The Day Off WHO: Archer & O’Brien WHEN: 9 December, Sunday morning WHERE: Archer’s apartment WHAT: Home invasions like this are more or less typical to their friendship and Archer allows them. Of course, O’Brien has a very good reason for being there on their day off. WARNING: scene in progress, Archer’s language, O’Brien being O’Brien, blah blah blah. (Keep your eye out for the Batman towel that may or may not appear.)
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone... hard and sharp as flint... secret, and self-contained...
from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Archer Avery thought sleep to be a waste of time. This was an opinion he’d held since his youth, when he was busy looking after his sisters while their father studied and worked to provide. A good man, if not a great parent -- somewhat adrift in that department after the death of his wife -- the eldest Avery instilled in his son a sense that anything worth doing was worth doing well.
Archer managed to take that maxim and, well, max it the fuck out.
He was always, always on call. On off hours, anyone who called the police department would be routed by an automated service to the sheriff’s cell phone, and told where else to call if they couldn’t get through there. People almost always got through.
Saturday night into Sunday morning saw Archer dealing with such a call: what was supposed to be a dead body out by the fucking swamp and turned out to be a drunken delusion involving a rotted log and a well-soaked imagination. He drove the inebriated party back to the trailer park by 2AM and went home himself to Regency Meadows on Baker Street, where he walked a flight of stairs with a silent tread. On autopilot, Archer locked up after himself. Shucking off his coat with its badges of office, it was neatly hung up on one of the hooks by the door. Boots were unlaced and kicked off into their customary place. His clothing -- jeans, sweater, socks -- that he’d put on after removing his uniform earlier that evening, was discarded with his laundry. He even went through his nightly ablutions, even brushed his fucking teeth, before falling into bed.
As was his custom, he slept fitfully, never fully at his ease even here, but he got rest enough as night bled into morning and managed even to dream. Something about a vampire cult, maybe, and broken glass, and because it made no sense Archer woke alert and already ascribing it to listening to the chatter of his best friend and deputy. O’Brien could go on about just about any fucking subject. Archer always paid attention, even when it looked like he didn’t. The dream was basically forgotten before he’d gotten out of bed.
Archer padded from his bedroom.
Finding his best friend had let himself into the apartment, had gone ahead and made himself at home while he slept, was not nearly as surprising as it could have been.
O’Brien did this.
Archer just dealt with it.
A few seconds were spent staring at the television screen to find out what the fuck O’Brien was watching. A few more seconds took in O’Brien on the couch. Then, without a word, slowly shaking his head, Archer went to get his newspaper and a cup of coffee before returning to his own living room to see what was up with O’Brien on their day off.