“I’m not saying you can’t shoot him. I’m just saying you can’t shoot him here.”
The tag:
hcp2shoothim
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Really glad to see this week’s stories. Good job, guys!
This week’s prompt was:
“I’m not saying you can’t shoot him. I’m just saying you can’t shoot him here.”
Our fics for the week are:
Soaked, by @cookiedoughmeagain
Audrey Parker, Duke Crocker, Threegulls
Shoot Him, by @grey-haven
Audrey Parker, Duke Crocker, Dwight Hendrickson, Nathan Wuornos, Jordan McKee, Threegulls
Shoot Him v. 2, by @grey-haven
Audrey Parker, Duke Crocker, Nathan Wuornos, The Rev, Threegulls
Excerpt: The Gathering Dark, by @fiore-della-valle
Audrey Parker, Duke Crocker, Nathan Wuornos, PreGulls
Remember: you can continue to post fics for this prompt to the fic tag, where they can be easily searched. The next prompt will be posted Friday, February 9th, with the roundup for that prompt being posted Sunday, February 18th.
So I didn’t have time to write anything for the prompt this week, so here’s something that kinda fits, from an older, unfinished story.
Prompt: “I’m not saying you can’t shoot him. I’m just saying you can’t shoot him here.”
Duke came by at one, as promised, with meals and ridiculously complicated coffees. Nathan had to work to keep a neutral expression; for something that apparently contained a large portion of whipped foam and was sprinkled with ground chicory, it was surprisingly good, and the sheer volume of sugar in it would probably be just as effective as the caffeine in keeping him awake for the next few hours. Duke ate with them, taking up space on the couch and listening to them talk, occasionally interjecting a comment when he knew something about someone they were discussing.
It wasn’t exactly a break, but it was refreshing anyway; Audrey certainly looked the better for it, and they dove back in with renewed energy when Duke headed back out an hour later, with the firm threat that if they didn’t pack up by eight, he was going to come back and drag them out himself.
Nathan was pretty sure he wasn’t actually serious, but he did plan to make sure they went home at some point.
He should have taken Duke at his word; at eight thirty, he walked back in looking irritated.
“Any progress?” he asked, and Audrey looked up, startled- she’d been plotting out houses on a town map, trying to find any kind of commonality between their victims.
“Not yet,” she replied, and Duke stepped closer and plucked the pencil out of her hand, which was a far bolder move than Nathan would have dared to try. Of course, he’d been with Audrey all day, had seen the steadily increasing frustration as she fought to come up with a solution and failed.
“Then you’re not losing out by stopping. Come on, it is time to wrap up, you’ve been here since seven this morning, you need to take a break, eat something, and think about something else for a little while. And then you need to sleep, and I guarantee you, if you shoot me it is not going to get you back to your work any faster, it will just create new distractions, so please stop reaching for your gun.” Duke gave Audrey’s hand a pointed look where it had definitely twitched in the direction of her sidearm, and Nathan actually almost laughed, which probably meant he was in need of more than a few hours sleep himself.
“Come on, Parker, no shooting civilians in the office, know I wouldn’t be able to overlook that. Not even for you,” he said, closing the file he’d been going over. “You want to shoot him, you at least have to follow him outside, and at that point you may as well let him feed you first.”
“Thank you, Nathan, for your very helpful support,” Duke said, glaring over his shoulder in Nathan’s direction, though there was a hint of a smile well-hidden around his mouth.
“Don’t want to have to move everything into the other office while we wait for a crew to come in and clean the carpets,” Nathan replied, shrugging and standing up, reaching for his jacket- Duke was wearing a sweater over the shirt he’d had on earlier, so it’d apparently gotten colder.
“I do not have to take this kind of abuse,” Duke said, and he was obviously having trouble hiding his amusement, now, one corner of his mouth quirking up, the laugh lines around his eyes deepening.
“And yet, here you are anyway,” Nathan said, walking over to pull Audrey’s chair out, offering her a hand. “Come on, Parker. Change of scenery might do us some good, let’s go. He’s not going to stop until we do.”
“We could arrest him,” Audrey grumbled, but she accepted Nathan’s hand and stood up, only a little wobbly after sitting in one position for the better part of the last few hours.
“That means paperwork, and I do not want to do any more paperwork,” Nathan replied, as Duke grabbed Audrey’s jacket from off the back of her chair and draped it over her shoulders. And it maybe felt wrong to be joking, to be having to work to hide a smile, when they had no idea how to keep this from happening again, when there were still twenty seven innocent children in the morgue and a hundred adults who didn’t know who they were, but it also felt necessary, felt like a strained muscle being carefully stretched.
They weren’t any good to anyone if they worked themselves into insensibility, if they drowned themselves in tragedy.
It was probably a good thing they had someone willing to show up and drag them out of the office.
“I’m not saying you can’t shoot him. I’m just saying you can’t shoot him here.”
#fluff
---
Audrey was having a busy day, but it was the nice kind of busy. They were helping to organise the now-traditional spring gathering at the community hall to celebrate the anniversary of its construction. People were still arriving, but there were plenty there already and it looked like it would be a good day.
There were plenty of people she knew, and some she didn’t, and it was the same as all the other years; everyone brought some food, some wine, some music. There was a big buffet table laid out at one end of the space for all the food, and smallers ones dotted all around for people to sit and eat. People mingled and talked, and ate and drank, and the weather was just about warm enough for the kids to run around outside. It was barely contained chaos, but somehow it worked. It was normal and that shouldn’t have been a novelty after all this time, but it was still something she appreciated.
“Oh hey, Gloria. Can you take these down to the table?” Audrey asked, handing over a stack of paper plates and cups.
“Sure thing, kiddo,” Gloria replied, and took them with her as Audrey carried on searching through the cupboards for the bottle opener she had actually been looking for, shaking her head to herself in wonder at still being referred to as ‘kiddo’ even though she now had two of her own.
Finally she found it and turned around to the nearest table where she had left the bottle of wine she’d been trying to open for the past ten minutes. She looked around at the crowd as she fiddled with the foil on the bottle. Dwight and McHugh were here, Vickie was entertaining some of the older kids by teaching them how to draw cartoons, Gloria was keeping some of the younger kids in order and everyone seemed to be having a good time.
She couldn’t see her own kids, but then she knew they were probably outside, finally able to make use of their Christmas present from Dwight now that the weather was a bit nicer.
But then, maybe not. “Eleanor Charlotte Parker! Put that down.” Audrey’s voice rang out through the crowd and Ele did what she was told right away; she knew that when her mom used her full name like that she wasn’t messing about.
She wasn’t above protesting though. “But they’re winning,” Ele said plaintively.
Audrey put down the wine and the bottle opener and crouched down to talk to her daughter. She had Audrey’s blonde hair and Nathan’s blue, blue eyes, and at ten years old most people described her as adorable. Audrey was aware than in another ten, the word would probably be ‘stunning’. Her parents regarded this as something of a mixed blessing, and were careful to compliment her for things besides her looks.
Audrey looked at the water pistol Ele was carrying. “What are the rules?” she asked.
Ele sighed. “No shooting indoors,” she replied. “But …”
“And ..?” Audrey prompted her.
“No shooting people who aren’t part of the game,” Ele added.
“And …?”
“No filing them up with anything besides water,” Ele finished, and then quickly returned to her original point. “But they’re winning and I had a clear shot at him!” And she pointed over to the other end of the kitchen where her twin brother Jack was struggling to fill his pistol up at the sink. “I have to shoot him or they’ll win,” she finished miserably.
Jack’s hair was a lot darker than his sister’s and he had Duke’s warm brown eyes. The general opinion seemed to be that he looked like Audrey until he smiled, and Audrey had to agree that his smile was pure Duke. They didn’t look much alike, her twins, but she had a feeling that in a few years they would both have plenty of admirers. She hoped they had raised them to deal with the attention well; she thought they had.
“I’m not saying you can’t shoot him. I’m just saying you can’t shoot him here,” Audrey pointed out. “Now, in theory you have a clear shot at him, but you have to work within the rules. You have to think smart. What are your teams?”
“Me and Kate against Jack and Aaron,” Ele explained.
“Hmmm, that doesn’t sound very fair, Aaron is a lot older than Kate.”
“I still think we can win. Aaron is getting distracted by the food,” Ele said, pointing to the buffet table to where Aaron, turning 14 in a couple of weeks, was talking to a pretty girl a few years older who had arrived with Larissa and her family. Audrey didn’t think it was the food that was distracting him, but she wasn’t going to point that out to her ten year old right now.
“He does look distracted, that’s a good point. Where’s Kate?”
“She’s outside hiding in the buddleia bush,” Ele told her in a stage whisper.
Audrey looked out the window to the overgrown bush that had a perfect view of the door; Kate was ready to take a shot at Jack when he went back outside, which would not be too long now that Nathan was helping him get the cap clipped back on the tank properly.
Audrey nodded. “That’s a good spot,” she said.
Ele beamed. “That was my idea,” she said proudly.
“Good work!” Audrey said. “Nice tactics.” Audrey looked around her at the room and the space outside, assessing her daughter’s options.
“How much water do you have in your tank? Do you need to fill up?”
“Nope, I’m good.”
“OK, then here’s what I think you should do.”
Ele leaned closer to listen, and Audrey laid out her plan in a careful whisper. As she finished, her daughter stepped back and looked at her in delight, “Awesome!” she said, and ran off in the direction Audrey had suggested.
Audrey laughed happily and stood back up. As she reached for the bottle of wine, she found Duke already opening it for her.
“You’re not taking sides in the Great Water Pistol Fight?” he asked, mock-horrified.
“Just giving your daughter some tactical suggestions,” Audrey grinned.
“FBI tactics for a ten year old, the boys are going to get soaked,” he laughed.
“Well, Jack might. I think Aaron is more interested in talking to the pretty teenager.”
“Ah,” said Duke looking over to them and nodding. “Well good for him. So Jack is outnumbered?”
Audrey looked over to where Nathan was now whispering in Jack’s ear. “Looks like he’s getting some advice of his own,” she pointed out.
“Oh Jesus, FBI and Haven PD tactics in the hands of ten year olds; we’re all going to get soaked! Why do they have these things again?”
“Because since Lizzie went off to college, Dwight’s forgotten they’re the kind of present that give parents headaches?”
Duke laughed, but he shook his head. “I don’t think he’s forgotten at all. We’ve got five of the things, right? Next time we have him round to ours, you can both brief all of us, and then he is getting soaked.”
