How to Kill Your Conscience by frooit
written for rei17 during the Pacific Exchange
cop/detective-AU - snafu/sledge (and others)
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His name is Eugene B. Sledge, but most cats on the streets know him as Sledgehammer. The strong hammer. The swift hammer. The clash and bang. It stretches so far as the precinct. His partner's name is Merriel Shelton, but most everyone just calls him Snafu. The wild card. The dirty one. The walking disaster. Any new guys, rookies, come along and they make it their business to forget his real name real fast. Not only does he have a foul handle, he has one hell of a foul mood.
Eugene's been with this big city district going on five years now and whenever he thinks he's got it, come to some grand conclusion (to life, that is, or maybe it's something else entirely—you can't be too sure where spiritual mumbo jumbo is concerned), he's knocked back a step, put right back where he came in. That genesis happens to be looking down the barrel of a service Colt .45 and pulling up the decidedly damp corner of a satirically white sheet (as if the body underneath were a secret, as if hiding it a courtesy) and asking questions no one wants to answer.
Snafu pitches his fried cigarette and immediately lights another.
Spring fire. Hell fire. That's probably more fitting. It's damnation he's going for. All the cool detectives are doing it. The call of a habit is strong after all, and Eugene knows that habit all too well. He goes home smelling like smoke most nights. Sometimes it's what's left over after a stand off (drifting cordite, eardrum beat-back), but more often it's the regular boredom from his partner's end just getting fed up. They'll be sitting side by side, two by two, in Eugene's old Buick Super, the calm before the gun fight stand off hanging between them and the night running out long. It's in those moments there, right there, before their rat comes squirreling out of its hole, that Snafu and his grey gloom must expand. But then they're off, head long down an alley way, through a doorway, into a bar, a motel, an apartment complex, and they'll give each other a look.
The same look.
Most nights it's adios.
"Good hunting, boys."
Verla, a heavenly radio crackle, their dispatcher. She doesn't like Snafu. She has her reasons (but then, who doesn't these days?). A relative of his, Eugene doesn't know which and hasn't rightly asked, is married to her younger sister. Verla herself isn't married. From the get-go, Snafu claims, that didn't breed anything but dark looks, snapping remarks, and the man's no damn good for her. He takes it all in stride, truly, verily, because that's what Eugene's partner is. He's just a stride and a cough and the curl of tobacco fumes. On a particularly good day he could be a grin too, or a joke and the toss of his crew cut head, the brim of his pulled down hat, the uneven spread of his shrugged down shoulders, because he's always walking away from you, like he'd gotten on the ride just ahead of you, like he's been there and done that already.
It's different with Eugene.
They've been through all the bad times and none of the good.
"Sick ah' this shit."
"Nothing new there."
Snafu spits out the rolled down window.
It won't show on the wet pavement but his pitched cigarette now has company.
"Waiting, waiting, waiting. 'M not patient."
"I know," Eugene agrees and checks the side and rear view mirrors.
You've always got to cover your bases.
"Didn' sign up tah be no sleuth fer fuck's sake."
"Just run and gun an' be hot shit, huh."
"Yeah, exactly."
He doesn't exactly say exactly. He's not a very fluent or easy to understand creature. He comes from the Southern parts of somewhere shaped like the first letter of its name, steeped in voodoo culture, swamps, and bad attitudes. And, can't forget, but some people do, ostracism. He's got roots in France but doesn't show any of it. No elegance, taste, or clean poise. Maybe all that inbreeding's scrubbed it away. He smokes and curses like a damn Frenchman though, so Eugene could be wrong.
Just a little bit.
"Man 'ah action, G. J'st gotta run 'n there."
Eugene scoffs and takes his eyes from the mark long enough to examine his partner. Snafu will keep his eyes out in his absence. He knows that, because he knows he wouldn't dare look away. He wouldn't risk it. He's a damn dog with damn a bone and that bone's on a string strung above his slobbering chops. He's ready to bite, bite, bite. He's got a cruel one of those. Merely suggestions gleaned from his over-tenderized, impish lips and his lines of yellowing but solid teeth. Maybe not suggestions either, maybe personal experiences. There could have been a couple.
"Your life span would be considerably shorter without me around."
"Got 'long well 'nough without ya."
That's a lark.
He's dealing with this muck up because of something to do with babysitting. If you can imagine. This guy's a handful, the whole deal, a fucking daze. When he isn't shooting first, he's forgetting to ask questions later. That's what his superiors said to his face anyway, and only half of it's truth. Eugene knows it's because he'd been diagnosed with a heart problem several months ago. A heart murmur. That's some kind of irregularity in the lining of your thump-thump, a thinning out. A preexisting condition that can get worse over time. Getting down to it (as far as he doesn't want to go), that means it doesn't beat properly. In the way you'd think of mechanical regularity, it isn't. It'll double-beat on a whim and corrupt breath, stiffen limbs. Mayhem, anarchy, chaos.
And that's cause for concern.
Can't go and have a spell on duty, now can he? That wouldn't look very good. The solution wasn't to demote him or send him off on some bullspit relocation, they hand him a shiny new partner. Although new is as new does and this cat's more of an overused toy torn to shreds, hanging on by a stubborn whim. They tell him baby sit and keep your eyes open and we believe in you. But then, they also say a lot of things. Such as, he's been without a partner for some time, the extra work load must be getting to him. The point is, their otherwise outstanding Chief, Haldane, is killing two birds with one stone. He's a good enough man, their Andrew Ack-Ack. A real straight and narrow sort of guy. He knows the stretch of tight budgets, but he holds tighter to old bonds.
Snafu coughs.
It's that down deep smoker's retch.
The kind Eugene doesn't enjoy listening to.
The kind that's usually followed up by a—
"You know that's going to kill you."
"Don' knock it 'les ya tried it."
"Sure."
Eugene resists a sour facial expression. He learns people fast. Always has. That's what keeps you moving on up in this line of work. If you can't read people for a shit you've got no reason trying to believe you can solve their problems. What he's learned from Snafu is that he's animal-like. Always watching. Always on. And, no. You're still not getting it. A twitch, a hiccup, a sneeze, an intense thought process, even an absent-minded itch... it could and usually does mean something to him. It's hard to believe nothin' means nothin', but sometimes it just is. His partner's educated and sharp-tongued (not in the ways you think of as schooling, more like street smarts produced from hard times and solitude and opulent dysfunction). For all of this, he has a dullard's face. Those sleepy blues, that slack jaw, the family-mingling overbite. It's been known to work to his advantage. People peg you right off that bat these days, and they usually get him wrong. Fuckin' snake in the grass that he is.
"I gotta piss," he's saying.
What a catch, ain't he?
"Go for it. We got time."
"Coffee, tea, hand job?"
He's climbing from the car as he says this.
He doesn't slam the door.
He's learned.
Eugene smiles.
"Make it coffee, I think. Save the handy for later."
The jibe and good humour.
It's taken some time to get there.
Life isn't without some graces.
Snafu tips his hat and heads off up the street. Eugene returns to the mark.
Their mark is a little shop across a moderately busy street. A typical place, nothing vengeful or scary on the outside. That's about when you should be remembering you're in the oriental side of town. Things are always going wrong here and they're usually exactly what they seem. Whether it be flack from their own peoples, or what they call out-of-towners, the hornblowing press just can't get enough. A new spin, a bad light, lies and hey, that's good reporting. It's not all fantasy. The streets breathe, sweat and swell here. And boy, don't they have eyes too. Nothing quite sleeps. In the way you'd think of midnight from your childhood: dark and brooding and deceptively quiet. Holding a breath. Taking a pause. It's watchful, but not violent by nature. They call it a good memory.
Snafu has two tallboy paper cups of coffee and a cigarette hanging from his mouth when he returns from the cafe around the corner. Eugene has to lean sidelong over the continental divide that is the center console of his car just to pop the door for him. The toffee-coated seats creak and hiss as he sinks in and gets comfortable. His knees knock the underside of the glove compartment.
The glove compartment.
What Snafu says next disrupts Eugene's impending train of thought.
"Saw yer buddy."
He hands off a cup. Eugene sets the lid on his knee damp side up so he can blow a steady wind over the molten stuff inside. The ripples on the surface are notes of something already realized, a premonition within a premonition, or a thought reborn from moments ago.
It goes something like: You are those ripples, traveling ever outward, moving further from the source (the course) and the way back. You're drawing thin. The walls of your defective personality organ. Thin. Thinner. Thinnest.
His eyes are back to the mark across the street.
He finally asks, "Who?"
"Bert."
Robert Leckie.
Those hornblowing reporters' fantasies?
Most of them are his.
"Great."
He chances a sip.
That's really great too.
Can't say the same for his lungs or the weather.
Or the stakeout.
Snafu flicks his latest defeated cigarette out the window.
"You know littering's a crime."
They both turn in unison.
Speak of the devil. He's what people call Lucky. Because every good cop, criminal and reporter alike has to have a good nickname. It's like they're living in a damn comic book, or the wild west. Like the reality of it can be put aside in labels and codes. He has his face (handsome, but he didn't shave this morning) on their level and right up to the parked car and Snafu's rolled down window. His lips are thin, grinning, pulled up on one side and off balance. It's as if a fish hook's got him. Eugene doesn't care for it. It's a good smile, by all standards, but it's not an honest man's smile.
Eugene takes another sip.
Too early.
Acid burn.
"I could get you for that," Lucky warns.
"Ya try me," Snafu growls.
Lucky keeps the smile but cocks his head.
"What?"
His partner coils. Eugene distracts it quickly.
"And you're crystal, Bert, of course."
"Of course!"
He leans back just enough to throw his arms out in that come on, not me sort of way.
The fish hook smile's gone though.
"I hear you boys are sniffing something out."
His face gets serious, comically covert.
"Something good and nasty. Wouldn't be slinking around in the biggest car in town if you weren't."
"Could get ya fer police int'rference."
"Really, Sledge, how do you work with this?"
"It's what I do, Peaches. Wait 'til you see what he does."
That's the ticket, as they say. With permission now, because he's riled the beast, Snafu's as quick as a shot, forestalling Lucky's angry advance to his lesser known nickname and catching him by his synonymous camera's strap. Lucky loses traction on the slick asphalt below and knocks his chin on the window's inner frame as he's pulled down and in. He barks an ow, shit! right into Snafu's sterile face.
Eugene is theater reproachful.
"Told you."
Snafu lets go and Lucky scoots away as fast as his backpedaling could handle.
"What a prick," he's grumbling, resetting his camera and feeling his chin.
"How about brutality?"
"See you later," Eugene calls.
He gets the picture.
He always does.
Snafu takes a sip of his own coffee.
"Can 'ah shoot 'im next time?"
Eugene watches Peaches (that's a long story, from a different time) shrink in the rear view mirror.
"Maybe."
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With company in the form of coffee, cigarette smoke, small talk and the lonesome building across the street, they're stationary for three good hours before he finally calls it. And it's called fruitless (colourful where his partner's concerned; in the tones of reds and blues and blacks, shit, fuck, bastard). They got this lead from an upstanding source downtown, but it's since gone as cold as their fingers, the tips of their noses and what's left of their coffee down at the bottom of their cups. The subject they're tracking has valuable information concerning a broad daylight robbery. They were told, with some persuasion, that he frequents this shop. Nothing for it now but to return and rethink the matter. More paper pushing for Eugene. More smoking and complaining for Snafu.
"I'm stumped."
Snafu's got his owl eyes on him. That lonely stare the result of too many broken promises and faded dreams as a child, as a teenager, as an adult. He won't pull those wet eyeballs away until Eugene looks over to challenge them and cause a stir. Won't look off until he brings the fact to the surface.
You've been staring. You're always staring.
Eugene starts the car and lets him.
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The body is found three days later in the alley behind a popular restaurant in the area. It's not a bad joint. Good food. A little rich for Eugene's taste. A little snazzy for Snafu. You wouldn't think it a likely place for a homicide. But then, the obvious is for the general public. What lies beneath is for Eugene. The body, come upon by a dish washer late night at closing, had been strangled. The murder weapon left on the scene (a snatch of piano wire) was found at the victim's feet. Signs of a struggle, signs of a fight, but the big guy, Basilone, went down despite.
John Basilone. Not a nobody's name.
He acts in pictures.
A real leading man.
Ain't mucha' nothin' now, Snafu said.
Eugene hadn't agreed or disagreed, he just went on business as usual. He stalked the area, sniffing for clues. The weather was bad then too, wet and cold, but he did come upon something. A ring. A thin little thing, unmarked and silver. He spied it a stretch from the crown of Basilone's fallen head. He popped it in his pocket and watched Snafu start his mugging routine. That's his term, by the way, mugging, not Eugene's. He lifts arms and legs and pulls pockets and turns collars and rifles sleeves. He notes brands of suits, shoes, finger nails, jewelry, and even the length and style of hair.
Snafu might say: Leave no dead man unturned.
They're put on the case because of an old review somewhere that said he has excellent instincts. Well, with no witnesses the only bit of line they have starts in Eugene's right front pocket. With not much else to do and nowhere immediate to be (not like that would have stopped Snafu), they set up headquarters at the restaurant's full bar. The bartender gives them a round for free. Eugene takes a rain check. He thanks the kid, simply saying: I don't drink. He opts for a glass of water instead.
Snafu takes his freebie without any contest (and Eugene's as well).
Eugene's water glass sits and dews, a few missing sips from the top showing the time elapsed. His glass wasn't alone, four empties stand across from it as if opposing, ready to strike. Snafu's been jawing about cars and guns, dames, what was on the television. Even politics. Everything and nothing. Eugene can hear this but doesn't so much as nod. He's on vacation. Lights were are on but we're all out.
"Yer out there."
"Where?"
"Space."
Eugene almost sits on himself as he leans back.
In the anticipation he hisses, winces.
Snafu doesn't take it well.
It draws over his features like a rush of blood, a hot flush.
He gets to his feet.
"Les' go."
Eugene blinks.
"You haven't finished your drink."
Snafu's latest, his sixth, is only half gone. He knocks it down in one go. One fell swoop. The slam of the empty glass on the bar gets some heads to turn. Eugene might be tuned in to the world around him but he can be late on the draw sometimes. This might appear slow or scheming, and the truth would be there, some of it, but the rest would be stacked towards him giving less and less of a shit. The world turns no matter what you do. People die, people cry. It's called order. And acute cynicism.
Snafu's body language is preaching impatience.
He's a bit drunk, Snafu, but Eugene stays calm.
That is until his insidious heart has something to say about it.
One beat, two beats, nothing, nothing, three beats.
He resists the very trite but very real urge to clutch his chest.
Snafu, loaded as he is, catches all this.
His stance changes.
Defensive to caring in one second flat.
"Ya alright?" he asks, as low as low can be.
Eugene responds with a muffled, "Definitely."
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Their case no closer to being begun, they leave.
Eugene drives him home in his giant car. His father's Super. He picked it up in Alabama the day he died and drove it, cross-country, would you believe it, all the way up here and to his new life. Took him a little over a week. It looks like a stretch on paper and it's even longer in reality. That drive gave him lots of time to think. In those days he kept a Bible (one of those pocket-sized things, no bigger than a pack of smokes) in his breast pocket at all times. In those days he'd been a little more optimistic too. Maybe. At least he could quote all the best parts to you. He's not so sure he could tell you how it starts now. Well, it's in the beginning, of course, but for the sake of argument he hardly remembers... The beginning is always a drag anyway. The end is where it's at.
Snafu lives in an apartment complex on the bad side of town. He's right on the line, really, that divides the two opposing sides. All the rich, well off and have-it-made folk live on the east side. All the dirty, deranged and dragging on lost souls live on this side. Trash clutters the gutters and sidewalks, windows are boarded over or just left gaping and broken. Sharp teeth, unkind grins. Businesses light themselves with neon signs to catch your eye and fight out the monochrome theme of asphalt to concrete to metal all around. The natives look beaten down: heads hung, shoulders slumped, legs working of their own memory. Left foot, right foot, repeat. Where they're even going they probably don't know.
He lives here because it feels like home. That's Eugene's guess anyway, and it's probably fact. As true as the sullen look on his face. As true as his equally slumped shoulders and his world weary eyes. He's still scum, even if he has an upstanding job for the city and a good beat on things, he's still the product of the place he grew up in. A place that made him everything and nothing and won't lie quiet.
As he pulls up to park and cut him loose Snafu tries to get him to come up. It's a real sly deal at first and then just short of pleading. It's enough to make you feel something, but Eugene doesn't. Those damn eyes, those wide open windows. He looks out at him from somewhere inside that dark and dismal head of his. A cage, or a ruin, an abandoned building, dilapidated. He looks out from a height. He's full of things Eugene would guess at and realize were much worse. It should be pity, but it's indifference.
"Gotta get home."
"To what? Not like ya have ah damn wife."
"I need some sleep."
How he shrugs like that, hunched over, Eugene doesn't know.
"See you tomorrow", he says.
Snafu slams the door.
Eugene's grip on the steering wheel seizes.
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"So he's hanging out at this bar with a dame, right? Someone's jealous. They see these two gabbing it up, having a good time—maybe the girlfriend?—so they wait until nightfall and then choke the life outta him with a piano wire behind the place. Done and done."
"Where did the piano wire come from?"
"I dunno, who do I look like?"
"You're the one with all the smooth ideas."
"Someone has to."
Talk is talk. Eugene ignores that just as well.
"Yo, Sledge. What's your theory?"
As long as he's a shadow.
"That you have too much time on your hands."
Sid looks indignant.
"Shouldn't you be out looking for clues?"
"Waiting for someone."
He might be sitting at his desk but he isn't quite working, he's flipping that silver ring over his fingers, watching the shine, looking for a flaw. It has to be pure silver. It has to be perfect. It came from someone very dear to a movie star after all. Someone with money. No desire to be known. Not outwardly. Not publicly. There's no inscription on the thing. Nothing. What a bust.
"Ah, is your partner making you late for dance lessons again?"
"He just might be."
Snafu makes an appearance sometime after this conversation. Maybe an hour, maybe two, it's hard to say. Eugene was doing research by then, getting phone numbers and addresses of family and friends and past and present (well, formerly) employers of their body. It had been long enough of a stint you'd think the restless crowd hanging around would have forgotten the joke, moved on to more titillating subjects, but, that's just too much to ask. Never underestimate the masses.
"What the fuck, Gene's been waiting for you! How's he going to learn to tango without a partner?"
The laughter comes in gales. Like a damn wind storm.
Sid snorts and tries not to. He's got to give him that.
Snafu ignores it.
He looks like hell.
His little drunken episode was a night ago, the body offed the night before that. He looks as if he's struggling from the hangover. Eyes outlined in blue and grey, skin pale and puffy, hair uncombed, lips chapped and peeling. He could have been kidnapped, or up all night contemplating suicide. Eugene soaks it up but doesn't respond. Not to that anyway. Not even to him being late. He turns, his chair swiveling, makes eye contact, and swivels back to his work. Names, phone numbers, addresses. A bevy of information. A bevy of hours spent asking questions no one wants to answer.
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The first name they choose, or well, Eugene chooses (because Snafu is still in his off planet daze), is his mother. Basilone's mother. They come to the front door, ring the bell, and are welcomed inside to a sitting area. You'd be wrong in thinking white and clean, like mother's or grandma's usually have. There are no doilies or decorative bits of cloth hanging over naked wood. No glass decanters, or collectible bits of whatever. It's all burgundy red, pointed edges and steel accents. Practical. She must be pushing seventy. Older than Eugene hopes to see.
He asks all the usual questions and gets all the usual answers.
He was a good son. No, he didn't mingle with bad folk. Never got into trouble. He always called. He was a good boy. Etcetera, etcetera.
Snafu speaks up as soon as they're leaving.
As soon as they're coming down the four steps from the front door, in fact.
He hadn't touched the tea she put out for him.
He hadn't looked up from his lap.
"Was 'lone on my eighth birthday."
Eugene looks over to him, across that very real but very metaphorical divide. For a minute he's sure he's still drunk. It's a slur of words, the sense in them not coming quickly.
"Didn't have ah home. Didn't have no one."
He returns to his silence.
Why are you telling me this? That was a sure possibility in Eugene's younger years. Before this city, before this job, before his Bible went into that glove compartment. Before his murmur. A time when he had so much more hope and so much more naive curiosity. Times are tough. Age doesn't bring about wisdom so much as anger, contempt and unrest. Going back to that time and doing it differently would only change the scenery. He'd probably still have a Snafu sitting next to him. A breed like him. A sad sack. They'll tell you opposites attract. Eugene thinks that's not so. Pain loves company.
"You gonna be alright?"
The car idles.
Snafu knows what that means.
Eugene waits for anger, for something. He just nods. His loose hair (what's been growing out—he hasn't been taking care of himself) comes into his eyes, covering what was there to see. But there wouldn't be anything to see anyway. No one's home, you know. He's out digging around in dirty old memories. He's out fishing for a cut, a bruise, a sharp agony. He's out for blood. And damn him if he expects Eugene to come running to the rescue.
Eugene pulls the car away from the curb and onto the street. Snafu pulls out his yellow pack of Chinese cigarettes and lights up. The smoke always manages to curl just right and get into Eugene's face. He turns away, scowls, and rolls down his window. Snafu claims he's not racist. Not because he buys Chinese cigarettes—that's just because they're cheap—but because he believes everyone is capable of evil. And evil isn't inventive, it doesn't change, it twists and turns and hides, sure enough, but it's always the same incarnation. So, he can't be racist. Hate comes equally.
"Too m'ny dark streets. Too m'ny strange faces. 'Lone on mah nineth too. Mah tenth. Mah eleventh. Mah twelfth. Mah thirteenth. Ma' drank 'erself right to th' grave. Don' know mah old man. No siblin's either. Th' good die young, y'know."
"What?"
"Good die young."
That was clear as day, his voice not mush.
"This..." Eugene has to look down at the note on his knee to find the address to their next questionnaire victim, "doesn't have anything to do with Basilone, does it? You think he was perfect or something?"
"Ah think, ah... need ah drink."
There it's back again, same as always. A little Cajun spice to help the medicine go down.
Eugene's scowl returns (but it never left).
"You need a hot shower, a long sleep, and some coffee. Not in that order. You're kidding yourself if you think I'm going to put up with this all day. Because I'm not."
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They go to one more address and Eugene forgets the name of the (body) victim two minutes into the conversation. He has to glance down at the notepad in his hand for reference. It's smooth enough not to have it effect his composure or draw attention, but that's about all Eugene can take. Someone's dead (a son, a brother, a friend), murdered—the foul play so very obvious it would cause a glare—but it still takes a back seat. Along with the ring in his pocket, that loose end, and his desire to see his partner fall crumbling down. So, for whatever reason he takes him to his apartment and lets him use his shower. For whatever reason he lets him put on some of his clean clothes. For whatever reason he makes him coffee and sits him on his couch. The one that's losing its upholstery like an old dog sheds.
He sits him there, confiscates his cigarettes and tells him to just relax.
That never works.
Tears have never had a good effect on Eugene.
Tears coming from a full grown man are easily difficult.
Jesus.
It's the first thing out of his mouth.
That feels ironic. Iconic.
"You're a real mess."
Snafu rubs his wet nose.
"Don' like me, do ya?"
He has to get closer.
A mess of mumbling and sniveling doesn't translate.
"Don't what?"
Snafu bristles.
Eugene leans away, out of potential thrashing zone. As he does his heart throws him for a loop, just for shits and giggles, just for kicks. It's the double beat and a solid pain, a clinching surprise. Imagine air pumping through your veins, or molasses, or motor oil, or gelatin. It might last for a moment, and it might fix itself (more or less) in the end, but it still manages to best him. How vulnerable. Every breath thereafter taken with the utmost care. Pressing his fingers to his chest and feeling, making sure, is not an option. He's worried about it. That thing that hadn't surfaced until his cross-country stint. That thing that nearly made him drive off the damn road. That thing he ignored so readily.
What if it just stopped.
God, he hopes it's not just going to stop.
"Gene?"
How vulnerable.
You're a real mess.
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He wakes up to his jaw sore from digging into something hard and unyielding all night. They both passed out on his leprotic couch. How cute. Snafu, his fated partner, sleeps on curled up in fetal position, tight and safe. Eugene hung on to the rest of the little room somehow, his knees also pulled in, his arm thrown behind the strange body, his pillow a jut of bone, Snafu's hipbone.
He sits up, sucks his fuzzy tongue and reaches for Snafu's pack of cigarettes. Call it auto-pilot. Call it mischievous. He hid them in the oversized mason jar on the coffee table. A jar half filled with pins and buttons (another one of his father's left overs). It's smoky from age so the contents are kept a mystery. His whole hand fits inside. He used to be able to fit both. Once upon a time.
Snafu twitches as Eugene strikes his lighter.
He feels the shudder intimately close, transferring through limbs and cushion.
His pulse flutters.
The first puff, his virgin drag, he takes slowly, lips pursing, smoke excitably filling his mouth.
He doesn't realize he's being watched.
"Ya don' smoke."
He chokes and coughs, "Christ!", nearly losing the thing, but Snafu retrieves it just in time.
"I don't know what I was expecting, but that's horrible."
"Gets better th' more ya do it."
Snafu takes an inhale.
The exhale comes through his nose, creating two grey jets.
They come right into Eugene's face.
"Thanks for that."
"Anytime."
He has an epiphany then. It's funny how those work. Not a damn thing to pull from, not a pinch, but somehow they find you, like a stray bullet or a passing car or bird shit. To be honest, there were plenty of hints. Now it's heat-seeking realization. It turns his stomach so tight his leg bounces.
"It's your birthday, isn't it?"
Snafu's eyes are closed, his mouth hung up on that habit.
"Yes'erday."
"You..."
He resists, he really does, calling him a bastard, an asshole, a puerile female.
"...Could have said something."
"Not mah style."
"No, your style is getting bent out of shape and not doing your damn job."
"Mmm," he hums. "Tha' was yer call."
Eugene scoffs.
"Don't get all complacent with me. Put up with enough of your shit."
He stands and leaves the room, taking the rest of Snafu's cigarette with him.
He tosses it in the toilet and watches it spin as he flushes.
"Fucking disgusting."
A door slams.
The front door.
Eugene looks up and right into the mirror.
A shock of red, lines of blue, a snatch of white.
His haggard face and some unmitigated surprise.
He guesses his present is a new pair of clothes.
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He's in before Snafu, as usual. He's wearing an old jacket. It has a tear in the left pocket. He went down during some chase in a slippery alley in this. A chase that ended with Snafu clotheslining the subject and Eugene limping back to his car, defeated. It was one of their first assignments together. A real cherry popper. He had to come to work in this one because he hadn't realized Snafu took his other one. And the evidential silver ring with it. The one his partner doesn't know about. The one from Basilone's crime scene. The one he doesn't know what to do about himself.
He might be losing touch.
"The hell happened to you?"
Comments precede his partner.
Eugene perks up.
He can't say he's nervous. He wouldn't admit to it either way.
He will say he's awake now.
"Jesus, Snaf, you get hit by a train?"
"Fuck off."
That's not a good sign.
Brace for impact.
Snafu rounds the flimsy, shoulder-high partitioning wall and comes into view.
That would have been the time for his heart to beat back, but it's steady.
"You got blood on my jacket."
Snafu looks down and back up again.
His swollen lips move to make words.
"Eugene, you want to take your partner here home?"
Haldane.
Eugene gawks.
Their chief is a man born to wear the uniform.
His face is impassive, but he knows, Eugene knows, he's none too pleased.
"Uh. Yes. Yes, sir."
Pencil dropped, fresh cup of coffee abandoned, coat grabbed from the back of his chair, car keys snatched from his desk, Snafu's arm, right at the elbow joint, squeezed hard enough to hurt, and Eugene's gone, leading them both the back way out and away from anyone else's prying view. They're to his dad's car, black and giant, in no time. He's got the keys in the lock, ready to turn, when a new voice penetrates. His teeth very much want to mash together and grind away.
"The hell happened to him?"
He ignores the newcomer for as long as he can, turning the key, opening the door and climbing inside. He has to lean over to unlock the passenger side door. Has to lean over that expansive divide, over that God awful distance. Snafu stands at the door, unmoving, looking over the top of the car and to the voice's owner. He just stands there. Doesn't come with, doesn't run and hide.
"Merriel."
That usually works, but not this time.
"Looks like he just sat down and took a beating."
Snafu's moving away from the door.
"Shit."
Eugene leaves the keys in the ignition and jumps from the car, going for his partner.
"Hey, tiger, you better back off."
He doesn't make it in time.
It takes only one punch to put Lucky on his ass.
His camera bounces off the asphalt. The cracking break a fond recreation of his face's punishment.
It's a bad day to be a smart ass.
Eugene throws both his arms around Snafu as he comes upon him, pinning him good. He starts the task of pulling him back to the car. His partner twists and turns.
"Get fucked, Peaches," Snafu spits.
.
.
.
"You were mugged?"
They're in the restrooms of some cafe down on Broadway Street. Snafu had to piss, as he so lovingly puts it, and Eugene couldn't argue. They were still several blocks from his apartment. His, Eugene's, because this is starting to feel like a routine. Eugene always wanted a dog when he was little. He followed every stray he ever came across. He fell in love with every stray. How contempt stops being contempt and starts being love... That's a tricky one.
"Four of 'em."
Snafu's looking in the mirror, assessing the damage, prodding his broken face.
Eugene's watching, feeling much the same as he had back at the restaurant's bar.
Gone.
"You need some ice on that."
"Th' took somethin' from yer pocket."
He doesn't look too happy about it.
He looks downright livid.
"I didn't have..."
Wait a minute.
Shit.
"It's..."
"It yer dad's?"
"What?"
"Ah ring, wannit?"
He doesn't get the chance to answer. Glass is exploding, shooting out, tinkling into the sink basin, off the lip, to the tiled floor. The tiniest of shards bounces off Eugene's cheek, causing nothing more than an itch, a nick, but he starts anyway, instinctively twitching back. He's startled, to say the least. Not by the action itself, but because there had been no warning. Not even the subterranean signs he's aware of. There had only been Snafu's fist rushing up to meet glass, rushing full on, shattering his reflection, erasing his face. His fist is still poised there now, square in the middle of what used to be a bathroom mirror and his mug. His knuckles are bleeding, his wrist looking very pale (as pale as glacier ice, as pale as the fabled rider) in the contrasting red.
Eugene effectively blinks.
He then slowly (what dreams are made of, because it doesn't feel like something you'd do out of thought or preconception, just something instinctual and raw) reaches over, taking Snafu's hand, pulling it away from the clinging shards and getting oh-so warm blood in his palm in the process.
.
.
.
Smoking again. Hand wrapped, face swollen. His mouth, cheeks and eyes exaggerated and plain grotesque. He's purple in places you shouldn't be purple. What a royal colour. Makes him look like a fallen king. Fallen, lost, unloved, betrayed. All these things he's decided he is.
A wash cloth full of ice sits on the couch cushion next to him.
He says it doesn't help. He's just being a tough guy.
"What were you doing there?"
"Lookin' for ah fight."
He ashes into a cup Eugene set out.
"Found one."
Eugene's not going to ask why.
He's going to continue to drink his coffee.
Going to continue thinking about that ring.
And his job.
And the body.
The body with a name.
"You'll be suspended for laying Peaches out. You were lucky the chief didn't suspend you right then and there, the way you looked. Wrong end of a baseball bat. Suspension would be kind..."
"Don' care."
"Oh, yeah? How's your hand?"
"M'not amb'dextrous."
Eugene's surprised he knows the word at all, regardless of whether he said it right.
"Don't forget you're a guest. I forbid any self pleasuring under my roof."
"What 'bout the shower?"
"Good luck, cripple."
Snafu sneers.
It's endearing in its own way.
Eugene goes to the kitchen for more coffee.
"Want something to eat? Make one hell of a grilled cheese."
"Nah."
"I bet you can't tell me the last time you ate."
"Had ah knuckle san'wich earlier."
"That's not funny."
He makes one for him anyway, as well as one for himself, despite his lack of appetite. His pity doesn't go so far as to worry about his split lip and tenderized jaw and how they would fair against the toasted bread and melted cheese. He cares about him, you see, just not really in the way he's fishing to be cared about. Not in the way he so desperately wants to be cared about. Eugene's personality organ is broken. Pity goes out along with compassion and fear and all those other messy feelings. Well, not so. It's broken, not missing. He's only admitted a sad desire.
"Don' like me, do ya?"
This is déjà vu.
"The hell does that mean?"
"The hell ya think it means?"
He knows about Snafu. His hidden intent, his totally naked secret. He knows why he watches him. Because he can't not. He's smitten. He knows why he punched that mirror. Because he thought he lost Eugene's ring. He knows why he throws himself around without a care in the world. He's up to no good. He knows, alright. What else does he want?
Queer isn't a kind word.
It doesn't quite fit either. It doesn't really suit him.
It doesn't really suit Eugene either.
He stares at his hands, his coffee, the swirl, his personality organ, thin, thinner, thinnest, and doesn't get back to him. He ate his sandwich, he drank his coffee, and he's still wearing his clothes. He's here, right now, in his apartment, in his home. What the situation looks like on the outside betrays the reality. Eugene doesn't have a wife, doesn't even have a dame, but he has a partner. A stray dog.
"I like you."
He's uncomfortable. Everyone fidgets when they're uncomfortable.
Snafu's going to see it.
"Jesus, I like you, alright?"
He drops his mug. Coffee spills onto his shoes. He drops it because he's being grabbed and pulled forward. Pulled forward into Snafu's pulverized face. Warmth is the first sensation. Warmth blooming and spreading out like a bacteria, heating his lips, crawling down his spine, settling in his stomach. The second sensation is panic. He realizes what's happening and gets his arm up and shoves Snafu back, parting their mouths. The wet smack distantly humourous.
The panic melts but the warmth remains. He lick his lips out of reflex, tasting old smoke. His arm shoots out again, Snafu looking about ready to book it (he flinches—never seen him do that before), but he doesn't have to fear. Quite the opposite. Eugene's grabbing for his own shirt, how odd, one for one, and pulling him in. Call it auto-pilot. Call it mischievous. Snafu makes a throaty noise as they reconnect. Not much to fear, except maybe for his tender, bruising flesh.
Eugene can't remember the last time he'd done this.
Maybe high school.
He doesn't want to stop.
Finds he can't.
Lips and tongue, the tang of blood. There's the roasted hint of coffee beans. The downright foul layer of tobacco scum, the unusual mix of cheese and toast. He's tasting his lunch. The thought doesn't take, he just angles his head and goes deeper. Everything he's ever experienced, everything he's ever tasted, Eugene wants to taste it. He's breathing heavily now, nostrils scorching, feet scooting him to the very edge of his arm chair. Snafu's fingers thread in his hair, cup the back of his skull. Eugene's hand, fisted in his shirt sleeve, smooths out and finds its way to the back of Snafu's neck. His fingers press to his protruding vertebrae. It's good, it's suffocating, it's over. Snafu pulls that threaded hair sharply and Eugene gasps, snapping back. It's not that he pulled his hair, it's that he bit his tongue.
They take a collective, water-breaching breath together.
Snafu's eyes are much different close up.
Might just be the adrenaline (and, let's face it, lust) talking, but they're mesmerizing.
He really does like him.
In fact, he feels loves right then and there.
And that's well beyond pity.
Snafu takes that shunned wash cloth of melting ice and lays it over his face.
He mumbles something through it.
Eugene thinks it's an ow.
He mumbles something else, a little clearer.
"Like ya more."
Eugene doesn't know what to do with himself then.
He finally reaches to pick up his wayward coffee mug.
"Verla gonna have more'ah reason tah verbally lash me now, ah'd judge. She's all fired up by ya. But," he's lowering the wash cloth, "got to ya first."
Snafu actually winks.
Eugene deposits the mug in the sink and hunts down a towel for the spill.
Anything to reignite reality, refire normality. Somehow he finds it in, "She's got better legs than you."
Snafu snorts.
"Mah cock's bigger."
Eugene laughs.
He wasn't expecting that he would.
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