[Fic] Bodies at Rest 2/2
Oct. 29th, 2009 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittydesadeTitle: Bodies at Rest
Fandom: Blade Runner
Characters: Gaff, Deckard, Rachael
Word Count: 11,218 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Gaff chases Deckard. Deckard chases Rachel. Rachel chases a half-formed dream, the nature of which she knows not. All of them turned upside down by the events of the film, all of them searching for a kind of equilibrium they can only find with each other. In the end, they find it in the strange construction all three of them make together. This is not a love story. This is a story of connections.
A/N: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
polybigbang 2009. Mix by Epporsimuove here.
GAFF
He has no idea what to make of this.
She walked out of the building with a very expensive bird on her arm, and no one said anything. They were all probably too used to her working there but even that excuse doesn't fly with him when she hadn't worked there in some time. The rent-a-cops were just incompetent. He should go after her for stolen property, retrieve the owl, and collect the reward. He knows where Deckard lives.
Instead he sits here in the cramped little office they gave him and wonders what about this case is getting to him. He's not thinking clearly. There are times when he wonders if he thinking at all. He taps his stylus on the pad, on the desk, leans back in his chair, does anything to avoid thinking about the consequences of his actions. Or rather, of his inactions.
It's not that he's doing things wrong; it's that he's not doing anything. He knows where the Replicant is, and he does nothing. He is betraying one of the most fundamental principles of his job, to protect human race from the Replicants. To serve and protect, isn't that what's written on all the seals and all the doors?
He doesn't know what the right thing to do here is. His whole history tells him that turning her in is the right thing to do, everything he has ever done has been to the goal. Retire the skin jobs. Pursue the remedy of what is wrong with society, one bad guy at a time. Replicants aren't human, they are incapable of choosing good or evil, and when they stray from the reservation they must be retired. For the good of the fucked up society he wishes to protect and preserve. That was the goal. He doesn't know what it is now.
Gaff stands hard enough to send the chair rocketing across the room and against the back wall. He grabbed his coat and stalks out the door before he can stop himself. Whatever is going on in his head, it can't interfere with his job. He's worked too hard, spent far too much time pounding the God damn streets for this to get in his way now. Besides, they're only feelings. They don't matter, when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of things.
DECKARD
He runs into Gaff coming out of the apartment building as the other man is coming in. This is all he needs, he thinks. He rolls his eyes at the cop and tries to push past him. Gaff grabs his arm and swings him around into the wall. The impact jolts his spine and rattles his teeth and makes him wish for another cortisone shot. Or death. Death was restful.
"What do you want?" He drawls.
"Rachael," he says, and then something else in Cityspeak. Deckard shakes off his arm.
"Speak English," he tells him, irritated at the prospect of going out in the rain. "Or Spanish, or something else that's a real language." His voice trails off into a mutter.
On second thought, Gaff looks even more irritated than he does. "Where is the Replicant?"
"You mean Rachael?" Okay, now he was just being an asshole. Although he was kind of surprised to realize that it bothered him that Gaff was calling her a Replicant. Maybe it was something to do with the way they were both trying so hard to pretend she was human, at least most of the time. Maybe just because it was Gaff. The man's presence alone was enough to annoy him. Like a bad rash, or a venereal disease.
By the sign of his scowl, Gaff feels the same way about him. The smaller man shakes him again, hard enough to make his teeth clack together like a marionette. "You are not a cop anymore." He says it with conviction, punctuating every word or couple of words with another shake. Finally Deckard has enough of this, raising his arms and opening them to knock the grip from his shoulders.
"And you were never a cop at all," he shakes a finger in Gaff's face. "You people make me sick, all you thugs with badges running around, acting like you're better than everyone else because you get to play cop. You don't give a shit about anyone but yourself. You never have in your whole arrogant, miserable life."
If any of that tirade shakes the smaller man, he doesn't show it. Instead he smiles at Deckard, a smile that means absolutely nothing to him. To either of them. Gaff is like a pit bull, he won't let go, not now that he's gotten a grip. Deckard doesn't know what kind of a grip he has on Rachael, but he won't let go. They face each other down, and Deckard looks away first. He hates himself for that, just a little.
"She's upstairs."
RACHAEL
She likes having the owl. Something about the creature appeals to her, the way she can't tell the difference between this owl and a real one. Because she's never seen a real owl, of course, but that doesn't make a difference to how she feels. It comforts her. The state of being comforted comforts her. It's an emotional response. The owl shifts its weight on the perch, turning its head with grave, quick movements. Just like a real owl. If she can't tell the difference between this owl and a real owl, maybe none of the people she meets on the street can tell the difference between her and Tyrell's real niece.
"Why are you here?"
It's an echo of their last meeting. Now, as before, he doesn't have an answer for her. This time he looks as though he's aware of his lack of knowledge, which is a small improvement. Aware of his lack of whatever it is he's missing, some part of a man that Deckard has and he doesn't. She realizes this like another shackle opening.
"You stole corporate property."
Rachael rolls her eyes. "This owl was the property of Eldon Tyrell, not his corporation. The owl that was a part of the corporation was either sold or passed on, as were all other items in that category. This owl was upstairs, with the rest of his things." Which neatly leaves out any mention of how the will is in the probate courts, tied up between lawyers, and will be for years more. Anything that was Tyrell's, that belonged to the man himself, will moulder in that penthouse apartment for years, maybe decades. She still has no right to it. She doubts he would have thought enough of her to leave her the owl.
Gaff doesn't know that, though. He hasn't bothered to do his homework, and it shows when he looks angry and chagrined, like she's caught him out in some kind of clever ruse that he thought would never be discovered. "I should see to your retirement here and now." He even pulls his gun, as though he means to do it. Rachael can see in his eyes and his posture that he doesn't. He doesn't know how to kill her. She's different from the others.
"Is that what you really want?" She steps into him, having learned from dealing with Deckard for so long. She takes her hair down, because that's what Deckard likes. "You don't want to kill me. I'm too human for that."
He doesn't say anything, and he looks very upset now. His cheeks are sunken and pale, his eyes wide, nostrils flared above that ridiculous stretch of dark facial fuzz. Not angry, not quite, but upset.
"You don't know what to do with me, because I'm too human to be one of them, and not human enough to be one of you. If they hadn't told you I was a Replicant, would you even think twice about me?"
He nods, a jerky head-bobbing motion. Because he would, because she would be remarkable even if she was human. And especially for a Replicant. "I would have known what you were anyway," he says. "I would have known." He repeats it so that they are both assured. Of all the skin jobs he's encountered, she sticks in his mind as no woman, real or artificial, has managed yet.
Rachael laughs. It's a quiet sound, in keeping with the muted tones and muffled air of the apartment, but she is laughing at him. "You know nothing. You've stripped away all the parts of yourself that know anything, and you don't have anything left. If they hadn't told you, you wouldn't know what I was. But you would always have some idea that I was different."
She's right. She knows it with that sense of freedom, the last shackle bursting free. He's the last reminder of her past to go away, at least from her nightmares if not from her living room. Now he's just standing there, a small man, a little bit lost. Diminished. She steps into him again, and now she's close enough to grab him by the lapels of his coat and keep him there. "What did you really want from me?"
"I want you to turn yourself in."
"I thought you wanted to kill me." He wants her, too. She's gotten better at being able to tell. Rachael wonders what it is about cops, blade runners, and the Replicants they hunt. What is it that makes them so attractive to each other? Something about dabbling in the forbidden, no doubt. People love that. Enough to do crazy things to get it, anyway. Sex and fantasies and perversions are a several billion dollar a year industry. All of it based on so many people who want what they can't have. "If that's what you want, though, all you have to do is ask."
She's not talking about her own death. Or his, even.
He understands that.
DECKARD
He looks up at their window from the street level and wonders if Gaff is ever going to leave. He isn't gone, Deckard knows that. He doesn't know how he knows, gut feeling maybe, but Gaff is still in that apartment and it bothers him. It bothers him a lot.
Which is funny, because he's never thought of himself as the possessive type, especially over her. Hell, that had been part of the reason his ex-wife divorced him. Not jealous enough. Not there enough. Cold fish, she said. Well, that and a few other less polite things. Possibly Rachael thinks the same thing about him. If she does, she has never said.
If he is cold, that lying bastard of a blade runner is even colder. So he doesn't understand why she let him in the apartment, and why she let him stay there. What the hell could they be doing up there? Sex does cross his mind; it's more likely than some other theories. Not that their sex life is lacking, but Rachael was sort of lacking in the experience department when it came to relationships. He thought he'd given her tacit permission to go and experiment around if she wanted. Then again, she might have noticed that he was a little erratic when it came to emotions himself, and decided it would be better if she stayed at home. In which case, why him? Why now?
It doesn't make sense, any of it. The only way for him to find out would be to go up there, and he doesn't want to do that yet. He's sulking. Not very sporting, Roy would say, to sulk like that down in the rain. Sporting. Deckard wonders if Roy knew the meaning of the word, in any context. He doesn't think Replicants are allowed to play reindeer games.
It doesn't matter. Roy is dead. For the first time in his life Deckard wishes Roy Batty was alive so that he could ask his advice. Replicant though he might have been, the man had had a grasp on life that still eludes Deckard. A way of being satisfied and content with wanting more than life can give. Something like that. Deckard doesn't even know how to explain it, let alone live it.
Roy would have known what to do with Rachael. Maybe that's because he was just like her. No, not just like her. She's different. She has memories. She thought she was human all her life. Hell, she thought she had had a life to have an all. None of that is true. Or maybe all of it is true. He is getting more confused by the minute, and standing here in the rain feeling the cold water drip down the back of his coat is not helping.
The concierge robot human person thing waves to him as he storms inside, shaking the water from his coat. "Good evening, Mr. Deckard," it says in that higher-pitched and projected voice intended to be cheerful. That was the main reason he thought the concierge was manned by robots; no human being could be that cheerful all the time. Maybe they were just getting paid enough.
He takes the stairs two at a time, only halfway sure what he will find when he gets there. Two people, both of whom he feels a connection with, one of whom he never wanted far away, one of whom he can't get far enough away from.
RACHAEL
Afterwards, she sits on the couch and has a cigarette.
It's such a cliché thing to do, even she knows that. She takes it as a victory cigarette. Gaff has no idea what he is doing with her. Deckard has no idea what he would do without her. She has everything she could ever want, which, admittedly, isn't much. Not in terms of material things.
He's still in the bedroom. She figures he's trying to wrap his mind around what they've just done. It simpler than he thinks, but as always, he misses the obvious. That was why he hadn't captured her the first time. And in a way, that is why he isn't going to turn her in or terminate her himself, this time. He's too curious. He knows there is something there, lurking just at the edges of his understanding, and he can't wrap his mind around it or turn his head far enough to see it.
Rachael puts her foot up on the table, pressing the ball of her foot into the edge. She rolls it back and forth, feeling the hard edge of pressed plastic and wood composite. This is what it feels like, she thinks, to be alive. This is what it feels like to be human. To not know how long you live or whether or not you will run down and die. To do things because you want to and not because you're told to. To have freedom beyond mere survival. Roy hadn't known what he was aiming for, but he had an idea. She wondered what he was like. She had the feeling she would have liked him.
In the bedroom she hears the sounds of someone stirring finally, and she smiles.
The smile fades when she hears footsteps outside the door and knows by the rhythm and weight of them to be Deckard's and wonders how he'll react. She hadn't meant to still have Gaff here when he got back. There is no time to do anything but sit back and pretend that she had planned it all. And even if she won't say out loud, she is curious to know what they will do.
DECKARD
His hand curls around the air above the doorknob, dirty sunlight spraying across his knuckles. He doesn't know whether or not he wants to turn it and open the door. His curiosity might get the better of him. His common sense determines that he abandoned common sense a long time ago. Maybe when he let things get less than simple and took up with the Replicant. Not that she was. Yes she was. He remembers what he asked Tyrell at the time. It doesn't know; how can it not know what it is?
He still doesn't understand. How could she have these doubts, these questions? He doesn't understand how she can't understand how her basic nature is different from his. She was grown in the lab, created by geneticists and biologists and scientists too ambitious for Earth to contain. So they sent them to the off world colonies. They kept her here. Tyrell kept her here, kept her close, because she was new and different and shiny and special. Because Tyrell wanted her for something, and neither of them knew what. Probably better that way.
He was human. He had been born, grown up. Live a human life. He doesn't know what he is now, now that he's dead. Maybe he something else, but the point is, he's not like her.
He opens the door.
GAFF
His shoulders cannot fill the doorway. He does not loom over anyone. But between the two men and their glares is the same kind of tension that fills a room where everyone has one finger on the trigger of a machine gun. Deckard slowly closes the door behind him, and Rachael doesn't look up.
He won't ask. He never asks. What he does instead is move his hand back a little bit and cover it over the butt of his gun, the third thing he put on today. The first was his shorts, and the second was his undershirt. Gun holster straps chafe against the bare skin.
Deckard's eyes widen a little but other than that he makes no movement, no witty comment. Isn't the first time he's been threatened with a gun. Hell, he probably isn't even the worst enemy Deckard's faced, but right now he's the only one in the room, and Deckard isn't the only one he can shoot with that gun. He sees these thoughts cross Deckard's face as bright as the lights on the neon advertisements on the sides of skyscrapers at night. He sees the thought process that was ingrained in him, as well. Assess the threat. Take stock of your resources. Judge likely outcomes to possible solutions. Discard the ones that won't work. The only ones that will work here involve negotiation.
Unfortunately for Deckard, Gaff isn't in the mood to negotiate.
"You kicking me out of my own apartment?" Deckard asks.
"No," he says, smiling through his teeth. "I am threatening you in your own apartment."
Rachael taps the ash from her cigarette and takes another long drag. If she has an opinion she doesn't care to give it voice right now. She's out of the line of fire, anyway. They could kill each other and all she would have to do would be to clean up the bodies. It should strike him as cold, but it doesn't.
"You shouldn't be here."
Deckard's right. And it's within his rights to kick him out of his apartment, but he isn't. Looks like Gaff isn't the only one not doing what he should be.
"The lady invited me in. I'm within my rights to be here, same as you."
DECKARD
He racks his brain for several irritated seconds trying to come up with some excuse to kick the other man out, but he can't. He's been trying to be good. Rachael has much right, he's always said, to invite her friends over as well as his. Not that the cold bastard standing across the room from him could be called a friend to anyone. Right now, they have a truce. Kind of. He wonders what it will take for Gaff to break that truce.
"Lady doesn't seem to be interested in you anymore," he sneers. There's no reason for him to be so petty, but it feels good.
The other man tilts his head back and returns the presumption in the patronizing look. "She hasn't said anything yet," he says. "Maybe she changed her mind."
Rachael doesn't give any clue as to her intentions. She sits, naked and inscrutable, on the couch. One hand holding the cigarette in the other resting easily beside her, she might as well be wearing that stiff black dress she wore when they first met. He doesn't understand how she can act that way. He's never been comfortable in his own skin, not once in his life, and certainly not in that kind of situation. Then again, he can never imagine putting himself in that position.
He jerked his eyes back to the other man, who smirks. "Something wrong, Deckard?"
"No," his eyes are wide, his expression calm. Disingenuous. "Nothing's wrong. Why would anything be wrong about a crooked cop threatening in my own home?"
That gets to him. If there was anything Gaff wasn't in his life, it was crooked. He could be a bastard, and actually, Deckard didn't know if he could be anything else. But he had never taken a bribe that Deckard knew of, never pressed for anything more than he was due. Which made him better than most cops on the streets. Still, he was his own brand of twisted, and it wasn't the kind that Deckard liked.
"I am not a crooked cop." But he said it in Cityspeak, which Deckard understood but which grated on his last nerve. Gaff only did it because he thought it would help him catch people, high profile people. Because he thought it made him blend in.
Deckard thinks it makes him sound like a tool, and says so. "You know what Bryant used to say, little people? You're little people, Gaff. You'll always be little people."
GAFF
He draws his gun for that.
In his own mind Gaff is the hero of his story, which isn't unusual for anyone although he certainly is still the only one in the room for whom that is true. Rachael has decided long ago that she isn't in control of her story, and it gives her the freedom to do as she pleases. Deckard stopped being the hero when he watched Roy Batty die, unable to do anything and unable to shake the feeling that he was missing some crucial lesson the man had been trying to teach him.
Gaff has enough ego left to believe in the righteousness of what he did. That he was good, and true, and correct.
So when Deckard calls him little people, crooked cop, that is a mortal insult. That, he cannot, and will not let slide. His finger rests along the side of the trigger guard, waiting for the other man to say something clever. To make that high and mighty ironic scowling face he does so well. To do something else that pisses Gaff off. They stare at each other, each of them waiting.
Which is when it occurs to him that he's never drawn a gun on Deckard before.
He would have said, he didn't know how. Deckard was magic, Bryant was right. Deckard had been good. Before he got old, washed up, confused. Now Gaff himself is the best, but then he had gotten confused and now he isn't sure what he is. It's only around these two that he isn't sure what to do, which way is the right way. Rachael confuses everything, the Replicant who isn't a Replicant, new product released too soon that looks exactly like the old and improved, he isn't sure how. Deckard confuses things because he's an ass who speaks before he thinks and is confused himself; his thrashing muddies the waters for Gaff, who knows nothing of how to be the best in the business except what Deckard did. Retired the skin jobs. Caught the killers. Did good work.
He's never drawn a gun on Deckard before. He isn't sure why he's holding the mark on him now. Pride, maybe. Be damned if he'll drop his gaze before the other man.
"So what do we do here now?" he asks.
DECKARD
It's not the climax of an action movie.
If it were he'd have a plan in mind, something he could put into action at any moment, a way to save his life and Rachael's if she was even in any danger and get the jackass to his appropriate end. Whatever that might be. He isn't sure yet. Jail, at the very least. Maybe death. Not that Deckard doesn't value human life, he does. Now more than ever. But he isn't sure Gaff is human anymore.
No, that's melodramatic. He's human. They're all human here. Except maybe Rachael. And he's starting to realize it doesn't really matter anyway.
He waves off the other man and goes towards the kitchen, ignoring the gun. "All right. All right, that was out of line, I'm sorry." As though the other hadn't asked anything at all. "You want some coffee?"
He feels their stares on his back as he tosses his coat over the chair Rachael's always telling him not to. She doesn't say anything now. He hears the rustle of shirt fabric against shoulder holster as the gun lowers back to his side, then the click of the safety. "Thank you." It's strained. It's strange for both of them, to play nice. Hell, it's strange for Gaff to play nice with anyone. He's not the 'nice' type.
But here they are, standing in the same apartment, not shooting each other. He listens to the other man come all the way out into the main room and stand there, not sure what to do, while he makes coffee. He wasn't sure what to do the first time, either. But now that they're past the first awkwardness Deckard realizes he doesn't mind so much. He's not glad. He's not upset, either. He isn't much of anything.
RACHAEL
She gets off of work at six. The sun is even shining, for the five minutes or so it takes her to catch a cab down to the lush, four-bedroom apartment in which she now lives. She can easily afford it, on her salary. She's one of the top-earning representatives for Max Factor now, traveling across the world hawking products she only half believes in, but that doesn't matter. She is able to live at a lifestyle commensurate with her expectations, and her men are as well.
Perhaps it's a lifestyle that's more akin to the communal, child-like bonding of the Replicants, the way they are never allowed to grow out of the sense of fairness ascribed to the very young. It isn't even inherent to the very young, she realizes, only that children are a blank slate upon which others write first their ideals, then their prejudices. Sometimes the surface is rough, sometimes too slick to take the writing well, but still a blank slate. So, too, it is with the Replicants. Not so with her. She started out as a human and had to learn to be what she was.
"Thank you," she says, and tips the driver. The little courtesies are important.
Neither of them are home when she gets there, but Deckard's coat and watch are by the door, which means he only went down to the corner. Possibly for cigarettes, or to sit outside the small Chinese noodle parlor as he likes to do when the apartment gets too confining. He's been shifting restlessly from job to job for some time, now. The last couple of months at least. Gaff, in a remarkable show of empathy, says that it's normal. That the strangeness of getting out of the business has finally caught up with him. Rachael allows that he would know more about that than she would, and lets him deal with it.
She goes out onto the balcony for a cigarette almost immediately. Deckard hates the smell lingering in the apartment, the sticky chemical smell. He never minded when there were two of them but now that there are three of them the balance is trickier, so she pays more attention.
Surprisingly, this works well. Better than they had before.
It's her turn to arrange dinner tonight. Sometimes they cook. More often they either microwave meals to go from restaurant-grocery store hybrids that cater to hard-working folk like them or order in from fast food places. Tonight, she compromises, putting together a pre-prepared and pre-portioned meal on the stove, one hand wrapped around a celery stick instead of a cigarette.
It's not real celery, of course. But it tastes just like she'd imagined.
DECKARD
The air is thick after the rain, but the sun is out and that cheers him in some sort of quizzically accepting fashion. He's got a bowl of soup in front of him that's still steaming from the hot plate in the center of the table, but so far he's only had about half. It's an excuse to linger. Not that he minds the apartment. He likes being outdoors, and he'll go home when he's ready.
They finally passed that initiative that's supposed to regulate the smog and the weather but so far he can't tell a damn bit of difference. The air still smells of chemicals, and he likes it that way. In the sense that he can't imagine another way. The city air is supposed to be full of smoke, smog, chemicals that had never been found in air until humans came in and choked everything with their waste. Well, he supposes he'd get used to it. The idea of cleared air. Given time, a man can get used to anything, and he's living proof of that. Some things he'd rather not get used to, though.
Some things he's decided he doesn't mind so much.
The little bastard's off on a case. Who knows if he'll make it home for dinner, in which case, maybe he'll get a quiet apartment. He wonders if he's in the mood for quiet, though. Won't know until he gets up there. He has no idea what he wants from moment to moment, these days. It makes living with him rough. He'd apologize for that if he knew how to apologize to Rachael and ever wanted to apologize to Gaff. The hell with that. He tries, in other ways. Picking up a little. Getting dinner more often than not. He's just restless. He's a little surprised neither of them have gotten sick of him yet.
He's more surprised that this works. It's not exactly a model for having a family. His ex-wife would call him some sort of sick deviant if she knew, for starters. He chuckles, thinking it might be an improvement over cold fish.
And he's not so much a cold fish anymore. He's given over that title to someone he shares an apartment and a ersatz wife with. He has passions, he gets angry, he can even be loving when he figures out how to not be so awkward. He can be congenial. Nice. He can even tell a joke or two if you give him a second to pull one out of his rusty memory. Sometimes even the cold fish laughs. Roy, he thinks, would be proud. Human and not so human, ersatz human, living together in harmony. He isn't sure which one is which one is which, still, but he knows that doesn't matter.
GAFF
When he wanted to become a blade runner and tear up the streets wreaking havoc and vengeance in the name of law and order, he hadn't counted on all the damn paperwork. He should have. He knows what being a cop is like, started out from the lowest run on the ladder, but this is ridiculous. They're drowning him in paperwork these days because of the questionable morality of retirement. Something or other. Something Tyrell started. Jackass. Make these things and then turn them loose on the streets and then quibble even after the bastard was dead about whether or not it was right to get rid of them when they started malfunctioning.
He thinks these things, but doesn't say them out loud, puts the thoughts away before he goes home. It's not fair that he hates a part of what she is. It's not fair, but that's life. No one ever said life was fair.
He wants to go home. He wants to finish up his paperwork and go home, to a hot bath and a warm meal and putting his feet up at the end of the day. Sharing a glass of something strongly alcoholic or getting his feet rubbed.
The sun shines far too heavy through his window. It makes the air stale and the sweat bead up on his skin. He hates feeling sweaty. He hates feeling that liquid build-up of dirt and grime beneath his hair and on his upper lip. He taps his stylus on the edge of the desk, on the edge of his coffee mug. They still make awful fucking coffee here.
It's the end of the day. He finishes all the paperwork that needs to be in by tomorrow morning and tosses the pad back down on the desk, not caring what he knocks off in the process. Except the mug. He likes that coffee mug.
He nods to the others in the bullpen, those he's still on speaking terms with, ignores the rest of them. By the time he leaves the building his mind is already on what's for dinner and whether or not he can wheedle a foot massage out of Rachael, or get Deckard to quit watching the goddamn Bears for once. He doesn't understand how a smart man can like a team that loses so badly and so often.
RACHAEL
No one says much of anything through dinner, through sprawling on the couch afterwards and gently arguing about what they're watching. It's a rare night that all three of them get to end the day around the same time and spend the evening in. No one spoils it by fighting.
They disappear into the bedroom for maybe half an hour, leaving Deckard muttering to himself on the couch and watching the end of the game. It's a consolation prize. Afterwards she comes out and rubs his shoulders and scuffles her hand through his graying hair and kisses the top of his head. Calls him a silly old man, because he is. But he's her silly old man, so that's all right.
It's even later when the call comes in, and she has to go catch a last-minute flight to take over. Neither men puts up much of an argument. They'll have the apartment to themselves for a couple of days, they can fight it out and let themselves go in some ways they can't do when she's around. She hasn't spoken of it yet to them but she knows they do. Gaff stands in the doorway, hovering at the edges of her space. He never comes in unless she invites him. Deckard is still pushy, still ordering her around on occasion. They don't interfere with the process of her getting ready but they still watch her as she dresses, pulling black lace over bare skin. She pushes her ass out just for them to ogle.
Deckard comes up behind her for that. Doesn't lay a hand on her as she pulls up the straps of her dress, adjusting herself in the neckline for no good reason. Doesn't stop her as she sits at her vanity, brushing on base, smooth skin tones. Plastic doll. She's so good at this, resuming her role, and she knows it half confuses them. They don't care. For opposite reasons, both of them, they'll follow her anywhere she goes. And what she'll never tell them is that she only has the impetus to leave when they're with her. Or not with her. It's strange. It's a balance.
He watches Deckard start running his fingers through her hair, after she's got it pulled up of course, taking it down like the perverse little shit he is. Deckard watches her rub color into her eyelids, straighten everything out until it's perfect. She watches him watching him watching them both as he lifts her hair to kiss the back of her neck while she calmly rubs in the red with the tip of her middle finger.
Deckard smiles. She likes it like that.
Fandom: Blade Runner
Characters: Gaff, Deckard, Rachael
Word Count: 11,218 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Gaff chases Deckard. Deckard chases Rachel. Rachel chases a half-formed dream, the nature of which she knows not. All of them turned upside down by the events of the film, all of them searching for a kind of equilibrium they can only find with each other. In the end, they find it in the strange construction all three of them make together. This is not a love story. This is a story of connections.
A/N: Written for
polybigbang 2009. Mix by Epporsimuove here.GAFF
He has no idea what to make of this.
She walked out of the building with a very expensive bird on her arm, and no one said anything. They were all probably too used to her working there but even that excuse doesn't fly with him when she hadn't worked there in some time. The rent-a-cops were just incompetent. He should go after her for stolen property, retrieve the owl, and collect the reward. He knows where Deckard lives.
Instead he sits here in the cramped little office they gave him and wonders what about this case is getting to him. He's not thinking clearly. There are times when he wonders if he thinking at all. He taps his stylus on the pad, on the desk, leans back in his chair, does anything to avoid thinking about the consequences of his actions. Or rather, of his inactions.
It's not that he's doing things wrong; it's that he's not doing anything. He knows where the Replicant is, and he does nothing. He is betraying one of the most fundamental principles of his job, to protect human race from the Replicants. To serve and protect, isn't that what's written on all the seals and all the doors?
He doesn't know what the right thing to do here is. His whole history tells him that turning her in is the right thing to do, everything he has ever done has been to the goal. Retire the skin jobs. Pursue the remedy of what is wrong with society, one bad guy at a time. Replicants aren't human, they are incapable of choosing good or evil, and when they stray from the reservation they must be retired. For the good of the fucked up society he wishes to protect and preserve. That was the goal. He doesn't know what it is now.
Gaff stands hard enough to send the chair rocketing across the room and against the back wall. He grabbed his coat and stalks out the door before he can stop himself. Whatever is going on in his head, it can't interfere with his job. He's worked too hard, spent far too much time pounding the God damn streets for this to get in his way now. Besides, they're only feelings. They don't matter, when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of things.
DECKARD
He runs into Gaff coming out of the apartment building as the other man is coming in. This is all he needs, he thinks. He rolls his eyes at the cop and tries to push past him. Gaff grabs his arm and swings him around into the wall. The impact jolts his spine and rattles his teeth and makes him wish for another cortisone shot. Or death. Death was restful.
"What do you want?" He drawls.
"Rachael," he says, and then something else in Cityspeak. Deckard shakes off his arm.
"Speak English," he tells him, irritated at the prospect of going out in the rain. "Or Spanish, or something else that's a real language." His voice trails off into a mutter.
On second thought, Gaff looks even more irritated than he does. "Where is the Replicant?"
"You mean Rachael?" Okay, now he was just being an asshole. Although he was kind of surprised to realize that it bothered him that Gaff was calling her a Replicant. Maybe it was something to do with the way they were both trying so hard to pretend she was human, at least most of the time. Maybe just because it was Gaff. The man's presence alone was enough to annoy him. Like a bad rash, or a venereal disease.
By the sign of his scowl, Gaff feels the same way about him. The smaller man shakes him again, hard enough to make his teeth clack together like a marionette. "You are not a cop anymore." He says it with conviction, punctuating every word or couple of words with another shake. Finally Deckard has enough of this, raising his arms and opening them to knock the grip from his shoulders.
"And you were never a cop at all," he shakes a finger in Gaff's face. "You people make me sick, all you thugs with badges running around, acting like you're better than everyone else because you get to play cop. You don't give a shit about anyone but yourself. You never have in your whole arrogant, miserable life."
If any of that tirade shakes the smaller man, he doesn't show it. Instead he smiles at Deckard, a smile that means absolutely nothing to him. To either of them. Gaff is like a pit bull, he won't let go, not now that he's gotten a grip. Deckard doesn't know what kind of a grip he has on Rachael, but he won't let go. They face each other down, and Deckard looks away first. He hates himself for that, just a little.
"She's upstairs."
RACHAEL
She likes having the owl. Something about the creature appeals to her, the way she can't tell the difference between this owl and a real one. Because she's never seen a real owl, of course, but that doesn't make a difference to how she feels. It comforts her. The state of being comforted comforts her. It's an emotional response. The owl shifts its weight on the perch, turning its head with grave, quick movements. Just like a real owl. If she can't tell the difference between this owl and a real owl, maybe none of the people she meets on the street can tell the difference between her and Tyrell's real niece.
"Why are you here?"
It's an echo of their last meeting. Now, as before, he doesn't have an answer for her. This time he looks as though he's aware of his lack of knowledge, which is a small improvement. Aware of his lack of whatever it is he's missing, some part of a man that Deckard has and he doesn't. She realizes this like another shackle opening.
"You stole corporate property."
Rachael rolls her eyes. "This owl was the property of Eldon Tyrell, not his corporation. The owl that was a part of the corporation was either sold or passed on, as were all other items in that category. This owl was upstairs, with the rest of his things." Which neatly leaves out any mention of how the will is in the probate courts, tied up between lawyers, and will be for years more. Anything that was Tyrell's, that belonged to the man himself, will moulder in that penthouse apartment for years, maybe decades. She still has no right to it. She doubts he would have thought enough of her to leave her the owl.
Gaff doesn't know that, though. He hasn't bothered to do his homework, and it shows when he looks angry and chagrined, like she's caught him out in some kind of clever ruse that he thought would never be discovered. "I should see to your retirement here and now." He even pulls his gun, as though he means to do it. Rachael can see in his eyes and his posture that he doesn't. He doesn't know how to kill her. She's different from the others.
"Is that what you really want?" She steps into him, having learned from dealing with Deckard for so long. She takes her hair down, because that's what Deckard likes. "You don't want to kill me. I'm too human for that."
He doesn't say anything, and he looks very upset now. His cheeks are sunken and pale, his eyes wide, nostrils flared above that ridiculous stretch of dark facial fuzz. Not angry, not quite, but upset.
"You don't know what to do with me, because I'm too human to be one of them, and not human enough to be one of you. If they hadn't told you I was a Replicant, would you even think twice about me?"
He nods, a jerky head-bobbing motion. Because he would, because she would be remarkable even if she was human. And especially for a Replicant. "I would have known what you were anyway," he says. "I would have known." He repeats it so that they are both assured. Of all the skin jobs he's encountered, she sticks in his mind as no woman, real or artificial, has managed yet.
Rachael laughs. It's a quiet sound, in keeping with the muted tones and muffled air of the apartment, but she is laughing at him. "You know nothing. You've stripped away all the parts of yourself that know anything, and you don't have anything left. If they hadn't told you, you wouldn't know what I was. But you would always have some idea that I was different."
She's right. She knows it with that sense of freedom, the last shackle bursting free. He's the last reminder of her past to go away, at least from her nightmares if not from her living room. Now he's just standing there, a small man, a little bit lost. Diminished. She steps into him again, and now she's close enough to grab him by the lapels of his coat and keep him there. "What did you really want from me?"
"I want you to turn yourself in."
"I thought you wanted to kill me." He wants her, too. She's gotten better at being able to tell. Rachael wonders what it is about cops, blade runners, and the Replicants they hunt. What is it that makes them so attractive to each other? Something about dabbling in the forbidden, no doubt. People love that. Enough to do crazy things to get it, anyway. Sex and fantasies and perversions are a several billion dollar a year industry. All of it based on so many people who want what they can't have. "If that's what you want, though, all you have to do is ask."
She's not talking about her own death. Or his, even.
He understands that.
DECKARD
He looks up at their window from the street level and wonders if Gaff is ever going to leave. He isn't gone, Deckard knows that. He doesn't know how he knows, gut feeling maybe, but Gaff is still in that apartment and it bothers him. It bothers him a lot.
Which is funny, because he's never thought of himself as the possessive type, especially over her. Hell, that had been part of the reason his ex-wife divorced him. Not jealous enough. Not there enough. Cold fish, she said. Well, that and a few other less polite things. Possibly Rachael thinks the same thing about him. If she does, she has never said.
If he is cold, that lying bastard of a blade runner is even colder. So he doesn't understand why she let him in the apartment, and why she let him stay there. What the hell could they be doing up there? Sex does cross his mind; it's more likely than some other theories. Not that their sex life is lacking, but Rachael was sort of lacking in the experience department when it came to relationships. He thought he'd given her tacit permission to go and experiment around if she wanted. Then again, she might have noticed that he was a little erratic when it came to emotions himself, and decided it would be better if she stayed at home. In which case, why him? Why now?
It doesn't make sense, any of it. The only way for him to find out would be to go up there, and he doesn't want to do that yet. He's sulking. Not very sporting, Roy would say, to sulk like that down in the rain. Sporting. Deckard wonders if Roy knew the meaning of the word, in any context. He doesn't think Replicants are allowed to play reindeer games.
It doesn't matter. Roy is dead. For the first time in his life Deckard wishes Roy Batty was alive so that he could ask his advice. Replicant though he might have been, the man had had a grasp on life that still eludes Deckard. A way of being satisfied and content with wanting more than life can give. Something like that. Deckard doesn't even know how to explain it, let alone live it.
Roy would have known what to do with Rachael. Maybe that's because he was just like her. No, not just like her. She's different. She has memories. She thought she was human all her life. Hell, she thought she had had a life to have an all. None of that is true. Or maybe all of it is true. He is getting more confused by the minute, and standing here in the rain feeling the cold water drip down the back of his coat is not helping.
The concierge robot human person thing waves to him as he storms inside, shaking the water from his coat. "Good evening, Mr. Deckard," it says in that higher-pitched and projected voice intended to be cheerful. That was the main reason he thought the concierge was manned by robots; no human being could be that cheerful all the time. Maybe they were just getting paid enough.
He takes the stairs two at a time, only halfway sure what he will find when he gets there. Two people, both of whom he feels a connection with, one of whom he never wanted far away, one of whom he can't get far enough away from.
RACHAEL
Afterwards, she sits on the couch and has a cigarette.
It's such a cliché thing to do, even she knows that. She takes it as a victory cigarette. Gaff has no idea what he is doing with her. Deckard has no idea what he would do without her. She has everything she could ever want, which, admittedly, isn't much. Not in terms of material things.
He's still in the bedroom. She figures he's trying to wrap his mind around what they've just done. It simpler than he thinks, but as always, he misses the obvious. That was why he hadn't captured her the first time. And in a way, that is why he isn't going to turn her in or terminate her himself, this time. He's too curious. He knows there is something there, lurking just at the edges of his understanding, and he can't wrap his mind around it or turn his head far enough to see it.
Rachael puts her foot up on the table, pressing the ball of her foot into the edge. She rolls it back and forth, feeling the hard edge of pressed plastic and wood composite. This is what it feels like, she thinks, to be alive. This is what it feels like to be human. To not know how long you live or whether or not you will run down and die. To do things because you want to and not because you're told to. To have freedom beyond mere survival. Roy hadn't known what he was aiming for, but he had an idea. She wondered what he was like. She had the feeling she would have liked him.
In the bedroom she hears the sounds of someone stirring finally, and she smiles.
The smile fades when she hears footsteps outside the door and knows by the rhythm and weight of them to be Deckard's and wonders how he'll react. She hadn't meant to still have Gaff here when he got back. There is no time to do anything but sit back and pretend that she had planned it all. And even if she won't say out loud, she is curious to know what they will do.
DECKARD
His hand curls around the air above the doorknob, dirty sunlight spraying across his knuckles. He doesn't know whether or not he wants to turn it and open the door. His curiosity might get the better of him. His common sense determines that he abandoned common sense a long time ago. Maybe when he let things get less than simple and took up with the Replicant. Not that she was. Yes she was. He remembers what he asked Tyrell at the time. It doesn't know; how can it not know what it is?
He still doesn't understand. How could she have these doubts, these questions? He doesn't understand how she can't understand how her basic nature is different from his. She was grown in the lab, created by geneticists and biologists and scientists too ambitious for Earth to contain. So they sent them to the off world colonies. They kept her here. Tyrell kept her here, kept her close, because she was new and different and shiny and special. Because Tyrell wanted her for something, and neither of them knew what. Probably better that way.
He was human. He had been born, grown up. Live a human life. He doesn't know what he is now, now that he's dead. Maybe he something else, but the point is, he's not like her.
He opens the door.
GAFF
His shoulders cannot fill the doorway. He does not loom over anyone. But between the two men and their glares is the same kind of tension that fills a room where everyone has one finger on the trigger of a machine gun. Deckard slowly closes the door behind him, and Rachael doesn't look up.
He won't ask. He never asks. What he does instead is move his hand back a little bit and cover it over the butt of his gun, the third thing he put on today. The first was his shorts, and the second was his undershirt. Gun holster straps chafe against the bare skin.
Deckard's eyes widen a little but other than that he makes no movement, no witty comment. Isn't the first time he's been threatened with a gun. Hell, he probably isn't even the worst enemy Deckard's faced, but right now he's the only one in the room, and Deckard isn't the only one he can shoot with that gun. He sees these thoughts cross Deckard's face as bright as the lights on the neon advertisements on the sides of skyscrapers at night. He sees the thought process that was ingrained in him, as well. Assess the threat. Take stock of your resources. Judge likely outcomes to possible solutions. Discard the ones that won't work. The only ones that will work here involve negotiation.
Unfortunately for Deckard, Gaff isn't in the mood to negotiate.
"You kicking me out of my own apartment?" Deckard asks.
"No," he says, smiling through his teeth. "I am threatening you in your own apartment."
Rachael taps the ash from her cigarette and takes another long drag. If she has an opinion she doesn't care to give it voice right now. She's out of the line of fire, anyway. They could kill each other and all she would have to do would be to clean up the bodies. It should strike him as cold, but it doesn't.
"You shouldn't be here."
Deckard's right. And it's within his rights to kick him out of his apartment, but he isn't. Looks like Gaff isn't the only one not doing what he should be.
"The lady invited me in. I'm within my rights to be here, same as you."
DECKARD
He racks his brain for several irritated seconds trying to come up with some excuse to kick the other man out, but he can't. He's been trying to be good. Rachael has much right, he's always said, to invite her friends over as well as his. Not that the cold bastard standing across the room from him could be called a friend to anyone. Right now, they have a truce. Kind of. He wonders what it will take for Gaff to break that truce.
"Lady doesn't seem to be interested in you anymore," he sneers. There's no reason for him to be so petty, but it feels good.
The other man tilts his head back and returns the presumption in the patronizing look. "She hasn't said anything yet," he says. "Maybe she changed her mind."
Rachael doesn't give any clue as to her intentions. She sits, naked and inscrutable, on the couch. One hand holding the cigarette in the other resting easily beside her, she might as well be wearing that stiff black dress she wore when they first met. He doesn't understand how she can act that way. He's never been comfortable in his own skin, not once in his life, and certainly not in that kind of situation. Then again, he can never imagine putting himself in that position.
He jerked his eyes back to the other man, who smirks. "Something wrong, Deckard?"
"No," his eyes are wide, his expression calm. Disingenuous. "Nothing's wrong. Why would anything be wrong about a crooked cop threatening in my own home?"
That gets to him. If there was anything Gaff wasn't in his life, it was crooked. He could be a bastard, and actually, Deckard didn't know if he could be anything else. But he had never taken a bribe that Deckard knew of, never pressed for anything more than he was due. Which made him better than most cops on the streets. Still, he was his own brand of twisted, and it wasn't the kind that Deckard liked.
"I am not a crooked cop." But he said it in Cityspeak, which Deckard understood but which grated on his last nerve. Gaff only did it because he thought it would help him catch people, high profile people. Because he thought it made him blend in.
Deckard thinks it makes him sound like a tool, and says so. "You know what Bryant used to say, little people? You're little people, Gaff. You'll always be little people."
GAFF
He draws his gun for that.
In his own mind Gaff is the hero of his story, which isn't unusual for anyone although he certainly is still the only one in the room for whom that is true. Rachael has decided long ago that she isn't in control of her story, and it gives her the freedom to do as she pleases. Deckard stopped being the hero when he watched Roy Batty die, unable to do anything and unable to shake the feeling that he was missing some crucial lesson the man had been trying to teach him.
Gaff has enough ego left to believe in the righteousness of what he did. That he was good, and true, and correct.
So when Deckard calls him little people, crooked cop, that is a mortal insult. That, he cannot, and will not let slide. His finger rests along the side of the trigger guard, waiting for the other man to say something clever. To make that high and mighty ironic scowling face he does so well. To do something else that pisses Gaff off. They stare at each other, each of them waiting.
Which is when it occurs to him that he's never drawn a gun on Deckard before.
He would have said, he didn't know how. Deckard was magic, Bryant was right. Deckard had been good. Before he got old, washed up, confused. Now Gaff himself is the best, but then he had gotten confused and now he isn't sure what he is. It's only around these two that he isn't sure what to do, which way is the right way. Rachael confuses everything, the Replicant who isn't a Replicant, new product released too soon that looks exactly like the old and improved, he isn't sure how. Deckard confuses things because he's an ass who speaks before he thinks and is confused himself; his thrashing muddies the waters for Gaff, who knows nothing of how to be the best in the business except what Deckard did. Retired the skin jobs. Caught the killers. Did good work.
He's never drawn a gun on Deckard before. He isn't sure why he's holding the mark on him now. Pride, maybe. Be damned if he'll drop his gaze before the other man.
"So what do we do here now?" he asks.
DECKARD
It's not the climax of an action movie.
If it were he'd have a plan in mind, something he could put into action at any moment, a way to save his life and Rachael's if she was even in any danger and get the jackass to his appropriate end. Whatever that might be. He isn't sure yet. Jail, at the very least. Maybe death. Not that Deckard doesn't value human life, he does. Now more than ever. But he isn't sure Gaff is human anymore.
No, that's melodramatic. He's human. They're all human here. Except maybe Rachael. And he's starting to realize it doesn't really matter anyway.
He waves off the other man and goes towards the kitchen, ignoring the gun. "All right. All right, that was out of line, I'm sorry." As though the other hadn't asked anything at all. "You want some coffee?"
He feels their stares on his back as he tosses his coat over the chair Rachael's always telling him not to. She doesn't say anything now. He hears the rustle of shirt fabric against shoulder holster as the gun lowers back to his side, then the click of the safety. "Thank you." It's strained. It's strange for both of them, to play nice. Hell, it's strange for Gaff to play nice with anyone. He's not the 'nice' type.
But here they are, standing in the same apartment, not shooting each other. He listens to the other man come all the way out into the main room and stand there, not sure what to do, while he makes coffee. He wasn't sure what to do the first time, either. But now that they're past the first awkwardness Deckard realizes he doesn't mind so much. He's not glad. He's not upset, either. He isn't much of anything.
RACHAEL
She gets off of work at six. The sun is even shining, for the five minutes or so it takes her to catch a cab down to the lush, four-bedroom apartment in which she now lives. She can easily afford it, on her salary. She's one of the top-earning representatives for Max Factor now, traveling across the world hawking products she only half believes in, but that doesn't matter. She is able to live at a lifestyle commensurate with her expectations, and her men are as well.
Perhaps it's a lifestyle that's more akin to the communal, child-like bonding of the Replicants, the way they are never allowed to grow out of the sense of fairness ascribed to the very young. It isn't even inherent to the very young, she realizes, only that children are a blank slate upon which others write first their ideals, then their prejudices. Sometimes the surface is rough, sometimes too slick to take the writing well, but still a blank slate. So, too, it is with the Replicants. Not so with her. She started out as a human and had to learn to be what she was.
"Thank you," she says, and tips the driver. The little courtesies are important.
Neither of them are home when she gets there, but Deckard's coat and watch are by the door, which means he only went down to the corner. Possibly for cigarettes, or to sit outside the small Chinese noodle parlor as he likes to do when the apartment gets too confining. He's been shifting restlessly from job to job for some time, now. The last couple of months at least. Gaff, in a remarkable show of empathy, says that it's normal. That the strangeness of getting out of the business has finally caught up with him. Rachael allows that he would know more about that than she would, and lets him deal with it.
She goes out onto the balcony for a cigarette almost immediately. Deckard hates the smell lingering in the apartment, the sticky chemical smell. He never minded when there were two of them but now that there are three of them the balance is trickier, so she pays more attention.
Surprisingly, this works well. Better than they had before.
It's her turn to arrange dinner tonight. Sometimes they cook. More often they either microwave meals to go from restaurant-grocery store hybrids that cater to hard-working folk like them or order in from fast food places. Tonight, she compromises, putting together a pre-prepared and pre-portioned meal on the stove, one hand wrapped around a celery stick instead of a cigarette.
It's not real celery, of course. But it tastes just like she'd imagined.
DECKARD
The air is thick after the rain, but the sun is out and that cheers him in some sort of quizzically accepting fashion. He's got a bowl of soup in front of him that's still steaming from the hot plate in the center of the table, but so far he's only had about half. It's an excuse to linger. Not that he minds the apartment. He likes being outdoors, and he'll go home when he's ready.
They finally passed that initiative that's supposed to regulate the smog and the weather but so far he can't tell a damn bit of difference. The air still smells of chemicals, and he likes it that way. In the sense that he can't imagine another way. The city air is supposed to be full of smoke, smog, chemicals that had never been found in air until humans came in and choked everything with their waste. Well, he supposes he'd get used to it. The idea of cleared air. Given time, a man can get used to anything, and he's living proof of that. Some things he'd rather not get used to, though.
Some things he's decided he doesn't mind so much.
The little bastard's off on a case. Who knows if he'll make it home for dinner, in which case, maybe he'll get a quiet apartment. He wonders if he's in the mood for quiet, though. Won't know until he gets up there. He has no idea what he wants from moment to moment, these days. It makes living with him rough. He'd apologize for that if he knew how to apologize to Rachael and ever wanted to apologize to Gaff. The hell with that. He tries, in other ways. Picking up a little. Getting dinner more often than not. He's just restless. He's a little surprised neither of them have gotten sick of him yet.
He's more surprised that this works. It's not exactly a model for having a family. His ex-wife would call him some sort of sick deviant if she knew, for starters. He chuckles, thinking it might be an improvement over cold fish.
And he's not so much a cold fish anymore. He's given over that title to someone he shares an apartment and a ersatz wife with. He has passions, he gets angry, he can even be loving when he figures out how to not be so awkward. He can be congenial. Nice. He can even tell a joke or two if you give him a second to pull one out of his rusty memory. Sometimes even the cold fish laughs. Roy, he thinks, would be proud. Human and not so human, ersatz human, living together in harmony. He isn't sure which one is which one is which, still, but he knows that doesn't matter.
GAFF
When he wanted to become a blade runner and tear up the streets wreaking havoc and vengeance in the name of law and order, he hadn't counted on all the damn paperwork. He should have. He knows what being a cop is like, started out from the lowest run on the ladder, but this is ridiculous. They're drowning him in paperwork these days because of the questionable morality of retirement. Something or other. Something Tyrell started. Jackass. Make these things and then turn them loose on the streets and then quibble even after the bastard was dead about whether or not it was right to get rid of them when they started malfunctioning.
He thinks these things, but doesn't say them out loud, puts the thoughts away before he goes home. It's not fair that he hates a part of what she is. It's not fair, but that's life. No one ever said life was fair.
He wants to go home. He wants to finish up his paperwork and go home, to a hot bath and a warm meal and putting his feet up at the end of the day. Sharing a glass of something strongly alcoholic or getting his feet rubbed.
The sun shines far too heavy through his window. It makes the air stale and the sweat bead up on his skin. He hates feeling sweaty. He hates feeling that liquid build-up of dirt and grime beneath his hair and on his upper lip. He taps his stylus on the edge of the desk, on the edge of his coffee mug. They still make awful fucking coffee here.
It's the end of the day. He finishes all the paperwork that needs to be in by tomorrow morning and tosses the pad back down on the desk, not caring what he knocks off in the process. Except the mug. He likes that coffee mug.
He nods to the others in the bullpen, those he's still on speaking terms with, ignores the rest of them. By the time he leaves the building his mind is already on what's for dinner and whether or not he can wheedle a foot massage out of Rachael, or get Deckard to quit watching the goddamn Bears for once. He doesn't understand how a smart man can like a team that loses so badly and so often.
RACHAEL
No one says much of anything through dinner, through sprawling on the couch afterwards and gently arguing about what they're watching. It's a rare night that all three of them get to end the day around the same time and spend the evening in. No one spoils it by fighting.
They disappear into the bedroom for maybe half an hour, leaving Deckard muttering to himself on the couch and watching the end of the game. It's a consolation prize. Afterwards she comes out and rubs his shoulders and scuffles her hand through his graying hair and kisses the top of his head. Calls him a silly old man, because he is. But he's her silly old man, so that's all right.
It's even later when the call comes in, and she has to go catch a last-minute flight to take over. Neither men puts up much of an argument. They'll have the apartment to themselves for a couple of days, they can fight it out and let themselves go in some ways they can't do when she's around. She hasn't spoken of it yet to them but she knows they do. Gaff stands in the doorway, hovering at the edges of her space. He never comes in unless she invites him. Deckard is still pushy, still ordering her around on occasion. They don't interfere with the process of her getting ready but they still watch her as she dresses, pulling black lace over bare skin. She pushes her ass out just for them to ogle.
Deckard comes up behind her for that. Doesn't lay a hand on her as she pulls up the straps of her dress, adjusting herself in the neckline for no good reason. Doesn't stop her as she sits at her vanity, brushing on base, smooth skin tones. Plastic doll. She's so good at this, resuming her role, and she knows it half confuses them. They don't care. For opposite reasons, both of them, they'll follow her anywhere she goes. And what she'll never tell them is that she only has the impetus to leave when they're with her. Or not with her. It's strange. It's a balance.
He watches Deckard start running his fingers through her hair, after she's got it pulled up of course, taking it down like the perverse little shit he is. Deckard watches her rub color into her eyelids, straighten everything out until it's perfect. She watches him watching him watching them both as he lifts her hair to kiss the back of her neck while she calmly rubs in the red with the tip of her middle finger.
Deckard smiles. She likes it like that.