The door to the car slammed shut and echoed through the empty street. He walked up the dark, cold steps and pushed through the front doors. He had already been told where to go, and found his way easily, passing by empty desks to arrive at a small office with its door ajar. Rapping his knuckle against the door, he leaned in. Sitting inside was the rugged federal agent he'd been looking for.
Dom looked up. He was tiredly writing out a report, drinking coffee despite the time of day, or rather, night, simply to stay awake through his writing. With a blank countenance, he said, "Sir?"
Having worked together the most concerned nervous expression, Nicodeme began, "There's shootin' down de street," with immense, but fake, anxiety.
Dom sighed. "Listen, kid; I'm not a police officer. Sorry, but I—"
"Mais, you gotta do someting— they're shootin' at de café."
Dom set down his pen. "Which one?"
Nico suppressed a smug smile. "Lil Daisy."
Drago darted his eyes from one side of his desk to the other for a moment before standing up. "Where? In the café or in the garage?"
"Don' know. De garage?"
"Alright." Drago stood up rummaged around on his desk, pulling out his gun from a drawer. He put it in his suit pocket. "Come here— I'm gonna lock up my office." Dom pulled out some keys as he walked towards the door. Nico saw him quickly stride out of the office from behind, looking at his trench coat flutter.
Nico followed, with Dom standing impatiently outside of the doorway. "What you gonna do?" Nico asked with a sort of feigned naïveté. He stared at Dom's determined face.
"Well, just investigation for the time being. Police'll get involved if I find anything." Dom locked the door to his office. He looked to the side at Nico, "What's your name, son?"
"Nico." Was there really a reason to hide his name? Well, there was, but did it matter? Besides, he didn't want to have to come up with and remember a fake name.
"Nico." Dominic repeated, "Good name." Dom put his keys back into his pocket. "Well, I need to get over there quickly, Nico, so if you'll excuse me." He began to leave.
Nico smiled, "Good luck." He watched Dominic rush out of the building from behind. The same trick had worked again.
Mitzi stepped up into the garage from the trapdoor. "Alright, already see blood." She looked up to the bodies. "How'd you do that, Rocky?" She looked over to Rocky and Mordecai. Mitzi frowned slightly when she saw Mordecai.
"Hi, Miss M." Rocky groaned.
Mitzi's eyes widened. She saw the blood on Rocky and saw him clutching his side, but upon hearing him straining through pain, she put everything together. "Oh, Rocky, did you get shot?" She sounded audibly worried.
"No, not really. I'm fine."
"Oh, god, you're not pulling a Viktor are you? Did you get shot or not?"
"No. It just grazed me."
"You alright then? You need anything?" She sounded a bit less worried now.
"Get him something to clean his wounds with and bandages," Mordecai answered for Rocky.
"Mhm. Well, why are you out here, Mordecai?"
"I didn't wanna sit in here alone," Rocky muttered.
"Mordecai's not some kind of con—"
Freckle appeared up from the trapdoor. "Everybody seems okay, but a little nervous. They're still buying drinks. Is that alright?"
Mitzi stated, "We'll talk about this later, Rocky." She looked over her shoulder at Freckle and replied, "That's good, sweetheart. Thank you. Go ahead and keep things in the speakeasy, if you would." Freckle nodded and returned back to the tunnel. "Alright, I'll get whatcha need, Rocky." She looked at him. "You still got your gun on you?"
"Mordecai's gun?"
Mitzi looked annoyed for a moment. "Do you have the gun on you?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. I'll be right back." She went into the tunnels.
Rocky continued to hold his side. There wasn't a ton of blood, but it had made the parts of his pants around the wound practically sodden with blood. Aunt Nina would probably have more questions for him than he could answer. The pain from both wounds continued to grow as time went on. Mordecai couldn't exactly do anything to help. And with what he had access to at the moment Rocky couldn't either. Fortunately, Mitzi soon returned with what would be needed to stop Rocky from bleeding.
"Here, Rocky. Start patchin' yourself up. Me and Mordecai are gonna start cleanin' this mess up," Mitzi instructed, handing Rocky a bottle of a clear liquid and some bandages.
"I didn't agree to that," Mordecai stated.
"I don't know how to do that," Rocky said at the same time.
Mitzi grabbed the bottle from Rocky. "Clean out your wounds with this, then bandage them up. Alright?" Rocky nodded slightly. She handed it back. "And Mordecai," Mizi looked at him, "you're a fan of cleaning aren't you?"
Mordecai was something of a pedant for cleanliness, and it would be fair to say that the pile of corpses was bothering him. But to be conscripted to clean? Well, he was, yet still, a captive, so he didn't have much choice. And Mordecai couldn't chance letting someone else clean up this mess; they just wouldn't do it right.
"I suppose," Mordecai yielded. Maybe he shouldn't have cleaned out the storeroom like he did, a few weeks ago.
"Good, I thought so. Well, I'll be right back." She descended back into the tunnels.
Rocky looked up from the bottle, not having deciphered what it was; the labels were worn and whatever letters he could make out formed no coherent words. Rocky looked at Mordecai, who was watching intently. "Lemme know if I start to do anything wrong." Mordecai nodded.
Rocky opened the bottle and was about to start pouring some onto his wound when Mordecai quietly interjected. "How are you going to put the bandages on?"
"Um, wrap them around my waist, I guess?"
"You can't do that over your pants." That was true. He could pour the contents of the bottle over both wounds through the tears that they had made in his pants, and he could probably bandage his leg up if he just rolled his pant leg up, but he couldn't bandage his hip through the small hole. Rocky hadn't thought about that. Maybe it was the blood loss.
"Oh, I see, you just want me to take my pants off," Rocky teased, trying to joke in an attempt to distract himself away from both his current pain and the anticipation of how he was about to patch himself up.
"That wasn't what I was saying." Mordecai was stern.
Rocky began to stand up, groaning as he did. "Well, I guess I do need to—"
"Don't just take your pants off!" Mordecai put his hand up to stop him.
"I was gonna go around the car and just pull my pants down to my waist. I'm not stripping down for you, Mordecai."
"Well, of course. But it seemed you were about to." The hand Mordecai had held up went to the back of his neck.
"No. Miss M. might've come back." Rocky winked. He started to limp around to the other side of the car.
Mordecai was nearly flustered. Rocky was flirting with him. And it was, perhaps exaggerating, exhilarating. He adjusted his sleeves and his glasses. Why was he acting like this all of a sudden? It gave Mordecai even more to consider in his already crowded mind.
Rocky leaned against the car, feeling the cool metal against his warm back. His leg stung. Or perhaps 'burned' was a better word. Regardless, it didn't feel great. He began to pull his suspenders off of his shoulders. Why was he being so coquettish? Rocky wasn't ready to show Mordecai how he felt! He probably never would be. He couldn't be letting on. Surely Mordecai would just make him feel like an idiot for even feeling like that. Rocky certainly felt like an idiot for flirting with Mordecai like that, even if it was a little fun. Rocky lightly hit the back of his head against the car and tried to stop thinking about it; he needed to pour an unknown fluid over his painful gunshot wounds and then bandage them up.
Mordecai heard the sound of Rocky's head hitting the car. "Everything alright?" Mordecai wondered, raising his head up.
Rocky flinched and unbuttoned the top button of his pants. "Yeah," Rocky called out. He quietly sighed. Rocky couldn't keep going on like this.
Rocky's pants were pulled down to slightly below his waist, and Rocky got a good look at the injury, although he still needed to clear the blood away to see how it really was. He repositioned himself, trying to get good access to his injury. Rocky opened the bottle, and with one hand he held his pants up below the wound, and with the other he began to pour some of the contents of the bottle over the injury.
It stung, the solution, but less than Rocky had thought it would. Given where they were, Rocky assumed that it was just alcohol— spirits of some kind, probably. But clearly, it wasn't. Biting his lip, he continued to wash away the blood, as well as soak his pants some. Looking at his side, it looked as if there was a small divot in the flesh. Not exactly getting shot, of course, but still, not great. It would heal, but it would probably leave a scar, Rocky concluded.
Rocky wrapped the bandages around his waist, having to adjust his underwear ever so slightly so as to get a tight wrap that didn't go over his clothes. Rocky was starting to have trouble thinking straight. Again, either blood loss or just general nervousness. The bandages were put on with little to no issue, and it seemed to cover the injury well. Only real way to know, though, was to wait and see if he got an infection or something.
Rocky put his pants back on, over the bandages, and pulled the dangling suspenders back onto his shoulders. There was no reason to keep behind the car now, so he limped back to the crates, catching Mordecai's attention, and fell back onto the crate he had been sitting on before.
"You're okay?" Mordecai asked.
"My leg hurts. I bandaged my hip," Rocky said, not answering the question in any real fashion. Mordecai stared at Rocky for a moment, then, with nothing much to say in response, looked down at the cards between the two of them. He had apparently been fidgeting with them, rearranging them.
Rocky began to roll up the pant leg that was in the way of the wound. It hurt, the fabric scraping against the wound as it went up his calf. He clenched his jaw and bared it until he had rolled it up high enough that he could go ahead.
Mordecai watched, although it didn't look like he was, as Rocky began to pour the solution over his leg in much the same way he had his hip. The blood was washed away, creating a small diluted puddle of blood on the floor. This injury also didn't look great, probably leaving a scar in the future. Rocky took the bandages as he leaned over, beginning to wrap them around his leg.
Upon finishing, Rocky, hunched over, looked up at Mordecai. "Did I do all of that right?"
Mordecai craned his neck and got a good look. "It would seem so."
Just then, Mitzi came back from the tunnels with Freckle behind her. They carried cleaning supplies, with Mitzi holding a mop and a couple of bottles. Freckle had a bucket of water and an unmarked, opaque container. Freckle set them down and went back into the tunnels. Mitzi set down what she had next to the other things and looked over to Mordecai and Rocky, who were silently watching. She spoke, "Mordecai, it's time to start cleaning."
Mordecai exhaled. "Of course."
"Start with the bodies in the doorway— get them out of the way and somewhere in here, for now. We need to get that closed and cleaned up as soon as possible. I don't want anyone comin' down the alley to see a pool of blood and see a pile of corpses." She picked up one of the bottles and a large rag. "I'm gonna start cleaning up some of the blood." She started walking over to the door. "This is gonna take a while, but you're not leavin' till we're done, okay, Mordecai?"
"I wasn't planning on sleeping tonight anyway, Mitzi." Mordecai began to roll up his sleeves as he walked towards the bodies. He looked over his shoulder at Rocky. "Apologies for getting blood on the suit, Rocky."
"Oh, yeah," Rocky snapped to attention, "yeah, that's fine. I've already bloodied up mine." Rocky half-heartedly smiled. He cleared his throat. "Um, should I do anything, Miss M.?"
Mitzi looked back at Rocky, then back at what she was doing. "If you think you can, Rocky, then join in whenever."
"Alright. Yeah, just… gimme a minute, then." Rocky leaned to the side, against the wall of the garage. He was just so tired. But he couldn't just sit around while Miss M. and Mordecai work to keep them from getting caught. It could take hours. And, really, Rocky was fine. He hadn't even really been shot.
Well, maybe he could just sit around for a few minutes.
