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last online May 14, 2024 16:09:47 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2022 5:22:32 GMT
Cassie entered her condo, put her purse on the front table, and immediately headed to her closet. She changed into a sweater and some leggings, and sat down on her couch - one of the only things her apartment had in it, besides her mattress and a few cooking tools. She stared into the middle distance, still thinking about what Luca had said on the way back from his cabin.
"Cassie... how about you put on something more suitable for being out for a hike, and bring enough supplies for a day or two with you in a backpack. If you don't have that kind of thing, I'll let you use an extra bag and supplies."
"But what about going to work?"
"Oh, I'll just call off. They'll probably have a party if I do. Assholes." Luca laughed at that.
The guilt was eating her alive. Cassie meant to keep the file, do her own work, like she had in DC. She'd meant to do many things. But he'd turned out to be nice, and the only cop who actually did his job she'd ever met, her own father aside. Whatever the result, she had to give the file back, and explain herself, if he'd let her.
>Hey Luca, can you come inside for a minute? She texted him. Cassie went back to the front door, unlocked it, and took a deep breath, steeling herself for what came next.
@lupo
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last online May 14, 2024 16:09:47 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2022 7:11:24 GMT
Luca was glad she seemed excited to go with him on the day hike he decided to do instead of going in for work. After sending a text to his Captain to inform them he won’t be in for the day, he sat in the driver’s seat of his truck, while waiting for Cassie to return to him so he can drive them out to his favorite hiking spot, and enjoy the day. Or, at least, try to. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself. He always needed something to do, even when he was ordered a day off by the Captain. While waiting for her, he picked up his phone he left in a cell phone holder on the dashboard of his truck for easier access, and played around with it until he received a text message from… “Cassie..?” He raised an eyebrow and read what it said. >Hey Luca, can you come inside for a minute? At first, he was wondering why she was texting him, since it was a vague message. “Why is she…?” He trailed off, suddenly thinking of the worst, as he became a tight ball of anxiety as it washed over him. He thought about so many things all at once as he jumped out of his vehicle, shut the door, and then quickly ran up her porch. Heart beating rapidly in his chest, and hearing only his heartbeat in his ears, he entered her apartment with a serious expression. Once inside, he stopped and looked at her, realizing she was okay. He breathed in a sigh of relief, pressing his hand to his chest, and waited for his heart to calm down; panting slightly. “Oh, my god, Cassie,” he laughed nervously, “I thought something was wrong when you sent that text.” He swallowed the fear growing in his throat and took several deep breaths as he remembered what Bell taught him. “That was a really vague text, just so you know.” He laughed at himself. Maybe the day off will do him some good. His anxiety was making him paranoid, and even worse than before. “So, um…” Luca cleared his throat and shifted around nervously in his stance as he pressed his hand against the back of his neck. “You okay? What’s up?” He smiled, back to feeling calmer now. “You aren’t getting cold feet are you? It’s okay, we can go another time if you wish.”
@mayhem
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last online May 14, 2024 16:09:47 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2022 7:27:24 GMT
Cassie was completely taken aback by Luca coming in her house looking like he was going to pass out from anxiety. She gave him a minute to collect himself, then said, "It was, I'm sorry about that. And I'm really sorry if I make you even more anxious, but it's probably best to just get this over with. Give me a minute." She walked off to her closet, got the file out from her safe, and came back to the front room, pressing it into his hands. She gave him a long, sad look, then looked away, unable to keep eye contact with what she was about to tell him.
"My father was a Capitol Hill detective. Said you could tell a good cop from a bent one by the way he kept his files. The way he wrote about his cases when nobody else was gonna read it. So I took it because I wanted to know... needed to know what kind of a cop you were. That and... never mind. If you don't want to see me anymore, I understand completely. What I did was wrong."
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last online May 14, 2024 16:09:47 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2022 7:51:27 GMT
Luca was about to tell her it was okay, but then watched as she walked off to her closet with a confused look on his face as he stood around in the front room. When she returned, he stared at the file in her hands - his case file he thought he had on his desk the other day. He knew something was different. He parted his lips as he stared at her for a long moment until she looked away. While he gazed at the file in his hand, she spoke to him about her father. When she said,
“You could tell a good cop from a bent one by the way he kept his files. The way he wrote about his cases when nobody else was gonna read it.” Was Ben’s same words to him one day when things at the department was becoming difficult for Luca as soon as he started enforcing the law on his fellow officers. Officers who he thought didn’t deserve to carry a badge anymore. His lips quivered a little, while he slowly opened the case file and gradually flipped through the pages he wrote and the evidence he took of the children he managed to save, locations, and all of those involved in the trafficking ring.
He reached his hand up and lightly pressed his fingertips to his mouth, staring at the file as he closed it. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he choked back his tears several times when he remembered those words from Ben his own daughter, now grown up, said to him seconds ago. He also remembered what else his partner said.
“This department doesn’t deserve you, Luca. The people do though. Don’t ever change, man. We need more good cops in this world.”
He lowered his hand, having a sudden need to sit down. When he sat on the couch, he kept his eyes on the case file as he spoke softly to her.
“I won’t lie to you. I’m not mad at you, but I am disappointed you would take something very important to me…” He sighed, glancing up at her. “Now that that's out of the way... Can you tell me why you decided to take this? There were several other cases there on my desk I was working on.” He held the file in both hands and stared at it. “Why would you bother taking this one specifically?”
@mayhem
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last online May 14, 2024 16:09:47 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2022 8:32:54 GMT
TW: kidnapping, trafficking, implied sexual abuse
Cassie sat down on the other end of the couch. She saw the tears in his eyes, his sorrowful expression. She felt awful having let him down, but her eyebrows drew together remembering a greater pain than any else in her life.
She pulled a framed picture of her and Syd off the thrifted TV tray currently functioning as a side table, and put it on the couch between them. The two of them were 20, and they'd had a long day at the beach in Ocean City. Cassie was a little sunburnt, her hair wild from the sea salt, dyed a green ombre towards the ends. Syd had black box braids, and her brown skin and beaming grin glowed softly in the sunset light. "Sydney Watkins. Syd. My best friend since I was three. We did everything together, school, vacations, jobs. Lived in an apartment together when we were both going to Georgetown. Decided to work at the same club when money was tight. One cold winter night in 2019, she went out back for five minutes to get some fresh air, and never came back."
Cassie rubbed her thumb along the edge of the frame. "Cops told me 'no one cares about a missing black stripper.' Wouldn't even look for her. So I did. Checked the records as to who had been in the VIP room with her right before she disappeared, and what do you know. Other cops." She spat the last words like venom. "I looked all over the city, put missing notices everywhere I could, but no one had seen her. It was like she'd vanished into thin air. Three months later, when the police responded to a domestic violence call in northeast… in the townhouse was one of them, and Syd's body. He snitched on the rest of the cops in the trafficking ring to the FBI, because of course they were all in on it, so he got cut a deal. Her death was framed as an 'accident' and he was all set to go retire somewhere the whole thing would be forgotten. Shame he mysteriously disappeared before he got to."
Despite herself, a smirk lifted one corner of her mouth. "I might have had something to do with that."
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last online May 14, 2024 16:09:47 GMT
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Jan 31, 2022 21:55:22 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2022 21:55:22 GMT
He glanced over as he saw her taking a picture frame off of the side table and set it down between them after she sat on the opposite end of the couch. He then peered down curiously at the frame, and saw it was a picture of her and another woman at a beach, who she explained to him was her best friend named Sydney. Sitting back against the couch, he listened intently as she told him about what happened to her friend. He glanced at her face when she mentioned about the horrible, careless cops she spoke to, and frowned when they didn’t bother looking for Syd when the young woman went missing, just because she was black. He bit his lower lip, feeling both angry and disgusted of how they wouldn’t help find her because her friend was black and a stripper. To him, a missing person was someone’s child, a parent, a relative, a friend, or a lover. A person’s skin color and chosen profession shouldn’t matter. He set the case file beside him, and quickly looked forward when his anger started to soar. He faintly grimaced as he soon glanced at his clenched hands in his lap -palms upward. He slowly relaxed his fingers, and stared at the blood from the punctured wounds his claws he ended up extending into his palms caused. He didn’t seem bothered by it, of course, as he retracted his claws and the wounds healed within seconds. While he pulled a black handkerchief out of his jacket’s inside pocket to clean his own blood off of his fingertips and nails, he calmly spoke, “He mysteriously disappeared before he could retire somewhere where what happened would be forgotten? Huh…what a shame.” he grinned, glancing at her when he put the handkerchief back inside the pocket he had it in. ”And you might have something to do with it? Hmm…” He tilted his head slightly as he stretched his arms along the top part of the couch, and gave her a wolfish grin. “Good.”
@mayhem
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last online May 14, 2024 16:09:47 GMT
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Jan 31, 2022 22:19:25 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2022 22:19:25 GMT
People always expected her to be sad, to be depressed, to cry when the subject of Syd came up. And yeah, she felt all those things. She'd cried through many a night after Syd went missing, and she wasn't a crier. But truth be told? What Cassie felt the most, over all of that, was rage. Rage that burnt so white-hot it had hollowed out a part of her heart where hope once lived.
So, her reaction didn't surprise her... but his did. She put the picture away again, and scooted closer to him on the couch, gently playing her fingertips over his newly healed hands. Some of the scattered comments he'd made now started to make a little more sense, in the context of what he'd just said. In the context of that easy grin in response to her confessing to killing a man.
"Lot of crabs in the Potomac River," Cassie said quietly, still wearing the smirk. It would sound like a non sequitur to anyone else but a homicide detective, but she knew he'd catch her meaning. She leaned in closer still, kissing him roughly, passionately. God it felt good to be able to be every part of herself with him.
She pulled back from him with a breathy laugh, then put her fist to her mouth. "Really ironic that the reason you're a good cop... is because you're not just a cop, are you?"
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last online May 14, 2024 16:09:47 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2022 0:44:49 GMT
Luca watched as she put the picture away, and then he put the file off to the side when she scooted closer to him. He eyed her as she moved her fingertips over his healed hands. He grinned at what she said to him. He certainly understood what she meant by it. “There’s a lot of deer carcasses laying about in places too,” he said quietly, gazing at her through half-lidded eyes as he leaned closer to her, resting a hand on her thigh, and gently pressing a hand behind the base of her skull as he kissed her as roughly and passionately as she was. Suddenly, like her, he felt good to be able to be every part of himself with her. He felt comfortable, even if their relationship was moving faster than what he’s used to. Breathless, he chuckled at her question, and smirked. “I might not be just a cop.”
@mayhem
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last online May 14, 2024 16:09:47 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2022 1:51:04 GMT
"Mmm, I see," Cassie said back, eyes similarly half-lidded. She was over him on all fours now, careful to leave a decent amount of room between them after his panic attack last night under similar circumstances. She kissed him on the chin, on the Adam's apple, and then a few more times on the lips. She began to feel warm all over her body - certain areas more than others - as their lips pressed together again and again. She nuzzled into the crook of his neck, giving the slope of skin a hard kiss that would have given anyone but him a hickey.
Cassie tilted her head away from him as she felt her horns take shape, not wanting to spear him. Her skin cascaded red with a frission of goosebumps, and her scalp tingled the way it always did when she changed. She leaned back in again, couch arm creaking under the pressure of the increased strength in her grip. "And you might not be the only one that looks different sometimes."
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last online May 14, 2024 16:09:47 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2022 20:31:14 GMT
Luca tilted his head back as he laid down further into the couch to look up at her and give her more room as she crawled over him. He noticed how she kept space between them, which he admittedly appreciated. Despite being more comfortable and turned on by her killing someone who murdered her friend and learning she was a vigilante too, he was still anxious, but far less than he was yesterday. He never thought he’d be so turned on like this, let alone fall for someone like her so fast; smelling what her chemical signals were giving off wasn’t helping either, and not to mention feeling the warmth coming off of her body. He figured his craving for companionship and love outweighed what he was normally used to. His eyelids gradually closed as she started kissing him on the chin, his Adam's apple, and several times on his lips. He kissed her back whenever their lips met, while he gently allowed his hands to rest on her thighs, then slid them up her lithe frame, where he took a moment to explore around her back and front before lightly holding her waist with his fingertips. He grunted quietly when she delivered a hard kiss into the arch of his neck, but didn’t mind it at all, as he was grinning during and after she stopped. When she stopped, he opened his eyelids, and watched as she tilted her head away as horns appeared, and her skin tone must have changed color, since it appeared slightly different to him. He gave her a lopsided grin, resting a hand back over her thigh, as he brushed his fingertips of his other hand along the side of her face and gently around one of her horns curiously. “So it seems,” He smiled, eyebrows raised; although, he was a bit sad as he remembered how her father looked, just in a color he was able to see. His sad smile changed over to an expression of intrigue. “Can you tell me what color you are?” While adding with concern in his voice, “Also, are you sure you want to do it now? I would like to go on that hike if you still want to, but with your chronic fatigue syndrome you said you have, I think it’ll be best for us to choose which activity we’d like to do today.”
@mayhem
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