No.19 Broken Hearts

Prompt: #19 grief, mourning loved one

Black roses. He hadn't even known there was such a thing. He also didn't know where Shanker had rounded them up, but here they were, a whole dozen of them, tossed onto Leda's grave with overplayed dismissiveness before the wiry small-time criminal plopped down beside Strike and handed him a bottle of beer.

"To your mum, Bunsen," Shanker toasted, and their bottles clinked against each other. "Fuckin' shame. She was an angel."

Strike was inclined to disagree with the latter, but on this night, the first anniversary of his mother's death, he was too busy swallowing the lump in his throat to object. So instead, he grunted hoarsely and took a deep swig, steadying himself while Shanker, that hard bastard, sniffed audibly and didn't seem the least bit embarrassed about shedding a few tears.

"Bloody fuckin' shame," Shanker repeated morosely.

They had to make an odd pair, sitting on the grass by the grave - short, weed-thin Shanker with his ginger hair and a fresh gap in his front teeth and big, burly, dark-haired Strike in his Army fatigues. The thief and the SIB aspirant. If it hadn't been for Strike's mother, their worlds never would've overlapped, let alone thrown them into a curious friendship that was built on loyalty and not laws.

"Nice gravestone," Shanker commented, waving his beer at the guitar-shaped monolith newly erected on Leda Strike's grave. "She would've loved that."

More sniffing and swigging.

"Yeah."

Strike wasn't keen on talking tonight, and he appreciated that Shanker didn't mind his monosyllabic replies. Their camaraderie, after all, had never been about talk, but about action. They'd had each others' backs ever since Leda had dragged the injured, homeless teenager into their squat and Cormoran had found an unlikely ally in him when it came to protecting his mother from her own bad decisions and from her equally bad boyfriends.

"Ya leaving' tonight?"

Shanker pointed his chin at the duffel bag Strike was leaning against.

"Nah. Tomorrow. Gotta be back at the barracks for evening muster. Flying out to Greece the day after."

"Case?"

"Yup. Assisting. They're not giving me my own cases yet."

Shanker shook his head.

"Can't believe you're a copper now."

Cormoran pulled his sad face into the semblance of a smirk. "Relax! Army cop. I'm not here to arrest you."

Shanker huffed. "Yeah. You're sayin' that now."

Getting serious again, Cormoran gave him a friendly shove with his shoulder that almost made his friend spill his beer.

"Never, mate," he said earnestly. "Not as long as you keep what you're doing out of my sight. A deal's a deal."

Shanker shoved him back. Cormoran, turned into a 6'3'' block of muscle by his Army training, didn't even blink.

"Where ya stayin' tonight? Wanna bunk with me?"

Reaching for a second bottle from the sixpack he'd brought, Strike shook his head.

"Thanks, but I'm staying with Charlotte."

Shanker hissed.

"That vampire still suckin' you?" He cackled at his own, unintended joke.

"She's not a vampire," Strike grumbled back. "You don't know her the way I do. She has a side that's-"

"-not throwin' stuff at you and screamin' naked in the street?" Shanker had twisted his scarred face into a sarcastic grimace.

Strike growled back. "It wasn't like that!"

"Oh, so she was only half-naked!" Shanker cackled again but stopped when he saw Strike's dark expression. They were friends, but there were lines that shouldn't be crossed, and Charlotte had drawn one between them.

"Sorry, mate," Shanker relented. "Guess there's somethin' to her that I ain't seein'."

"Yeah. There is, arsehole."

Cormoran let his glare taper off. That fight with Charlotte had turned into unforeseen melodrama, and while he'd become used to his girlfriend's eccentricity and even felt weirdly aroused by it, sometimes her personality scared him. Maybe it was a good thing that the Army was putting some distance between them.

"Your mum would've liked her," Shanker said in an effort at reconciliation.

It was Cormoran's turn to huff. "You're probably right about that."

There'd been few people Leda didn't like, and, in combination with her generous heart and bad judgement, it had often driven Cormoran's mother down the road to disaster. Fragile and unpredictable like Charlotte, she would've welcomed Cormoran's girlfriend with open arms.

"Like I said," Shanker repeated. "Great woman, your mum."

"Yeah." Cormoran stared at the gravestone. His throat hurt. "Yeah, she was."

They clinked bottles again and drank.