The Link To Lesser

Butch

-I left my police scanner back at the Pit so it took a hell of a lot of digging for me to track down my old partner. Standing across the street from him, I remembered the fight Vishous and I had gotten in to the last time I paid Jose a visit. The fight that had ended in V taking down all of the doors in the Pit except for the entrance. I understood why he was mad, the concern for my safety was clear. He was even more angry when I suggested that I turn myself in to Jose for the death of the human woman. He would be down right furious if he knew where I was right now. So many of my memories involved my male now. In the grand scope of things, we hadn’t really been together that long. But he was one you didn’t forget. Even skirting the depths of hell and madness, my memories were full of him. God, I needed to get back to him. It was almost with a fevered rush that I sought to find myself so that I might return to him. I knew that I would never actually be whole without him. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and stepped forward, out of the shadows. I knew that it wouldn’t take long for Jose to spot me, the man was good at his job. I had to hand it to him, he covered his momentary surprise well, strolling calmly through a small crowd of on-lookers to stand in front of me. ‘What brings you to my neck of the woods, Butch? I was pretty sure I wouldn’t see you ever again after our last meeting.’ I didn’t feel the need to tell him that I was in the area far more often than he thought.- One of your cases hit my radar. -I had to watch what I said very carefully. Jose knew me pretty well and he would smell a lie a mile away. ‘Yay, okay. Let’s grab a coffee and talk about it.’ I followed him into yet another diner. It seemed that was always somewhere I could find my old partner. I probably would have had more luck tracking him down if I looked for him in dive joints like this throughout town. It was stupid that I was even here. My nerves were shot and I was probably going to say something that I really shouldn’t. I ordered a cup of coffee when Jose did and wasted time making it drinkable with sugar and cream. I could tell that his curiosity was boiling over and his keen eyes picked up on more than they should have. I nervously twisted my ring before finally breaking the silence.- You picked up a case where there was a burned out car on the back roads… -Jose wrinkled his brow, no doubt wondering what interest I had in that particular case. Then of course there was the sticky part where he could only say so much. ‘We had no small amount of difficulty identifying the body and had to settle for the owner of the car as being the likely victim.’ I nodded my head at that. I’d actually wondered what they could gather from that scene after Vishous had reduced it to ash.- Do you have a suspect? -My old partner leaned over the table, I could read his irritation clearly before he even said anything. ‘I don’t see hide nor hair of you and you show up out of the blue asking me about some case that I gave up on? What am I missing here?’ I almost breathed a sigh of relief to hear that he had dropped the case until I realized how that would be taken and I stopped myself.- She was one of the girls that I tried to help. You remember that program that I worked with to get the working girls off the streets. -I prayed to God that my sad excuse for sudden interest would be overlooked. ‘A lot of those girls have met with some rather unfortunate ends. Granted she’s the only one that got run off the road, shot full of holes and burned with the fires of Hell.’ I tensed up instantly and gripped the table to near breaking.- Did she have any family? -Not the smartest question but it had been eating me up that she might have kids or a husband that loved her and relied on her. Jose shook his head. ‘No. In fact the closest we could tell, she was transporting a trunk full of drugs.’ That one almost made me come out of my seat.- What?! How do you figure that? -He narrowed his eyes but thankfully answered my question. ‘Aside from the trace evidence, we had some strange gang of albinos poking around. And they weren’t concerned about the girl if you catch my meaning.’ I actually sprayed coffee in his face at the albino thing.- Shit. I’m sorry. -I shredded a ton of napkins trying to wipe the coffee off of him. My head was spinning with this new bit of information and I wondered if maybe that was what I had picked up on in the first place. Jose swatted my hands away when it became clear that I wasn’t really helping much. ‘What the hell is going on here, Butch? Do you know who did this?’ And there was the million dollar question. I plopped my ass back down on the seat and dropped the napkins in a pile on the table.- I do know who did it. You’re looking at him. -Jose let out a long groan and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Jesus, Butch… What the fuck have you been getting yourself into?’ I was instantly reminding of what I thought about the Brothers when I first saw them, I was certain they were all drug dealers and I even tried to haul Wrath in. I almost echoed Jose’s groan.- Listen. It’s not like that. It was an accident. -I could hear the telltale sound of cuffs and I stood up instantly.- I’ll deny every bit of this little conversation, Jose. You and I both know that you don’t have any proof. So do me a favor and chill on the arresting me bullshit. Vishous was right, I shouldn’t have come here. -I tossed down some money for my coffee and got the hell out of there before Jose decided that our friendship wasn’t worth crap. That was one person I sure as fuck wasn’t going to see ever again. It was too bad really. Jose was a good guy. I took a long and twisted way back to the Escalade and an even more out of the way path back to Darius’s. I wasn’t taking any chances on Jose finding me now. I flopped down on the bed and picked up the phone again. I wasn’t even sure if V was listening to my rambling but in a strange way it helped me. I hit the speed dial and pulled my tie off while I waited for the sound of the voice mail kicking in.- So I went and made the dumb ass mistake that you told me I shouldn’t do. I found Jose… and I told him that I did it. It was like looking back in time to when I first met you guys. I thought for sure you were some crazy gang of drug dealers. I’m pretty sure that’s what he thought I was. The fancy suit probably didn’t do me any favors there. That’s besides the point though. I actually found out that the woman had a trunk load of drugs that the lesser were somehow involved in. I guess she wasn’t as innocent as I once thought. I’m going to see what I can find out about this mess. I hope you are doing… okay… If my own feelings are any indication… -I slowly exhaled a deep breath. It always felt like anything I said was wrong.- I love you and I’ll see you soon.

Vishous

When I woke up I saw the white crisp paper laying on the nightstand and almost laughed out as I read it. ‘The King request that you please replace your phone so that he may contact you when needed’ Yeah I bet Wrath used the word ‘Please’ Shaking my head I dragged my bare ass from the bed and grabbed the black basketball shorts I had thrown over the chair last night. I pulled them on along with a T-shirt and some shoes screw the food thing I made a bee line for the door that took me to the tunnels and in the direction of the Pit. Each step closer had my heart hammering in my chest and my palms sweaty, fuck it felt like a damn lifetime ago since I had been in what I considered my first true home. I didn’t want to be there but then again this was as close as I could get to feeling Butch or actually a runner up to standing outside of Darius’s. I reached the door and my hand faltered over the keypad, I knew it was going to be empty, void of all the shit that made this place a ‘Home’. Rolling my head between my shoulders and tightening and untightening my fingers, I punched in the code and went inside but left the door wide open. It didn’t take much looking around to see that Fritz had taken exceptional care of the place; everything was immaculate, even the air smelled fresh and welcoming. I stepped in further and did look a little bit closer, it was then that it struck me that no matter how damn clean or fresh the place was, it was still missing its key components and without that, it was void, cold and empty. My head just shook and I made tracks to my old room and retrieved a new cell phone from one of my drawers. I sit down at my desk and in no time I had all my stuff transferred over and loaded and there it was a voice mail. I got up and walked back out into the living area, the phone in my head seemed to vibrate to life in my hand and a damn or nothing was coming in. My jaws clenched as I made it to the bar and leaned my arm heavily on it and just eyed the phone like it was some type of fucking piranha. I already had the ‘fuck it’ attitude creeping into place even as I played the message, but all that changed and dropped away when I heard that damn voice come through the phone. My head dropped and listened once again to every word, and in a matter of seconds I went from deep damn longing to pissed the fuck off to oh fuck, but at the end I actually had a grin ghosting over my face. That crazy ass motherfucker I thought and before I knew it I was returning the call only to hear and haft to deal with Butch’s voice mail. “Hey Cop, glad to hear you’re not staring through steel bars right now after that fucked up shit you pulled, not sure I would have been able to come and retrieve your ass, I was in the middle of a damn good jerking session last night and would have been pissed had you made me fuck up on my stroke count.” Chuckling somewhat hoarsely I added the last words before I was cut off. “I love you Nallum.” Dropping the phone to the counter I just looked at it a second before letting out a deeper than hell breath and picking it back up. I turned to head out when out of the corner of my eye I spied a flicker of light hit the counter, when I really looked at what it was I just grabbed up the chains with the saints hanging off of them. “Oh fuck that bastard always has the last say in shit.” Lifting the medals up I looked at them closely and then slid them over my head and left the Pit and thinking maybe some food was a good idea after all.