#Cross's ribs hurt in case anyone's wondering why he's clutching at his shirt in the first image

[thebad-lydrawn-sanses]

*randomly spawned a sassy cat in their castle.*

Cross's shirt: bone hurting juice (image depicting text)

Cross: i can make it to the kitchen i can make it to the kitchen i can make it to the kitchen i can make it to the kitchen i can-

sassy cat: (poof)

Cross: .

Cross: pspspspspspsps

[huphilpuffs]

flares

chapter: 10/? summary: Dan’s body has been broken for as long as he can remember, and he’s long since learned to deal with it. Sort of. But when his symptoms force him to leave uni and move into a new flat with a stranger named Phil, he finds that ignoring the pain isn’t the way to make himself happy. word count: 2813 rating: mature warnings: chronic illness, chronic pain, medicine a/n: for anyone curious about the title change, I explain why I did it here. and a huge thank you goes to @obsessivelymoody for beta reading this for me!

Ao3 link || read from beginning

The second day is always the worst.

Dan spends the night awake, staring aimlessly into the emptiness, watching haunting shades of darkness drift across his vision where he knows the white of his bedroom wall is. His duvet is too heavy over his fragile limbs, and his breathing still hurts too much to stay even.

He falls asleep for short moments, and wakes to bones so heavy he barely move. Five seconds of consciousness and tears well in his eyes, sobs break between his ribs. One arm is throbbing and one leg feels like it’s being stabbed, and he rolls onto his side with a groan so loud it cracks in his throat.

His mouth is dry and his cheeks are wet, and he breathes through his mouth even though air scrapes at his throat. He counts the stutters of his own ribcage as he inhales and exhales and inhales again until mind forgets to remember what’s happening.

Until all he can feel is the winding paths of nerves that sting with unwarranted agony.

At some point, Phil’s bedroom door opens and closes. The sound pricks at the inside of his ears. He rolls over again, turning to where a dash of light glows beneath his door, ignoring the grate of his sheets against his skin. His one arm is throbbing from how long he’d spent lying on it and his legs are prickling with numbness as he stares at the door until his eyes refuse to stay open any longer.

He pictures Phil getting ready for work, the crispness of his button downs and the backpack he sometimes throws over his shoulder before leaving. Eating cereal that’s too grainy for Dan to swallow, drinking coffee that would burn his throat, walking around on knees that don’t threaten to give out beneath his weight.

His chest heaves with a sigh before he throws himself onto his stomach, whimpering at the press of the mattress to his tender skin, to the pained cage of his ribs.

He lets his breathing slow. His thoughts bleed together and his fingers quiver in pain, and he gives up on counting until the dizziness is so bad it aches.

And he still doesn’t count.

Not until he falls asleep.

---

His brain is lingering in a useless state of semi-consciousness when someone knocks on his bedroom door. It takes no effort to feel the pressure squeezing at his thighs or the painful whatever the fuck that coasts over the rest of his body, but he has to force himself to blink his vision into focus, and lift his head to see the door.

“Come in,” he tries to yell. It splits his head, cracks on his tongue.

He collapses against the pain, lets his head fall back onto his pillow and his eyes slip closed.

“Hi, Dan,”

He blinks them open again. Taylor’s standing there, arms crossed over her stomach and head dipped, a shadow in his room, backlit with the light from the hallway.

“Close the door,” he hisses. “Too bright.”

She does, pulls it in slow so it doesn’t slam, and the only sound Dan does hear is the soft click of it falling into place.

Silence follows. Dan’s eyes are closed against and Taylor isn’t moving from where she stands by the door. She’s staring at him. He can feel it, and wonders if she would be doing the same in the familiarity of his uni dorm room. If a day like today, with the pain blazing into agony, would have mattered if he hadn’t moved.

If he didn’t have a job.

“How’d you get in?” he asks.

He hears the clumsiness of Taylor’s steps as she steadies herself on her feet. “Phil let me in.”

“Phil has work.”

“Does he work in Rawtenstall?” asks Taylor.

Dan shakes his head. The lumps in his pillow drag across his neck and press painfully to sensitive skin. “Don’t think so,” he says.

“Well then it’s not work he’s going to.”

Dan’s brain is too hazy to realize what she means by that, so he lets himself collapse deeper into his pillow. His jaw falls closed, and already hurts from talking. Part of him wishes she’d leave, to let him sleep or cry or lie around doing nothing with a numb brain and a body he desperately wishes could feel nothing.

But she doesn’t. She walks deeper into the room, and Dan hears the crack of a water bottle as she opens it. She leans down, and a plastic straw ghosts across Dan’s lips. He takes a sip, and another. Whatever it is tastes faintly of apples and something sour, and Dan cracks open his eyes to see what it is.

“Vitamin water?” he mumbles.

Taylor smiles. “Phil got it for you.”

“Where’d he go?”

Dan watches Taylor’s brow crease. She’s still holding the bottle in front him, and the straw still drifts across his closed lips, leaving phantom cuts where the plastic catches on his skin.

“I just told you,” she says. “Rawtenstall.”

“Oh,” says Dan. “Why?”

“Needed to pick up something at his parents, I think.”

Dan nods. He takes another quick sip of the vitamin water before Taylor sets it back on his nightstand. It hurts his throat to swallow and his ribs to breathe afterwards, but there’s something warm in his chest at having her here. As much as he hates it, being sick in front of Taylor is familiar, natural.

Sort of like nights spent playing Mario Kart with Phil.

“Why are you here?” he asks.

Taylor dips her head. Her messy bun seems to flop forward with the movement. “I called Phil to ask how you were doing, and he said I could come over and see you if I wanted.” She reaches up, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “I wasn’t going to, but he asked if I could. He didn’t want to leave you alone for too long, in case you needed anything.”

Dan feels his cheeks burn. He tries to kick the blankets of his feet, only to hiss when it sends a shot of pain ricocheting along his spine. Taylor reaches down, pulls the blanket away for him and sets it on the side of the bed he doesn’t use.

“Hot?” she asks.

He nods, even though the heat lingers in his face. “Phil was supposed to work today,” he hears himself say.

Taylor shrugs. “Maybe he called in sick?”

Dan’s cheeks get warmer. “Is he sick?”

“No,” says Taylor. “But you are.”

---

Phil gets home. Taylor goes back to uni.

Dan doesn’t get the chance to ask how she’s doing. She spent the afternoon writing a paper in the lounge as Dan had laid in bed, staring at the ceiling and willing his body to stop hurting as though it had ever listened before. Before leaving, she pops into his room to say goodbye with a wave and a quiet promise to come back soon.

Phil escorts her out. Dan can hear them from his bedroom, eyes pressed closed and hands tangled in his duvet.

And then his bedroom door cracks open again, and Phil’s poking his head in.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

Dan groans, but his response is still: “Fine.”

He can picture the way concern draws at the corners of Phil’s mouth, and listens as the door clicks closed and Phil steps deeper into the room. “Dan,” he says. It reminds Dan of the tone his father used to use when he didn’t believe Dan’s claims that he was sick.

But Phil, he realizes, is using it because Dan’s claiming to be healthy.

“Sore,” he admits. “More than yesterday.”

“More?” asks Phil. It sounds like a breath.

Dan nods, groaning at the press of his pillow to his neck. “Less dizzy. More pain.”

“Oh.”

Dan cracks his eyes open to see Phil leaning over the bed, dragging the bundled up duvet into his arms. He steps back and starts folding it, and Dan feels himself smile before letting his eyes fall closed again. After a second, the duvet is placed back on the bed next to him.

“Do you need anything?” asks Phil. “Have you eaten?”

Dan shakes his head. “Hurts to eat,” he says. “My stomach hurts. Had some of your vitamin water though.”

“I got it for you.”

“I know,” says Dan. He swallows, offers a weak smile. “Thank you.”

---

He crawls out of bed on the third day.

It’s already afternoon by the time his mind frees itself of its sleepy haze, and sun gleams too bright into the apartment. Dan presses a hand to the wall, ignoring the stab of pain in his wrist, as he makes his way from his bedroom to the lounge. His legs feel wobbly and his knees ache when he takes a step, and he collapses onto the sofa with a whine.

He counts the stutters of his ribcage as he sucks in a breath. One, two, three, four. Exhales with a groan as he presses a hand to his chest.

“Hey, breathe.”

Dan’s eyes snap open. He feels the pain of his gasp before he hears it. Phil’s sitting next to him, pressed to the armrest of the sofa, staring.

"Do you count?"

Dan nods, sucking in a breath at the stab of pain in his neck.

"To four?" says Phil.

Dan swallows, pressing his hand harder against his sternum to quell the pain of murmuring: "Yeah."

"Okay." Phil shifts a bit, tearing himself from the arm rest so he's facing Dan, all reassuring eyes and quiet smiles. "Breathe in for me, okay? One, two, three, four."

Dan's ribs spasm under his palm as he listens. His mouth is dry and his inhale scratches at his throat. He reaches up, presses two fingers to either side of his throat, where the skin of his neck burns at the touch. His head has fallen back against the sofa, and he closes his eyes, only to feel the drift of Phil's fingers coasting over his wrist.

"Does this help?" he asks. "Please, don't hurt yourself more."

His fingers close around Dan's wrist, squeezing a little too tight, making Dan's bones ache under the pressure. He whimpers, his fingernails raking over his ribs where he would usually clutch at fistfuls of his shirt. Phil's grip loosens, but his hand stays there, coasting over the jut of bone at Dan's wrist.

"Okay. Shit, am I hurting you?" says Phil.

Dan wishes he could shake his head, could explain that his body would hurt anyway and the warmth of Phil's hand is soothing even though it burns.

Phil doesn't seem to expect a response, though. His thumb coasts over Dan's skin again. "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm so bad at this counting thing. Let's try again, okay?"

He slips his arm out of Phil's grasp at that, ignoring the pain that bursts in his arm when he turns his hand again, presses his palm against Phil's.

Dan's fingers hurt, but he holds Phil's hand anyway, squeezes it as a silent okay.

Phil says: "One, two, three, four."

And Dan tries again.

---

He gets his breathing back under control after a while. His grip on Phil's palm has loosened, his arm gone slack so they're hands rest in the valley between two sofa cushions. Dan cracks his eyes open to find Phil staring at him.

At his chest.

"Whatcha looking at, mate?" he says, but his voice cracks and it comes out as a mumble that doesn't sound nearly as teasing as he intended.

Phil's gaze snaps back to his. "Um," he says. "You- you're breathing okay again, right?"

Dan nods. His mind lingers on the idea of Phil needing to watch his chest, the spastic but steady rise and fall as he breathes. He wishes he could sit up straight, just say I'm fine and go about a normal day, but his body is already drained and he wants nothing more than to sink into the sofa and relax with Phil next to him.

Holding his hand.

Or not. Dan glances down at the tangle of their fingers and has to force himself to not let his breath catch at the sight. He stares for a second before letting his fingers slip from Phil's grasp, pressing his palm to his own thigh instead.

"Sorry," he mumbles.

Phil's still smiling, though. "Don't worry about it," he says. "Did it help?"

"Holding your hand?"

It sounds dumb and a little too breathy, and Dan watches Phil's smile widen at the words, his slight nod of assent.

"Oh," says Dan. He looks down again, notices that Phil hasn't moved his hand since Dan let go. "Yeah. It helped."

---

They do nothing all day.

Dan sits on the sofa. Phil brought him a warm washcloth again, and Dan pressed it to the parts of his rib cage that ached the most. There's a bag of frozen fruit resting on his knee, and his fluffy blanket draped over the back of the sofa so Dan's skin doesn't stick to the leather.

Phil thought of that, and Dan's heart is still warm with gratitude.

The makeshift curtain still hangs over the windows, and the TV screen remains black all afternoon. Phil entertains himself with his phone and quiet conversation punctuated by long moments when Dan's lungs and throat need to rest.

It's easy. Dan just wishes it felt more normal to be sat with no shirt in the lounge, covered in pain relief aids and accommodated by every part of the room.

Afternoon bleeds into evening. It's been a little while since their last mini-conversation, and Phil turns to Dan with uncertain eyes.

"You haven't eaten," says Phil.

Dan swallows. "Told you," he says. "It hurts too much."

"What if–" says Phil, but he shakes his head as he pauses for a moment. "I had an idea."

He doesn't say what it is. Dan watches as Phil lifts himself from the couch and rushes to the kitchen, almost tripping over clumsy steps. He opens one of the cabinets, and pulls out a blender, setting it on the counter. He goes to the fridge and draws bags of frozen fruit from the freezer.

Dan realizes, with all the ingredients laid out on the breakfast bar, what Phil's planning.

"Smoothies?"

Phil's smile is slight, a little unsure. "I thought they might be easier to swallow."

Dan had thought that once, too, but his mother hadn't appreciated the collection of frozen fruit in their freezer or the noise of a blender. He blinks against the memories, tries not to remember that their sofa back at home was just a little more comfortable than this one.

"Yeah," says Dan. "It's easier."

So Phil makes him a smoothie. No complaints, no questions. He warns Dan about the noise every time he turns on the blender as he follows a recipe on his phone, and brings Dan his drink with nothing but a smile.

"I hope it's okay," says Phil.

Dan doesn't say: You're the first person who has ever taken care of me without making me feel bad about it.

He takes a sip. The cold soothes the inflammation of his throat, numbing it enough for him to swallow without agony. Phil stares at him the entire time, and Dan smiles back at him once the sweet taste of strawberries has faded from his mouth.

"It's good," he promises. "Thank you."

Phil shakes his head, dropping back onto the sofa. "I'm just glad you can eat something," he says. "I was worried about you."

Dan takes another sip of his smoothie to keep himself from contemplating how sincere Phil sounds. Neither of them says another word until Dan's glass is half empty and Phil has gotten himself pieces of leftover pizza to eat for dinner.

"Phil?"

"Yeah?"

Dan glances at the kitchen. The cabinet where the blender had been is still open. So is the microwave, and the drawer Phil had gotten measuring cups from.

"Since when do we have a blender?"

When Dan looks back at Phil, his cheeks have gone pink and he's staring at the pizza on his plate.

"We don't," Phil answers. "I, uh, went out to Rawtenstall to borrow my mum's."

Dan's chest floods with warmth. He takes another sip of his smoothie to quell it, to quiet the racing thoughts telling him how much effort Phil went through just so Dan could eat.

To ignore the voices in his head reminding him that his flat mate shouldn't need to go through so much effort to feed him.

"Oh," Dan mumbles around his straw. "Well, thank you."

Phil smiles. "You don't need to thank me."

Dan swallows back an explanation of why, yes, he does need to thank Phil because no one has ever gone through so much effort to help him.

[poeticsandaliens]

stella/scully prompt: scully going to visit stella in the hospital after being attacked by paul or even seeing the ordeal happen on screen

Howling Ghosts

This is not set during the events of The Fall, but after. Scully sees Spector attack Stella on tape. This was an emotional gut-punch for me to write, and I hope I did these characters justice.

Rated M for canonical violence, which is why everything is under the cut. Title taken from the song “King and Lionheart” by Of Monsters and Men. Tagging @today-in-fic.

“Stella?” Scully peeks into the study. Stella sits at the oak desk, her blouse glowing sickly peach in the lamplight. She remains frozen in front of her laptop, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her fingers clutch at her ribs. “Are you all right?”

A strained sigh escapes Stella’s lips. “He should have stood trial.”

She knows instantly who Stella is referring to. “He should have,” she says softly, “but there’s nothing you can do.”

“I should have insisted he never be left alone. He should have been made to face his crimes, stared into the eyes of everyone who suffered at his hands. He should feel for the pain he caused and feel for every woman who is not sitting in that courtroom. They deserve to see him punished.”

She’s never heard Stella speak this way. Like molten a steel blade, hot and metallic and punctuated with a needle-sharp tip.

“It’s been over a year. What brought up the Spector case?”

“Katie Benedetto killed herself yesterday.”

Oh. She takes a couple steps forward, lingers between Stella and the filing cabinet. Fuzzy black and white footage flickers across the computer screen. “Is that—”

“My interview with her.” A pause. “I should have done more.”

“What more could you have done?” Sometimes she wonders if Stella shoulders the responsibilities for strangers’ suffering because she cannot bear to think of anyone closer. She shoulders the pain in their hearts and dares not examine her own.

The silence prods at Scully’s bones, settles in the crook of her stiff limbs and clings to the wrinkles of her shirt. The video freezes and disappears, and she sees the little loading symbol spiral in the corner of the screen. The next video plays automatically. For a moment she thinks that Stella has set Katie’s interview on repeat—but no, that’s not Katie in the far chair, but a stiff, wild-eyed Paul Spector.

Scully knows right then what she’s watching. She squeezes the back of Stella’s chair until her knuckles turn white. Her eyes flick to the tiny scar along Stella’s eyebrow, shining pale blue in the glow of the laptop screen. Stella gets migraines, occasionally, jarring reminders of past trauma, splitting her open at ungodly hours of night. Scully expects her to stop the video, to close it out or something—something besides sit there, tighten her lips, steel herself.

“Stella, can I stop it?”

Stella shakes her head. “No. I have to know. I have to know what he did to me.” She looks up, and the look in her eyes leaves Scully unnerved. Wide open, drained of color in the screen light like cold, hard silver. “You don’t have to stay here, if it makes you uncomfortable.”

She speaks with assurance, but Scully can hear the stony cadence behind it. Something in Stella is determined to process the footage alone. If she can face her injuries, watch the attack play out before her eyes, she has won. It’s a test—to prove to herself once and for all that she needs no one but herself. She can withdraw.

Scully knows better; she knows trauma doesn’t work that way. She knows it better than most people, and she suspects Stella does too. Stella, who stares into the eyes of women who have been raped, who have survived assault and abuse, and promises to listen, to be present, to try to bring them justice. Stella, who can promise them nothing more, because she knows—how well they both know—life makes no guarantees.

Stella, who championed the healing power of human connections for anyone but herself.

The footage plays on.

Scully has seen it all before—the young officer at the door, the hard-knuckled detective laying out a case. Pushing for a confession of guilt, jabbing at the volatile criminal and hoping for a reaction. She’s seen it so many times that she doesn’t need sound to know what’s happening or what’s being said. Stella’s told her the things she said to Spector, the way her rage bubbled out and the she just kept talking. How at some point, it stopped being her job. How she doesn’t regret a single word.

Every time he moves, Scully’s fingernails dig into the back of the chair. She won’t leave, no matter how many hairs stick up on her spine. It reminds her of Donnie Pfaster’s trial, a lifetime ago, only Paul Spector is not a scaly monster lurking beneath human skin, but a living man. An ordinary man, one might even say.

It always satisfied Stella to call Spector ordinary. In his monstrous acts, normal was the one thing he aspired not to be. He aspired to earn a place among the Donnie Pfasters, the faeries and demons and forked-tongued divinities, mythologized for the horror they inspired—so evil they will never be forgotten, stooping so low they were deified. She hates it, how they burned themselves into human history in a way Spector never will. As tides turn, as everyone he burned himself into grows old and weary, Spector will be forgotten. The injustices that created him will not. That is what he deserves. That is what they all deserved.

He stands up so quickly his chair topples over backwards, and the young man who reaches out to stop him is unprepared for the blow. Scully is a medical doctor, trained in defensive combat, and she knows a broken arm when she sees one. Spector’s image flashes around the screen; it happens so quickly doesn’t realize she’s stopped breathing until she takes in the foreboding silence around her.

She sees Stella’s fists clench. On the screen, he knocks her over with one kick, cracks her ribs with another. Scully can’t believe how tiny she looks there, a bird-boned woman in a sharp suit. A glimpse of her blood in grey scale. And then he’s on top of her, fists tearing into her, and another face flicks into Scully’s mind: The Brazilian psychic surgeon, his right hand shoved into her sternum.

Jesus Christ. She isn’t prepared for this. She looks at Stella. Her lover’s icy gaze is fixed on the screen. Her cheekbones look like they’ve been whittled with a pocket knife. The light glints off her scar like the flash of a sniper rifle. Her chin trembles almost indecipherably, the tremor in her fingers much more pronounced.

To Scully’s surprise, Stella’s hand slips into hers, fingers locked tightly together. When the pixelated Spector hurls his fist at her zygomatic bone, she squeezes Scully’s hand. Scully tries to ignore the throb of her circulation being cut off. She lets the computer screen blur and looks past it to the dark office wall.

Why do people cling to hands when they’re hurting? She wonders if this is how it felt to Monica Reyes, when she bit down on a stick and squeezed the life out of Reyes’s fingers as she delivered William. She wonders if this is how Mulder felt, reaching for her hand across an antique hardwood floor as they bled through ghostly bullet holes on Christmas Eve. She wonders if her mother felt this same reeling cocktail of love and despair every time she sat beside Scully’s hospital cot and held her hand and saw cancer suck dry her daughter’s body.

She is not leaving. She always appreciated Mulder’s tenacity when she was injured, his insistence that it was okay to hurt. It drove her mad when she was young, but she always admired his deep empathy. She tries to channel just a little of it now.

She watches as several officers rush into the room and peel Spector off Stella’s body. She is so still that Scully almost forgets how this all ends, her shape curled into itself like burning paper. A man in uniform reaches for her shoulder, and at first she pushes him off, so decisively he takes a full step backward.

On her feet, her impossible stilettos wobble until one gives out entirely, She crumbles over, caught by the guards. The silence is broken by a sharp intake of breath, and Scully turns to see Stella’s jaw stiff and open. Stella presses her hand to her mouth, squeezes Scully’s fingers so tightly they’re tinted blue. Tears roll down her cheeks in a wash, and Scully’s breath catches. She has never before seen Stella cry.

It is this that shatters Stella’s resolve: when her ankle gives out in its heel, when her legs no longer support their own weight. It is not the violence but what comes after. The moment you realize you have been desecrated, that you are in blinding pain over which you have no control, and you must rely on someone else to heal. Scully has felt it.

Scully offers Stella her other hand, and she takes it. She presses it to her chest, above the button of her satin blouse, holds it there. Scully can feel her heart beat beneath it. She can feel the wet spots where Stella’s warm tears dropped off her jaw. 

She has never been held like this. Not even when Mulder reached for her in his bright orange prison garb like she was water in the Sahara. This is a different need, not an explosive gesture of yearning but an ache, that starts out dull but seizes her over time.

“I know,” Scully whispers, because she does. She’s felt this pain, that wracks Stella. “I know.”

The tape ends, and the screen goes blank. It aches. God, how it aches.

[the-rust-knight]

Summer Rain

if you asked, people would say that it rains a lot in this city. I probably would, if you wanted a quick answer. Rain is de-rigueur, accepted, normal even. It is cold and unpleasant and we believe that to be the background to our days and weeks. The truth is that it rains a lot less than the public memory recalls. I know this because, every time it rains, I remember the girl who beat me.

The memory comes back in as clear as day, as it does with a lot of things. Vivid cross-sensory associations. The smell of cold coffee places me in my father’s bedroom, trying to wake him on the second day in a row. There’s a level on Halo 2 that overplays with the audio from the TV show my Mother was watching, in the next room. A man with a Caribbean accent is arguing over which drink was his, the main character is a woman who asks him to leave the bar. I don’t know the context, but I can’t replay the game without that line in the back of my head.

Not all rain carries the same memory, but I can tell you the exact kind. It was years ago. I wasn’t fresh out of the academy or anything so wet, but lets say I was new to the game by today’s standards. I still had to pay for advertising. Private Investigation wasn’t respectable career, but it was reliable and fair. Meritocratic, even. Reputation counted for more than anything else and poor results meant poor reputation. A skilled investigator got his card passed around and, for the really unlucky, repeat custom. It wasn’t enough just to show up at a broker’s office and wait for assignment.

 I didn’t mean for it to, but my early days I got known as a mantracker. Not that I was tracking men all too often, but you get my drift. Actually, you read the official Public Detection figures, most missing persons are men, but I can tell you that far-and-away most of my contracts back then were finding women. Runaways, abductees, the odd cult sacrifice deal. I guess that tells you the different with who calls Black Mask to report a disappearance and who actually wants to find someone and get them back. Maybe. That’s something else I’d say.

So it wasn’t my first contract, like I say, but the result was different. I get hired to find this young girl, she’s not come home for a couple days. Lived over in Aberetta district. Safe enough, my first thought. It’s not Erving, but it’s not Kesper either. Probably something about her then rather than a random thing y’know? Name was Laurelli. Married, not for long though. Hair was long, black as oil.

Young Laurelli came packaged with a couple of leads. First was she had plans for the night, but never arrived. Told her husband she was meeting casual friend ‘Ginette Somebody’ for a painting class over in Jerryville. Made the booking and everything, never showed up. I called the centre and they confirmed. Couldn’t find a clue as to who this Ginette was. Never did. Second lead was her phone. Not the device but the number, accounts and stuff. This far back was before everybody carried a hub, AR glasses, all that. Lots of folks didn’t even use a tablet really, just a phone and a home console maybe. They weren’t always on the net’ in the same way we are now. I’m not an electronics guy, never felt like the Global Network was a big part of this job. Maybe that’s why I got the people-work. I had a go-to hacker back then though, kid named Lowell, so I sent her details to him and see what he can dig up.

I remember I grilled the husband for a few hours more and let the sun go down. It was summer, so it’s late by that point, but that’s preferable to meeting the people you work with in daylight. Husband’s not the wealthiest guy, but proud of what he’s got. Parades around his house when you talk to him. Clenches his fists and talks loud if you ask a question he didn’t expect. I figure Laurelli would maybe be happier away from this guy, but the contract is find her so I don’t get much choice. You know about that. I meet Lowell in The Great Ring, coincidentally real close to Laurelli’s house anyway. He was a nice kid but I don’t think I ever saw him not drinking. I heard he was in that big train crash a year or two back, but he got out. Still working the circuit, I hear.

Lowell scored a bunch of hits off that phone. Train tickets at the metro nearest home. Exits in Elmer district, not Jerryville like was meant to. Uses phone to buy drink in a 24box, Lowell tells me it’s soy latte like that matters. Then she hails a cab. Lowell, who really wants a leg up in the game, then spiked the metropolitan taxi network, finds out that one stopped in the there and then, but picked up no fare. Trail on the phone goes cold and nothing shows from then ‘til now, 31 hours later. I pay Lowell and ride the rails over to the right stop in Elmer myself.

Girl in the 24box wasn’t cooperative. No, wasn’t her on shift yesterday evening. No, I couldn't review the camera footage myself. Yes, she was tired too. I bought a drink and tipped anyway. We both knew shit jobs.

I stepped out. It was that kind of hot, sticky night where everyone was sleepy right until they hit the bed. The air steamed in your lungs. The streets were empty and Elmer was always quiet at night. My shirt was half dough, half sandpaper. My head was fuzz. I clutched at the obvious trick. Strolled with my coffee away from the box and grabbed my own phone out my pocket. Dialled hers. If it was dead, then so was the trail this far.

It rang. Something rang. First, in my hand, my ear, and then further away. I heard a phone ringing in the hot drenched-cotton night. Close. Kept the call open and ran towards the sound. Dropped my coffee before it scalded my hand. In an alleyway between a closed bookshop and a Lebensmarkt the tone echoed. I dashed and prayed it would keep ringing. A pile of boxes formed a backboard, bounced the sound outwards, and I found the chirping block inside a thin black vinyl bag. It wasn’t alone. The phone was wet, and I grabbed a flashlight from my pocket to see where from. The wetness was red, sticky. Much of the bag was.

Asides from the phone, two shirts came out, both wet and red and stinking of burnt iron. One was fashionably shaped, fancy. A woman’s. The red was deepest on the left ribs, around a nasty tear. The other shirt had been white and square-cut. The breast bore the logo of Downriver Taxi Company. 

I called Lowell, ask him if he can chase the cab’s details, the one that had stopped. Easy, he says. I rode the train back to Aberetta district so I could report to Husband. If she was dead, was a strong chance she was Public property by now, and even as a rookie I had rules about these things. Better to get the client to handle that side of the investigation. Lowell calls me back and says the cab was registered to one Ginette LaMet. I knew it was a fake before the other details, the lack of driver profile, pickup history. Lowell tells me the can only recorded a stop for ten seconds, and the traffic recorder in these things is harder to hack than the driver reg. I trust him on that.

Reaction from husband goes as well as I expect. First it’s confusion, then it’s anger, accusation, then grief. I promise I’m still on the case but recommend he calls Black Mask and enquires about the body, if it’s shown up. Sure wasn’t any sign of her in that alley. In the humidity all smells explode. The blood was strong, like I said. Reminded me of a teenage girlfriend. Trash too, but no guts or shit or all the other smells roll out when a body’s left in the hot for a day or more. I’m drowsy, leave my notes with him and go home to sleep. Rookie mistake for a rookie player. 

Next morning, Husband calls me when I’m halfway through coffee. It’s cloudy, I remember. He’s called public, they want him to come down to morgue on Fargue district. All the central stuff is there. He’s nervous, wanted me to go with him. Big man afraid of Black Mask. I didn’t blame him. Against my better judgement, I agree. Down my coffee while it’s hot and head out. Journey takes nearly an hour. Traffic is bad, everyone has a headache.

When I get there, Black Mask is waiting outside. One of them, meaning the other is inside. I don’t understand, he said he was going to them. I approached and Public Detective raises his hand, visor lights up as he scans me, goes back to monochrome. Does anyone like these things? I know you find them as creepy as I do. I get a glimpse through the open door, into the house. Detective number two is standing over Husband. I can smell the blood from the street. Right hand is bashed in, broken. Hair is stained red. In his left hand are my paper notes. The ones that say Laurelli is probably dead, give the name of a taxi driver that doesn’t exist. 

I stumble backwards but Black Mask on the street goes to follow me. I’m part of the case now. Public Property. Last thought before the incap dart hits me in the chest is to turn away, and I see her. A clean white shirt, hair cut short, but it’s her. That same black-as-oil slick back on her head. She’s stupid to hang around and watch but I’d guess if she moved she’d only run.The air pressure breaks. I smell the rain on the hot tarmac before I feel it on my head, before my skull slams into the road and Black Mask grabs my arms and locks ‘em up as if I’d be dumb enough or able to resist with a dart in my chest. It hurts like hell, but the rain gives so much relief I feel like I can breath for the first time in weeks. You know the kind of weather I mean.

 And I see her, saw her sitting there with her eyes open, in a small crowd all staring at the blood coming out of my nose, blending with the raindrops, and I wonder when I’ll get to feel rain on my skin again.