linger

The appearance of the nurse at the door had both of them straightening up like naughty school boys. No black habit of a Catholic school nun, not like there’d been any of them braving the schools of Central City, even they’d given up on trying to save the souls of people like the Agnellis, no ruler snapping across cast iron palms but that same level of stink eye that had Chase glancing at Mikey and trying for that conspiratorial grin. Of course it had the split in his top lip opening wide. Fat drops of scarlet falling heavy to the covers, the dominoes falling as he squirmed to get a hand under it. Ribs twanging, his breath escaping on a moan. Worry came in heavy from one side while that smug satisfaction of a woman who took way too much enjoyment from being right came from the other.

”I believe it’s time your brother got some rest.” The officious voice and probing hands that had him squirming flat and going pale beneath the bruises as each injury flared back to life chased Mikey towards the door.

Chase clapped a hand on the woman’s forearm, trying to stop that inevitable reloading of the IV with the miracle stuff that would have the pain that bounced from limb to limb and boiling down sun bright behind his eyes and in his chest washing away. ”I’m alright,” he promised tightly, not trying for another smile while the blanket was still sitting balled up on the other chair beside the bed, the scarlet drops standing out jewel bright on it. ”Just … I’ll be home tomorrow.” The don’t go out looking to even the score left stopped tight in his throat. One swing would be all it took to get the door slamming tight shut on his brother again.

The nurse squirmed free then, the plunger pressed with another of those smug smiles on her face like she’d won some sort of battle. ”The doctor will be back in later to check on you.” A promise or a threat, Chase didn’t know. She faded away at least. Shoes squeaking their way out the door and towards the next poor sap to get the Florence Nightingale treatment.

Thick, white, narcotic clouds rolled in then like fog, dragging him deep enough that he could barely lift his fists to fight when Nemo swept into that haze. Face pieced together like a broken plate repaired with wormy pink scars between those jagged shards. Madness and anger drowned in confusion when he’d spat his denial back at him. Something of the Nemo he’d known, skinny and painfully unsure despite that obvious desire to be one of the Agnellis and win Emiliano’s approval, in that uncertainty for just a moment before the blows had started coming.

A holler rang out in his head as the weapon flashed and the dog went tumbling, yelping. Chase curled his fingers in the sheets, found fur soft against his fingers for a moment. The cold, wet press of that eager nose against his palm and a whine of a different kind now. He stroked his thumb up the gentle slope between the dog’s eyes before he went deeper again, body going lax in the cradle of white sheets and blankets. Reassurance giving him some strength, some clarity this time.

The car swerving out of its lane, clunking against the car. A frown cutting deep as the wheel felt like it was spinning out of his hold. The kick of the gun in his hand, pain cracking across his face with it and that sudden burn in his fingers as the gun bucked. No. The world didn’t ripple like that around him, not now. Like invisible hands were pulling at it all, shoving him where they wanted him to …

He came away with a grunt, mouth working as his eyes opened heavy. Dark slits of iris peering out of the equally dark raccoon circles bruising. At least the swelling was down enough today that he could see out of both of them without trouble. Hands, one damp as his fingers tucked into his palm, the other still in the shield of the brace, pulling at the sheets. Stilling as the doorway was filled again.

No ‘Detective Buckley’ or even ‘Mr. Buckley’. Chase. Quiet, plaintive, pulling at that cord in his chest again.

Lips curled cautiously this time. A quick sting but no fresh bleeding this time. ”Hey,” he managed, his voice a croak. Chase sniffed, felt the stiffness in his face as he did. He would’ve lifted a hand, tried to knuckle it away, but there was no hiding the fact that he looked more like the prize fighter that she’d first accused him of being than ever. No paint this time, it was all his own blood painting him beneath the skin now. She wasn’t gonna let him forget it either. Professor Braschi with the quick one two.

Chase tipped his head up as she leaned down to him, hand so gentle on his cheek, lips a butterfly’s weight on the bridge of his nose, between his brows. A broader smile tried, eased into as she dropped back into the chair. ”You were playin’ psychic huh?” He shook his head cautiously, the painkillers not always to take that ringing bell edge off the spike of a headache. ”I’d say you oughta see the other guy…” But that son of a bitch had run. Bleeding, the guys who’d responded, had said, clutching at his wrist but not turning up in any ER in town or any of the surrounding ones yet.

Curling his fingers in hers, he swept his thumb over her cheekbone as she pressed into them. Hands that had tried to put Nemo Agnelli down now so gentle. Third date, all unofficial, the promise he’d wrung out of her not swinging around yet before he’d been flattened out in the street. The frown creased again. ”I woulda gone for somethin’ classier than bed pans and ass revealing gowns but y’know.” The job had bit hard again. No coma this time, his mind trapped in that frozen shell of his body as it fought to heal that first brutal beating. ”No grapes?” That rumble of humour emerging despite the tightness in his chest. ”’s gonna be alright.” The same promise he’d made to Mikey but with a softer edge now, his thumb sweeping over her cheekbone again like he could sweep away what he’d heard in her voice when she’d led with that soft plea.

Tagged: ROXANNE BRASCHI * Word Count: 1093

The drag of the meds still left him feeling like he was fifty feet under water. Every move slow, heavy. If he’d managed to get his hand up to rub his knuckles over his face it likely would’ve taken an eternity for his hand to get there. Bruised and scabbed knuckles, puffed above the thick black nylon of the splint swimming into view, still a little fuzzed around the edges.

Either Roxxi was too or there was a glow around her, like those old images of the Madonna with child that’d lined the walls of the church when they’d been dragged there for Christmas mass. One of the few times of year any of the kids in the neighbourhood had gone beyond those heavy wooden doors. Their best clothes leaving them all squirming in the pews, pulling at tight shirt collars and craning around parents to catch a glimpse of one another. All of them suffering and the neighbourhood’s big wigs taking up the front pew like they didn’t need a year or two in the confessional to make up for all the shit they were doing.

’Forgive me father, for I have sinned…’ All too easy to picture himself on that narrow wooden bench in the booth, all those half lies he’d told to protect his brother, the truths he hadn’t told Roxxi.

That smile slanted, one corner of his mouth easier to use than the other before it fell at the sad smile that slipped back onto Roxxi’s face. Those dark eyes hidden behind that sweep of dark lashes over eyes just as dark. ”Hey,” Chase breathed out roughly, like that one word could erase the worry. His thumb circled lightly over her temper, his throat getting thick as she pressed her lips against his palm. A promise that he would be OK met with a silent reassurance from her. It would’ve been a lie anyway. Nemo had barely had a scratch on him when he’d run – a fresh scratch anyway – anything he’d managed to do before Nemo had been chased off by the cops and the dog nothing in comparison to whoever had torn up his face.

Each move was carefully planned, eased into to avoid those first few depth charges of pain that had snuck up on him the first time he’d come around, before Nurse Ratched had started to shoot him up whether he argued about the need for the painkillers or not. For his own good. Chase took his time, running his tongue along the split in his lip, getting that old penny tang of blood blooming in his mouth again. ”Not for a first date,” he said flippantly. ”Gotta be the third date at least before I start flashin’ a little cheek. I’m a gentleman, after all.” The sort who’d had to endure asking for bed pans that first day, any request for a hand to the bathroom met with a stare as steely as the pans and twice as cold. He mighta had most of it knocked out of him, leaving it smeared on the blacktop like his blood, but there was a little pride left and no guy had ever wanted the woman he liked to have to watch him brought that low.

Luckily a deep breath and that smile was easing back in. Thin enough he might’ve been able to shred it with a single brush of a thumb over the curve of her lower lip but there. ”You think so, huh?” he asked, easing back into that grin as her hand found his hip, gentle enough that he didn’t end up curled up, grey faced and wheezing on the bed as his ribs protested. Chase leaned towards her a couple of inches – cautious, damn cautious – and dropped his voice conspiratorially. ”You and me both.” The next time he wasn’t calling the nurse back in. He didn’t care if he had to drag himself to the bathroom on hands and knees sobbing the whole way there, he was scrabbling what was left of his pride back together and getting back on his feet.

She’d get him there too. Brows hitched, the butterfly stitches tugging faintly but nothing breaking open. Chase touched his tongue to his lip again, not sure he was ready to try for a pout. ”You gonna lay one on a guy in a hospital bed? That’s cold professor.” There was a warmth to his voice though, a brush of curled fingertips over that hollow beneath her ear. Roxxi didn’t have it in her – although he’d never have believed that Nemo did either until all that rage had bubbled up in that scrawny form.

The last time he’d seen Nemo he’d still been in that awkward adolescent stage, still like a puppy who hadn’t grown into his paws. Whipped enough by Emiliano that he’d likely have cringed and flinched at a single mention of his name. Had the Agnellis finally succeeded at whipping him into shape? The scars that turned his face into a jigsaw with all the pieces hacked out of shape. All that blame laid at his doorstep.

Not wanting to hear that his refusing to bow to Emiliano’s blackmail was the reason for it happening Chase tried to shove the bastardised logic back down into the part of his brain kept in that perpetual dozing state by the meds. ”Sure, come on, I’m gonna heal. Another scar’s not gonna do much to this mug, huh?” That prize fighter’s face she’d still seen some sort of appeal in. Beatings time and again each leaving their mark stamped into flesh and bone. Could he really say the job had put him in the path of any of it? ”Yeah, right,” he told her almost hoarsely. ”We wade into all that danger and sometimes it takes a little swipe at us. We get back up though.” Until you didn’t, a bullet or a blade putting you in one of those icy drawers, leaving your family trying to identify that bone white carcass spread out on a gurney.

He could’ve laid it all out for her, unburdened that weight from his chest that he’d kept away when Mikey had tried to take it from him. Neither one of them was gonna be smeared with the filth the Agnellis had hauled around with them for decades. He wouldn’t though, he’d already seen enough worry turning those dark eyes hollow. ”Not … not right now.” Chase cleared his throat, frowning faintly as she dragged their hands down to her throat where her pulse thudded heavy against the pads of his fingers. Steady, reassuring.

Tugging lightly at her touch, he tried to draw her in. ”Come here,” he said lightly, tilting his head towards the bed as he slowly tried to ease over. The whimper was out before he was halfway but he was making room. ”How’d you know I was in here? Did ya go lookin’ for me at the precinct professor?” They’d been dancing around since that night at the store. Her classroom, the blacklight party, those voicemails tossed back and forth. His phone had been cracked in the fight and was probably sitting in evidence now, waiting for the techs to prod at it like he hadn’t told them exactly who’d come to kick his ass in the street.

Tagged: ROXANNE BRASCHI * Word Count: 1220