2021-11-23 - Wellness Check

Isi's place is pretty typical of Elm. It looks like it should have been torn down before someone else rented it. There is plywood over a window where the glass is cracked in an effort to keep the weather OUT and not in. Today the doorway isn't open, it's closed firmly.

No car in the small driveway, but that's mostly to be expected. Inside Isi's sitting on the floor (she doesn't own a desk or table) trying to think of the list of things she's going to need.

The car that pulls up eschews the driveway, and parks out on the street, in front of the residence. It's a recent model Charger; could use a wash and a mechanic to look at the alternator. It's also got a set of lights tucked under the dash, for someone who knows what to look for, and the unmarked rims are a dead giveaway for cop car.

Exhaust sputters into the chill air for a few moments before the engine's killed, and a couple of things shoved into the secure storage compartment behind the laptop on the centre column. Then de la Vega climbs out and slams the door, huddled into his jacket as he trudges up the yard to the front door. And knocks a few times, police-style with the side of his fist.

So, Isi just took her pain meds - the strong kind that require a prescription and are illegal without them. So she's not quite high - but yeah. No sane minority group wants to hear a police knock when high, even if it IS legal. He hears the sound of a female voice yelling "fuck," and the sound of things getting shoved away. It's pretty suspicious. Finally though, Isi yanks open the door. Her hair is askew, "Officer," beat, "Chief of police." Hey, she didn't say chief fuckface! RESPECT GO.

The problem with trying to hide evidence of drug use to a guy who's done every hard drug under the sun (and then some), is that he knows exactly what to look for. In her eyes, and in the way she moves and talks and how she takes a minute to shove things into corners before she hauls the door open. And he's standing there, that fucking Mexican cop from the precinct, almost unrecognisable in a baseball cap and battered jacket and jeans, hands shoved deep into his pockets to keep them warm.

"Javier's fine," he murmurs, low. "You, uh. Mind if I come in?"

Javier's firmly pressed into Isi's mind as 'COP' so he could be dressed in clowns gear and she's still be staring him down with clear distrust written over the way she doesn't open the door all of the way and stands in the area just behind the door. Easy slamming shut sone.. Her arm isn't up in the sling this time hinting she was just laying down. More of her bruises and cuts are display since she's wearing just a spaghetti strap and some cut up leggings. Not in the 'oh, I'm sexy' but in the 'I probably haven't washed my clothing in a week and this is what I got' kind of way.

"Yeah. I mind." Another evidence of Isi having had poor run-ins with police in the past, she doesn't answer him more than absolutely necessary.

His response to that is to chuckle, of all things. It sketches heavy crow's feet at the corners of his eyes, which shift for a moment across the street to where a pair of young men are arguing across the roof of a beat up hatchback.

Then back to Isi, as he tugs off his baseball cap and scruffs knuckles through his curls. "Won't take a few minutes of your time, Ms. Cameron."

It's a miracle, honestly, that Isi hasn't already been murdered. Those pain pills are really good, but they really screw with her attention. She sees that he glances behind, but not at what. For a long few second she considers just slamming the door in his face. "Ugh," a sigh and she turns away from the doorway and stomps inwards leaving him to push the doorway open and make his own way into.

The innards are a contradiction. At some points, it's clear Isi's spent the money for quality, but in others.... not so much. Secondhand appliances and furniture. She DOES have a full time job, so she should be able to afford much better than this.

Isi sits herself down on the couch, but doesn't relax. One doesn't relax with a cop in the house.

He's armed, of course. In case she needed any more reminders of just how much a cop he is. The Sig holstered at his hip is a staple of law enforcement, big and ugly and sure as hell not just there for show. His badge is briefly flashed as well, just on the off chance she decides to cry foul about him turning up at her place without the proper identification.

Then he lets himself inside, gaze roving away from Isi and about the room curiously as he breaches the threshold. "How's the arm?" he queries gruffly. "You booked it from the station in a hurry. Thought I'd stop by to do a wellness check." His radio crackles with a message from dispatch, and he reaches up to switch it off.

Isi's eyes flick at that weapon and she just.... scoots a bit further to the side of the sofa, gathering up the worn older quilt as she goes. One hand tucks something just a little more under the cover as she goes. She's basically sitting on it now. When she's done moving the quilt is half settled onto her lap and drapes over her legs, hiding some of those obvious injuries. "It hurts." She replies, suspicion writ large.

"Didn't have any reason to stay longer." That bit gets added abruptly as she looks away from him. "Got the gist it wasn't fucking worth it. People praise your name but you're all the same - cops." Why yes, she spits that last word.

The way she looks at his gun is not missed, of course. How could it be? A cop walks into the house of a solitary Indigenous woman, and what does he expect?

"Yeah. You want me to grab you anything?" He nudges the door shut, but doesn't lock it. "The, uh, sling you had before?" Then he unfastens the clasp on his holster, and tugs the gun out. Two steps toward the table facing the couch, then he bends over and sets the weapon down, thump.

Isi isn't about to give over all of her worries, but she does keep her eyes on him like he might change colors any second. "I take it off when I sleep - just the cast now." The annoying thing encases her arm to just below the shoulder, a gnarly break.

"Nothing. Friends," and she pauses, looking confused and startled when that word comes out of her mouth, but a small shake, and she'll keep moving. "brought me some staples. Dead women don't go to the store." Ah, there is, bitterness.

Well, this is why Javier's a cop and not a doctor, presumably. He squints a little at the cast, and huffs. "The fuck do I know." What she says next, however, has him watching her quietly. Curiously. "Friends," he repeats, and sinks into a chair opposite her. And notably out of reach of his gun. Which has been left where Isi could snatch it up, if she so desired.

"You know, some people find it easier to talk.. in here." He taps his temple with two heavily inked fingers. "We could. If you wanted. I can show you."

THAT suggestion has Isi straight up shivering at even the thought of learning that. "Fucking Alexander Clayton did that shit the other day and just," a full body shiver of revulsion at the thought. She fixes her gaze on him and she'll just go straight to blunt. She's like that normally, but the pain killers are helping ~nicely~ also. "What the fuck are you doing here? I haven't done shit and you're trying to make me comfortable."

Mention of Alexander actually draws a chuckle from the cop. "Yeah," he murmurs, watching her steadily in return. "Sounds like something he'd do."

He's thoughtful for a few moments as the question's asked. Elbows resting loosely on his spread knees, dark eyes sliding away from Isi to do a quick check of the room again. Subconscious, maybe, the way he's done one every couple of minutes since he's arrived. The way the tension sits in his big shoulders and won't leave. Then, "Like I said, came to do a wellness check. Wanted to make sure you were all right." He sniffs sharply, and scratches at the side of his nose.

"Watch the painkillers. You don't want those to get out of hand." Something in his voice, and it isn't the cop talking. It's the man who's made the same mistake.

Maybe, MAYBE if Ruiz wasn't a cop, Isi would be willing to listen to him and be all 'yeah, sure man, that makes sense, I'll remember that~"

But Isi's stubborn and prejudiced. So she gives a withering look and doesn't address his well-meaning words. Instead she starts to cross her arms on her chest, is reminded swiftly that one of them doesn't bend like that, and ends just awkwardly setting one hand on the elbow of the staff. Yeah. This looks tough. (man, it really doesn't.)

"I'm not about to kill myself - and I have prescription." That added quickly. Just in case. " "wellness" checks in my past have ended up in people arrested -- What are you really doing here?" She just can't believe he's here for her wellness.

Odds are, Javier's accustomed to this. This stonewalling, this distrust, this jumping to conclusions and not giving him an inch. He doesn't even look particularly put out by it, though he does knit his brows slightly when she mentions the prescription. As if that makes a difference to anything.

Then the question, and he blows a breath out his nose, and watches his fingers interlaced in front of his knees. Gang ink scrawled up that right hand, no two ways about it. "I grew up in Tijuana. Shitty little town, I don't recommend visiting." He looks up at her briefly, then back down again. "My family lived in this little place in Delegación Centro, and it was shitty, too. Roof leaked in the rainy season and we were too poor for air conditioning in the summer. And one day, the policía, they came to our house looking for drugs. And they broke my mother's dishes, and cut open the mattresses, and they didn't find the drugs. But they took something else."

He watches her a long moment at that. He's not going to tell her what it was. Instead, a slow breath. "I came to see how you were doing." He taps his thumbs together once, then starts to his feet.

"Congrats on a shitty upbringing," Isi replies, not an ounce of empathy crossing her features. She stares at the man like she would dissect his brain if she could only get into it.

"Alexander and Ravn both say I should trust you. Trust you to take any evidence I can find and that you'll make it ...," she struggles to find the right word before giving up and switching what she was saying, "that you will act on it. If city hall is dirty enough for this to go on as long as I looked back on it, and the assistant DA thinks corruption doesn't matter - why shouldn't I think you and yours aren't just as bad?"

Given the power this particular empath sheds, a nearly imperturbable field that sloughs off him like discarded electrical charge, getting into his brain may be an ill advised endeavour.

He pauses though, when Isi addresses him again. Squints slightly when those names are mentioned; maybe moreso at the first. A long while passes before he replies. "I can't answer that for you. There are rotten cops, won't try to argue otherwise. Whether you should trust me, I guess that's for you to decide." He leans over to collect his gun, check the clip (just in the off chance she's messed with it), and shove it into his holster.

"I said I was taking on this case, and I fucking meant it. I will find out who did this to you, and the ADA and I'll make sure they're prosecuted to the full extent of the law." He glances back at her. "You can feel free to dislike me. But that's what I'm going to do."

Isi scowls at the dodge, hugging her broken arm more closely to her chest. It doesn't leave her much to say, so she doesn't.

Instead she shifts again when he goes for the gun, away from him again and the weapon. That is a nice lifelong nervousness.

"You can see yourself out." That is what he gets for a reply. It isn't quite as cold as she had been though, so she did listen.

Which he does, without another word offered in response. His radio's switched back on as he shoulders his way out, and someone from dispatch welcomes him back and tries to flirt with him. He laughs, and whatever else he says is lost as the door bangs shut, and he trudges back off down the drive.