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ds_noticeboardTrying my hand at LJ-ing again. Here's a tiny little dS ficlet so I can practice posting with cut-tags. I wrote this for the "different environments" challenge over at dS flashfiction site but didn't post it in time, so here it is...
Title: Dodger
Pairing: Kowalski/Fraser (implied)
Rating: PG-13
Length: 1,180 words
Spoilers: None
Notes: They ran a China Beach block a while back and I caught a bunch of episodes with Dodger while I was working on "Geometry", and this just leapt into my head...
Marina leaned on the one-way mirror, stunned nearly speechless at the sight of the man on the other side of the glass. “His name’s Sergeant Evan Winslow,” she murmured, “United States Marines, three times decorated for bravery; a Purple Heart and two Bronze Stars. Gods above and below, I haven’t seen him for thirty years.”
“You know this guy?” Dewey’s voice is startled, plainly disbelieving.
“Yeah, I know him. We were in Vietnam together.”
The whole room goes dead quiet, just like that, and the look on Welsh’s face says anyone stupid enough to open their mouth will die, die, because Welsh did two tours in ‘Nam. Welsh was there during the fall of Saigon and Welsh knows, knows, what that dead cold remote voice means, and anyone stupid enough to interrupt Marina right now will get the full and unadulterated wrath of Sergeant Harding Welsh, United States Marine Corps, retired.
Marina just goes on, in that quiet dead remote voice that has gooseflesh crawling all over every human being in the observation room.
“I was working for military intelligence at the time, and he,” she jerked her head at the tall, still, silent man with the big scarred hands and terrifying eyes in the interrogation room, “was in-country recon. Deep recon. Nobody called him Evan. Hardly anybody even knew his real name. We called him Dodger, and he was the best there was. The Artful Dodger. A couple of hundred kids must have come home alive -who would have never made it back- because of him. He could feel the enemy coming… he could feel Charlie miles away. When I had to go in-country I took him, or Hannibal and the team,” and Welsh jerked again in recognition of that name, and Ray knew he was getting Welsh drunk real soon and finding out every damn thing about that name, because that name was fucking important, “or I went alone, because anyone else was just deadweight, and you couldn’t afford deadweight in-country, deadweight got you and them killed.”
“So he’s not a killer?” Frannie’s voice was small and scared and hesitant, and everyone but Marina flinches because that is the wrong question.
Marina doesn’t seem to know that, in that cold quiet dead place she’s flashed back into.
“Oh, no. He’s a killer,” she said conversationally. “Guns, knives, bare hands, Dodger can kill with anything. I once saw him kill three Viet Cong soldiers with a bamboo spear he made from part of the cage they had us in about three minutes before they were going to rape me to death,” and the room goes arctic. Ray and Fraser go still as stone except for Ray’s rhythmically clenching fists, because Marina is their whole world, is the glue that holds them together, is the one thing that makes it okay for them to love each other more than life and still be the best damn cops in Chicago, the cops any uniform in the city will follow straight into hell, and they are hers, body and heart and soul.
Marina just keeps talking. “But kill an old man? In his own store? For money? Never. ‘Cause that’s what Dodger fought for, that’s what Dodger nearly died for, that’s what Dodger killed for and it broke him, broke something in him that can’t be fixed, and Dodger would never, ever do that. Not in this lifetime or the next.”
Nobody says a thing for a long minute because this is terrifying, scary in a way Chicago just can’t be scary because whatever else Chi-town is, it isn’t a war, not like that, and then Mina breaks the silence again.
“What’s his bail, Stella?” That’s another shock, because Marina’s never used that name before. She hates Stella, hates her for the way she treats Ray, but her hate is irrelevant right now, unimportant and trivial compared to the bond that ties her to this man, the bond that is red and bloody and unbelievably noble all at the same time.
“Fifty thousand dollars,” Stella says starkly, and says nothing else, because Stella is way, way out of her league here and knows it, and is freaked out of her goddamn mind.
“I’ll pay it. Cut him loose.”
Marina turns to Ray and Fraser and she doesn’t even need to ask because there is nothing, nothing Ray and Frase won’t do for that man in the next room now and you can see it written all over their faces. They will die for him, kill for him, and Huey spares a second to feel sorry for the bastard who really killed that old man because this is a goddamn holy quest to those two now.
“I need to talk to him,” she says calmly, and Ray jerks into movement, so wound up that he is bleeding pent-up energy like a short-circuiting light, and he pulls the door open and Marina walks out quiet as you please, and into the interrogation room and pulls the door shut behind her.
Frannie and Stella cannot fucking believe she’d even be in the same room with him, much less alone, but that big, scary man looks up, and that big, scary guy is suddenly a nineteen year old kid again with eyes that are a thousand years old, and he says “Highlander?” in this incredulous, disbelieving voice, like that fact she’s there is a miracle straight from God.
Mina walks over to him like a woman in a trance and reaches out, and this huge, ugly sob rips out of his throat and everyone is shocked there’s not blood on the floor from the agony in it. And he reaches out for her with those big, scarred hands, and then he’s on his knees in front of Marina with his face buried in her stomach, his arms locked tight around her waist and he’s crying, horrible, wrenching, terrifying sobs.
Marina’s arms go around him and she’s stroking his hair and murmuring mechanically, “It’s okay, Dodger, I’ll make it okay, I swear I’ll make it okay, I won’t let it not be okay, I promise. I love you, Dodger… I’m here now and I love you and it’ll be okay, baby, it’ll be okay…”
“Ray?” Fraser doesn’t quite understand the bond between them and realizes he doesn’t, that this is an American thing, but Ray does understand and that’s enough for Fraser.
“Let’s go, Fraser,” Ray says shortly. “We got a murderer ta catch.”
“What about him?”
“Mina’ll take care of him.”
“Who will take care of her?”
“He will. After all, he already has.”
“Indeed.” Fraser says, and there is no reading what is behind that polite mask. “After you, Ray.”
And Welsh knows that the real murderer will be caught, and justice will be done, and he is still going out and getting shit-faced drunk with Kowalski when this is over, because no matter what they do, there is still a man next door with the screams and stink of the ‘Nam jungles in his head, and nothing can ever fix that.
Now did the cut tag work...?
Title: Dodger
Pairing: Kowalski/Fraser (implied)
Rating: PG-13
Length: 1,180 words
Spoilers: None
Notes: They ran a China Beach block a while back and I caught a bunch of episodes with Dodger while I was working on "Geometry", and this just leapt into my head...
Marina leaned on the one-way mirror, stunned nearly speechless at the sight of the man on the other side of the glass. “His name’s Sergeant Evan Winslow,” she murmured, “United States Marines, three times decorated for bravery; a Purple Heart and two Bronze Stars. Gods above and below, I haven’t seen him for thirty years.”
“You know this guy?” Dewey’s voice is startled, plainly disbelieving.
“Yeah, I know him. We were in Vietnam together.”
The whole room goes dead quiet, just like that, and the look on Welsh’s face says anyone stupid enough to open their mouth will die, die, because Welsh did two tours in ‘Nam. Welsh was there during the fall of Saigon and Welsh knows, knows, what that dead cold remote voice means, and anyone stupid enough to interrupt Marina right now will get the full and unadulterated wrath of Sergeant Harding Welsh, United States Marine Corps, retired.
Marina just goes on, in that quiet dead remote voice that has gooseflesh crawling all over every human being in the observation room.
“I was working for military intelligence at the time, and he,” she jerked her head at the tall, still, silent man with the big scarred hands and terrifying eyes in the interrogation room, “was in-country recon. Deep recon. Nobody called him Evan. Hardly anybody even knew his real name. We called him Dodger, and he was the best there was. The Artful Dodger. A couple of hundred kids must have come home alive -who would have never made it back- because of him. He could feel the enemy coming… he could feel Charlie miles away. When I had to go in-country I took him, or Hannibal and the team,” and Welsh jerked again in recognition of that name, and Ray knew he was getting Welsh drunk real soon and finding out every damn thing about that name, because that name was fucking important, “or I went alone, because anyone else was just deadweight, and you couldn’t afford deadweight in-country, deadweight got you and them killed.”
“So he’s not a killer?” Frannie’s voice was small and scared and hesitant, and everyone but Marina flinches because that is the wrong question.
Marina doesn’t seem to know that, in that cold quiet dead place she’s flashed back into.
“Oh, no. He’s a killer,” she said conversationally. “Guns, knives, bare hands, Dodger can kill with anything. I once saw him kill three Viet Cong soldiers with a bamboo spear he made from part of the cage they had us in about three minutes before they were going to rape me to death,” and the room goes arctic. Ray and Fraser go still as stone except for Ray’s rhythmically clenching fists, because Marina is their whole world, is the glue that holds them together, is the one thing that makes it okay for them to love each other more than life and still be the best damn cops in Chicago, the cops any uniform in the city will follow straight into hell, and they are hers, body and heart and soul.
Marina just keeps talking. “But kill an old man? In his own store? For money? Never. ‘Cause that’s what Dodger fought for, that’s what Dodger nearly died for, that’s what Dodger killed for and it broke him, broke something in him that can’t be fixed, and Dodger would never, ever do that. Not in this lifetime or the next.”
Nobody says a thing for a long minute because this is terrifying, scary in a way Chicago just can’t be scary because whatever else Chi-town is, it isn’t a war, not like that, and then Mina breaks the silence again.
“What’s his bail, Stella?” That’s another shock, because Marina’s never used that name before. She hates Stella, hates her for the way she treats Ray, but her hate is irrelevant right now, unimportant and trivial compared to the bond that ties her to this man, the bond that is red and bloody and unbelievably noble all at the same time.
“Fifty thousand dollars,” Stella says starkly, and says nothing else, because Stella is way, way out of her league here and knows it, and is freaked out of her goddamn mind.
“I’ll pay it. Cut him loose.”
Marina turns to Ray and Fraser and she doesn’t even need to ask because there is nothing, nothing Ray and Frase won’t do for that man in the next room now and you can see it written all over their faces. They will die for him, kill for him, and Huey spares a second to feel sorry for the bastard who really killed that old man because this is a goddamn holy quest to those two now.
“I need to talk to him,” she says calmly, and Ray jerks into movement, so wound up that he is bleeding pent-up energy like a short-circuiting light, and he pulls the door open and Marina walks out quiet as you please, and into the interrogation room and pulls the door shut behind her.
Frannie and Stella cannot fucking believe she’d even be in the same room with him, much less alone, but that big, scary man looks up, and that big, scary guy is suddenly a nineteen year old kid again with eyes that are a thousand years old, and he says “Highlander?” in this incredulous, disbelieving voice, like that fact she’s there is a miracle straight from God.
Mina walks over to him like a woman in a trance and reaches out, and this huge, ugly sob rips out of his throat and everyone is shocked there’s not blood on the floor from the agony in it. And he reaches out for her with those big, scarred hands, and then he’s on his knees in front of Marina with his face buried in her stomach, his arms locked tight around her waist and he’s crying, horrible, wrenching, terrifying sobs.
Marina’s arms go around him and she’s stroking his hair and murmuring mechanically, “It’s okay, Dodger, I’ll make it okay, I swear I’ll make it okay, I won’t let it not be okay, I promise. I love you, Dodger… I’m here now and I love you and it’ll be okay, baby, it’ll be okay…”
“Ray?” Fraser doesn’t quite understand the bond between them and realizes he doesn’t, that this is an American thing, but Ray does understand and that’s enough for Fraser.
“Let’s go, Fraser,” Ray says shortly. “We got a murderer ta catch.”
“What about him?”
“Mina’ll take care of him.”
“Who will take care of her?”
“He will. After all, he already has.”
“Indeed.” Fraser says, and there is no reading what is behind that polite mask. “After you, Ray.”
And Welsh knows that the real murderer will be caught, and justice will be done, and he is still going out and getting shit-faced drunk with Kowalski when this is over, because no matter what they do, there is still a man next door with the screams and stink of the ‘Nam jungles in his head, and nothing can ever fix that.
Now did the cut tag work...?
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