jdcartwright (jdcartwright) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2020-11-10 10:28:00 |
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Entry tags: | jd cartwright, tasha sloan |
Flashback - A Detective and a Hunter meet
Who: Tasha, JD
What: Meet
When: 2016
Where: Bar
Ratings High
It had been a frustrating case, and JD headed for the bar where he knew no-one from work would be. Sometimes he wanted to be around other cops and sometimes he wanted to be around anyone BUT other cops. A couple of bourbons into the evening and he’d started to unwind, enough that the tension in his right side started to ease and the aches and cramps he had to hide were less of a bother. He pushed the now empty plate away from him, the fried rice it’d come with now in his stomach, absorbing the bourbon a little.
The music at this bar was usually okay, but tonight he’d noticed it was above the usual par on offer. He settled back in his chair and turned his attention to the singer, a woman playing solo, just her and her guitar. There was something about the song she was performing, it struck a chord in his mind and he found himself thinking of someone he’d known, years earlier, sitting on the end of the bed, playing guitar, humming to herself. He took a long swallow of his bourbon, resting the almost empty glass on his raised knee, ankle resting on the other knee, as she finished playing the number. The glass was emptied and put down on the table as he joined in the scattered applause offered by the late night crowd.
Tasha finished her set, appreciating the applause. It had been a better night than others, and she carefully put her guitar away in its velvet-lined case. Once that was done, she drifted over to the bar to get a drink. Or two, or three. It depended on where the evening took her. She slid into an empty stool next to a man sitting alone with a plate of food and a bourbon in front of him.
“Maker’s Mark, neat,” she ordered, leaning one elbow on the bar. She was wearing a black sleeveless dress, gray knee-high socks, black engineer’s boots. Silver bracelets lined her wrists, and her braids hung down her back. “Looks good,” the musician remarked about the man’s food.
JD turned and saw the woman now sitting beside him and huffed a laugh. “It was, but not as good as your sets tonight.” He nodded to the bartender who held the Maker’s Mark bottle up after pouring the drink for the woman, giving JD a refill in the glass in front of him. He lifted his glass and held it up to her. “Thanks for making my night a little more pleasant.”
“That’s flattering,” Tasha replied with a smile, raising her glass, too before bringing it to her lips. “And you’re very welcome.” She didn’t recognize the man next to her, not from around there anyway. She could usually remember the regulars. The musician savored the bourbon, even though she knew she’d be ordering another. There were always things needing to be drowned.
“My name is Tasha,” she told him, just in case he hadn’t seen it posted anywhere.
JD took a swallow of his drink, the warmth of the liquor traveling down his throat, adding to the thawing effect it was having on the tensions in his shoulder and knee. “JD,” he said in reply, offering his hand to her, “it’s nice to meet you, Tasha. Do you play here regularly?”
“JD,” she mused. “Does that stand for anything?” Tasha finished her first drink and flagged the bartender down for a refill. After that was completed, she turned slightly in her stool to study the man more closely. There was a curious way about him that struck her immediately.
“Semi-regularly,” the musician answered. “Playing is my main source of income, so I have to hustle.”
JD looked thoughtful for a moment, and then nodded. “I don’t think I’ve been in here on a Thursday before,” he finally commented, smiling as he watched her down her second drink straight away, then added, “and yeah, it does, Jason Delaney, my grandad and my mother’s maiden name,” he admitted before taking another mouthful of his own drink. He signalled for the bartender to refill both glasses, and the man did so, leaving the bottle there this time. “But I’ve been JD since I can remember, so I don’t think I’d even look round if someone called me Jason,” he finished with a grin. “Is Tasha short for Natasha?”
“It is,” she answered briskly, “but no one’s called me Natasha since I was about six, so I wouldn’t look around if someone called me that, either.” She tilted her head with a sly smile. “Well, unless maybe you called me that.” Tasha glanced at the bottle, then back at JD.
“Do you come here for the music, the drinks, or the atmosphere?” she asked him. “Or are you a people-watcher?”
JD grinned and took a swallow from his glass, just a small one, he could already feel the start of the warm buzz that signalled his level of inebriation. It was still low, but now there.
“Because there’s no-one I work with ever likely to show up here,” he replied, looking around the room. “Though the music seems to have gone up a notch tonight,” he added, returning her smile. “When you say semi-regular, does that mean only Thursdays?”
“Sometimes a Saturday or two, if I’m lucky,” she answered, smiling at the compliment. The comment about his co-workers not frequenting this particular establishment had her intrigued. Tasha subtly looked him up and down, mentally trying to guess his occupation. “What do you do, JD?” the musician asked. “And why do you not want people you work with to see you? Wait, less me guess.”
She grinned, leaning toward him. “You’re a double agent, and you have to protect your cover?”
He gave her a slow smile, wondering what she would think if she knew how close that was to the mark at one stage of his career. “Not any more,” he replied with a wink, “and if I told you I’d have to kill you, and I really don’t want to do that.” He shook his head and rubbed at his forehead with his free hand. “Damn, that line still sounds as bad as the first time I heard it!” he continued, shaking his head and looking at her, smiling apologetically. “You could say I’m a public servant, but I don’t always serve all the public, some of them I put behind bars, and I don’t mean ones like this with good music, good booze and good company.”
Tasha laughed, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. “I guess I shouldn’t tell you about my giant drug empire, then,” she joked, bringing her glass to her lips to hide the grin there. In reality, she was actually a pretty law-abiding citizen. Mostly because the law didn’t protect the creatures she had killed in her lifetime.
“That’s a very round-a-bout way of saying cop,” she added. “Unless you’re higher up than that. But I forgot, you’d have to kill me, so don’t answer that.”
JD’s grin widened. “Detective,” he offered. “And I won’t even kill you,” he added, downing the remains of the bourbon in his glass before replacing it on the bar and reaching for the bottle to refill it. “You always been a musician?”
“That’s very kind of you,” she countered sarcastically, that grin not leaving her face. At his question, though, her expression flickered just the slightest, for only a second or two. “I’ve been playing the guitar since I was a kid, but it was always just a hobby,” Tasha answered honestly. More honestly than she did with most people, maybe it was the bourbon. Then again, she was used to drinking. Maybe she sensed JD was a good listener.
“But I was more into a different kind of calling, I guess that would be a good word for it. Until I stopped a few years ago.” Tasha knew that probably sounded cryptic as hell, but it couldn’t exactly be helped.
JD looked at her sideways, recapping the bottle and placing it back on the bar. “OK, so now it’s you being all ‘secret agenty’,” he smiled, turning on the stool to face her. One elbow rested on the bar, one on the back of the stool, his glass held in his two hands comfortably in front of him.
“Does this mean I better run real fast if you tell me?” he teased, “because that might be a little difficult right now.”
“Because you’re drunk or you’re just bad at running?” Tasha teased back. She finished off the contents of her own glass and refilled it from the bottle. “I got hurt,” she admitted, after a beat of silence. “Kind of a career-ending injury.” She still didn’t say what her career was, and hadn’t yet thought of a good lie.
“Something we have in common, then,” JD said, eyeing her down another shot. “Which is why the whole running thing right now? Well I’m not gonna break any land speed record, or water speed record which was my ‘former career’ that came to a crashing halt, literally and figuratively speaking,” he continued, lifting his glass to his lips and taking another mouthful of the liquor.
She met his eye, wincing inwardly. “Shit, I’m sorry.” Tasha was silent for another moment, before adding, “I know how much it sucks. It’s like a whole part of your life just grinds to a stop.” She hated telling people the story. It didn’t get easier, just more boring. Almost dying shouldn’t be boring, but that’s how it was with her.
“Don’t be sorry, it was a long time ago, and another JD,” he replied, looking down into the glass he held in front of him. “What happened with you? Wait, don’t tell me, stock car driver, one too many hits to the body? No, wait. Parachute tester. Found one that didn’t pass muster? Always wondered about those.”
“Professional crash test dummy.” Tasha related too much to the line about another version of himself. That’s exactly how she felt about the matter. The old Tasha had been driven, hard-working, pragmatic. She had lived and breathed hunting. “They put me in a Ford Pinto, and it was all over.”
“Damn, that’s almost grounds for suing ‘em for negligence!” he laughed, shaking his head. “Those things weren’t a car, they were a 4-wheeled incendiary device! I’ve heard our bomb squad teams won’t even practice on them any more, too many injuries.”
Tasha smiled, her eyes crinkling with amusement as she watched the way he laughed. It was expressive, contagious. Hard to believe he was a hard-boiled detective type prone to getting a bartender to leave the bottle. “Listen,” she said, “do you want to go someplace a little quieter? I know that’s a huge cliche to ask, but…” She trailed off with a shrug. “It is what it is.”
JD grinned, an eyebrow lifting as he looked into his glass, then drained it. “Do you have a place in mind?” he asked, placing his glass back on the counter and taking out his wallet. Enough cash was placed under the glass to cover the bill, including the bottle, and he picked it up. “Because I won’t argue with a lady who can tuck away bourbon like that, and sing and play guitar just as well.”
“I had a feeling you wouldn’t,” she said, then thanked him for paying for their rounds. “My place isn’t far from here. I walked. I just need to grab my guitar.” Tasha slid off the stool, onto her feet. “Stay right there,” she ordered with a grin, before heading to the small, darkened stage where her case was sitting.
Watching her walk across to the stage and collect her guitar JD wondered for a moment why he hadn’t come here on a Thursday night before, deciding that it was a good chance he would be coming back here again the next Thursday night. After all, the food wasn’t too bad either. He also noted that she hadn’t actually told him what her former career had been, that had been brought to a halt due to injury. Her avoiding telling him only made him more curious. He stepped away from the bar, tucking the bottle inside his jacket, his weapon snugly tucked in under his other arm, and waited for her.
Tasha returned shortly, her case slung over her back. “I have a loft two blocks from here,” she told him. She led the way to the exit, winding through a few people huddled in groups, talking over drinks. The fresh air was welcome as it hit her face upon leaving the bar, joining the light foot traffic on the sidewalk.
“You know, maybe I should have asked you to show me your badge,” she teased, giving him a sideways glance. “I could be bringing a crazy person home with me.”
"Hey, I can show you mine, but what can I do to check you're not luring me into some sort of set-up?" he returned with a grin, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket.
“You’ll just have to trust me, and maybe I’ll make it worth your while,” she told him. In due time, they approached her apartment building and she slid one key into the outer entrance, which led into a foyer with small, metal mailboxes in one wall. The musician led him up a staircase.
JD followed along, his eyes taking in details of the street, the address, the building. It was habit, and it had always stood him in good stead when later on details could make or break a case. Not that this was anything along those lines, it was just a habit he’d had since he was a kid, and it had only grown once he’d made detective.
As they climbed the stairs he grinned. “I’m now wondering if you’re secretly a fitness instructor, and the ‘making it worth my while’ is getting me to do a work out on the stairs, instructions from my chief!” he joked, ignoring the twinge in his knee as they climbed the stairs. His recall had already reminded him of the detail she’d noted - she has a loft apartment.
Tasha laughed at that. “I hate working out. I used to pretend I loved it, but that was more of a glutton for punishment mentality.” She let him into her apartment. It was a modest, studio loft with one wall done in brick. She had a low platform bed on one wall. There was a record player and dozens of records. Some art on the walls, soft lighting.
“This is me,” she said, gesturing around them.
JD managed to hide his wince as his knee complained, glad there were no more stairs, he’d had to run up six flights earlier in the day and his knee was now reminding him of that. “I hate it too, now, used to actually love it, but that was a lifetime ago. Now we have to do it and it’s become more of a punishment,” he said, looking around the apartment appreciatively.
He pulled the bottle of bourbon out of his pocket and held it out to Tasha. “Nice place. How’d you come across this?” he asked.
“A long, boring, painful story,” she remarked, taking the bottle from him with an appreciative nod. Tasha drifted over to the kitchen and got out two glasses, pouring them each a few fingers of bourbon. She handed him his share. “I’d much rather talk about you, JD.” The musician gestured to a small sofa set in one corner. “Make yourself at home.”
After taking a seat on the sofa he looked at her, still very aware she hadn’t told him about her past career that had been halted. “Well, I’m pretty easy, boring even. I’m from a family of cops, used to swim pretty fast, car accident stopped that, and took my mother, driver’s never been caught,” he said in a quick summation of his life to that point. “Dad’s retired, but didn’t get the memo, finally thinking of moving to Florida where my uncle went when he retired.” He grinned as he stretched an arm across the back of the sofa, lifting his left foot and placing the ankle on his right knee. He looked at her over the rim of his glass as he took a sip of the bourbon, then swallowed.
P
“Your turn.”
She looked at him sharply when he mentioned his mother. That kind of openness, she didn’t always know how to respond to it. Tasha wasn’t great at comforting, supporting people. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, trying not to sound completely wooden and cliche. She meant the words, it was truly awful to lose someone, but she didn’t know how much of that feeling translated through.
The musician took a seat next to JD, turned toward him. Her leg brushed against his. Tasha wondered how easy it would be just to distract him with a kiss or something. Instead, she opted for the truth. “I was a hunter.”
His glass paused in mid-air at her statement. His eyes ran quickly around the walls of the apartment observing details. There didn't seem to be any 'trophies', or even photos of successful shoots as were the norm of a sports hunter bagging big game. Or even a professional shooter, with fellow hunters. So he looked back at her, eyebrows raised in humour, glass resting on his bent knee.
"As in… four-legged and feral and a farmer's despair, or the two-legged, sometimes four-legged and fanged," he replied jokingly, in case it wasn't that latter type.
Tasha set down her glass slowly. “Sometimes four-legged and fanged,” she told him, her expression serious. The fact that he even mentioned that as an option told her a lot about JD and what he might know.
The smile on JD’s face changed from joking to intrigued and no little amount of wary respect as he looked at her sideways. “Yeah?” A forefinger tapped the rim of his glass as he turned his torso to look at her straight on. “And the career-ending injury?” he asked, eyes now fixed on hers, the details of their earlier conversation all lining up and ready to fall into place.
She leaned back against the sofa, taking in a steadying breath. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t like telling the story. It was the possibility that the person hearing it would react dismissively. Tasha didn’t want pity, either. It was a tightrope. “I was drawn into a trap. Four on one, they attacked me. It was meant to send a message to me and mine.”
As he listened the smile slowly dissolved, a small crease appearing between his eyes. “What were they?” he asked simply.
“Demons.” Tasha grabbed her glass and tilted the contents into her mouth. “I was in the hospital for weeks, physical rehab even longer.” She looked up at JD and shrugged.
“It’s all boring and it was years ago.” She moved closer to him on the small couch. “We don’t have to talk the whole time, by the way.”
He didn’t believe it was boring, but recognised she was not wanting to talk about it, and the alternative was just as interesting to him. His hand slipped from the back of the couch down to her neck, fingers lightly massaging the back of it as a smile curled the corners of his mouth again. “Oh?” he replied softly, fingers pressing as he ran them up and down. “What else did you have in mind?” he asked.
“Maybe this,” she answered, leaning in to catch his mouth in a kiss. It deepened quickly, almost feverishly before she pulled back to murmur, “How convenient. The bed is right over there.” Her hands ran up his chest.
There was no hesitation in her moves, but JD’s brain, and his cop background, moaned the question, “you’re sure?” as his body hummed his agreement and returned the kiss, fumbling to place his glass on the floor. The hand on her neck slid up into her hair, fingers now massaging the back of her scalp, the other hand now free of the glass going to her hip and sliding up her side.
Tasha nodded, “I’m sure.” She returned to the kiss, tongue meeting his, her fingers finding his hair and running through it. Her other hand landed on his, guiding it further up. JD didn’t have to worry, she had been thinking of this outcome since asking him to leave the bar with her.
After a few moments of being tangled together, Tasha stood, and lifted her dress off over her head.
Panting a little JD again enjoyed watching her move, but quickly scrambled up off the sofa after toeing his shoes off, rather glad he didn’t have his more heavy-duty work boots on. Fingers made fast work of fly, the light-weight black denim jeans being shoved down and shucked off as his hands moved back to her sides. He leaned in and kissed her neck, working his way up and then along her jaw as his hands slid behind her and unhooked the clasp of her bra and sliding the straps down her arms.
Tasha lifted her head, giving him better access to her neck, letting her bra fall and join the small, growing pile of clothing on the floor. She took one of his hands and led him over to the bed, gently pushing him onto it and moving to straddle his hips. She ducked her head down to kiss him on the lips, her nails dragging lightly down his chest and stomach, until they reached the waistband of his underwear.
Laying back on the bed JD suddenly realised he didn’t have any protection. His hands were on her hips, fingers splayed across her skin and panties. A pleasant shiver ran through his skin as he felt her fingernails drag down, and as she reached the waistband he lifted his head and looked up at her. “D’you have any… y’know, want any protection?” he asked, his voice husky.
“Hang on.” Tasha shifted her weight back and leaned over to reach her nightstand. She pulled open the top drawer, rifling around for a moment. She handed him a square-shaped, foil packet.
His smile had returned and he looked up at her as he tore the foil pack open with his teeth, waggling his eyebrows a little as he then held the pack between them. “You want to do the honours?” The fingers of his other hand were smoothing up and down her thigh, thumb circling each time he reached the crease between leg and hip, pressing against the material that lay between her legs.
Tasha smiled at that, taking the condom from him. After carefully sliding it on him, she lifted her hips and shifted her weight to slide off her underwear, tossing them carelessly to the floor. She settled on top of him again, leaning down to kiss the side of his neck, her hands resting on his chest for support.
FTB