braymitch thornathy. (grever) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-03-22 20:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, bram thornton, jareth monaco |
two bags of bones, broken and talking of people we both know in common.
Who: Jareth Monaco & Bram Thornton
What: Siana Banes' memorial, and mourning.
Where: Outside the Grande Cathedral.
When: Backdated to March 16th.
Rating: Swearing and mentions of death.
Status: Complete.
Bram Thornton had attended far too many funerals in his lifetime. They never stopped leaving their mark, no matter the age nor circumstances of the death: an old mother, open casket, and peaceful expression; a closed casket for a young girl-squire, ripped apart by a wyvern; various comrades drawn to the grave over the years, officers of the peace laid to rest, their careers cut short by blade, axe, or gunshot. And now, no casket whatsoever: the cathedral brimmed with people remembering a woman, without even the closure of a corpse to put in the ground. After the public service, Bram knew people would be withdrawing to the Banes estate for a more intimate gathering, food, and condolences (never enough of the latter). The prospect was exhausting him already. He stepped outside the church and stood lingering on the steps, watching the streams of people dispersing to their carriages and hovertaxis, moving off in pairs and small clumped groups. They leaned against each other like sagging buildings, all dressed in black, shadows being whisked off to the next destination. The man fumbled in his pockets, reaching for his cigarettes when he felt rather than saw someone appear by his side. Bram coughed a greeting, clearing his throat. (It still felt too thick, his vocal chords scraped raw, the condolences and grievances ripped from his tongue.) Jareth Monaco hadn’t wanted to come - had in fact told Peony that he’d probably be too busy, some case or another to work through. Ones with closure, where the facts and evidence were there. (Where maybe a body would be found.) He’d wanted to stay home, stare blankly at the wall and do nothing. Feel nothing. Another funeral not attended. But he’d gone at the last minute, put on his best suit - he hated the damn thing, and it wasn’t black, but a very dark blue. It would have to do - and ascended the steps to the Cathedral to listen to the monotonous droning of a priest who had no more answers than they did. Sent to Faram was no more conclusive than maybe she ran off. False hope for people who wanted to push past their grief, who were done with hope and waiting. He couldn’t blame them. He’d been given his fair share of condolences - he’d been her partner. (Had been the one who should have kept her safe, not let her disappear into a void, dark and bleak without any way back.) He’d given his fair share, as well - to her family, to the people who had known her. And now he just wanted peace. He’d have been right to not come, and he wasn’t going to the estate. Home - if he could even call it that - was where he wanted to be. That’s what he’d been trying to do when he’d spotted Thornton, alone and somber. Drained. This damn case had taken more from them than they could afford. Still, quietly he went to stand beside Thornton. He nodded. “Sir.” “Monaco.” The word was rough. There seemed a weight on all of the congregation, as if a hand had sunk from the heavens to press them into the earth, lungs squeezed empty. In his darker moments, Bram might have suspected he’d become accustomed to losing his men and women—theirs was a dangerous line of work—but there was still no getting used to this. Siana had been one of his best, and most loyal. And there seemed a time limit on these things, a mutually agreed-upon point at which everyone agreed she’s dead. Hope withered by the day, decaying on the vine, until they all finally admitted that the fruit was rotten, that it was time to throw it away. Make their assumptions and their arrangements. None of the sentiments he could offer to Monaco seemed appropriate, so instead, he asked “Going to the estate?” though he already knew the answer. Bram would have headed home too, save for the delicate balancing act of propriety and expectation. As a guild councilman and her superior at the EKP, he had to go. “No,” he said after a moment, staring straight ahead. The entrance was filled with the grieving, but he didn’t see them. They were inconsequential, people who lost themselves in their tragedies and did nothing to prevent them. Like he had been, years and years ago. (His old guildmaster had tried to show him the facts, had tried to tell him to do something, anything, but he’d been like the faceless crowd in front of him - drowned in grief.) “Made my excuses to her parents.” He could still picture them, drawn in on themselves, faces old. Grief and worry and hope had taken more time from them than it should have, made them seem far older than the ages he assumed them to be. Banes’ sister had stood beside them, her husband supporting her. Another broken family. Another case without an answer. “You?” “Yes.” The older man’s hands caught on a silver lighter, flicking it into life and holding it to the cigarette—he’d tried quitting again and again, but circumstances like these always drew him back, like creeping abashed to an old friend’s doorstep. “Expected to. Don’t really know what to say to the family, though. Never seems good enough.” Bram sounded even gruffer than ever, his sentences clipped, the words shaved off to the bare minimum, as if that was all he could wring out. Jareth nodded - he didn’t envy Thornton the task. “Nothing to say,” he said after a moment. Normally, silence had no effect on him, but this was different. There was already too much silence surrounding them, surrounding Banes. (She’d always seemed to like the silence; she’d never been one for idle conversation.) “Best we can do is say nothing, if you ask me.” Thornton hadn’t; Jareth’s face rose to look at the sky. No. Best we can do is find the bastard who did this, and pay them back. It was a small, vengeful, poisonous thought, and not Bram’s usual mindset by far. He pressed it back down. His hand tightened around his smoke, the knuckles whitening. “It’s the uncertainty,” he said suddenly. Monaco hadn’t invited the airing of this thought, but then again, neither of them had asked for any of this either. Bram found his own words welling up and rolling out to fill that silence, cramming it with anything he could, desperate for someone—anyone—to listen. “There are plenty of cold cases. Crimes unresolved, no convenient closure. Books still open. Files mildewing in the archives. But—it’s rarely one of our Faram-damned own.” He took a moment to think about it. Jareth had had experiences with shit like this, long ago. It had been the reason Liana had died, his single-minded attempt to find whoever had done it. But cop killers were never careful - they were blatant. He could still see the bloodless bodies, arranged carefully on the ground. No, the bodies had been recovered, every time. (And, eventually, Cyllian had died. Too little, too late.) “Think it has more to do with the lack of body,” Jareth finally said. His hand clenched and unclenched, trying to keep from punching the wall. “Usually, someone kills law enforcement, body isn’t hidden. May not be any closure in who did it” or it comes too late “but there’s no question about where the vic is.” “Aye,” Bram said. For a moment, it almost sounded as if Jareth spoke from personal experience—more than the almost-year he’d spent here in Emillion’s ranks—but the dragoon dismissed it, not having seen it in the man’s file. “Often it’s a message. Display of bravado on the gang’s part. And yet here, it’s so bloody clean the main thing preventing marking her as a mere runaway is knowing the woman herself.” Bram’s mouth had pressed into a thin line. Siana Banes would never have shirked her post nor run off in the middle of the night, and they all knew it. The facts were still splayed out across the insides of his eyelids, the infuriating lack of evidence dogging him when he tried to sleep. There wasn’t any indication that Banes would have up and left, and Thornton was right - if it had been anyone else, first line of investigation would have been runaway. But they’d known her, most of the EKP had known her for years before Jareth had even stumbled into town, and because of that, the worst-case scenario had been the basis. He knew they weren’t wrong. Knew that Banes was dead - had known since they first knew she was missing. The more time wore on, the less likely it would have been for her to remain alive, rotting in some house or sewer somewhere, awaiting rescue. Fuck, Banes would have died before sitting quietly like some damnable damsel. “Fuckers don’t want to be found, so they’re not claiming shit.” The least he felt he owed Banes’ family was a body, or whatever remains were left. “Wise of them,” Bram said dryly. The wrath of peacekeeping forces when one of their own was killed was the very opposite of peaceful. He drew in the smoke, drew it back out. “If the day comes that they do slip and we do find out…” He let the rest of the sentence fall. Both men knew where that led. Jareth hoped they fucked up; he really did. If they hadn’t by now, though… The crowds had started to thin out, people making the trek from the Cathedral to hovertaxis and the crystals to the Banes’ estate. A celebration of the life of a woman who worked too damn hard to keep the peace, and it hadn’t done a damn thing. “Going to head out,” he said; the smoke from Thornton’s cigarette was making him crave something stronger. “Places to be,” the detective inspector acknowledged. “Duty beckons.” There was nothing else to add. This interaction had been more respectful than Bram was accustomed to from the younger man; it seemed the both of them were whittled down by this experience. And so with a shared nod between the two, the peacekeepers parted and made their separate ways down the street, shoulders hunched, jaws tight, striding off into the silence. |