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universitypenguin · 9 months

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Chapter 20

The Princess & The Lawyer: Chapter XX

Summary: Leo McKenzie’s arrest infuriates a dangerous man. During an interview with Julia’s best friend, Princess and Detective Roth learn shocking new information. Theories about the stalker’s identity are discussed.

Masterlist

Word Count: 5,536

Warnings: Murder, stalking, domestic violence, kidnapping, criminal investigative work, and mention of medical treatment.

Chapter XX

The killer stared at the wall. Usually, this was an activity he enjoyed.

It was decorated by his own hand, a shrine to his achievements and a showcase of awards, certificates, prizes, mingled with photos of his greatest successes. Each addition to the wall was a testament to his dedication, skill, and tireless work ethic. Staring at this wall was a visual reminder of his mastery over life’s turmoil.

On nights when his insomnia wouldn’t let him fall into the blissful arms of Morpheus, looking at it soothed him. Right now, he desperately needed to be soothed. Sleep had eluded him for days now, and even the pride of his meticulously curated accolades made him feel hollow. Grimly, he accepted the painful truth - these prizes were hollow.

His real accomplishments couldn’t be displayed in the open, not if he valued his freedom. Being misunderstood was so frustrating. The frustration simmered, an ember of discontent that had been stroked into a raging fire by the arrest of Leo McKenzie.

He thought he’d closed that chapter of his life twenty years ago when he’d framed Shun Nguyen.

Choosing Nguyen as his scapegoat had been a masterstroke of cunning. To this day he counted it as one of his finest moments. Drawing the doctor to him and gaining his confidence had been easy, like luring a moth to a flame. Thanks to careful planning, and a bit of luck, he’d eluded the long arm of justice. The police had closed the case and he’d walked away without so much as a scratch on his own reputation.

He hadn’t minded Dr. Nguyen taking credit for his work, but Leo McKenzie? McKenzie was a washed up bar fly. He was a lazy, dim-witted idiot. The killer couldn’t understand how the police could look at that fool and think, even for a second, that he’d been responsible for such cleverly planned and flawlessly executed crimes?

Were they mocking him? Or, worse, were they mocking his work?

What really got under his skin was trying to wrap his head around how anyone would think that imbecile McKenzie had the restraint to stop killing. That was a struggle he knew well. It was an endless torment, one that tested his self-control every day for the past two decades. He’d gone to incredible lengths to keep himself on the straight and narrow. Giving up his true passion after he’d nearly perfected the art of the untraceable crime had been painful, but he’d given it up.

Doing so had been the most grueling feat of his entire life.

He’d stopped after killing Julia and dedicated himself to other pursuits. With great effort, he’d managed to hold his darker impulses in check, because he was a man of discipline and intelligence. That intelligence was more vast than anyone could imagine or appreciate, even those who knew him well.

His gaze shifted to the television in the adjoining room. It had been on all night, the flashing lights keeping him company long after he’d muted the sound. Now, it played the seven o’clock broadcast from the local NBC affiliate. Their lead story was about Leo McKenzie. None of the information in it was news to him; he’d lived in Harmony for decades and knew everyone. McKenzie was a twice divorced weekend alcoholic with a spending problem. Eventually, people would see him for what he was, and when they did, he’d be cleared as a suspect and released.

But when? How much longer did he have to endure this disrespect? How much longer would a moron be given credit for the things he’d done?

His eyes returned to the wall of achievements - a magnificent tapestry that suddenly looked incomplete. It didn’t hold his most significant contributions, and he lamented that omission with a deep sorrow. The world couldn’t recognize his genius if he hid himself away, but if he showed them who he really was, they wouldn’t understand.

Frustration surged like a bolt of electricity and jealousy gnawed at his chest like a case of progressive heartburn that couldn’t be treated with conventional methods. Something had to be done. He hadn’t slept in days and he was snappish and irritable. He couldn’t go on like this; something had to change but everyone was so blind and obtuse - the police, the media, even those high-profile investigators Clayton Bishop had sent down from D.C. were useless. His jaw clenched and he willed the internal turmoil to subside.

What good was being a genius when no one acknowledged it?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Please, have a seat," Aliyah Kissinger waved her hand towards the dining room table in invitation.

It was long enough to seat twelve, and made of an expensive looking dark wood. Detective Roth sat at the head of the table. You took the chair on his left.

Aliyah, as she'd requested you call her, sat across from you.

"What can I do for you?" she asked.

Mrs. Aliyah Montgomery, formerly Kissinger, carried herself with the confidence of a 90s supermodel, projecting an aura of sophistication that only came from experience.

You recognized it instantly because you’d seen the male version of it on Lloyd and Mr. Bishop.

Her hair was ironed to pin-straight perfection and her features sculpted by an expensive contour that blended so seamlessly into her skin that it was almost invisible. She wore wide-legged ivory pants and a silk turquoise shell.

"We're here to ask you about Julia Xiarong. You were friends with her twenty years ago, correct?" Roth asked.

"Yes. I gave my statements to the police back then and I don’t have anything new to add.”

"My questions will be more expansive than what you were asked before. We're taking another look at the case. Anything you can remember would be much appreciated."

She arched a well-groomed eyebrow. "Why? I thought you arrested Leo McKenzie?”

"The investigation is still ongoing."

Aliyah tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I see. I'm not sure I can be of help."

"Mrs. Montgomery, you knew Julia well,” you said, phrasing the question as a statement.

"Yes. We were very close, Ms. …?"

You gave your name and noted a flicker of recognition cross her face.

"You're from Clayton Bishop's firm, aren't you?" Alliyah said.

"I am."

"Clayton was the only person on the case who could get anything done. The police were useless. They couldn't find their way out of a paper bag with a map, a trail of breadcrumbs, and GPS instructions."

Roth cleared his throat. "Could you tell us what you remember about the months leading up to Julia's death?"

Aliyah’s lips tightened but nothing else on her face moved. You'd noticed the botox when she'd greeted you at the front door. Her forehead was utterly smooth, even when she smiled, but the muscles around her mouth and in her cheeks were still active.

"What about them?" she asked, her voice just a degree shy of hostility.

"Did your book club meet weekly or monthly?" you asked.

It didn't take much to understand why Aliyah despised the police. She'd been approving of Bishop and relying on your association with him to soften her up seemed like the best play. Roth leaned back and closed his notebook, a silent cue for you to take the lead.

"Weekly," she said.

"Where and when was your last meeting?"

She swallowed, throat moving. "Starbucks, the Saturday before she was killed."

"Could you tell me a little about the members of your book club?"

She obliged and listed their names, giving you brief biographies of the members. You didn’t pick up any stress cues. Playing the game of hot and cold, you asked more questions. When you brought up the relationships between members, Aliyah’s gaze dropped to the table and her fingers curled into her palms.

"Did Julia have any disagreements with other members of the book club?" you asked.

Her lips pursed. "Disagreements? No, never. She was very personable. Julia organized the book club in the first place, she was friends with everyone."

You'd struck a nerve. Her forehead was almost wrinkling as she frowned, which was amazing, especially considering the discretely hidden facelift scars you’d just noticed by her left ear.

"But she had a disagreement with someone, didn't she? Do you remember who?"

Aliyah flicked a glance at Roth.

"Did Julia have a disagreement with you, Ms. Kissinger?" you asked, deliberately calling her by her former last name.

"Montgomery! It's not Kissinger anymore."

Despite the flash of anger, you kept your expression calm and spoke in a placid tone.

"I apologize, Mrs. Montgomery. Did you and Julia have a disagreement before she was killed?"

Her dramatic lash extensions made it easy to observe the change in her blink rate as her stress level rose. It was too fast for you to count, pushing the triple digits. Her shoulders were visibly moving with each breath now. Roth was silent, doing his best impression of the invisible man. Aliyah's attention remained squarely on the threatening party: you.

"I don't want to discuss this."

"Having a more complete picture of what was going on in Julia’s life when she died could help us make a case against the person who really killed her,” you said.

Disgust flashed across Aliyah's face, wrinkling her nose and curling her lip for a split second before she covered the reaction. Her chin jerked up as she tossed her head.

"Sweetheart, everyone with an IQ above ten knows who killed Julia."

You smiled, unbothered by the insult. Aliyah was doing everything she could to distract you from... something, but her weapons weren't as sharp as she thought they were.

"Do you remember the topic of your argument with Julia on the Saturday before she disappeared?"

This time you risked naming a specific date, interested in the effect it might have. Aliyah twisted her neck from side to side, enthralled by the patterns in the table’s wood grain again. Silence hung over the room. It was so quiet that you could hear the second hand of Roth’s watch ticking.

Finally, Aliyah answered.

"Yes."

"What did you argue about?"

"It was a long time ago,” she said.

"You can't remember?"

"Shun murdered Julia. Clayton knew it, the media knew it... I knew it. Her death was an open and shut case."

Ignoring her attempt to redirect the topic of conversation, you kept pushing her and stuck to your original line of questioning.

"Why did you and Julia argue, Aliyah?"

"It was just a book club meeting."

"You didn't talk about books that day, did you?"

A muscle jumped in her cheek. "Julia and I talked about a lot of things, all the time. She was my best friend."

Her hands illustrated as she spoke, but then abruptly dropped into her lap on the phrase ‘she was my best friend.’ You watched as she pressed them together, fingers flexing. It was odd to see such acute distress flare up during a discussion about events that took place decades ago. Guilt, fear, anger, sadness… There were so many emotions flashing from your subject that it was hard to decide where to take the conversation next.

Instead of asking another question, you waited, letting the silence linger until it became awkward.

Aliyah refused to fill the silence.

You stayed quiet.

Her lashes were fluttering again and her eyes darted between you, the table, the window, and then to the right, in the direction of her front door. Talking about this argument had her teetering on the edge of a flight response and that made you very, very curious.

"What if I don't want to discuss this?" she asked.

"It's your right to end this interview at any time. Is that what you want?"

Her eyes closed briefly. After she’d taken a deep breath, they opened again. She met your gaze with a piercing stare. Her lips parted, then snapped shut. Her head dropped until her chin almost touched her chest and hung there for a few seconds. Then she looked up.

"Do you have a best friend?"

You bent the truth a little. "Yes."

"How would you feel if you lost them?"

"Devastated."

She nodded, approving of your response. “I felt devastated. I regretted what I said to her, and looking back... it wasn't my place. I didn’t tell anyone about the argument because of all the media attention. At the time I didn’t think the argument was important…”

She trailed off with a frown.

When she didn’t continue after a moment, you prompted her gently.

"Aliyah. Why didn’t you think the argument was important?”

"It was… You know what, this is ridiculous! Julia’s been dead for more than twenty years and her killer - the real one - escaped justice. We don’t need to go down this rabbit hole, okay?”

“You don’t believe Leo McKenzie killed Julia. Why?”

Her lips curved into a half smirk, the left corner of her mouth tightening. She’d flashed contempt at you a few times already but this time it lingered openly on her face. You recognized the non-verbal challenge and knew better than to take the bait. Aliyah was a family law attorney specializing in ugly divorces. You knew you’d never beat her by meeting aggression with aggression; that was her bread and butter, where she spent most of her time.

You sighed, letting your shoulders slump and eased back from the table, uncrossing your legs.

"I guess we don't need to waste anymore of your time."

You were careful about the emphasis you placed on the pronouns. It wasn’t an overt challenge, but the implication - you’re the one who wasted our time - landed immediately.

Aliyah's nostrils flared. "You're barking up the wrong tree. What we argued about was irrelevant to the investigation. It can’t help your case and if it got out…” she broke off, shaking her head. “There’s no sense in slandering someone’s reputation after all this time.”

“This is a cold case, Ms. Kissinger. Learning everything we can about Julia’s life is the best approach we have.”

Her lips twisted. "Telling you won't bring Julia back."

"No. Nothing will bring her back. But we’re here today because you knew her better than anyone else. Anything that might be relevant to our investigation, even tangentially, could help us. You read the article in the Rolling Stone, didn’t you?”

She nodded and you scooted forward to the edge of your seat, leaning in.

“There’s momentum in the case because the second body heated up public interest again. We might have a second chance at justice and those don’t come along everyday. Please. Let’s not waste this opportunity.”

Aliyah's teeth sank into her lower lip. She pressed a hand to her chest and wrapped her other arm around her waist. Her gaze shifted, fixing on a point beyond your shoulder.

"I was helping with her immigration paperwork. It’s not my area of expertise, but she needed to get her citizenship… living with Shun was awful.”

Her dark, troubled eyes flicked to your face and you nodded, encouraging her to continue.

"A few days before we argued, a mutual friend told me that Julia was seeing someone."

The hair on the back of your neck stood up.

Aliyah continued. "My friend saw them on a date a few days before. At first I didn't believe her, but then it suddenly made sense. Shun worked 24 hour shifts in the ER from Tuesday to Wednesday and the timing of the date felt right. So, I asked her about it and Julia confirmed the date had happened.”

"Who was she dating?"

"Leo McKenzie.”

You were stunned.

Aliyah smiled at your reaction. "I know, but trust me - twenty years ago Leo was much better looking than he is now. He still had some of that military polish on him and hadn’t developed that horrible beer gut yet. Seven nights a week you could find him chatting up the ladies at McGinty's. He was a serial dater and if that had been all there was to it, I wouldn't have confronted Julia, but… well, Leo wasn't the only guy she was seeing."

A love triangle. There was a secret love triangle in the middle of the Nguyen case.

"Who was the other guy?"

Her face creased - as much as it could, between the botox and facelift - and she rubbed her chest.

"I don't know. She never told me who it was. Julia was a bit of a flirt. She made friends easily and always knew how to keep a conversation going. Her English had improved a lot since she’d moved to Harmony and it gave her the confidence to put herself out there a little more. Unfortunately, a little more turned into a lot more. Her immigration status had tied her to Shun for practical reasons, but Julia didn’t love him. For her their relationship was just a buffer to keep ICE at bay.”

Shun Nguyen... Leo McKenzie... and mystery man. Every time this roller coaster ride seemed to be leveling out, a new twist popped up.

"How long had she been seeing this mystery man?" you asked.

"A couple months," Aliyah said. "I was fine with her dating, honestly, but the situation with Shun was precarious. All it would’ve taken was one bad argument and a neighbor reporting a domestic disturbance. Then her problems would’ve become infinitely more complicated.”

Her hands went up in a helpless gesture, then fell limply into her lap. She closed her eyes, sighing. When she opened them again her expression was sad, and a little bit angry. “Hiding one boyfriend? That’s doable, but two?” She shook her head. “Two is a balancing act, three is juggling… and no one can juggle forever.”

“What kind of complications were you concerned about?” you asked.

“I figured if he got really mad, he’d go to immigration and have her deported. Julia didn’t believe he’d do it, but Shun was obsessed with her. He was so possessive and controlling. If he’d known she was cheating on him, he would’ve gone over the edge.”

Her assessment matched your impression of Dr. Nguyen from Singapore. He was arrogant, vain, and bad-tempered. If someone pushed the right combination of buttons, he could become very, very dangerous.

“On the Saturday before she disappeared, I told Julia she needed to break it off with Leo, but she refused. I wish I could tell you more, but to be honest, I got mad and things escalated from there. We didn’t have much of a discussion, we just argued."

“Did you have any theories about Mystery Man’s identity?” you asked.

"Sure. Armondo, the barista at Starbucks. Jay, from our pottery class, and Mason Phelps, who coached our workout group. However, after she died, I spoke to each of them and it turned out that none of them were mystery man."

"Do you think Leo or Mystery Man had something to do with Julia's death?"

Aliyah waved her hand as if pushing the idea away. "No, the real threat to Julia's safety was living with her and nobody ever really doubted that Shun was responsible for her death and those missing women."

"Did Julia ever mention having a cousin in the U.S?"

You hadn't planned on asking this question, but it was out of your mouth before you could think it through. The older woman paused, considering. Just as you were about to apologize and redirect the conversation, Aliyah snapped her fingers.

"Oh, yes! I remember! Her cousin's name was Li Weng Chapman, right?"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Riverbank Diner was one of the few eateries inside the Harmony city limits. Lloyd and Zach were seated in a corner booth at the back of the restaurant. In the kitchen, staff was bustling around, preparing for the evening rush.

Lloyd watched Zach polish off a huge plate of corned beef hash browns.

“When’s the last time you saw a cardiologist?”

“Fuck off. My cholesterol is excellent.”

“You know the high numbers are bad, right? It’s kind of like golf,” Lloyd said.

Zach sneered. “At least I’ll die of natural causes… unlike you.”

The bells on the door jingled as Landon entered, a thin stack of files under his arm.

“You look like you’ve been burning the midnight oil,” Lloyd said.

“A bit,” Landon said, sliding in next to Zach.

“That's great, give me the list.”

He reached for the files but Landon jerked them away. “Uh-uh. Before I start, we need to go over a few rules.”

Lloyd’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of rules?”

“This isn’t a kill list. You can’t exterminate all the suspects just to soothe your anxiety, are we clear?”

“Crystal.”

Landon sighed. “I don’t trust him, do you?”

“Hell no,” Zach said. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep him on a short leash. Give us the list.”

“I’ve narrowed it down to four names, which I ranked by level of suspicion. Suspect number four is Juan Medero.”

Lloyd’s eyebrows rose. “Her brother-in-law?”

“There’s been a recent stressor in his life and he’s got a history of anger-management problems.”

“Give me that.”

Landon passed him the file. “The stressor is his wife’s pregnancy, but I have to tell you, Juan made the suspect list mainly because I couldn’t eliminate him. We know he was at the park during the first incident and if you remember the photo that was left on Princess’ car? Yeah, he wasn’t in it. All the other members of her family were captured in the background, except for him.”

“How tall is he?” Lloyd asked.

“He’s five-foot eight. Depending on shoes, he might be tall enough to be the attacker.”

“But he couldn’t have known she was staying at my place.”

“Not true. Vivian put Life360 on Princess’ phone. If they’re like most couples they share their passwords, so it’s not much of a leap to say that he could’ve used Vivian’s phone to find her.”

“Juan has known her for years though, why snap now?” Zack asked.

“A need for power and control. The stalker wants to scare Princess. If Juan is under extreme stress he might be using this game as an outlet for that tension. It’s just a theory of course, but the major red flag on Juan was his arrest record.”

Zach reached for the file. “What arrest record?”

“He’s been in bar fights - several in the past six months.”

“They’re all misdemeanors,” Lloyd said.

“The judge allowed him to be charged with misdemeanors because he agreed to anger-management therapy.”

“He’s worth looking into,” Zach admitted. “Who’s next? Did you put Westin on the list?”

Landon grunted, flicking his boss an annoyed look. “Yes, because you insisted.”

“Why is Westin on the list? I thought I took care of that,” Lloyd said.

“Nope, not even close. You should see their emails.”

“What email?” Lloyd demanded.

“Emails, phone calls, texts… he’s a real piece of work,” Zach said.

“He’s had it in for Princess from day one,” Landon said. “I put him in the number three spot, but there’s nothing to indicate a non-professional interest in their messages, he’s just a micromanaging asshole.”

“The paralegals hate him even more than they hate me,” Lloyd said. “They’ll cannibalize him soon. What did you dig up on him?”

“Not that much. No kids, never married, he’s lived in the D.C. area most of his adult life. He worked his way up to middle management by changing jobs every six years or so. Word on the street is that he’s obnoxious, but he gets results.”

Lloyd grunted. “I’ll talk to Jen and see if we can think of a way to hurry him out the door.”

Zach and Landon stared.

“What?” Lloyd asked.

“You’re going to talk to Jen?” Zach said.

“We have an arrangement where I buy her expensive spa packages and she does me favors. Why are you looking at me like that? She gets results, okay?”

“Princess was right,” Landon muttered.

“How worried do you think we should be?” Zach asked.

“Personally, I’m terrified,” Landon said. “Lloyd, just so there’s no confusion, the deal we made earlier applies to Jen, too. You can’t have her kill Westin for you.”

“How many spa packages do you think that would cost me?”

Landon scowled and reached for his phone as it buzzed, turning his attention to the screen as he responded to a text message.

“Are any of the other suspects from the office? What about Andy Barber? And I know you don’t want to think about it, but what about Jake?”

“Jake was nowhere near the park during the first incident and he was on assignments for me during two of the others,” Zach said.

“He’s a tech genius. He could’ve covered his tracks a million different ways,” Lloyd said. “Andy Barber hides it well, but he’s meaner than you’d think, and he’s always been a little over familiar with Princess.”

Zach rolled his eyes. “Get a grip, Lloyd. This isn’t a witch hunt for you to go persecute your romantic rivals. Jake’s not psycho and neither is Barber. Aside from that, they’re both over six feet tall.”

“Can’t we investigate Andy? Just a little?”

“If you want to tug on that leash, Zach, now’s the time to do it,” Landon said, not even glancing up from his phone when Lloyd bared his teeth at him.

“Right. Sorry, I’m used to Princess taking care of this stuff.”

Zach squared his shoulders, facing Lloyd. “Listen, we don’t have cause to dig into Andy. We’re looking for someone who wants to hurt Princess, not date her.”

Landon finished texting and reached for the next file. “Okay, suspect number two. Georgina Rochester. She and Aiden dated off and on during college. She’s got a record with campus police for threatening another girl who dated Aiden while they were in an off phase. The interesting thing about Georginia is that she used to have classes with Princess.”

“What did she major in?” Lloyd asked.

“Criminal Science and Psychology.”

“I’ve seen this girl before. She was with Aiden in the restaurant the night he broke up with Princess.”

“If we take into account when the stalking started Georgina’s involvement starts to make a lot of sense,” Landon said. “I know she doesn’t match my profile, but her education might be the reason why. She could be mimicking how she thinks a stalker should communicate, which would influence my profile. This whole thing could be a ruse to scare Princess away from Aiden.”

Zach raised an eyebrow. “She’s taken it pretty far if that’s the case.”

“Georgina doesn’t come across as the most stable person in the world to begin with, but if you check out the next page…”

Lloyd frowned. “She applied to the FBI academy? Damn… her psych report is worse than mine.”

“I want to see that,” Zach said, leaning over to grab the file. He read it and let out a low whistle. “Holy shit, she failed this one hard. Low-stress tolerance, lack of impulse control, poor compartmentalization skills… Landon, translation, please?”

“She’s an anxious control freak with anger issues.”

“Right. How tall is she?”

“Five-foot, nine inches,” Landon said.

“Do we think she’s in cohorts with Aiden?” Zach asked.

“That doesn’t make much sense,” Lloyd said. “Why would Aiden try to break into Princess’ apartment if he could’ve had Georgina do it?”

Landon shook his head. “As I looked deeper into the behaviors of both the stalker and Aiden, the idea of coordinated stalking seemed increasingly unlikely. Consider the things we know Aiden actually did - he stalked Princess on social media, he called Yvette to ask if she was at home, and only then did he try breaking into her apartment. Those are cautious, non-confrontational behaviors that fit with what we know about Aiden’s personality.”

“The camera matches him too,” Zach said.

“Right. It’s advanced technology, which is his wheelhouse. Everything we can ascribe to Aiden involves indirect contact with Princess.”

“Are you trying to say that Aiden isn’t stalking Princess?” Lloyd demanded.

Landon inclined his head. “I’m just describing his behavior. Let’s look at the actions we know were taken by the stalker. The direct contact events are the near miss hit-and-run at the Emerald Harp, which took place in plain sight of half a dozen security cameras. When they tried to strangle Princess, they avoided being caught on camera coming in, but breaking into your condo association in broad daylight was still pretty bold. Taking a photo of her on the bench with Vivian and leaving it on her car was also a risk. There’s security cameras in that parking lot, but they weren’t working.”

“The text messages were passive,” Zach said.

“But the phone call wasn’t - that was direct contact. You and Princess flew to Singapore on Saturday, right?” Landon asked Lloyd.

“Yeah.”

“Her phone’s connection issues blur the timeline, but… I’m betting the stalker timed the first volley of messages to come in exactly twenty-four hours after their phone call. Since you were flying across the Pacific Ocean at the time, it’s just a theory, we don’t know for sure. But the point I’m getting at is that these indirect actions are geared towards communicating with Princess directly, something Aiden hasn’t done.”

“You’re making a case that Aiden isn’t stalking her, aren’t you? What about him breaking into her apartment?” Lloyd demanded.

“I think he’s looking for something and I don’t think the night Jake caught him was his first attempt. Her neighbor reported someone yelling outside Princess’ door, right? Not too long after you ran into Aiden at the restaurant?”

“She did. You think that was Aiden?”

“Probably. I’d also be willing to bet it was Aiden she heard behind her on the trail at her nephew’s birthday party.”

“Why?” Zach asked.

“First, the behavior. Whoever she heard was trying to avoid being seen. The stalker’s phone call on the other hand, that person wanted her full attention. I’d bet a week’s pay that if her stalker had been out there alone with her… well, it would’ve been the same thing you interrupted by the pool.”

“I still don’t get why he’d follow her down the trail, or even to the birthday party,” Zach said.

“Because he’s cautious and if she wouldn’t let him into the apartment, he had to find another way in. He probably watched her for a while to make sure she was staying and when she walked off, he followed her. I think she almost caught him and it scared him off. Aiden’s risk tolerance is pretty low. After two failed attempts to get into her apartment, he needed a new strategy, hence the camera on Mrs. Thompson’s door.”

“The camera stinks of Aiden’s handiwork,” Zach agreed.

“Cautious, indirect, and… it’s not focused on Princess. There’s something about her apartment that he’s interested in. Another thing that lends weight to the theory is that Aiden was fired on the Monday after Princess heard someone on the trail.”

“Did we find out what he was actually fired for?” Lloyd asked.

“Suspicion of espionage. Marco Lattimer has a buddy who works for Aiden’s former employer and when I explained why I was looking into the situation, he cleared it up. Apparently, some data was copied from their internal servers and three employees came under suspicion. They fired all of them and referred the case to the authorities,” Landon said.

Lloyd stiffened, breathing in deeply as he ran a hand over his jaw.

Landon continued. “I think Aiden was trying to search her apartment Friday night so he could get back whatever he stashed at her place and use it to frame one of the others.”

“Damn it, you’re making sense,” Zach grumbled.

“There’s two explanations to consider,” Landon said. “One is that Aiden’s acting independently of the stalker. If he’s trying to recover something he hid at Princess’ apartment, then his behavior makes sense. The other is that he’s manipulated Georgina into harassing Princess, either because he’s angry or to throw suspicion off of himself.”

“Who’s your number one suspect?” Lloyd asked.

"This suspect only makes sense if my theory about the stuff with Aiden being independent of the actual stalking is correct. We can all get behind that idea, right?" Landon waited for their agreement. “My number one suspect is Shun Nguyen.”

“What? That’s impossible," Lloyd objected.

“Yeah, the dates don’t match up,” Zach said.

“That’s what I thought at first, but hear me out. He matches the psychological features of the stalker perfectly. He’s unbalanced, possessive, and has a long history of anger management issues.”

“Still doesn’t explain how he started stalking her without knowing her name,” Zach said.

“He’d known her name for a week before the phone call. Bishop started making arrangements for Nguyen’s interview during the first week of July. Guess when the stalking kicked off? Eight days later.”

Lloyd frowned, absorbing the information.

Zach rubbed his jaw. “Shit…”

“I was worried about putting her in a room with him,” Lloyd murmured.

“Once he had your names, he could have Googled you,” Landon said. “I think that was when it started.”

“But how did he get her cell phone number?” Zach asked.

“Bishop’s secretary gave Nguyen’s lawyer her office phone number the day after you agreed to do the interview. Princess updated the contact information and made her cell number the primary form of communication on Friday of the same week,” Landon said.

“He could’ve accessed both if he was clever enough,” Zach mused.

Lloyd grunted. “He is clever enough, and the threatening phone happened later that day. But he lives on the other side of the world, he couldn’t have taken the photo in the park or done the hit-and-run, let alone been in my backyard ten days ago.”

“About that… I just got confirmation of this about ten minutes ago, so don’t bite my head off, okay? Nguyen flew to New York on August 3rd and his return ticket wasn’t used.”

“Shit,” Zach hissed. “He’s been in the country for almost a month. How come we didn’t know about this?!”

Lloyd reached for his phone. “Jake’s with Princess now, we need to read him in on this right away.”

As they waited for the call to connect, the room felt smaller, compressed by the weight of tension hanging over it.

“Hey, Jake. Where are you? We need to talk.”

Lloyd’s jaw clenched at the response.

“What happened? Alright. We’re on our way,” he said, grabbing his keys.

“What’s going on?” Landon asked as Lloyd ended the call.

“Princess is in the hospital.”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Next - Chapter XXI

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Masterlist

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Taglist:

@denisemarieangelina

@before-we-get-started

@buckysteveloki-me

@patzammit

@badassbaker

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#lloyd hansen x princess #the princess & the lawyer #the princess and the lawyer #lloyd hansen x reader #lloyd hansen x you #lloyd hansen x y/n #lloyd hansen fanfic #lloyd hansen fic

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delespresso · 12 days

Text

DOWN BAD ━━ Antonio Dawson x fem!reader

author's note; just a short lil thing because idk i just felt like it heheh prompt; “cause fuck it i was in love, so fuck you if i can't have us” summary; antonio is in a dark place but she'll never leave his side

━━ ☄. *. ⋆

Being in the Intelligence unit under Hank Voight would be taxing on anyone. The cases were grueling, and despite the support system within the unit and precinct — it was still a challenge.

Antonio had been her partner since she first got picked up by Voight from patrol and into the unit. She used to be an officer then. She's a detective now.

Antonio knew there was something about her from the start. He'd been married then, but it was already shaky. Though, even after the divorce he never made his move. It's been six years.

Eva's kidnapping was a month ago. His drug problem was around the same time. And god knows he's messed up from all of it. He was still going to therapy for it.

He pushed everyone away because that's what he did best. But not her. Never her. Try as he might, she would never leave.

“I'm your partner. For better or worse,” she'd said when he'd practically cursed her out to leave him alone.

“You can't get rid of me, Toni. I'm here for you.”

He'd stared at her like she'd grown two heads. And maybe she knew she was crazy. But god, she was crazy about him.

“I love you. And I don't care if you keep pushing me away — I will push right back because that's what you do when you love someone. You stick with them through everything.”

liked this tale? be a member and buy me some coffee!

#antonio dawson imagine #antonio dawson x reader #chicago pd #antonio dawson #one chicago #oneshot #antonio dawson fanfiction

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willowhaired · 9 months

Text

Fresh Start

Jeb Pyre × Reader

Summary: After shutting the case of the Lafferty brothers, Jeb finds it difficult to find his place in the church - so much so that he divorces his wife and starts anew in Boulder, Colorado. What he didn't expect was a pretty evidence handler at the Boulder PD.

(Please note that in this story Jeb has no children.)

Word count: 3,381

Warnings: mentions of religion, swearing, a bit steamy but nothing explicit

After shutting the case, Jeb tried his best to re-integrate into his community. To at least "sing the song", even if he no longer believed the words, as his partner suggested - but he was still eyed with suspicion and the forceful kindness of his fellow churchgoers became sickening. He felt as if he was tested, and they pressured him into recanting his beliefs at every opportunity. It was the worst with his wife who got him promising he'd stay faithful to the church whenever she felt uneasy, which was more often than he liked. He could see her mind turn whenever they were in the same room as if he was under constant surveillance. It angered him, but he knew showing it would throw him into a pit even deeper.

Things in the bedroom were terrible. Beca was insistent on conceiving, and he didn't blame her for it. He knew what it meant to her. Still, he was growing tired of having sex - a thing which he'd never thought was possible for a man. Somehow, whatever trick or new lingerie his wife would try just made him desire her even less. Whenever he couldn't perform, he'd blame it on work, but that opened a whole can of worms he didn't want to talk about. Arguments were frequent and even calm days were disturbed at least by a quarrel.

He got out when his mother passed. By then, the tension was palpable, not only in his marriage, but in the church. Eyes were even wider and glued to him - they expected him to turn to his faith in a time of need as such.

But he finally felt free. He divorced his wife, leaving her in shame, and the bishop was quick to retaliate by excommunicating him.

He was finally free.

He moved to Boulder, Colorado, to escape his own home, the cocoon. It was only natural that Taba followed him.

'You could stay, you know?' Jeb said one day as they were having lunch together. He bought fries.

'And be left in the snake pit alone? Not a chance.'

It made Jeb smile. He'd never conceal the amount of relief this gave him. Because he was afraid. As much as he wanted to get out, the newness of the "outside world" scared him. To have his friend by his side on this new journey gave him hope.

They both got a job at the Boulder Police Department and Jeb quickly became a favourite among his superiors and fellow officers. With no family and a pain to drown, he was always first to apply for night shifts, weekends, especially holidays. He poured his all into work.

'You are becoming a bit of a workaholic,' Bill noted on one Christmas Eve. There was a snowstorm outside, unlike anything else he had seen in Utah.

'You are here with me every time,' Jeb pointed out, watching the wind raging outside.

'Yes, but I'm not staying overtime,' his partner adjusted himself in his seat. It was getting to him not being able to smoke because of the crazy weather. 'Besides, you're young. You should find yourself someone.'

'I have you.'

'I'm flattered, but I don't like you like that,' Taba chuckled but was met with the mortified stare of his fellow detective. A lifetime of conditioning is difficult to weed out.

'What I'm saying is,' he started again. 'This is a new town. Maybe there's someone who tickles your fancy.'

Jeb honestly doubted that. He didn't find anyone interesting, and even if he had, he wouldn't be ready to open up.

That was until you came along.

You were the new evidence handler, archiving and organising everything the officers brought along, let it be testimonies or physical evidence. You were young and sweet which didn't sit right with him: he didn't want you to look at all the darkness that was out there in the world. He reckoned you should be protected from it, living in a bubble, not having your delicate features be degraded away by the horrors.

But above all, you were incredibly attractive. He saw other police officers trying to charm you or readily offer their help whenever there was an evidence box that "looked a little too heavy". Even Bill got into a harmless banter with you on occasion - you were easy on the eyes, he said, and Jeb agreed, though not out loud.

He could feel his heart in his throat whenever you passed by, and there was an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach whenever you arrived at work. Looking at you felt like a sin.

It just so happened that the two of you were very similar. Even if it meant staying longer, you'd get all the handwritten notes typed in, each piece of evidence filed away correctly. Before leaving, you cleaned your desk, despite it being a catastrophe the whole day.

It was a Thursday night and the detective was about to leave to check out a crime scene. On his way out, he spotted you, at your desk, still lost in paperwork. He checked the clock and then outside: it was already dark.

'It's getting late,' he announced as he stepped to you.

'Oh, it's alright,' you shrugged. 'Just a few more things to file away.'

He contemplated for a second before turning to a young officer:

'Deputy Jones, when Miss Y/L/N is done with her work could you give her a ride home?'

'That's really not necessary,' you knew you were blushing and you didn't want to cause any trouble to anyone.

''Course, Sir,' Deputy Jones said without hesitation. Jeb nodded to the deputy and left you with an "Evening" and completely confused.

That night, he could not sleep. He worried you might not have been escorted home, or worse, took a liking to the young deputy. He should've taken you home himself.

Even though he was head over heels for you, you got the impression that he did not like you. He was cold, distant and you'd never seen him smile in your presence. When he dropped off any evidence, he seemed as though he was trying to escape the soonest possible.

'Five forged checks and interrogation of two witnesses,' you scanned through the documents on your desk, then flashed a warm smile at him. 'Anything else?'

'No, thank you,' he replied quickly, his mouth more crooked than ever.

You watched him walk to his office. It was a shame, really, upsetting, even. For one, you never gave any reason for him to hate you, and besides… You found him incredibly handsome.

He was eyeing you from his office, sometimes glancing in the direction of Jones, even though it was a few weeks after that incident. Jeb made it a point to avoid you, but couldn't fool his partner.

'I don't blame you for liking her,' he flipped the page in the folder of their current case. 'I would be surprised if you didn't.'

'I've never felt this way,' Jeb admitted nervously. His friend had a smug grin on his face before it turned serious.

'Look, you should make your move soon. Nobody is blind in this department.'

It was this conversation that ultimately pushed him to ask you out. It was a few days later, and all of your colleagues had left already. You were still finishing up some tasks and he tried to do his own, but his nerves wouldn't let him concentrate. Finally, he gave in.

'Are you staying for longer?' Jeb had to swallow for he felt like his throat was going to close up.

'No, I'm packing away for tonight.'

'Do you… Need a ride home?' He asked, then quickly added: 'I can take you.'

'Oh, I… Don't wanna cause you any trouble,' you chuckled nervously and pushed the last folder to its place.

'I insist.'

'Well, okay,' you gave in sheepishly and grabbed your coat.

The drive home was even more awkward, if possible. You tried to strike up a conversation but he hardly replied. He sat stiffly behind the wheel and kept his eyes on the road. He parked just outside your apartment complex.

'You know, Detective Pyre, you don't have to take me home.'

'I just like to know you're safe.'

'Anyway,' you said quickly over the sound of your loud heartbeat. 'Thank you for the ride.'

You were about to step out of the car when he blurted out:

'Can I take you out for dinner sometime?'

You turned back and were muted by surprise.

'You can say no if you don't want to,' he felt as if he was being suffocated by his own tie so he pulled it looser.

'Yes,' you hurried your answer. 'This Saturday?'

'Perfect. Pick you up at 7.'

Friday, he was a mess. If it was possible, he avoided contact with you even more which left you doubting he ever asked you out. The truth was, he didn't know how to react. You made him feel such emotions he was unfamiliar with; was he supposed to just wave at you as he passed by when he felt his insides burning with the heat of a thousand suns?

'Bill, I need your help,' Jeb closed the door of their office behind him. 'I'm taking Y/N on a date tomorrow.'

'Does she know?' His partner teased, but as Jeb replied with such exasperation, he knew this was no time for jokes.

'Of course!'

'So you finally asked her out. What do you need me for?'

'I'm nervous,' he leant to his desk and pulled his hand across his face. 'I can't even look at her.'

Bill glanced out towards you: 'I think she looks pretty, still.'

'Don't do that,' his friend begged defeatedly.

'Jeb,' Bill looked at him. 'Do me a favour and relax. Just be yourself.'

'What if the church thing freaks her out? What if I make a fool of myself?'

'There's no way around it, pal,' he shrugged. 'Sooner or later, she will know. Don't worry, I haven't seen her eat anyone. Try and enjoy it.'

It was easier said than done.

Jeb knew he was done for right as he picked you up on Saturday. You had a black dress on that hugged your body, and your shoulders were bare for you had your hair in a bun. Inside of him was a raging battle between what his former church made him think about your attire and what he felt. He was hoping he could forget about both, and most importantly not mention his past, but it was unavoidable.

'No, I… I have never drunk.'

'You haven't?' You asked in disbelief. 'Surely you were a teenager at some point.'

'Yeah,' he chuckled. 'I grew up in a very strict church. Alcohol was forbidden.'

'So it wasn't the kinda wine tasting that disguised itself as Sunday church, huh?' You joked. 'Are you still part of this church? Should I not drink?'

'No, no,' he shook his head. 'I was excommunicated. I no longer hold those beliefs.'

'So…' you swirled the wine around in your glass. 'Why don't you drink?'

'I guess old habits die hard.'

'Do you want a taste? It's sweet wine. If you like lemonade, you're gonna love this.'

You held your glass towards him and he took you up on your offer. His movements were sheepish, almost fearful as he held the glass to his lips and took a small sip. It really was sugary, with an uncanny resemblance to the way he felt about you: sweet but intoxicating. Throughout the dinner you shared a few glasses, most of which you drank, but he was finally easing up by the alcohol. Jeb felt his stomach warm from the wine; he was more comfortable with his feelings towards you, while also finding it harder to keep them in control. Your eyes seemed even more alluring and your cheeks were tinted red from the alcohol. He found it cute and smiled dumbly at you throughout the whole night; and honestly, with him opening up, you really enjoyed yourself. Not only that, you realised that you did actually like him: he was kind and wholesome and made such intelligent remarks you knew he was listening to your every word. You joked and gently poked his hand and his eyes lit up like a teenage boy's. He tried to (very seriously) pick out the notes of the wine, only to add at the end that it mostly just smelled like alcohol. He accidentally kicked you under the table and you teased him whether you were getting friendly.

You had your fingers crossed that the effects of the wine would stretch into the workdays.

But apparently, you spoke too soon.

'Thank you for the night, Jeb, I really enj…' you could barely open your mouth when he stopped the car at your home, and his lips were on yours. His left hand came up from the gearshift to cup your face as his quick, eager kiss was followed by a deeper one. You leant closer to him and rested your hand on his thigh. You got so lost in the sensations (the scent of his cologne, how his tongue explored your mouth against yours, or how it ran across your lips every once in a while), that you didn't know how much time had passed. Was it minutes or half an hour?

'I'm sorry,' he broke away abruptly. 'I can't do this.'

You couldn't really comprehend his words.

'I… I don't think I'm ready for this,' he followed, seeing your puzzled expression.

'We can take it slower,' you chuckled.

'It's not about that,' his body was turned away from you. 'I can't be with you.'

Honestly, this left you in shock. You don't remember if you said anything or just left the car - the whole thing didn't make sense. He was the one asking you out, the date went well, he came in for a kiss… Which was amazing.

You were confused, and above all, hurt. You thought that there must've been something so wrong with you for him to turn you down like this.

When Jeb told Bill about the date, his friend's first excitement died away as he heard how the night ended.

'What's wrong with you?' Bill asked, almost angrily. 'That date was going great and you chose to close it like a teen girl who hasn't fucked before?'

'Language!' The other hissed.

'That girl likes you. You come to me worried you'd screw up the date but you did it in such a way I would've never imagined.'

'It's not easy, Bill. I was raised to believe everything I've just done is a sin. Even though I no longer think the same, I…' he ran his fingers through his hair. 'Can't help but feel that it's wrong.'

His partner seized him up, sighing out the frustration he felt.

'I guess I understand. You do what you feel comfortable with. But she'd be good for you.'

But would I be good for her - Jeb pondered, staring at the papers in front of him.

That was until an office party: his colleagues pressured him into beer after beer, so he'd already had more than he should've. Then, you arrived - late, but no less beautiful. The cream dress you had on was a lot more modest than the form-fitting one you had on during the date, yet its satin fabric draped on your body perfectly. You looked better than ever, which he never thought was possible: your smile was charming and your eyes twinkled in the decorative lights - though he couldn't help but notice that you carefully avoided his direction.

The other officers were quick to bring you your favourite drink and they'd made it a competition who would make you laugh louder. Hearing your chuckles turned his blood bitter, and he kept shifting between chewing the inside of his mouth and adjusting his lips.

'And you, Detective Pyre? Anyone special?' A fellow officer asked.

'Who? Me?' He said, half-stupefied, then chuckled, his eyes on the table. 'No, no one.'

To be fair, since the failed date, you had been avoiding him just as he did with you. You gave a cryptic description of the date to your friends, and your colleagues knew nothing of the encounter: they merely concluded that Jeb's past hunted him, and that's why he was so uncomfortable in your presence.

Maybe they were closer to the truth than anyone thought.

You accompanied some officers out for a cigarette; you were craving some fresh air and the cold of the night on your cheeks. You borrowed a cigarette from Detective Taba to take the edge off.

'You, dear, look prettier every day,' he took a long drag from his cigarette after lighting yours. 'Is there a gentleman you saw before coming here?'

'Nah,' you smiled sheepishly as if the suggestion itself was ridiculous. 'I was looking after an old relative and my cousin arrived late to take over.'

'Don't act so innocent,' he scorned with a grin and gestured with his cigarette. 'I bet you make every man turn anywhere you walk by.'

He wasn't wrong: you only had to take some letters to the post office to come back with a date for the next day, but lately, all you had on your mind was the kiss from a certain detective. Even at work, especially after seeing him, your thoughts would slip from your grip to morph into his firm grip on your waist or the unmatching tenderness of his lips. You'd mistyped witness names and found that you had catalogued a set of crime scene photographs into the wrong folder. You were incredibly embarrassed, despite the officers only laughing at these mishaps, reassuring you that they happened more often than ever with you.

So, you avoided Jeb's eyes, knowing that their dark brown colour would melt you right on sight.

Even though Bill was nudging him every ten minutes to go up to you, Jeb couldn't bring himself to do it. All night, he had been imagining how your dress would fall from your shoulders if he'd unzipped it and how soft your skin would feel under it - softer than the satin itself, he was sure.

The air of the venue grew heavy with each passing minute. Jeb resolved to peel the stickers from the beers, while you were constantly entertained by at least two of your coworkers. They were all respectful, although sometimes a bit loud. You needed a few moments of peace; so you excused yourself to the bathroom.

Once on your way back, you bumped into him.

'Hey,' you forced a smile.

'How you're doing?'

'Good, good. And you?'

'Pretty wasted,' Jeb admitted with a chuckle and after a brief pause (during which he stared long into your eyes and your legs began to feel like jello), he brushed a few hairs that got stuck in your mouth behind your ear. You got a whiff of his cologne, something you only caught once or twice when he brought evidence bags to your table. It always left you spellbound.

'I'm so sorry about that night.'

'Don't be,' you said. 'It was an amazing date.'

Jeb was only half-there, his thumb brushed the edge of your lip.

'Until the end I suppose,' he said dreamily, as if not even to you.

'Do you like me?' You asked abruptly.

'I'm fucking mad about you.'

His answer threw your head in a spin. You grabbed his tie and pulled him into a kiss which he reciprocated with a groan. His hands quickly found the small of your back from which one ran up into your hair. Unconsciously, he gripped a handful of your locks to pull your head back and give him better access to your lips. You were rendered weak with a wave of emotion but this very same thing reminded you where you were and that any second colleague could appear.

You cupped his face and gently pulled away.

'Maybe this is not the best place…'

'No, it isn't,' he agreed. 'I want to make it up to you. Please, let me take you on another date.'

'I'm free on Sunday.'

'Well, not anymore.'

#jeb pyre x reader #jeb pyre #utboh #under the banner of heaven #andrew garfield #andrew garfield x reader #reader insert #jeb pyre imagine #andrew garfield imagine

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cubestrahm · 1 month

Text

»{ Mark Hoffman x Peter Strahm }« ✦ { ao3 }

«- previous chapter / next chapter -»

✦ Summary: This moment in time feels inevitable. It is as though Peter was always meant to wind up in the crushing dark with Mark Hoffman, tangled in a deadly situation that neither man can escape from unscathed. ✦ Rating: 18+ for explicit mature content. ✦ Content/tags: Background Angelina Acomb/Lindsey Perez, Alternate Universe - Diners, Slow Burn, Canonical Character Death, Canon Typical Gore, Detailed Descriptions of Wounds, Improper Wound Care, Non-Sexual Nudity, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Feeding Kink, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Divorced Peter Strahm, Murder, Masturbation, John Kramer is still jigging his saw ✦ Word count: 9,815 ✦ Status: Multi-chapter / Ongoing ✦ Author's note: Lindsey and Peter's friendship is so special... to me.

The sun is already beginning to dip below the horizon by the time Strahm parks his car in the parking lot forming a moat around the modest apartment building. Winter hours make the daylight run out like the seconds on a timer. The retired agent doesn’t mind. He’s never belonged in the light, even if he’d once believed he did.

Feeling his back protest, Peter unfolds himself from the seat of the Crown Vic. Once on his feet, he stabilizes himself with a hand on the roof before leaning down inside just far enough to snag a Tupperware container and his overnight bag off of the passenger seat. The plastic box is still warm to the touch. It’s a sharp contrast to the wind trying to gnaw through the leather of his jacket. The temperature is enough to get him to put a rush on his movements. With hurried motions, he slams the vehicle’s door and all but jogs up the steps to Lindsey’s unit.

When he knocks, it’s with a too hard rap of his knuckles against the wood. His days with the FBI make him feel like a haunted house at times. Ghosts of drug busts and serial murder cases roam the halls of his mind. How many doors had he and his partners kicked in over the years when they were too impatient or too cocksure to wait for the SWAT team? His hand keeps the memories even if his own mind lets go.

“Hello, good sir,” Lindsey greets, whipping the door open, “Pray tell. What’s the password for the keep?”

“It’s ‘I didn’t sign up for dinner at Medieval Times. I’m old and I’m tired’,” Peter grumbles, trying to sidestep her.

He really is tired. Despite Strahm’s best efforts, Detective Hoffman has set up residence in his thoughts and it’s been doing a number on his ability to sleep. Unsatisfied with his sour mood, Perez blocks his foot with hers in a squeak of bare toes against his boot. He recoils.

“Put some socks on,” he says, aghast.

“I already gave you a hint,” she prompts. She’s not letting him in until he guesses what movie she is alluding to. Like him, she doesn’t let go when her jaw is locked.

Not bothering to hide his sigh, he shifts the Tupperware container from one arm to the other. He’d made mozzarella and tomato sauce filled mini croissants tonight. His partner had been moaning about wanting homemade pizza all weekend, so he had decided to do the next best thing. Peter is almost regretting his act of care. Still, he wracks his brain trying to remember what they had watched last Monday.

Her wording being the hint… Oh, it was the one that’d had some blond jackass in tights. Lindsey had socked him in the arm for laughing before breaking down as well.

“Robin Hood,” he answers.

“Robin Hood, what?”

“Robin Hood… in tights?” he tries.

Her smile nearly blinds him. “Good enough, buddy. You’re not senile yet.”

“Every day, I pray for the oblivion of memory loss,” he says dryly as his partner lets him through.

Even facing her back, Strahm can tell that she rolls her eyes at him. He trails after Lindsey to the kitchenette only for her to shove two glasses and a jaw-droppingly large bottle of Cosmopolitan at him. It’s chock-full of edible glitter that shimmers in the pink depths. It’s disgustingly cheery and liable to get them absolutely plastered. Lindsey means business on sleepover nights and that doesn’t include his usual proclivity for what she says is “sad old man alcohol”.

He wouldn’t expect anything else from the woman who got him so drunk one night, he willingly participated in gluing rhinestones to their work phones. Peter had woken up hungover and aching on her couch only to get his ass chewed back at the Bureau for tampering with federally provided property and allowing his subordinate to do the same.

Lindsey, of course, had doubled down after getting reprimanded. She had gotten them both phone charms of a mouthless white cat wearing a bow out of a coin machine–with quarters he’d begrudgingly fished out of his own pocket because he has never wanted to deny her anything.

It had made him smile, to take out the device out back in those days. Looking at the phone had provided him with an unusual sort of comfort, especially during his second divorce. He would turn it over and over in his hand, letting the sharp edges of some of those cheap, plastic gems scrape against his palm. He’s sure that Lindsey doesn’t know just how many times she has saved his life over the years. Not with gunfire or violence, but with her presence alone. Knowing that she was there and had his back was enough to keep him placing one foot in front of the other.

When they had left the FBI together, he’d kept the cat charm after he had turned in his work phone. It’s tucked away in the part of his dresser that holds the ties that he still hasn’t gotten rid of. Perez had also kept her charm. He’s seen it nestled in alongside her earrings and other jewelry.

He’s been quiet for too long, lost in thought. Lindsey notices and shoos him out of the kitchen. “I’ll be there in a second. Go settle in.”

Peter cooperates and makes his way to her bedroom door. It’s the only one left ajar. Her roommate's is shut tight.

Once in the small room, he sets down his cargo beside the TV resting on the dresser. Peter eases the strap of his bag off his shoulder and lets it land with a soft thump on the carpeted floor. Bending down, he unlaces his boots before setting them alongside Lindsey’s shoe rack by her door. He keeps his socks on but shrugs off his leather jacket and hangs it up on the only free peg on the wall-mounted rack. Lindsey keeps it open for him.

In his own rental home, he has several spaces that he leaves empty for her in return. She stocks his preferred brand of toothpaste and he keeps a bottle of the hair oil she uses every Monday. They alternate movie night locations. Their lives are intertwined. He wouldn't have it any other way.

Strahm picks the remote up off of the made bedspread and turns on the TV before dropping it back onto the mattress. The CRT screen flares to live. He’s pre-gaming whatever movie Lindsey picks from her and her roommate’s shared collection in the living room with the news. He’s a simple man. On his nights, he just takes his Vic down to the video rental place and grabs an unvetted stack of DVDs. It’s one of the few things in his life he doesn’t overthink.

Unsurprisingly, every news station is reporting on the rash of murders committed by a serial killer the press has taken to calling “Jigsaw” on account of the puzzle piece shaped chunks of skin that the perpetrator has been carving out of the victim’s bodies. In missives relayed by survivors, this Jigsaw is claiming that they’re not a killer at all, merely a game maker seeking to provide enlightenment to the ungrateful.

In Strahm’s opinion, it’s all a crock of bullshit. People dying as a direct result of your actions makes you complicit in their deaths.

Eyes still on the screen, Peter pours himself a drink. The glass quickly fills up with the shimmering liquid. It sparkles in the changing light from the TV, picking up the colors being broadcast. It’s refreshingly cool in his calloused hand.

He moves away from the TV to take a seat on the bed, leaning back against the mountain of throw pillows Lindsey has decided to pile against the headboard. There’s part of him that thinks it might be a long con trap devised in the hope that he smothers in his sleep.

From what the current news station is claiming, the police department and their FBI liaison have allowed more information to leak to the general public. He is sure that it must be rankling at Special Agent Kerry—she had never been one to be open about case information when he had worked with her in the past.

With a series of jarring crime scene photos, the news anchor walks the viewers through one of the traps that had been used in a recent game. Like the majority of the others, it, too, had taken place in a desolate warehouse. To Strahm’s eyes, it is all a fucked up piece of work. The killer had used some kind of iron maiden style headgear that had snapped closed like a Venus flytrap. They’re calling it the death mask. The footage is a pixelated smear of black and red. He can hear the buzzing of flies through the screen, can almost smell the rot and the dry dust of the warehouse.

Flashes of the same trap in bluepoint pen on a flimsy napkin—the cheapest they could get, really—hammer at his brain. He sees Mark’s hand, the way he had hidden the napkin from view the minute he realized Strahm was playing the role of the voyeur.

“Oh shit,” Peter says, too loud. With his revelation, he nearly lets the glass slip out of his hand to go tumbling across the bed. He rests it on his jean-clad knee with a vice grip.

Lindsey stops in the doorway of her bedroom, pausing at his outburst. She’s holding a massive bowl of popcorn in her hands. It’s something she contributes every Monday night because it’s a heart attack in a bowl, laden down as it is with pretzels, m&m’s, peanuts, and a generous caramel drizzle. Sometimes Strahm thinks he could go out peacefully this way—in his sleep after several too-full glasses of alcohol and a sickening amount of Lindsey’s popcorn concoction, movie still playing in the background and illuminating the two friends.

“Pete?” she asks, concern coloring her voice.

“Saturday. You were out. He was drawing...” He points at the TV with the hand still holding onto the glass.

His partner comes around to look at the screen. Her face tightens once she realizes what he’s referring to. “Your detective?”

The weight of what she knows Peter is suggesting is suffocating. She snatches up the Tupperware container and slaps it and the bowl in the middle of the bed before picking up the remote.

“Don’t. Just talk to him next time he comes in.”

“Lindsey—”

“Peter,” she interrupts, changing the channel to the DVD player input.

The retired FBI agent takes a breath. Lindsey is right. He doesn’t want her to be. He wants to turn this over in his mind until he’s sick with possibilities. It’s not his case. It’s no longer his job to put a name to the monsters crawling the streets. He’ll be crushed under the weight of it all if he doesn’t listen to his partner.

He slings back a mouthful of Cosmo. He savors the slight burn of the vodka as it goes down and forces himself to file everything away in order to focus on the moment. Peter makes himself pay attention as Lindsey opens a DVD case and shoves the disk into the player.

“What are we watching?” he asks as if this is normal night and his habits are not battering down the front door.

“Some romance movie that Melanie swears is the most thing heartbreaking in the world,” she answers.

Pouring a glass of Cosmo for herself, she fast forwards thought the pre-menu trailers. With the remote and her drink in hand, she makes her way back to the bed. She settles onto it beside him. The popcorn bowl and Tupperware serve as a divider between them.

“I feel like her metric for that is skewed.”

Lindsey jabs him in the side with her finger, causing him to grunt. “Don’t be rude.”

“Linds, she started crying because I didn’t want to go on a date with her.”

“Well,” she fiddles with the remote and selects PLAY on the menu. “You did… disappoint her by acting like she’d shot you when she asked what your star sign is. She just wanted to know if you were ‘compatible’.”

“Maybe she should meet with my ex-wives, reminisce a little in a support group. I’m chronically incompatible and great at disappointing women,” he says, chasing his words with another swallow of his beverage.

“It should be on your resume. It’s a skill,” she agrees.

They settle in to watch the movie in a comfortable silence that doesn’t last for long.

“Oh, what the fuck—” Strahm starts.

“Maybe you were right—” Perez also speaks.

Lindsey makes a frustrated noise and downs the rest of her drink. She sets the glass on her nightstand with a clatter.

“If some guy climbed a Ferris wheel and tried to coerce me into a date by threatening to hurt himself and then wouldn’t take the damn hint when I said no again, I’d be filing a restraining order.”

“For sure,” he agrees and, with a groan at the sight of the soon-to-be couple laying in the street, adds, “Oh, fuck off.”

Much to their dismay, the movie doesn’t improve. Both Lindsey and Peter have to stand up more than once throughout it to refill their glasses. By the time the film is over, the diner owners are thoroughly sauced. As soon as the credits roll, Strahm stumbles to the bathroom to change into the sleep clothes he’d brought with him. The sweatpants are riddled with holes and marked with old paint stains from when they’d painted the diner together. He leaves the clip pinning up what Lindsey calls his "mid-life crisis mullet" on the counter.

Before reentering Lindsey’s bedroom, he knocks on the doorframe and waits for her “Yeah!”. Stepping back in, he finds that Lindsey has also swapped her clothing. She’s also perched on his side of the bed with a mozzarella roll crammed into her mouth. She’s put another movie in. The Tupperware container is resting on her lap. She has the remote in one hand and a bottle of hair oil in the other.

Already knowing what she wants, he takes the bottle from her and takes a seat behind her. He’s careful to leave enough space so that they don’t touch. She’s already brushed her hair and it lays in thick curls down her back.

“Here,” she says, offering him a roll over his shoulder. He leans forward and carefully snags it with his teeth.

He’s mid-chew and just spreading the oil on his fingers to apply to her scalp when she speaks again. “So, are you going to pull some Ferris wheel shit for Mark?”

He swallows hastily, too soon, tries not to choke. “What?”

“I’m not blind. You’ve got more chemistry with him than I’ve seen you have with anyone.”

He slips his fingers into the roots of her hair, starts working in careful circles. “Yeah, if that chemistry was dislike.”

“Sure. You keep telling yourself that.”

───※ ·❆· ※───

Peter rolls into the parking lot first, closely tailed by Lindsey’s yellow eyesore of a ‘02 Ford Ranger. As they park, he notices a pair of figures standing in front of the diner. Having seen at least one of them every single day for the past few weeks, he immediately recognizes them. It’s Mark and his sister.

“Fuck,” he curses under his breath as he gets out of his car and meets Lindsey. Together, they approach the front door. Strahm’s already got the correct key primed. The realization of last night hasn’t left him, even if he is suffering from enough of a hangover to have necessitated Perez kicking at him to get his ass out of bed. He wouldn’t be surprised if he has a bruise.

He is a twice divorced man approaching middle age having what essentially boils down to slumber parties with his only friend. His time with Lindsey is the highlight of his weeks. It’s enough to be considered embarrassing without having a crisis because the man he thinks has been flirting with him might very well be one of the most notorious serial killers of their time. Peter knows that he’s a fucking joke.

As they get closer, Strahm realizes that the detective looks dead on his feet. The man is wearing a police slicker instead of his usual suit jacket. He’s wavering slightly, like a ship at sea despite leaning heavily against the side of the building. In contrast, Angelina looks chipper—radiant even.

“Good morning!” the woman shouts as soon as they get within earshot. Mark sways away from his sister as though her voice had physically hurt him.

“Morning!” Perez calls back, a sudden eagerness to her pace.

It surprises him. Lindsey is usually much more reserved. She’s chosen to be saddled with him for almost a decade. They don’t open for another half-hour, but he already knows that she is going to snuff out any suggestion from him that they leave these two on the stoop.

In another surprise, the two women meet in a hug. Peter skirts around them to unlock the door. At his side, too close for comfort, Mark rallies himself enough to engage in harassment.

“Where’s my hug and kiss, Peter?”

Barely resisting the urge to flip the detective off, he lets himself through the door first. He nearly clips Hoffman with the edge of it as the other man follows on his heels. Peter doesn’t want to think about what it might feel like to be that close to him, to feel the yielding bulk of his body in the circle of his arms.

He’s nice enough to pull the chairs off the top of Angie and Mark’s usual table before taking his jacket off and joining Lindsey as they go through the motions of getting the diner ready to open. The detective takes his seat wearily, arms on the table and forehead resting against them. His sister gives him a pat on the shoulder on the way to her own chair.

A few minutes before he needs to flip the sign, Strahm is back at at their table. His sleeves are rolled up and he’s slightly too warm from prepping the cook-top. He doesn’t bother to pull the notepad from his belt. They’re past menus and order sheets now.

“What do you want to eat?”

“Two orders of those pancakes with the faces, please. Oh, and some hashbrowns.” Angie says, glee lighting up her voice. She beckons Peter closer and shields her mouth from her brother. He obligingly leans down for her to speak into his ear.

“Can you make Mark’s look like him?” she whispers conspiratorially. He can’t help but return her shit-eating grin with a smile of his own.

“Sure thing.”

The man in question doesn’t even lift his head off the table as Strahm heads to the kitchen. He thinks that he might genuinely have dozed off.

Lindsey leaves him to it while he puts together the pair’s meals. Angie’s comes together easily. He does hers up to make a beamingly happy face. He remembers that she prefers bananas to blueberries and if she doesn’t have Linds’s house-made caramel sauce on it, she’ll look up to either of them for “just a drizzle, please”. Peter has unintentionally found himself filing away information about the brother and sibling like he does with Perez.

It’s only to avoid complaints, he tells himself. It’s a lie. What a disquieting thing it is to realize that he cares.

For Mark’s pancake, the crowning achievement is the lips. They’re made up of a thick sausage link cut in half and carefully arranged to form a pouting upper and lower lip. They glisten in the overhead light. He usually does bacon for the mouths, but it would not have done justice to Angelina’s request. Here at the diner, he’s all about customer satisfaction. Peter is just doing his job.

Lindsey sneaks at peak at the plates when he carries them out. She has to suppress a laugh. “Oh no.”

“It looks like him?”

“Definitely.”

He finds that Lindsey has already gotten them their beverages. Angie is sucking on the straw planted in her orange juice while Mark is staring into his barely touched coffee like it’s a crystal ball. He doesn’t look any more awake than he did on the doorstep.

Peter puts down Angie’s plate first. She gives it an approving nod before looking up at him, excitement barely contained. He sets the other plate down in front of Mark. The sausage lips jiggle a little upon impact and the detective’s sister is not disappointed. She only just manages to keep a straight face.

Mark looks back at the blueberry eyes beadily staring up at him from their whipped cream eye whites and turns to Peter with questioning expression on his face. Peter has a serious set to his mouth, the same distant appearance he used to wear during interrogations. He gives nothing away. Mark then faces Angie. She buries herself in her own pancake, refusing to make eye contact lest she break.

The seated man sighs, giving in. “I don’t have a yellow tie,” he says picking up a fork and gesturing at the egg that Strahm had fried and cut into the shape of the neck wear.

“Maybe you can get one at the clown convention next time it’s in town.” There’s no bite to Peter’s voice.

“Hmm,”Mark rumbles thoughtfully, almost fond, “maybe you can fuck off.”

───※ ·❆· ※───

Peter is in the back, prepping a tray of roast for tomorrow. It will sit, covered, in the cooler overnight to marinate. He will cook it up mid-morning to be ready in time for their lunch special.

Having already encouraged Lindsey out of the door, he is alone in the diner with only the radio for company. She had done the bank run and had picked up some bottles of honey at the store. Their supplier had missed it in the shipment, leaving them bereft. Strahm felt like the extra work deserved an early night. Neither of the retired agents addressed that it was only an excuse for him to be alone. He has found himself needing solitude more as of late. There have been too many foreign feelings gnawing at his intestines like a parasite.

He flips over another chunk of meat in the bowl. He can’t help but wonder when Angelina and Mark became such an integral part of his life. Every morning, he finds himself looking forward to the moment the siblings walk through the door. Self-loathing sinks into his lungs as the raw meat held in his hands reminds him of the Jigsaw killer. Remembering his partner’s words, he shoves it aside and lets the idea of finding someone to focus on wash over him—someone who might not be up to their elbows in torture traps. Maybe it would be best if he try picking someone up at one of the clubs Lindsey occasionally drags him to instead of behaving like a guard dog and glowering over her shoulder at any men who don’t get the hint that it’s a gay-oriented bar and she’s not there to talk to guys looking for female action.

Surely, he could find someone there. Peter could make it work. He could smooth out the sharp, unlovable edges of himself to find a form of happiness. There’s an image materializing in his mind of the kind of man he would like to share a life with. Thick fingered hands, garishly patterned ties nestled between oversized pecs, full lips with a perpetual smug lift of the corners… Fuck, he thinks to himself, he’s just thinking of—

The doorbell clatters. It’s explosive in the calm, aggressive, and Strahm gets a hint of something he’s not encountered much in the time since he’s left the FBI.

He strips his gloves off and tosses them into the fifty-five gallon trash can. His hackles are already up. On the way through the swinging door separating the kitchen from the rest of the diner, he shoves his right hand into his pants pocket to mask the itch he has for a gun he had carried on his hip for over a decade.

“Can I help you?” he calls across the expanse separating him and the stranger.

A young man stares back at him with wild eyes ringed with anger before donning the mask of someone calmer. “Hi, yes, I’m just looking for my girlfriend.”

“That so?”

His smile has an ugly twist to it, a crack in the facade. He steps closer. “Angelina? Long dark hair, about this tall...” He holds a hand a few inches below his chin. “Probably with her brother all the time?”

Distrust whispers in his ear, prompting Peter to shrug. The gesture is accompanied by a wide swing of his arms. This man reeks of a disgruntled ex looking to get even. Strahm would be willing to put his share of the diner on him being the reason why Angie seems to look over her shoulder and shrink into herself when Mark isn’t at her side. Peter isn’t going to give him a damn thing.

“Look, man, I just need to have a talk with her.” His hands are lodged in the pockets of his jacket. Peter can see him faintly tracing something. It’s not a gun, probably a knife. “She’s not doing well, has some crazy ideas swirling around in that head of hers.”

“Can’t help you,” he says, curt. There’s a part of him that relishes a fight, wants the other man to draw the knife from his pocket and give Peter something to sink his teeth into. It’s been so long.

“You don’t have to be such a bitch, man.” The stranger is scowling, looking almost like he might give Strahm the release he’s craving.

The words prompt a sigh and the raising of his eyebrows. “Get out.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Now.”

A smile of his own, more of a snarl graces the diner owner’s mouth. “Does it look like she’s here?” He gestures to the empty room, arms wide. “Get a hint.”

“I said—,” he starts.

“And I said to fuck off,” Peter interrupts. He takes a step forward, then another until he’s in the middle of the room. The man retreats, looking nervous. The cowardice makes Strahm even more irritated.

“Can you just tell her that I came looking? I’m the one that gets to decide when it’s over. Not her. She needs to remember…“ The stranger trails off. Back against the door now.

Peter puts his hand on the back of one of the chairs. He lifts it off the ground enough to get the point across that he will throw it. The feet scrape on the wood floor. It wouldn’t be the first time in his life he’s gotten pissed off enough to hurtle one.

The man puts his hands up, immediately showing his belly like a submissive dog. “My bad, man, my bad, have yourself a good night.”

He fumbles for the door and slips out. Peter lets go of the chair and stands in the silence. Headlights cut across the front of the diner as the stranger peels out of the parking lot. Strahm rubs his hands over his face and goes to lock the door and close the blinds. He swallows down the arid tang of disappointment.

───※ ·❆· ※───

“One of your sister’s associates came looking for her last night,” Peter says to Mark as he refills the detective’s coffee.

Angelina is seated at the counter for the time being while Lindsey plies her with flavored lemonade samples to test. Already, she’s working on the Spring menu. Mark has a spread of papers on the table that his sister had abandoned at. It looks like case reports for the Jigsaw situation, not that Strahm can scrutinize them too much under Mark’s careful gaze.

Mark’s full lips turn down in a frown. He looks troubled and when he speaks, his words don’t form a question. “Seth Baxter.”

“Yeah?”

“Angie broke up with him almost a year ago. Turns out he was a neo-nazi and all around piece of shit.”

“Wonderful.” He can’t say he’s surprised.

“He’s never taken no as answer. She hasn’t admitted to him doing anything to her but the guy is a problem. She’d had me there when she broke the news to him.”

“Did he act out then?”

“Nothing I could book him for.”

Peter nods, silent. He doesn’t blame Mark for entertaining that possibility. Encountering Baxter had felt like coming into contact with an oil slick. There was a residue left behind that just wouldn’t wash out with soap.

He leaves the detective alone to refill the next table’s mugs. Strahm still hasn’t broached the topic of Jigsaw to Mark. He hasn’t brought it up again to Lindsey either because he knows what she will say. Peter has found himself unable to muster up the will to confront the broad man in the fear that he might be right. In the daylight hours, it seems a ridiculous notion. Peter knows it’s possible. Time and time again, he’s seen the worst people put on the right masks to become loving family members, respectable members of their communities: the kind of people that would give the shirt off their own backs for a stranger.

Even the worst dregs of humanity have human moments. It’s what makes them so dangerous. It used to be his job to chisel away at the masks—to pull the shell off the snail and leave its innards manged and exposed to the naked eye. It’s not his duty anymore. He runs a diner with his best and only friend. He need to leave it alone. He’s no longer Special Agent Peter Strahm. That man lost his head, took on too much water and drowned.

Peter wants to believe that a better person left the building after turning in his badge. He knows one didn’t. There’s still something twisted and barely lying dormant inside of him, nestled between the cathedral of his ribs. It takes one monster to catch another.

───※ ·❆· ※───

The overhead bell clatters against the glass not even half an hour before closing. Strahm has already seen Perez out of the door. She had left early for a date that she’s shyly mentioned to him a couple of times over the course of the week. He knows it must be serious because she’s been tight-lipped and anxiously bursting at the seams. Peter will be staying up late, as he does every night, phone close at hand until she texts to let him know she’s made it back to her apartment.

“We’re closed,” he says.

Creaking footsteps cross the diner with no response from the intruder, and, finally, Peter looks up from the glasses he’s stocking below the counter. Irritation prickles at his skin. He’s half expecting to see Seth Baxter waiting for him when he stands up.

It’s Mark. The detective has dressed down for the late hour. It’s strange to see him without his blazer or his tie. Distractedly, the sleeves of the man’s dress shirt are rolled up to expose his large forearms. Strahm makes sure to look somewhere near Mark’s hairline.

“It’s you.”

“In the flesh, Peter,” the detective responds, smile across his lips.

“I’m curious as to why you’re here. Again.”

He watches as Mark settles himself onto a stool. The broad man rests his arms on the counter and leans over to encroach into Peter’s space. The retired FBI agent feels a little lightheaded when he realizes the position is only serving to highlight Mark’s chest through the open shirt collar. There’s honest to God cleavage. Ripping his traitorous eyes away from the scar snaking between Hoffman’s breasts, he meets his gaze and realizes that the detective looks tired.

“Angie had a date tonight, left me high and dry so I thought I’d come see you. Where’s Lindsey?”

“Out.” He kneels and lines the last few glasses up on the shelf and out of the drying crate. “Kitchen’s cold. I’m not turning the grill back on for you.”

“I’m sure you can figure something out for me, Pete. I’m hungry enough that I’ll eat anything you make me. You know how easy I can be.”

“Too easy,” he mutters. Mark just laughs, having heard him. “Fine, I don’t want to hear you complain.”

“Thank you, honey. You’re so good to me.”

A sigh and then he’s picking up the dish rack to take it back to the kitchen instead of throwing it at the seated man. Once in the back, he slots it in the nook beside the three-chamber sink before opening the door to vertical warmer and pulling out the two pans that have been resting on the racks. He shuts the machine off. It will be turned on again in the morning.

Largely using ingredients he’d be throwing out tonight anyway, he makes himself a sandwich with pot roast. He makes a second one for Mark. Both of them are plated with a side of macaroni destined for either his fridge at home or the trash can. The detective’s presence at the counter saves Strahm from having the hassle of taking home the leftovers.

Finished, he carries both plates out to the dining room. He bypasses the counter entirely to set the plates down on opposite ends of a small table. Before he sits down, he checks his watch. It’s a few minutes after closing time. He crosses the room to lock the door and flip the sign to closed. He draws the blinds on his way back to the table.

Hoffman is still. The weight of his eyes feels like a hand on the back of Strahm’s neck. It’s making his skin crawl. All too aware of the other man, he pulls out a chair with a screech of wood on wood and takes a seat facing the main room, back to the wall. He doesn’t verbally invite Mark, but he hears the shift of fabric and the sound of footsteps and then he is joined at the table.

“Didn’t feel like the stool?”

“No, don’t like having my back to the place.”

There’s a small grunt from the detective. “Were you a lawman?”

“FBI,” he says. Maybe Mark isn’t as stupid as he looks.

“Mmm, that would explain it. Were you good at your job, Special Agent?”

“Good enough.” For once, he doesn’t rise for the bait.

Peter toys with the fork in his hand, eyes on the man seated across from him. He watches closely, perhaps too closely as Mark slides his thick fingers under the sandwich and lifts it, cradled almost, to his mouth for a bite. Juice immediately spills free, running over Mark’s lips and liberally coating them in a filthy shine. He reaches for a napkin, but Peter’s hand is there first. Hoffman’s fingers skate over the back of his hand, thwarted. Peter receives a hard, considering look. There’s a dark gleam in the blue depths.

In an a long moment that reminds him of the morning the two of them had met, neither of them break their eye contact as Mark exaggeratedly licks his lips. Peter digs his fingers of his free hand into the meat of his thigh, hanging on for any glimmer of control while the other man sucks his own bottom lip into his mouth and releases it with a wet pop. He’s headspinningly hard in that instant, throbbing in his pants. He nearly curls over as if weathering a blow. Very nearly, he almost takes his hand off the napkin dispenser to press his palm against his crotch to relieve the pressure. Instead, he clamps down on the object harder, knuckles going white in the dim light.

With his dignity dangling on a thin line, he’s relieved that the table blocks Mark’s view. He’s struggling to stay in his seat. He wants to do something rash, destructive, transformative. His instincts are scrambled.

His own plate remains untouched as Mark takes another bite. The chewing is accompanied by a pleased hum, almost a lewd moan to Strahm’s ears.

“How… how does it taste?” He feels winded, out of breath.

Mark stops with the sandwich to his lips. He lowers it without taking another bite after swallowing. “Are you some kind of pervert?” he asks, seeming genuinely curious.

Strahm feels the last of his blood drain from his face.

“You’re one to talk,” he snaps. His tone does little else but highlight how defensive he’s feeling. Mark’s eyebrows raise. He’s got that smug look to him that makes Peter want to grab him by his shirt and smear his face against the floor until it worn down to the bone.

“Am I?” Mark is smiling now. “How do you figure?”

“You parade around looking like” he gestures in a broad sweep of his hand at the detective, “that.”

“Like what?”

“You know.”

“I don’t think I do.” He has to be being purposely obtuse. Strahm doesn’t appreciate it.

The blood is starting to rise back up, he can feel himself starting to flush as he responds, “Like you’re begging for a scrap of attention. Like you’re just a whore with a gaping mouth waiting for someone to come along and fill it for you.”

Despite the crudeness of his words, Mark doesn’t look offended. He sets the sandwich down on his plate. With his fingers damp with the meat’s juices, he nudges Strahm’s hand out of the way to finally claim a napkin to wipe the mess away from his digits. Fingers clean, the other man pushes his plate across to him. It bumps against his with the sharp sound of ceramic against ceramic. He stands up, and for a critical moment, Peter thinks he’s made an error and the other man is going to deck him where he sits.

Violence doesn’t come. Peter is left shaken when Mark comes around to his side of the table and kneels, knees to the floor. The detective’s polished shoes squeak against the wood. He can see the way the bulk of Mark’s thighs strain against the confinement of his slacks.

“What…?” It comes out as a gasp. His lungs feel too compressed to draw in any air.

As a response, Mark shifts closer. Under encouragement from the detective's hands, Peter turns, letting the man rest his bulk between his spread knees. Hoffman’s eyes skate over his erection. The only acknowledgment he gives it is an impossibly more satisfied look as he meets Strahm’s gaze steadily.

“You said I wanted a full mouth, Peter. So fill it.” he says with a nod to the table.

Unable to look away, he watches Mark part his lips and wait. The detective’s mouth gleams wetly, salivating for what Peter is going to give him. He can see the moisture pooling in the space underneath his tongue, threatening to overflow the corners of his lips even as Peter’s own mouth goes devastatingly dry.

The retired FBI agent gropes blindly for Mark’s plate. He ends up offering the kneeling man a handful of macaroni and cheese. He is forced to put it into Mark’s mouth when he doesn’t reach for it with his own hands. The pads of Peter’s fingers brush over Mark’s tongue.

Pulse pounding, he gathers up another mouthful’s worth. He brings it to the other man’s mouth, pushes it inside and past those plump lips when, again, he doesn’t take it directly. Mark’s jaw is slack. He’s completely pliant, welcoming the intrusion of Strahm’s fingers. He chews and swallows when Peter withdraws.

He feeds him mouthful after mouthful. He takes from his own plate when he runs out of noodles on Mark’s. Slipping the last of it into Hoffman’s mouth, he looks at the mess he’s made. He gathers the smear of sauce and cheese off the detective’s bottom lip and feeds him that too. That simple motion brings curiosity with it. He slides his fingers into Mark’s mouth, so deep that the knuckles of his ring finger and pinky collide with the other man’s chin.

Mark swallows around them. The sudden, clenching heat makes him groan. His dick twitches in his jeans. Mark’s pupils are blown, and Peter doesn’t miss the way the other man’s hand clenches on his wide thigh at hearing the noise that Peter had let slip from his throat.

Again, he swallows around Peter’s fingers. This time, the action is accompanied by his teeth just lightly biting down on the digits encased between his lips, just testing the skin. There’s a pinch and he’s biting harder, properly digging his teeth in.

Peter’s free hand, the one adorned with a reminder of his failed marriages, shoots out. He presses it against Mark’s right cheek. The skin is smooth and unmarred underneath his palm. He doesn’t push Mark away. Strahm doesn’t want to stop him, not really. There’s a part of him not so far under the surface that wants the detective to sever the fingers between his teeth, to consume of Peter himself just has he had of the meal he had prepared for him.

Mark lets up and allows Peter to ease his fingers out just enough to thrust them back in. Strahm is panting, a ragged sound in the quiet of the diner. With each thrust of his fingers into the detective’s mouth, he imagines that it is his cock instead that’s rubbing back and forth over Mark’s eager tongue. His fingertips collide with the other man’s hard palate over and over again. He loses himself in the motion enough that Mark’s hand being placed on his thigh jolts him back into the moment.

The detective is drooling freely around his fingers. His chin is wet with his own saliva. It strings and drips, soaking the front of his shirt. The silk material is marked with darker patches, almost as if Strahm had placed his own mouth against the fabric and sucked at Mark’s chest and stomach through it. He looks debauched this way, used. His lips are swollen and pink.

As he observes Mark like a case file, he can’t help but notice that the other man’s slacks are straining over more than just his thighs. Peter can see the clear outline of his dick. He can almost swear the black fabric is somehow darker near the head of it. Mark is wet.

Wet for me, he thinks, nonsensical. He sinks his teeth into the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood to keep the moan from escaping his mouth.

Extracting his fingers, he grips the edge of the table as Mark’s other hand hooks under Peter’s thigh. He spreads his legs wider to give the other man more access. Mark shuffles closer. He pulls Peter’s leg over his shoulder, spreading him open until he feels too vulnerable, too exposed.

His hands go to Strahm’s belt buckle, Peter tangles his hand in Mark’s hair, dampening the man’s locks with his own saliva. With as much protest as Peter himself had given, the leather of his belt easily slips free of the buckle. Hoffman’s fingers skate over the front of his jeans, seeking to undo the fastenings.

Even though the denim, Strahm can feel the heat of the detective’s breath on his dick. His cock twitches, almost as if it’s trying to get to the other man’s mouth. He feels both steadied and thrown off balance by the hand that Mark puts on his waist. He can barely think over the sound of his heart hammering in his ears. The drum beat of it drowns out the anxiety over being touched in such an intimate way. This man is going to be the death of him. He’s never been so hard in his fucking life.

A phone rings. Loud.

Face suddenly grim, Mark draws back. Peter’s hand slips free of the detective’s hair and he sags back in his chair. He busies himself with remembering how to breathe while Hoffman pulls his phone out from the pocket of his slacks. He flips it open and presses the button to accept the call.

“Detective Hoffman speaking.” His voice has a rough edge to it—the only indication that Strahm had been all but fucking his mouth with his fingers.

Choosing to look anywhere else but at Mark, his eyes resolutely lock onto the shelves behind the counter. He feels the shorter man slide his leg off his shoulder. It’s unsettlingly tender, the way Hoffman eases Strahm’s foot to the floor.

“Yeah… alright.” Peter can’t make out the voice on the other end of the line. “I’ll be there. Don’t mess with any unsecured doors this time, yeah?”

Peter hears the snap of the device being closed and glances at Hoffman. The man gets to his feet with a wince but with more spryness than Strahm himself would have been capable of under normal circumstances.

“Duty calls,” he says, slipping the phone back into his pocket and withdrawing his wallet.

Alarmed, he reaches out and stops him. “Don’t. The food was on the house.”

Mark gives him a look that Peter can’t quite read before closing his billfold and tucking it away. Hoffman’s erection is rapidly flagging. Whatever situation he was called about must be one hell of a mood killer. Meanwhile, Strahm can’t summon any of the blood back to his brain.

He nearly chokes on nothing when Mark’s fingers cup his cheek and he draws a thumb down over the scar mimicking an age line. He has to close his eyes.

“Goodnight, Pete.” The roughness that Strahm put there drags the nickname out into something obscene.

“’Night.” The retired agent manages.

And with that, Mark takes those characteristically stiff strides to the door, unlocks it, and slips through it. The bell jangles in his wake. He leaves Strahm alone and close to shivering in the absence of his warmth.

Like a man rising from a trance, he gets to his feet and locks the door behind the detective. His open belt clatters. The buckle collides with his thigh on every step, a reminder of what almost was. He leaves the plates on the table in favor of ducking into the diner’s single occupant bathroom. Out of habit, he locks the door. He doesn’t look at himself in the mirror. He doesn’t want to see the creature he is in this moment. He chooses, instead, to press his forehead against the wall. He shuts his eyes.

Projected against the darkness of his eyelids, he imagines Mark on his knees again. He plays out the scene they had nearly had without the interruption that he is almost thankful for. While he thinks about Mark undoing his pants and taking Strahm’s cock out, he frees himself from the confines of his jeans and takes himself in hand. His dry palm is a far cry from the detective’s saliva-slick mouth.

Still, he strips his cock hard and fast. Mark had already had him on the brink of shamefully cumming in his pants. It’s not long before he’s spilling over his knuckles in hot spurts.

Wrung out and with his legs shaking, he lets go of his softening dick and fumbles for the paper towel dispenser. He wipes his hand off before tucking himself back into his pants and dropping onto the toilet toilet lid, exhausted. It feels like he had ran a marathon. He is going to have a heart attack in this bathroom and Lindsey is going to have to call for a morgue transport after she finds him in the morning.

“Fuck,” he says aloud. Revulsion has stuck its hand in him now that the fog of arousal has fled his body, and it’s rooting around elbow deep in his guts.

He gets to his feet. He washes his hands and still doesn’t meet his eyes in the mirror while he straightens himself up. This might not be the most shameful thing he’s ever done, but it’s higher on the list than he would like. He can gnaw on it while he works. He’s got a diner to clean

───※ ·❆· ※───

Morning greets Strahm with all the grace of a punch to the jaw. He opens his eyes and squints against the light glaring at him through his windshield. He rubs both hands over his face. The brief shade they provide is a soothing balm to his pounding head. The ache radiating through his body like a missing tooth is a vivid reminder of last night.

He had been worked into too much of a shame-fueled frenzy to give the establishment the usual amount of care. No, he’d been on his hands and knees scrubbing the grout in the kitchen with a hard bristled brush until his hands were raw and he was satisfied surgery could be performed on the tile with no risk of infection. It not been the only task that he’d taken upon himself. He had spent so long handling his reaction to the unplanned intimacy that he had not bothered to go back to his rental. He had chosen to sleep in his car instead.

A glance at his watch reveals that he had woken up just after his usual alarm time. Peter drags himself out of his vehicle just as Lindsey’s yellow Ranger pulls into the lot and parks in the space beside his Vic.

“Good morning.” She looks cheerful, vibrant even.

“’Morning.” He grits out. His voice is so rough with sleep that it might as well have been his throat that was getting used last night.

“You look like shit.”

The only answer he gives her is a grunt. He nearly stumbles on the curb when he follows her to the front door.

“No, seriously. What happened?”

“Late night. Got wrapped up in cleaning.” It’s technically the truth. He doesn’t particularly want to confess that he almost fucked Mark and proved his co-owner right. Peter has never been one for losing, no matter the size of the stakes.

Sighing, Lindsey gets her key in the lock. She’s not buying it as being the whole story. If she were blind enough to just accept whatever bullshit he said to her, they never would have been able to be partners for so long.

“How did your date go?” he asks, heading her off before she can corner him in the back for an interrogation. He had gotten her text late last night, assuring him that she hadn’t been murdered in the street and was about go to bed.

Her face splits into a smile. “It went really, really well. She let me walk her to the door.”

“That’s great, Linds.” Her obvious joy manages to drag a returning smile out of him.

He listens to her chatter at him while they settle into their normal morning routine. She lets him get away with muttered responses and acknowledging hums, content to carry the interactions. It’s business as usual with the only the glaring absence of Mark and Angelina.

The sibling duo arrives after the breakfast rush has trickled into maintenance. Right away, Strahm notices that Hoffman looks as tired as he, himself, feels. There’s a serious set to his mouth and his movements are sluggish. They bypass their usual table on account of it being occupied and take up residence on stools at the counter.

“Just coffee for me.” Mark tells him when he silently stares at him in wait for the detective's order.

He feels like last night is written all over his face. If the both of them weren’t so tired, he’s sure some words would be getting thrown around. Unable to do more than exist, he turns to Angie, silently prompting her as well.

“Orange juice and one of those muffins, please,” she says. Like Lindsey, she’s all but glowing.

Nothing for him to cook. It’s just as well. Strahm is feeling he might just face-plant on the cooking surface. With any luck, he can take another nap in his car until Lindsey needs him for lunch support. With the distant sensation of moving through molasses, he pours Mark and Angie their drinks. He nearly knocks over Angelina’s glass when he tries to slide her muffin in front of her.

“Are you okay? I thought Marcus over here was half dead, but I think you got him beat.”

“I’ve always been a winner,” is Peter’s stab at levity.

He ignores Hoffman’s stifled scoff and drags out a notepad. Checking with the summary of items he’d marked as low in the dry storage last night, he writes down everything that he’s going to have to order tomorrow. Mark seems content to watch him while he drinks his coffee. Lindsey and Angelina chatter back and forth as his partner comes and goes. He tunes them out.

Blinking hard, he tries to focus his eyes on the paper in front of him. It’s threatening to triplicate. He sets down his pen and squeezes the bridge of his nose, hard. He needs to lay down.

There’s an explosion like a gunshot.

Peter feels a burning sensation race across the back of his shoulder and down his side. Adrenaline floods his system, burning away the exhaustion. He whips around in time to see Lindsey stumbling back from the coffee machine’s hot water spigot. Her hands are grasping at her face and she’s making noises he has never heard from her before—never thought he would hear. It’s the low, desperate whines of an injured animal.

Immediately, he reaches for her. Peter takes her into his arms, holding her securely against his chest where she curls into him in the blind trust that he can protect her, that he can keep her safe. She’s coughing, trembling. Even has she goes limp from shock, he supports her. She’s his partner and the closest thing he would dare call family.

There are shards of broken glass and hot water everywhere. Right away, it’s clear that a measuring cup had exploded. Hot water into a room temperature glass vessel had caused a rapid expansion. Something that they’d both done more than they should had finally caught up to them.

Mark is right next to him with his sister on his heels. Together, the two men guide Lindsey away from behind the counter and to a clear patch of floor. The detective strips off his blazer and folds it into a makeshift pillow for Strahm’s co-owner as Peter lowers her to the wood. Acid claws at his throat.

“Angie, call for an ambulance.” Mark’s voice is calm, lapping against the edges of Peter’s mind past the ringing in his ears.

The only thing he can focus on is Lindsey. His hands are shaking as he carefully tries to smooth her hair away from her face.

“Okay, c’mon, Shallow breaths. Okay? Stay with me.” He can’t hide the tremor in his voice. There’s so much blood seeping around the glass embedded in her face and neck. He has only seem this amount at crime scenes.

Lindsey reaches up and grabs weakly at his face. Her fingers hook briefly in the collar of his shirt. Peter catches her hand and squeezes it as much to reassure her as himself.

“Pete,” she whines. Tears are leaking from the corners of her eyes.

“I’m here. I’m here, Lindsey. You’re gonna be fine, alright? You’re gonna be fine.” Maybe if he repeats it enough times, it’ll be true.

They had some close calls during their time in the FBI but it was all threats that he could negate. He would have put down any number of perps to ensure her safety. He would have ripped apart the world for her. But this… this was just an accident. He couldn’t protect her from this kind of thing.

He’s unaware of the panicked, half breathes that seize in his chest until Mark places his hand on his back. Peter doesn’t shrug it off. In the background, he can hear Angie on the phone. Her voice is wobbly, distorted through sobs.

After the paramedics arrive, Hoffman has to hold him back when Lindsey lets out a pained yelp from being moved onto the stretcher. She’s never been one to vocalize pain and it’s killing him to hear her.

“Easy… Easy, Peter.” Mark’s voice rumbles against him from where the detective has him held against the expanse of his chest.

Dimly, he realizes that Angelina has a grip on her brother’s arm. She has to be squeezing enough to hurt. Her knuckles are pale. He wonders at why she’s so torn up his partner and then it clicks. Mark had said Angelina had left him alone to go on a date last night. Lindsey had done the same to him. The two women had been together while he and Hoffman were doing whatever fucked up dance they’d been engaged in.

Strahm pushes out of the detective’s hold. He nearly collapses without the support he’d never admit he needed. It’s a smothering weight that he could be crushed under if he let it.

“Everybody out. Show’s over.” Peter calls as soon as Lindsey is wheeled out the door. “We’re closed. Meals are on the house today.”

A few people stand up, not enough. Mark speaks, his voice more vicious than Strahm’s. “You heard him. Have some respect and get the fuck out.”

It works. The customers pick up the pace and soon the diner is empty aside from them.

In daze, Peter steps into the kitchen and turns off the cook-top. He grabs his jacket and his keys from the back. The door hits him hard in the elbow. He nearly slips on the mixture of glass and cooling water. Mark’s hand is there to steady him. The other man plucks the keys from Peter’s grasp before steering both him and Angie across the diner and to the door. Peter lets himself be nudged out onto the step with Mark’s sister while the broad man flips the sign around and locks up for him.

“This way,” he says, leading them both to his car.

Numbly, he obeys as Mark has the two of them clamor into the back seat while he settles behind the wheel. He feels Angelina take his hand in hers. He lets her, just has he had let her brother touch him. Their fingers twist and grip onto each other until their joint hands make up one shared form. All he can see playing on repeat in his mind is the scared look on his partner’s bloody face.

He can’t tell which one of them is shaking. Is is Angie? Is it him? Is it the both of them?

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Do not repost, copy, or reproduce my work to other sites or in other media formats. Do not use it for anything to do with AI. Thank you.

#saw #saw franchise #saw movies #hoffstrahm #coffinshipping #mark hoffman x peter strahm #hoffstrahm fanfic #peter strahm #mark hoffman #saw fanfic #.my posts #.my work #.my fanfics

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aslightaddity · 7 months

Text

Dappy!verse Riddler lore

Born Eduardo Enigmar to Franklin Enigmar and Julia Osorio, in a small city in the east coast. Together they were a happy enough family.

He was a quiet kid and often was left to manage himself and often was used to console and comfort his parents. He was terrified of disobeying the rules as his mother would refuse to talk to him or look after him for days at a time when he would misbehave.

At school, He was always talented, well behaved, and was placed in advanced courses or pushed up by a few grades. He didn’t have many friends as he was seen as weird and creepy by the other kids.

He loved detectives, his favorite books as a child being Sherlock Holmes. He’d often investigate small mundane things for fun, find out what keeps getting into the trash, whose moving in next-door, and one day he decided to investigate where his father went for his frequent business trips.

He followed Franklin to another town and watched as he rejoined a family. A mother and son he hadn’t seen before but Franklin seemed to know. Before he was caught he rushed himself home and told his mother.

His mother was angry with him for running off and coming back with a crazy story. She refused to believe him.

Shortly after the birth of his younger sister, Malory who was almost 15 years younger than him, his parent’s marriage became rocky and the truth finally came out that Franklin had a second family.

Throughout the divorce proceedings Ed tried his best to be supportive and helpful to his mother but was only met with anger, she blamed him for it all. He had dropped out of his senior year in high school to take care of his mother and Malory. His mother would always shout and treat him with distain as she only saw Franklin when she looked at him, to the point where she tried to get Malory to never look at him.

After a few years, when Malory began school, one petty fight between Ed and his mother boiled over into him leaving without a way for them to contact him.

He traveled around, couch surfing, and never being able to hold a steady job. It was slim as to which stores would hire him due to his lack of a diploma. After awhile he ended up in Gotham, where he not only got forged documents but he also changed his name. From Eduardo Enigmar to Edward Nygma to finally distance himself from his family and the man that ruined his childhood.

In Gotham he became a PI, unable to be employed by the GCPD due to his lack of proper training, a rather successful one at that, due to his affordability mainly. Despite being an upstanding investigator the GCPD officers he worked with never liked him, often poking fun at him or messing with evidence.

He was hired to investigate a murder one day, the problem however being that, the murder wasn’t reported to the police before the case was given to him. So when the police were tipped off there was no other possible suspect but him, there was a jarring lack of evidence to prove his innocence.

What ‘incriminating’ evidence was found was his forged documents, a name change, and a manic denial. After a psychological evaluation he was deemed criminally insane and sentenced to Arkham.

The brutal treatment in Arkham (electroshock therapy and misperscribed medicine) and the trauma of being framed finally culminated with his anger and left him catatonic for months and prone to hallucinations. However, In an outburst he attacked and seriously injured a guard and himself causing him to need a mobility aid once it healed. After the attack he was resigned to solitary.

There his hallucinations only got worse and He realized people were always going to blame him for things gone wrong and only see evil in him. So he decided to let go on trying to be the good person he had been trying to be for so many years. He realized that no one but himself cared about his justice.

As he was used to investigation and puzzle solving, escaping from the asylum was rather easy. (He was quite proud that he was able to switch his place and his aloof guard’s)

However once he was out it was trickier, he couldn’t return to his apartment or office as the leases had broken during his incarceration. After wandering through the labyrinth that were the Gotham streets he sunk into the iceberg lounge for a place to sleep.

He managed to lay low and go unnoticed, thanks to the help of two of the women who worked there (Nina and Diedre) for a few days before Oswald took notice of him.

Their first interaction included Oswald blackmailing Ed with his estranged family and Ed threatening Oswald’s life. Despite the rocky start Ed soon proved himself to Oswald to be usefully and trustworthy (through many heists and investigations to rivals) and Oswald proved himself to be caring to Ed, something he had not been accustomed, and they became closer. Both have confided in the other about their pasts and trust no one more than the other.

With Oswald’s influence and the help and support of Nina and Diedre he became more and more bold with his crimes and eventually became The riddler we know and love

#edward nygma #batman villians #Dappy!verse #au lore #lore dump #the riddler #echo and query #Q&E #Oswald Cobblepot #riddlebird #general tw #technically an ace attorney crossover #edward nigma

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tropes-and-tales-archives · 5 months

Text

Whistle Down the Wind, Chapter Ten

Word Count: 4503

TW: Idiots in love, angst, smut (PiV, protected). 18+ only.

AN: Part of a series. The series masterlist here.

You were late. Again.

To be fair, though, it wasn’t your fault this time. When your plane landed at LaGuardia, it ended up taxiing for forty minutes until it found an available gate, and then you had to sprint to baggage claim. And then you had to find a taxi, and when you did, traffic was so bad that the driver shot into New Jersey and took I-95 to get to Staten Island.

It didn’t matter, as long as you got there eventually. Sometimes you had to take the long way round.

********

It was a subdued Thanksgiving, which suited Sonny just fine. Theresa’s daughters, since the divorce, had to split their holidays between their parents, so they were with their father. Theresa herself had opted to stay in Connecticut and host her own wine-based, solo Thanksgiving for herself. Gina and her latest boyfriend had stopped in for a quick dinner but had left to go to his family’s house on the other end of the island. Bella and her baby – a little girl named Moira – were taking a nap upstairs in her childhood bedroom, exhausted by the baby’s awful sleep schedule. That left Sonny parents and Tommy in the living room, watching the football game and dozing off from their respective turkey comas.

Sonny was so exhausted that he was having trouble sleeping. It had been an awful year. He had an undercover assignment with a men’s shelter that left him shaken to his core about the thin possibility of redemption for lost souls.

His sergeant had also been gunned down and killed. They never replaced him, though, so SVU was running perpetually short-handed. He rarely had time off, he never had time to recover from one case to the next, and his commanding officer seemed pretty cavalier about the mental wellness of her detectives.

If he ever needed his best friend, it was now, but he respected your choice to move to L.A.

He kept in touch with you, of course. He called and texted, and the two of you had a few video chat sessions. You showed him your cramped little apartment a few blocks from the ocean, and once you had a chat from London, where you were working on a limited episode run for a streaming service.

He loved seeing you, but it left him heart-sore. Seeing you on the screen of his laptop could not compare to the genuine article.

He held back a lot of his work struggles. He didn’t tell you how lonely he was, how much he missed his friend. He didn’t want to make you regret your choice. All the same, you seemed to sense when he was at his lowest, because a new playlist always seemed to appear for him to bolster his flagging spirits.

The best playlists, though, were the ones he was able to buy after you started your stint on the west coast. You got work – first with the limited run series, then with a bare-bones action film, then with a larger film. You scored a documentary, and the haunting piano and string-based score was nominated at some film festivals. Sonny bought every soundtrack and score that had your name on it.

He set up a news alert for your name and got some traffic. The best was a profile about new up-and-comers. It was a group shot of everyone in the piece, but he was able to crop everyone else out on his computer. You looked amazing in it: hair down and styled, in a chic tuxedo tailored to your form, with a slight smile on your face.

Still, he missed you. And on days like Thanksgiving, he felt your absence more keenly.

He sat with his parents and Tommy for a bit, half-heartedly watching the Lions play. He wondered what you were doing. Probably hanging out with your new friends, eating the authentic Mexican food you were always raving about.

He stood up abruptly and made his way down to the rec room in the basement. Most holidays – and summers when you were in college – that’s where you and Sonny ended up. It was your movie hub: just the two of you curled up on the couch together, under his nonna’s scratchy acrylic crocheted blanket (because he cranked the air to an uncomfortable degree on purpose), watching a movie and ignoring the tension between the two of you. Well, he knew it was tension now. At the time, he had just thought it was him.

He sprawled out across the old couch and turned on the TV, flipping through the channels until he found something. “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.” Sonny smiled. It was one of your favorite movies, and he settled down and watched it. If his mind wandered, it wandered back to your final week in the city. Those few final days you had spent together, mostly in his bed (and in his shower and on his couch and once on his kitchen counter). He replayed those moments over and over, but the details had grown hazy over time. All he could vividly remember was the feeling of completion and contentment when you had fallen asleep beside him.

The movie was about halfway done when he heard people talking upstairs – laughter and little shrieks of joy. He guessed that Moira was awake and his mother was cooing over her. Or maybe Tommy and his dad were really getting into the Lions game.

He heard the basement door open and someone take a few tentative steps down the creaky stairs. It must be time for dessert and coffee, but Sonny wasn’t hungry.

“I’ll be up in a bit, ma,” he called over the back of the couch, focused on the screen in front of him.

“I’m not your ma, stretch,” a familiar voice replied in a teasing lilt, and he shot up into a sitting position just in time to see you descend the rest of the steps. ********

Your first thought was that you broke him. He stared at you over the back of the couch so long without saying anything, you worried that he had died in place.

Your second thought, as you looked him over was, Christ, he looks exhausted.

Sonny was as handsome as ever. His hair was a little greyer, but it made him hotter, in your opinion. It was soft and tousled, unstyled – your favorite version of his hair. His eyes were as blue as the ocean.

But he looked pale, and he had dark circles under his eyes, and the lines around his eyes were deeper than the last time you saw him. You knew that his job wasn’t easy, and you knew from Bella that it had been more difficult than usual. You worried that you hadn’t made things easier on him either.

He continued to stare at you, and your eyes flicked to the TV. It was one of your favorite holiday movies, and you made a little cry of delight. You walked around to the couch and made to sit down to watch, but Sonny shot to his feet and pulled you into a fierce hug. He wrapped his long arms around you and squeezed you so hard you thought your ribs would break again.

“You’re really here,” he muttered into your hair.

“I am,” you replied. Your face was pressed against his chest, and you breathed him in. He wore a cologne that always made you think of growing things – a sort of fresh, green smell that combined with his soap and his own body chemistry. “I would have been here sooner, but traffic was a nightmare.”

He squeezed you to him for another moment, then pushed you away, his hands firmly placed on your upper arms. “No one told me,” he said, looking you over. “You didn’t tell me.”

“I wanted to surprise you.” You suddenly felt shy underneath the scrutiny of his gaze, and you ducked your head.

He moved both of his hands to either side of your face. “It’s the best surprise ever,” he declared, and he leaned down to place a gentle kiss on your lips. You sighed and kissed him back. You had missed him so much.

He tilted your head, deepening the kiss. You felt him part his lips and run the tip of his tongue along your lower lip, but before you could open your mouth to him, the basement door swung open again. A voice – Bella’s – yelled down that coffee and dessert were being served.

“And stop making out, you perverts,” she added for good measure, and you ignored her cackling laughter with all the dignity you could muster.

********

Sonny sat across from you at the dining room table as everyone gathered for pumpkin pie and coffee. You immediately scooped baby Moira from Bella’s arms, claiming that you had to make up for lost time. The baby grabbed at your hair and tried to shove her chubby fist in your mouth. She was completely enamored with you.

Baby Moira wasn’t the only one. Sonny felt like he would never be able to look at you enough. Your hair was just a shade messy – he knew it was from your cross-country flight, but it looked exactly like your usual post-sex hair, and it made him feel more turned on than he would usually like while sitting with his family at the dining room table.

You were in relaxed jeans and a button-down flannel shirt, partially unbuttoned and revealing a lace-trimmed camisole underneath. You looked completely comfortable, and maybe for the first time since Sonny met you – completely comfortable with yourself. You had a relaxed air about you. Maybe it was all the sunshine. More likely, it was all those tamales that you raved about.

Bella dished out pie while Dom Senior poured mugs of coffee and passed them around. Sonny’s mother went to the kitchen and came back a few minutes later bearing a plate of reheated leftovers. She placed it in front of you with a smile.

“I’m sorry I was late,” you said with a rueful shrug. “Our plane didn’t have a gate and it took forever to get here.”

His mother waved off your apology. “We’re just glad you’re here.”

You tucked into your leftovers one handed, your other arm cradling the baby as she dozed off against you. It made Sonny smile to see it. You were always such a natural with his nieces – even this one who had just met you.

“How long are you staying?” Dom Senior asked.

You chewed a forkful of stuffing and swallowed before you answered. “I fly back on Sunday morning.” Sonny felt his stomach drop. You were only here for a few days, and it already felt like time was slipping away too quickly.

You glanced over at him and caught his gaze before you continued. “I have a few more months on my sublet here in New York, but after that, I’m going to move back.” You gave him a smile. “I’ve made great connections, and I’ll probably have to travel back to L.A. more than I’d like, but plenty of composers and musicians live elsewhere.”

Bella scoffed and gestured to the window where an icy rain was pattering against the glass. “You’re trading in warm weather and sunshine for this?”

“Aren’t you the one who gave me a list of reasons why L.A. was worse than New York?” you teased back.

“I just liked living vicariously through you,” she shot back. “How many friends run into one of the Marvel Chrises on the way to the bathroom?”

You nodded and took another bite of stuffing. “True. But I can’t keep up with the people out there. Too many diets and workouts. Everyone assumes I’m a wannabe actress and critiques me accordingly.” You scowled at your plate. “One producer told me that I was a ‘New York five but an L.A. two,’ and that was after he realized I was there to score his garbage movie.”

Sonny felt a flare of hot anger to hear that some guy made you feel bad about yourself. “You’re a Staten Island eleven,” he blurted, making the table erupt in laughter. He felt his face growing red, and his dad reached over and clapped him hard on the back.

“Smooth, son,” he chuckled, but Sonny’s mom reached over from the other side and smacked her husband.

“Like you ever did any better,” she teased. Dom Senior snatched her hand as she tried to draw it back and kissed the back of it.

“I did good enough to get you,” he said with a wide grin, making Bella groan in embarrassment. Sonny, though, could only watch you across the table.

********

Sonny’s family was old-fashioned, despite having a grandchild out of wedlock and a daughter who had recently divorced. As such, you and Sonny put up what you hoped was a convincing charade about how he was going to drive you to a friend’s place where you were crashing for the next few days.

The reality, of course, was that within seconds of returning to his apartment, he had you pressed against his door, the two of you kissing fiercely and pawing at each other like you were each drowning. There were too many sensations and emotions: the feel of his warm hands as they untucked your shirt and camisole to touch your back. His mouth on yours, his lips impossibly soft. His thigh, as it pressed between your own legs and parted them.

You reached down and tugged at his grey Henley, breaking the kiss long enough to pull it over his head, ruffling his hair even more. You tossed it aside and then his mouth was back on you, kissing the sensitive spot at the junction of your neck and shoulder, sending chills through you.

“I missed you so much, doll,” he whispered against your neck. His breath was hot and sent another tremor through you.

You ran your fingers through his hair. “I missed you more,” you breathed back.

Sonny fumbled at your shirts. His fingers scrabbled at your button-up, and he mumbled curses when he couldn’t get it undone fast enough. When he did get it unbuttoned, he tried to pull it off of you, but your sleeves got caught and he cursed again as he unbuttoned the cuffs.

You pushed him off of you so that you could handle it, so he shifted his attention to his own clothes. He tugged his undershirt over his head, but slowed and then stopped completely to watch you as you removed your camisole.

You bent over and pulled your boots off, then straightened up to unbutton your jeans. You looked up at Sonny and laughed at him. His chest was rising and falling with his shuddering breaths, and his mouth hung slightly agape.

He moved swiftly to you. He pressed you back against the door, latching his mouth on the pulse point. You laid your hands on his bare chest and tugged on his sparse smattering of blond hair there.

Sonny’s hands drifted down to your hips and finished unzipping your jeans. He unlatched his mouth from your neck and worked his way down, pushing your pants down over your hips, down you thighs. His ran his warm palms over your bare legs before he pulled your jeans over your feet and tossed them aside.

He knelt in front of you, and you laid your hands on the top of his head. You tangled your fingers in his hair, tugging it gently, trying to get him to stand back up. He looked up at you, in just your underwear, while he was still half-clothed.

“You need to catch up, Dominick,” you said. You loved the way his sunny blue eyes turned dark when you called him by his first name.

Instead of responding to you, he slid an arm behind you, cupping your ass in his large hand and pulled your lower half towards him until his face was pressed into your lower belly. You ran your nails over his scalp, drawing low groans from him that vibrated through you. His hot breath made the throbbing between your legs increase almost painfully. You felt dangerously close to losing your legs underneath you.

“S-Sonny,” you stuttered as he moved his mouth a fraction lower. “I need you.”

“You have me,” he murmured against you. He licked along the lace waistband of your panties, making your knees buckle just a bit.

You tightened your grip on his hair, drawing another groan from him. You felt almost dizzy with desire and had to press the back of your head against the door and take a few deep breaths to calm yourself.

“Sonny, we have plenty of time,” you told him in a strangled voice. “But right now, I really need you.”

His other hand landed on your hip, tugging at the edge of your panties and pressing wet kisses on each new inch of exposed skin. He didn’t reply, too focused on moving his mouth closer and closer to his target.

“Damnit, Dominick!” you yelled, and you pulled his hair hard enough to get his attention. He looked up and shot you a wounded look, like a puppy that had been scolded, but whatever he saw on your face made him stand up and press the length of his body against yours. You pulled his face to yours and kissed him breathlessly, without any art or ability. Just his mouth with his soft lips against yours, tongues sliding against each other, breathing each other’s moans.

“I need you,” you repeated, panting against him. He shifted his head back to the nook against your neck. “Please. I…I’ve waited for this for months. I’ve missed you, Sonny. So, so much.” You wrapped your hand along the back of his neck, stroking between his hairline and the knobs of the top of his spine. You felt rather than heard Sonny sniffling against you, and you felt the first tears when they hit your shoulder.

“I missed you too, doll,” he said. “And it’s been a tough year.” His voice was watery, and you tightened your grip around him, pulling him as tight as you could. He took deep breaths against you as he tried to regain his composure, and once he was calmed, you took his face between both of your hands. You forced him to face you, and you looked into his brilliant blue eyes, now rimmed and swollen from his tears.

“I love you, Dominick,” you said solemnly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you.”

He shook his head gently between your hands. “I’m glad you went, doll.” His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled at you. “I’d never want to hold you back.”

You couldn’t help but smile back at him – his namesake sunniness was contagious. “I’m here now though.”

“You are.” He reached down to grasp the back of your thighs, and you jumped up into his arms. You bit back a moan at the sensation of him pressed against your core, and you wrapped your arms around his neck as he carried you into his bedroom and laid you down on the bed.

He stood at the foot of the bed and removed the rest of his clothes, and you wriggled out of your underwear so that when he crawled over you, you were both completely naked.

You could feel the conflict in him – you knew that Sonny was gentle and probably wanted to take his time, but you also could feel how badly he missed you. He settled on an uneven middle ground, pressing slow, wet kisses to you while his hands roved wildly over your form.

His mouth drifted a lazy path from your mouth to your jaw and down your neck, across your collarbones and back to your mouth. His hands wandered down your sides and up your front to cup first one breast and then the other. He stroked your nipples until they were peaked and hard under his caresses.

Spurred on by your moans and your squirming underneath him, his hand glided further down until it was pressed between your legs. He slid a finger between your folds and groaned at how wet you were. He pulled his head back to peer down at you, and your face felt red-hot.

“I told you I needed you,” you muttered at him, avoiding his gaze.

“I told you that you have me,” he replied thickly, and he pushed his finger into you slowly, making both of you moan. Your face grew hotter, which didn’t seem humanly possible, as he stared down at you through half-lidded eyes. He slid a second finger into you, then shifted his hand so that his thumb was circling your clit.

You huffed out a breath through your nose and tried to calm yourself, but you felt a liquid heat pooling deep in your belly, and you knew you weren’t going to last long.

“Sonny, stop,” you whispered. You felt him hesitate and pull his hand away from you. You looked up and saw the question in his eyes.

“I want to…finish,” you stammered. “With you, you know. Inside me.”

He nodded and shifted his weight off of you to reach into his nightstand for a condom. You used the moment to try and steady yourself again, squeezing your eyes shut as you heard him rip the wrapper. Then you felt him stretch himself on top of you again, and you felt his hand cup your face, the thumb stroking your cheekbone.

“Hey, look at me,” he said softly. You opened your eyes and looked up at him. He gazed down at you as if you were the only other person in the world.

All the years of frustrated longing, all the other people you’d each been with, every conversation and glance laden with unrequited love – it all fell away when he looked at you like that. You smiled at him and reached up to cup his own face in your palm, and he leaned into it, touch-starved. After a moment, you simply nodded at him, and he reached down to line himself up with your entrance.

He pressed the tip of his erection into you with a groan, and you felt dangerously close to the edge. He slid into you slowly – way too slowly. His position on top of you made the angle shallow, and his length dragged along your sensitive clit as he pressed himself into your molten core.

You wanted to make it last, but every single sensation was too much: the friction on you bundle of nerves where the two of you were joined. His hot breath, panting praise in your ear. The scent of his cologne and your perfume mingling along with the headier scent of sex.

He was only halfway inside you, but it was too late. You gasped his name once, and then shuddered underneath him with a whimper, your legs wrapping around him to pull the rest of him into you in one thrust. He started to reply to you, but he growled instead as your sheath gripped him, your orgasm ripping through you. You shut your eyes as you came, moaning his name over and over. You were distantly aware of him cursing above you, and he gave a single thrust until he came too.

He collapsed on top of you completely, and his weight pressed you into the mattress. He groaned again, in frustration this time. You stroked his hair at the back of his head until you both recovered. He lifted his head to looked down at you.

“I’m sorry,” you each said at the same time, and you both laughed. He leaned down and kissed you firmly before he shifted his weight and pulled out of you. He left the room for a moment to dispose of the condom, then he came back into the bedroom. He laid down beside you, and you each turned on your sides to face each other.

“I’m sorry I came too quickly,” you said with a rueful grin. “I was too worked up, I guess.”

He pinched your chin lightly between his fingers and kissed you again. “It’s all well and good for girls,” he grumbled good-naturedly. “But I didn’t last at all. Now all my street cred it gone.” You laughed at this, and he pretended to look angry.

“It’s your fault,” he continued. “You set me off.”

“Well, I owe you then,” you replied. You tried to look contrite. “Since your street cred is gone and all that.” You snuggled up against him, enjoying the feeling of his skin pressed against yours. He wrapped a lanky arm around you and pulled you tighter.

You felt comfortably drowsy, the net effect of your flight, Ma Carisi’s dinner, and being back in Sonny’s bed. He hummed above you contently, and you started to doze off until your cell phone chimed from the other room. You roused a bit but settled back against him.

Then it chimed again, and a third time.

“You need to get that?” Sonny asked. His voice rumbled through his chest. “Your west coast boyfriend, maybe?” You knew he was joking, but there was still a jealous undercurrent to his tone.

“There was no west coast boyfriend,” you murmured against him. “Unless you count my detachable shower head.”

He snorted at this but you could feel the relief in him as he relaxed against you.

Then his phone chimed, one after another after another.

“Is that Nicole?” you asked, only half-meanly. He snorted again before he untangled from you and grabbed at his pants at the foot of the bed.

“Be careful,” he said as he pulled his phone out of his pants pocket. “If you say her name three times, she’ll turn up and haunt your house.” You laughed at this and sat up. You wound his blanket around yourself. Sonny unlocked his phone.

“Is it work?” you asked. You felt your stomach dip. You wanted to stay in this little bubble with Sonny for the entire weekend. A little sex bubble, maybe with the occasional movie and homemade pasta break.

He just chuckled in reply. “No, it’s Bella.” He held up his phone so that you could read the screen. “She tried to text you and you didn’t reply. Now she’s of the impression that you’re here with me, corrupting her chaste, virginal brother with your wanton ways.” He typed out a reply, then turned off his phone and tossed it on the nightstand before lying back down. He grabbed you around the waist and pulled you down beside him.

“What did you tell her?” you asked.

“The truth,” he said. He kissed you chastely, then tilted his head to deepen the kiss. He broke away to look down at you, and his blue eyes were glittering with unshed tears again. “I told her that you’re home.”

#sonny carisi #sonny carisi imagine #sonny carisi x reader #law and order svu #law and order svu fanfiction #tropes and tales

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akairokara · 1 month

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very long post about cabanela. rotating that man in my head sorry

ok ive also been trying to piece together what we know abt jowd n cabanelas history and personalities since their current personalities r basically traumatised ‘laugh bc if you don’t you’ll cry’ versions.

so im guessing jowds more of a stickler for the rules whereas cabanela’s an instinctive kinda guy (a la lassiter and shawn from psych)

then we get to the relationship and trust between them. the way cabanela is convinced jowd would never do sth like that EVEN when he straight up confesses. the trust jowd has in cabanelas powers of deduction, that he tampers with the crime scene and hides evidence to stop him from investigating, and makes a plan to give him the evidence only after jowds dead.

later we see the way cabanela approaches the situation… he’s no longer as much of a wild card (and lynne also says after that incident he changed). he takes the route he thinks is the best to save jowd and dedicates everything to it

even at the expense of being misunderstood/villainised by people he loves and cares about. plus he makes sure to do it all aboveboard bc he knows how important it is that jowd is exonerated, not just free - it feels like the whole thing really sobered him up because in the end he knows it was his fault.

then we have like. post divorce era jowd and cabanela idk im thinking cabanela’s pissed bc he knows jowds lying but is frustrated at his insistence to just be executed. so he doesn’t share his investigations with jowd, and likewise all jowd knows abt cabanela’s movements outside prison is what the guards/lynne say: that he only cares abt his spotless record and moving up in the world.

and maybe the spotless record thing is a holdover from cabanela’s younger days? i can see it being a point of contention between them so itd make sense that jowd would believe that. meanwhile cabanela’s realised that the one good thing about his record is using it to climb the ladder and save Jowd.

then we have this scene, which of course makes me feel insane. that jowd the stickler for the rules is the last minute hero, while cabanela the wildcard hotshot is the one doing the legwork to set it up is such a delicious subversion to me. partners that need each other and work together or whatever. plus the idea that this is a running thing

also this thing where he just jokes about things and plays it off. it makes me crazy sorry

AND THIS. 🤐 beaming my thoughts into the stratosphere

anyway probably as the ending comes we will see more of their personalities but im just thinking abt their first case as detectives…… Jowd trying to play by the rules and cabanela rushing into situations bc he’s Deduced Something and Jowd has to clean up the mess he makes (like impulsive cabanela is canon bro left his fucking gun in the interrogation room good lord man)

#cabanelaposting #fool speaks #sawry feel free to ignore this it’s literally just babble. i had to just get it out somewhere #if you have cabanela headcanons/thoughts PLEASEE 🤲🤲🤲 do u agree. do u disagree. further thoughts #i hit the image limit :(

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kimpossibly · 3 months

Text

beneath the ice (peter prior)

pairing: peter prior x fem!reader

summary: sometimes following a lead can be a deadly pursuit with unforseen circumstances. especially in ennis.

wc: 4k

warnings: situations of peril (description of a near drowning), swearing, blood, hospitals, peter and kayla r separated and getting a divorce sorryyy, kissing/making out

author's note: HI SORRY I DISAPPEARED FOR FOREVER HI HELLO HOW ARE YOU. i started college last fall so i guess i just got caught up in the swing of things and really lost my game, but here i am! can't promise i won't disappear again as i still do have to finish up the semester (and i may be writing an original novel *winky face*) but i just HAD to come on here and rant because the true detective brainrot is real guys. so so real. i was literally looking for content after the first ep and i was like wait...it doesn't even exist yet which is SO CRAZY because usually i write for/obsess over characters with so much content already out there so like. i guess i gotta make the content this time??? let me know if you want more peter fics because the brainrot is REALLLL. okay, love you! hope you enjoy!

"This is a bad idea."

"Yeah, probably."

Y/N had had it up to here with Peter's complaints. They stood at the edge of the frozen lake, their flashlights beaming over the glassy surface. It was around three o'clock, the sixth day of dark. Y/N still didn't feel fully adjusted to the constant darkness, especially with the case of the Tsalal station in full force. Sleep was a rare commodity nowadays, and she usually relied on that sleep to keep her sense of night and day in check. She wasn't getting any of that now.

"We're not going to be able to see anything from here," she muttered, squinting out at the lake. She took a tentative step off the snowy edge and tested the ice, putting half her weight on it to see if it would hold.

Peter saw what she was thinking before she did it, and he was going to do his damned best not to let it happen. "You're not going out there."

Y/N looked back at him. "I used to be a dancer, remember? I'm light on my feet."

"You were a tap dancer."

"Same difference."

She put one foot on the ice, taking a step forward. There was a little creaking sound as the ice adjusted to her weight, but it held. Peter caught her arm before she could take another. "Y/N."

She pursed her lips. "You can come with me if you want, but it might only hold one of us. Your choice."

"We'll call someone. We'll call Danvers, or—"

"We're here now. We might as well get out there and start looking."

He didn't like this idea. He did not like this plan. But Y/N had, seemingly, set on it. There wasn't much he could do now to stop her. He couldn't beat her, and joining her would probably make things worse. All he could do now was watch her. "Stay close to the edge."

Y/N grinned. "I knew you'd come around."

She turned and aimed her beam of light at the glassy ice, taking a few, slow steps forward. She could see straight through the glass now, to the rocky bottom below. If her lead was right...something would be here. Awena Lake. Something was here.

She traversed farther and farther onto the frozen surface, the wind whipping her hair around her face. She was far. Too far, in Peter's opinion. He was about to call out to her when suddenly she stopped, staring down at a place in the ice.

What he didn't know was that she was staring down at a face.

She whispered something her voice quiet, terrified. Then, a scream. Y/N fell to her knees, punching at the ice, trying to break through.

"Y/N!"

She heard Peter calling her name, but she could only focus on breaking through that ice. Punched and punched and punched until her knuckles split and suddenly the ice below her was getting painted with blood every time she brought a fist down. She was almost in a trance, beating away at the solid glacial matter that just wouldn't break.

But then, of course, it did.

It happened so quick that Peter couldn't missed it if he blinked at the wrong moment. One second he was taking slow, cautious steps onto the ice, heading to get Y/N before she did something really stupid. The next second there was a sound like breaking plaster and a splash, and Y/N disappeared under the ice.

She felt hands grasping at her, trying to pull her down. And a voice—there was definitely a voice. She couldn't quite make it out. She opened her mouth to scream back, and as the cold water rushed into her lungs, her lips formed one question: what happened to you?

Her vision went black before she got an answer.

Music. The first thing she noticed when she woke up was the music. And the fact that she was warm, when the last thing she remembered being was really f-cking cold. Her eyelids stuck together as she slowly blinked open, the dim lighting of the hospital room slowly coming into focus. She tried to flex her fingers and found them stiff as ice (no pun intended). She saw the white bandage wrapped around her hands, purple bruises around her wrist and near the tips of her fingers. Jesus. She'd done some damage on that ice.

The fucking music. It was some oldie—70s, probably. It was playing softly from the corner, and she turned her stiff neck to see Peter slumped in a chair, staring down at his phone. What a loser. She cleared her throat to test her voice.

"If you're on TikTok right now, I'll fucking kill you."

Peter jumped at the sudden sound, his phone clattering to the ground. Y/N laughed, though it quickly turned into a wheezy cough. She sat up, a bandaged hand covering her mouth as she continued to choke. Peter rushed to her side, filling up a paper cup with the water pitcher on the bedside table. He handed it to her and she waited for the coughs to dissipate a bit before taking a gulp of the cold water. She sucked in a breath and found her ribs fighting back against the stretch. Everything was sore. Which, she reminded herself, was her own fault.

"Do you want me to call the doctor?" he asked, dragging the chair closer to sit beside her.

Y/N shook her head. "Nah. M'fine."

He gave her a look, and she clarified, "As fine as I can be."

Peter looked like he wanted to say something for a moment, but held it back. Y/N noticed a manila file on the other side of her and raised an eyebrow, reaching for it. Even leaning over caused her ribs to scream back in pain, but the snatched the folder anyway, flipping it open to see her own medical chart. "Hypothermia, boxer's fracture in both hands, ventricular fibrillation...Jesus. Okay, so I did some damage. My bad."

"What the fuck, Y/N?"

She looked up from her file. Peter had a look on his face she couldn't quite parse. Anger? Pity? Whatever it was, it was heightened by the fact that his under eyes were darker than she'd ever seen them. He stood up, pacing a bit. "Can you stop treating this like it's some fucking joke? You fell through the ice. I had to call Danvers and tell her you almost got yourself killed following some shit lead. You know what she said?"

Y/N stayed silent, fearing that whatever she said would make things worse.

"She asked me why the fuck I didn't stop you."

Y/N wanted to bite back, to yell that it wasn't his responsibility to tell her what to do and what not to do. But, she reminded herself, he probably knew that. It didn't matter. If Danvers said he should've stopped her, he should've stopped her. At least, that's probably how it went in his mind.

She said nothing. Eventually Peter shook his head, muttering something under his breath before going back on his phone. Y/N stared at her own hands, dragging her finger over a little spot of blood that had begun to peek through it. She tried to shift herself a bit and a pain shot through her ankle. She grimaced, hissing lightly at the sting. She pulled her blanket aside and looked down, her stomach twisting when she saw a purple bruise surrounding her right ankle. Almost like a hand.

"Geez. What, did you drag me out by my ankles?" she said to Peter.

"What?" he replied, not looking up, "no, I grabbed your hand."

"Then what the hell is that?"

She pointed, and Peter's eyes followed where she was indicating. "Maybe you kicked something," he offered, "you were trying to swim back up to the surface."

Y/N frowned, something nagging in the back of her mind. "No I wasn't."

"Yes, you did. I saw you."

"No, I was dragged."

Peter shook his head, as if trying to make the words coming out of her mouth form a logical sentence. "What?"

The memory came flooding back to Y/N. The moment just before she started punching at the ice. The face. "I saw her."

"Saw who?"

"Annie."

Peter stilled, his jaw loosening ever so slightly. He looked at Y/N, and for a moment he wondered if the hypothermia had gotten to her brain. "What?"

"Annie K. I saw her under the ice, so I tried to go down and get her."

"Y/N, Annie's-"

"She's fucking dead, I know," she snapped. "But I saw her, alright? I wouldn't start punching solid ice for nothing."

And now Peter was left in a conundrum. On the one hand, Y/N wouldn't lie about something like this. He trusted her that far at the very least. But what she was saying she saw...that went beyond reasonable explanation. He looked at her hands, remembering how they looked just after he pulled her out of the ice. Raw and bloody and bruised. He saw the way she was punching at that ice. It was desperate. No logical person would fuck up their hands like that for a lie. She was really reaching for something. For someone, if that's what she says.

There was still one issue: Danvers wouldn't hear it. They saw how far Trooper Navarro got when she tried to bring Annie's name into the equation. Zero tolerance. They couldn't expect any more grace from the chief.

"You don't have to believe me-"

"I do, Y/N. I do."

She was a little surprised at that. She'd expected Peter to tell her she was crazy. Nevertheless, she could take his belief and run with it. "Then help me," she said, her voice stern. "Follow this lead with me as far as it can go. We don't have to tell Danvers, and if it leads nowhere it leads nowhere. Just don't make me do it on my own."

Conundrum #2: Does he stay on the sidelines or jump through that ice with her?

Fuck it. It's gonna be cold either way.

"Fine."

Y/N's lips turned up into a small smile. Before she could respond, though, one of their co-workers, Lissy, popped her head in the door. "Hey, Prior. You're relieved of L/N duty."

Y/N sat up in bed, giving Peter a look. "L/N duty?"

He gave a sheepish shrug. "Would it help if I said I volunteered?"

"Get out of here. Smartass."

Danvers came eventually to swear at her and ask what the hell she'd been thinking. She gave Danvers the real, honest answer, which was that she wasn't. She'd probably take that better than a lie.

But eventually, of course, she had to.

"And what the hell made you start punchin' that ice?"

Y/N paused. "I thought I saw something, but it was—it wasn't—"

"Well, what?" Danvers snapped. "What was it? Wasn't it?"

"It was nothing, okay? It was a false lead."

That was hard to say, even if it wasn't true.

The highlight of the whole situation was that, at the very least, Y/N's circadian rhythm had gone back to somewhat normal. She looked over files until around eleven o'clock at night when she couldn't keep her eyes open for more than ten seconds at a time. Trying to sleep was a battle for a moment, what with the sore everything and the hands that could barely grasp at the blankets to pull them up to her chin. But eventually exhaustion won out, and she fell asleep to the gentle hum of the hospital's heating system.

And though she never really had in her life, she dreamed.

She dreamed that she was back under the ice, the rocks beneath her feet, crystal clear water swallowing her hole. And there was Annie, beckoning her further and further out. She swam for her until her muscles burned. The further out Annie took her, the darker the water got, and the colder and colder she felt. It got so dark and so cold that she couldn't see Annie at all. It was only when she squinted that she could see her hands in front of her face, and she watched in horror as frost crept over her skin and nipped at her blood.

When Y/N jolted awake, it took her embarrassingly long to realize she was standing on the roof of the hospital. Her bare feet were buried in the snow, the tips of her toes hanging over the edge, five stories above Ennis. A yelp tore out of her mouth before she could stop it, her balance wavering for a single, terrifying moment.

She stepped down from the ledge as soon as she got her bearings, the wind blowing right through her hospital gown and stinging her skin. She stumbled back into the hospital, arms wrapped around herself as she tried to recover from the intense cold, all the while wondering how the hell she got up there.

There was seemingly only one answer: she brought me there.

Peter's kitchen table was littered with crime scene photos. Darwin toddled on the floor, playing with his stuffed elephant, while Peter brewed a fresh pot of coffee. Y/N was so focused that she didn’t notice as Darwin stood and reached his little hand up, grasping for the photos. His fingertips found purchase and he started to pull a particularly bloody photo off the table. Y/N snatched it out of his grasp just before he could be scarred for life and Darwin let out a little giggle.

“Close call, little man,” she said, “that would’ve taken a lot of therapy to unsee.”

Darwin stuck his tongue out at her. She stuck hers out back.

“Kayla should be on her way to come get him. She's trying to beat the storm,” Peter said, scooping Darwin up and carrying him safely away from the photos. They sat down between the couch and the fireplace, and Y/N, suddenly craving a break from the blood and gore, got up to go meet them.

"You guys doing okay?" she asked as she sat cross-legged beside Darwin. "You and Kayla?"

She could tell immediately that she hit a nerve. Peter's eyes darted away from Darwin instantly, his gaze instead setting on the fire. He didn't answer for a moment, and for a moment Y/N thought maybe he was acting like he didn't hear her. "We, uh...we separated."

Y/N frowned. "What?"

"Two months ago. Maybe two and a half."

He picked up the fire poker and stoked the flames—not because they needed to be, but because if he didn't have something to do with his hands he'd go crazy.

Y/N didn't quite know what to say. She remembered when her parents separated, but she was too little to do much about it. Too young to think about comforting them.

"I'm sorry," she said.

Peter just shook his head and shrugged like it was no big deal. "It was coming eventually. We just finally owned up to it."

"Still. It sucks."

"Yeah."

They sat in silence for a moment. Darwin handed the elephant over to Y/N to make way for his sudden interest in picking out the fuzzies in the carpet.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm becoming increasingly concerned that my ice plunge gave me walking pneumonia."

That didn't make it better, but it did get him to laugh.

They played with Darwin and generally avoided the topic of work until there was a knock at the door. A hush seemed to fall over them, reality setting back in. Peter got up, taking Darwin with him, and Y/N went back to the kitchen table. She made herself busy (or, at the very least, she made herself look busy) with files.

Peter opened the door with Darwin in one arm, Darwin's weekend backpack in the other. Kayla stood there on the other side. She grinned and cooed as she took Darwin, but the grin faded when it became clear that she had to interact with Peter.

Look at the files, Y/N. What's happening at the door is none of your business.

Ugh, but eavesdropping would be so fun.

"What's she doing here?" she heard Kayla say. Both she and Peter looked over to where Y/N was sitting.

Well, at least I don't have to eavesdrop.

Y/N looked up, raising an awkward hand in greeting. "Hi Kayla."

"Hi Y/N," Kayla replied. She wasn't cold, but it was clear that Y/N wasn't her favorite person in the world.

Peter said something about work, but Y/N couldn't decipher it. She went back to work, trying to block out the distant sounds of what seemed to be a heated conversation. Eventually the door closed (not slammed, luckily) and Y/N looked up. Peter stared at the wooden door for a few seconds after it had closed, like he thought it might open again. Y/N rushed to look away as he finally turned and headed in her direction. She tried not to shift as he took a seat on the side of the table closest to her, taking his own stack of files and beginning to sort through them.

After a moment, she spoke. "Aaaaare we gonna talk about that?"

"No we are not."

"Got it, got it."

They studied crime scenes. They looked at the facts. They asked a lot of wrong questions and maybe a few right ones. They got so deep into the case of the Tsalal men that they didn't realize when the clock struck three in the morning just as Peter was about to brew a new pot of coffee.

"Huh," was all Y/N could manage to say when she saw the time.

"Huh," Peter agreed.

She looked outside, which at this time of night was a greyish blur of falling snow moving at too many miles per hour. This was the type of storm Y/N's mother told her to watch out for. People who drove out in these either ended up wrecked or freezing to death before they made it home. "Mind if I stay the night?"

Peter nodded. "'Course."

Ten minutes later, Y/N was curled on the couch with a down comforter draped over her to block out the chill (with the help of three layers of clothes and another blanket on top). The lights were out and all she could hear was the sound of whistling wind as she drifted off to sleep.

And for the second time in years, she dreamed.

She was back under that water, cold seeping into her bones. She saw the surface just a few feet above her head, close enough to touch. She reached up, but before her frozen fingers could make contact with the frozen sheet of ice she could use to pull herself up, a hand seized her ankle and dragged her down. She screamed, but only bubbles escaped her mouth, the sound absorbed by the freezing waters that enveloped her. She rushed to suck in a breath and the water flooded in to meet her screaming lungs.

She was dying.

She looked down at the one who was dragging her, and saw someone she knew to be dead.

"Y/N..."

"Annie?" Y/N said. More bubbles. Annie just looked at her, and somehow she knew: Death was coming.

"Y/N!"

Peter's hand landed roughly on her shoulder, enough to shake her out of the dream and make her realize that she was standing outside in the swirling snow, which was getting worse by the second. She turned, and their faces were so close that their matching frozen, red noses were inches away from touching.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Y/N made no reply, trekking back towards the house as quickly as her bare feet could take her. Annie’s eyes were still flashing across her mind every few seconds, as if trying to come back to the surface and consume her again. She wouldn’t let that happen.

As soon as the door shut behind her, the wind howling and doing its best to pry it back open again, she collapsed against it, trying to stave off cold and paranoid visions. She vaguely heard Peter mutter No, come here, as he pulled her up from the floor and guided her to the fireplace, which he promptly lit. He draped a blanket around her, then two, then three. She must’ve looked like a floating head with all the fabric covering her from the shoulders down as she curled on the floor, knees drawn up to her chest. He sat down beside her after he was satisfied she had enough to warm her up. She was shivering slightly, but the horrified look in her eyes made him wonder if that was totally from the cold. He didn’t ask. He sat, staring straight at the fire with her. That was all he could do.

“It was Annie,” Y/N said finally, her voice hoarse. “She took me out there.”

Peter didn’t respond—he was sure the explanation she would give, if she gave any, would go entirely over his head.

Y/N swallowed hard before continuing. “She’s involved in all this. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why. But something about Annie is still alive. Because what happened to her? That’s what happens when men get angry. But when women get angry? You end up out in the snow in the middle of the night with no idea how you got there.”

Silence.

“She’s angry. We just have to figure out why.”

Peter looked at her, color starting to bloom in her previously purple lips. She stared intently ahead as she talked, almost as if she were in a trance. When Peter reached out and took a lock of her hair gently between his fingers, she didn’t flinch. She glanced over at him, her eyes illuminated by the fire he’d set.

“Your hair froze,” was his only explanation.

Y/N looked down and saw that he was right. Little ice crystals had formed in patches of her hair. She wondered how long she’d been out there in the cold.

She wasn’t sure who leaned in first, or when the images of Annie disappeared from her mind, but in an instant Peter’s lips were on hers, and all visions of Annie floated away, replaced only by the feeling of his lips and hands.

It was only a moment before he pulled away, his eyes shut in a way that suggested he fucked up. For the second time in a week she’d nearly found herself in a life-threatening situation, and here he was playing with her hair and kissing her like a besotted middle schooler. She would be mad—she had to be.

“Sorry,” he said quietly.

“Don’t be,” Y/N said, pulling him back to her and kissing him again.

That was all the okay Peter needed. He pulled her to him again, this time a bit rougher, but still careful not to accidentally push any blankets off her. It was Y/N who eventually shed them, pulling him onto the couch with her. It was still too cold inside for either of them to remove any more layers they already had on (which they both found extremely unfortunate), but that didn’t stop Y/N from crawling atop him and straddling his waist to better kiss him.

After what felt like hours (but was probably only twenty minutes), they wound up that way, with Y/N laying her head on Peter’s chest, his arms wrapped tightly around her to hold him to her. Her heart rate was just starting to slow down when Peter spoke.

“You know I’ll help you see this through, right?”

Y/N looked up at him. “Yeah.”

He ran a soft hand through her hair and she laid back down.

“This is a bad idea, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, probably.”

But, funnily enough, neither of them cared.

#peter prior #peter prior x reader #true detective night country #true detective

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