The ‘Nice’ is Sarcastic
Juni stares down at his feet as the nice police officer leads him into the small dark room. A sleek metal table sits inside, picked perfect so it takes up exactly the middle of the room with enough room on any side. Two chairs, one definitely more comfortable than the other, stare each other down across the table. The nice police officer leads him to the uncomfortable chair and shoves him down into it. Juni keeps his eyes on his feet, and then his hands when he sits down. Better to just submit while he’s in the belly of the beast with no chance to run. They leave him there for a few minutes to stew, ruminate on his story.
What was his story? The truth was…well…the truth wasn’t going to happen. Not the entire truth, at least. He could sprinkle it in, like seasoning on the lie, to make it go down better.
Juni snorts softly. Cooking metaphors? He really has spent too long around Anthony. The man may be a violent psychopath who’s only real passions were manipulating people and planning the perfect murder, but he faked passion for food very well. He knew how to ramble for an hour about the perfect slow simmered tomato sauce, adding just the right amount of the right seasonings at the right time so everything comes together in an intricate dance.
Huh. Come to think of it, Anthony used the same speech in regards to the murder plots.
The door opens behind him, someone managing to enter and shut it silently before stomping across the room in his polished rubber shoes. At least, rubber soles. The person— either a detective or another nice police officer, no one other than those would either care enough to be here or risk being in the same room with him— sinks heavily into the comfier chair and lets out an even heavier sigh. A folder hits the table. The person opens and peruses it for a few seconds, and sighs again.
Detective, then. Police officers usually don’t go through so much pretense. The folder is supposed to be filled with mountains of evidence against him and all of his despicable cohorts, meant to make him sweat and admit to things he thinks they already know. In reality, it’s filled with a couple photos and conspiracy theories more suited to be tacked on a wall and connected with red string than sitting in a folder.
The detective clears his throat to get Juni’s attention, flipping the folder closed. Juni finally flicks his eyes up from his hands, getting a look at the 17th drone worker to try to intimidate him with a folder. In fact, this guy’s an amalgamation of a lot of generic parts from everyone else who’s stared him down across a sleek metal table. He’s the 8th one to have brown eyes, 16th one to be unshaven from spending long nights at the office, 5th one to have jowls and all 17 have reeked of coffee and had the stains on their teeth. This guy was the first one to have a mole on his nose, so at least he had something going for him.
“You know, you’re in a lot of trouble, Percy,” the detective says. Juni cringes at the name, pulling a tight lipped smile and twitching his head to the side.
“Not my name,” Juni mutters, dropping his eyes to the table.
“Oh, you don’t like that? Do you prefer, uh,” he checks the folder, “Juniper? Is that right?”
Juni twitches again at the way he said it. Only one drone had been brash enough to call it a “goddamn fairy name” to his face, but all of them spoke it the same way.
“Juni’s fine.”
The detective snorts, closing the file again. The table creaks as he leaned forward on his elbows, probably staring Juni down despite not having his gaze.
“You are in a lot of trouble, son. You and your friend are gonna go away for a long time.”
Juni pulls and drops the tight lipped smile again. They all say the same sentiment, and now three of them have used the same words near verbatim. Did they make these people in a factory? Juni wonders if this guy even knew the extent of the “trouble” he and Anna were in. Anna was an atomic bomb: vaporizing anything near her and causing less and less damage as you moved away. Juni never left her side, and hasn’t since the day they met. He wouldn’t trade it for the world. What would he even do with the world?
“Son?” The detective grunts after a few seconds of silence. Juni draws in a deliberate breath and lets it out slowly, sifting through the possible responses. Silence was definitely on the table; if he never responds eventually they’ll stop asking. He’s used that plenty of times. Of course, that makes them think he’s crazy. He is, but he doesn’t need them to think that. It’s useful in some situations, and has been in the past, but that thought process has always been “make them leave me alone until Anna can swoop in and save me.” Admittedly, “wait until Anna saves the day” is a common theme through most of his past thought processes. That wouldn’t happen today. It was his job to save her this time.
God, that meant he had actually had to talk to people.
