Hello, gamers! Welcome back to Stick Ship Week 2024! It's still technically day 2 where I am, so it still counts! I won't keep you long, but today's theme is: AU! Things are about to get black and white, detective noir film style. I hope you like it; see you at the bottom of the page!
Charles Calvin was feeling particularly hard boiled tonight. He'd always had a good sense of when a case was heading his way. Nowadays he mostly tracked lost items: missing wallets, missing cars, missing persons. But there were some cases— like the one he could feel approaching his office tonight— that lit a fire in his belly, giving him a taste of what he'd once been on the force. A good, challenging case let him picture the good ol' days, hanging out with his buddies at the coffee machine or earning a proud nod from his old captain, Galeforce.
Charles lived for cases like those. He could practically taste them in his mouth; like tidy paperwork and freshly opened cartons of cream.
There was a knock on the door, and his upper lip twitched. Right on cue. "Come in," he called, and the door pushed inward. He'd seen all sorts of people standing in his doorway, from hapless dames holding their babies to smarmy sleazeballs aiming their guns directly at his head. Still, nothing could have prepared him for the slim figure draped against the doorframe tonight.
He was extraordinarily ordinary, like a background character in someone else's caper, but he held himself with great ease and confidence. The sultry smirk on his lips was lighting a different kind of fire in the pit of Charlie's gut, and the getup only made it burn hotter. He wore a long and fitting black dress that sparkled like the night sky; a slit just under his right hip showed off his long pale legs and the tidy black heels he was wearing. Black silk gloves reached his upper arms, and his long fingers were wrapped around a thin cigarette holder. He drew it to his pert little lips for a moment, then gently blew a single ring of smoke into the room.
Charles pointed politely over his shoulder at the "No Smoking" sign. The man's smile curled upwards, and he stepped backwards to put out the cigarette in the little dish Charles had left outside. His heels clicked against the wooden floor like the ticking of a clock as he entered again. The floor hardly creaked with each step, like he weighed nothing at all. If it were any other person, Charles might have worried about him breaking his bones if he so much as stumbled, but no; even in heels, the man's every move was calculated, elegant, like a black cat.
Charles sat up in his chair and gestured around the empty room. "I'd offer to get you a seat, but as you can see, I don't have the budget for it." A single breathy laugh escaped the man's lips, and he regarded Charles with a tilt of his head. A man of few words, then. Charles could work with that. "What kind of help are you looking for today? Nothing too difficult, I hope. I like to go to bed by ten." The man breathed a sharper laugh, and Charles winked at him.
He rolled his slim shoulders back, clearly trying to get back to business, and reached into the sleeve of his right glove. He pulled out a slip of paper and set it on the desk, sliding it slowly in Charles' direction. He took the slip and unfolded it; the writing was beautiful and the pen was clearly of high quality. It read: Henry Stickmin. Lost something important. Help me find it?
Charles let himself quirk a brow. Missing item cases were his bread and butter these days, but was that all? He flicked his gaze towards the man— Henry Stickmin. No, he decided, there was definitely more to this case than met the eye. "Where'd you lose it?"
Henry reached into his sleeve again and pulled out a newspaper clipping. It was an article about the old museum on the edge of town, specifically about the latest exhibit: the Tunisian Diamond. Some of the fat cats who wanted to seem cultured had insisted on keeping the museum up and running in spite of the Toppats, a vicious gang of mobsters who'd turned this once cheerful city into a place of smoke and shadows, hiding their mysterious leader from the public eye with ease.
Apparently, the fat cats were getting cocky; a diamond that massive was just asking to get stolen, though maybe that was part of the ploy. How could anyone steal a diamond as big as a human skull without a full-on assault team? The Toppats acted too stylish for that sort of brute force.
"When did you lose it here?" Henry held up a single finger. "First day of the exhibit?" Henry nodded.
Charles leaned back in his chair and appraised his guest. The femme fatale look was getting mighty popular among certain characters, it seemed. It wasn't Charlie's style, but he knew how to appreciate the finer things in life. Henry was mighty fine-looking, no question, but he looked slick, too. It was easy to imagine him holding the stem of a speakeasy's microphone, or the handle of a shiny knife. He wondered briefly if Henry could carry a tune.
He cricked his neck to subtly shake the thought away. "I think I can help you, but we've gotta start with my least favorite question in the world: how're you gonna pay?" Henry pouted at him. "I know, I know," he said, "but we've all gotta make a living somehow. And as you can see," he gestured to the candles scattered around the office, "electricity isn't cheap." Henry shifted smoothly on his feet, the candlelight making his dress glitter hypnotically. Charles had to pat the desk firmly to shake himself out of the daze. "I typically ask for two payments; a little bit before, and a little bit after. Just in case things go belly up, you know?"
He was met with a curious stare. He could practically hear the question out loud: not so confident, are we?
Charles chuckled quietly. "Oh, I'm plenty confident. Are you?"
Henry breathed another laugh, shaking his head in a what am I going to do with you kind of way before reaching back into the sleeve of his glove. How many trinkets did he have stowed away up there?
There was a quiet thwap as something hit his desk; a small wad of bills. Charles opened it up, eyes widening almost instantly. Five Benjamin's. He hadn't seen this much money in one spot since his days on the force. Instinctively, he reached into his coat pocket and drew a small mark on each bill with his special pen. Each mark was yellow, and fading quickly out of sight. He whistled and looked up at Henry. "It's not your life savings, is it?"
Henry swayed his shoulders, almost teasingly. Charles sighed, flashing an open smile at the man. "Guess I don't need to worry too much about you, huh?" Henry shrugged and batted his eyes at him, then held out a gloved hand. Charles stood, looking solidly into the man's eyes as they shook on it. "I'm on the case. Think you can keep up?"
Henry winked at him, and together, they made their way out onto the street to find the quickest cab to the museum.
Ooh, how mysterious! Things might heat up while no one's looking!
It took me a while to get this chapter into this state; I spent a lot of time trying to world build, but it all came off as clunky and uninteresting. I was also going to show the end of the case with the big reveal: the mysterious Toppat leader is none other than Henry Stickmin himself! What's the important item he lost? The Tunisian Diamond, of course! Poor Charles is gonna get duped within an inch of his life! Will he accept a miserable defeat, or will he outsmart the femme fatale who's swept him up in a wave of passion? Who knows? Not me, lol.
Henry uses he/him pronouns here, but dresses in the femme fatale style. I guess you could call him a Them Fatale? Gender is dumb.
Anyway, it's late and I've got work in the morning. Thanks for reading, I'll hopefully see you all tomorrow. Until then!