Original fic: Boston
Jun. 16th, 2005 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardJimmy has a happy little flashback to the day Mac (Officer Donald Mackay, actually, if we want to be all formal) died. Continuation of the last piece.
He remembers, dim like a heartbeat shuddering into silence, the call for aid. “Shots fired,” they heard over the crackle of the radio, and they’d stepped out of the squad car with their hands on their guns, wary but easy in their patrolman’s blues. The silence sunk into the street like gangrene into flesh, something wrong, something not right, and the bright sunlight that shone off the roofs was a mistake. Mac cocked his head to one side the way he did when he wasn’t sure, eyes narrowing, then called out.
“Boston PD!”
Nothing. The sound echoed, loud as gunshots, and movement out of the corner of his eye made Jimmy turn his head to find a woman with a child clutched to her chest, turning the boy’s head into her stomach even as he squirmed to watch. What –
He didn’t see. Remembers that, that he didn’t see.
The next sounds that ran out were gunshots and Mac’s harsh panting breath as his partner collapsed back against him. The kid scrambled over Mac’s fallen body and down the sidewalk, dropping the .38 even as he did. “No, no – Mac! Jesus, Mac!”
The only sound was the rattle of blood as Mac coughed and it splattered across Jimmy’s face. Mac had knocked him down, left him sitting with his partner’s head in his lap, and he scrambled for the radio to gasp out, “Officer down, officer down! Jesus –” He spat out the address and a description of the perp, as much as he could remember from the little he saw, and all the while his partner was dying in his lap. “Officer –” he tried again, and heard the dispatcher’s voice soothing in his ear, “Officer Saint –”
“Mac, oh God – Mac –”
The first cruiser to pull up was Cahill’s car, and the cop came out with his gun in hand almost before the car slid to a stop. “Kid, where’re you hurt, where’s – oh God.” He stopped, went dead white beneath the thin brown fuzz that passed for a beard with him. “Mac! Mac, Jesus!” He dropped to his knees beside Mac and Jimmy, groping for Mac’s hand, or maybe his pulse. What he felt made him shake his head in disbelieving horror, then he threw back his head and howled.
Jimmy had never heard anything like that howl.
Still hasn’t, but the feeling is the same. The same helplessness. I can’t help my partner.
But Chris isn’t dead yet. Won’t be, not if he can help it. My partner, damnit, mine, damnit all to hell, and you bastards won’t take him.
He’s silent now, but shivering, white-faced. Like Mac’s face at his funeral. A walking corpse. Dead man breathing, detecting. Now and then he shakes his head in denial, and a whisper leaves his lips, “God help me. God, God, Jimmy please –”
Jimmy slides one hand under his arm, feels Chris thin as a scarecrow. Light as one too, crumpling against him like wet paper. Jimmy scoops him up, and his partner’s head drops onto his shoulder. Passed out.
I can help you. This time, I can help you. Any fucking way I can. And any way I can’t.
In other news, Chapter Five of Omerta contains Nick Bonasera and pictures of young Stella: Stella, at fifteen. Caught in sleep, cheek resting on a thick textbook with paper spreading out in flurries around her.
He remembers, dim like a heartbeat shuddering into silence, the call for aid. “Shots fired,” they heard over the crackle of the radio, and they’d stepped out of the squad car with their hands on their guns, wary but easy in their patrolman’s blues. The silence sunk into the street like gangrene into flesh, something wrong, something not right, and the bright sunlight that shone off the roofs was a mistake. Mac cocked his head to one side the way he did when he wasn’t sure, eyes narrowing, then called out.
“Boston PD!”
Nothing. The sound echoed, loud as gunshots, and movement out of the corner of his eye made Jimmy turn his head to find a woman with a child clutched to her chest, turning the boy’s head into her stomach even as he squirmed to watch. What –
He didn’t see. Remembers that, that he didn’t see.
The next sounds that ran out were gunshots and Mac’s harsh panting breath as his partner collapsed back against him. The kid scrambled over Mac’s fallen body and down the sidewalk, dropping the .38 even as he did. “No, no – Mac! Jesus, Mac!”
The only sound was the rattle of blood as Mac coughed and it splattered across Jimmy’s face. Mac had knocked him down, left him sitting with his partner’s head in his lap, and he scrambled for the radio to gasp out, “Officer down, officer down! Jesus –” He spat out the address and a description of the perp, as much as he could remember from the little he saw, and all the while his partner was dying in his lap. “Officer –” he tried again, and heard the dispatcher’s voice soothing in his ear, “Officer Saint –”
“Mac, oh God – Mac –”
The first cruiser to pull up was Cahill’s car, and the cop came out with his gun in hand almost before the car slid to a stop. “Kid, where’re you hurt, where’s – oh God.” He stopped, went dead white beneath the thin brown fuzz that passed for a beard with him. “Mac! Mac, Jesus!” He dropped to his knees beside Mac and Jimmy, groping for Mac’s hand, or maybe his pulse. What he felt made him shake his head in disbelieving horror, then he threw back his head and howled.
Jimmy had never heard anything like that howl.
Still hasn’t, but the feeling is the same. The same helplessness. I can’t help my partner.
But Chris isn’t dead yet. Won’t be, not if he can help it. My partner, damnit, mine, damnit all to hell, and you bastards won’t take him.
He’s silent now, but shivering, white-faced. Like Mac’s face at his funeral. A walking corpse. Dead man breathing, detecting. Now and then he shakes his head in denial, and a whisper leaves his lips, “God help me. God, God, Jimmy please –”
Jimmy slides one hand under his arm, feels Chris thin as a scarecrow. Light as one too, crumpling against him like wet paper. Jimmy scoops him up, and his partner’s head drops onto his shoulder. Passed out.
I can help you. This time, I can help you. Any fucking way I can. And any way I can’t.
In other news, Chapter Five of Omerta contains Nick Bonasera and pictures of young Stella: Stella, at fifteen. Caught in sleep, cheek resting on a thick textbook with paper spreading out in flurries around her.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-18 12:43 am (UTC)God, wow-- I love them. The horror for both Jimmy and Cahill at Mac's dying/death is palpable, and Jimmy's confusion and hurt and not quite knowing *what* happened, just that his partner was dying and suddenly *that* matters most of all. And that he won't dare let that happen to Chris.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-18 01:14 am (UTC)Jimmy was Mac's partner, and Cahill was Mac's oldest friend and it's...it's bad enough losing someone, but he died in front of their eyes by violence and they couldn't do anything. It's worse that Jimmy didn't see it, so he'll be tormenting himself forever with what-ifs and could he have done somethings. Mac is the bar he judges everything off of, and he doesn't want Chris to go down the way Mac did. Plus, so far he's had really bad luck with partners. There was Mac, then he was with Cahill for awhile, then he got promoted to detective and his experience there didn't go too well before he was transferred to whatever unit he's in now.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-19 12:14 am (UTC)Right, and I think that's more than the violence--that they were helpless. As men and cops, they (I think they) feel they *shouldn't* be helpless. They're the police, after all. Jimmy has his partner *stolen* from him, and all he can do is hold his blood between his fingers. As cops, if they can't save or protect their partner, their brother, who are they to say they can protect anyone else?
Mac is the bar he judges everything off of, and he doesn't want Chris to go down the way Mac did. Plus, so far he's had really bad luck with partners.
I definitely get that sense from him-- almost, it seems, like he wants to prove to Mac (even if he's dead) as well as himself that he can, especially with bad luck with partners, help his partner when it matters.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-19 01:13 am (UTC)Exactly, and I think that's one of the reasons why Jimmy has so many problems with putting down roots anywhere in the department. He can't trust himself to say he can protect anyone or give them justice (he had a gun to the head of the boy that killed Mac, he says, but he couldn't shoot him, because he didn't do it for money or for hate or for any real reason. Because Mac was there and he had a gun) and as such he doesn't - get along really well with most cops. He can't help himself, so why should anyone trust him to help them?
I definitely get that sense from him-- almost, it seems, like he wants to prove to Mac (even if he's dead) as well as himself that he can, especially with bad luck with partners, help his partner when it matters.
Right. Because maybe if he can help Chris just this one time, then Mac can rest easy. Maybe Jimmy can finally fit in and be a real cop.
...you know, it probably isn't going to go real well when Chris manages to stammer out that he saw Mac's ghost and he was asking about Jimmy.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-19 01:33 am (UTC)No, it's probably not going to go well, but I *really* want to see that. A lot. Partly because, I might be reading it wrong, but Jimmy and Mac were lovers? That seems like it isn't going to go well for *anyone*, really. Chris for seeing his partner's dead partner, Jimmy for the whole fact of it... and, well, Mac's dead so I'm not sure where his opinion lies beyond, "Is Jimmy okay?"
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-19 11:45 pm (UTC)Yeah, Jimmy and Mac were lovers. Like Flack and Gavin, but with text instead of subtext and more issues. And Chris thinks he's going crazy (not that anyone really blames him; he's hearing voices and seeing people that are, huh, DEAD), but the shock of seeing someone vaguely familiar in uniform, asking after Jimmy is sort of - well, increasing his craziness suspicion, actually. And Jimmy's in shock.