Touch Hands
because everybody eventually commits at least one Christmas fic, I guess.
Nov. 1
"Again this year, Mike?" Captain Donnie Cragen asked when he turned in the form. "You're long from being the low guy on the totem pole."
"Hey, they got families."
"So do you."
Detective Mike Logan just shrugged. "My sister, yeah. But the other guys got kids and stuff. Let 'em stay home." His expression didn't encourage Cragen to say any more about it.
It was a variation of the same dance step Mike used every year. Minor holidays? Oh, he'd fight for those with the best of them. But the big ones, the ones you usually spent with family? The less said about those, the better.
Okay, so his mom was gone now, and there was his sister and her kids. Mike would stop in just long enough to have dinner and watch the ankle biters open the stuff she'd bought with the money he'd given her earlier -- and that would be about all he could stand.
He loved his sister, truly he did. It was Christmas he couldn't deal with.
Dec. 15
"So, who's the lucky slob I'm on with this year?" Mike quipped, after another swig of his second cup of coffee. He was sitting in Cragen's office before hours, in at work too early again, sleep once more an elusive thing.
Cragen eyed him over his own first cup of joe, eyebrows going up. "What, don't you guys ever actually talk?"
"Talk?" Mike echoed blankly. Then he turned to follow Donnie's line of sight through the streaky office window. His partner of about half a year now, Detective Lennie Briscoe, was just coming into the squad room, unbuttoning his familiar navy overcoat. "Lennie?" Mike asked in surprise. "Why? Yeah, he's new here, but -- "
"He asked for it," Cragen replied. Mike turned back to him, eyebrows coming down in confusion.
"But he's got …." He trailed off at Donnie's look. "Kids. Family. Yeah," he finished awkwardly. Sure, Lennie had kids, two daughters. One lived out of state, the other was in NYC somewhere, but apparently neither of them cared to see him.
Didja think you were the only one, Mikey? Donnie's expression asked, and Mike looked down into his half-full mug to avoid his captain's eyes. Sometimes Cragen was just a little too damn perceptive. Hazard of having a superior who'd also become a friend.
Dec.24
"Well, so much for peace on earth."
Lennie's cynical crack echoed Mike's own thoughts exactly. Take one family gathering full of people who had nothing in common but genes and probably not even that, add crappy, snowy weather and a late night, shortening tempers, way too much booze and maybe a drug or two, and bang. One very dead guy in the middle of the living room, bleeding all over the rug. "How's that song go again?" he muttered, leaning in close to his partner's ear. "Decorations of red?"
Lennie pulled away and looked at him. "Jeeezz, Mike. That's lousy even for you." But he was obviously fighting a smirk as he said it.
Mike flashed him an evil grin in return. One of the many things he liked about Lennie: the man had an even blacker sense of humor than Mike himself did.
Hector Gonzalez, sometime husband of Ruby Gonzalez and possible father of at least a few of the four kids. Part-time dealer, part-time drunk, coupla priors for assault. Mike contemplated the body for a moment more before waving at the CSU folks to zip it up. Couldn't've happened to a nicer guy.
He stepped over to where Lennie was now talking to the family members, Mrs. Gonzalez and the oldest son, Roberto. The one who had called the cops, then let them in. And given them the murder weapon, the gun which he claimed to have fired in self-defense.
"My ma, she don't deserve that," the sixteen year old was saying, his voice and attitude somewhere between cocky, righteous, and scared to death. "I tol' him, I yell at him "Stop, man!" and then he come after me, swinging at me. And -- " He swallowed. "And I wasn' gonna take it no more, either. We don' have to live like that."
I feel for ya, kid, Mike agreed silently, letting his partner ask the questions and take the notes. Been about there where you are, 'cept it wasn't my dad.
They handed the kid over to the uniforms to take in, and some minutes later were sitting in their unmarked in front of a miraculously still-open coffee shop a few blocks away, sipping blissfully hot liquid and putting off the inevitable paperwork a few minutes more. They had the engine running and the heat on, blithely using up gas the city was paying for; Mike figured it was the least the NYPD could do by way of a bonus.
The wind had died down, but it was still snowing. Mike watched it melt and slide down the warm windshield. He didn't realized how long the silence had held until Lennie broke it.
"Y're awfully quiet, Mike, now and back there. Something up?"
He had no reason to answer that question with any honesty, he really didn't. Wasn't any of Lennie's business anyway, he was just being a nosy --
Friend.
Becoming a good friend, actually, like Phil Ceretta was. Like Max Greevey had been. The kind of friend Mike didn't have too many of. Mike heaved a deep sigh.
"It's just – Christmas, ya know? People insisting on gettin' together and play-acting like they actually like each other, like they've got a real reason to be there other than some accident of birth. And for what? Celebrate a holiday for a religion that's a load of crap anyway? World'd be better off with a few less family get-togethers." He snorted, took another sip of coffee.
"They don't all turn out like that one," Lennie said mildly.
Mike snorted again. "Oh, of course not. Even my bunch never managed to actually kill anybody. Get plastered and scream and throw punches? Oh, yeah. And it was worse if my old lady actually managed to stay civil through the day, 'cause then -- "
He practically bit his tongue snapping his jaw shut. What the hell was wrong with him? He didn't talk about that, he never talked about it. And now Lennie would ask … ah, hell. "Let's just say family Christmas ain't a fond memory and leave it there," he muttered.
But Lennie didn't ask. After a few minutes Mike glanced over to see his partner staring into the depths of his Styrofoam cup as if it held the secrets of the universe, an odd expression on his long face.
"Once upon a time," Lennie said quietly, "there was a guy who committed matrimony twice, had two daughters. The first marriage his wife fucked up, the second one the guy fucked up, and between the cheating and the booze neither of his kids wants to see him." He paused, took a slow sip.
"So he's not crazy about Christmas either, it just reminds him of the families he's managed to lose. So he spends it workin' instead, out where maybe he can do somebody some good."
More silence, punctuated by the whirr of the car heater fan.
"But if one of 'em called …."
The last was said so softly that Mike wondered if he was supposed to have heard it. He felt suddenly, weirdly, like an intruder, eavesdropping on a raw moment. And the thought popped up unbidden: at least Patsy and the kids want to see me…. Something uncomfortable settled in his chest, and he didn't like it. "What kinda speech is this, Lennie?"
"It's no kinda speech at all, Mike." Lennie didn't look at him, but something raced across his face and was gone. "Put it in gear, let's go. Paperwork's callin'."
Dec.25
"Uncle Mike! Mom, Uncle Mike's here!"
"Hey, you know me, kiddo." Mike stepped in the front door of his sister's home and closed it behind him, ruffled his nephew's hair. "Always show up in time for dinner."
"Even though dinner's not for a few hours yet?" Patsy commented as she came into the hallway and hugged him.
"Uncle Mike, you gotta come see my new train set stuff!"
"Be right there, Kevin, but lemme get outta my coat first, talk to your mom a minute."
"All riiight!" The boy raced off and Mike chuckled, unbuttoning his coat and shrugging it off, taking the coat hanger Patsy handed him.
"You're never early, Mike," his sister said softly. "Everything okay?"
Patsy knew him too well. "Yeah, it's fine," Mike replied. He took his time hanging up his coat before turning back to her. "Just -- got off sooner than usual, so I thought I'd come by, give you a hand, distract the rugrats."
She narrowed her eyes at him a moment, but didn't ask anything more. She looked pretty happy, though. "Well, then, come along, lemme put you to work." She grinned, taking his hand.
Mike found himself giving her a genuine, if a little strained, smile in return, and following her down the hall toward the kitchen. If he managed to not run out screaming this year, maybe next year he'd try staying a little later, too.
Fini
Touch hands, touch hands, with those that stay …
Forget, forgive, for who may say that Christmas day may ever come to host or guest again.
-- W.H.H. Murray