Steve felt the blood in his veins freeze when the conversation one room over turned into a tussle, the painful grunts accompanying the sounds of breaking glass and bodies being slammed into the wall.
On autopilot, he pushed Janaea into the nearby couch and reached down to open the holster to his .38, as he limped toward the room.
Cursing himself for letting Mike go in there alone to begin with; he reached across his chest, wrapping his hand around the grip of his service revolver, then hesitated and pulled it away again, too worried to get a gun involved in what should be a welfare check.
"Mike?", he called, his heart dropping when there was no response, just more glass breaking along with strained groans.
By the time he reached the doorway, he found his partner pressed against the wall, a bleeding gash on his temple, the fedora on the ground, while a wide-eyed Yale Courtland Dancy had his arms wrapped around the lieutenant's throat.
"Police. Step back, Yale!", Steve demanded, not surprised when his appearance didn't deter the man ahead.
"I said step back!", he reiterated, once more to no avail.
In a desperate effort to save Mike's life, Steve charged forward, forgetting about his bad leg, and grabbed the poet's waist in one fell swoop, before dragging him away from his struggling partner.
The other man's physical strength was far better than his age suggested and as such, Yale fought back, causing both of them to land hard on the soiled mattress.
Hoping to keep the other man down long enough to get him in handcuffs, Steve got up on his hands and knees, trying to reach across Yale's body to flip him on his back when the other man rolled away from him, bringing up his legs enough to kick him in the chest, the power of the move strong enough to send him across the room where he landed at Mike's feet.
"Here, stay with me.", came the lieutenant's urgent plea, followed by a hand on his shoulder.
Inhaling sharply, Steve tried to catch his breath, his sore body protesting the latest mistreatment.
Eventually, the hand on his shoulder moved to his upper arm, squeezing it tightly as Mike helped him back on his feet.
Ready to tackle the uncooperative suspect once again, he hesitated for a beat and looked over at his partner, seeing the same terror in the lieutenant's eyes that he was feeling at the moment.
Yale Courtland Dancy…this was the Yale Courtland Dancy they were dealing with here.
And yet, in an agonizing twist of fate, it wasn't anymore.
Inebriated by drugs and alcohol, the poet seemed to have gained an enormous amount of strength he was now using against them, a toxic concoction for somebody in an altered state of mind in an even more dangerous setting.
How were they to stop him from reaching for their guns? What was he supposed to do if Yale picked up the sharp end of a broken bottle to come after them?
The multitude of scary scenarios made him freeze in his spot, hesitate when he shouldn't, crippling all his senses.
In the end, it was Mike's strong hand curled around his arm that served as a beacon back to reality, the tight squeeze probably leaving marks by now as the lieutenant held him back, seemingly at a loss of what to do.
When Steve looked over at the bed where he and Yale fought, he instantly knew why.
Still on his back, with his arms spread out to either side, the poet had stopped moving altogether, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling above, his mouth open a slit.
At the peculiar sight, the young inspector took a step toward the bed, looking for signs of breathing that weren't there.
"What…what just happened?", he asked, visibly shaken, when Mike followed suit, reaching for a handkerchief in his breast pocket to put over the gash on his temple.
"I don't know…", the lieutenant answered truthfully, then took the lead in walking back up to the bed, using one foot to tap the poet's ankle dangling off the sides but not receiving a response.
Slowly and gracefully, he leaned over the mattress and slipped his index and middle finger below the other man's jaw line, leaving it there for several seconds, before shaking his head in defeat.
"He must have given himself a heart attack fighting us. There is no pulse.", Mike said quietly, then reached up to close the poet's eyes before straightening back out.
"He…he is dead?", Steve replied in disbelief and approached his partner, just to have Mike nod somberly as he gestured at the diseased poet.
"Yes, I am afraid so. Yale Cortland Dancy is dead."