lieutenantantichrist | [8] Video/Action for Goldenrod, backdated to around the 9th

[Jail is fucking boring.]

[They'd stuck Blake in a cell for a while until they figured out something about community service. It was a lot faster than back in the real world, but even crazy bullshit island has red tape. Blake's not sure whether that's nostalgic or not.]

[Cells are the same everywhere, too. He's never been on this side before. The novelty wears off fast.]

[He wishes he had a ball to bounce against the wall or something. They didn't even leave him any of his animals for company. Maybe that's a good thing. He doesn't know how he's going to explain this to Steve.]

[There's nothing but a book, and there's only so much anybody can take of The Dratini Code.]

[Blake leans back on the hard bunk and tosses his phone in one hand. When he got in here the one thing he was sure of was that he didn't want to talk to anybody, but nothing weakens that conviction like a couple hours alone with the hot, uneasy feeling in the back of his head.]

[He flips the phone open before he can think about it too much and says the first thing that comes to mind.]

[The face that comes up on the screen will look a lot less combative and more withdrawn than usual.]

Hey.

You think they have the Shawshank Redemption around here?

Maybe with one of those stupid puns in the title, and he digs his way out with one of those mole things. A little tiny one for finding rocks.

Seems like everything around here is like back home but turned the local kind of stupid. Do they even make any real original movies?

[In the crappy florescent lights shared by jails everywhere, the lines on his face look deep and weathered.]

I'm tired of nothing but the same old thing.

((OOC: Open for calls and visitors! Blake's in jail for punching Parker, but you don't have to broach the topic if you don't want to. He's not real proud of himself, so he'll pussyfoot around it unless asked directly. If you definitely don't want it to come up, just put in an OOC note.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[WHY DOES HE KNOW SO MANY OF THOSE.]

There's not a damn one of us who wouldn't rather see a live, safe kid than a dead or missing one, you know that. Doesn't mean there's not a right way and a wrong way to do things. We're supposed to be the good guys? It's our job to act like it. At the end of the day, you're not gonna see me complaining if a little kid came home alive because one of us went against the book to get her there. But we're supposed to be better than the guys we bring down. That's our job. Does that mean we have to work a damn lot harder to do it? Of course it does. That's our cross to bear. You don't cut corners on justice.

[He sighs.]

They don't take bail around here. Looks like you're in the can for the duration, pal.

[Because they're the best people.]

[Before this last case, or even in the middle, Blake would have told Albert to shut up and get off his back. His methods worked for him, he got things done, what else could anybody want?]

[And then it didn't work. And it's not going so great now, is it.]

[This isn't some starry-eyed naive rookie talking to him. It's clear Albert knows what he's talking about.]

I know what we're supposed to be.

Everybody starts out thinking that they can be the hero.

[For once in his damn life, Carter looks ashamed of himself.]

It won't be that long. They've got some kind of community service deal.

[It's never been easy, holding on to his idealism in the wake of what he faces every day at his job. But that's sort of the point, is that it's not easy, but someone has to do it and it has to be someone with the fortitude to keep doing it, even when faced with choices as hard as the one Blake was apparently looking at here.

Nobody likes seeing a dead kid. But you train yourself to stick by the book when it doesn't matter so you'll still do it in the times when it does. And sometimes, sometimes you pull a Cooper and throw the book out the window, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Coop managed to find the guy who killed Laura Palmer, sure. Against all odds, dancing on the volcano, writing his own book. But Coop was the guy who stopped him from finishing her autopsy, too, and there's another kid dead because of that delay. Sentimentality got in the way of doing it right.

That'd be a choice Coop would have to live with, if things had panned out different.]

Beth Pulaski. That was the name of the kid, the one that did it for me.

[The one where that bushy-tailed heroism shriveled and died. Also the case where he took up smoking. One of the senior agents had handed him a pack, said it'd make him feel better when he was looking green around the gills.

It didn't. But it covered up the stink of blood, anyway.]

So you do your time like anybody else. Just the system at work. By the time you're out, I ought to have some answers on the apartment — give you something to look forward to.

[Blake's idealism got dropped a long time ago. He's the better cop for it. That shit only gets in the way.]

[He can barely remember sentimentality. It's something that happens to other people.]

It's always the kids.

[His thick fingers fold together. He stares at them for a while.]

Tony Barbero. Gang crossfire. Nothing to do with him.

Couldn't even pin it to anybody and make it stick.

That was back before I started dealing with the real sick shit.

The people I deal with, most of the time they're either idiots who don't understand anything but fists, or they know how to game the system. If you don't get dirty, they walk out scot-free.

[He nods distantly.] Yeah, I'm not making any plans to bust out.

[Then he looks up, a little surprised] You'd really do that?

I doubt you'll find anything, but- I appreciate it.

That sound like justice to you? "Sorry, little Johnny, we couldn't get the murder charges to stick, but boy, I sure decked him one for you." One thing you pick up real fast in this line of work — there's no amount of justice in the world that's gonna bring that dead little kid back. But this is how good men burn out on the job. Too much crime, and the results we do get never seem to make a lick of difference.

[He shrugs.]

Yeah, I'll go look. We'd all sleep a little better if we knew for a fact whether you were right or wrong on this one.

Don't be an idiot. There's more than one scumbag behind bars because of something I got out of him, and it didn't come from asking nice.

[Getting mad feels good, but he can't hold onto it for long.]

Yeah. You shovel the shit and it just keeps piling up behind you.

You know the craziest part? Being here, I miss it. It's hard, ugly, and you may not actually be doing a damn bit of good, but it's doing something.

The local cops say the lady checked out clean, but I wouldn't trust them on anything tougher than getting a cat out of a tree.

[That gets him a dirty look from one on duty as she walks by. Blake scowls right back.]

[8] Video/Action for Goldenrod, backdated to around the 9th

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