i expect your face to look like this b/c i affectionately call this 'a distinct lack of everyone and everything'
“Way to go, buddy. Thank you for giving me the perfect excuse to arrest you, assaulting a police officer,” her partner rolls her eyes, quickly grabbing the man before he could take off after the kid.
“Bitch, I didn’t do anything.”
“Really?” Sammy’s sarcasm is almost tangible, as she shoves him in the back of the squad car before turning back to her partner. “You okay?”
“Uh, yeah,” Cam replies, a hand at her nose and a patch of red staining her hand. “It’s not bad.”
“Do you think he’d complain to Sarge if I punched him in the throat?” Sammy asks, taking the keys from Cam’s free hand. Cam tries not to laugh, particularly because it was a bid morbid to laugh with blood on your face.
“They usually do,” she says instead, sliding into the passenger’s seat.
--
“You got him?” Cam’s not really waiting for an answer; she keeps walking past the booking station on toward the locker rooms anyway.
“No, I’m going to make you fill out your own assault report, Hasser!” Sammy’s voice carries across the station. She doesn’t mean it. However much she hated paperwork, partners took care of one another.
“Hey, what happened?” Cam had been glaring into the mirror, her fingers brushing gently against the tender skin on and around her nose. Great, like she needed more nose. It was already a defining characteristic.
“Stark,” she hisses when his voice reaches her, and proceeds to drag him around the corner of the lockers, out of sight of the doorway. “You know this is the women’s locker room, right?” She stretches her neck to see around the corner, muttering under her breath about their Sergeant having a field day with him.
“Hey,” his hand grabs hold of her wrist, which immediately twists her face back to his. His eyes search her face, pleading with hers for her to tell him. It didn’t take much to figure it out, but he didn’t like to jump to conclusions. Not after the fuck ups overseas.
“It’s nothing, Starkweather, routine assault on an officer, it happens.” It almost goes unnoticed that she’d called him Starkweather; it had been months since he’d been called that. She’d picked it up from meeting some of his buddies, had referred to him privately as such, and had only just now slipped. They hadn’t been too incredibly serious about their relationship, after all. There were too many other distractions.
“It doesn’t look broken,” he says, instead of commenting. He liked it slipping from her lips, if he was being honest with himself. His hands have suddenly moved, one pulling her toward him by the hip and the other whisper light across her cheek, and she’s become acutely aware of her unbuttoned uniform. “Think they’d noticed if I had some alone time with him?”
“Sammy said the same thing. Yes, they would.” His lips cut off the rest of her words and she doesn’t ever remember what she was going to say, anyway.
“Sarge wants to talk to you, Cam.” Speaking of Sammy. Cam pulls back with a quick jerk, slamming her elbow into the lockers behind her and tossing out a curse under her breath.
“Sammy,” Stark starts, but she holds up her hand.
“The only people I plan on telling are your half a dozen children sometime down the line.” With a look at her partner, she adds, “It might be believable that that’s a result of our perp, you know.” Cam straightens her arm with a pop.
“It’s fine.”
“Tell that to your boyfriend here,” Sammy grins. He gives her a look, which is immediately followed by one from Cam. “I don’t think either of you are really appreciating what I’m doing for you.”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Cam’s disappeared behind the door of her locker.
“I’ll expect you in half a minute then, shall I?” Sammy asks Stark. He sighs, nods, moves toward the open lockers.
“Seriously,” he says, “I’ll punch him out, easily. I saw Sammy with him, he wasn’t much.”
“Thanks, that makes me feel loads better,” Cam replies, Sammy’s snark rubbing off on her. Stark grins, pulling her against him one more time, forcing her to stop in her attempts at redressing.
“You know I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I do.”
“Let’s go out tonight.”
“I think your first priority should be getting out of this room. Sammy won’t wait forever.” They hear an exasperated sigh in confirmation. Stark takes the moment to steal the breath from her lungs.
“I’ll go before she hangs us out to dry. But really, babe, I’ll pick you up at seven.”
--
Cam sits up, trying to blink the sleep away, reaching across in the dark and feeling nothing but bed sheets beside her. Her breath catches when his shadow moves, coming back toward her.
“Where’d you go?” she asks, softly so as not to alert the golden at the foot of the bed. She squints her eyes, both in an attempt to see his face and to remember the dream of that day she’d been having.
“Watching you,” he murmurs back, quieter than her, buries his face in her hair while her cold hands find their imprints on his bare chest.
“You ought to go back to sleep.”
“So should you.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
But neither one does. Instead they watch the room lighten in silence, not moving again until the tell-tale jingle from the dog’s collar says it really is time you ought to be getting up.
--
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” he says, placing a kiss in her hair line. They’d ridden the subway in together, running through the turnstiles like school kids, him chasing her to steal her kisses while they waited for the train, hands locked together all the way to the precinct. She starts inside, but watches him go instead, wanting the image of his plaid shirt and faded jeans and the beauty of him and the day to stay in her memory forever.
“Hey, come meet the new sergeant, Sands.” Her face quickly turns to a scowl, as she flips off the self-entitled legacy rookie cop who thought he deserved everything and always took the opportunity to get under her and Sammy’s skin.
“Fuck off, Rider.” The coffee in Cam’s hand disappears when the voice interrupts. “Today’s the day, I guess.” Sammy sets herself down at her desk, flipping papers out of the way with a sigh. Cam sits more on the edge of her seat, a hand propped under her chin allowing for her to bite at her nails.
“Do you know what you’re going to say?” Cam asks. Sammy leans back in her chair, completing the contradictory picture of the pair at their desks.
“If I did I probably would’ve said it already,” Sammy answers. She’d practiced half a dozen conversations the night before, unable to sleep. She and Wilson weren’t exactly together anymore; she’d driven that wedge in quite nicely. But, at the same time…
Besides, he was in Stark’s platoon.
“I’m sorry,” Cam says, her face finally easing. It was a picture perfect look of overwhelming sadness.
“Why are you sorry? I’m the one who messed it all up,” Sammy smiles in a bitter kind of way.
“He was moving too fast—“
“Cam, I love you.” Even after all the years they’d known on another, even with each knowing how the other really was, they’d still have each other’s backs. Here was Cam making excuses for Sammy, though they both knew that those weren’t the real reasons. It was why they worked so seamlessly together.
“It’ll be okay,” Cam slips back across the seat of her chair, bringing a file along with her. “I checked. We’re going to be fine.”
Sammy can’t catch her eyes, but it’s clear from her expression that she’d beg to differ.
--
“Don’t get shot,” Cam says, in a low whisper against Stark’s throat, because she never could reach his ear on her own. He pulls her back and gives a wistful smile.
“The same goes for you, you know.” She wants to cry, but she can’t, and she wants to add don’t die, but she can’t. Don’t die so far away from home. Don’t die so far away from me. “Wilson’s got my six, and Sammy sure as hell better have yours.”
“I do, if she doesn’t,” Johnny inputs, hands in his pockets, next to Julia, who’s found herself stuck between him and Wilson and wondering where her roommate is.
“So we’re both in good, well,” Stark spares a glance at his best friend, “decent hands.” Cam shakes her head, standing back to look at all of the camouflage blended into the colorful New York City families around her. Families that were all being broken, just like that. Stark’s fingers give her hand a squeeze.
“Hey, I’ve been to war, brah.”
“Why don’t you join us, then?”
“Cam’s six?”
“He just doesn’t want to get made fun of again,” Stark’s grinning and Cam’s enthralled by his him. Johnny tries to enumerate the many good qualities of war correspondents, but no one’s really listening. Julia turns to Wilson, who’s stood somewhat awkwardly to her side since he’d arrived.
“Where’re, uh,” he starts uncomfortably, “Where are Lee and Luke and—“ He can’t finish his question, because anyone else he’d ask about are the people he can’t ask about. One leaves a bitter taste in his mouth and the other would give away every little feeling he’d ever had.
“Luke had a big creative meeting, it was on the schedule for a while, so,” Julia says, her arms wrapped around her small frame, the cool breeze feeling somewhat chilling after the heat wave the previous week. “Lee got called in. Not much you can do when there’s a bestiary to look after.”
“Yeah,” Wilson nods, but doesn’t add any more. Julia waits a minute, willing him to say anything.
“She’s coming, you know,” she’s leaned toward him, like it’s some sort of secret to be whispered in the halls and passed on notes in classrooms. “She has to,” she says as she leans back, no longer conspiratorial.
“Who has to—Oh, Wilson. Julia is correct in this instance,” Johnny’s given up on Stark and Cam, who, Julia asserts with a glance, appear to simply be breathing one another in.
“You don’t say, John,” Wilson can’t help but smile. Johnny Gallagher had that easy going way about him that always made everyone smile. Even while rolling their eyes. Luke Evans was a bona fide testament to that.
“I do,” he nods. “She’s Cam’s ride, so unless she wants to be without a partner for the evening. Besides that, Stark’s got a long memory; one year will not ease his mind of the smallest injustice against his wife. He still remembers that guy who elbowed her in the face. I’ve met him. He’s like a changed man.”
“Johnny,” Julia levels her gaze at him.
“I’m just saying, anyone who says that violence in domestics can’t be cured hasn’t met with the wrath of Stark Bunker Sands.”
Wilson’s face falls with the call to board the buses, as a certain officer of the law still hasn’t shown up. Part of him is relieved, what was he supposed to say?, but the rest felt like someone had tied an anchor to his feet and let him drop into the sea. The image was particularly fitting for Sammy Jones-Haldane.
“She does still care about you, Wilson,” Cam says, watching as Julia and Johnny give Stark hugs and final goodbyes. “Don’t forget that.”
“Yeah.” It’s all he can manage when he talks about her. Anything more would open the floodgates and here was definitely not the right place for that. He can see Cam’s hesitancy and almost feels the gravitational-esque pull toward his sergeant, now. It was strange, he realizes with a glance between them, not to see them touching, they were always touching and he didn’t really think either was aware of it. “I’ve got his back, Cam. I promise.”
“I know. You come back safe, okay?” Her eyes are beginning to gloss, so Wilson offers a hug because aside from kisses, hugs were the best excuse to close your eyes.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Let’s get a move on, Corporal,” Stark interrupts.
“Sir,” Wilson nods. Stark takes advantage of his last moment to the catcalls of his fellows already quickly filling the bus.
“Fuck you all,” he says, with a grin, as he finds his seat behind the LT and Gunny.
“Hey, wait, God damn it,” Sammy’s all but running before the door of the squad car’s even open. “Sergeant, if you don’t stop that bus for half a second, I swear to God!” She’s stopped the bus all on her own, though, and she stands next to the driver, breathing heavy, and scanning the dozens of faces who are making light of their situation before her fear catches up with her.
“Uh, Officer,” the driver starts, more taken aback than anything. Stark’s half out of his seat, but Wilson beats him to her.
“Can we, um,” Sammy bites her lip, wringing her hands. Neither of them knows what to say. Not really. It’s almost a simultaneous decision, and they both lean toward one another and the expel of their lungs is audible in the moment of silence before the bus erupts.
“That’s just, uh, that’s the just the beginning of that conversation,” Sammy whispers and Wilson nods and Stark has to interrupt the moment because they really should’ve left already and the driver has clearly gotten over his confusion and now seems more than a little irritated.
“Sammy, I love you and,” he waves his hand, subtly making her start back down the stairs, “all. But we’re kind of on a tight schedule.”
“Sorry, Sarge.” It’s weird how she feels so high when she knows she should feel awful and she probably will later. But now, now she’s riding the wave for all it’s worth.
“I’ll miss you,” Stark lowers his voice as they hug. Cam gives him a half a kiss, pulling Sammy back in a hug from behind. It’s not until Johnny pipes up again that Sammy realizes there are tears on her cheeks.
“Julia, darling, I’m glad you came, we need someone to Roe, Roe, Roe our boat back up the river of the separation induced sadness.”
--
“Go away, Gallagher.” Julia’s words sound harsh, but she’s been trying to get him to work for the past ten minutes and he’s been stalling.
“You’ve got to spend less time with Evans; he’s rubbing off on you the wrong way.”
“Johnny!” She’s moved on to physically attempting to push him through the door. “You’re already late!”
“I know, mom, but you can’t always be on time for everything, right?” He doesn’t say out loud how he’s worried about Cam and Sammy, that he doesn’t want to leave Cam and is anxious for Sammy to come home, and he won’t ever admit that he spends more time between their apartments that he does in his own. “Walt could probably use a walk.”
“Johnny, seriously.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll go slave away for the hungry hoards looking for gossip on their favorite New Yorkers.” He gives Walt a scratch behind the ears before he finally leaves.
“Finally,” Julia whispers, under her breath, moving into the kitchen to start dinner for her best friends.
“Hey,” Cam looks like she’s still half asleep as she wanders out into the living room. Walt jumps easily onto the couch to lick her face, and RayRay even slinks around the counter to have a look for a moment before winding back between Julia’s feet.
“Fuck Sergeant what-ever-his-name-is,” Sammy half yells as she comes in, sitting down on the other side of Walt.
“It won’t be forever, Sammy,” Julia says, “Besides you love your job, remember?”
“I don’t know that I love my job that much,” Sammy crosses her arms.
“Okay, we need to do something.” Julia flips the stove back off and picks RayRay off the floor.
“Like going back to sleep?” Cam yawns. “Sounds good.”
“No, not like going back to sleep, like going out.”
“Can I at least—“ Sammy starts, having just finished her shift.
“No, we’re going out.”
In the morning, the three of them wake up in Cam’s bed, presumably because it was the biggest, with Walt at their feet and RayRay on the pillow and they’re a mess of limbs and hair and hangovers in the we’re basically three parts of the same person kind of way. They spend the day there, longing for days when the sadness wouldn’t threaten to engulf.
Until then, they were hurt, but they weren’t broken.
But I really love it. I mean, I think my character anyway is just that a character and not really me. BUT ANYWAY THE POINT OF THIS POST
is that I totally started thinking about like elements for whatever reason. Wait, no, I know the reason was because of the mix I made for Stark/Cam bc it was called In The Fire and so I was like ohhh I'm the fire one apparently (which explains perfectly my 'Cam is a character' thing because I am anything but fire tbqh bUT OKAY WAIT).
SO Sammy's water, obv, and Julia's Earth and Air, and I'm fire. And fire and water complement each other perfectly mmkay. Ugh I can't even express all this okay.
But water's all changing and whatnot and that's how Sammy is. And she's deeper than you might think on the surface. And determined and strong and can easily overwhelm you and you shouldn't turn your back because you don't know what it could do to you. Not really. Water is intense. But it's also really lovely. And peaceful and comforting and feels wonderful to be near.
And Julia's grounded, like the Earth, and it doesn't change but it's constantly changing and it's always there and dependable and beautiful. And the Earth holds up the sky, and the air allows for those subtle differences. And ugh Julia's the Air, too, because the air likes to dance across your face and lift your hair and make you smile. And they're both there for you like a parent (one can only assume that's why the Egyptians (I think it's Egyptians???) had the mother and father of their gods as the Earth and the Sky).
Fire. Fire because of the passion and the loyalty and how it'll keep burning but it still fizzles out every now and then. But there's that little thrill you get when it starts and it lights up your eyes and it's optimistic and carefree and wild. But it's also deadly and unsympathetic. To be so hot it can be awfully cold. But when it's hot, it's burning.
And fire and water learn from one another and Earth/Air keeps them both grounded and none of them can exist without the other.
HOLLA MAN CAN YOU TELL I'VE BEEN STUCK ON I WROTE THIS FOR YOU BECAUSE I HAVE OH MY GOD I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS RIGHT NOW I DON'T EVEN KNOW I LOVE AMERICA OKAY AND I LOVE YOU.
