Brute Neighbors [FanFic]
Title: Brute Neighbors
Author: Tooks
Pairing: Hotch/OFC
Rating: FRT
Summary: So often people ask me about him because they want a good story to tell their friends or put in their paper or because they think talking to me is some…link to the legacy of The Boston Reaper.
Notes: This is a follow-up to Visitors. Takes place during Season 5's "The Performer"...the title is Chapter 12 of Thoreau's Walden and I kept the same summary cause it works overall. I think this is essentially a multi-chapter fic now and so I've named the whole thing The Eye of Providence, haha! (Thanks pink_siamese for all the help & encouragement! ^_^)
Julie sat on the sand dunes and watched a red sea slip in and out over white sand. She felt a strange familiarity as she breathed in enough salt she tasted it on her tongue. The sound of the waves and crickets were carried to her on a hot breeze. A breeze that crawled up her back to her shoulder where it settled as a hand.
“You miss me?” His voice was past-puberty deep and smooth as silk.
“No.”
The chuckle echoed in her brain. “You miss me.” His hand slid across her throat. “So…Aaron Hotchner, huh?”
“He’s a good man.”
“Couldn’t be less your type if he tried. Now me…” he let out a thoughtful moan. “I was your type before you even had one.” He slipped around to kneel before her.
George dressed exactly like he had in their youth: polo shirt, khakis, Ray Bans. He flashed that wicked smile he had whenever he felt especially proud of his latest misdeed. “I made your type.”
“I’m not the same person.” Julie insisted as George pulled her legs apart and down into the sand by the ankles. “You’re not the same person.”
“People don’t change.”
Her heart beat in the sun and she felt herself sift into the sand. She closed her eyes as his hands began to snake up her legs.
“Especially people like us.”
“There…” her breath followed slowing tides, “is no…us.”
Julie felt cold steel on her inner thigh. The shiver ran up her body and exited in a moan.
“Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
“You gave it to me.”
“Yes.”
“So there’ll always be an us,” George crooned in her ear as his blade slipped in to draw first blood.
***
Julie cringed awake. She reached over to her cell phone and saw the text waiting for her. A smile broke over her face as she opened the picture. It was of what looked like a Chinese restaurant, not exactly a helpful clue in her opinion. He’d given her a tricky one this time.
Not China I assume. Another hint please?
Julie sent the reply to Aaron before getting out of bed and heading to shower. They hadn’t spoken more than a few words over the phone or each other’s voicemails since their time together in Long Island.
By the time Julie had slipped into jeans and a sweatshirt her phone dinged with a new text.
No. Grauman’s Chinese Theater.
Oh. LA?
Yes.
Fun
Hardly.
At least the weather’s nice. Cold as fuck here
Fuck me cold?
She started to laugh. She’d said the phrase in passing the last time they spoke. Aaron had seemed unnerved at the idea of it being cold enough to have sex just for the warmth, but apparently that wasn’t the case.
About that
Sending warm vibes. Take care.
Thanks. You too. Later
She tossed the phone in her bag, gathered the rest of her things, and headed out for the day.
***
Jim was waiting outside the bookstore in his traditional uniform of jeans and sweatshirt. “Hey, Jules!” he called out with a smile. “What took ya so long?”
“You could’ve opened up without me,” Julie smiled as she removed her helmet.
“Nah, ain’t polite.”
“Since when did you care about being polite, Jimbo?”
James Gowan had been her best friend since grade school and often stayed with her family growing up. “Since you started paying me,” he smirked as she went to unlock the store. “So why’re ya late?”
“Just had something I had to do first, that’s all.”
“The Fed?”
“The Fed. He’s in LA.”
“Fancy.” Jim swung chairs off tables to set up. “You really like him, don’t ya?”
“He’s all right.” Julie turned on the lights and tried to hide a blush as she headed for the front counter.
“Ya drove four hours in the middle of the night to see him.”
“He needed me and I…owed it to him.”
“How’s that?”
“With what George did to him -“
“Hey, what George did ain’t your fault. None of it.”
“Maybe I could’ve stopped it.”
“Yeah, and maybe I could be talkin’ to your ghost.” Jim snorted.
Julie turned to him. “Can you be honest with me about something?”
“Sure.”
“Do you think men like George are drawn to me? That I’m drawn to them?”
“Couldn’t I answer something easier like…Do you look fat in those jeans?”
She smirked. “Well I know I look great in these jeans, so no.”
They laughed before Jim gave a sigh. “You’re gonna drive yourself nuts with this shit, ya know that, right?”
“I started dating with George and I…really didn’t improve after that.”
“You dated that cop once.”
“He ended up in jail for bribery on the job.”
Jim shrugged, but said nothing.
“I don’t know. I just wonder if I’m not…connected to evil on some primal level.”
“Show me someone who grew up how we did and isn’t, Jules.”
All had experienced violence in some way during their childhood and it spread through their adult years like a ripple in a pond.
“I loved George.” She returned to setting up.
“And I loved my mom and dad,” he shrugged back.
***
By the time lunch rolled around they’d decided on The Beer Works.
“Thanks again for lettin’ me stay on past Halloween, Jules.”
“No problem. It was nice having you around and it certainly kept the graffiti down.” An issue that got worse until she asked Jim to lend some intimidating muscle to the store. “You can stay on until more construction work comes up, if you want.”
“That’d be great, thanks.”
Julie pulled out her cell to take a picture.
“’Notha picture for the Fed?” Jim teased.
Julie added a text.
Lunch at Salem Beer Works
She hit the send button and answered. “Yeah, we send ‘em back and forth.”
“Ya know if I was him I’d want somethin’ a little more…interesting.”
“Well I’m not about to strip in front of the restaurant so you’ll both have to live with disappointment.”
Jim laughed. “Come on, lemme take a pic with you actually in it. Give The Long Island Fed a thrill.”
“You know he’s not actually from Long Island.”
“Yeah, he’s a Southern boy, right?”
“Virginia.”
“That’s Southern.”
“It’s not that Southern.”
“Well, it’s not fuck-ya-cousin Southern,” Jim smirked. “But it’s still Southern.”
Julie tried not to laugh as she stood in front of The Beer Works. “Just…shut up and take the picture, smart ass.”
***
The BAU broke for a short meal and Hotch took the spare minute to maneuver to a secluded window and make a call. Nerves bubbled as he waited for her to pick up.
Julie excused herself to step outside with her buzzing phone. “Aaron, that you?”
“Yes. I’m not bothering you, am I?”
“No, not at all. How’s it going in Holly-Weird?”
“Weird.” He smiled. “Are you, um, alone?”
“If I say yes, is the next question about what I’m wearing?”
“What?”
Julie laughed. “Nothing, stupid joke.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You know are…” she felt her body heat enough she didn’t need the sweatshirt anymore. “Are you alone? What are you wearing?” She dropped her voice and huffed her breath for a sleazy prank call sound.
Aaron’s face went hot. “Oh…well, uh…I’m still on the case with, um, my team.”
“Well I could ask what they’re all wearing, but that sounds like an awful lot of work for just me.”
He started to laugh. “I’d, um…prefer to keep you to myself.”
“Me too.”
“I’m afraid I have to go.” Hotch could see Rossi fast approaching.
“No problem, Aaron, good luck and take care.”
“You too.” Aaron hung up and his smile vanished as David arrived. “What?”
“Results are back from the lab.”
“All right.”
“Who was that?”
“No one.”
David gave a knowing smile. “Same no one you’ve been sending pictures to?”
“Let’s focus on the case, Dave.” Because explaining Julie was just too complex right now.
“If that’s what you want, Aaron.”
Hotch nodded and began to walk back to the others with Rossi.
“You know I’m not actually dropping this, right?”
“I figured.” Aaron smiled a touch.
***
After she closed shop Julie went with Jim to his son, Alex’s, youth hockey game. She never turned down an opportunity to support the twelve-year-old, to encourage him, especially now that he’d recently been slipping into delinquency under his mother’s care.
“Ya know Dina’s gonna be in there.” Jim gave fair warning as they headed into the rink.
“She should be, she’s his mother.” Julie forced a smile.
They’d all been friends once, grew up in the same apartment complex, and went to grade school and junior high together. It changed when they hit high school and Julie went to the academy, had her life set on a different course, while they stayed behind. Some remained close to her, others grew resentful.
“Oh, look, The Smart Girl came!” Alex’s mother sneered.
“Hi Dina,” Julie smile grew painfully strained as she sat next to Mike. “Hey Mike.”
“Hey, haven’t seen ya ‘round.”
“Busy.”
“Out whorin’ with another professor?” Dina gave a nasty laugh.
Julie ignored her in favor of cheering on the players who took the ice. She would be above it, she would be the better person, and she would not allow Dina to rile her up and pull her down into the gutters. It wasn’t until Dina started laying into her own kid in the second period that Julie finally snapped.
“Why can’t you just keep your mouth shut and let him enjoy playing?”
“’Cause he’s fuckin’ losin’!”
“He missed one goal, Dina! This is a kid’s game, not the NH-fucking-L!”
“Well he ain’t smart enough to suck at sports too!”
“That’s nice.” Julie’s eyes rolled.
“Hey, I don’t need help raisin’ my kids from some smarty pants rich bitch who thinks she’s better than the rest of us ‘cause she went to college and shit.”
“All evidence to the contrary.”
“Fuck you!” Dina snapped loud enough it caught the attention of those nearby. She went for the throat. “Go fuck The Reaper again!”
Julie’s heart jumped at the words. Her muscles twitched as the urge to take a swing and fall to tears battled. “Say that again.”
“How was he, Jules? How was The Boston Reaper?! Tell us all about it!”
Julie’s body relaxed into a bitter laugh. “Oh, that’s what this is about? You’re still pissed ‘cause your skanky ass was beneath even a guy like George.”
“You’re the one that fucked the psycho!”
“And you’re the one that’s jealous ‘cause he wouldn’t touch you with the point of his knife,” she spat back before smirking. “So to speak.”
“Cunt!!”
Dina lunged to swing and barely missed as Mike held her back. Jim stepped forward and pulled Julie behind him.
“She wants to fight, let ‘er go!” It’d been going on for years, the tense animosity between her and Dina, it was about time they let it all out.
“Nah, com’on Jules, let’s go.” Jim started to push her along as he headed out. As much as a chick fight was appealing in principle, they were at his kid’s hockey game and he knew both would draw blood.
***
Julie was past exhausted by the time she returned home, but a brutal second wave of rage kept her up. She paced the apartment, end to end, and took occasional glances at the phone before going to change.
She switched her top before she stepped into the living room and texted.
U up?
She headed to her room again and came back out when the ding went off.
Yes. Do you need something?
Wired. Talk?
Julie turned tail again as her body shook beyond reason or control. She thought of the hockey game, the sounds the children’s bodies made when slamming each other into the walls, and the excited screams of the crowd every time it happened. She thought of how Dina mocked her son for not taking the cheap shots on the ice and how Jim and Mike once beat a local dropout unconscious when he tried to mess with Mike’s sister. She thought of how Aaron told her she didn’t make sense and how Jim pointed out she wasn’t far off from anyone else who grew up in the projects.
The phone pulled her mind straight and she dashed for it. “Aaron?” Her voice shook as bad as her hands.
“Julie?” His voice was too calm for her; it made her head light and heart strike her chest almost painfully. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” She sat. “I’m no-not bothering you, am I?”
“No, I’m done for the day. Are you sure you’re all right?”
Julie’s laugh came out thready, unsure. “I w-went to a hockey game with my friend, his son was playing, and I…” another tense chuckle. “I sorta got into a fight.”
“You got into a fight?”
“Verbal. She swung, but missed.”
“You got into a fight with another woman?” Aaron didn’t find her the type to be aggressive or violent. “Julie what…happened, exactly?”
“I, uh…I ran into a woman, Dina, that used to be my friend as a kid who…never really liked that I left the neighborhood and made a better life for myself and, well, we got into a fight.”
“She attempted to assault you unprovoked?”
“Not exactly. She said some things, I said some things, and then she swung at me.”
“…Are…you all right?”
“Yeah, fine just…have this adrenaline rush that m-my body just c-can’t handle right now.”
“Would you like to talk through it?”
“I was going to go for a run, but it’s after midnight.”
“It’s after nine here.”
“How’s the case going?”
“Reasonably well, considering.”
“Considering?”
“Considering it’s LA.” Aaron smiled out.
Julie let out a relaxed laugh. “LA not a good city for you guys?”
“Lots of inflated personalities, lots of press.”
“Oh, yeah, right.”
“But we were talking about you.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Aaron's smile grew. It was nice, comforting, to hear Julie ramble as he had with her. She was human. “You don’t need to apologize with me, Julie.”
“Did you ever think, maybe you were…meant to deal with criminals?”
Aaron’s lips fell into confusion. “Beg your pardon?”
“Do you ever, you know, look back and see how, maybe, you were destined to have your life linked with crime or something?”
“Julie, did the other woman bring up Foyet? Is that what this is all about?”
She groaned. “Not the way you’re thinking, no.” Her head rested in her hand. “Dina was jealous. We grew up in a world that promoted aggression and violence, a world that made a teen boy like George actually…attractive.” Her stomach twisted. “I just…realized…” she sighed. “I don’t know a single person who isn’t connected, associated, with violence.”
“That’s hardly a surprise, violence is a constant in the world and it doesn’t discriminate.”
“Not affected, Aaron. Associated. What if there’s something about me that…draws them in? What if they see something in me that’s…like them?” Like George.
“There’s nothing in you like them, Julie.” Like The Reaper.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve spent my life putting them away and if you were like them I’d have seen it.”
“You’ve never been fooled?”
Aaron thought of how Foyet had so thoroughly fooled him for such a long time. He took a deep breath and sighed it out. “Julie you…the fact this bothers you, the fact you’re worried enough to ask about it, means you have nothing to worry about.”
Julie stayed silent for a moment before she whispered. “I wish you were here.”
“It would be preferable with this sort of conversation.”
“No, that’s…That’s not it.”
“Then what is it?”
“I just…want you here. Or me there.”
“Mm, a significant down side of my job, I know.” He wasn’t available when wanted, needed; one of Haley’s most frequent complaints. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Julie got up from the table. “You need to be where you are.” She settled onto her couch with a sigh. “I just wish you were around.” A smirk crept into her voice. “Maybe you could help me burn off this extra energy.”
“Is this the part where I ask you what you’re wearing?”
Julie let out a laugh. “Did you just make a joke?”
“I can joke.”
“What if I answered you, Aaron?”
“Then I would know.”
“Would you tell me what you’re wearing?”
“Black suit, white shirt, red tie.”
“Boxers or briefs?”
“Boxer-briefs. Navy blue.” Aaron’s face warmed. “Your turn.”
“Black tank, matching PJ bottoms, no bra.”
“You win.”
“Actually I think you win there, Aaron.”
“Only if I was there.”
Julie slid farther down the couch as her lips curled up. “And if you were here?”
“I’d probably get called away on a case,” Aaron laughed out.
“Well that’s what quickies are for.”
“Good to know.”
Julie joined in his laugh as she sat up. “If you ever get some time off, some significant time, maybe we can meet up again?”
“I’d like that very much.”
“Me too.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine, Aaron.”
“Are you certain?”
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
“It’s what I do,” Aaron stated, smile still playing on his lips.
“I know.”
And Julie liked him for it more than she felt she should.
"And death, and time shall disappear,- / Forever there, but never here!" ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Old Clock on the Stairs
Next Chapter:
Where I Lived, and What I Lived For
Previous Chapters:
Reading
Visitors
Author: Tooks
Pairing: Hotch/OFC
Rating: FRT
Summary: So often people ask me about him because they want a good story to tell their friends or put in their paper or because they think talking to me is some…link to the legacy of The Boston Reaper.
Notes: This is a follow-up to Visitors. Takes place during Season 5's "The Performer"...the title is Chapter 12 of Thoreau's Walden and I kept the same summary cause it works overall. I think this is essentially a multi-chapter fic now and so I've named the whole thing The Eye of Providence, haha! (Thanks pink_siamese for all the help & encouragement! ^_^)
Julie sat on the sand dunes and watched a red sea slip in and out over white sand. She felt a strange familiarity as she breathed in enough salt she tasted it on her tongue. The sound of the waves and crickets were carried to her on a hot breeze. A breeze that crawled up her back to her shoulder where it settled as a hand.
“You miss me?” His voice was past-puberty deep and smooth as silk.
“No.”
The chuckle echoed in her brain. “You miss me.” His hand slid across her throat. “So…Aaron Hotchner, huh?”
“He’s a good man.”
“Couldn’t be less your type if he tried. Now me…” he let out a thoughtful moan. “I was your type before you even had one.” He slipped around to kneel before her.
George dressed exactly like he had in their youth: polo shirt, khakis, Ray Bans. He flashed that wicked smile he had whenever he felt especially proud of his latest misdeed. “I made your type.”
“I’m not the same person.” Julie insisted as George pulled her legs apart and down into the sand by the ankles. “You’re not the same person.”
“People don’t change.”
Her heart beat in the sun and she felt herself sift into the sand. She closed her eyes as his hands began to snake up her legs.
“Especially people like us.”
“There…” her breath followed slowing tides, “is no…us.”
Julie felt cold steel on her inner thigh. The shiver ran up her body and exited in a moan.
“Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
“You gave it to me.”
“Yes.”
“So there’ll always be an us,” George crooned in her ear as his blade slipped in to draw first blood.
***
Julie cringed awake. She reached over to her cell phone and saw the text waiting for her. A smile broke over her face as she opened the picture. It was of what looked like a Chinese restaurant, not exactly a helpful clue in her opinion. He’d given her a tricky one this time.
Not China I assume. Another hint please?
Julie sent the reply to Aaron before getting out of bed and heading to shower. They hadn’t spoken more than a few words over the phone or each other’s voicemails since their time together in Long Island.
By the time Julie had slipped into jeans and a sweatshirt her phone dinged with a new text.
No. Grauman’s Chinese Theater.
Oh. LA?
Yes.
Fun
Hardly.
At least the weather’s nice. Cold as fuck here
Fuck me cold?
She started to laugh. She’d said the phrase in passing the last time they spoke. Aaron had seemed unnerved at the idea of it being cold enough to have sex just for the warmth, but apparently that wasn’t the case.
About that
Sending warm vibes. Take care.
Thanks. You too. Later
She tossed the phone in her bag, gathered the rest of her things, and headed out for the day.
***
Jim was waiting outside the bookstore in his traditional uniform of jeans and sweatshirt. “Hey, Jules!” he called out with a smile. “What took ya so long?”
“You could’ve opened up without me,” Julie smiled as she removed her helmet.
“Nah, ain’t polite.”
“Since when did you care about being polite, Jimbo?”
James Gowan had been her best friend since grade school and often stayed with her family growing up. “Since you started paying me,” he smirked as she went to unlock the store. “So why’re ya late?”
“Just had something I had to do first, that’s all.”
“The Fed?”
“The Fed. He’s in LA.”
“Fancy.” Jim swung chairs off tables to set up. “You really like him, don’t ya?”
“He’s all right.” Julie turned on the lights and tried to hide a blush as she headed for the front counter.
“Ya drove four hours in the middle of the night to see him.”
“He needed me and I…owed it to him.”
“How’s that?”
“With what George did to him -“
“Hey, what George did ain’t your fault. None of it.”
“Maybe I could’ve stopped it.”
“Yeah, and maybe I could be talkin’ to your ghost.” Jim snorted.
Julie turned to him. “Can you be honest with me about something?”
“Sure.”
“Do you think men like George are drawn to me? That I’m drawn to them?”
“Couldn’t I answer something easier like…Do you look fat in those jeans?”
She smirked. “Well I know I look great in these jeans, so no.”
They laughed before Jim gave a sigh. “You’re gonna drive yourself nuts with this shit, ya know that, right?”
“I started dating with George and I…really didn’t improve after that.”
“You dated that cop once.”
“He ended up in jail for bribery on the job.”
Jim shrugged, but said nothing.
“I don’t know. I just wonder if I’m not…connected to evil on some primal level.”
“Show me someone who grew up how we did and isn’t, Jules.”
All had experienced violence in some way during their childhood and it spread through their adult years like a ripple in a pond.
“I loved George.” She returned to setting up.
“And I loved my mom and dad,” he shrugged back.
***
By the time lunch rolled around they’d decided on The Beer Works.
“Thanks again for lettin’ me stay on past Halloween, Jules.”
“No problem. It was nice having you around and it certainly kept the graffiti down.” An issue that got worse until she asked Jim to lend some intimidating muscle to the store. “You can stay on until more construction work comes up, if you want.”
“That’d be great, thanks.”
Julie pulled out her cell to take a picture.
“’Notha picture for the Fed?” Jim teased.
Julie added a text.
Lunch at Salem Beer Works
She hit the send button and answered. “Yeah, we send ‘em back and forth.”
“Ya know if I was him I’d want somethin’ a little more…interesting.”
“Well I’m not about to strip in front of the restaurant so you’ll both have to live with disappointment.”
Jim laughed. “Come on, lemme take a pic with you actually in it. Give The Long Island Fed a thrill.”
“You know he’s not actually from Long Island.”
“Yeah, he’s a Southern boy, right?”
“Virginia.”
“That’s Southern.”
“It’s not that Southern.”
“Well, it’s not fuck-ya-cousin Southern,” Jim smirked. “But it’s still Southern.”
Julie tried not to laugh as she stood in front of The Beer Works. “Just…shut up and take the picture, smart ass.”
***
The BAU broke for a short meal and Hotch took the spare minute to maneuver to a secluded window and make a call. Nerves bubbled as he waited for her to pick up.
Julie excused herself to step outside with her buzzing phone. “Aaron, that you?”
“Yes. I’m not bothering you, am I?”
“No, not at all. How’s it going in Holly-Weird?”
“Weird.” He smiled. “Are you, um, alone?”
“If I say yes, is the next question about what I’m wearing?”
“What?”
Julie laughed. “Nothing, stupid joke.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You know are…” she felt her body heat enough she didn’t need the sweatshirt anymore. “Are you alone? What are you wearing?” She dropped her voice and huffed her breath for a sleazy prank call sound.
Aaron’s face went hot. “Oh…well, uh…I’m still on the case with, um, my team.”
“Well I could ask what they’re all wearing, but that sounds like an awful lot of work for just me.”
He started to laugh. “I’d, um…prefer to keep you to myself.”
“Me too.”
“I’m afraid I have to go.” Hotch could see Rossi fast approaching.
“No problem, Aaron, good luck and take care.”
“You too.” Aaron hung up and his smile vanished as David arrived. “What?”
“Results are back from the lab.”
“All right.”
“Who was that?”
“No one.”
David gave a knowing smile. “Same no one you’ve been sending pictures to?”
“Let’s focus on the case, Dave.” Because explaining Julie was just too complex right now.
“If that’s what you want, Aaron.”
Hotch nodded and began to walk back to the others with Rossi.
“You know I’m not actually dropping this, right?”
“I figured.” Aaron smiled a touch.
***
After she closed shop Julie went with Jim to his son, Alex’s, youth hockey game. She never turned down an opportunity to support the twelve-year-old, to encourage him, especially now that he’d recently been slipping into delinquency under his mother’s care.
“Ya know Dina’s gonna be in there.” Jim gave fair warning as they headed into the rink.
“She should be, she’s his mother.” Julie forced a smile.
They’d all been friends once, grew up in the same apartment complex, and went to grade school and junior high together. It changed when they hit high school and Julie went to the academy, had her life set on a different course, while they stayed behind. Some remained close to her, others grew resentful.
“Oh, look, The Smart Girl came!” Alex’s mother sneered.
“Hi Dina,” Julie smile grew painfully strained as she sat next to Mike. “Hey Mike.”
“Hey, haven’t seen ya ‘round.”
“Busy.”
“Out whorin’ with another professor?” Dina gave a nasty laugh.
Julie ignored her in favor of cheering on the players who took the ice. She would be above it, she would be the better person, and she would not allow Dina to rile her up and pull her down into the gutters. It wasn’t until Dina started laying into her own kid in the second period that Julie finally snapped.
“Why can’t you just keep your mouth shut and let him enjoy playing?”
“’Cause he’s fuckin’ losin’!”
“He missed one goal, Dina! This is a kid’s game, not the NH-fucking-L!”
“Well he ain’t smart enough to suck at sports too!”
“That’s nice.” Julie’s eyes rolled.
“Hey, I don’t need help raisin’ my kids from some smarty pants rich bitch who thinks she’s better than the rest of us ‘cause she went to college and shit.”
“All evidence to the contrary.”
“Fuck you!” Dina snapped loud enough it caught the attention of those nearby. She went for the throat. “Go fuck The Reaper again!”
Julie’s heart jumped at the words. Her muscles twitched as the urge to take a swing and fall to tears battled. “Say that again.”
“How was he, Jules? How was The Boston Reaper?! Tell us all about it!”
Julie’s body relaxed into a bitter laugh. “Oh, that’s what this is about? You’re still pissed ‘cause your skanky ass was beneath even a guy like George.”
“You’re the one that fucked the psycho!”
“And you’re the one that’s jealous ‘cause he wouldn’t touch you with the point of his knife,” she spat back before smirking. “So to speak.”
“Cunt!!”
Dina lunged to swing and barely missed as Mike held her back. Jim stepped forward and pulled Julie behind him.
“She wants to fight, let ‘er go!” It’d been going on for years, the tense animosity between her and Dina, it was about time they let it all out.
“Nah, com’on Jules, let’s go.” Jim started to push her along as he headed out. As much as a chick fight was appealing in principle, they were at his kid’s hockey game and he knew both would draw blood.
***
Julie was past exhausted by the time she returned home, but a brutal second wave of rage kept her up. She paced the apartment, end to end, and took occasional glances at the phone before going to change.
She switched her top before she stepped into the living room and texted.
U up?
She headed to her room again and came back out when the ding went off.
Yes. Do you need something?
Wired. Talk?
Julie turned tail again as her body shook beyond reason or control. She thought of the hockey game, the sounds the children’s bodies made when slamming each other into the walls, and the excited screams of the crowd every time it happened. She thought of how Dina mocked her son for not taking the cheap shots on the ice and how Jim and Mike once beat a local dropout unconscious when he tried to mess with Mike’s sister. She thought of how Aaron told her she didn’t make sense and how Jim pointed out she wasn’t far off from anyone else who grew up in the projects.
The phone pulled her mind straight and she dashed for it. “Aaron?” Her voice shook as bad as her hands.
“Julie?” His voice was too calm for her; it made her head light and heart strike her chest almost painfully. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” She sat. “I’m no-not bothering you, am I?”
“No, I’m done for the day. Are you sure you’re all right?”
Julie’s laugh came out thready, unsure. “I w-went to a hockey game with my friend, his son was playing, and I…” another tense chuckle. “I sorta got into a fight.”
“You got into a fight?”
“Verbal. She swung, but missed.”
“You got into a fight with another woman?” Aaron didn’t find her the type to be aggressive or violent. “Julie what…happened, exactly?”
“I, uh…I ran into a woman, Dina, that used to be my friend as a kid who…never really liked that I left the neighborhood and made a better life for myself and, well, we got into a fight.”
“She attempted to assault you unprovoked?”
“Not exactly. She said some things, I said some things, and then she swung at me.”
“…Are…you all right?”
“Yeah, fine just…have this adrenaline rush that m-my body just c-can’t handle right now.”
“Would you like to talk through it?”
“I was going to go for a run, but it’s after midnight.”
“It’s after nine here.”
“How’s the case going?”
“Reasonably well, considering.”
“Considering?”
“Considering it’s LA.” Aaron smiled out.
Julie let out a relaxed laugh. “LA not a good city for you guys?”
“Lots of inflated personalities, lots of press.”
“Oh, yeah, right.”
“But we were talking about you.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Aaron's smile grew. It was nice, comforting, to hear Julie ramble as he had with her. She was human. “You don’t need to apologize with me, Julie.”
“Did you ever think, maybe you were…meant to deal with criminals?”
Aaron’s lips fell into confusion. “Beg your pardon?”
“Do you ever, you know, look back and see how, maybe, you were destined to have your life linked with crime or something?”
“Julie, did the other woman bring up Foyet? Is that what this is all about?”
She groaned. “Not the way you’re thinking, no.” Her head rested in her hand. “Dina was jealous. We grew up in a world that promoted aggression and violence, a world that made a teen boy like George actually…attractive.” Her stomach twisted. “I just…realized…” she sighed. “I don’t know a single person who isn’t connected, associated, with violence.”
“That’s hardly a surprise, violence is a constant in the world and it doesn’t discriminate.”
“Not affected, Aaron. Associated. What if there’s something about me that…draws them in? What if they see something in me that’s…like them?” Like George.
“There’s nothing in you like them, Julie.” Like The Reaper.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve spent my life putting them away and if you were like them I’d have seen it.”
“You’ve never been fooled?”
Aaron thought of how Foyet had so thoroughly fooled him for such a long time. He took a deep breath and sighed it out. “Julie you…the fact this bothers you, the fact you’re worried enough to ask about it, means you have nothing to worry about.”
Julie stayed silent for a moment before she whispered. “I wish you were here.”
“It would be preferable with this sort of conversation.”
“No, that’s…That’s not it.”
“Then what is it?”
“I just…want you here. Or me there.”
“Mm, a significant down side of my job, I know.” He wasn’t available when wanted, needed; one of Haley’s most frequent complaints. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Julie got up from the table. “You need to be where you are.” She settled onto her couch with a sigh. “I just wish you were around.” A smirk crept into her voice. “Maybe you could help me burn off this extra energy.”
“Is this the part where I ask you what you’re wearing?”
Julie let out a laugh. “Did you just make a joke?”
“I can joke.”
“What if I answered you, Aaron?”
“Then I would know.”
“Would you tell me what you’re wearing?”
“Black suit, white shirt, red tie.”
“Boxers or briefs?”
“Boxer-briefs. Navy blue.” Aaron’s face warmed. “Your turn.”
“Black tank, matching PJ bottoms, no bra.”
“You win.”
“Actually I think you win there, Aaron.”
“Only if I was there.”
Julie slid farther down the couch as her lips curled up. “And if you were here?”
“I’d probably get called away on a case,” Aaron laughed out.
“Well that’s what quickies are for.”
“Good to know.”
Julie joined in his laugh as she sat up. “If you ever get some time off, some significant time, maybe we can meet up again?”
“I’d like that very much.”
“Me too.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine, Aaron.”
“Are you certain?”
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
“It’s what I do,” Aaron stated, smile still playing on his lips.
“I know.”
And Julie liked him for it more than she felt she should.
"And death, and time shall disappear,- / Forever there, but never here!" ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Old Clock on the Stairs
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Where I Lived, and What I Lived For
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