2022-01-07 - Not So Skilled

(TXT to Isi) Ruiz : Hey. it's de la Vega.

(TXT to Isi) Ruiz : sorry it's taken me a couple days to get back to you.

(TXT to Ruiz) Isi : I should actually save your name in my phone...

(TXT to Ruiz) Isi : Was it okay to ask you for where to get shooting lessons? Figured a cop would know what is legal.

(TXT to Isi) Ruiz : sure, why wouldn't it be okay? There's a couple places in town, like I said. Both legal.

(TXT to Isi) Ruiz : Why are you doing this? Because you're scared?

(TXT to Ruiz) Isi : I asked you for something that's been explained to me as exceptionally shitty last time. And... yeah. I'd just started to get over fucking Emil and company, then the ps5 fucker, then a thing in a dream. It's been a lot. I'm getting a dog too.

(TXT to Isi) Ruiz : (some dots, then nothing)

(TXT to Isi) Ruiz : I'm sorry. Dog's a good idea though

(TXT to Ruiz) Isi : It's not your fault people are pieces of shit.

(TXT to Isi) Ruiz : Doesn't stop me wanting to make it right.

(TXT to Isi) Ruiz : Look, are you free tonight?

(TXT to Ruiz) Isi : I lack a social life - so yeah. Why?

(TXT to Isi) Ruiz : Well, that makes two of us. You want, I can stop by the house and grab a couple pieces, and pick you up. should be enough light left for it.

(TXT to Ruiz) Isi : (dots start and stop many many times)

(TXT to Ruiz) Isi : are you sure?

(TXT to Isi) Ruiz : Am I sure about what

(TXT to Ruiz) Isi : helping me?

(TXT to Isi) Ruiz : in for a penny, in for a fucking pound I guess

(TXT to Ruiz) Isi : Okay - sure. Come on over.

(TXT to Isi) Ruiz : I'll be there in about thirty minutes. dress warm.

(TXT to Ruiz) Isi : ok

Dress warm huh? Well, Isi manages that through layers. Honestly, she should break down one of these days and buy a fluffy coat, but that's too much effort. Instead she layers shirt -- long sleeved shirt -- hoodie on, and opts for regular jeans and tennis shoes. Wool socks though - because she isn't totally an idiot.

She's already waiting outside her house long before Ruiz shows up. She shifts from foot to foot as she waits outside her door. An attempt is made to look not like a weird creeper outside by leaning on the side of her place, but the stillness just doesn't give her nerves. Instead she's moving again to the end of the driveway, glancing down the street, then back towards the building again.

Instead of the familiar unmarked cruiser that he showed up in last time, it's a mud-spattered blue pickup truck that pulls to a stop in front of Isi's house. He's a few minutes late, possibly due to traffic. Or who the hell knows.

Once he's sure she's spotted him, the cop leans over to pop the lock on the passenger side door. Then he settles back in his seat to fiddle with his baseball cap and wait, engine still running and belching exhaust into the chill air.

Isi overlooks the pickup at first until it pulls right up in front of her house. Wary as she is right now of weird shit she takes a few paces away until it's clear that this is Ruiz and not someone else. The fact that she takes some calming breaths is obvious even under her layers from the way her shoulders rise and fall. Steeling herself she steps forward quickly and pulls open the door.

"Hey." That's a greeting - but it's said awkwardly as she clambers in. It's a good thing she's gotten so much experience avoiding eye contact with Alexander, because now she's a pro at it and manages not to look at Ruiz at all as she pulls the door closed behind her. Also helpful is the time spent fiddling with her seatbelt.

Still awkwardly, "Nice truck."

The interior of the truck, at least, is warm, though the vehicle's nothing particularly special. There's a few sheets of plywood in the cargo area that look ripped out of a retaining wall, and a large blanket-wrapped bundle on the back seat. Javier's hands look a little grimy, and there's dirt under his nails. He's in a black hoodie with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and a pair of worn looking jeans shoved into work boots.

"Hope you've eaten," he murmurs as he shoulder checks and then pulls back out onto the street. "All I've got is some granola bars that are probably past their expiry date."

"Yeah - earlier." Isi replies, still keeping her eyes down. She has to turn slightly to push the seat bet into it's clasp and that's when she gets a glance at his fingernails and overall not-cop attire. Figuring exactly how to hold her arms is difficult so she eventually settles on folding them tightly across her chest. She isn't slinking away from him as bad as before but there is obviously tension in the way she holds herself.

After a few minutes of quiet she throws out abruptly, "I'm sorry - for what I did before - with, Emil. I shouldn't have - asked that."

The grime and the grungy clothing and all those tattoos scrawled up and down his arms don't really do him any favours. He looks like one of El Chapo's thugs, which might be exactly what he was going for.

Either way, he doesn't force eye contact, and he certainly makes no attempt to touch her as she settles in. One hand on the steering wheel, he rests his other elbow against the open window and continues fussing with the brim of his cap while they wait at an intersection. "Ya está terminado," he murmurs, sliding Isi a brief look askance. "No tiene sentido tener arrepentimientos."

It's not the most comforting of looks, but considering Isi's prejudice towards police it might actually be better. The world is a strange strange place.

As he talks she glances sideways at him, an eyebrow arching upwards. "I didn't get any of that. English and some Sahaptin. That's it."

It's another few seconds before he replies, once he's navigated onto the highway that cuts through town. "I said, it's over. I don't see any point in having regrets." He glances over again, then back to the road. And when the silence between them becomes too much, he goes to turn the radio on.

"Sahaptin," he repeats after a while. "What kind of language is that? Never heard of it."

"Ah." A single syllable, but other than not pushing the issue, Isi signals her disagreement. At the music coming on Isi glances at the radio and listens hard. It's a different enough kind of music that she jumps as his voice cuts through the song. "Oh - it's the language most of the Northwestern native tribes spoke. Yamaka is Ichishkíin Sínwit, but... same root." A small shrug.

"Right." His brows furrow, then smooth again as he processes that for a moment. "It's, uh. It's important to keep that shit alive. Language. Sometimes it's all you've got left, yeah?" The turnoff to the park's lot isn't too far now. Javier keeps his eyes on the road, even as he continues, "My mother used to speak Nahuatl. I never learned it." Speaking of regrets.

"Yeah..." Isi lets her voice trail off and the music plays into the silence. It seems like there's something more to say and so abruptly she cuts the music again. "There isn't much left. Maybe a handful of fluent speakers. The Indian boarding schools killed it mostly. So just phrases and such. Nahuatl... somewhere south of the boarder?" Says the person who's rarely been out of the state and has as little idea about Ruiz' heritage than he would have about hers.

Gravel crackles under the truck's tires as they turn off into the parking lot. He guns the engine once, and they briefly struggle to gain traction, then catch with a surge that propels them forward and fishtails the vehicle with a spray of dust.

"Fucking shameful is what that is," he murmurs when the boarding schools are brought up. The truck's parked and the engine killed, and he unfastens his seatbelt and reaches behind them to collect the bundle of whatever-it-is heaped on the back seat. "Veracruz, Tijuana," confirms the cop, briefly meeting Isi's eyes, then going for the box of ammunition under the seat. "We moved around a little."

Isi nods once then looks downwards at the floor of the truck. She wines at the struggle of the tires against the gravel. That isn't a fun sound.

When the truck is turned off Isi is outtt quick as a bunny, only just managing to not slam the door behind her. It is chilly, and so she pulls her hoody up a little more tightly.

"I didn't leave my home town for anything beyond the occasional trip to Seattle."

He's not long after her, door slammed and keys jangled into his pocket once he's shouldered the bag containing his little arsenal. "No? Why not?" A brief squint at the sky like he's checking how much daylight they've got left. Seeming satisfied, he trudges out toward the trail, and glances over his shoulder once to make sure Isi's following him.

"It is hard to keep anything but a minimum wage job on the reservation - my parents were out of work more often than they were in work." Isi replies, her eyes on the gravel. She kicks a stone and winces as it chatters towards Ruiz' boots.

Time to turn the conversation away from herself. "What all is in the bag?"

The stone doesn't seem to have been noticed; the big cop keeps right on ambling along, gaze on the treeline while Isi talks. "Yeah," quietly, as they hit the trailhead and gravel turns to dirt. "So were mine." There seems to be more he wants to say there, but he leaves it at that.

As for what's in the bag, "Guns. What the fuck do you think?" And then he continues on in silence for the next few minutes.

"... do you think I'm a fucking idiot? What kinds? How many? What are they like, for gods sake..." Isi trails off with her muttering about his words on her intelligence more muffled.

"You asked what was in the bag," Javier argues, voice that scratchy near-growl it sometimes takes on when he's mildly annoyed. "And no, I don't think you're a fucking idiot. I think you need to be more fucking precise though." Up a small incline and down another and across a little ravine, and into a clearing. Where, off in the distance, she can see a few targets already set up: bottles dangling from tree boughs, and shattered hunks of porcelain balanced precariously atop the railing of a footbridge.

"I've got a rifle and two handguns." He squints slightly into the distance. "Not sure we'll make it to the rifle." Then a glance at Isi. "You ready?"

"So maybe give the benefit of the doubt that I'm not asking an inane question," Isi shoots back, feeding off his annoyance. A scowl has settled on her lips. It's an easier place to be than the vaguely personal one touched off in the truck over here.

She lets her eyes take in the sight of the scattered remains of violence with that scowl in place. "I can't imagine where I'd ever be carrying a rifle. I'm not totally sure I'm allowed to carry into city hall- I wasn't going to ask."

"Probably something to clarify when you pick up the license," he replies, slinging the bag down atop a fallen log and unzipping it. The box of ammunition's set beside it, and as promised, one of the handguns is withdrawn first. Looks like a smaller Glock. "My guess is that concealed carry's limited to law enforcement on state property." Whatever City Hall qualifies as. He loads up the magazine and slots it back in as he speaks.

"A couple of ground rules. Don't point a gun at anything you don't want to shoot. Treat the firearm like it's loaded at all times." He turns his hand to show her how he's holding the gun, grip against his palm, finger along the barrel. "Finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire."

And then he slides off the safety, braces the weapon in both hands, and aims an easy shot at the broadside of a tree in the mid-distance. "And be certain of your target, your line of fire, and what lies behind it at all times." The trigger's squeezed; the report is loud, and a spray of bark goes up as it hits.

See, Isi doesn't comment on if a firearm will or won't be allowed in city hall. Her last boss tried to murder her. The amount of fucks she gives for canceled or open carry laws is tiny. Not quite zero, but maybe a decimal between 0 and 1.

She pantomimes the movement he makes with his hands on the fun with her own - just around an invisible one.

She can't help jumping at the sound of the gun going off. "Fuck - that's loud."

Once he's got the safety switched back on, Javier ejects the clip into his hand, and goes to grab a fresh cartridge and slot that one in. Then the weapon's handed over, grip-first.

"Those are blanks. We'll start with that, yeah?" He makes a moue with his mouth. "There'll still be some recoil, and muzzle flash. But no bullet."

As much as Isi does want to learn this - she isn't so sure about the gun itself. So there is hesitation at taking the weapon until he says that they are blanks.

"Well, I guess that means I can't completely fuck up." The gun is taken and she turns herself towards the range.

The only thing that could be said of her posture and how she holds the gun is that she IS pointing in the right direction.

BAM. "Fuck-" she pulls the gun back to stare at it, absolutely accidentally pointing it at Ruiz when she does so. "That was the recoil?"

Calmly, he places his hand on her forearm and guides it down and away from him, so the gun's pointed toward the ground. "Rule number fucking one," he tells her tautly, "Don't point a gun at anything you don't want to shoot." He pauses, and slides his hand down along her wrist, then her knuckles, until he reaches the weapon's safety. And flicks it on. His dark eyes rove back to Isi's. "Unless you're trying to fucking tell me something, Miss Cameron."

Isi has enough shame to look abashed as she realizes what she did - and her lips open to do something close to an apology when Ruiz says THAT. Lips shut tight again as her hand clenches around the grip - no finger on the trigger though! She remembers that much.

"What do you fucking mean by that?"

"What do you fucking mean by that?" snarls the cop in low retort, finally removing his hand from the gun and lumbering a step away from the younger woman. He doesn't quite take his eyes off her, though. Whether or not that gun's loaded with blanks. There's silence from him for a moment or three, tonguetip run along his teeth as he considers her. Then, "Try again." And a jerk of his head toward the targets set up in the distance.

If this was a cartoon there would be question marks flying around Isi's head. She has NO IDEA what he is on about.

"Okkkaayy..." Isi shakes her head and turns back towards the target, lifts... nothing. Oh. Safety. Fuck. There is some fumbling for the safety then a second attempt. Nothing. Did she get the safety?! What is she doing wrong??