I’d like to see pregnant Penny.

rent-day-blues:

rent-day-blues:

rent-day-blues:

rent-day-blues:

(here is prelude again, and I’m gonna go ahead and slap a big ol trigger warning on this one: tw: miscarriage. sorry folks, this is the soap opera AU.)

It’s generally considered that the nightmare scenario for a dispatcher is to take a call in which a friend or family member is involved, but John’s got three brothers in three separate lines of emergency service, and it’s not that big a city. He’s pretty sure if he worked it out, he’d find he routes a call to one or the other of them at least once a week, and this is compounded by the fact that he hears about it, any time one of his colleagues dispatches one of the Tracy brood for whatever reason. John and his brothers are halfway to being city mascots, by this point.

Keep reading

It’s probably because he and his brothers are almost city mascots, and that John’s already a senior dispatcher despite being in the younger half of the crew, and because John hasn’t frozen on a call in years that his supervisor stands him down immediately.

It’s probably mostly the latter.

Keep reading

It’s a minor miracle that John’s here. She so easily could’ve been alone.

Keep reading

Gordon’s feeling good as he saunters the half-block down to Penny’s cafe.

Keep reading

In the end, he’d had to admit that they’re not really family.

Not in the on-paper way, which is all that matters. Technically all John is to Penelope is a friend and a neighbour, and neither of those things had qualified him to stay in her hospital room. He’s been unceremoniously removed to the waiting room, and has been informed that Penelope’s next of kin have been contacted. John doesn’t know much about Penelope’s family, but it’s possible that that’s a very, very bad thing.

He hasn’t called Gordon, because he hadn’t been able to determine whether Penelope wants him to know. He hadn’t been able to ask her whether she’d known herself, though she’d been so pale and frightened and shocked by the entire situation that he has to imagine she didn’t. It’s always been in her nature to keep secrets—it’s why John doesn’t know much about her family, or what’s brought her six thousand miles across the pond away from them—but she wouldn’t have kept this from Gordon. He knows her better than that, knows that she loves him too much.

So John hasn’t called Gordon. He hasn’t called anybody, though he’d texted Alan to tell him that he’d have to come straight home from school to cover a couple shifts with Grandma so Virgil could get to work. He hasn’t called Gordon, but Gordon shows up anyway, stumbling out of the elevator, pulling a petite woman with dark hair and glasses along behind him.

He looks terrified, in a way that someone wearing a paramedic’s blues just never should. When he’d first taken the job, John had had his doubts about how well his second youngest brother was going to be able to adapt. Gordon’s always had the tendency towards letting his thoughts and feelings play immediately across his features in the exact same moment as he thinks and feels them. But somehow he’d learned. John’s not sure how long it had taken him, but there’d been no doubt of it by the time Gordon was through his training, he’d managed to build a persona to hide himself behind.

There’s no trace of it now. Gordon’s scared, and it’s plainly apparent in every aspect.

In the little waiting area across from the elevator, John pushes himself to his feet just as Gordon does a double take at the sight of him.

“She’ll be okay,” is the first thing he says, before his little brother can get a word out, before he can do anything more than get himself across the waiting room, his hands catching urgently at John’s forearms, where John’s reached out, instinctively, to steady him. “She—I mean, the last I saw her, they said she was going to be all right. It’s—” he stops abruptly, unaware of just how much his brother knows. The girl he’d brought trailing behind him wears a uniform to match Penny’s and a nametag that identifies her as “Moffy”, but John doesn’t know her. He knows Penelope’s harridan of a boss, a lady with hair red enough to make his own look brassy and ginger, and who’d once told her off for spotting him a coffee after he’d dropped her off at work. The fact that she’s here with Gordon means that Gordon must have gone by the cafe, hoping to meet Penny at the end of their respective shifts. What he’d found instead— “—did…did anyone tell you what happened?”

Gordon’s trembling and wild-eyed, and when John moves to sit him down, he resists, shaking his head. John stays standing, moves a hand up to Gordon’s shoulder, steadying. “I—I mean, no. No? I don’t…I don’t remember. We just came here. I didn’t…there was a hell of a lot of blood, John. They just said it was Penny. They called an ambulance. She can’t lose that much blood. Where’s her room? Jesus, I need—please, please, I need to find her. Where is she? John, help me. What—god—what happened?”

This isn’t Gordon Tracy, experienced paramedic, this is Gordon Tracy, terrified boyfriend, and he’s edging up towards real, actual panic. John’s grip on his shoulder tightens, and he hates that he has to be the person to tell his brother what’s happened. But he’ll do it, if it means that Gordon doesn’t have to hear the truth from a stranger. A little more insistently, John manages to coax his brother into sitting down. He practically collapses into the hard plastic chair, and John doesn’t let go of him, as he steels himself and finds the words.

“Listen, Gordon—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. She probably wasn’t more than eight or nine weeks along, but—”

“…nine weeks…pregnant? She’s pregnant?”

And John’s heart breaks for his little brother, as he’s forced to make the correction, “…she was.”

I’d like to see pregnant Penny.

rent-day-blues:

rent-day-blues:

(here is prelude again, and I’m gonna go ahead and slap a big ol trigger warning on this one: tw: miscarriage. sorry folks, this is the soap opera AU.)

It’s generally considered that the nightmare scenario for a dispatcher is to take a call in which a friend or family member is involved, but John’s got three brothers in three separate lines of emergency service, and it’s not that big a city. He’s pretty sure if he worked it out, he’d find he routes a call to one or the other of them at least once a week, and this is compounded by the fact that he hears about it, any time one of his colleagues dispatches one of the Tracy brood for whatever reason. John and his brothers are halfway to being city mascots, by this point.

Keep reading

It’s probably because he and his brothers are almost city mascots, and that John’s already a senior dispatcher despite being in the younger half of the crew, and because John hasn’t frozen on a call in years that his supervisor stands him down immediately.

It’s probably mostly the latter.

Keep reading

It’s a minor miracle that John’s here. She so easily could’ve been alone.

There’s no emergency contact listed in her phone, and she’d realized this only as they were loading her into the ambulance. It still doesn’t feel entirely real that they’d called an ambulance, but nothing that’s happened in the past hour really does. The last thing Penelope remembers clearly is feeling utterly foolish, sitting in the bathroom in the middle of the lunchtime rush, her abdomen wracked with cramps and her head just absolutely spinning. She’d retreated to the bathroom for fear of throwing up in the middle of taking Mr. Ambreaux’s order, and just hoped that the spell would pass. She doesn’t remember if it had been the sight of the blood that had caused the fainting spell, or if she’d stood up too quickly, or if it’s really just that serious.

From that last clear point in her memory, everything dissolves into a haze of sensations; shivering against the cold clamminess of the floor and the coppery smell of blood, like a handful of pennies. Her head in Moffie’s lap, the coffee stain that marred her white apron, the first thing Penelope had seen when she’d managed to open her eyes and to try to sit up. Miss Edmunds had pushed her firmly back down, her voice the sugarcoated steel of a career waitress, and she’d snapped into the phone that they needed an ambulance now.

Penelope remembers the wetness of tears on her cheeks and the pain that had caused them, the awful, seizing cramps that seemed to come on in waves, made her want to throw up. She remembers the flood of relief that she’d felt at the sight of a dark blue uniform, immediately familiar—but it had belonged to a dark skinned man and his partner had been a blonde lady, and the names they’d exchanged as they’d worked on her had been Clark and Sontag. They’d both had that same reassuring lightness in their voices, and Penelope had tried to ask them if they knew her boyfriend, if they might know where he was, if they could find him. They hadn’t seemed to understand. Maybe she hadn’t been clear.

Penelope remembers hearing the word miscarriage, and how impossible that had seemed.

Because she hadn’t even known. She’s more afraid than anything that Gordon will think she’d been trying to keep it a secret, but the truth is she just hadn’t had the first idea.

In retrospect it explains so much, and makes her feel incredibly stupid for not having added all the pieces together into the glaringly obvious whole.

She’d put the fatigue and the tiredness down to the extra shifts she’d picked up at work, or just the change of the season, as the weather turned colder, from autumn to the beginnings of winter.

The soreness in her back and breasts she’d assumed was just a cruelty of the universe at large, a wicked irony of the fact that she’d actually saved up and splurged on a sexy, gorgeous little bra, a surprise for their first anniversary. The look on Gordon’s face as she’d slowly popped open the buttons on her pink uniform top had been worth every cent, though the thing had become the very devil to wear, despite the way it had been comfortable when she’d first tried it on.

She’d had some nausea and a few mornings before work she’d actually thrown up—but she’d had Gordon paying close attention to that, and when it had seemed to clear up as suddenly as it had started, he’d put it down to a stomach bug or a minor food allergy, especially when she’d found out that the diner had switched the sort of creamers they offered for tea or coffee, non-dairy replacing regular cream. He hadn’t been concerned, so she hadn’t been either.

The lack of her cycle—she’s dropped nearly twenty pounds since striking out on her own, she’d gotten used to the absence. Ironically, lately she’d also started to notice a slight tightness to her uniform, and had been almost grateful for the fact that she was starting to fill out again. Now she knows why.

They’ve always been careful. Mostly. They’re not perfect, but they’ve always tried to be careful. If some nights they’d been too tired and desperate for the comfort of each other to be quite as careful as usual, then they’d just hoped to be lucky and before now they always had been. If some mornings there’s a little too much urgency, if they’ve been a little too focused on the process of getting away with a quickie before work—well. It doesn’t matter. They should’ve been more careful, is really all it is.

Careful fingers gently brush her hair off her face again, and suddenly she remembers that John’s there at all. He’s not Gordon, but she’s suddenly unsure if she really wants Gordon. She wants him here, but she doesn’t want to have to tell him what’s happened. It’s the worst sort of catch-22.

“Pen, not that I blame you, but you’re kinda starting to hurt my hand a little bit,” John tells her, almost casual as though the fact that her grip is growing painful is only a minor inconvenience. She means to let go, but before she can, there’s another wave of intense cramping, and she keels forward with a moan of pain, one her hands tightening against his fingers, the other twisting in the hospital sheets. She’s sobbing again even as she leans into him, and the only word she can summon up is just, “please”, repeated again and again. It’s the last thing she says as the light in the room goes grey and then darkens to black.

I’d like to see pregnant Penny.

(here is prelude again, and I’m gonna go ahead and slap a big ol trigger warning on this one: tw: miscarriage. sorry folks, this is the soap opera AU.)

It’s generally considered that the nightmare scenario for a dispatcher is to take a call in which a friend or family member is involved, but John’s got three brothers in three separate lines of emergency service, and it’s not that big a city. He’s pretty sure if he worked it out, he’d find he routes a call to one or the other of them at least once a week, and this is compounded by the fact that he hears about it, any time one of his colleagues dispatches one of the Tracy brood for whatever reason. John and his brothers are halfway to being city mascots, by this point.

Deep down he’s still afraid of the day he hears Grandma’s voice, or Alan’s. But he’s used to hearing his brothers. It took him a while to get used to it, but John’s mostly managed to inure himself to the shock of hearing a familiar voice on the line. In a weird way he almost looks forward to it. Makes it seem almost like their family is together enough to have something as normal and stable as a family business.

So John’s used to hearing from family. And he doesn’t have enough friends outside of work to have properly considered it a risk he’d ever have to worry about.

When the call comes in, the fact that he knows the address offhand doesn’t quite ring the right bell. He’s already slipped into dispatch mode, and the only reason the address matters is with respect to nearby ambulances. He’s on the line with an older sounding woman, calling about one of her staff members, a twenty-six year old female who’d been found collapsed on the bathroom floor by one of the patrons. She’s bleeding, has bled through her skirt, enough that she’s left blood on the floor where she’d fallen.

John’s already got an ambulance on route, and he’s talking the woman through instructions to treat the onset of shock, when she breaks off in the middle of a question to exclaim, “Oh, no no no, Penny, darlin’, don’t. Shh, shh shh. Sweetness, you just lie back now, don’t try to—”

And for the first time since he was a rookie, John freezes up in the middle of a call.

Can I offer a prompt please – handmade gifts

(prelude here, I’ma start this one off with…)

Gordon’s last gift to his older brother was a pamphlet listing a variety of hand and wrist exercises, in an effort to help stave off the carpal tunnel syndrome that’s probably just about inevitable, considering all the typing his brother does. Of the five of them, John and Alan are the only ones who spend any time at desks any longer, and though it doesn’t happen often, occasionally John ends up with idle time on his hands, nothing to do while he sits at his desk. Come Christmastime, it becomes apparent that he’s been putting this time to productive use. It’s not clear if he’s used any of this idle time for the provided wrist exercises.

Apparently one of the other dispatchers had taught him the basics over the course of a couple lunch breaks. Apparently she’d gotten him started with a spare pair of needles, and an old skein of yarn that she’d meant for him just to practice with—by her standards, the colour of it was too bright and gaudy for anyone to reasonably want to wear, bright, chunky, golden rod yellow—but John’s a fast learner and a perfectionist, and by the end of a few particularly slow weeks, he’d had a respectable four feet worth of scarf, garter stitched the whole way through.

John says it’s nothing much, and that he won’t mind in the least if Gordon doesn’t wear it. He doesn’t even know if it’ll be particularly warm, being made of cheap acrylic yarn, nothing like high quality wool. He’d made it just to make it, after all, it was only supposed to be for practice. And anyway it’s out of regs, as far as the uniform goes.

Gordon doesn’t care. Gordon loves it. And he wears it from the depths of December, right up until the city starts to thaw out again.

WHEW sorry for the delay. looping back around to the a-plot.

@preludeinz picking up from here courtesy of @drdone and passing off to @akireyta

Her service weapon and her badge have both been entrusted to her partner, who isn’t happy about the plan, but admits that it’s a good one. It had been his brother who’d been her unexpected ally, who’d taken her side in the argument, and made the salient point that Kayo’s involvement on the inside track of the street racing circuit might just prevent any other kids like Alan from getting hurt, or worse. This is going to happen again anyway, and this might be the only chance they get to make sure they can stop it.

More surprising even than John’s support had been Scott’s eventual, grudging agreement.

So now she walks through the front door of her uncle’s warehouse with her head high and her shoulders back. Brains walks in front of her and she has to slow her pace in order to stay behind him, because her impulse is to stride out in front. It was her idea, after all.

At the far end of the warehouse, the Mechanic waits. She can feel him staring at her. Her teeth clench slightly, but she keeps her head high. She doesn’t flinch as she approaches, doesn’t shrink beneath his gaze, though he hides his eyes behind mirrored orange sunglasses. He’s dressed all in black, leather jacket, jeans, gloves on his hands and heavy soled boots. His hair is dark, shaved close to his scalp, patterns cut into it, razor sharp lines. He’s built beneath the jacket, Kayo can tell just from the way he holds himself, but shorter than Brains. If he’s not carrying a gun, she’ll eat her badge, or would if she hadn’t left it in the car, entrusted to her partner.

And she does trust her partner. Likewise, she can tell that he trusts her, and more than anything she wants to live up to that trust. Scott’s the reason she’s doing this, anyway.

She’s just not sure why Scott is the reason. A little voice at the back of her brain keeps saying it’s because he’s her partner, but it’s more than that. Loyalty was something her family always preached, but her loyalty to her family has been stripped and scoured away, abraded by all the wrong they’d done—not just to her personally, but to the world at large. Apparently the void left by cutting all ties to her background has been yearning for something to fill it. Kayo’s never had a partner before, never had this particular relationship with someone. She considers Scott a friend, but it’s more than just friendship. She feels a bone-deep devotion to him that she hadn’t expected. She hadn’t known what sort of a police officer she’d make—half the reason she’d gone into law enforcement was just in deliberate defiance of her own legacy—but she’d hoped to find herself drawn to something like a cause. Hoped to find something to fill the void where her loyalties had used to lie.

It’s a big, complicated feeling and it fills her up, fuels her, and fires her purpose like clay in a kiln, hardens it and makes it whole. It’s the reason she’s taken a few of her own days off work, in the name of bringing an end to the man who’s brought harm to her partner’s family. It’s the reason she can be here, and be unafraid, as she finally approaches the Mechanic, who stares at her for a few impassive seconds, before he looks to Brains, impatient and expectant. His voice is deep, oddly muffled when he growls, “Who the hell is this?”

Kayo’s got an answer of her own before Brains can so much as squeak out an apology for his tardiness.

“I’m just someone,” she starts, and squares her shoulders, hopes that her brashness and her confidence don’t tip her hand, give her away before the game’s even begun, “who heard that you’re looking for drivers.”

worst phone call john ever got vs. the best one (I imagine 911 call since he’s dispatch but take it how you like)

The new kid’s been in the break room for an hour now, but after a call like that, it’s not like anyone can blame him. Fires are always bad, but this fire had trapped and killed two children, and the new kid had been on the line with their mother the whole time. It’s an hour since the end of the call, and he hasn’t said a word since.

The captain’s pulled him off his console, stuck him somewhere quiet to calm down. But it’s been an hour, and it’s time to send in the cavalry. The cavalry, in this case, has just clocked on for his first shift of the evening.

There’s a coffee machine and a beat up old kettle in the break room, but Ned doesn’t trust either of those things. He makes his tea at home and brings it to work in a two litre thermos, hot and strong and sweet, and sacrosanct. The new kid is still too new to recognize the magnitude of the gesture being made, when Ned ambles into the break room, pulls up a chair beside him, and pours out a generous cup of tea from his very own thermos. He pushes the mug over, clears his throat, and says, magnanimous, “There now, lad, a cup of tea will help.”

Even this doesn’t get an answer, and now that he’s sitting down, Ned can see that there’s a procedural manual open in the young man’s lap. There are a couple spots of damp on the open page, and Ned pretends not to notice these as he reaches over to close the book. He picks it up and sets it aside. “Now, don’t you go beating yourself ‘bout the head with the manual,” he chides gently. “Procedure sounds grand on paper, but it’s the only place this job is actually that black and white.”

“But I did everything right.” The protest is hollow, and the first thing Ned’s heard the boy say, since the call that’s left him in this state, shaken and numb. With the crisp professionalism—the rigour of training—stripped out of his voice, he sounds alarmingly young. Ned can’t help but wonder at his age, even as he shakes his head, confused as much as he’s hurt. “I—I know I did. If they’d gotten there just a minute sooner…”

“No doubt you did everything right, but sometimes it all goes awry even so. Can’t recall if it says so in the book, but it ought to. Sometimes even everything isn’t enough.” Ned heaves a sigh. “It’s a funny old world.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“I didn’t mean the sort of funny what gets a laugh. Meant the sort of funny that makes you feel sick inside.”

“Yeah, it’s definitely that.” There’s a shuddering sigh and the shake of a bowed ginger head. “I don’t think I can do this. I thought—I thought it wouldn’t get to me. But it’s so much worse than I imagined.”

Ned nudges the cup of tea closer again. “How old are you?” he asks, tries to make it sound like idle curiosity, rather than a question he means to use to make a point.

“Twenty-two,” is the answer, and Ned manages not to wince, though it’s about what he’d expected. Barely old enough to drink, or at least to drink in this country. Hopefully too young to be inclined to really start, because Ned’s seen far too many people in this line of work turn to stiffer drinks than tea.

But as sad as the fact is, it still helps him make his point. “I’ve been doing this job longer than you’ve been alive, lad. And I won’t lie to you—there’ll be worse days than this. But you’ll help so many people, and I hope you can believe me when I tell you, that’ll help get you through.”

“Really?”

“Really. You’ll be the best part of the worst day of people’s lives, and there’s worth in that. I know it won’t seem like it, but it’s true. Now, drink your tea, and let’s get you back out on the floor. Back in the saddle, son.”

Eventually, finally, the young man reaches out and wraps his hands around the warmth of the ceramic. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll try.”

In Part 1, Scott says something about Gordon being a fairly grumpy teenager as well; as a prompt: each of the boys at 16? I love this AU & the writing is fantastic!!

He’s sixteen, and he’s gonna be a cop just like his dad. He’s gonna have a uniform and a beat and a bunch of cop buddies, and he’s gonna make his family proud, just the same way his dad does. He’s gonna serve and protect, be the thin blue line, live up to the family name. Officer Tracy has a hell of a ring to it, and Scott can’t ever help but puff up a bit with pride when he hears people address his father. He’s gonna enlist in the academy right out of high school, and he’s going to kick the training course right in the ass. He’ll be a cadet for two years, and then he’ll be on the force, bringing home a paycheck that’ll make his part time after school job look as futile as it had felt, for all that he’d known his parents were grateful for the help. He’ll finally be making a damn difference.

He’s sixteen and if cancer killed his mother, it feels like might just be grief that kills him. The doctors had said that his mother hadn’t felt anything like pain, towards the end, that by the time she was in the hospice, it was mostly the morphine that had brought her life to an end. John’s been thinking about death pretty much ever since his mother first started dying, and with her gone, all he has to hope for is that the way she’d died had been a gentle, easy end to the fight she’d had for life. He stands at his mother’s graveside, with Gordon at his elbow and Alan in his arms, too old and too heavy to hold for this long, but it’s not like that stops him clinging. He’s not even sure Alan really understands, but then, he’s not sure if any of them ever will. It’s not fair, and it makes no sense.

He’s sixteen, and hockey and football both cost more than they can afford. Both the coaches keep telling him he oughta go for it, casting speculative glances at him as he continues to add weight to the bar, sending both their team captains over to spot for him, make their hopeful cases. He turns them down. The weightroom at school is free, and after class he can spend at least an hour, maybe as many as two, losing himself in the discipline of sets and reps, in the burn of his muscles and the fact that as long as he’s got an excuse to be here, then he doesn’t have to be at home, listening to Dad and Scott screaming at each other about money, and about what Dad does to get it. Sometimes it seems like the worst thing that could’ve happened was for Scott to follow in Dad’s footsteps. It turns out their Dad walks a pretty crooked path.

He’s sixteen and he’s got a concussion, because he’s fallen on the wrong side of a barbed wire fence, and cracked his head against solid concrete. His arms are scratched and scraped and he thinks his wrist might be broken, but all he can do about any of those things is stare up at the muddy darkness of the starless city sky, and hate himself for being so stupid. He’d just been bored. He’d just wanted to get out of the stupid fucking house, because he’d hated the sound of their grandmother crying softly in her room. He thinks he can hear sirens and he wonders what they belong to. He doesn’t know yet that the security guard, walking his rounds along the perimeter of the warehouse where he’d been trespassing, had seen him fall and hadn’t seen him get up afterward. He doesn’t know that the ambulance that’s been called has been called for him. And when the paramedics show up, he’ll be surprised by how nice they are, how kindly they’ll treat him compared to anyone else.

He’s sixteen and he’s got his license. He’d had to whine and rage and beg and bitch and carry on about it endlessly, before he’d managed to get his brothers to get their acts together, to do their goddamn jobs with respect to their responsibilities as his guardians. Scott had taught him the basics, driving around whatever empty lots met his strict standards and eventually working up to proper practice on the city streets. John had been the one to help him with the written test, had kept after him about studying and told him he couldn’t expect to coast on good test taking skills; that the rules of the road were important and that he needed to really know them. Virgil had waited patiently with him at the DMV, even when he’d had to go back for a second try at the road test. And Gordon had been the one to intercept the letter with his license in it, to hold it in a clenched fist and jab a finger in Alan’s collarbone, swearing up and down that if he ever had to pull his brother out of a car wreck, there’d be hell to pay beyond the pale of the accident itself.

But, finally, Alan’s got his license.

Now all he needs is a car.

something Scotty (because I’m so predictable)

( @preludeinz here and VERY OUT OF PRACTICE WITH PROMPTS.)

He has two uniforms, and he’d be hard pressed to say which one he prefers.

Technically they’re distinguished as Class A and Class B uniforms, the former being slightly dressier, slightly more professional, and the latter being geared more towards the more tactical side of things, comfort and freedom of movement and the accomdoation of all his gear. The former makes him look like a police officer. The latter makes him look like a cop.

And some days he wants to be a police officer. Some days he enjoys the formality of it, the staunch correctness of the uniform, with its creased pants and its shiny shoes and its air of consumate togetherness, symbolic of an officer of the law as a servant of the public. The day he’d graduated from the Academy had also been the first day his brothers had seen him in full parade gear, and there’d been some not-unjustified snickering—but there’d also been a certain sense of respect, admiration. Pride. He’d been as proud of himself as they’d been of him, the day he’d finally become a police officer.

But he’s been a police officer for a couple of years now, and it’s been long enough to know that there are days when he definitely wants to be a cop. Days when he wants the Class B uniform—the one he only wears when it’s going to be a day of serving warrants, checking on parolees, or working the beat in a rough part of town—with its heavier canvas pants, its polyester shirt, built to be layered beneath a tactical vest. He wants boots, heavy and durable and comfortable. He wants a hundred pockets for the entire suite of gear he carries, and he wants to feel like a member of the police force within the community, even if this means he sets himself apart, makes himself look like an adversary of the community at large.

Scott’s been on the force long enough that he associates the Class A uniform with funerals, with twenty-one gun salutes, and putting colleagues in the ground. The Class B uniform he associates with raids, with being shot at, with the bitter taste of adrenaline and with the gut wrenching twist of fear that still goes along with the scariest parts of this job. He loves this job, both the A and the B sides of it, but there’s darkness that colours each aspect.

continuing from here

picking up from @drdone passing off to @akireyta

Her car is not a large car, an old ‘84 Mustang. It’s nothing like a classic, it’s just old. Four people take up all four seats, and Kayo’s uncomfortably aware of the presence of a civilian in their midst. Two cops, one criminal, and one bystander, and the four of them parked within spitting distance of one of her uncle’s properties. There’ll be guards, there’ll be dogs. There might be people who know her face, though she tries not to think about that.

Because if their intel is good, there also might be the person responsible for one of the more major criminal enterprises in the city, complete with boosted luxury cars, assorted juveniles being coerced with money or drugs or whatever else, and a whole lot of cash being circulated through the whole process.

It’s no wonder this trail has come leading back to the Hood, or at least to one of his properties. But the interesting question is whether this is a partnership of equals, or whether there’s an imbalance. Whether the Mechanic is a lackey or a player in his own right. If he’s a rival, then her uncle will be looking to force him out. If he’s a lackey, the Mechanic may be looking to challenge the Hood’s own robust empire.

They’ve been sitting in the car long enough that the respiration of four bodies has started to fog up the windows, and Kayo swipes a hand irritably across hers, peers out into the darkness. In seat beside her, Brains sits quietly. In the seat in front, Scott’s brother does the same, though Kayo can hear the faint, rapid tap of his thumbs on the touchscreen of his phone, the blue of the screen the only light in the darkness.

Of Scott’s brothers, so far Kayo’s only met Virgil and Gordon, and Gordon only just tonight. Virgil she’s come across once or twice before, solely by merit of the fact that he works so much, which is coincidentally the thing Scott complains about most. It’s Gordon’s temper she hears about, and by now she knows better than to get Scott started about Alan. But she’s not sure she knows anything about John, least of all why the hell he’s here.

Currently, he’s just in between her and the passenger’s side door.

“Right,” she starts, and claps her hands on the headrests of the two seats in front of her. She gives an extra tap on John’s. “You, let me out. Either the Mechanic’s in there or he isn’t, but if he is, then he’s gonna be wondering where the hell his engineer is. That’s our in. A race got blown tonight, and if there’s as much money in this game as Pointdexter—”

“Brains,” John corrects from the front seat, and Kayo’s fingers tighten just slightly on the leather of the headrest behind him.

“—as Brains says there is, then he’s going to need to set up something new, fast. There are people putting big money on these races. He’s lost about half a dozen cars, at least that many drivers, if the rest of ’em aren’t running scared. He’ll be looking. I’ve got a car. I’m a damn good driver. If we can get someone on the inside of this thing—”

“Nope.” Scott’s let her get this far, but now he turns and gives her a hard stare. “Nothin’ doing, rookie, it was one thing when I thought we could catch this guy moving hot cars into a new space, get some decent surveillance, call it in and report it. But this is clearly an operation and it’s clearly on a larger scale than you, me, and the peanut gallery can deal with. If this is connected to your uncle? That is way over our heads. We’re not clear to—”

“My uncle owns the property. He owns about half the property in this part of town. It might be that’s all it is. But it also might be that this is a line we could use to hook a big fish.”

Scott’s jaw clenches slightly. “Yeah, a big fish who knew you when you were still a small fry. Even if you can get on the inside with the Mechanic—”

“I can.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

Kayo growls and kicks the back of John’s seat. “Let me out,” she orders, but knows better than to expect that this will happen. “Just let me go have a look around. I’ll take the Brainiac, that’s my in. He tells the Mechanic that I came by the old shop after the crash, looking for work. Told him I wouldn’t take no for an answer, took him on a joy ride around town to prove I’m serious. He didn’t have a choice but to bring me back to the boss.”

They’ve only been together a few months, but Kayo knows Scott well enough to know the meaning of the way his eyes narrow slightly. He’s thinking about it, in spite of himself.

“I’ll do it,” says a quiet voice beside her. “P-please. I want to help.”

And in the front seat, Scott heaves a sigh.

continuing from here

@preludeinz picking up from @drdone and tagging @akireyta

sorry for the delay, halloween is a busy night for me

Scott’s waiting in the parking lot when Kayo’s car turns into the lot. He’s been standing in the shadows, well away from the door, smoking his way through a pack of cigarettes that none of his brothers know he has. Kayo does. She also seems to know he’ll be waiting for her, because she doesn’t seek out one of the spots nearest the main entry way, but parks deliberately at a distance. Scott’s flicked away a half-smoked cigarette and is already on the move as the car’s headlights dim down and the engine rumbles into silence, though the doors don’t open and no one exits the vehicle.

Scott’s still in uniform, but only because hasn’t found a moment to change. He’d been back to the precinct, met with his Captain and explained the situation. He’s got two weeks of leave, and Captain Casey had expressed her personal sympathy, her hope that his brother would recover quickly. She hadn’t let him try to expand on the details of the case, because it’s no longer something he can be involved in.

Not officially, anyway.

But Kayo’s parked her car beneath a street lamp in the far corner of the hospital parking lot, and as Scott approaches, the driver’s side door opens, and it becomes apparent that it’s not Kayo who’s parked the car, but Virgil. After a night like this one, it’s a relief to finally have the all of his brothers properly accounted for, and before Scott can say anything, Virgil holds out an arm to catch his shoulder, and then pulls him into a brief, wordless hug. A hand thumps on his back once, solidly, and then breaks apart again, like it hasn’t even happened.

It’s still the most comforting gesture anyone’s made since Gordon came up to him and said “It’s Alan.”

So Scott does his best to return the favour, and answers the question his brother hasn’t yet asked. “He’s been moved to a room. John’s with him, I sent Gordon home to crash, he’s coming off a double shift and someone needs to be with Grandma. We’re gonna need to work out some kinda schedule, I don’t want Al alone. Probably gonna be mostly you and me, but that’s gonna mean dragging John out of there. He’s taking this pretty hard.”

“It’s not his fault.”

Scott sighs and shakes his head. “No. But John was the last one to see Allie, before he left tonight. Thinks he could’ve stopped him. Thinks he should’ve seen this coming.”

Virgil’s wearing an old bomber jacket of their father’s, more because it’s sturdy and warm and it fits him than for anything like sentimentality. It makes the fall of his shoulders that much more evident, as he looks down and the toes of his boots scuff against the ground. “Yeah. Well, that makes two of this. I knew he was up to something. I was figuring it out. I wanted to know what it was before I let anyone else in on it—for all I knew the kid was volunteering at a soup kitchen or something—but I should’ve done it sooner. I pull all that overtime, I’m never around…if I’d—”

“Stop,” Scott cuts him off. “Doesn’t do any good. We know what we know now because of you, tonight. Tag outta this one. This part is my problem.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

There’s been nothing but silence from the backseat of Kayo’s Mustang. Scott’s eager to slide into the front seat of his car, to find out more about the man who’s done this to his family. But he doesn’t want his little brother around to see what that looks like. Scott doesn’t actually know what this is going to look like.

“I’m going to do my job,” he says, instead of admitting that he doesn’t actually know. “You’re going to go inside, room 333. Gordon says that’s a lucky number. Guess it’s easy to remember, anyway. If you can’t get John to go home, try and get him to eat something.”

Virgil doesn’t budge. “Kayo said they’d put you on leave.”

Scott nods. “Yeah, they have. Two weeks.”

“Then this isn’t your job.”

Scott feel his jaw set, lifts his chin slightly as he squares up against his little brother. “My responsibilty, then. I want to know what happened. And I want to know what I’m gonna be able to do about it, before there’s a thin blue line between me and the guy who’s done this.”

Virgil winces visibly. “Well, that’s not who’s in the back of this car. Scott, this guy is scared shitless. Your rookie barely put on any pressure at all, and he spilled his guts. I’m not saying good cop/bad cop is the way you and your partner work—but I can tell you, there’s already been plenty of bad cop tonight. If you don’t handle this right—”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to tell me how I’m supposed to handle this.”

“No, I guess I’m not.” But Virgil doesn’t seem quite done, and he hesitates, hunches his shoulders up beneath his heavy leather jacket again. “I think you know better than to need me to, though.”

And with that, Virgil pats a hand twice on the top of the car, and there’s the solid thunk of the doors unlocking. He steps away from the driver’s side, nods to Scott as he passes. “I’m gonna go check on our brothers. When you get…done…with whatever you plan to do—just…just, let me know if you’ll be free to drive John home. I’m gonna work on getting him out of here.”

“Right. Yeah, okay.”

“Don’t do anything stupid, Scott.”

“Sure, Virg.”

Virgil gives him one last, scrutinizing look, then shakes his head and sighs as he turns away, makes for the hospital’s main entrance. Scott’s not sure if he’s read doubt or disappointment in the tone of his brother’s exit—but it doesn’t really matter. He still doesn’t know what he’s going to do, so Virgil’s advice just melds into the rest of the indecision. Eventaully, without really thinking about it, Scott opens the driver’s side door, and clambers inside.