Black Bile
Title: Black Bile
Fandom: Ace Attorney
Characters: Tyrell Badd
Warnings: Suicidal ideation and depression.
Summary: Detective Badd is very, very tired.
Author’s Note: This was originally written back in March, when I was doing…less well than I am now. It needed to get written but not, perhaps, published just then. Now is a little better.
It would have been warmer inside, Badd thought as he entered the park. The harsh wind was sneaking up under his trenchcoat, biting at him through his shirt and slacks. He hated the way winter drove everything back inside you and made it hard to move.
Of course the temperature was beside the point. In five minutes he wouldn’t notice the cold at all. Badd took a seat under an elm tree almost as bent and gnarled as he was, the same one as last time. He unwrapped his lollipop and tucked it between his lips, starting a mental counter in his head. One more little burst of sweetness and pleasure, and then he would go.
At a certain point in your career you began to get a clear picture of the future. It wouldn’t be long before they finally managed to force him out of his job and into retirement. He’d point blank refused to be promoted to a desk and an office, and they only let you stay on active duty for so long. And it was no secret that while his will was as strong as ever, his body was starting to decay around him. Eventually they’d put him down. He’d sit at home, drawing down a pension and waiting patiently for death to release him from his pointless existence, and that could take decades. Hell, he was already heading for his slow death as it was. They gave him fewer dangerous assignments these days and he spent as much time patrolling his desk as he did wandering the streets.
No real reason not to speed the process along.
He’d gone mechanically though his evening chores, thinking empty thoughts and putting up little resistance against the dark voice in his head. Bed needed to be made, laundry got shoved in the closet, dishes needed to be cleaned for when someone came to take them out. Leftovers had to go too; no one ate a dead man’s Chinese takeout. Everyone knew he was lonely and useless and he doubted they’d change their opinions based on the state of his apartment, but he just wanted the place to be…presentable.
Besides, an apartment left in disarray looked suspicious. Badd had seen too many murders mistaken for suicides and suicides mistaken for murders to leave anything questionable behind. He wanted his suicide to look as much like a suicide as possible.
The notarized will was left out on the coffee table. He didn’t have many possessions or a large bank account, but there were a few things left to be fought over. After long contemplation he’d decided to leave his entire fortune to Dick Gumshoe, specifying that he wanted Gumshoe to use it to buy himself a few decent lunches. Anything Gumshoe didn’t want to go to charity, though he suspected even his unwashed socks would be a welcome gift to the impoverished detective.
Big guy needed all the help he could get. And besides, it would help him understand that this was for the best. Badd was starting to turn into a waste of police funding and there was no point in drawing down resources when you could easily take yourself off the police payroll and let someone better take your place.
Next to the will went the obligatory note, because if he didn’t leave one the boys would chase their tails looking for it. The movies had led them to expect it. Badd had written it in cheap blue ballpoint on an old piece of police stationary just to get it out of the way.
This was a suicide, not a murder. I’m just tired of taking up space. Don’t spend too much on the funeral.
The first time he’d been lazy. He’d had a few shots of whiskey and chased them down with the rest of the whiskey, then tried to shoot himself on the couch. He hadn’t been able to go through with it that time, halted by concerns about the location. The landlord was a nice guy even if his English was a bit dodgy and he’d be left trying to clean the blood and brain matter out of the carpet before he could rent the apartment out again. The couch itself would be a total loss and it was a fairly nice couch. No, Badd wanted his death to be as little a burden as possible; he was enough of a burden as it was.
The second time he’d picked out a spot in a park near his house. It was deserted after dark but joggers often went there in the mornings. An easy place to die uninterrupted but be found quickly. Nobody would come through here this late at night. He didn’t want any interruptions, anyone to be traumatized by seeing a man murder himself…anyone who might try to talk him out of it.
He’d already talked himself out of it twice.
Badd could feel the tip of the stick poking through the disintegrating lollipop. Not long now. He checked his gun to make sure he’d left two bullets in the chamber. If the first shot didn’t take him out completely he wanted to make sure he was able to finish the job. This would be clean. He wouldn’t be one of those cases that fucked up their own executions and destroyed only the parts of their brains they didn’t need to keep living. The whole point of this exercise was to escape a hospital stay and people staring at him to make sure he stayed alive as long as possible. Doctors never knew when to let a man go.
The fabric of his trenchcoat caught on the rough bark as he leaned backwards. The coat was the only thing he didn’t want left behind. They could throw it out, burn it, stuff it into his coffin, whatever they cared to do with a tattered bloodstained bit of cloth. Badd had carefully nurtured a career’s worth of memories in his precious bullet-riddled coat and he wanted to make sure they died with him.
He was sucking on tightly curled wet paper now. Any tiny scrap of congealed sugar that could make a claim to being candy was long gone. Badd took out the stick, let out a long sigh, and flicked it away.
Well, then. Time to go. Badd flicked off the safety and broke the first rule of firearms training by looking straight down the barrel of his gun. In the dark it was barely visible. But then, he didn’t want to see death coming. Or taste it, even if sticking a gun in your mouth was traditional. Badd pressed it to the underside of his jaw, feeling for the hole of the gun barrel to make sure he was aiming properly. The metal was even colder than the air. His worn finger curled around the trigger.
If a branch fell or a car backfired he’d pull the trigger by reflex and that would be it. Not his responsibility, just basic biology doing the job for him. Badd closed his eyes and almost prayed it would happen. This was always the hardest part-of course it was, it was the part he’d never managed to accomplish.
Come on. Just do it. Don’t flinch this time. Do it. One little twitch of a muscle. Do it.
He’d pulled the trigger on so many fleeing criminals and hostage-takers and it had been so easy. Not all of them had died, of course, but he’d been ready to kill them. You never put your finger on the trigger unless you were ready to fire, and never pointed it at someone unless you were ready to kill them.
Self included, Badd told himself firmly. He closed his eyes. A tiny movement of a single finger shouldn’t be so hard.
No smug angel or coincidental jogger appeared to tell him how important he was to the world. Nobody tried to stop him, like nobody had the last two times. He was alone with the sound of distant cars and the numbing of his bare fingers. Badd sat under the tree, finger on the trigger, breathing in the dark air in shorter and shorter bursts until his hand finally fell down to his lap.
“Damnit.” The world fell like a pebble into the stillness of the park. Still too weak. Badd sat there, staring at the silhouettes of trees against dim lamplight, feeling the tense in his body begin to fade.
It was cold. He should go back inside, maybe have a coffee. There was paperwork he’d been putting off on the Holtzman robbery. He could do that. Badd carefully got to his feet, mindful of his weak knees and brushed himself off.
Maybe he’d manage it after the current case was finished. Or maybe in a month, when work slowed again. Maybe he’d just keep coming out here every month until he accepted his retirement and went off to rot.
But not tonight.
Maybe next time.
Fandom: Ace Attorney
Characters: Tyrell Badd
Warnings: Suicidal ideation and depression.
Summary: Detective Badd is very, very tired.
Author’s Note: This was originally written back in March, when I was doing…less well than I am now. It needed to get written but not, perhaps, published just then. Now is a little better.
It would have been warmer inside, Badd thought as he entered the park. The harsh wind was sneaking up under his trenchcoat, biting at him through his shirt and slacks. He hated the way winter drove everything back inside you and made it hard to move.
Of course the temperature was beside the point. In five minutes he wouldn’t notice the cold at all. Badd took a seat under an elm tree almost as bent and gnarled as he was, the same one as last time. He unwrapped his lollipop and tucked it between his lips, starting a mental counter in his head. One more little burst of sweetness and pleasure, and then he would go.
At a certain point in your career you began to get a clear picture of the future. It wouldn’t be long before they finally managed to force him out of his job and into retirement. He’d point blank refused to be promoted to a desk and an office, and they only let you stay on active duty for so long. And it was no secret that while his will was as strong as ever, his body was starting to decay around him. Eventually they’d put him down. He’d sit at home, drawing down a pension and waiting patiently for death to release him from his pointless existence, and that could take decades. Hell, he was already heading for his slow death as it was. They gave him fewer dangerous assignments these days and he spent as much time patrolling his desk as he did wandering the streets.
No real reason not to speed the process along.
He’d gone mechanically though his evening chores, thinking empty thoughts and putting up little resistance against the dark voice in his head. Bed needed to be made, laundry got shoved in the closet, dishes needed to be cleaned for when someone came to take them out. Leftovers had to go too; no one ate a dead man’s Chinese takeout. Everyone knew he was lonely and useless and he doubted they’d change their opinions based on the state of his apartment, but he just wanted the place to be…presentable.
Besides, an apartment left in disarray looked suspicious. Badd had seen too many murders mistaken for suicides and suicides mistaken for murders to leave anything questionable behind. He wanted his suicide to look as much like a suicide as possible.
The notarized will was left out on the coffee table. He didn’t have many possessions or a large bank account, but there were a few things left to be fought over. After long contemplation he’d decided to leave his entire fortune to Dick Gumshoe, specifying that he wanted Gumshoe to use it to buy himself a few decent lunches. Anything Gumshoe didn’t want to go to charity, though he suspected even his unwashed socks would be a welcome gift to the impoverished detective.
Big guy needed all the help he could get. And besides, it would help him understand that this was for the best. Badd was starting to turn into a waste of police funding and there was no point in drawing down resources when you could easily take yourself off the police payroll and let someone better take your place.
Next to the will went the obligatory note, because if he didn’t leave one the boys would chase their tails looking for it. The movies had led them to expect it. Badd had written it in cheap blue ballpoint on an old piece of police stationary just to get it out of the way.
This was a suicide, not a murder. I’m just tired of taking up space. Don’t spend too much on the funeral.
The first time he’d been lazy. He’d had a few shots of whiskey and chased them down with the rest of the whiskey, then tried to shoot himself on the couch. He hadn’t been able to go through with it that time, halted by concerns about the location. The landlord was a nice guy even if his English was a bit dodgy and he’d be left trying to clean the blood and brain matter out of the carpet before he could rent the apartment out again. The couch itself would be a total loss and it was a fairly nice couch. No, Badd wanted his death to be as little a burden as possible; he was enough of a burden as it was.
The second time he’d picked out a spot in a park near his house. It was deserted after dark but joggers often went there in the mornings. An easy place to die uninterrupted but be found quickly. Nobody would come through here this late at night. He didn’t want any interruptions, anyone to be traumatized by seeing a man murder himself…anyone who might try to talk him out of it.
He’d already talked himself out of it twice.
Badd could feel the tip of the stick poking through the disintegrating lollipop. Not long now. He checked his gun to make sure he’d left two bullets in the chamber. If the first shot didn’t take him out completely he wanted to make sure he was able to finish the job. This would be clean. He wouldn’t be one of those cases that fucked up their own executions and destroyed only the parts of their brains they didn’t need to keep living. The whole point of this exercise was to escape a hospital stay and people staring at him to make sure he stayed alive as long as possible. Doctors never knew when to let a man go.
The fabric of his trenchcoat caught on the rough bark as he leaned backwards. The coat was the only thing he didn’t want left behind. They could throw it out, burn it, stuff it into his coffin, whatever they cared to do with a tattered bloodstained bit of cloth. Badd had carefully nurtured a career’s worth of memories in his precious bullet-riddled coat and he wanted to make sure they died with him.
He was sucking on tightly curled wet paper now. Any tiny scrap of congealed sugar that could make a claim to being candy was long gone. Badd took out the stick, let out a long sigh, and flicked it away.
Well, then. Time to go. Badd flicked off the safety and broke the first rule of firearms training by looking straight down the barrel of his gun. In the dark it was barely visible. But then, he didn’t want to see death coming. Or taste it, even if sticking a gun in your mouth was traditional. Badd pressed it to the underside of his jaw, feeling for the hole of the gun barrel to make sure he was aiming properly. The metal was even colder than the air. His worn finger curled around the trigger.
If a branch fell or a car backfired he’d pull the trigger by reflex and that would be it. Not his responsibility, just basic biology doing the job for him. Badd closed his eyes and almost prayed it would happen. This was always the hardest part-of course it was, it was the part he’d never managed to accomplish.
Come on. Just do it. Don’t flinch this time. Do it. One little twitch of a muscle. Do it.
He’d pulled the trigger on so many fleeing criminals and hostage-takers and it had been so easy. Not all of them had died, of course, but he’d been ready to kill them. You never put your finger on the trigger unless you were ready to fire, and never pointed it at someone unless you were ready to kill them.
Self included, Badd told himself firmly. He closed his eyes. A tiny movement of a single finger shouldn’t be so hard.
No smug angel or coincidental jogger appeared to tell him how important he was to the world. Nobody tried to stop him, like nobody had the last two times. He was alone with the sound of distant cars and the numbing of his bare fingers. Badd sat under the tree, finger on the trigger, breathing in the dark air in shorter and shorter bursts until his hand finally fell down to his lap.
“Damnit.” The world fell like a pebble into the stillness of the park. Still too weak. Badd sat there, staring at the silhouettes of trees against dim lamplight, feeling the tense in his body begin to fade.
It was cold. He should go back inside, maybe have a coffee. There was paperwork he’d been putting off on the Holtzman robbery. He could do that. Badd carefully got to his feet, mindful of his weak knees and brushed himself off.
Maybe he’d manage it after the current case was finished. Or maybe in a month, when work slowed again. Maybe he’d just keep coming out here every month until he accepted his retirement and went off to rot.
But not tonight.
Maybe next time.