Archive of Our Own ^beta

Weaver had stepped out for lunch and wasn’t ready to go back to the precinct yet. As much as the boys admired him, something about their esteem felt empty. He beat his palms against the steering wheel. He was restless. Had been for days. Choosing not to examine that feeling too closely, he decided to make the rounds to all his informants. Then he'd stop by Roni’s for a nightcap so maybe he'd be able to get some sleep. He parked the car. Rolling up in an unmarked black car scared off his informers, it was easier to approach on foot.

Static came over on his radio. The dispatcher relayed a report of multiple car alarms going off in a neighborhood. She requested someone in the field respond. A distraction, exactly what he was looking for. He plucked his transmitter off the dash and radioed in that he’d take it. It wasn’t far off from where he was now. He could still walk and release some of the edginess he couldn’t seem to shake.    

Speaking of distractions...there she was, his ultimate diversion. The woman who lingered on the backs of his eyelids when he tried to sleep at night. He ducked under an awning, allowing him to watch her slink towards him undetected. She strolled down the sidewalk like she owned the whole block. One shapely leg crossed over the other. She was wearing that little trench coat and heels again, the same ones she’d had on in his office.

He’d had a dream the other night that featured those heels in a starring role. He didn’t consider himself the BDSM type, in fact, he demanded he be the one in control. But in his fantasy, when she’d sat down in the chair of his office, something inadvertently fell off his desk. When he rounded the desk and crouched to retrieve it, she’d lifted one lithe leg and stuck the heel of that shoe in his shoulder. She applied pressure, forcing him onto his knees, at her feet and at her mercy. He hadn’t complained. In fact he’d woken up so hard he's been forced to give himself an unsatisfying release with his hand. Maybe that was where the unrest had come from.

Not that he needed a woman in his life. The one in front of him was evidence enough that they were more trouble than they were worth. He continued watching her advance towards him. She paused every few feet and casually tried the door of a car. Son of a bitch , he cursed to himself. Of course. Of course it was her.

He was about to emerge from his hiding place and interrupt her when a kid came barreling around the corner. He ran straight at Lacey. He’s gonna mug her , he thought. Weaver considered letting the ironic scene play out, a pickpocket stealing from a thief. But he pushed off the wall and moved to intervene. To his surprise, Lacey smiled when she saw the boy coming, the kind that showed her teeth. He’d never seen her smile like that. She was all smirks with him. The kid said something and she replied but Weaver was too far away to hear them. As he neared, she spotted him. Her eyes widened, obviously not as happy to see him . He assumed because he was about to ruin her grift. She quickly murmured something to the kid who sped off before Weaver could get a good look at him.

He nodded at the retreating boy, “Who was that?”

Lacey turned to watch the lad as he disappeared out of sight. She hesitated, “Ah….” She spun back around, “new customer for my burgeoning escort business,” she joked. “He couldn’t afford me.”  

Weaver let it go, thinking back to the charges he’d cleared up for her. “Keith bothering you lately?”

She stuffed her hands in her pockets. “No,” she bounced on her heels, “thanks to you.”   

He nodded to the line of cars down the street. “Is it you I’ve been getting calls about?”

“That depends,” she commented, unconcerned. “What streets are you getting calls about?”

“Spring and Madison.”

She shook her head, tendrils tumbling out of the pile on the top of her head, “Nope, not me.”

“But you know who is,” he leveled with her.  

“They’re my friends,” she told him flatly. The statement told him that she knew who it was and that she wasn’t going to tell him.  

“They’re going to get you into trouble I can’t get you out of,” he countered.

She shifted her weight onto one heel and frowned. “You don’t have to protect me,” she erupted defensively. “I’m not that Tilly girl you’re always hanging around.” She crossed her arms, “What’s up with that anyway?”  

He sniffed, “Tilly’s my best informant.”

She was gobsmacked. “The girl’s half crazy, living under a bridge, and you’re gonna tell me you go see her for her information ?”

He bared his teeth, “I’m afraid you got this backwards, sweetheart,” he hissed. “I’m the cop. You’re the criminal.”

She leaned in and glowered at him, “Well unless you got something to arrest me on I’m gonna be on my way.” She stalked past him, her heels clicking on the pavement.  

He thought about hauling her smart mouth in for questioning. But the idea of having her alone in a small room with him didn’t feel like the best for either of them.

He gave up the informant rounds and went back to his office instead and scowled at paperwork for a few hours. Roni’s was more urban professional than cop watering hole, but it was across the street from the station. He could usually have a drink in peace.

Normally the yuppies were scattered among the tables but tonight there was a crowd at the bar. As he approached, the sea of mostly men parted, revealing Lacey in the center, holding court. “Alright, this time twenty says I can bounce the cherry off the back of my hand, catch it in my mouth and tie the stem in a knot.” She called to Roni, requesting she bring them another glass of cherries.   

The air of disapproval must be wafting off him because many eyes turned to him. Eventually, Lacey noticed him. It’s not that what she so often was doing was illegal. It was that she continually made it his problem. She tilted her head at him, “Don’t you ever go home?” She wasn’t glaring at him anymore, so he suspected she was a few drinks ahead of him.

No, in fact, he rarely did go home to his sparsely furnished apartment. In fact, he was known to spend the night on a cot in one of the holding cells. “I could ask you the same question.” He nodded at Roni, who slid him a whiskey across the bar.

“Game’s over, boys,” Lacey announced. “The po-po showed up.” There were a few groans but the young men quickly found amusement elsewhere. She leaned towards him, forearm on the bar, letting her blouse gape open at the top. “I think you’re lonely,” she mused. That hit a little too close to the source of his restlessness for his comfort.

Roni, wiping her damp hands on a rag, came up behind Weaver. She leaned close to his ear, “Will you get her out of here, please? She takes all their money before they even order a second drink. I run a bar, not her personal racketeering business.”  

He was more than happy for an excuse to not comment on Lacey’s observation. He downed the rest of his drink. “Let’s go,” he issued the order in his official police business tone.  

She slid off the stool willingly enough, but he wrapped his hand around her forearm anyway. “So, lemme see,” Lacey counted off on the fingers of her free hand. “You take orders from Tilly, Roni...Tell me, Detective, if I tell you to turn around and spread ‘em, would you?”

“That’s enough,” he jerked them out the door. The crisp winter air hit them. He hoped it would sober her up a bit so she’d quit running her mouth and pushing his buttons.

“You take all your professional advice from a homeless girl and you keep another woman’s whiskey in your bottom drawer.”    

So she knew it was Roni who regularly supplied him with the stash in his desk. “It’s not like that,” he assured her.  

“What are you trying to do?” she wondered aloud.  

“My job,” he ground out.  

She shook her head, wrenching her arm out of his grip, “No, I don’t think that’s it. There’s something else going on with you.”

He sighed deeply. She had no idea . “Well, when you figure it out let me know.”

She wasn’t ranting at him anymore, but she was studying him curiously, which was more unnerving. He’d rather she yell at him. Making up her mind about something she lifted up on her toes and kissed him. He didn’t do anything. He didn’t even close his eyes. His mouth was a tight, thin line. He blinked. What was she doing? What was he doing? By the time he registered her soft pout, he felt her start to move away and he finally snapped into action. His hands clutched her waist and yanked her against him. She squeaked in surprise but wrapped her arms around his neck. He didn’t give himself an iota of a second to think about what he was doing before crashing his lips against hers.     

This . This is what he’d been missing, he thought when he tasted the cherry flavor on her tongue. The restlessness he’d been struggling with started to fade. There were a million reasons not to do this. But it felt like the beginning of an idea and he wanted to chase it all the way to its denouement. She pulled or he pushed them against the outside brick wall of the bar. His hands began to wander up and down her sides, but all that met him were winter layers. He couldn’t touch her properly like this. He wouldn’t be able to chase away the unease that had been plaguing him for days if he couldn’t feel all of her. He settled for biting and sucking at the exposed skin of her neck. Was he so desperate for her because he was lonely? Was he using her? Did it matter? She lived close to here, he knew she did. “Let’s go somewhere,” he murmured by her ear, before tracing the delicate skin there with his mouth.  

She froze in his arms. The suggestion, instead of stroking the fire that was beginning to burn in him, seemed to extinguish hers. “Um, not my place,” she seemed to read his mind.  

His suspicions about her living arrangements were renewed. He’d managed to snake his hand up under her coat and shirt and ran his thumb right above the waistband of her pants. He kept up his ministrations. Keep the perp distracted and the truth might slip out. “Why not?” he pressed. She opened her mouth and he could tell a lie was about to come out but was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. She visibly sagged in relief, her arms falling to their sides.

He yanked the phone out of his back pocket. The urge to pitch it into the street to get run over by a bus appealed to him strongly. “Weaver,” he answered tersely instead. He leaned one hand on the wall above her shoulder and held her gaze, boxing her in and signifying that their conversation wasn’t over.

While she couldn’t make out the words, Lacey heard the clipped, precise tones she recognized from the local news.

He ended the call. “It’s..” he began.

“Victoria Belfrey, I get it,” she pressed herself harder into the wall, putting whatever distance she could between them. He saw the moment her eyes closed off to him, the gentle curiosity replaced by casual indifference. She looked completely unaffected by what just happened. He felt utterly destroyed.  

He stood there, unwilling or unable to move.  

She crossed her arms and shook her head, “Face it, Detective, you sure do have a lot of women in your life,” she told him. “And I don’t want to be another. It might get too crowded,” she added a little quieter. She stood up straight, jutting out her chin. “Don’t worry about me. I can see myself home.” But he could see the hurt behind her steely gaze. She wanted to be chosen for a change, she wanted to be put first. And he couldn’t give her that.

He stood rooted to the spot.

“Your fanclub awaits,” she insisted, waving him off. “Go save everyone else, Detective,” she slid out from underneath his arm and rushed down the street.

A strong compulsion to go after her came over him but he quickly stamped it down. She was right. She was just another diversion, not the answer to his troubles. He was a fool to think for a moment that she was.