[Izzy Montoya] The day had been startlingly warm… and wet. Even now the rain threatens in overcast skies, and the scent of moisture is in the air. It doesn’t stop her, however, as the police are as impervious to the weather as the fabled Postman. The rest of her team has slipped away, the evidence bagged and tagged, the body carted off, until all that remains is one unmarked police car that’s highly recognizable as belonging to Detective Izzy Montoya.
She’s not at her car. Instead, she can be seen sitting on the windowsill inside the storefront, her back to the street. The door to the storefront is marked with yellow police tape, but she doesn’t seem to be doing anything – but staring into the darkened room… staring at nothing.
Listening.
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7) Re-rolls: 1
[Izzy Montoya] [oh come on! +1]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8) Re-rolls: 2
[Izzy Montoya] [Better.]
[Trent Brumby] “Yes Miss.”
“No Miss.”
“The fuck you think this is … Miss.”
It’s a low mutter to himself as he walks along the sidewalk. The shops are shut down and he’s on his way home from an acquaintance, which is defined far differently then would be a friend. Hands in pockets of his dark pea-coat, shirt beneath with a pair of black shoes under dark slacks, his ears are finding it cold without his usual watch cap.
Raising his head, he pulls a packet of cigarettes from his pocket about the same time as he’s spotting the tell-tale sign of yellow tape across the front of a store. “God, I need to move from this place,” he says to himself, putting a cigarette to his mouth and pausing in step to spark up his light and cup it against the wind.
[Izzy Montoya] She has her eyes closed – though he can’t see that from his vantage point. What he can see is that her head bows forward, and her shoulders fall as if the weight of the world has settled on them all of the sudden. Her lips move, briefly, as if conversing with something only she hears.
Moments pass, and then she lifts her hands, and slides her fingers through her hair, holding it back from her face as she just… takes a breath. Then, with effort as she is tired, she straightens her shoulders, straightens her posture, and lets her hair fall back into place. Another moment and she pushes to stand, and then makes her way to the door, closing it behind her and stepping through the police tape to the walk.
[Trent Brumby] With his cigarette lit, he pockets the packet and lighter, resuming his walk along the pavement. He doesn’t spot Izzy for who she is until she’s coming out the door nearby. It makes him pause, seeing her around. He suspected it was her car when he had glanced towards it, but wasn’t sure.
Exhaling smoke away from her, he took the cigarette from his mouth to behind his back, not quite like a bad school-boy but more like a polite gesture, and greeted her. “Miss Montoya.”
He’s come to stand nearby, but not between her path to her car.
[Izzy Montoya] Her eyes snap his way as he speaks, her right hand sliding along her hip, toward her back, before it registers who he is. When it does, there’s a slight relaxation, her hand remaining on her hip as if she meant to put it there all along, her lips curving into that all to familiar smirk.
“Detective Montoya.” Mock severity, before she chuckles and shakes her head. “Though my friends call me Izzy and if I have to remind you again it might be with a bullet between your toes…”
She’s clearly kidding, as she starts the ritual search for her own cigarettes and lighter. “Long night?”
[Trent Brumby] He sucks a small breath between his teeth, while his eyes spark with amusement. “Sounds like my type of punishment.” Not that he was being serious about it. He didn’t take things that far and certainly wouldn’t put it to the test with her. Trent’s certain she’d do it just to prove a point.
Popping the cigarette back to his lips, he spoke around it as he fished out his own lighter in preparation to light hers. It was a vice they both shared, shamelessly. “Not as long as yours.”
Once hers is lit he pockets his lighter and plucks his cigarette from his mouth between his fingers and exhaled away from her. His gray eyes take a quick glance around the street, considering the hour of night and the neighourhood, before darting back to her. “Are you doing well?”
[Izzy Montoya] She chuckles and shakes her head, propping her cigarette between her lips and leaning in to let him light it, inhaling deeply, filling her lungs with grayish poison as she settles back, and leans a hip onto the fender of her car. She exhales to the side, a smoker’s etiquette, and glances at the crime scene when he says her day is longer.
“Yeah. Fuckin criminals never keep day hours.”
Then it’s the question of the day. Is she doing well. Lips curve into the comfortable smirk. “Getting there step by step, I suppose. Once I’m free of their clutches for a while, things will fall into place a little easier. I think.” She’s clearly treading uncharted territory in some fashion…
[Trent Brumby] “Bastards.” He chuckled quietly under his breath at her humour, clearly enjoying her company. She may be hard as nails but he liked that in a woman, obviously, and hadn’t even balked at the first time they met and her delightful invitation. Things had never been weird between them. She’s one person in this town he could count on and actually like being around.
Considering what she tells him about how things are, he took a few puffs on his cigarette and bid some time while he carefully constructed how he wanted to tackle this. It really wasn’t his business. Tribal differences were a pain in the ass.
He goes for the direct approach, meeting her gaze. “Any of them been heavy handed, again?” Trent hated having seen her like that, and the fact that they locked her up like some pig pen. “Still spending your time in the Brotherhood?”
[Izzy Montoya] It’s always been easy with him – even though he set her so off kilter as the only guy in town not actively trying to get into her pants when invited. What’s developed is an easy sort of friendship, with no additional expectations. They are what they are, and they simply accept it.
She takes another drag before she answers, and then it starts with a shake of her head. “Not yet.” the smirk slides amused, then, as she knows exactly how hard she is to deal with. “Most of my time has been given back to me I’m back at home, and only have to get interrogated once a week. Supposedly this will be the last week. We’ll see how well that goes.” A shoulder lifts in a shrug, and she does her best not to let her ire rise in the simple telling. There’s something there that still burns at her, still eat at her. Her fury hasn’t faded, not one little bit.
“A good thing has come of it though – it’s sorta forced myself and a gentlemen to sort of examine some of the shit we’ve been avoiding for a decade or so.” And it’s definitely got her off-kilter, but not necessarily in a bad way.
[Trent Brumby] “Alright,” he says, nodding, “alright, well, that’s some progress. Not terribly fair, but it’s progress.” Still meeting her gaze, he finds himself smiling quietly. “Just don’t go kicking them in the gonads. You know that’s going to get a rise out of them. And by that I mean don’t threaten or perceive to threaten their masculinity.”
Still smiling, he glances down to ash his cigarette on the pavement and raise it back to his mouth to take the last drag from it. Crouching, he stubs it out and puts the littered butt into his pocket when he stands again. “But this is good, about this gentlemen, isn’t it? Sounds like it’s something serious. Is it going to be something that’s going to cause more problems for you?” Knowing her track record it’s going to be. He expects it.
[Izzy Montoya] She rolls her eyes “I’d kick them, but I don’t carry around a fuckin microscope to find them.” The gonads, apparently. She’s unimpressed with the Trueborn and their gonads.
But then he mentions the other situation, and that smirk, it softens just enough, her entire expression does, into something he’s never seen before. Something she’d hide from everyone but the man in question – and she doesn’t quite manage to hide it from Trent either.
“Only in that since we aren’t supposed to see each other but for work, we keep making a mess of our files.” Ah, there’s that wicked little smirk. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why the two detectives have suddenly discovered a work ethic that keeps them together long into the night. Dedicated officers, the both of them.
[Trent Brumby] Laughing quietly, it was his time to shake his head at her comment. It’s no wonder she’s getting beat up all the time. Not that he blames her. He’s not very impressed by true-borns as a whole either.
But when it comes to this being another detective, his brows have raised up and his paying her extra particular attention. “Would this happen to be Detective Thorton?” It’s not that long of a shot really, considering the kin meetings.
[Izzy Montoya] She suddenly finds her cigarette very, very, interesting, because if she didn’t she might actually blush, and that is something Izzy Montoya just does. not. do. She clears her throat, and takes another drag of her cigarette, and then lowers her hand to flick ashes to the cement, taking time to keep everything under warps.
Which is to say, she’s likely VERY transparent.
“One and the same. We were beat cop partners back in the day – we’ve known each other a long time. Never crossed the line back when we were partners… and now that we’re not, and I’m back home, and… well.”
Well, indeed.
[Trent Brumby] “A congratulations may be in order then.” At least he hopes, for her sake. And he’s also hoping that some jackass Garou don’t suddenly become interested in the two Kinfolk for breeding purposes. That could become very, very ugly. There are reasons why Trent Brumby is still a single man.
Whether she seems the type or not, and she’s shown that she could be under certain circumstances, he steps on over and offers her a one armed hug. It’s brief enough to be polite and light enough to mean nothing but warm wishes. “All the more reason to stay under the radar,” he told her quietly, as if understanding her logic more clearly now.
[Izzy Montoya] She allows the hug, even leaning into it briefly. He was, after all, the one who sat with her days after her beating, and offered her a foot rub, and let her hold his hand and sat with her so she could sleep. He deserves at least a one armed hug now and again.
“It’s weird. I’ve… just, always for so long, it’s always been him – and now we’re trying this whole no rules thing and you know how I like my rules and it’s got me all… off kilter and a little” read: a lot “terrified.” She shakes her head slightly, takes that final drag and flips the butt to the cement, where it fizzles in the rainwater puddle from earlier.
“If I can just get through this week, and that fucker says hes done – though since he hasn’t learned a goddamn motherfuckin thing about me, the Jarl may disagree – well. The maybe we can stop sneaking around.”
A beat.
“Though damn. The sneaking? SO worth it.”
[Trent Brumby] “My only advice is to continue being yourself. You are both together because of who you are not because of expectations and all that. So don’t worry, just continue along doing what your doing, minus the black eyes and key cages, and see where it goes.” The advice is light and well meant.
Moving back away from her with a gentle squeeze to her shoulder, he takes up standing across from her rather then next to her at the car, and slips his hands into his pockets, chuckling at her sneaking comments. “Oh Izzy, I bet you keep Detective Thorton on his toes, that’s all I can say. All this worrying about you.”
“But you should go on and get out of here. It’s late and I’m going to head on home.” There’s a beat before he adds, “… never know when the next criminal gets you a call out.”
[Izzy Montoya] The advice is taken as it’s meant and she even catches his hand and squeezes it gently. She appreciates him in a wholly different way than anyone else she’s met since coming home.
He has to go – and no telling when another call out will come, and she just chuckles. “And oh, the amounts of… paperwork… waiting for me at home.” She winks and pushes off her car, and digs her keys out of her pocket. “Keep safe, Trent. We’ll get together and do dinner and a footrub sometime soon.”
[Trent Brumby] Smirking, he shook his head and began to turn from her. “Hope you have a good night, Izzy, and you give me a call when you’re up for it. I’ll bring the oil and the food.” Because he’s just like that. It’s some trained aspect of his lifestyle. Giving a small nod of his chin, he began to walk down the street.
[Izzy Montoya] [And thassawrap!]