2021-01-28 - My Way Or Hemingway

Cold gray light falls from the hospital window. Itzhak, big frame very still, lies in that not-quite-dozing, not-quite-awake state of healing. His shorn head, only half an inch or so of dark hair grown in to form a sleek cap, somehow makes him look worse. Older. Less resilient. His chest is bandaged thoroughly, and he's got an IV in and an O2 cannula. (At least August had come by and healed the worst of the damage to his lung and he's no longer sucking air through a hole in his chest.) Someone has left him a little Bluetooth speaker, and classical violin music plays low through it: rich as dark chocolate, a Bach cello suite.

He looks awful. The room doesn't look that bad, almost like a mid-range hotel room in its colors and layout, but--yeah there's no disguising the array of machinery and the IV drip, the soft boops of vital monitors, the murmur of nurses going about their routes just outside.

The hospital's familiar territory to Javier. He spends an awful lot more time here than he wants to, between collecting witness depositions, filling out autopsy reports, and checking in on his various accident-prone friends. Including, as it turns out, his boyfriend.

Pausing outside the door a moment, he gives a couple of short raps with his knuckles before entering. And his dark eyes immediately go to the lanky man arranged in the bed, surrounded in medical equipment. The door's nudged shut again with a thump, and he tries on a smile. "Hey, baby. How're you feeling?" Leather jacket, faded black tee shirt, snug fitting jeans tucked into scuffed boots. A few books tucked under one arm, and a tupperware container in the other.

Itzhak stirs at the sound of his lover's voice. His eyelids, dark as bruises, slide open. From the way his pupils are dilated in his light gray irises, he's been given the good stuff. "Awwwwww, tsimbrik," he murmurs, and a smile almost makes it to one corner of his mouth. "You're on ya feet, yeah? Oh, God, it's so good to see you, c'mere." He reaches for him, eyebrows tipping up like they do.

On his feet? "Why wouldn't I be?" retorts the cop, amused. Or trying to feign it, anyway. It's clear Itzhak's in rough shape, and it's just as clear that he's worried. After some hesitation, he eases out of the doorway and ambles closer. Slides the tupperware container onto the nightstand by the bed, and the books atop it. There are a couple of magazines in there, too; smut, mostly, mixed in with some stuff on cars. Inside the tupperware container, fresh baked churros. The glass is still a little fogged up with evaporated moisture.

"I asked you how you were feeling," he repeats, low voiced, leaning in to press a hand against the mattress beside his lover's hip. Then a kiss, gentle; it tastes like the clove he'd been smoking in the parking lot.

"Ugh, I'm gonna taste like a hospital." But Itzhak doesn't refuse that kiss; he lifts his face to it like a flower to the sun. He does, in fact, taste (and smell) like a hospital. Under that, though, his own scent, his own taste. The vital roar of him might be muted, but he's still here. "I feel like I took two to the chest," he murmurs, nuzzling into Javier's beard. "Like I got run over by a semi. Breathing's hard. They told me I hadda collapsed lung. Roen snuck over and didn't let me say no." His long fingers creep to Javier's wrist, grip him there. "We did it, baby," he whispers. "You did it."

He glances woozily over at the books. The hint of a skin mag peeking out from under Muscle Car Review makes him chuckle shallow and rusty. "Aww you made churros. I love ya churros. Thank you. Yeah?"

The taste of him, the sound of him cannot be denied, hospital or not. Collapsed lung or not. Javier makes a pleased little noise in his throat, nuzzles his nose against Itzhak's, and lingers in the kiss for a few moments more after his lover's done speaking. Then he eases back again, and brushes rough fingers through the man's overlong curls, lifting them away from his forehead, tucking them behind his ear.

"Good," he remarks of Roen, with a slight frown. "I should check in on him, too." Sinking into the chair by the bed, he releases a long, exhausted sounding sigh and drops his face into his hands. "Yeah. We've got Reyes. We've got Du Bois. His supply chain's fucking toast." A beat. "De nada." For the churros, perhaps.

Itzhak hangs on as long as he can, fingers (DOWN) making a bracelet for Javier's wrist. His usual strength is depleted, but he's sure making the attempt. When Javier sits, he keeps that hand on him somehow, lingering on his arm, slipping down to rest on his knee. His hunger to touch him is palpable--he can't stop doing it. The name of DuBois gets a quiet sound out of him that's savage for all its low volume. He probably shouldn't say exactly what he personally did to help bring DuBois in, not in the middle of a hospital, but a glint in his eyes might speak for him.

He whispers, those gray-green-amber hazels on Javier. "They should never have come here. This's our town."

He doesn't fight that grip, not today. Only the faintest quiver of muscle and tendon in lizard brain reflex, before he settles beneath that touch. And if Itzhak thinks he can hide anything from an empath of Javier's skill, then he's got entirely another thing coming; that glint in his eyes might as well be neon signage. The cop scruffs fingers through his beard, watches his lover quietly for a few beats, then drops his hand and nods once. "Ellos no deberķan haberlo hecho."

A flick of his eyes to the door, then back to Itzhak. "Tell me." What, he doesn't specify.

Itzhak grunts in reply. His thumb finds the underside of Javier's wrist, nestles on the pulse point. Eyes drifting closed again, he settles against the pillows...and a whisper of violin music touches the other man's mind. An offering of memory, from an Itzhak's-eye-view. It's high off the ground, the guy is a giraffe.

Gunfire from all sides. Tear gas pours out of a building. Itzhak's wearing a gas mask, the rubber seal framing his viewpoint. Shouts of "TEN O'CLOCK!" and "Watch it!" catch his attention on some level. The fact that Joey Kelly is battling for his life a yard away, that Itzhak himself is going in against armed men with nothing but his Song and a set of brass knuckles all seethe in the hyper-real focus of live combat. A big man in armor is being shot down in front of him while Vic and Cris and Seth shout crisp calls to each other. Itzhak's focus, clarity like a still pool of perfect water, is on Daryl DuBois.

DuBois shoots him, but the pain means nothing, pain is just weakness leaving the body, Itzhak plows into him. The impact of his brass knuckles in DuBois's ribs, driven by his Song, is exquisite. Bone splinters under his fist. DuBois is knocked down unconscious in one hit, but Itzhak pulled the blow. Because they need him alive.

"I understand you better now, I think, maybe," he murmurs, voice a rasp, eyes still closed. "After that. After Reyes. I think I do."

The touch of violin music has his head bowing, his own lashes lowering to half mast. He's gotten better about this in recent months; this process of touching minds without laying waste to them. The wolf, today, is guarded. Restless. But permits the intrusion, and disappears back into the formless mist as the memory takes shape.

"What do you mean?" he wants to know, after a long, thoughtful pause. After he's had time to contemplate what he's been shown.

Another flicker of memory. Itzhak had not pulled punches when Joey Kelly's people were ambushed in their turn. He thinks he killed a man, the big bruiser with the automatic rifle. Fist crunching through ballistic armor and bone and something horribly wet and squishy and alive--

His mind flinches away from the memory. In the moment, he'd hardly cared. He'd just thought, good, now he'll stay down. Not even in words, in a pulse of hateful satisfaction; that man was responsible for the second bullet in his chest and he'd just gone after him, powered by rage and indomitable will. But he can't look at it now. If that man wasn't dead, it was by the direct intervention of God.

"War," he whispers. His eyelids drift up to see Javier, and his fingers shift, no longer gripping him by the wrist, sliding to his thigh. "Like that. You know?" His violin sings plaintive-sweet, in a minor key. It harmonizes well with the Bach playing, but it's contrast.

He doesn't flinch at the images that wash through his mind, the graphic horror that's being inflicted on him. This is the measure of a man who's seen what he's seen, who's done what he's done. There is only so much that will rattle him, now.

Dark eyes flit up to Itzhak's at that thrum of hateful satisfaction. A soft furrowing of his brows, and he looks away again, back to his lap, where his boyfriend's hand sits on his thigh. "It's.." He makes a sound in his throat. "This.. this was a bloody fucking street battle. It's not the same thing as a war." His teeth dig into his upper lip, then release it slowly. "I'm sorry you had to do these things, baby," he finishes, roughly. "You shouldn't have had to. This shouldn't have been your fight."

The kythe fades. Itzhak's fingers curl into Javier's thigh. "Yeah. It ain't. A war. Not like the one you were in. Or Roen. Or..." he stops, to take a breath. Then Javier tells him he's sorry, that he had to do those things, and he bites his lip, hard. Doesn't help. Wetness spikes his eyelashes. "Ah, fuck," he mutters, and lifts his hand to scrub at his face. "No, no, God damn it..." that's to himself, scolding himself for his tears. "I don't wanna cry, I'm just... that... hearing that..." He can't explain, and shakes his head, heel of his hand pressed to his eye.

Or Cavanaugh. He's pretty sure those were the next words to come out of Itzhak's mouth, never mind they weren't voiced. And he knows, without even looking, that his lover's crying. He knows without hearing it in his voice, or feeling the slight tremor in his hand. Because this is what it means to have an empath for a boyfriend; never really being able to hide your state of mind. Not without a whole lot of effort, anyway.

There's a box of tissues on the nightstand, near the supplies he brought, and he nudges the books aside to get to them. Fwip, fwip, fwip as a few are tugged out, bunched up, and offered to the other man in silence between two inked fingers.

Itzhak takes the tissues with an air of resignation. Yeah, he's crying again, what a freakin' surprise. A moment or so goes by while he silently weeps. Then, getting a hold of himself, he wipes his nose and tosses the crumpled tissues into the trash. "Fuckin'," he mutters, as a sort of statement on literally everything. "I'm a mess. I just wanna go home with you, baby. That's all I want. Home with you."

Now it's Javier's turn to lean in, and slide a warm, callused palm over Itzhak's forearm. Careful to mind where the IV's inserted, so he doesn't jostle it. A twinge of something not quite a smile; it doesn't reach anywhere near his eyes, or the crow's feet that sit heavy about their edges. "Can't," he murmurs, with a shake of his head. "Not until they release you, baby. You know that." A breath's huffed out his nose, and he shifts, and reaches for the top book on the stack of ones he brought.

The Old Man and the Sea, says the worn title. "Read to you though, if you want?"

"I know." Itzhak's voice is a hushed scrape, as if he slid his bow laterally along his strings. He meets Javier's eyes, his own crow's-feet creased in exhaustion instead of wicked humor. A big, broad-palmed, long-fingered hand eases atop his lover's, on his arm. "I know." He tips his head forward to gently bump.

The offer of reading gets a real smile out of him. No less exhausted, and not okay, but oh, how that offer makes that smile happen. "Please. Yeah?"

And once Javier's voice begins to wash over him, reading those words that were unadorned and yet all the more beautiful for it (he was an old man who fished alone in a skiff), he tries to listen, but he's quick to fall asleep.