Written for smuffly's Who, What, Where? challenge - my prompts were Adam, a sandwich and a queue. Eternal thanks to my long-suffering husband who graciously put up with my own growls of frustration and my endless computer game questions while he was trying (and trying... and trying...) to complete missions on STO.
Frustration was a feeling Adam Ross was well-versed in. He experienced it often: at work, when he ran DNA samples and found no matches in any of the databases, and at home, playing Star Trek Online when the server crashed or he died during an important, level-up mission. Adam often prided himself on keeping a cool head during moments of frustration, but this was just ridiculous. Adam had never been more frustrated in his life.
He had been sat in the Avalanche for two and a half hours now, and since starting the engine in the parking garage of the crime lab building, he'd managed to travel all of a mile and a half. Now he was sat at one end of the Brooklyn Bridge, sandwiched between a Ford pickup and a Mini Cooper. On a good day, his journey home would take forty minutes. Today, he wasn't sure if four hours would be long enough.
The traffic was backed up beyond the other end of the bridge. Despite the police radio Adam had tuned into, he was still none the wiser about the cause of the queue: all he could do was sit. And wait. And fidget. He gazed out of the window to his left to see a woman in the Mini Cooper munching on an apple. His stomach growled. He looked away quickly, almost embarrassed, only to find that to his right, the driver of the truck was tucking into the biggest bar of chocolate Adam had ever seen. Awkwardly, he pushed one hand beneath his seatbelt into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out an empty gum wrapper.
"Damn it," he growled. "All I want is to go home and eat a damn sandwich!"
In an effort to distract himself from his frustration, impatience and growing hunger, Adam recalled his day and his to-do list for tomorrow.
Mac dropped a pile of folders on the edge of Adam's workstation.
"This month's cold cases," Mac nodded to the lab technician, an indication that the files weren't urgent – but by no means were they to be ignored. Adam sighed. He had only just finished re-running evidence from last month's pile of cold cases – and most of them were the same ones. He couldn't help but admire Mac's determination and dedication to his work, but sometimes, he wondered if between the cold cases and the current cases, the older man ever left the lab and caught some sleep.
"Gotcha, Boss," Adam raised a hand in a wave. His computer sounded an alarm. "Hey, Mac? Your bullet caught a match," he called, as Mac opened the door to leave. The older man dropped the door and was at Adam's side in an instant.
"Adam, you're brilliant," Mac smiled a rare, all-the-way-to-the-eyes smile before gathering the sheets of paper Adam had printed.
Thanking his lucky stars he was driving a car belonging to the crime lab, so he didn't have to pay for all the gas he was wasting whilst sitting in a queue of traffic, Adam inched the car forwards. He was tired and hungry and wanted nothing more than a grilled cheese and ham sandwich, an hour or two playing computer games and a good night's sleep before tomorrow's slog through Mac's infamous cold case pile.
By the time he walked through the door to his apartment, Adam had been travelling for three hours and fifty seven minutes. He dropped his messenger bag by the door and made a beeline for the bathroom. He returned a minute later, relieved. He headed straight for the kitchen, patting his still-growling stomach and humming to himself.
A howl of anguish escaped him as he opened the cupboard. He only had one slice of bread.