Checklist
So. I don't actually think much more could go wrong today if it tried. Though I'd be grateful if no one took that as a challenge.
It's raining. Not just your basic running down the windows raining, but full out, your umbrella or your life raining, where the drops hit like they hate you. I've been back in the apartment an hour and my clothes are still wet, that's how hard it's raining. A fitting end to a horrible day.
Funny, it started out pretty well. Breakfast was good, and outside everything had that kind of newly washed smell of a morning after a night of storms, complete with little raggedy clouds scudding across a blue sky just to remind you it wasn't over yet, but letting you see that the sun still was out there. Had a bunch of stuff I wanted to get done, couple of errands, some witnesses, lunch with the kid, I had it all planned out.
I headed in on my own, picked up a couple of files, nothing big, and it's looking nice and peaceful. Should have known. Simon called me in. Told me that he was going to have to make cuts in the unit. 'They' had handed it down the chain until someone who couldn't delegate the bad news off their desk had to break it to the department. I thought for a moment he was trying to break it to me gently, but no, my job's safe. Though for a few minutes there... It wasn't like he was telling me because he wanted me to drop some hints, let people down easy. Delegate that extra layer down the food chain -- layoff by rumour. I don't think he was. No. I'm just his senior detective, and trustworthy, a friend -- something that's going to be in short supply around here when the news gets out. But it sucks, looking at the guys, knowing what I know.
Blair kissed me.
Took off out the PD -- couldn't hang around there waiting for the ax to fall, so I found somewhere else to be and did the grand tour of witnesses, snitches... anything to avoid going back. I ended up having lunch out of one of those polystyrene tubs - the mayo was warm, and the salad was limp. I'd promised myself steak, but then I remembered the wipers needed fixing. The sky was filling with clouds that flattened and darkened over Cascade with every passing minute, and if I didn't get the wipers fixed the screee-whap, screeee-whap as the metal scraped over the glass and with flapping rubber punctuated each stroke *would* drive me insane if I had to drive any distance with it again. I was the twentieth person to think of dropping in at the mechanics over lunch for a 'quick' repair job, so by the time I'd finished queuing, that's all I had time for. Cardboard salad. Well, at least when the heavens opened, the wipers were working.
Blair kissed *me*.
Not that that helped any. By the time it started raining it was some eight, maybe as much as ten minutes *after* I got sideswiped by an *Oldsmobile*, off the road on the way into the University. I've got, what, fifteen minutes to get over there, having queued for forever at the shop, and I'm eating this ridiculous salad as I drive and I swear, if I ever see that fly-by-night salmonella merchant again, I'll coleslaw his ass. So I'm getting there, headed over to meet Blair, and bang, *lost* the truck, thanks to Herries, who seemed to think that getting out on parole was Washington State's way of saying go ahead, it's time to kill Ellison.
*Really* kissed me. With tongue.
So I'm down a truck. Pretty soon after that I was *up* one lunch too - like I said, warm coleslaw. Ruined my last decent white shirt, what little the blood hadn't already messed up. Sometimes I think someone would make a fortune in blood proof shirts. Because I don't think I have a single unstained one left. My blood, Blair's, Simon's, various vics and perps. Better add that to tomorrow's checklist. New shirt. Shirts.
Like he meant it, skin on skin, moving his body against me, whispering.
And I'm feeling kind of weird anyway - between the concussion, and the food poisoning, and the trucklessness, nothing else. No other reason. So then, right when I'm feeling my best, Blair came haring up, exclaiming and yapping faster than I could keep up. I think he heard the sirens and assumed if I wasn't already involved, I'd get involved. He's probably right. The paramedics tore my shirt, cleaning up the mess the driver's side window made of my shoulder, and then I found that the way the truck had buckled, I'd lost a chunk of pants leg. Shoes aren't ever going to be the same again either. I was pretty impressed at the way the wipers were still going though. Totally silent. Mike did a good job.
Hands on my face, lips on my mouth, clear eyes tilted up to watch me...
He took me home, once they cleared me. He had to get back to the University straight after, didn't want to go, but in the end, he had a class, had to go, made me promise to be good. Left me with something to think about. So I went for a walk. Blew that one out of the water, then.
See, he did something odd before he left, and I can't quite figure out what's going on. Walks clear my head, help me think, so I went for one. Okay, so *yes* it was raining. Coming down as though I was walking through a river. And even though I'm cold and damp and concussed and limping and surprised, I have the oddest urge to dance. And I'm feeling giddy from the knock to my head and drunk, like I'd taken the painkillers, except I haven't, and sore all over -- but only if I think about it, and all this *shit* has gone wrong today, and I ought to feel like crap -- and I've been grinning for so long my face is aching. He'll be home soon. I guess we've got some stuff to talk about.
Did I mention he kissed me?
Page last updated 18/09/2004.