Who: Garcian & Geralt What: Appropriate times of catching up over a coffee shop murder scene Garcian's #blessed enough to be cleaning When: Sometime today Where: Coffee shop, then pub Rating/Warnings: Garcie's cleaning up carnage, so Status: Complete!
Pumpkin spice made people real damn crazy.
Donât get him wrong, Garcian liked it okay and all. But when we were talking fall flavors, he much preferred caramel apple. Yet nobody got excited about that one, and they damn well should be. How could you go wrong with that combo?
Anyway, point was, pumpkin spice made people crazy because right after the unveiling of the latteâs everyone had been salivating for since June (though they had unicorn and mermaid frappes to tide them over, yeah?) there had probably been a stampede to this one coffee shop (it was in a âroughâ neighborhood, what equated to âroughâ for hipster Orange County), and a disgruntled employee was let go. Disgruntled employee then returned to demand money owed from the manager, both ended up in the back office and shot dead - brains and bits of skull and bone splattered on the walls and shit, because how else to settle a dispute over coffee tips than to shoot each other in the face?
He didnât know baristas were packing heat these days, but hey. Making America great again by providing easy access to firearms.
So, he had a job to do. The police were there too, all that yellow tape and the flashing lights - he waited until he was given the all-clear from his company, and from law enforcement, before he went in with the proper protections on and brought his cleaning supplies. Of course the dead bodies had been removed but it was still a crime scene, so he hoped the detectives had everything they needed.
âMan, fuck this,â he grumbled, slipping gloves on. âProbably better to just paint over the bloodstains.â
âProbably,â was the casual agreement of a certain someone, slipping into the scene like the ghost he looked - newly colorless hair, skin a little paler, but those demonesque eyes were hidden behind shade lenses that looked odd on him. Murders in coffee shops (of all the fuckinâ places) werenât in his job description unless it had sexual undertones, involved children, or could be categorized as a hate crime but he knew the guys working the case - knew that he could slip in without much question now that the pictures were taken, evidence gathered, bodies removed and the scene ready for a little cleanup.
It smelled like carnage in here, mixed with sticky sweet syrup and milk. Geraltâs nose twisted unpleasantly. He didnât envy Garcianâs career the slightest. âRefrain from the âalbino motherfuckerâ comments,â deadpanned the detective (witcher, really), dressed for work in detested slacks and buttoned shirt, a blazer that flashed his badge every time he moved. He returned to the realm of the public - didnât have a choice there, really. âHope this is easier than the last call you had, though.â
His friend here knew the one. They hadnât had a chance to talk about it since it happened - and he owed him some kind of payment, didnât he?
Garcian turned, not exactly surprised (it took a lot to get the jump on him) - but Geraltâs sudden appearance earned an eyebrow raise from the normally cool and collected crime scene cleanup technician. Not to mention the way the guy looked. âNice makeover. This is a story I need to hear,â was all he said, just as much of a deadpan - see, no âalbinoâ cracks from this peanut gallery.
Heâd at least clean up what he could, the fresh stuff, before painting anything. No one would have to know that this fucking Starbucks (okay, so it wasnât actually Starbucks, whatever) had been the scene of a âbang, bang youâre deadâ pointe blank, shot in the face murder. So with his mask on over his mouth and nose, he began applying the right chemicals - avoiding inhaling fumes he shouldnât.
âYeah, so about that last call. You wanna explain that shit too?â Because Garcian had seen some messed up junk in his day, but whatever happened on the beach surpassed unnatural.
Best that Geralt kept a distance. Those chemicals could singe his damn nose hairs, and he didnât want to experiment with how sturdy his newly changed mutant innards could withstand modern cleaners. There was a chair he pulled up, and he sat on it in reverse with his chest against the back of it and arm resting at the top.
Thatâs when he removed those âtrendyâ shades and pushed it over his wintry hair. âWerewolf,â he answered, and then had to grind his teeth there for a second for even saying that word. An actual, legitimate werewolf - cursed to turn every full moon. Here. Not only that, it was someone he was -
Well. Letâs just say it was someone he was emotionally invested in.
âRuby, sheâŠâ A hand scrubbed down his tired face as summoned the words. âTurned into one and had no control, no memory of what she did.â Ignorance really would be bliss if he hadnât told her what sheâd done, but that wasnât something he could do to her - to anyone. âUntil I told her the following morning. You could imagine how that went over.â
The answer to that was not well.
This was why Garcian didnât get emotionally invested - although he couldnât exactly ream hardass Geralt over that, especially this gloom-and-doom cleaner from a trailer park was beginning to see how sometimes it just couldnât be avoided. Goddamn.
But still, werewolf? The fuck?
Then again, heâd met vampires before. Even sorta worked for one who paid pretty handsomely. Heâd clean up whenever Katherine needed him, sweeping evidence of her meals under the rug - figuratively, of course - so since she was walking amongst mortals it was no stretch to imagine a werewolf. Much of a stretch. âAnd sheâs a werewolf that you like,â he guessed, just to clarify, wiping down the walls with something that could fuck someone the fuck up. âProbably good you told her though. She woulda gotten pissed if you kept it a secret.â And a secret like âby the way, you massacred two people as giant dogâ wasnât good for a relationship or something, yeah, whatever.
One he liked, yes, good guess there, Smith - but the detective here wasnât about to openly confirm or deny his suspicions. An environment where carnage decorated the walls was hardly the place to gossip about the closest thing he had to some kind of love life.
âMy thoughtâs exactly,â he rumbled. âI owe you. More than drinks, Iâm aware. If you want to give me a proper invoice...â
Garcian didnât make a living without getting paid for the shitty job he had - and he was willing to pay considering how quickly heâd come to Geraltâs aid without demanding immediate answers. The cleaner was also discrete. Someone he knew he could trust in peculiar situations, and he didnât have many he could say that about. âDrinks could actually be an added tip, come to think of it.â
âI donât really want to give you an invoice,â Garcian protested, tossing some particular trash into a hardy rubbish bin - it would be sealed off and properly disposed of, because handling crime scene garbage was pretty different than your standard landfill. Then he got started on the floor. âItâs...weâre friends, right? And we live in the seventh circle of hell?â
Sure did feel that way sometimes. Anyway, point was, their existences werenât simple - maybe he would charge someone else a pretty penny for an emergency beach cleanup session, but not Geralt. Not him, because he hadnât even anticipated this happening. Allâs he was trying to do was get with his wolflady or something.
Still, if he must, that written invoice would likely be way on the low end of the cost spectrum. âWe can call this one a favor. Though drinks, Iâll definitely take those. Could sure use âem.â
Hm, well. He wasnât going to say no to the favor, and wished the muscles in his face would cooperate make some facial expression of appreciation. Best he could muster was the slightest upturn of his mouth - a smirk. âWeâre friends, living in the seventh circle of hell.â
The official title for this place, christ on a damn pogostick. For once he was relieved Ciri was somewhere else, far away from here (though it was only a matter of time until he had to fess up why he looked the way he did). âI can afford a couple dozen rounds for you no problem if thatâs what youâre taking as payment - maybe after this, when youâre done? Whatâs got you craving the liquid courage, anyway?â
Geraltâs assumption? Dreams. Safe to say with recent happenings, anyway, and Garcian was also fairly new to them too - and now the witcher knew firsthand how it could fuck you up.
A couple dozen rounds? Sheeeeeeeeit. A challenge to his liver, then. Bring it on. âSounds fun, Iâll work extra faster,â Garcian promised, though he was always very quick-and-efficient to begin with. The grossness would just be cleaned today, and tomorrow heâd do some painting. Get this place looking all shiny hipster new again, because where else would the kids bring their laptops to for the purposes of writing crappy poetry?
As for why he wanted to drown in the bottom of a kiddie pool filled with a huge White Russian (one of his favorite drinks) - that was a little more complicated. Lots of shit was complicated. Dreams were always a big part though. âI saw this...amusement park, I guess,â he started, still working. âIn a dream. One of our assignments, yeah? It was a front for an organ smuggling operation. The organs were used to create the Smiles - these zombie creatures I think I mentioned.â The laughing ones - ha, ha, ha.
âThis guy, Curtis Blackburn - he was an organ trafficker. We caught up with him later, he ended up dead. But he would take organs from kids, man. It was fucked. I still see...that. I still see...what he did to them.â It was grisly enough to shock Garcian in the dream, and also Garcian here - he woke up and couldnât get back to sleep after that, alone and unsure about what was real and whether or not he even still wanted to continue to believe in humanity.
Laughing zombies, yeah - Geralt remembered. A little hard to forget something so grotesquely unique, and the cycle went on, it seemed, as he was pretty sure his friend here was insinuating some sick fuck harvested organs from kids to make zombies.
No, thatâs definitely what he said. Clear as day. No room for interpretation. Sadly, his story wasnât all that different than some of the cases heâd been on.
âSurprised you didnât obliterate your liver when you woke up,â he raspily admitted, stroking the bristle of facial hair absentmindedly. âDonât even think I wanna know how these zombies you talk about are even made. Guessing thereâs nothing you could have done for them even with your powers of resurrection?â
They were orphans too, was the fucked thing. Young kids with nobody in the damn world - and then it all ended, they became these abominations. Garcian, in his dream, learned that human flesh whether it was alive or not could be used to create Smiles, though heâd rather not know what the actual process was. Probably some beyond messed up shit. They were everywhere too, they had infected the whole damn world - the US government wasnât innocent about it all either. But that wasnât surprising. They were so desperate to cut ties with Japan, who knew what they could do to get there - that conflict was neverending.
âYou really donât wanna know,â Garcian grumbled, tossing more rags into the rubbish bin. âAnd no, there was nothing I could do except shoot the Smiles. I canât...I donât know, I canât bring just anyone back. I have to...feel things.â
Probably wouldnât work at the morgue, for example, if heâd tried it on some random person. Just a guess anyway, but he was pretty sure it was correct. The Smiths were a part of him, they were all connected - the death of one affected all, in a sense. It was why he brought them back rather than see a part of himself die off.
Whatever. âYou about ready to go then?â he asked.
It was almost as if Garcian was allergic to words like feel things - there was a reluctance he said that with, Geralt noticed, and darkish brow quirked just the slightest. Made sense, for the skill of resurrection to not be easy as breathing. The witcher assumed there were some invisible strings involved - invisible, dangerous strings. There was manipulating nature and the wells of power in the name of magic and sorcery, and then there was giving death the finger and pulling someone out of its grip back to the living.
âWas waiting on you - you were the one working, I was merely an audience,â he said, lowering his shades and rising from his chair. Hard to believe a murder happened here, but then again the two of them were having a friendly chat while guts were being cleaned in the background like it was no major issue. âYou never did tell me how it went with that girl you were supposed to bring back to life.â
Speaking of resurrection abilities, anyway. It was a good time to segue into that.
Yeah, the thing was, Garcian completely happened to be allergic to phrases like âfeel things,â which was why he didnât want to talk about any of this - strings and resurrection abilities and the girl he brought back to life. But he doubted Geralt would let him switch the subject abruptly, especially to something stupid like âwell, damn, itâs hot as balls outside ainât it?â
Plus, they already established they were friends. Friends talked. About bullshit. The type of bullshit they wouldnât talk about with average people, whom Garcian tended to be ambivalent about anyway.
He too found his sunglasses, leaving the police tape where it was and shutting the back door so no one would go in and disturb his work. Letâs hope there was a hipster dive bar to match the hipster coffee shop within walking distance, though heâd be fine with running into a liquor store and just chugging from a bottle of vodka in the park like they were a couple of bums.
âFine,â he responded to Geraltâs question. That was what people said when there was usually a whole dictionaryâs worth of other words to use, but they didnât want to say any of them. How was school today? Fine. How was work? Fine. That new restaurant any good? Fine. And so forth. âWent to her brotherâs wedding a few days later.â
Geralt himself wasnât much of a talker - surprising, wasnât it? Not. He had few friends and even fewer close ones, but he found himself building some semblance of a trustworthy social circle. Misery loved company and here they were, swimming in the goddamn pit of it. Social company was beginning to become therapeutic among all the shitty circumstances they were finding themselves; he had a feeling it was like that for Garcian, too.
So changing the subject to weather that made their balls chaffe wasnât going to happen.
Off they went, slinking away from the once-macabre scene and towards something, wherever - the first obvious alcohol vendor, and his enhanced nose told him it was around around the corner. A pub with trendy outdoor seating and the an outdoor chalkboard that spelled out âbeer as cold as your ex-girlfriendsâ (there was a part of him that could relate once upon a bitch sorceress) so no need to go much further, right?
There was also a part of the bar could be accessed from the outside and the fuck was that? A daiquiri machine? Heâd get something fruity with an umbrella, please. His hair was earning him enough judgmental looks as it was. âLeave it to you to make a story about bringing someone back to life sound like another day at the grocery store,â Geralt deadpanned, pulling out his wallet. âSo it worked and what, she asked you out on a wedding date? Is that how you pick up women? Nice trick.â
It was a joke. Promise. Even if his mouth didnât twitch into a smile or even change from the sculpted stone it was - but his voice was a little light, anyway. Meant he wasnât actually being the serious dick that he looked.
Oh, hell, it was the goddamn hipster mecca bar to end all hipster meccas. Good job tracking it down, Geralt, Garcian had to give him credit. They were both getting stares of the judgmental variety, because if you Googled âbest black people barsâ this one wasnât gonna come up.
Fuck it though, just give him one of those daiquiris with an umbrella too - and if anyone had a problem with it, they could suck his dick.
Also let it be known it wasnât a pumpkin spice daiquiri either, it was mango or some shit. He settled all 6â3 of him on a stool, pulling one up toward the end of the bar and facing Geralt. âSheâs got a boyfriend,â he rumbled in that smooth, marble timbre of his. Like he knew who the fucker even was but while Garcian would clean up the messes of the criminal underworld, he wouldnât screw with someoneâs relationship. Sometimes he had morals. âI donât think it was a date...dipstick.â
Slurrrrrp. Now that was a tasty daiquiri.
In a place where everyone wore converse sneakers and flannel, oh, did they sure as hell stick out like yin and yang sore thumbs. To his defense this sorry excuse for a watering hole was the first one they stumbled upon - and Geralt didnât particularly care that they earned some strange looks. A black guy and a white-as-fuck guy walk into a barâŠ
âYou donât think it was a date,â the witcher stoically egged on, his flavor of choice plain strawberry - as red as the cloak Ruby spoke about in her dreams, no doubt. âSounds like you got yourself a friend there. What you did for herâs got to be an interesting foundation for a bond.â
Either way, he was glad to know everything went âfineâ as Garcian so helpfully put it. But there were more details packaged under that word, he was sure of it.
There probably were, Gerry. But youâd need the Jaws of Life to pry them from Garcian - or a couple more drinks, maybe. âSomething like that,â he agreed, and didnât they just look so picturesque - two intense dudes, with âfuck offâ signs tattooed on their foreheads, drinking so-called wussy beverages?
Look, they tasted good. And no one was brave enough to give them shit about it either, so theyâd just be over here day drinking like the champions they were. Them haters could go right to the left, thanks. It had been a rough couple of weeks and they deserved this.