#my bet is ellis. man cannot catch a break

[penaltybox14]

Decofiremen: The Letter

@zeitheist @darknight-brightstar @squad51goals Oh no more Decofiremen.  Is it still found family if you’re finding it again?  Do you get double points for that?

Or, Josiah is way in over his head.

...

Josiah sits at his desk a long time, and the pile of scrapped letters grows around him, and the bells pass the day away.  With the windows open to the big yard, he can feel like chill in the autumn air, the swift kiss of a one-time lover in the morning. 

Monroe is shouting at his team - quicker this, steadier that.  An engine coughs, groans, and finally turns over, to cheers and clapping - that'd be Lieutenant Jackson, who brought his new rank and a second kerodiesel up from the city back in early summer.  He keeps carefully and deliberately breaking the engines piece by piece, teaching the lads to put them back together again.  He will likely do something after dinner like pull the fan-belts or throw bacon grease into the pump levers - Josiah thinks the oakbellies would have a faint if they knew what Jackson was doing, but Jackson knows the kerodiesels like some men knew their horses, and Josiah trusts him.  

But what choice does he have?  He was shipped here to be masters of men who had more than a decade of service on him, and belts so heavy with commendation, so fat with brass you'd need a team three abreast to carry them.  He stands beside them some mornings and feels as if he ought to be in line with the lads instead.

Lieutenant T. Castor, Engine 27, Bronx Battalion District ...

No.  He crumples the paper and shoves it off the desk to where the waste-paper basket probably is, buried somewhere.  He taps his pen on the blotter, leaving little wet, smokey blobs of ink on the worn leather.  No, too formal, that.  When did he get so formal?  His fingers are callused and cracked, still thickest where they gripped the horse and axe.  There is a deep scar on his right arm where Chubs, their old bay gelding, bit him for not giving up a mint.  His left arm is a muddled, molten map, scoured of hair and curiously pale, so he pulls the sleeve down.  For the chill.  

Lt. Thomas -

Now what was Silky's middle name?  Did he ever know it?  

Lt Castor -

No, God, no.  They were on nicknames before they even hit the cobbles together.  Never so tough-tongued as a surname between them.  Thomas, he'd said, at breakfast.  I'm Thomas.  I about ran you over yesterday, I'm sorry.  Grab an extra biscuit, Eddy's recipe is the best.

Silky was almost eighteen, and he was wide about the shoulders but leggy, like a colt at Saratoga.  He had auburn hair and a broad, friendly face, and he didn't know his family, and he had been at the foundling hospital in the city and then Mary of the Assumption Home, which was in Nyack, and then he had gone to school with the Jesuits at Saint Joseph's in Rochester, and Captain Parson had come to see him about a month ago and asked if he didn't want to come and be a fireman, and Captain Parson seemed so awfully familiar well, he couldn't help but say yes.

Josiah found all of this out in line at the mess before they even sat down.

I'm sorry.  The brothers told me I talk too much.  Actually the sisters said that, too.  But I was the best at reading the Latin at Mass, they told me.  What's your name?

Silky - someone started calling him Silky sometime that winter, and Josiah can't recall why, but maybe it was during a card game, or maybe it was because he kept his hair slicked down with some sort of glue he got from the drug store in town, or maybe it was just because he could have talked the ladders into becoming trees again, his voice so smooth and his eyes so kind.  Silky had no enemies, had probably never had an enemy, except after card games in the wintertime.  That was Silky.  

Birchy!  We're doing ladder runs today - come let's be on my team.

I bet I can get Peps to hit the quarter-mile gate in a flat minute, Birchy, will you time?

Silky made a man want to be better, not to beat him, but because he cheered it so.  Which was why Silky was so often the second man on the line - he would push you, and you knew you couldn't, wouldn't ever need to, turn back.  No matter where the fire glows, the song said, we'll bring the bastard down.  And they would - when things shone, when his leg was solid under him, he could catch the humming edge of a thought before it hit Silky's tongue, and Silky rested in his amicable quiet, and the two of them brought terror and some begrudging respect to their captain.  

The sun was good, then.  The summer was high and the winter never cut through their coats.  They had grown up together, until the smoke came and the beam fell and neither of them was enough to see it coming.  

Through the ether and the pain, Silky's voice pulled him back, over and over, even when he wanted to leave, even when he wanted the echoes and the needles and the endless white - the white coats, the white sheets, the white, stark, sterile ward - to end.  Silky pulled him back.  Silky's hands in their white wrappings held his, and his Sear murmured as earnestly as his voice did.  Him that would persuade the devil to abandon his house, him that would settle a horse with his eyes.  

There were long days, endless days, when he wanted to fall forever.  Yet Silky pulled him back.

Silky had written him letters just about every week, after his promotion, when he was assigned to Wynantskill.  Eddy or Lufty Parker would dutifully leave them on his desk, where they stacked, precarious and unopened.  After a while the letters came every month, and Eddy stopped clearing his throat when he brought one, and Lufty stopped staring meaningfully at the pile, and Josiah had dumped them wholesale into a drawer to stop the burning in his chest when he saw Silky's precise Jesuit cursive on the envelopes.  

He'd put the key under the blotter.  So there is one less drawer to use.  So it is.

After the first night, young Cleary hasn't said much to anybody.  Antoine and Ellis have been pressing Lufty Parker to let him participate in some of the day's drills, and Jules keeps trying to coax the boy into one of the evening's baseball games.  Josiah sees him watching Betram Cochrane play the fiddle in the evenings, and remembers piano lessons, and a little girl with a pink bow and a dutch bob, and remembers chloroform and morphine and nursing sisters in dark capes and white hats.  The little fellow calls him Capper, which he ought to mind, but he can't bring himself to discourage.  He calls the boy Davey, or young Cleary, depending on who's listening.  

Outside, Antoine is lining up his team to race for the ladders.  He calls for David Cleary on the line, and Josiah hears Monroe sighing mightily and telling Antoine, again, that Cleary is not in training, Cleary is not even sixteen, and would you please stop asking.

Antoine is going to make his captain gray, wherever he is assigned.  He thinks Antoine could be a driver - he is brave enough, to take the narrow streets at speed - but that he will have his own house someday, too.  Josiah should look to send him to the Bronx, where the tenements are so tight they seem to be held together with moss and mothers' shouting, where there will be many families who will need his courage and his kindness.  

Engine 27, Lieutenant -

No, no.  

Ellis is arguing that a growing boy needs exercise and fresh air, not just to sit on the sidelines.

Josiah pulls the key from under the blotter, then puts it back again.  Then pulls it out.  

In the drawer are more than a dozen letters, neatly sealed, which get thinner as the months draw out between them.  

He puts the key back again.

Silky sat by his bedside at Bellevue, his auburn hair loosed from its dapper glue to spring in waves around his temples.  Josiah had wanted so badly to leave, to shed his body, to tumble down some ethereal stairwell in a dreamless morphine sleep where the sun was bright and nothing hurt, where his leg would be straight forever.  But Silky held him pinned to the dark, smoking earth, and a part of him had hated him for it, and the hate was like an abscessed hoof, rank and hot.  He could never ride the boards again, he could never go back, yet Silky pulled him back anyway.  The selfish bastard, who had sweat and fevered with him when the sear broke.  

An evening breeze rustles the crumpled sheets, the abandoned lines, the empty words around him.  Ellis and Antoine are arguing for Davey's sake, and Monroe sounds close to giving in.  Good for them.  

He grabs the edge of the desk and heaves himself, haltingly, the few lumbering steps to the window, leaning out over Monroe's bald spot.  

"Captain Monroe!"

Monroe looks as surprised as the lads to see him, leaning, gritting against his leg, out the window.

No one can see how white his knuckles are in the long afternoon light.

"Monroe, for God's sake.  Just let the boy try for it.  Antoine, so help me, if young Cleary injures himself, I'll saddle a horse with your hide."

Antoine is grinning, his black eyes bright as apples.  

"Birch - "

"A boy needs to run, Monroe."

Monroe throws up his hands.  "Fine then!  Fine!  Let the little fellow break his face!  Let the state's hand come and flick us off the map like a horsefly!  Fine!  Antoine!  Line 'em up!"

Josiah smiles, and hauls himself back to his desk.

My old friend, he writes, I am so sorry I haven't written.  Please feel free not to forgive me.  But I must tell you about the situation I find myself in - you were always the cleverer of the two of us, Silky.  You could have talked the dead to dancing from their graves.  My right hand, whatever God you once believed in has seen fit to trade a boy just twelve his family for his sear, and now at fourteen, he has finally come to us.  Yes, he is too young to train, but he is too young for many things, and once, you told me that the Jesuits told you that God does not give us more than we cannot carry.  Well, my first and last friend, this is more line than I can drag by myself.  If you cannot bear to forgive my silence, Silky, than please bear to give me some advice.  They gave me my captain's coat because they did not know what else to do, and I am lost.  You were my brother from the day we met face-to-horse, and you shared the sear with me.  What am I to do with this boy?  I know that he is ours, he is our youngest brother, but I know we cannot replace his family.  But when I was lost, Thomas, and wanted to stay that way, you pulled me back, bastard that you were and are.  If anybody can tell me what to do now, that he is with us at last, it's you.

Your foolish and misguided friend, who apologizes for what it's worth,

Truly,

Birchy.

#decofire #decofiremen #original works #found family #found it now what #apologies are hard yo #if you need to picture silky just picture that hot guy in the munsingwear ads but with auburn hair #there you go

[askalfendilayton]

For the Best

A/N: Last year at uni, I took a class on crime fiction. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done, and at the end of the semester I had to write an original piece that used some of the conventions I’d learned.

Classic me left this task until the last minute, so while this is an original piece, it is heavily based upon the case from Parasite in chapters 11 - 14. It’s been altered and cut done quite a bit, and has a different ending. The relationship between the ‘detective’ and ‘assistant’ has also changed. While Lucy and Potty grew closer by the end of the case, the same cannot be said of our protagonists here.

Now that I’m no longer paranoid that the marker could find this online and accuse me of plagiarism, I’d love to show you my piece and hear your thoughts. Pyralis and Lou are two characters that fascinate me as they have moved on from their initial inspirations, and I would like to write more about them at some stage.

Heads up that the story does contain a bit of gore towards the beginning and end.

TWO masses of flesh sat in front of her, torn to the point that she wouldn’t have believed them to be human, had the case file in her hand not told her otherwise. It was a sight Louise Ellis would have expected to see at a slaughterhouse, not in the middle of a sleepy village.

Hanging high above from the church steeple was a third body. It was still distinctly human, but she could have easily mistaken it for a toy. The arms and legs had been stretched out, bending at characteristic angles. The man’s eyes were pinned wide open, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. Instead of falling in soft locks around him like she imagined it should have, his hair stood up straight. A pool of blood had collected underneath him, and the smell had drifted over to her.

Lou swallowed quickly. Gore had never phased her much, and she’d reported on it in the past, but only a monster wouldn’t be affected by the scene.

Detective Pyralis Porter came to her side, humming. “Ready?”

She pulled her thoughts together and opened her notepad. “Yes sir. What first?”

Wasting time was no habit of Pyralis’s. “I doubt we’ll learn much from these two,” he said, gesturing vaguely to the bodies in front of them. “A cause of death is impossible to know in their state. The best piece of evidence we have needs to be brought down from there. We’ll send samples from each body to forensics immediately.”

He waited for her to finish writing before he continued. “Don’t look so down, Ellis. We’ve got a murderer to catch, and you have a story to write.”

Breathing in, she finally looked at him properly. She caught a delighted smile on his lips, but it quickly disappeared. “We’ve got a murderer to catch,” she echoed.

*  *  *

THE man atop the church was killed last, Pyralis judged from the fresh stab wound in his abdomen. Aside from interviewing those who found the victims, there was nothing else to be done that day as they waited for the forensics results. The lack of activity bothered Lou, but Pyralis didn’t seem to mind. While he was itching to meet the culprit, she supposed that the brutal crime scene told him enough about what lay in their mind.

As the sun set and the town grew colder, they walked to their accommodation in silence, finally away from the scent of blood. The evening felt like the calm before the storm, though she hated the cliché.

“It’s our ninth case together,” Pyralis commented suddenly. “I wonder how much you’ve learned. Answer me this: why is the third body different?”

“The other two were accidental.” She was surprised by how quickly the words tumbled from her mouth. “I think he meant to kill them, obviously, but he made mistakes, which is why they weren’t also… altered. Maybe the killer meant for all three of them to end up like the third, or he just kept on trying until he finally did it.”

He smiled, but it was far from the one she’d seen that morning. This smile was comforting. “Well done. Perhaps you should reconsider your career in writing.”

Unable to respond, something on the ground served as a needed distraction. Wordlessly, Lou knelt down.

“Hm?” Joining her, Pyralis’s fingers brushed against the pencil shavings in her palm.

She hesitated before speaking. “You’ll say I’m reaching for answers, sir, and I’d agree any other time, but the streets got cleaned yesterday evening. They must be here from last night.”

“Or today. This part of the village wasn’t restricted.”

“Have you seen anybody out today? It’s been dead quiet.” She placed the shavings in a plastic zip-lock bag. “They might not be important, but…”

She could always hope, despite the look on his face that warned her not to.

*  *  *

THE results from forensics came in the next day. As expected, no specific cause of death could be determined for the first two bodies, but the third had an unidentified poison in his system, injected instead of swallowed.

“Poison isn’t unexpected, but only for the last victim?” Pyralis looked up at the church steeple. “He was stabbed as well. What makes him so different from the others?”

When he cast his gaze downwards again, Lou saw the thrill that had crept into his eyes.

“Any old household item can be used as a poison if it’s ingested, but injected? It makes our culprit somebody working with chemicals: a doctor or scientist, likely. Oh yes, Ellis, this information is brilliant. Brilliant. We finally have our suspects.”

*  *  *

THEY emerged from the final house after six consecutive hours of interrogation, Pyralis slamming the door shut just a second after Lou had ducked through.

“A waste of my damn time,” he muttered. Despite his attempts to conceal it, she could feel the frustration rolling off him in waves. “Air tight alibis, the lot of them! What good was that bloody lead if none of them could be our culprit?!”

Lou shut her eyes, exhaling. She’d seen his breaking point in cases in the past, and he was dangerously close. Each dead end was a personal failure to him, and he was growing bored with the game: he needed the finale. “I’m sure we’ll find something soon, sir.”

“We should have found something by now, Ellis.”

“How about we take a break for a little while? We’ll grab some lunch.”

Pacing for a few seconds, he finally took a seat on a nearby bench, sighing. “Fine. I’m not hungry, you get something for yourself.”

Finding a nearby store, she purchased a pre-made sandwich. Turning to leave, the local newspaper caught her eye, and she decided that learning more about the town might help. Even if it didn’t, she would at least have something to read on the train ride home.

When she returned, Pyralis had his eyes closed, peace descending on him again. She handed him the paper and unwrapped her sandwich.

Glancing at the front page, he frowned. “It’s a week old. It won’t have any information about the murder.”

She shrugged, taking a bite. By the time she’d finished, he’d already scanned most of the articles, passing it back to her. “It’s a dull place.”

“It’s quaint.” Spotting the comics section, she started to read them, her eyes drawn to one of the figures.

Staring at it, her mind knew exactly what she was looking at, but at the same time didn’t have the faintest idea. The reason why it was familiar suddenly hit her hard, and she leant over, head in her hands.

“Lou?” Pyralis’s worried voice.

“Pyralis, the victim, i-it’s the third victim,” she managed to gasp.

He said something about how it was a local newspaper, and that it wasn’t that strange for the victim to be in there given the small population of the village, but she shook her head.

In truth, she hadn’t known what the man had looked like during his life. All she knew was that his eyes were now bulging out of his head in a way that could have looked entertaining when added with his spiky hair, and that his arms and legs were stretched thin. It was like he’d walked straight out of a cartoon drawing.

She stabbed a finger at the comic strip. Pyralis froze, but something flickered in his eyes: an instant love for what he was seeing.

*  *  *

HIS knock was firm and impatient. A happy “come in” sounded, and Pyralis strode inside. Lou followed suit, hearing the door creak and slam behind her.

The house was dimly lit, the only light coming from a small lantern that was placed upon a table. Hunched over it, focused entirely on his work, was Ash Scretch. One half of the room was cluttered with well-maintained art supplies, yet the air had a strange smell to it, not just of paint and dust, but something else Lou couldn’t put her finger on.

“I suppose you’re questioning everybody.”

“Perhaps,” Pyralis replied. “You’re the one who draws the comics for the local newspaper?”

“…Yes. What can I do to help you?”

“How about an account of what you were doing two nights ago?” Lou asked.

He gave a small tut, the room falling to silence for a minute before he replied. “Am I being suspected of something?”

“Would you like to be?” Pyralis asked smoothly. Confronting the criminal, he was in his element. “You’re merely a comic artist for a small newspaper, with nothing to show for your talents. Nobody’s claimed that impeccable art piece that was hanging from the church steeple that looks like one of your characters.”

“I bet they haven’t.” At last, Scretch turned towards them. “Apparently it’s a crime.”

Pyralis looked satisfied with the response, and Scretch’s mouth twitched, like he was hiding a secret.

“You have some interesting tools here, for sculpting and woodwork and who knows what else. Any of them could have torn the first two victims to shreds. I think you got impatient and couldn’t wait until after they were dead to begin working on them, so they fought and yelled and you made mistakes.”

Lou heard rustling behind her, but when she turned to look, she couldn’t see a thing.

Scretch sighed, wiping his paintbrush. “Mr… Porter, was it? What evidence do you have of my wrongdoing?”

“Pencil shavings. The culprit wasn’t just there to kill.” Pyralis took the bag from his pocket, shaking it slightly. “I’m sure we’d find a pencil that matches them among your collection, along with some interesting sketches of your character. Looking at the works you have on display, I can tell that you struggle with realism: you need a model. A murder for the sake of art… it’s an unfortunate end.”

Scretch took off his glasses, giving them a wipe-down. “It’s not a crime to sharpen a pencil.” Picking up another brush, he turned back to his work. “Tell me, what was the cause of death, for that victim you claim looks like my character?”

Pyralis seemed to catch on. “You’re asking me to explain how you did it, yes?”

Lou’s heart thumped in her chest, and she scanned their surroundings. Pyralis was keeping up the facade well, but she had to find something quickly.

Stepping towards the back of the room, the smell was stronger there. She peered through the darkness, making out a piece of cloth that was hanging awkwardly atop a table. Picking up the corner of it, there was a pile of skeletons underneath, so small that they belonged to an animal.

There were too many to be some sort of art reference, but maybe Scretch had needed them when they weren’t skeletons at all. She removed the cloth entirely, uncovering a larger item. Her mouth went dry.

“Pyralis, he’s got a snake.”

The conversation behind her ceased. “What?”

“There’s an empty enclosure here, mice skeletons too. I’ve written a piece on snakes before, so I’m certain.”

For a moment his face was empty, before excitement flooded through it. “Brilliant, Lou. No wonder they couldn’t identify the poison.” Pyralis turned away from her, locking eyes with Scretch. “The first two victims thrashed and ruined themselves, so you tore them beyond repair in return. It wasn’t going well for you, so you used the snake to kill the third man quickly, stabbing him afterwards to cover it up. After that, he was easy to work on, wasn’t he?”

“N-No… that’s-”

“The truth,” Pyralis interrupted, looking past Scretch’s head. “Tell us, how did you get a pet snake to kill somebody?”

Sweating, Scretch pressed his back into the desk, his confidence stripped away. Among the shadows, Lou spotted something moving, but couldn’t tell if she’d imagined it.

Pyralis’s eyes had glassed over, his voice clear and peaceful. “They’re not usually aggressive, unless they’re under threat. But it wasn’t the victim that attacked the snake, was it? It was you.”

“That’s-”

There was a flurry of movement, and a second later, a scream. Scretch fell forwards, the snake’s fangs digging deep into his neck as he thrashed about. Lou stepped back, a hand over her mouth. Pyralis only watched.

Scretch gurgled, his hands grappling at his throat before a gentle thud declared him dead. The snake wrapped itself around his body, hissing gently.

Time only seemed to start again when Pyralis touched her shoulder, making her jump. “Let’s go, Lou. The local police and animal services can take it from here. This no longer concerns us.” It was like he was encouraging her before a test that he’d studied for and she hadn’t.

Lou forced herself to look away from the body and up at him. “You knew that was about to happen,” she murmured. Then, her voice grew louder. “You knew! And you just let-”

“It was an unfortunate accident,” he interrupted, looking forward. “But far more unfortunate for his three victims and the snake, don’t you think Ellis?”

Back to last names. Following him outside numbly, Lou supposed it was for the best.

#Mod #writing