It will eventually be a Spike/OC story (if I get that far) and since I don't know where this is going I rated it M from the start.
Constructive criticism is very welcome and I hope you will enjoy!
Warnings: For now, just my rusty English skills. Oh, and I've never been to Canada, and know nothing of real police work and such stuff. Some violence, not too grim I think.
Disclaimer: Everything you recognize from Flashpoint is NOT mine.
Firefly – Chapter four
"So, tell me, what would make you fit for the Strategic response unit. In your own words please."
The woman in front of me has a sticky-sweet voice, like she's been eating poisonous candy for breakfast. She is properly dressed in her rust-colored pencil skirt and white blouse, and she does, quite obviously, strongly disapprove of my worn and torn jeans and tank top. I can't see why. Though old and torn, my clothes are clean and I've just showered. My hair is still wet.
But she disapproves, a blind man could tell. It's radiating off her, the disgust that is.
"Well? Are you not going to answer?"
She is trying to be imposing, demanding answers, probably hoping I'll say something like "cause I like to kill people ma'am" or something equally negligent so she can throw me out and get me locked up somewhere with white walls. But she's also scared, tensed shoulders and stress lines around her eyes. Not to mention that she have placed herself close to the door, assuring a swift escape if necessary. She has probably been reading my file the whole night.
I hope she had nightmares.
"I am physically fit for every kind of position in a SRU team, I'm great with stressful situations, know the streets of this city like the back of my hand and I have more insight in the workings of the gangs, both the new hotshots and the retired, and their hierarchy than most of the senior officers at Guns and Gangs. Not to mention that I've passed all tests with flying colors."
Yes, I am secretly very pleased with myself, thank you very much.
I grin at her, silently enjoying the way she sits straighter in her chair, ready to bolt. I am well aware that my grin might not have been all that reassuring.
"Look, I've tried my best to be nice and civil for two whole hours now. There's no need to look as if I'm going to bite. I want out of this room just as much as you do."
If anything, it looked as if I pointing out her discomfort only made her tense up even more, and she sneers back at me.
Malice would be a very suiting word for this woman.
"Your kind should never be allowed to carry a badge!" She stands now, walking around the room, putting her big oak desk in-between us as a shield. "You are nothing but a vicious, twisted disgrace for the whole force. And if I had a word in this you would be stripped of whatever rank you lowlife have managed to get, through extortion and violence no doubt, and throw you in an isolation cell in The West!"
Toronto West Detention Centre huh, that's a maximum security place. Should I be honored or pissed?
I study her where she stands behind her desk, scribbling neat little notes on the papers spread over the surface. Throwing glances my way like she's analyzing my reaction, excepting me to snap. As I give her another grin she turns back to her papers looking somewhat defeated. Like she failed somewhere along the way.
"And if I had a word in this…"
"This was not really a psych test was it?" I lounge back in my chair as realization dawns.
"You are just here to aggravate me to see if I could keep my cool, but the decision has already been made by people higher up in the food chain, whatever you like it or not, I have already been cleared." I have a hard time believing it even as I say the words, but the look on her face only confirm my suspicions and I have to bite my tongue to keep myself from laughing out loud. "You won't last long." Her voice is just as stony as her eyes when she makes the last signature on the papers before putting them back in the file.
She straightens holding out the file for me to take as she sneers at me. "Congratulations Miss Terrano, you'll find all the information in this file along with the preliminary schedule."
I smile at her, determined to be the better person in this, or at least the polite one. "No, thank you Miss Menard." I hold out my hand, a final attempt to make peace with this woman who apparently had an acid coffee along with her poisonous candy this morning. She stares at my hand with obvious contempt before walking towards the door. Retreating. "It's Mrs. Menard."
"My apologies." She is already halfway out the door and I look down on the file in my hands. This file will give me the chance to erase some of the red lines in my old one, a second new start. I turn to the open door, Mrs. Menard is long gone and I walk through the empty corridor alone grinning like a five-year old kid with a new toy. "Mrs., huh." I snort.
Poor bastard.
I zigzag through the buzzing midday crowd, avoiding businessmen, shopping housewives and school skipping teenagers, cursing wildly under my breath.
On my left arm I'm balancing a paper tray with cups off steaming gasoline and a corresponding paper bag with enough sugar to knock out the blue cookie monster. Held tightly under said arm is my newly obtained file along with ten others and the sports magazine Kyle always read. On my right arm rests the evidence box for an old case that the boss wanted me to pick up, sandwiched between my shoulder and ear sits my abused phone. On the other end of the line the guys at the station demand Chinese fast food and donuts while kindly reminding me that today is my "coffee shop day" and they'd love to help but they already had their days this week and are terribly busy.
"Fuck you guys! I think someone just tried to snatch my wallet." Said wallet is resting in my back pocket and is a ridiculously easy target. My colleagues laugh and I spit out another string of curses. "Don't hang up on us Chris." The remark is meet with more hysterical laughter and for a second I seriously consider letting my phone fall to its death on the concrete.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I should get a serious raise on my paycheck. And I really should buy myself a bag.
"Guys, I don't see any 'cheap-chicken-noodles' sign anywhere, and I've walked around this block two times already. People are staring and I'm heading back right now." Ignoring the pleading whines coming through the phone I turn to cross the street and almost run head first into the man walking behind me. I manage to hold on to everything but my phone, the damned plastic device shatter like a small china doll on the asphalt and, despite my earlier consideration to slay my phone, I curse violently before looking up at the man. And up. And up…
Holy hell…
The man is huge, towering over my 1.59 meter frame like a double deck buss over a smart car, nothing but muscle and bone hiding under the casual jeans and shirt. Like Dwayne Johnson or Steve Austin and Vin Diesel and…and I better think of something else or I'll be standing here blushing like a school girl. "I'm sorry, didn't see you." The man kneels, picking at the broken pieces that once were my phone. I snort. "Yeah, I get that a lot." The man looks up, well, raises his head to look at me. "No sorry, I didn't mean…" His eyes fall on the badge hanging around my neck and something in his eyes changes for a second, but when he stands the smile is back in place as he looks down at me. "Well, you are pretty short." He places the pieces of my phone on top of the box I'm still carrying. "You need help with that? It's a tempting offer, I'm tired and the stuff I'm carrying is nothing but trouble but something's not right.
That millisecond of a change in his eyes was enough to raise the alarms, it's said it takes one to know one and this man is a fighter, of the illegal kind. Three years ago I would have been able to sense this kind of guy walking across the street; Kyle used to call it my spider-sense, now I walked right into him and didn't even consider it.
I've gotten rusty; man I'd love to fight you.
"No, thank you. The station's not far and the guys would never shut up about it." I smile, taking half a step back to put some distance between us as I take in all the detail that used to be the first thing I noticed, his stance, the way he carried himself, hands with numerous scars and hardened knuckles, the somewhat crooked nose and the barely distinguishable outline of a knife-west under his shirt.
Thinking about it, I'm not wearing mine today.
The bruise under his jawbone and the… bruise under his jawbone is not a bruise.
Maybe I need glasses.
Now looking at it I can clearly see the three lines tattooed on his skin, the make-up concealing it smudged and fading. Staring at the mark I don't notice that I get the same onceover and the man takes a step back, brows furrowed. "I should get going then." I'm too shocked to react as the man disappears into the ever moving crowd, leaving me at the sidewalk, two blocks away from the station with a broken phone and cold coffee.
The nights dream burn in the back of my mind and I swallow. Dumping the cold coffee in a trash bin together with my phone I stack the files and the bag with cookies on top of the box, puts the SIM-card in my wallet and grabs the nearest businessman with a phone, and making sure my voice doesn't waver or leave room for discussion as I tell him to hang up, and hang up now.
"Police emergency Sir, you will have your phone back in a minute." The phone rings, once, twice, a whole eternity passes and my heart hammer in my chest before there's a click in the other end and Kyle's voice drifts through the phone. "This is Officer Kyle Sheely." The relief is immediate and suddenly I feel silly, nothing happened after all, everything's fine. In the background I hear the guys complain about late coffee and low blood sugar and oh how I should feel sorry for them.
Freaking children.
"Kyle, it's me. I dropped my phone…could you come pick me up?"