, everything about him instantly shuttered. Shoulders tense, jaw tight. "Shouldn't have mentioned it." He pries more tile off, and an impressive amount of it peels away and collapses onto the floor with a crash. He doesn't quite have Joe's finesse, but there's a certain catharsis to this for him, perhaps. With a grunt, he hops down off the sink and goes to collect bits and pieces of ceramic and toss them into the garbage. Well, if they wanted to watch him work, at least there's that.

"Going to be installing a hot tub on the back deck of my place, soon as I can find a contractor worth their salt," he mumbles.

Vic might have taken a glance at the gun show herself, she's only human afterall, but she looks away quickly. "Yeah, I imagine it helps with the pain, and the muscle cramps. I have a few aches that get worse in the winter, so maybe I can get that put in by then." Bullet wounds, they suck. "I dunno, Joe, how much would you have dished out to get Javier to have sex with you?" she quips, clearly not letting this get passed up. She snaps her fingers at Ruiz, "In a hot tub, how much, Joe?"

Joe doesn't press. He doesn't even look directly at Javier, as if that were the closest thing to privacy he can grant him. "It sure does. Bones, joints, muscles, it's a cure-all. I dump epsom salts in my own tub, helps even more," he adds, as he lays siege to yet another rank of tiles. "'s a good idea, you gotta nice place for it."

"Up to two years of jail time, and a whole career in the US Navy and NASA," Joe's voice is light, good-humored. "That's what I'd'a paid," But it has the ring of truth in it - every tryst in those distant days came with a risk. "That said, I didn't even have to buy him a drink the first time I met him."

It's true, of course. All of it. The jail time that Joe risked, and the drink he didn't buy. Though he certainly tried. Javier was just a stubborn little prick about it, not to mention drowning in a bottle of Captain Morgan's by the time Joe found him. Those dark, dark eyes are fixed on the ex-aviator for a long moment when he mentions the career that hung by a thread, and then the ex-Marine is back to prying the last few bits of tile off the wall in silence. It gives him something to do with his hands, which seems to suit him just fine.

"Damn man, that's a high price, you got it baaaaad," Vic teases Joe. She snorts at the fact he didn't even have to buy Ruiz a drink. "He had to be absolutely out of his mind drunk AND high before he banged me. What does that say about my sex appeal? Or lack thereof?" she asks with an amused snort.

The blue gaze that meets that look is enormously fond, even though the lenses of the safety glasses. "I always have," he concedes, easily. "Never let up, from the first moment. He was very drunk the first time I got him into bed, too," he says, before devoting his attention to the curved line of trim at the top of the tiling. A little more tricky to do. "And I was quite the pretty young thing as a naval aviator, too," he adds. If she's read his memoirs, she's seen the pictures of him in his uniform.

Gloves off, Javier scrubs fingers through his hair and surveys their handiwork thus far while Joe gets to work on the trim near the ceiling. He's quiet for a few moments, maybe remembering that pretty young thing that the older man used to be, and the extremely illegal affair that would've no doubt gotten Javier in hotter water, as the one with far less privilege than Joe.

He glances eventually from the lean, solidly-built sailor, to Vic standing nearby, eyes slivered a fraction as he regards her. "The fuck is with you today, anyway? You've been on my ass about one thing or another since we got here." The gloves are slapped down on the sink. "Empieza a hablar." He takes a step closer to her, meets her gaze. "Vamos entonces."

"Yes you were damned pretty, like total golden boy, and in that uniform, woof," Vic notes. Yep, she's read the memoirs. Fangirl. Oi. "I wouldn't have made you buy me a drink either." She winks at the astronaut. Then Javier is in her face.

She straightens to her full height, an inch taller than Ruiz, and her expression goes dark, serious, but not cold. There is the slightest bit of concern in her expression, something not often seen or shown. "Tú y Kelly casi pelearon. Eso no puede volver a suceder Javier. Tendría que estar de su lado, y no quiero enfrentar las consecuencias de eso."

He's wondered about the ugly history between them....but neither have replied directly when asked. "Oh, he was already drunk. Whole bottle of rum, I think," he says, almost absently.

Then they're squaring up, and Joe's not even making any further pretense of fooling with the trim. He turns to look between them, but doesn't try to interpose himself. That's never gone well for him. He simply listens....and there isn't the blank incomprehension of someone trying to follow along in a language he doesn't speak.

It isn't, though, the squaring up of two people who are about to come to blows. At least, not from Javier's perspective. Nothing in his body language suggests he's about to throw a punch, or otherwise incite violence; if anything, he looks tired. Irritated. Confused, even.

A look askance to Joe, and then back to Vic, and one'd be hard pressed to guess that she tops him by an inch, given that he outweighs her by a good fourty or fifty pounds and has a way of commanding a room. Has to, in order to get a department's worth of cops to do what he tells them, after all. "You do what you need to do," he tells her, voice rough and low and unwavering. "So will I. And so will Joey Kelly. He had some shit he needed to get out of his system. It's dealt with. You've got a problem with it, you take it up with him, yeah?" He's standing maybe a foot or two away. He could grab her, haul her in or shove her up against the wall; he moves quicker than he looks like he ought to. But for now, stillness through his big frame.

Every muscle in Vic's body is tensed, ready, for him to make a move if he's going to. "And if I fail and you two fuck it up because you're acting like a couple of middle schoolers who had an argument over trading their lunches, it's not just my head on the chopping block, Javier. His boss is the only reason my father is still breathing, and the only reason I'm in this shit job that goes against everything I ever wanted."

Ah, the mythical Monaghan. The one of that family Joe has never met. Has never seen in person, really. The pilot's preserving a judicious, thoughtful silence. He hasn't taken off his safety gear, in case they all do decide to get back to work. But.....he's curious enough to not urge them to do so. Just waiting, without any particular urgency.

He's not, though. Going to make a move. Because contrary to what some people seem to think, Javier Ruiz de la Vega is not actually a powder keg waiting to be set off by the slightest provocation. And Joey Kelly was the one who threw the first punch, at the Poorhouse.

"Your father is still breathing because Felix Monaghan wants him to be," he corrects her flatly. A beat, and then he eases away, going to grab his gloves and tug them back on again. "And none of that changes because Kelly and I exchange a couple of punches at a fucking halloween party, so calm the fuck down." The goggles are adjusted, and he goes to assess what remaining work needs to be done. "Missed a spot, baby," he tells Joe, slanting him a smile should the blond glance over.

"I'm going to the store to pick out tile," Vic says flatly. She clearly thinks Ruiz is missing something in the information department when it comes to Ojeda and Monaghan and their deal. She's on a leash, and most days it feels more like a noose. "Thanks for your help, don't bother locking up when you go, there's nothing here to steal."

"Oh, right," Joe says, docile as a lamb. He's turning back to the trim when Vic makes that announcement. He only blinks at her a moment, bemused. But there're still no questions. "Just no turquoise or pink or lavender," he tells her. "No more pastels. Not in here." Like his opinion matters. "But not that plain white subway tile, either. No thanks. Get somethin' nice."