Title: Red Letter Day
Author: jesse
Fandom: Law & Order mothership
Pairing: Briscoe/Logan (barely)
Rating: PG, maybe?
Summary: It's funny, the things one remembers….
Archive: Yes to list archives, all others please ask
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Disclaimer: Not mine, not making any moola. If they were mine, they'd be having more fun.
Author Note: This is photo-fic, folks!
Red Letter Day
It's a day I think of in capitals. You know -- The Day. One to remember. One that's forever gonna stick out in your mind whether you want it to or not.
'Course it's not like that's the only day in my life that's that memorable, I got quite a few capital letter days. Like the day I got the notice asking me oh so nicely to c'mon down and take my spot in Uncle Sam's army. And the day I got my discharge, even better.
Or the day I graduated the Academy, walked onto the street in blues and badge for the first time, my mother calling me "Officer Briscoe." The day I married Gloria. The day my first kid was born.
The day I knew, really knew, that I was an alcoholic.
Oh, yeah, that was a capital day. A red letter day.
But I was tellin' you about this one, wasn't I? So anyway, it goes like this: it's a Thursday night, and Donnie Cragen comes out of his office and over to my desk as I'm getting ready to go, wants to know if I know where Mike is. Turns out that I did, we'd all three of us been working later than we wanted to that night. Or Mike and I had been working, at least; Cragen I wasn't sure about. Although I'd heard a whisper of a rumor, one that I'd been keepin' to myself and hopin' that it wasn't true ….
Anyway.
Donnie goes back into his office and I go down to the locker room to get Mike. Mike's a bit of a neat-nut and clean-freak, so showering at the 2-7's spa facilities isn't something he really likes doing. But we'd had a dirty day that'd gone on too long, and he'd said something about not wanting to go home in those clothes.
I caught him rooting around in his locker. "Y'gotta come back up, Mike, Captain wants to talk to us."
"Now?" Mike sounded not-happy and more than a little tired. He had black jeans, socks and shoes on already but no belt, and was just pulling on a clean teeshirt.
"Now." I lowered my voice. "Just you n' me, in IR 2. And I'm bettin' it's not about a case."
"Crap." Mike emerged from the white fabric a moment later, tugged it down. "Now what did we do?"
"I'm also bettin' it's not something we did."
He paused in the act of running a hand through his damp hair and stared at me, his eyes really greenish in the bad light.
"You heard the rumor? About a transfer?" I asked.
Mike heaved a sigh. "It's not a rumor. Donnie mentioned it to me the other week, swore me to secrecy. Said we'd be the first to know if …. " He closed his eyes, shook his head. "Double crap."
He scooped that black leather blazer he hardly ever wears out of his locker and grabbed his badge, wallet, gun. I guessed he was just gonna wear that home and no other shirt. Which was weird for Mike, he's normally pretty buttoned-down in the clothes department, but the weather'd been warm that day. Hot, actually -- that was part of the reason he'd been showering in the first place.
Back up to the squad room we went. Sure enough, Donnie wasn't in his office, so we walked over to Interrogation Room 2. Cragen was sitting inside at the table, paper in his hands. He looked up at the sound of my and Mike's shoes on the tile. "Leave the door open, guys, so we'll know if anybody else comes in. Here." He held out a sheet of paper to each of us, his expression solemn. "Wanted you two to hear it first, from me."
I scanned the first part of the page quickly 'till I hit the phrase that mattered: "… transfer to head up the Anti-Corruption Task Force …. "
Captain Donnie Cragen was leaving the 27th Precinct.
I sank into the chair across from Donnie to read the rest of it. Mike dropped his blazer on the table and then paced across the room, washing up against the window ledge.
Donnie was wearing the oddest expression, like he didn't know whether to be happy or sad about this even though it was obviously a done deal. I made all the appropriate noises about "good luck" and "happy trails" and "congrats on the pay raise," but honestly? I didn't know what I was feeling just then, either. Donnie had taken a chance on me a year ago, a big chance. He was an old "friend of Bill's" himself, and I had just managed to crawl out of the bottle for good, God willing. Whatever the hell it was that made him think I'd be a good match for the "black cat" of the 2-7, I still don't know.
But he was right. And there'll never be enough tea in China to thank him for it.
Mike made a few noises too, but mostly he just leaned there and looked at Cragen.
In any case we all ran out of words pretty quick. Donnie got up and took himself out with a gruff "See you in the morning," and then it was just Mike and me.
Mike hadn't moved, was still propping up that piece of window sill, his left hand over his mouth and his right with a death grip on Donnie's letter. The fabric of his teeshirt was pulled taut across his shoulders and arms, bright white against his black pants and the chipping paint of the walls. Those thick eyebrows of his were down, like they do when he's mad or thinking really hard. Or when something's caught him sharp, and he's holding himself back. Or together.
I was pretty sure I knew which one it was. He and Cragen were about as close as I've ever seen a commanding officer get to one of his squad. "It's a good move, Mike," I offered quietly, watching him.
"I know," he mumbled. "I know. He'd be an idiot not to take it. But …. "
I heaved a sigh. "Yeah. But."
Mike moved then, with that suddenness that's faked out more than a few perps, grabbing his blazer and heading out the door. "See you tomorrow, Len," drifted back to me. And more distantly: "Hey, Donnie--"
I stared at the space where he'd been, the afterimage burned into my brain. It's funny, really, how you can just go along, day after day, never really noticing until something, maybe just some dumb little thing, happens. And then you can't help but see it.
For me, it was my partner in a white undershirt, of all the things.
I'd come to care for Mike Logan as much as I ever have for any partner -- more, actually, if I'm honest. Maybe I could have even said that I loved him.
But it wasn't until that night, when Donnie tipped our world sideways, that I realized that I wanted him.
Finis