MS - Rav's newest story

[woodyloveslinkin]

awesome. can't believe i am falling behind on these updates. Merry xmas as well, as a reply to your txt msg on christmas day, sorry I didn't reply, ran out of cred. And that I was trying to have a sleep in that morning. anyway, keep it coming.

[Greyfoxx]

wow. I can't believe i was gone for this long....Great updates mum.....I'm all caught up now!!!

[andrea]

Finally I caught up with this story again. Just want to let you know that no I haven't stopped reading.

If I said so myself I do feel sorry for my character, lol. But now I have a question and you don't have to answer if it going to be addressed in the story, but how long have Mike and Rashell been married?

Anyways can't wait for more to come.

[Ravynlee]

^ To be honest I don't remember. Since I haven't had my head in this for a while and without the benefit of rereading all of it to re familiarize myself with it all, I can take a wild guess. I think at some point I stated that you (your character) didn't know Jay that well but he'd only been dead a year by the story's inception. That means I guess if you and Mike were married not long after Jay died then you'd be married a year - or just over now. Could be wrong. If I get through rereading it all (heaven knows I have tried but can't get back into it at the moment, my apologies for those of you waiting for an update) I might be able to clarify this further.

Like I said recently tried updating again but for some reason cannot get back into it like I want - sincerely it went places now I don't think I can rationalize with my logical mind. We'll see.

But of course a huge thanks for reading - and reviewing too! As a fellow writer you know how much that means to get any kind of feedback, especially if it helps in some fashion. Great for an ego boost too

 

Know sis is eagerly awaiting more - we'll see what I can come up with.

 

Thanks again (hugs)

[woodyloveslinkin]

..Just when I thought there was an update **goes and hides beneath my Tarja poster**..where are the updates Ma? I've finally caught up and there's no more...just anyway..Can we please have some before I go off to Wagga? Good reading material in the car

[Pheonix791989]

I agree with sar, where are the updates?? *poke poke* dont make me get my stick and beat you wif it. pwease update pretty pretty pwease?!?

[Ravynlee]

I agree with sar, where are the updates?? *poke poke* dont make me get my stick and beat you wif it. pwease update pretty pretty pwease?!?

 

Bowing to public pressure (and boredom) I have about three chapters ready to upload. Give me a bit to spell-check and stuff and HOPEFULLY they'll be up tomorrow night.

Seriously it's hard trying to get back into this after such a long time out (mentally) so if something doesn't seem right let me know, I'll either edit and fix or (more likely) try and talk/rationalize my way past it It's way too much for me to read - as hard as I try - to get back in to the original headspace so any help you my avid readers can give me would be most appreciated. Tell me where to start and what you want and we'll take it from there. Open to any and all suggestion. Want me to write, inspire me, that's the deal

 

So to start the ball rolling come back and check this space soon. Will edit this post (probably) and post the chapters.

Hope it all pulls together ^^

*hugs* and thanks for replies. Nice to know even when I get lazy and unmotivated there's others to get my lazy butt up and back into the game.

:thumbsup:

[andrea]

Cool. Can't wait for the update. But as for help on the story I'll PM you.

[woodyloveslinkin]

I still stand by my premination about me being a cult leader and somehow being in love with Julius and having a relationship with dear Callan who is driving me up the currently. Will be online every now and then, but I can't promise that I'll reply to every update. O-week is awesome and I managed to get on the local news by standing around and doing nothing at the uni today ^.^ but anywho, cheerios from wagga and will be in contact with you.

[Ravynlee]

Okay so here we go again. I know it's been a while and I have been mega slack, but I did manage to drag a few pages together to hopefully get this ball rolling again. Now while I stress I am far from thrilled about what I did write (now I am mentally in a different place as opposed to last update, but I tried) I decided to try something new and just let it go. It is after all fiction. So what if some of it doesn't make sense, its not like I'm pining for a Pulitzer prize here or something haha

 

Now as you read try not to be so tough on Bobert. I know it seems like I am singling him out here as the mean bastard but tying it all together it WILL make sense in the long run. Take my word for it. And while I conferred with sis over this (I wrote this first update prior to Christmas and it took me this long to post it) as much as I wanted to make way for her to move on with her life with her new bub and love interest I am still not altogether pleased things took this route. Rob's down but not out. While you ponder that, ponder this...

Damnit... I forgot what I was gonna say

 

Well okay, hope there aren't typos and many mistakes that throw you. I tried my best. Give me a bit to get into it again, hopefully it gets better.

 

And a HUGE heartfelt thanks to those that have helped me back - you know who you are

So without further ado...

 

---

 

Sitting on the floor nursing her daughter on her lap Joanna sat ripping at the coloured paper with an exaggerated tone of wonder.

“Oh, let’s see what your aunt Ravyn got you - ooh look baby, what’s that? Wow - oh a beautiful set of books. You can read them when you get older. Thanks sis, they’re gorgeous.”

Smiling from her baby’s face Joanna looked up to thank her sister reclined across the sofa.

“Not much,” Ravyn murmured sleepily. “Thank eBay.”

“I was wondering how they got here. Very clever sis, thanks.”

“Well Rob brought them over with the rest of my stuff. Just something I had… lying around. Actually they belonged to Nicky. I just thought they might… come in handy.”

“Oh sis, you didn’t have to do that-”

“Do what?”

Inclining her head back over her shoulder Joanna watched her husband enter the room still clad in his crumpled pyjama pants and tee shirt. Carefully supporting Haily in the crook of her arm Joanna lifted up one of the books to show him. Rob’s step faltered ever-so-slightly as he met his ex-wife’s eyes.

“Isn’t that gorgeous?”

“Yeah,” Rob agreed as he sunk down into a seat with a groan.

He swept up a fistful of paper resting in a crumpled heap on the cushion next to him and balling it up tossed it away to join the rest on the floor.

“See that, sweetheart? These used to belong to your cousin-”

“You could have bought her something instead,” Rob countered flatly.

“What? When?”

“I dunno, maybe you could have gone out like the rest of us-”

“Cheer up would you?” Joanna pleaded over her shoulder. “You’re sounding like the Christmas Grinch. Besides, it’s not the amount you spend Rob, you know that. It’s the thought that counts. And I’m sure she’s going to love them, thank you sis.”

“It’s okay.”

“Well you should have spoken to me first.”

“Rob, stop it.”

“And when was I supposed to do that?”

“Sis, just ignore him. I think someone needs to get his grumpy butt back to bed if he’s going to stay like this.”

“What? I’m just saying,” Rob reasoned to both women’s somewhat vilified stares, “It’s her first Christmas is all. You could have like gone out of your way to actually get her something and not- oh forget it.”

“Rob, that’s enough,” Joanna said, turning around enough to properly face him.

He sat watching Haily lull about in Joanna’s lap with her mouth opening and closing and her little fists swinging on automatic before he swept his eyes aside to face the Christmas tree crowding the corner of the living room instead.

“You know she hasn’t been out of the house since she was… you know.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it’s about time she started.”

“She’s sitting in the room, you know,” Ravyn muttered pushing herself up into a sitting position.

Joanna looked at her apologetically but Rob continued to blink back like he was still in the process of waking up as Ravyn threw her gaze to the floor defiantly.

“You need to stop hiding out, Rave. It’s time to get up, get over it, get back to a normal life again.”

“Excuse me?”

“What, you can’t expect to sit around here all day every day for the next twelve years, do you, feeling sorry for yourself.”

“Jesus Christ Robert.”

“What?”

“You can be such an insensitive-”

“I’m just saying-”

To Joanna’s irritated groan Rob rolled his head back and rubbed at his face with creaking joints.

“Don’t start this again,” Rob pleaded. “Please. Not right now. Give it a rest, huh?”

Joanna scoffed, robbed of words, as with a crinkle of paper and a thud of footsteps Ravyn had pushed herself up and was storming from the room. Haily whined, her little head shifting about against Joanna’s tee shirt like a blind man. Her little lips quivered.

“Now see what you’ve done-”

“What?” Rob snapped back. “I’m saying it for her own good.”

“Jesus Christ - no, I’m not doing this with you. You want to start something you do it tomorrow. I’m not going to ruin this day, our daughter’s first Christmas, Rob, having another goddamned pointless argument with you. For once, one day, can’t we just-”

“What?”

“Pretend to be a normal family, one day Rob, that’s all I wanted, that’s all I asked, and you and your moods lately, you couldn’t even give me that much. What the hell is-? No, no, come on, baby. Let’s get out of here,” Joanna said.

[Ravynlee]

Pushing herself up onto her knees she stood then nursing her baby against her chest defensively. She snorted in lieu of actual words standing over him watching Rob staring back up at her with a defiant yet unreadable look on his face. Beneath the lenses of his wire-framed glasses his eyes bore straight into hers. Though his words were obviously goading her to fight the rest of him sat slumped like he had no will to do so. Joanna shook her head pressing her lips together to keep herself from saying anything further, cupping Haily’s head beneath her trembling palm.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” she managed out against better judgement with her voice low and tight and barely constrained, “and I really don’t care. But if you want to die a lonely old man keep going the way you’re going. I won’t leave you on Christmas morning, Rob, but I’m not going to stay here and subject our daughter to your- chauvinistic bullshit a day longer than I have to, I swear to god.”

“You won’t go,” he said matter-of-factly. To Joanna’s affronted ears it almost came across as a dare. She even smiled back aggrievedly.

“You think I’m scared of you? - While you hide behind your badge? You think your cop buddies are going to intimidate me, is that what you’re saying? You think I can’t make a life without you, is that it?”

Scoffing bitterly to show she had clearly missed his point, Rob sat forward over his knees to watch Joanna take a step backwards away from him as if he had threatened her. Rubbing his shaded face with his palm he shook his head at her.

“I was just saying,” Rob said, as if speaking to the mentally challenged, “I thought it was about time your sister got up off her ass and got her life back on track, that’s all. I’m trying to help here, whether you like it or not. It happened, it’s over; it’s time she got up and started dealing with things again. She’s been living here rent free may I add for months now. The bills don’t stop you know. Life doesn’t stop, just because you have a few bad experiences-”

“Bad experiences? Oh my god, you really don’t get it do you? I can’t believe what I’m hearing - You know what she’s been through, you saw it, Jesus Christ Rob - this is the woman you were married to before me for over three years, she was the mother of your- your first child. How on earth can you sit there and- how can you be so totally cold to all of it? It’s like you-”

“I’m not. I’m trying to be reasonable Joanna,” he countered with a tone that bordered on the opposite. “Would it have killed her in the last month or so to go out at least once and go to the mall or something? She can’t even go out and help you with the shopping-”

“She cooks sometimes, she cleans, you know what, she doesn’t have to do anything, Rob, she’s my sister, our guest-”

“She’s using you Joanna and you don’t get it. She doesn’t need your help she’s fine. What she needs to do is get out there and get her life back in order, she can’t stay here forever,” Rob argued determinedly. Half way through intoning something about how he wanted his office back and how they needed the room now for Haily he was intercepted by Joanna’s vilified scoff as she began to stride on shaky legs from the room.

With a groan Rob called her name. He sat further forward rubbing his furrowed brow and the back of his neck as if making ready to stand and follow her.

“No, don’t. Don’t even talk to me right now. I can’t stand to look at you. I wish you would do me a favour and just leave. If you don’t want me to be happy just say it-”

“Jo-”

“You want the room so badly? Feeling crowded? I can solve that for you. Give me twenty minutes to get a few things together and you can have the whole fucking house to yourself.”

Guiltily rubbing her daughter’s back, Joanna lowered her tone as she stared back across the festively decorated room towards her stubbornly silent husband.

“Go back to work, Rob,” she pleaded in a tearful resignation. “You’re right. Life goes on. Go back to your life or whatever the hell it is you do that’s always so important over me and our daughter and leave us the hell alone in ours. Please. I’ve just- I’ve had enough.”

The last few words that fell from Joanna’s lips sounded too much like a jagged sob that echoed behind her, making a mockery of the gaudy lights blinking silently from the Christmas tree stuck away in the corner. Sinking back into the cushions Rob huffed out a bestial groan. He kicked at the paper strewn around his ankles away as Haily’s cries began to permeate the house again. With his lips pursed into a detestable pout Rob snatched up one of the books into his hands. His lips twitched as he frowned at the hard cover. Glimpsing around at the pictures on the entertainment unit in front of him, he sniffed, swallowed sharply, and sat scratching at the back of his head in open agitation.

Down the hall Joanna banged the heel of her fist on her sister’s makeshift room firmly.

“Sis, get up, get your things together, we’re leaving,” she stated.

Lying across the single bed cuddling a pillow beneath her head Ravyn blinked back at her sister cautiously. Haily was still screaming and could not or would not be satiated. It was futile to argue and running on more emotions than she wanted to face Joanna was not prepared to make any long-winded speeches about the virtues of her actions. Leaving her sister staring miserable and dumbfounded at her back Joanna crossed the hall and made her way into her bedroom still jostling her baby roughly against her chest.

“Shh baby, shh.”

“You can’t take her out in this,” Rob said now standing in the doorway.

Joanna met his eyes only briefly before she resumed rifling through her closet to wrangle out an empty suitcase from the top shelf, which she tossed on to the bed.

“I can take her anywhere I want. She’s my daughter.”

“She’s my daughter too!”

“You’re not going to change my mind, so just drop it.”

“What, all this because I said your sister had to get out? I didn’t say it to hurt anyone, I just meant that-”

“I know what you meant! I know what you always mean!” Joanna cried back.

She was growing increasingly frustrated by Haily’s high pitched and grating cries and her inability to pack what she wanted into that one case fast enough with one free hand and by the argument as she glared over the bed at her husband filling the doorway with her eyes wet and seething.

“I’ve been with you for long enough to know what you mean Rob, even when you don’t say it. Most of the time you don’t even have to say it, who am I kidding you’re never around to say it anyway. I know you don’t love me, I know you don’t care anymore, I used to think I could change you, Rob, bring you out of this goddamned- wall you’ve built up around yourself for so long now you probably don’t even see it, but I can’t. I can’t do this anymore. I’m tired and I’m lonely and I’m scared and to be honest I don’t think I love you anymore either.” Joanna winced. She smeared her cheek with the back of her hand as she felt Rob’s eyes watching her but could no longer face them.

“I used to love you so much and you just didn’t know I was there. You never did and you still don’t. Now it’s too late because I’m leaving and I’m taking Haily with me. Honestly I should’ve done this a long time ago, but I stupidly thought after everything that happened last time with your son I couldn’t be the one to take your second child away from you. I didn’t want to live with that guilt. But I can’t do this anymore.”

Rather than retaliate Rob just stood there leaning against the doorway looking in, in brooding silence. Joanna sobbed but the sound was lost behind Haily’s grating agonizing cries. The whole room seemed crowded with it, static, adding to the friction until almost the air itself tasted like electricity as they breathed.

“I never wanted to do this, Haily needs you in her life, but you have to want to be a part of it Rob, and I can’t make you do anything-”

“Don’t do this. It’s Christmas morning for gods’ sake. Just- think about this-”

“I’m done thinking. I’m done crying. My mind’s made up,” Joanna grit out determinedly. Shoving at the last pair of jeans she could cram into her bag Joanna slammed down the lid and struggled to lock it with one hand. Pushing himself into the room Rob strode over and attempted to help.

“Alright then if it makes you happy she can stay-”

“It’s not about that anymore and you know it!” Joanna yelled up at him.

Rob’s long haggard face looked a conflicting mix of perplexed, affronted and down right miserable as he drew back away from her.

[Ravynlee]

“It’s about us! It’s about me! I don’t want to be here anymore! I’d rather be alone than with you, I feel like I am alone when I’m with you. Don’t you understand I’d be better off trying to find someone else, that gives me the love and attention I don’t get from you, and I’ll never get from you, because it’s always all about you and I can’t compete with that anymore. I never could.”

Huffing on his breaths with his lips tight Rob merely stared down at his diminutive wife and his baby daughter flailing herself about wildly and red faced, and said nothing. His lips twitched like he wanted to say something but his chest was heaving at the force of words trapped within. The air was heavy and electric as Joanna snuffled on her tears and searched his face for any signs of retaliation and realised with each pounding heartbeat that her wait was futile. Reaching down to snatch up her bag Joanna found her arm being swept away. It took her a moment to realise Rob was deflecting her, pushing her backwards away from her bags so she couldn’t reach them now with two-arms length between them. Glaring at each other they didn’t notice at first another’s entrance into the room as Ravyn lingered expectantly. Clinging to her baby Joanna back peddled, gravitating towards her.

“I’ll take her,” Ravyn said, gesturing for Haily as Joanna reluctantly relented.

“Ravyn,” Rob winced, “Stay out of this, alright. This has nothing to do with-”

“Your daughter doesn’t need to see this,” Ravyn quipped with a hint of her old fiery resolve flashing in her eyes. “Neither do I. Here sis.”

Together the two women quickly manoeuvred Haily between them before Ravyn began to make her way backwards out of the room.

“You did this,” Rob said towards his ex-wife gutturally, bitterly, half cast in the dissociative glow of the frost-laden ground beyond the bedroom window. “I should have known. You filled her head with your feminist bullshit-”

“Don’t you talk to her like that!” Joanna yelled, craning towards him.

“It’s all her fucking fault in the first place!” Rob barked back. “She started it, you’re just following it. You’re as bad as each other. I never should have married either fucking one of you-”

“Then why did you?”

“I don’t know!”

Ravyn was gone by this time and Haily’s hysterical cries echoed back from another room now a fraction quieter but with no less intensity as Joanna sobbed in unison.

“You don’t know? Oh my god, and you wonder why we got to where we are now? This is what I’m talking about, Rob. It’s been over so long we don’t even know what we’ve been fighting for.”

She reached for her case again but Rob beat her to it and snatched it up in his huge fist. Tugging at his arm was no deterrent and the big man simply pushed her out of the way and tossed it back into the cupboard with a clatter.

“You wanna be with him you be with him, but you’re not taking my daughter with you.”

“What? Him? Him who?” Joanna cried in exasperation.

Receiving only Rob’s vindictive pout Joanna smiled at him then laughed in a heartbeat, sounding more insane than humorous as she reached for her bag again.

“Joel? Are you out of your fucking mind? I never touched him,” she sobbed, thumping herself in the chest indignantly. She was crying so hard and so angrily that she was almost gasping for breaths as she stared up into her husband’s goading face and shook with a rage too long in coming.

“You just want me out of the way so you can, is that it?” Rob muttered boorishly. “You’d rather be with him than me?”

“You’re never here!”

“That’s not an excuse!”

“Excuse for what? What? I have always been faithful and you damn well know it.”

“Right.”

Pushed to the brink and emotionally raw Joanna shoved and slapped at him, wailing obscenities as the proverbial floodgates spilled over. Rob reached for her wrists and briefly snagged them to a stop but at the mercy of such raw powerful emotions Joanna wrenched clear of him and pulled back sharply. With a loud crack she slapped his face. Shock caused her to stop. With her eyes wide and watery she cringed within her skin. A split second later she felt the side of her cheek explode with a searing hot flash as Rob struck back. In shock Joanna staggered and caught the edge of the dresser to steady herself. But the sound lingered infinitely long. There was no mistaking what had happened. Nursing a shaking hand above her glowing cheek Joanna stood there staring back at him. The words she had been screaming had suddenly abandoned her. The rage that had festered in her eyes was diluted. Open mouthed in alarm she could only utter out a fragile sound as Rob stood looking down at his hand and the floor and everywhere else with a strange kind of panic. Guiltily he glimpsed at her. He went to apologize but the gesture was menial in the wake of its actions. A moment passed, two, three pounding heartbeats later, before he swallowed so loudly Joanna could hear it as Rob backed away from her. Pulling out a faded gym bag from the bottom of the armoire Rob began stuffing fistfuls of clothes into it as Joanna just stood there watching.

“I’m sorry,” he uttered eventually. “I shouldn’t have done that-”

“You’re sorry? You’re sorry?” It came out of Joanna’s throat tightly like a barely suppressed cry. “Oh my god-”

She started marching towards the door again but Rob stopped her. He didn’t even have to so much grab for her as take a step towards her and Joanna impulsively flinched away. A moment stolen to stare into her twitching tearstained face was all Rob could take before he cleared his throat and wrenched the bag away with him, putting a measured distance, and the entire expanse of their once-shared bed now between them. As Joanna stood sniffling still raw from the confrontation and in shock Rob quickly discarded his pyjama pants and stepped into trousers and tugged on a jacket and shoes. He finished it off with a cap pulled low about his knitted brow. Clearing his throat again Rob lingered in the doorway. The look on his face attested an underlying need to apologize again, to say something, but briefly and to her turned face all he could do was stand and stare.

“I’m sorry,” he managed eventually. “I just wanted-”

“Get out,” Joanna told him without so much as a second glance his way.

Rob waited.

It was a long time before Joanna met his eyes again. When she did there was nothing in them but raw pain and defiance. Nodding Rob bit his lip and bowing his head he strode away.

The slamming of the front door not long after that produced a fresh onset of tears as Joanna began to cry openly in the bedroom all alone by herself. Though Haily too continued to cry it didn’t antagonize any physical pain now but emotional ones as Joanna sunk down on the edge of her big empty bed with her whole body quaking as the reality of it all dawned upon her.

Her marriage, the pain, the heartbreak was over - so why then didn’t she feel free?

 

*

 

[Ravynlee]

---

 

Frib sat smiling at the postcard in his hands, the corner of his mouth pinched up in a kind of rueful longing. Rereading his mother’s handwriting on the back he snorted to himself before turning it over to glimpse at the face of it again. The sun and the sea and the endless ribbon of sandy white shores that adorned it made the young man’s heart sink with distant longing. Wish you were here, it said, but Frib had to wonder at the sentiment. He scoffed at the mental image of his parents sunning themselves on some tropical oasis in the Pacific and was almost glad not to be there, having to listen to his mother harangue him about finding a nice girl and settling down and his father moan about the heat with his pale Icelandic skin glowing amber like the colour of cooked shellfish.

With a sigh he set it down and stared out the window at the snow-lined streets feeling a poignant keening for his native homeland. Though he knew it was Christmas morning for Frib it seemed like just another quiet run-of-the-mill day.

Whether needing company or a distraction from having to sit through another screening of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ warbling from his television screen, Frib got to his feet and snatched up the remote stilling the room into silence. His small greying apartment hunkered down amid the cold and settling shadows as Frib shoved on his coat and boots and headed towards the front door. The gold badge in his fist felt heavy like lead when he picked it up. Lost a moment caught staring at his own distorted reflection Frib smeared it with his thumb with a dismal, introspective look on his face. He huffed out a sound. Rubbing his chest, over the old wound that had long since healed, Frib drew his hand away and shoved the badge in his pocket. With a jangle of keys and his pistol in his side holster Frib made his way out of his apartment and out into the street and headed towards the precinct with a quiet air of determination.

Though the streets were still bustling they weren’t crowded, and the office was it’s usual hive of activity as he made his way inside the building. Phones rang as people complained. Somewhere unseen a radio was blaring. Some old Bing Crosby tune sang the virtues of a Christmas past when women were women and men didn’t feel morally justified in settling their grudges with a 9mm and a whole string of toe-curling obscenities. Pushing his way in through the squeaking wooden door, Frib acknowledged the despondent faces of his counterparts with a strangely upbeat smile. For once the familiar pangs of loneliness didn’t dog him as much as they usually did, unaccustomed to the burden that seemed to bear down on everyone else of being separated from loved ones and weighed down by expectant familial responsibility. Though there was the usual skeleton crew in NEU this morning Frib was essentially content to be the only squad member in attendance as he made his way to his desk at the back of the room. Slinging his jacket on the back of his chair Frib settled down in front of his paper work. Though there was always plenty to do Frib realised without the usual distraction of his teammates that he would be finished sooner than anticipated with nothing left to do for the rest of the day. A mild panic and procrastination set in as he sunk back in his chair and stared down at the files open in front of him. Flicking his eyes up he looked at the mountain of paperwork stacked up on his partner’s desk and felt a pang of sympathy for him. It disappeared quickly. For a few minutes Frib lost his ability to concentrate instead staring off into space, into Rob’s space on the opposite side of the desk across from him, letting his mind wander. He wondered about the activities of his partner to appear so far behind on his reports when all he did all day was sit here under captain’s orders and write them up as part of his ongoing desk-sentenced probation. This, like everything else about the tall quiet-spoken detective, made Frib frown back concernedly.

Something wasn’t right, something never felt right, especially since he had found Mike Shinoda’s number on Rob’s cell phone all those weeks ago. Pushing out a heavy sigh through his nose Frib sat nursing his wrist atop his head surveying the mess that cluttered the other man’s desk with a critical eye. What else would he find if he managed to go over there and look around, he wondered, torn as always between his moral obligation to uphold the laws not break them and the urge to satisfy his basic human curiosities that kept him awake some nights with all their unanswered questions.

When his thoughts became all too much for him, Frib finally huffed himself to his feet and made his way out of the office to briefly clear his head. Sipping a tepid cup of coffee in the recreation room Frib huffed out a sigh. Boredom set like ice in his bones. Here, surrounded by empty desks and flagged on all sides by promotional inspiring feel-good posters about the virtues of his employment, Frib leant against the window ledge staring out at the street with a distant look upon his face. Down below he watched a car arc to a stop at the kerb. The occupant got out and snatched a bag from the back seat. The door closed and the car rocked as the man strode hotly towards the building’s front doors. With a curious frown it took Frib a moment to realise just who it was he was studying. His chest sunk with a dull thump as Rob surveyed the frigid street around him before a moment later he disappeared inside.

“Great,” Frib muttered around his coffee cup.

The notion that fate was bringing them together again now so soon after his recent suspicions tainted the coffee with a bitter aftertaste. Tossing the rest of it aside Frib wiped his hands before he made his way back out into NEU headquarters. Rob was striding through towards his desk with his lengthy determined stride as Frib loitered nearby pretending to look surprised to see him.

“Hey,” the young officer said with forced pep to his voice.

Rob flicked his eyes up and glared at him.

“Hey,” he grunted tightly.

Even without the benefit of hindsight Frib could sense something was amiss with his partner’s demeanour as Rob made his way past towards his desk. With a cushioned thump he dumped his bag on the floor.

“What’s that?” Frib asked as Rob began rifling through his desk drawers. “You heading out of town or something? I thought you’d be home with your family this morning?”

Rob scoffed clearly missing the humour as he met Frib’s eyes curtly.

“No,” he grit out eventually.

“Why? Avoiding the in-laws or something?”

Cringing at his weak attempt at humour ringing in his ears Frib’s smile slipped uneasily from his face. Rob’s dark eyes were like finger holes gouged into a drawn clay mask as the detective huffed back in response. Wrenching open another drawer he continued to rifle papers around inside it as Frib watched on.

“We broke up.”

“What?”

“Forget it.”

Thudding the drawer to a close Rob shoved something in his hip pocket before he stooped to snatch up his bag and sling it over his shoulder gruffly. He began to stride away again without pause or explanation as Frib quickly scurried to his feet.

“What do you mean you broke up? It’s Christmas, remember?”

[Ravynlee]

With a grunt Rob shoved open the door and made his way into the corridor heading towards the lockers. Frib followed hot on his heels.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But surely you can’t-”

“I said drop it,” Rob warned.

The look he shot his partner over his shoulder was cold and defiant much like the tone of his usually unenthused voice. Faltering briefly Frib watched as Rob strode through a second set of doors and disappeared down a flight of stairs with his mind racing. Torn, Frib again followed. The locker room usually choked with steam and the collective stench of testosterone and sweat was empty today as Frib emerged from behind the squeaking door. Scouring with his eyes Frib headed left and followed the sound of Rob’s footsteps scuffing across the tiles. Keys jangled and a locker door opened as Frib met his partner again with an equally terse and concerned expression on his face.

“Man, what happened?”

Rob smiled at him but it was far from amused as he wrenched a few things from the locker to shove inside his gym bag. It was hard to tell beneath the brim of his cap but the look on Rob’s face, if not his dark eyes, seemed to be seething with more than just righteous indignation. A moment passed and then another as Rob finished what he was doing before he slammed the door to a close. It echoed too loud like a gunshot amid the eerie stillness.

Something in that instant had shifted and Frib could sense that the topic of conversation had just changed. The way Rob was looking at him as he distractedly wrenched the zipped of his bag up made the hair on the back of the younger man’s arms stand up to attention. Rob made a sound but it was hard to tell whether he was laughing, scoffing, or a strange scathing mix of the two as his brood shoulders fell with a sigh.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Try me.”

Wrenching his bag into his fist Rob shoved his keys into his trouser pockets and approached his partner with an almost cocky swagger.

“I can help,” Frib said. Part of him, in that brief shining instant actually seemed to believe it. Coming to a stop Rob stood looking down at the shorter man out of the corner of his eye.

“Oh yeah?” He challenged. “How?”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I’m not talking about your wife,” Frib said seriously. His cool eyes were a front behind which his thoughts and his fears and doubts plagued him like a cancer. “I’m talking about Mike Shinoda. What happened?”

There was a moment where Frib was almost certain Rob could hear his wild heart beating like a drum and he struggled to keep his resolve in tact beneath the other man’s impassive stare. Rob just blinked at him, eyeing him over with another depreciative snort with his cap now masking the top half of his face in dim shadow.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rob eventually uttered.

Whether it was an accident, or intentional, Rob shouldered his way past and headed unperturbed towards the exit without stopping. Feeling the monumentality of the moment thrust upon him Frib drew in a sharp breath and turned to face his partner’s retreating back.

“I found his number a few weeks ago on your cell phone. I have it, your phone, I know all about it.”

Stopping in his tracks Rob’s hand fell from the handle as he blinked aside without focus before turning around again. A moment passed in a long drawn out silence as he struggled to summon his eyes up from the floor. The smile he tried to force was almost a leer as he scoffed back cynically.

“I know all about you and Mike.”

“Really?” Rob asked. It wasn’t so much a question as it came across an implied dare.

Silence prevailed as Frib struggled to formulate his arguments into words.

“I know that night at the hospital where we found Joe Hahn, I know he was there. I know he called you, I saw him. He was the informant, wasn’t he? He’s always been your informant. It can’t be a coincidence-”

Shaking his head Rob began to walk away again but driven by momentum Frib chased after him those few determined steps, stopping again just within arm’s reach of the door.

“One thing I don’t get is how, why? Was he involved with what happened to your last partner, is that why you’re keeping it to yourself? I’m your partner Rob, I have a right to know. If something’s going on I have to-”

“Like what?” Rob grit back, as his back hit the floor with a thump. His dark eyes narrowed as he snarling down at the shorter man. “God, you don’t fucking listen. I told you to leave it alone. I told you it was none of your business-”

“If you want to hit me go ahead,” Frib stammered back not as gruffly as he’d intended. He retreated backwards a few uncertain paces. “But it wont change anything. I’m not the only one who knows. That’s right, you’re not the only one who can keep secrets.”

“You did what?”

With a sudden thump Frib found himself back first against the lockers mere inches from his partner’s scowling face. Rigid with anticipation and shock and rage Frib grappled with the other man as they remained locked together with Rob’s bag lost somewhere behind them discarded upon the tiles.

“Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with you?” Frib bellowed incredulously. “You’ve lost it-!”

“Who’d you tell? What’d you say? What?”

“Get your hands off me! You know what-”

“Who?”

“Joel! Like I’m supposed to!” Frib snapped.

[Ravynlee]

That one word seemed to steal Rob’s strength as he swayed a little and reluctantly loosened his grip on his partner’s now crumpled shirt collar. Shoving himself free Frib scurried aside and stood a measured distance away now as he watched Rob standing there so tall and brooding but at the mercy of a stiff breeze. With a strange sound Rob covered his eyes, his glasses with the palm of his hand and drew in a series of jagged unsteady breaths. Suddenly feeling his anger and adrenalin dissolve in concern Frib cautiously asked what was wrong. The strange sound, almost a laugh, that he received back made the hair on the younger man’s flesh stand up in alarm.

“Joel,” Rob said eventually, appearing to grin beneath his palm but sounding too exhausted to back it up vocally. “Of course. Why wouldn’t you? All makes sense doesn’t it?”

“No. It doesn’t.”

Stepping backwards Rob slowly sunk down onto a bench that lined the room interspersed between the rows and rows of faded grey lockers. He snorted back dismissively. Though the look on his face was murderous the way his big shoulders sagged suggested otherwise. Muttering to himself, all Frib caught were nonsensical snippets of what he assumed were remnants of his earlier argument back home with his wife. The young officer’s body language soon, albeit tentatively, began to mirror his partner’s.

“Doesn’t matter anyway, she can have him. She’s probably safer with him anyway. Safer for all of them if I’m not around-”

“Rob?” Frib asked concernedly. It was as much to summon the other man’s attentions as it was to gain answers as to what he was now ranting on to himself about. “Look, whatever happened… we’ll get help or something, okay? I’m sure if you just… explained things to the captain maybe-”

Rob s******ed. Hunched over his knees rubbing at his face and neck wearily Rob almost appeared to stifle a chuckle as he raised his eyes upwards. He smiled but it was all teeth and no emotion as he met Frib’s eyes that were for the first time since entering the room not laced with anger but cool. The anger, the rage, the defensiveness was all gone in those few moments leaving nothing left but a cool dark eyed stare of resignation in their place. To Frib it was the look of a mad man, the kind who was about to leap off the ledge after threatening to do so, the look of clarity that came before that final fathomless abandonment of all hope. Frib stepped closer with his hand reaching discreetly for his holster. If Rob was about to pull his gun out there were only two directions he was likely to aim it and Frib wasn’t prepared as an officer of the law to see either one come to fruition right now. Somewhat poignantly he felt his chest tighten as Rob slumped further over his knees with his head hung low, feeling that old dent to his chest pang as it always did as a painful reminder not to let his guard down twice. But he needn’t have bothered. Glimpsing up from his sneakers with his hands hung limply between parted thighs Rob looked up at the gun in his partner’s fist and smiled back miserably.

“Please,” he said in his low dreary monotone. “Do it.”

Whether choosing not to register what Rob had just said or too far caught up to respond, Frib slowly and reactively raised the pistol at his partner’s face.

“Rob, I need you to slide me over your gun. Can you do that?”

Rob scoffed and went back to pondering the floor apathetically.

“Rob, I don’t want to do this but you’re not leaving me much choice. You’re unstable-”

“I’m more than unstable. If you’re gonna shoot me then shoot me Rookie. Don’t jerk me around with protocol. I’m not about to retaliate, but if that’s what it takes for you to pull that trigger-”

“What, you… you want me to shoot you? Suicide by cop? Jesus Christ!”

“You catch on fast.”

“Have you completely lost your mind?”

“Add it to the list,” Rob muttered with a cynical snort. “Along with everything else.”

Slowly raising his eyes up Rob glimpsed aside at Frib once again. He smiled. It was small, tight-lipped and rueful. Frib frowned back confusedly. It may have been a trick of the horrid fluorescent lights above, could have been the dissociative glare of light streaming in through the glass doors on the other side of the room, could have been any number of factors, but for one fleeting instant Frib was almost certain Rob was looking at his chest, at the place where the bullet had struck him during that raid on that drug lab all those months ago. It was goading, snide, even something like a dare, before Rob shook his head and went back to staring at the ground. Frib stood wrestling with his instincts and his training and the confusion making an incoherent mess of the two inside his spinning brain. Then he gasped.

“It was you,” he said, his quiet voice fading as the gun gravitated weakly to his side. “You shot me, didn’t you? You had me believing that all that time- but-… what, now you want me to shoot you… why, why would I-?”

“Because I’m dead anyway,” Rob snapped back bitterly. “So are you. I told you to stay out of it, I told you not to ask so many- didn’t I? That day we met in the squad car. I warned you not to but you had to keep at it, now I can’t save you. I can’t even save myself-”

“From what? Who? You’re not making any sense-”

“You know who!”

“Mike?” The young rookie scoffed. The grin on his face was more dubious than amused as he shuffled about on the tiles restlessly. A moment passed whereby dubiousness gave way to the notion just maybe it was worth entertaining his partner’s delusional paranoid ranting - if only to see what truths could be gleaned from them. “But- surely- I mean, if it was him, if he blackmailed you or something, surely we can’t-”

“No we can’t,” Rob intercepted into his palm with a mutter.

[Ravynlee]

It was clear by the ever-increasing stoop of his shoulders that the burden of his confession was physically crushing him beneath Frib’s wavering glare. Half way through reasoning that there had to be another logical explanation, that Rob was just worn out, mentally emotionally psychologically strung out after all that had happened and scarcely believing a word of it himself, Frib was silenced once again as Rob shot to his feet and stormed past him.

“I have to go-”

“Go where? If all of this is right then you probably don’t have a place to run to. Won’t he be after you, Mike? And it’s not just him, I mean surely this will get out, then you’ll be a- a fugitive. Why don’t you just stay here, you know, you can explain it all to the authorities, I’m sure they’d be willing to cut you a-”

“Don’t you get it yet, huh? I can’t stay here and neither can you. He’s everywhere, don’t you get it? If I go out there at least- at least when he shoots me its homicide and the city has to pay out for… for Haily and Joanna. I’d rather that than…” Pausing to sweep up his gym bag Rob hefted it over his shoulder and sighed before he glimpsed aside to look at Frib again. “I can’t do it. I can’t go to jail. I won’t make a deal, I’m sick of making deals. That’s what got me into this shit in the first place. I’d rather Mike put a bullet between my eyes. Who am I kidding, it’s only a matter of time before he does, just like that… bitch he was banging who wouldn’t keep her mouth shut.”

Though there was no venom to his voice to Frib it sounded as if Rob were merely regurgitating someone else’s opinion with no will of his own to back it.

“So many people…” Rob said with his head lowered and shaking. “And you just added yourself to the list. I warned you.”

Pausing to stress his point, Rob bowed his face, nodded and with a sharp sniff began to slowly walk away. The sudden grip holding the door ajar a moment later saw the two men locking eyes again with all previous pleasantries once more hastily discarded.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I have to take you in.”

“Like hell you do, let go of the door now.”

“I can’t do that Rob and you know it. I have my orders-”

“What orders? Let go of the damned door Frib or I swear to god-”

“I didn’t want to have to do this but the captain’s right. You’re too dangerous to be walking the streets like this. I have to take you in, it’s for your own-”

“What- you’re arresting me?” Rob cried back with righteous indignation flashing in his slitted eyes.

“No.”

The sound of another’s voice echoing back across the empty tiles stilled the room to silence.

“Captain?” Rob was heard to gasp. “What are you-?”

Though it was unclear just what he had heard or how long he had been standing there at the back of the room, the look on the captain’s face was enough to make the detective snap his mouth shut and swing his eyes aside to his partner harshly. Swallowing loudly Frib turned his face low towards the ground.

“Bourdon. I didn’t want to do this but you’ve left us with little option.”

“Sir, I can explain-”

Raising his hand with his bull-like face façade in place Goren gestured he didn’t care for the details. He interred some statement about not being so hard on Frib or taking things the wrong way with his otherwise abrasive words tainted with a more deep-seated sympathy that Rob struggled hard to absorb. His shoulders were stooped and the look on his face said it all for him, the tall detective, this one shining light and beacon of the NEU taskforce was a cornered man and he had no other way out without digging a deeper hole for himself.

Moments passed that stretched out like a lifetime and ended with Goren’s demands for Rob’s weapon and badge.

“Until you get yourself together you’re off the force Rob. I’m sorry it has to be this way, believe me, none of us wanted to see this, but the kid’s right, it is for your own good.”

With his jaw locked tight Rob remained motionless a moment weighing up his options with an air of gruff defiance. Snorting bitterly he soon withdrew his pistol and ripped the badge from his back pocket before stuffing them into Frib’s reluctant hands.

“So this is it huh? This is the way it’s gonna end? You idolised my career so much back in the academy, here it is, you can fuckin’ have it. Happy now?”

Ignoring the captain’s indignant cries to the contrary Rob stormed past barging shoulders with his now ex partner in the process.

“Rob,” Goren grunted. “Don’t leave town, okay?” The captain went to add in his less than soothing manor that the proper authorities would want to catch up with him some time in the near future to discuss his conduct but before he was even finished the door swung open with a loud thud as Rob snatched up his bag and stormed from the room without turning around. The gesture was not so much indignant as it was a final and parting ‘go-fuck-yourselves’ goodbye.

The door creaked to a slow and agonising close as both Goren and the young detective stood watching after him. Listening to the thunder of footsteps retreat and feeling the intensity of the moment wash over him, followed by the weight of the captain’s eyes upon him, the young rookie struggled to summon his eyes up from the gun and badge in his fist that was ever-so-slightly shaking. It felt like forever before he could meet Goren’s eyes and the small smile that he found waiting there for him. Rather than placate the young officer, or merely to gesture a job-well-done, Goren retrieved the items and clapped Frib on the shoulder and gave the man a momentary yet painfully telling squeeze. Frib swallowed loudly.

“Go get out of here. Back to work,” Goren said in a ‘this hurts me more than it hurts you’ tone of voice.

It almost resembled, at least to the young detective’s uncertain mind, not so much a thank you as it was a threat. Suddenly Frib recalled what Rob had stated earlier about the corruption that infiltrated this system and how it all somehow lead back to gang-banger Mike Shinoda and Frib could only force a smile as he nodded his head in acquiescence. He couldn’t help but wonder as he made his way back up to his desk beneath Goren’s ever-watchful eye, if somehow Rob for all his vilified ramblings hadn’t in some small way been actually telling the truth - and now it was too late to stop the wheels already set in motion.

 

---

[Pheonix791989]

YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! something to do other then homework and world of warcraft (or warcrack as we call it) about time mum!!!

[Ravynlee]

Thanks Mel

Hope it makes sense. Enjoy.

 

---

 

Ravyn sat watching her sister pace back and forth across the living room wearing a disapproving frown upon her face. She was focussed on the look her sister was wearing more so than even the way she clung to the phone receiver, looking all too much like a woman clinging to a life raft trying to save herself from drowning. The fact she was smiling again should have made Ravyn happy but she knew it wasn’t real. She was making the same mistakes again relying too much on the kindness of others. Only he wasn’t a stranger was he? Joel, Joanna’s estranged husband’s partner, her knight in shining armour was on the other end of the line and god only knew what he was filling her sister’s head with. Ravyn had tried to reason with her sister before she’d even made this call, and the many preceding that that she had managed to avoid, but it seemed to Joanna, at least as she struggled to come to grips with the break-up of her marriage, that the only voice she seemed willing to hear at this moment in time belonged solely to Joel.

Great. And here we go again, then, Ravyn snorted to herself bitterly.

Shifting herself off of the sofa Ravyn motioned that she was going to her room, not so much caring whether Joanna took notice or not. Truth be told Ravyn didn’t really care if she went acknowledged at the moment. Since Rob had left a void that had arguably always been here festering in this little suburban house seemed to inexplicably grow and Ravyn didn’t feel anywhere near capable of filling it, let alone attempting to, just to save her sister’s sanity. Especially now that her sister was so blindingly fast transferring her dramas from one bad situation to another - at least that was the way Ravyn saw it.

Checking in on her niece finally slumbering peacefully in her crib in her parent’s room, Ravyn retired to the guest bedroom that had become her sanctuary since her attack and sat on the edge of the bed trying not to listen in to her sister’s conversation.

Damn it why couldn’t Joanna see the problems she was already causing herself, she wondered, her frown ever increasing. Why did she have to turn to anyone? Why couldn’t her little sister just handle her heartache herself and bottle it all up inside like Ravyn did instead of running off to the next set of arms that reached out towards her? It was bullshit and Ravyn could already see through it. Mockingly Rob’s parting words to his wife before he stormed out the door echoed in Ravyn’s head like an ominous toll. Even if Joanna had never cheated on Rob, at least physically, her tone of familiarity with this other officer suggested that she wanted to on some level, even if she was vehemently declaring they were only ever just good friends.

And now Rob was out of the picture…

Jesus, sis, why can’t you see you’re just making the same damned mistake with this guy too?She thought bitterly. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Joel the fact was she really didn’t know him - but for the most part she didn’t want to. What was the point? They were all the same weren’t they? Liars, cheaters, workaholic assholes who couldn’t vent their anger and insecurities so they had to take it out on those around them, using, abusing or completely ignoring everyone and everything around them. Men. They were all the same. All wolves in sheep’s clothing and not one of them were trustworthy. They didn’t know what truth was, let alone were capable of admitting it to themselves. Beneath the masks they were all the same and it took Ravyn’s ordeal to cement such beliefs. Life had been a cruel teacher but Joanna hadn’t caught on yet, she still lived that fantasy life where evil could be overcome by a white knight and a shiny sword and promises of love that were nothing more than Hallmark-generated lies. Like a piece of driftwood her sister just kept buffering downstream clinging from man to man as a way to ground herself when what she needed to do was let go. She didn’t need a man in her life to save or complete her, so Ravyn kept repeating, ad-nauseum, but sense never seemed to make an inch way through. Of course Joanna had never been what she had been through so how could she possibly understand, Ravyn pondered, snorting to herself disparagingly. Joel might be all nice and supportive now but get too close and watch the mask slip away, just wait, Ravyn told her sister with all but a begrudging mind.

The afternoon was cold as the night had been before it. Turning to steal a glimpse out through the slatted blinds Ravyn peered out at the snow wondering impulsively if Rob was out there somewhere nearby looking back, contemplating a stubborn return and half-hearted mutterings of an apology. Neither she nor Joanna had heard from him at all since he had left leading Joanna to call Joel under the guise of concern, and when his things had arrived from the precinct they both just looked at each other with a mild kind of panic. The fact Rob was now out there walking the streets an unarmed civilian did little to appease either one of them - it didn’t take much of a mental leap to conjure any number of stories about cops sinking to the bottom of the barrel and going out in some misguided blaze of glory, hell in her day Ravyn had even written a few such articles herself - but the fact he was out there seemingly without guidance or purpose made someone with his training and talents arguably just as dangerous, and not only to himself.

Hearing footsteps pause just outside her bedroom door Ravyn turned to watch her sister enter the room.

“Joel’s coming over,” she said with relief ringing in her voice.

[Ravynlee]

Ravyn nodded with her lips pursed hoping it came off more a smile than she was really intending.

“He says it’s not safe for us to be all alone like this and he’s worried. He wants to make sure we’re okay, and see Haily of course. He’s so thoughtful isn’t he sis?”

The only thing he’s thinking of isn’t to do with your welfare and certainly not your daughter to another man, Ravyn scoffed to herself silently. She shrugged to show she was listening but the look Joanna was suddenly wearing set Ravyn’s eyes wandering their usual dance down to her lap and across the floor once more. Joanna sighed to show she was irritated.

“Please sis, don’t be like that. He’s a nice guy. He’s not the type to come around here and start any kind of trouble. Besides, he’s a police officer, it’s his job to look out for people in trouble, remember?”

Like that made any difference, Ravyn wanted to retort.

“What about Rob?”

“What about him?”

“He’s a cop. What makes him any different?”

“Please sis, we’ve been over this. I’m not going to keep-”

“It’s been two days,” Ravyn reminded, more vested in picking lint from her sock than face the look she knew her sister was suddenly wearing. “He hasn’t called. No one’s said anything. He could be dead for all we know.”

“Sis!”

“What? I’m just saying is all. You’re moving on pretty fast don’t you think? Shouldn’t you at least wait a few weeks until things settle a bit? At least til his smell’s out of the house or something.”

Groaning and rolling her eyes Joanna exhaled a sound of frustration.

“Why do you have to be such a pessimist all the time? Can’t you for once just try and trust someone other than yourself for a while? The world isn’t all doom and gloom sis. I’m sure he’s fine. He has to be or else someone would have called-”

Not unless he didn’t want to be found.

“Besides we need this time apart. I’m sure when he’s ready he’ll get back in touch again but until then I need to get my life back on track-”

“With Joel?”

“What? Why do you say it like that? Sis, I thought you wanted me to be happy? I thought that’s what families are there for? Don’t you care if I spend the rest of my waking life raising my daughter on my own?”

“You’re not on your own, what am I, a shadow?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?” Joanna challenged.

For a moment the two women just looked at each other, the short expanse of room from bed to door not enough to dilute the tension that slowly festered now between them. Huffing out a sigh Ravyn pursed her lips tighter keeping her rebuttal locked away beneath her sister’s shimmering gaze. It took a moment for Joanna to speak again only when she did gone was the venom only to be replaced with that same sickening sympathetic tone she had used from the moment Ravyn awoke in the hospital all those months ago.

It almost seemed like a lifetime ago now, a lifetime of long empty days and dark ominous nights.

“Sis,” she began. She didn’t get any further than that as the sound of Haily’s stirring squeaks could be heard coming from another room behind Joanna’s back. Saved by the belle. Turning her head Joanna seemed to think twice about tending to her baby or stay and give the lecture she was preparing to vent off of her chest first. A moment later and with that same disappointed smile Joanna bowed her head and left the room. Listening to her soothe her baby Ravyn shoved herself off the bed and shoved the door to an abrupt close.

“Mommy!” a voice beckoned on the wind.

Turning her head Ravyn instinctively searched the room then the floor at her feet for her son. Of course he wasn’t there and she pouted to herself with dismal wet eyes and a choking lump to recall the sight of those big dark eyes staring back up at her with their childlike wonder. Eyes just like his father. How curious he always was always getting into things to see how they worked. She should have been keeping an eye on him but she was always busy, so busy. Distractions would always-

BANG!

The sound was so loud it made her physically cringe and draw backwards half a step. With a hand to her throat and the wild thumping of her heart she realised, a moment later, that it was a frozen branch collapsing onto the roof and tumbling down off of the eaves with a plume of snow and green-black leaves. It hit the ground beneath the window with a cushioned thump but to Ravyn’s mind in that moment all she could do was blink back the threat of tears and smile ruefully as the memories of that fateful day came and went like a cresting wave.

Sniffling unsteadily she hurried to the bedside table and slid open the top drawer. The bottle of pills contoured to her hand like an old familiar friend. Screwing off the lid she tipped three green oval shaped tablets into her palm before returning the bottle where she gotten them. She noticed her hand was shaking as she swallowed them down in one grimacing gulp and shuddered, instantly feeling relief wash over her. Standing there a moment she swept her eyes around the room with her hand once again rubbing at her neck tenderly feeling the smooth fine scar beneath. She looked at the modest furnishings and the boxes that sat piled up in the corner and the small fold out bed that now encompassed her world and felt her heart sink to her feet. With a sigh she turned and sat down again, pushing herself backwards so that her back came to rest against the cold hard wall. She could feel a slight cool draft emanate from the glass feeling like cool breath on the side of her face. She swallowed loudly and chewed at her lip staring at the door out beyond which she could still hear Haily crying and hear Joanna coo her as she carried her out down the hall. They were like ghosts reaching out from the past to taunt and terrify her and Ravyn could only shrink back against the wall holding her throat and her knees with a dismal sniffle and wait for the medication to kick in like it always did to make all the demons and the nightmares and the darkness of the world go away.

 

 

---

[Ravynlee]

Rashell - thanks for the idea. You'll see what I mean when you read it

 

---

 

Music thumped away as Mike sat watching the dancers sway downstairs on their stage. He didn’t really like the song but he was enjoying the spectacle of mostly naked bodies swaying beneath the bright lights and even caught himself smiling as he watched. The small little brunette with the almost pubescent breasts had caught his eye but she was too far below and the constantly moving lights made it almost impossible to see her face clearly. She must have been new he thought to himself. Why wasn’t he told about it? Maybe he should have her sent up to at least learn more about her, her name being the least of it.

Half way through reaching for the phone he stopped and withdrew his hand. The sight of something shimmering in the corner of his eye beckoned his immediate attention. Rising from his seat he crossed the room to closer inspect it. Only when he pried it loose from between the sofa cushions did he realise he was holding the small silver box Rashell had given him Christmas morning. Shit. He had forgotten all about it. What the hell was it doing here? Relieved for the most part that he had managed to fob off any of his wife’s almost insistent urges as to what he had thought of his present Mike stood up now feeling relieved he didn’t have to play along any longer. Her response when he had finally admitted (more like lied) that he was happy with his gift had confused him but then he didn’t stick around long enough to contemplate what she had looked so disappointed about. Besides, she had enough on her plate to contend with packing the house down to keep her more than busy, he didn’t want to waste precious time talking about his present or how long she had been keeping the secret from him and what it was all supposed to have meant. A gift was a gift and after thanking her and kissing her and patting her on the ass in the way that always made her cheeks rosy and made her giggle like some awkward schoolgirl, he had excused himself to tend to business and promises they would catch up shortly and yes discuss everything she wanted to then. That had been several days now but late nights and early mornings made it almost impossible to catch more than a fleeting glimpse or a kiss on the cheek in passing lately. The first sincere pangs of regret dawned on him as he stood there pulling at the ribbon and the paper with a contemplative frown. He had been ignoring her lately and he never meant to do it, but it just seemed that with each day someone or something new came up with their hand out, needing him for everything except what it was he was trying to do. Distractions came far too easily these days and he hated it, but as he stood there in his modest little office unwrapping his present he vowed to himself that he would have to make it up to Rashell sooner rather than later, he might even see if he could arrange dinner reservations at one of those swanky waterside restaurants she seemed to envy so much. Make her feel, at least for a little while, like one of her favourite characters on that damned TV soap she adored so much. At least that would show her he was actually thankful and god knew they both needed it. He couldn’t remember the last time they had spent any decent quality time together of merit. Well, maybe he could see what he could arrange for tonight, he smiled.

Picturing her endearing smile Mike tore the last of the paper away and prised open the lid.

Just then there came a sudden banging on his door. Mike groaned.

“What is it?”

“Man it’s me, Tak.”

“Shit,” Mike cursed under his breath. Couldn’t they give him five minutes peace alone?he cursed with a disparaging snort. Rolling his eyes he beckoned his friend in and wrestled with the decision to steal a peek at his gift. He wanted to enjoy it for himself not share it with the rest of the damned world, he chided with irritation. Blinking up to watch the big black man enter the room Mike’s brows rose curiously. Whatever Tak had been about to say was briefly stalled as he saw the box in the other man’s hands.

“Oh hey you found it. Yeah, you left that in the car the other-”

“Yeah I got it, thanks,” Mike grunted more sharply than he meant.

Tak smiled reflexively. It was brief and forced as he lingered a moment before drawing the door to a creaking close behind him.

“What is it?”

The way Tak stood lingering still grasping the door suggested he knew he was an unwelcomed visitor but hoped what he had to say would absolve his intrusion.

“There’s a man downstairs, dog. Like big white-man ‘fro-”

“Brad,” Mike replied simply and pondered the lid. He tapped it with his fingers contemplating his next move seriously. “He usually calls-”

“He said he wanted to talk shop, wouldn’t tell me what though-”

Smart move, Mike smirked secretively to his dour-looking friend.

After motioning it was okay and to send the other man up, Mike returned his attentions back to his gift and decided to steal a quick peek inside before any further intrusions robbed him the chance to. What he saw inside made his frown darken considerably. Reaching in with two fingers he pulled the small stick of plastic out to survey it closer.

“What the hell?”

“Hey!” Tak said half way out the door with renewed vigor. “Holy shit man, is that what I think it is?”

“Depends,” Mike said, pondering his friend’s strangely animated countenance. “What does it look like?”

“Shit,” Tak laughed in a way that obviously made the half Japanese man uncomfortable. “Looks like you just joined the daddy brigade, dog.”

[Ravynlee]

An uncomfortable silence ensued where Tak’s words of congratulations were shriveled up and left to linger unanswered before Tak cleared his throat and excused himself to hurry back down stairs to fetch the other man still waiting patiently below. Mike watched him go with his impassioned stare darkening by degrees until he was left alone facing the small plastic stick again contemplating those two fine lines and the ensuing realization that went along with it. He was so caught-off-guard that he couldn’t even speak let alone curse as he tucked the offending little stick away and wiped his hand on his thigh brusquely like he was fearful of catching something contagious from it. In fact the sudden onset of thoughts suddenly spinning about in his head and the shock, when it dawned on him, made the tall man flinch slightly before he had to slap the lid over it again and completely hide it from view. The damage was figuratively already done however, still somehow assaulting his eyes as he stared at the box in his hand with a small scowl starting to grow on his face.

“Yo man, what’s up, like? You okay?” he heard Brad greet as if over a great distance.

“Actually, Brad, now’s not a… good time. Maybe we can-”

“I won’t like be long.”

Mike closed his eyes to draw in a deep breath and steady himself. It wasn’t until he opened them again that he realised the box he had been holding was now a crumpled mess inside his fist.

“I was going to like start off by like asking how your Christmas went,” Brad began. His smile faltered as he watched Mike cross the room and wrench open a drawer to shove the thing away with a loud vicious slam. Slowly, deliberately, Mike turned to look out the window at his club down below before lowering into his seat nearby.

“Didn’t like it huh? I take it you like aren’t a fan of surprises. Just as well I didn’t like bring you anything then,” Brad chuckled light-heartedly in an attempt to lighten the mood. The wisecrack and ensuing laughter between he and Tak was lost as Mike scoffed with his impassioned stare.

Nervously Tak and Brad exchanged glances before Brad cleared his throat and made his way towards the seat on the other side of the desk.

“You like okay, Mike?” Brad asked, “You look like you’ve seen like a ghost or something?”

Mike shook his head feeling his shoulders stoop lower and lower towards the ground. Rubbing his hands, his neck, his face, he drew in a deep, sharp breath. With a nod he dismissed his employee and waited until there was only two of them left alone together in the room. Finally he turned to face his friend again and summoned a plastic smile as always to his face. He leant against the top of the table with his elbows and interlacing his fingers he stared at the other man.

“Nothing.”

“Good,” Brad smiled. Beneath the wild man hair and the unsightly beard he looked more like a degenerate hobo with an evil secret as he folded his hands across his reedy chest and shrugged back nonchalantly.

“Must like be the day like for surprises,” Brad mused. Mike shrugged in a way that suggested he didn’t really care either way as Brad continued to smile at him.

“What do you want, Professor?”

“Business, as usual, unfortunately.”

“Like what?”

“The kind I like thought you’d like be interested in hearing, personally.”

“Go on,” Mike urged. Clearly he was in no frame of mind to force pleasantries, not even to one of his most dearest and trusted friends. He was obviously pained and his thoughts distracted, as he did his best to pay attention, but only the most perceptive person would have noticed the way he was going out of his way now to avoid looking at that drawer, let alone the scrunched up box within it, as he pretended to focus on the business at hand. The music from the club pounded like a constant heartbeat and the sound of patrons voices downstairs were muffled and disjointed but only added to the club owner’s distress. Within moments Mike was on his feet again pouring himself a drink beneath the beguiled stare of his silent-lipped companion. Only after Mike had drained half a glass and was refilling it did Brad finally work up the gumption to say what he had been apparently wanting to ask since arriving.

“Mike, what’s wrong?” he wanted to know. Sinking back into the seat with his reed-thin frame only half-filling it, Mike stole a glimpse at him over his shoulder with a scoff at the way the college professor seemed to have suddenly adopted the appearance of a counsellor awaiting the confessional of a paying patient.

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Come on, we’re like friends. I’ve known you for like ever. You can tell me anything.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Like obviously you need to.”

“And say what?” Mike muttered into his glass as he swallowed down the rest of his words and the strong amber liquid along with them. He exhaled sharply and contemplated the glass in his fist a long time.

“Rashell,” he finally admitted. His teeth were practically clenched closed.

“What of her?” Brad shrugged. Mike scoffed again. Words were choking him but the glance he threw at the desk on the other side of the room appeared to say it all for him.

“She’s…”

“You can say it.”

“No, I can’t!” Mike snapped. “If I say it then it’s real and if it’s real it means I have to- I don’t want to- I can’t- Fuck!”

“It’s okay,” Brad said, his quiet accepting voice a polar opposite to the heated exchange ricocheting around the room into memory. “Tak just told me.”

[Ravynlee]

“Well he better keep his fucking mouth shut!” Mike cried and slammed his glass down. His head bowed and his shoulders rose with it. He was shaking his head and didn’t seem capable of doing anything else beyond it at that moment. “If anyone else were to find out-”

“They won’t.”

“I won’t have this shit hanging over me, Brad, I can’t. Not now. Not again-”

“Relax,” Brad intoned. He had managed to get on his feet at some point, though Mike hadn’t heard him, and had reached out to lay a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder. Reflexively Mike flinched and pulled away. The fire in his eyes attested it wasn’t comfort he wanted but revenge. It was as if the shock of his wife’s pregnancy hadn’t filled him with as much promise as it did dread. It was a personal attack against him, and as he stormed across the room he could feel Brad’s eyes on his back and his blood was growing uncomfortably hotter.

“How can I relax?” Mike fired back. With a sharp clatter he drew the blinds over the window, blocking out the sights and titillations still going on without regard down below. “This shit couldn’t come at a worse time. If Fox or her fucked up crew found out, or god forbid anyone else, they’d use it against me. Make me vulnerable. I can’t risk it do you understand? Do you have any idea what’s at stake here? One… drug-fucked asshole with half a mind to challenge me could use this as a weapon, for leverage, or worse-”

“Mike,” Brad said in an almost paternal way. “It’s really not that big of a deal, like-”

“Not for you, but you’re not in this shit, I am! I’m the one standing up here trying to make a goddamned fucking difference,” Mike said, prodding himself in the chest for emphasis. “Do you realise just how many back-alley treaties I’ve had to make just to get to this place where I am? Where I have, fucking senators dancing like puppets to do what I want? I mean, fuck! Why didn’t she just run to the god damned… oh Jesus.”

Sinking into his seat Mike sat rubbing his temples vigorously as Brad lingered nearby watching on with his ever-observant and concerned stare.

As Mike wondered aloud if his wife had shared the ‘good-news’ along with anyone else his frustrations and fears seemed to grow along with it. Only Brad’s consolatory spiel that they could deal with whatever came up, and his accompanying smile that followed, seemed to bring Mike’s momentary rampage to a grinding halt.

“We dealt with it once,” Brad reminded matter-of-factly, “we’ll do it again.”

Pondering his interlaced fingers Mike considered his friend’s words a few moments. The chair squeaked as he eventually relaxed back into it. His gaze was still ablaze but the look on his face was now distant. Mike sighed.

“We? As far as I can recall you weren’t the one pulling the trigger last time,” Mike muttered across his fingers. He slid his eyes aside to his friend. Now perched with his narrow hip on the edge of the desk Brad shrugged and smiled back. It was brief but agreeable.

“Fuck Jammer. Fuck all of it.”

“Well at least it’s like not the same this time around like. At least Rashell is your wife like. This could be seen as like a good thing, right?”

The sour glance Mike afforded him made Brad chuckle back in amusement.

“Oh yeah? How?”

“Well, for like one thing, if she say, happened to like have an accident maybe… Who’d look at you, right? Especially if you’re there like in support…”

“Are you telling me to push my wife down a flight of stairs or something?” Mike wondered. Brad laughed. It was loud and out of place in that terse little office as Mike sat brooding into space distantly.

“Like no. You’ve been watching like too much of that daytime drama that she likes,” Brad laughed.

Pushing himself up from his seat Mike walked away, as much putting some distance between them as he was the topic of conversation at large.

“I’m just like saying accidents happen, Mike. That’s all. If you want them to I mean.”

“A deliberate accident. Great. Now I’m not only taking on the city I’m going to conspire against my wife too. She’s my wife, Brad! I mean, fuck, I might be a bastard but I’m not a… I don’t know… Even I have my limits, man.”

“Well, it’s a good thing for both of us like I came along today then, isn’t it?” Brad said, pushing himself on his feet. In a few strides he sunk down into Mike’s seat, albeit delicately. He didn’t seem uneasy beneath Mike’s black-eyed stare as Mike lingered half way across the room, rather the opposite, as he settled back and folded a long skinny leg across the top of the other. He folded his arms across his chest rather proudly as Mike came to a stand still and turned to face him curiously.

“I like have a business proposal I think you like want to hear.”

“I’m listening.”

“A young woman came to my attention the other day on campus like. Told me she’s like having some financial difficulties, can’t afford to like upkeep tuition. She’s a psychology student, bright like, pretty too in her own kind of way.”

“So what do I care?”

“Her boyfriend happens to like run that studio down town, Zombie Apocalypse.”

“Pete.”

“That’s the one.”

“So what? What do you need me for?”

“She needs money. You need a favour. Like, everyone has a price, Mikey-boy, you like told me that yourself. And I’m sure if she like gives you any trouble you could like, oh I don’t know, use her boyfriend’s debt as incentive, you know.” Gesturing a knife to the heart Brad poked his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and struck a dramatized pose of a corpse that made both men chuckle back quietly in amusement. “Besides,” Brad added to Mike’s now piqued interest, “If that doesn’t work out she could like join the ranks there,” he motioned with a thumb over his shoulder. “Cheap labour, perks, win-win, what more could you want like?”

“Uh hu. And what do you want out of it?”

“Nothing. Just like the usual ten percent. I’m not greedy. I just like helping out my fellow man like. Doing my part in like educating today’s youth. I like giving,” Brad teased. He chuckled again only now this time it was so low and sinister that Mike could only smirk back in response. Eventually his smirk fell away as Brad pushed himself on to his feet to join his friend on the other side of the desk.

“So you interested like?” Brad wanted to know.

Shrugging his shoulders Mike considered it a moment with a pout.

“Sure, why not. How much?”

“How much are you willing to put up to like make this little problem of yours like go away?”

[Ravynlee]

Mike blinked back impassively.

“She got a name this girl?”

“Jos.”

“Jos.”

“She’s an old friend of our prized pet, Melissa. I don’t think they’re like that close but I’m sure I’ve like seen them around on campus together at some point.”

“Is that a fact? Even better. I don’t even have to get involved. I’ll give her a call and send her over. See if she thinks this Jos is worth it.”

“Oh she’s worth it, trust me,” Brad intoned and clapped his friend on the shoulder securely. “Rashell won’t see her coming like and no one will suspect a thing. Like, she’s a sweet kid, you’ll like her.”

“I don’t have to like her, she just has to serve her purpose and keep her mouth shut.”

“Believe me, Mike, if I thought like for a second she was anything but I wouldn’t have said anything, but like I’ve been right so far haven’t I?”

“Yes,” Mike agreed. It looked however like the knowledge aggrieved him. Reaching out he clasped his friend’s hand before the two of them drew into a backslapping hug and murmurs that despite the cantor of moments ago everything really was going to be okay.

“We can do this,” Brad said. Mike nodded, his face attesting to the fact that as much as the decision momentarily hurt him it was after all business and it was all for the best in the long run.

“For Jason,” he uttered as Brad returned the sentiment.

“For Jason. And the greater good.”

After bidding his friend goodbye Mike closed the door and wandered back over to his seat again before sinking back down into it. He offloaded a sigh that was so loud and heavy it sounded like steam escaping a pressure-cooker. Hunched over his parted thighs Mike sat pondering his thoughts a long time playing the scenarios over and over relentlessly in his head. Peering at the drawer out the corner of his eye he snorted and swung the seat around to face the window and peered between a small gap in the blinds. There down below he saw Brad wandering out along side Tak and the dancers still swaying about on the stage nearby. The pretty little brunette was still there moving awkwardly like she wanted to be noticed and wanted to run away into some deep dark corner and hide from the leering glances at the same time. Stroking his beard considerately Mike withdrew and let the blinds close once more. Reaching out he snatched up the phone and uttered a few words into it. Relaxed back into his seat patiently Mike sat stewing on all that lay before him yet to be done with his fingers locked across his chest once again as Ryu and the pretty bare-chested brunette appeared in his office a few minutes later. He saw the fear and trepidation in her eyes and the knowing look Ryu gave him as he left and Mike liked that. Motioning her over with a finger he continued to stare at her, listening to the way her heels stabbed at the ground as she approached. Tentatively, seductively, with eyes like those of a doe caught in the taillights of an oncoming truck she slid a leg across to straddle his hips and bowed to kiss his mouth slowly. Mike relished it. In a world where everything seemed to keep spinning out of his control the one thing he could take even some modicum of pleasure in was in his grasp and he wasn’t about to let the moment pass for anything - or any one. Feeling her reach down to unfasten the button and zipper of his trousers Mike closed his eyes and slid his hand up to wrap his fingers as far as they could reach around the back of her neck. She made a sound but he stifled it and pulled her against him. He would have her like he would everything else he wanted eventually, whether she - or they - wanted it or not.

 

---

 

A productive day off, no?

[crazy robster]

Your updates are flowing perfectly sis, whatever worries you had about not being in the right headspace to continue with this story proved to be unfounded. ^^

 

Strangely enough I feel sorry for Rob (referring to previous update), because although he has been a bastard to me and our daughter and of course you, I know, as a reader, that he has done so out of despair and in his effort to save us from the shithole he's found himself buried in. Poor Robbie...really...*snuffle* His confrontation with Fribs and Goren was so intense!! I repeat POOOR ROB he's hit rock bottom...

 

As for today's update I am absolutely thrilled that my romance with Joely is starting to blossom AT LAST! Been waiting for it for so long!! Haha I'm eternally romantic and I know you shake your head at that but that's me so bear with me!! LOL Our fight (of sorts) couldn't be more realistic and accurate! That's what I'm talking about!! You gave the reaction I would have in real life, not the reaction you think (according to your logic) that I should have! I'm here to give you insights on my thoughts and ways of handling stuff any time (though you already know what a terrible romantic I am anyway) So congrats on that sis! Portrayal of characters as accurately as possible is a must in a successful story and you certainly get an A+ in my case!

 

And *muahahahahaha* at Mike, serves him right with the pregnacy and stuff! Let him sweat a bit!! It felt good threatening other people's families and seeing them crack in fear and despair didn't it Mikey? Now time for you to feel vulnerable...daddy! And as far as the last scene with the bare-chested dancer goes and her ahem..."services" to Mike...LOL He found the way to relax after the shock, huh? On a side note though, as much as he loves Rashell, if I were in her place and found out he did stuff like that at work he would get his ass severely kicked I'm telling ya! I hate that theory that men have "Yeah I can hump any woman I like but at heart I only love my wife.." That's bull!

 

Congrats my beloved this is great!! You are the greatest!! I hope we get more really soon!! <3

[Ravynlee]

Aww thanks sis, you made me grin like an idiot reading all that (Yay a rant! A response damnit! *does the happy dance*)

 

Look I can justify everyone's actions until I'm blue in the face but really what it comes down to is basic human psychology. Mike's doing what he's doing (and arguably overreacting to the pregnancy) because he's a man on a mission becoming blinded by power and as I told you losing sight of what's really important. He said it himself without actually having to say as much - and this goes some way arguably to describing the kind of decent man he once supposedly was and has since left behind - that he's so blinded for revenge on Chester/Fox for Jason that he's willing to lose his unborn child and even in some respects his wife to see "justice" (for want of a better word) is served.

 

As for his "thing" with the dancer, well, that's really self-explanatory. I thought any man in his position who feels that untouchable will be doing as he pleases and screw the consequences if they happened to come up.

It should be noted as much I never want to make characters cardboard cut-outs of what I think a villain should do or a hero should do that they each have their quirks and motives for behaving like they do. If you can't read deeper into the characters then that's your prerogative (though I don't mean you sis, I mean anyone reading in general now, I know you get what I'm on about, we discussed it ^^).

Oh and a last point worth noting is that I as a person sitting here writing all this from the confines of my imagination in no way advocate what any of my characters are doing - I gave them life and they grew up and made their own choices. It's not always what I'd do but hey, fiction is fiction for a reason, isn't it?

 

Now while I am not thrilled as to how all of this has panned out from the original concept I am content enough to keep the ball figuratively rolling. Both you Sis and you Rashell gave me great insight to write new things that I hadn't originally thought of before and for that I sincerely thank you. While Sarah added her input seriously it didn't really fit the context of the story so I didn't use it. See what the future brings I guess, thanks anyway.

 

So to cut the long winded rant short(-ish) point is HUGE thanks to you girls for making these aforementioned updates possible. I can't promise I will update as regularly as I used to (have to fit study and work in there somewhere y'know ) but I will do my best to keep this story going to the end with your help and critical feedback. Thanks again ladies for all your help (and sis again for the awesome rant, been too long, how I missed it! <3) *hugs*

More as soon as I can manage it ^^

 

~Rav