𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫 › 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐲𝐨𝐫 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐝.
Nothing like the smell of freshly spilled blood to wake a grown man up. That, plus the faint aroma of stale liquor and ball sweat, which this place certainly permeates after a night like tonight. These were Sawyer’s parting thoughts as he looked up from his crouched position, the fraying in his jeans nearly touching the crimson liquid that was still staining the floor beneath his feet. There was something exhilarating about working a newly discovered crime scene, something that put a pep in the man’s step — which ultimately would get him teased by his coworkers as the only time he had even the hint of a smile on his face was when somebody had been slit open. It was a dark way to live your life, sure, but at this point, the man had been doing so since he could remember — death and gore falling on flat eyes ever since he was a young boy. And even in the times when it got to him, seeped into the corners of his impressionable mind, the boy had his father to beat it out of him until he was seeing stars.
That was just the way the world worked. There was a pecking order and Sawyer had always known where he fell, even now, when everything seemed much more complicated than it ever had before.
He took a good, long breath in and stood himself up before he took his jacket back from the banister he had hung it on. They had already been at the scene for a good amount of time, Sawyer and his colleagues being some of the first officers to show up when they were called. It was being left now to the team of investigators to collect evidence and take witness statements, though talking to half-drunken monsters was not Sawyer’s idea of a good end of shift task. So instead, he took it upon himself to move about the main level of the house, listening to every creak in the floor and every rustle of the wind outside the tall, covered windows. He had always been a lone worker, which was why he had shuffled through more than a few partners in his years of working for the department — he had a way of doing things that, for the most part, other people didn’t understand. But that was the least of his worries.
Just before he had gotten stuck in his own head, the man turned when he heard someone shuffle into the room behind him. His brows furrowed, eyes squinted as he assessed the person who was staring back at him as though they had seen a ghost.
“Everything alright?” He choked out, voice hoarse and thick as he spoke.