ulterior motives

The engine was turned off, the hood ticking in afternoon air that seemed that bit cooler than it got back home at this time of year. Joel shifted in the driver’s seat of his truck, squirming as he tugged his phone from his pocket. Maybe it was an emotional chill in the air, biting like some outward manifestation of his emotions. It wasn’t something he’d ever managed but who knew what other joys still lay in the warlock toolkit in his DNA. It wasn’t like Jo was teaching him much these days, other than new ways to say I won’t be home for dinner but there’s something in the freezer to nuke.

Tongue ticking back and forth over the inner border of his lower lip he thumbed his unlock code into the phone, swiped aside the background that was still a dutiful husband’s photo of his smiling wife. A couple of years and a half dozen layers of affection away from where they were now. The doc they were supposed to see again tomorrow would’ve asked why he was hanging onto it but honest to God, he didn’t even know anymore. Joel hissed out a breath, thumbing the message button even though he knew there’d been nothing since two nights ago when one of those Dear John style Dear Joel messages had told him to fend for himself had come in. He hadn’t bothered then, knew she wouldn’t put any effort in to seeing if one of the batch cooked meals she seemed to rustle up en masse when he wasn’t looking had disappeared.

She wouldn’t care and they both knew it.

Hell, the only one giving a shit if he was sat in his office til midnight every night eating every spicy, greasy, gut rotting bit of junk he could get his hands on in a town whose culinary pinnacle seemed to be a steak at the Grill was his partner.

Peña’s nose had wrinkle up at the lingering scent yesterday morning. The thick traces of the chili from the chili dog he’d picked up at the Grill and carried through the back door of the station like he was carrying nuclear secrets still clinging to the paper it’d been wrapped in getting to the guy. The scent had been light enough that he’d barely caught the reek of it himself but his partner could probably catch the whiff of the unhealthy shit he held in high disregard at a thousand yards. Even before he’d been partnered up with him back home the tale’d been that Peña was the best at sniffing shit out.

Huffing a breath back out, Joel thumbed the phone off and shoved it back in his pocket. Peña wasn’t a man who believed in taking a dose of his own medication, he still hadn’t come out with a full explanation for why he’d dragged them both the hell across the state line to go poking around in a town that wasn’t exactly Metropolis. Cunningham was proof you didn’t need a place that big to have a drug problem on your hands though. That shit was invasive and eventually it got everywhere, tainting everything it touched.

Joel grabbed the bag before he started down a rabbit hole of thought and got himself good and pissy at his partner and got out of the truck. His food was getting cold anyway and the burger wasn’t gonna be as good greasy and cold as Peña’s rabbit food shit was. The burger was probably better for him than the dose of E. coli waiting to happen in all those greens Peña was probably still gonna bitch about.

Heading into the station through the back door, Joel went straight for his office. The Sheriff was probably lurking somewhere but she’d given the two of them room since they’d started. A relief since he still needed to pull metaphorical teeth and find out what the fuck from his partner. Squirrely wasn’t the word for it, especially when he walked into their office and saw Ricky closing the drawer on something. ”Traffic,” he explained dryly, setting the bag down on the blotter on his desk. Already stained with spots of grease from a half dozen generation of cops before him, it’d handle it. Brows rising he eyed Ricky dead pan. ”You know you can go yourself if you think you’ll be faster the next time, see if you can break some new land speed records…” He sighed as he dropped into his chair though.

He peeled the white plastic bag open, pulling the tub of what the server at the Grill had promised was their best salad out of the bag. Going with it, he’d remembered at the last minute to ask her to put the dressing on the side, just in case Peña turned his nose up at it. His partner seemed to still enjoy chapping his ass, that little smile playing around his mouth now as he rose and shoved the tub onto his desk. Joel huffed a breath out through his nose, bouncing slightly as he landed back in his own chair. ”Bean sprouts, quinoa, pumpkin seeds, whatever else they managed to scrape out the rabbit cage out of the pet store next door. All the grease is on the side.” It wasn’t that bad but it wasn’t the bacon cheese burger and curly fries that was gonna leave the office smelling like a McDonald’s for the rest of the night. ”You manage to get anythin’ pulled together to actually tell me what we’re pokin’ into while I was gone.” Later, later, later seemed to be the older man’s mantra lately. Joel shook his head, spreading the paper wrapped burger and carton of fries on top of the bag.

Tagged: ENRIQUE DE LA PEÑA * Word Count: 960

It should’ve been a fucking sad situation when the one constant in your life, the one thing you looked forward to because it meant not everything had taken on that dusty pall of disregard like furniture in rooms shut up in an empty house, was your partner’s griping. Everything else had taken on that hollow air of late, his marriage ghost thin with neither he or Jolene able to reach through it … maybe only one of them even wanting to. He’d reeled that out to the counsellor at their last session, words feeling wrong in his throat somehow as he’d slumped on her couch and admitted to the failure that was their relationship. A monologue with no response from the woman who had asked for the intervention in the first place. Hearing Ricky crab, that smirk tugging at his lips as he went ram rod straight in his seat, Joel wondered if maybe he should’ve laid that depressing gift at his partner’s feet instead. Taking advice from a man whose life was as regimented as a drill sergeant.

One who seemed to revel in that crabby old man routine, a persona slipped on long before most would’ve called it time. Joel huffed out a snort, slumping in a flipped image of Ricky’s own posture, even his accent lazy in comparison. ”Pretty sure you’d spot a dozen traffic violations between here and there, think of all those days you’re get ta make miserable.” Tantamount to pissing in cheerios, although he imagined Ricky wouldn’t appreciate the comparison. The big guy’d be too prim to whip it out and do that but those momentary pricks of misery … oh yeah, he could see that. Plus it’d be a chance to slap the rule book in those dozen faces, grinding it in until the words Ricky lived by were imprinted on skin.

Joel watched his partner from under lower lids after he’d played mother and set the food down in front of him. That granite hewn face settling back into those grim lines. His own smirk half hidden as he refolded the bag, using it as a placemat to set his heart attack in wax paper down on. ”You picked the place … you wanted avocados and that yellow spice shit that’s meant to be a miracle cure for everythin’ for every meal you shoulda dragged us to San Francisco instead.” The reason why Ricky had dragged them here of all places was still a mystery clutched tight to his partner’s barrel chest. ”Least I’m gonna have fun jammin’ my arteries up. That’s misery on a plate.” He lifted his chin, jerking it towards the salad. Misery seemed to be what Ricky embraced though, the bite of it propelling him through investigation after investigation until this last.

Least he was grinning now, some masochist’s appreciation in the study of the lettuce and foraged crap and the tub of dressing. Joel snorted, shaking his head as he unfolded the origami like wrap of paper around the burger. Crushing it back, shreds of the same lettuce hanging out from the smushed bun, streaked with grease from the patty and the cheese. Maybe another step towards that heart attack but it wasn’t likely to be food that got him in the end, not in this game. There was something pained in his expression as he bit into his burger, watching Ricky stab up a forkful of dry salad with a ludicrous amount of relish. Joel made a low sound, chewing as his question hung in the air.

Knuckles came up, scrubbing over greased lips as he swallowed. Ricky had never been one to hesitate, not when a righteous bull-headed charge would get him further. Joel set his burger back on the makeshift placemat, reaching into the pocket of his jacket for the can of soda he’d got with his burger, popping the tab as Ricky finally started peeling back the metaphorical wax paper that had hidden the case. ”You knew there was some sorta tie before you brought us here?” Had known but hadn’t said a word, had just pushed and cajoled until they were both on the road. Joel’s pale eyes narrowed, lines springing up around them as he pictured the square he’d rolled through to get to and from the Grill. ”That place on the square … always has the queue outside late nights?” A place that had seemed almost out of place in the small town surface charm of Mystic Falls. ”Just to piss in his cheerios?” he asked, knowing that rattling cages often shook more free than what was expected. The minute you started to shake things in these places up people panicked, screwing up in a way that they would always exploit.

Amusement pulled at Joel’s lips as he tugged free a couple of fries, swiping them through the smear of ketchup and mustard leaking from the burger, onto the bag. He popped them in his mouth, swallowed with barely a chew. ”I can stick my nose elsewhere?” he asked, sure that Ricky didn’t want his partner tagging along with him to the club. A one horse investigation, one of them always held as a pocket ace just in case. The sound that emerged from him as disgruntled as Ricky practically assigned him to grunt work. ”I get to sit here and work the phones and the computer? Come on man, you know I’m worth more than that. I can head in on my own, unofficially, poke ‘round whatever their little inner sanctum is. Outta the two of us who d’ya think’s gonna blend in there more?” The guy who looked like he lived to keep that stick rammed up his ass, the one who’d ask for a tonic water in a place that likely didn’t set a single glass down without there being at least a single shot of booze in it, or the guy whose marital issues were probably grist for every rumour mill in the town already?

Tagged: ENRIQUE DE LA PEÑA * Word Count: 999

They’d never been that bad. Blue eyes fixed on what Ricky was jabbing his fork towards like he was gonna rattle the answers to life, the universe and everything out of it. He and Jo had cooked every night when they’d married. Whichever one got home first taking the duty, shouldering the work for the night. Meals at the table, something more than tired grunts punctuating requests to pass the salt. Nights together. Now there wasn’t even a plate left in the microwave, groceries came and went in the fridge, milk squeezed in alongside the plastic take out containers, the bare minimum in grocery shopping. The bare minimum in their marriage to even be able to call it one anymore.

Joel snorted, shaking his head as he snagged a handful of fries. Probably the only one to turn up the hospital if he did keel over clutching his chest would be Ricky, that smug look on his face and the ‘I told you so’ already crooned out. A gym membership slapped on the edge of the bed, along with something that wouldn’t look that different to what he’d got him. ”You know they got a retirement age right? They don’t like geriatrics kickin’ the doors down. Somethin’ about breakin’ hips lookin’ bad on the department’s insurance.” His lip curled as he popped a fry into his mouth, something mid-way between a sneer and a grin. ”I guess you tell yourself that enough you start to believe it. The power of positive thought right?” Not that there ever seemed much positive about his partner. Grim was a default setting these days, little escape in his life from it.

Huffing a breath out through his nose, Joel swiped his fingers on the makeshift brown paper placemat, smudges of grease left behind it. He wasn’t about to trot out every other detail of it. There’d probably never been any place on the job for his marriage. Hell, it was probably why Ricky was still single. That monk life that hid 90 percent of what went on it like a damn iceberg. Everything existing below the surface.

Attempts to dig had already failed repeatedly. Questions cut short to all he needed to know and hell, that hadn’t been enough from the start but Joel had found himself gripping onto what scraps there was of it all the same. An escape.

Watching Ricky cautiously he popped open the can of what Ricky’d probably see as liquid diabetes, sipping at it as exasperation blew out of his partner’s lips. Joel shrugged, shoulders tugging at the shirt clinging to them. He picked the can up, turned it around slowly in his hand before he sipped from it. ”If you thought there was a chance of one, yeah. Nothin’ ever got confirmed man. I thought you were goin’ on gut and I was … goin’ on trust.” And desperation, some itch to start over, to get away from the routine he and Jo had sunk into like inescapable quick sand. Mystic Falls hadn’t proven to be much better but it was something.

Eyes remained on Ricky as he set the can down. A quiet clink of metal on the cheap formica desk. Joel wormed his tongue around his teeth, working a shred of the lettuce loose. How the hell Ricky was crunching it dry was beyond him but he was doing it, like it was some sorta barrier to hide behind so he wouldn’t have to fill him in on too much about what was happening. The club had stood out on the square the minute he’d seen it, a chunk of cheap glass instead of the grade A diamonds of the rest of the town. An abscess on its ass he imagined the Founder’s Council wouldn’t mind seeing gone. No doubt the comparison would only deepen the frown on Ricky’s face as he swiped whatever remained of the bone dry salad from his lips.

Joel’s own amusement held as his partner leaned in. Smile bright around the fries he chewed on, grease and salt gleaming on his lips til he reached for his murder again. A fatty thorn in his partner’s side that shouldn’t have meant Ricky was grinning back but he did for all of a heartbeat and that was enough to have his suspicions rising up like hair on the back of his neck. The old man wasn’t gonna entirely trust him it seemed but Ricky in that club was gonna be like a fart in a car, entirely inescapable. The fine was as close as he was gonna get to Ricky agreeing and it left his smirk brightening. ”That wasn’t hard now, was it?” He took a quick bite, set the burger down to hold his hands up. ”We’ll take it slow. I’ll hang around outside, play good citizen or some shit. Bubble tea? You think is New York?” Coffee, a cup from the Coffee Bean, a brown paper bag with a couple of doughnuts. A new guy in town just sunning himself in the square.

Or hitting on whoever happened to be desperately queued up outside, wanting nothing more than to be in. Joel made a pained sound at the suggestion. ”I’ll see what I can do. Can’t be any worse than you marching in there like a disapprovin’ grandpa ready to read the riot act.” He clucked his tongue, managed one more bite of the burger before Ricky went from trying to ruin the month of everyone in that 21 to 30 bracket in town and the kids who thought they could get past security with a fake ID to poking into his life instead. Joel made a dubious sound as Ricky left his voice hanging in the air, not liking the sound of it or the scrutiny that came from those dark eyes.

Setting the burger down, he shoved it away from himself. His appetite already waning. It was a thousand times easier when that focus was aimed on anyone but him. It wasn’t a confessional, he didn’t need his partner trying to organise his life like a damn shoe closet. ”Tuesday?” His last bite was sliding down like sawdust, dry, trying to stick in his gullet. Joel swallowed again, trying to get rid of the feeling. Tuesdays and Thursdays, the regular meetings with Dr. Caldwell. Marriage counselling for one. He raked his teeth over his lower lip, tugging as he shook his head like he couldn’t remember. ”You think me not pickin’ up the phone once means I ain’t committed?” He huffed out a breath, picked up the can to take a convulsive gulp. ”You gonna put a tracker on me next? You’re getting suspicious in your old age man. I … I had an appointment, at the office block on the square. You want me to get the records?” Not a chance in hell. His marriage falling apart was bad enough as it was, he didn’t need a third person stomping all over it, crushing whatever there was left with that belief that the only marriage should be the one to the job.

Tagged: ENRIQUE DE LA PEÑA * Word Count: 1184