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Fulbright had decided to dress down for tonight. Gumshoe did say it was going to be a bit casual, which is something he was a bit too desperate for. Wearing a suit all the time really did inspire a appetite for some ‘lower class’ cuisine, at least in a guy like him.
He felt a bit bad, being out of his suit around a co-worker (and neighbor) who saw him in nothing else but it. Though, did it even matter when he was bundled up in his favorite black coat? He could just not take it off and it wouldn’t make a different in appearance. Oh stop, now he’s overthinking it..
He huffed a warm puff of air into his hands, rubbing them together to stir a bit of warmth. Of course he left his gloves in his apartment, of course he was standing out on the sidewalk in the cold like a fool. Gumshoe had told him to wait outside for some reason. It was quite a surprise that the headlights slowly pulling towards the curb was not some random stranger there to ask him what he was doing looking lost.
Instead, the smiling face of Gumshoe gestured for him to get in. A curious yet slightly proud feeling filled Fulbright as he walked around the front of the car, clambering into the passenger's side. To be frank, it was far from a modern day car, but it was a car .
“I didn’t know you got a car! Detective Gumshoe’s moving up in the payroll? Congratulations!” Fulbright chirped as he closed the door behind him.
He grabbed onto Gumshoe’s shoulder and shook him playfully before buckling in, and Gumshoe chuckled nervously.
“Well to be frank with you,” Gumshoe blushed, “it’s a rental I got for tonight. The place we’re goin’ doesn’t have any bus stops around it. I went there with Prosecutor Edgeworth in his real snazzy speedster of a car, and it was the best food I’d had in a while!”
“When I don’t share my food with you, you’re eating instant ramen and microwavable macaroni, so anything is the ‘best food you’ve had in a while’.” Fulbright verbally jabbed, a beam in his tone. “Didn’t you eat a steak bone off a crime scene’s plate one time?”
“Don’t judge me, pal! I was hungry! I need it all for all my muscle!”
“Alright, alright! Well, we should get going.” Fulbright, being the law abiding citizen he was, made sure to buckle up! “If it’s good for you then it’s good enough to fuel justice.”
After pulling away from the curb, Fulbright watched out the windows at the lights of the city’s night. He couldn’t see the stars, of course not, but all the glimmering lights of people in buildings, streetlamps, and stores were their own sort of stars. Maybe he’s been living in the city for too long, but passing under the orange lamps on the highway that clearly hadn’t been changed in years was its own special form of night-time pleasure.
“It is really unfortunate that Prosecutor Edgeworth pays you so little.” Fulbright felt he was overthinking it by bringing up an old topic from minutes ago after a long stretch of silence, but.. “It’s almost like you’re working a retail job. How is justice supposed to prevail if all of her warriors are malnourished and sleep deprived?”
“I’m a strong guy, pal, malnourished or sleep deprived or just one of the two.” Gumshoe smirked like that was something to take with pride. “It’s all worth it to work together with Prosecutor Edgeworth. We’re like a dynamic duo who can’t be stopped!”
“I stand by my point! You may be good now, but how much better would you be at defending justice and defeating the Dark Age of Law if you had a full stomach?”
“Oh, now you’re really stirring up my stomach, Bob. Can’t ya wait until we get to the place? We still got an hour or so of road to go!”
Fulbright scoffed good-naturedly and gazed back out the window.
They would chat here or there about this or that, but nothing really stuck. Fulbright knew they didn’t have a lot in common, so he kept the conversation quaint, tidy, and within a comfortable box. Not really friends yet, but too well-met to be just acquaintances.
Fulbright found Gumshoe rather charming, if bumbling and a little too laser focused on Edgeworth to notice anyone else who might’ve been interested in him. His dedication to one person almost made him puppy-like, though Fulbright couldn’t say he wasn’t a willing dog for some people as well.
Hey, there’s a lot of pride in being one, alright? He loves his job— fighting for justice right alongside seekers of truth and purveyors of goodness! Because that’s what being in law is all about, he’s more than sure!
“So.. Is there anyone ya like?” Gumshoe decided to ask.
“Oh, I like plenty.” Fulbright answered simply.
“Nah, I mean like, y’know.. Like like?”
“Like like..” Fulbright parroted.
Most people would’ve made fun of the simple way of asking who you’re romantically interested in, but the both of them are simply just Like That. At least they could be comfortable being silly and a little childish in each other's presence.
“I’m a career man! I don’t have time for romance when there’s injustice in the world that I can do something about. Maybe when I retire I’ll look for someone. What about you?”
“Well, yeah, I’d say there might be someone I’d like.. But I ain’t too sure if y’know, uh.. She would like me back.”
Awkward silence permeated the entire car. Gumshoe flinched.
“ She ?” Fulbright’s expression flattened as he raised one eyebrow. “Did you just decide to quit being gay?”
“I didn’t remember if you knew.” Gumshoe sputtered, nervously blushing. He pulled at his collar with one of his hands. “Sorry pal, I’m a bit frazzled. I haven’t really eaten too much today.”
Fulbright exhaled a soft throat-contained laugh at Gumshoe’s expense. He seemed to take it in stride, thankfully. Fulbright was glad he could be there for Gumshoe and to talk to him about his identity. The trust.. Man.
“Well, who’s the guy you’ve got your eyes on?” Fulbright felt he already knew the answer and it showed.
“You’ve probably already a guess, don’t ya?”
“It’s Prosecutor Edgeworth, obviously.” Fulbright droned.
He didn’t know what Gumshoe saw in the guy. If anything, he was a bit off putting and a little evil. Was Fulbright bitter over the whole ‘forging evidence’ accusations thing from his youth? Yes, and he’s going to take it to his grave, probably. He got a whole bunch of people convicted with potentially false evidence— where’s the justice in that? At that point you’re just playing a video game about how many points you can get before you get a game over.
Edgeworth had gotten slightly better after the arrest and execution of the accursed villain of justice, Manfred von Karma, but the stench of injustice followed the red prosecutor like a bad fart. It was off putting and enough to wrinkle his nose at, yes sir! Thank goodness Gumshoe was stuck with him; Gumshoe was probably the only person who could deal with the dutch oven that was Edgeworth.
Not that he’d say any of this stuff out loud. This sort of inner monologue is for his bottled up rude emotion collection and for his therapist to examine after the fact.
“Yeah..” Gumshoe scratched his gruff chin with a finger like he were a lovesick kid. “I don’t know, there’s somethin’-”
“Gumshoe, you know what they say about romancing your boss, right?” Fulbright waved him off.
Gumshoe pouted and shook his head. Fulbright sighed.
“It’s never a good idea. There’s gonna be a power imbalance, and you’re going to get yourself in trouble! Like, even if he’s a good guy,” which he wasn’t, “that’s still going to be there. It applies to all branches of business, that’s why it’s always said to not do that sort of thing.”
“So what do you think I should do?”
“I think you need to become Chief of Police to match his Chief Prosecutor status, then we can talk about romancing Edgeworth.”
Fulbright didn’t doubt that the red-suited demon would take Gumshoe’s poor puppy love and just use it to squeeze more work hours out of him for lower pay. Until Gumshoe was on equal standing, no way was Fulbright going to allow it to happen. Nuh-uh.
Gumshoe looked just about ready to whack his head into the steering wheel and drive the both of them into a ditch because of the harsh— but real— truth of the gap between them.
“So what do I do? Just let him go until then?” Gumshoe pouted. “And I don’t know if I’m cut out for that sort of job.. And who could replace Gant?”
“Um, you , buddy.”
“Well!!” Gumshoe sounded exasperated.
“Think of it as a grand show of love!” Fulbright chuckled.
“Alright, Bob.”
“Until then you should maybe try dating within your ‘power range’, see what sort of guys you like. Like, look around the precinct or something?” Fulbright said, a bit hopeful.
Awkward silence returned, and Fulbright looked out the window as the city had continued to thin out. It began to look a tad more rural as the highway narrowed, fast-food joints on either side of it.
Fulbright felt his leg bouncing. His fingers drummed against the window’s side as he watched in silence. He grunted restlessly as he struggled to pull his flip phone from his coat pocket, flicking it open and the screen illuminating his face in its ‘maximum brightness’ glow. He could’ve blinded someone, but he was wearing sunglasses so it didn’t matter.
No texts, no calls, and worst of all— no games. He slipped it back into his coat quietly, then resumed his watch of the dark countryside. Occasionally, he glanced at the clock to check the agonizingly slow progression of time, but it was mostly that.
The conversation after that one was a bit thin and half-hearted. Fulbright could only hope that the dinner would inspire a bit more intriguing conversation. He actually was deliberately saving some of his better conversation topics for when they got there, and for when they had to ride back.
The boring conversations had him looking more at the clock then at Gumshoe. Minutes passed. Ten, Thirty, an hour... It was going to be a long night.
What was going to make it even longer was Gumshoe pulling over onto the side of the road. A quaint little rest stop, made for trucks coming into the city. Was it seriously this far away? How could a restaurant this far out be worth going to?
“Why’re we stopping?” Fulbright shifted uneasily in his seat.
“One sec, somethin’s botherin’ me.” Gumshoe began to fiddle with the inside of his jacket, clearly a bit annoyed.
“If you got a text, I could answer it for you.” Fulbright offered, but Gumshoe shook his head.
“No, it ain’t that. One sec. Could you actually open the window for a second? It’s so stuffy in here!” He grunted, then unbuckled his seatbelt to better adjust himself.
Fulbright sighed half-heartedly and leaned to look out the window. Nothing but darkness out there. They must’ve been a couple miles outside of the city now.. Maybe it was a restaurant at a golf club? He’s been to a few of those..
Oh, right, the window. It’s a bit cold, but.. Yeah, it was too stuffy in this little lemon car. As Fulbright rolled the window, the cold nipped at his nose and face, blowing the cold moisture off the road to dribble onto him.
“Ooh, chilly. How much further do we have to go, you think?” Fulbright was getting a little too hungry. “And what did you say it was there? Steakhouse, right?”
“Yeah, and we’re almost there, actually.”
“I’m absolutely starved, so that’s good!” Fulbright laughed to himself. “All the typical stuff on the menu?”
“Something like that, yeah.” Gumshoe laughed with him. Fulbright thought he heard the engine shut off. “Alright, let's get this show on the road.”
Fulbright looked back at Gumshoe, turning his head fully around to feel a revolver’s silenced barrel brush against his forehead.
Gumshoe looked like he was face to face with a grim reaper who’d already taken his soul. His eyes were almost glassed over with his apathy, his mouth a neat and unemotive line. He never saw a man more horrific than Gumshoe in that moment.
It’s not like Bobby Fulbright could just NOT show up to work the next day. Work was the man’s life, see, and if he missed a day of work he’d be doing overtime the whole week over until he felt he’d made up for losing a day of ‘doing real justice’.
It left very little time to get settled, but considering the circumstance, it was going to be fine. He reassured himself it was going to be fine— not that he really needed to, confidence exuded from all facets of his body in a prideless sort of way.
Fulbright perked up at the sight of Gumshoe coming into the precinct. He hadn't saw him when he was doing his jog over, but he was understanding. He's the sort of guy who thinks others should sleep in, after all, though maybe don't apply that for being late for work.
"Hey pal, I'm awful sorry I missed out on-" Gumshoe tried to apologize, but Fulbright laughed heartily and pat him on the back.
"I already got your text last night! I was busy with something else anyhow, like I told you! No need to apologize."
"Oh, I didn't get that." Gumshoe scratched his neck. "I don't know what happened, I just dozed off while watching the television! Maybe I drank something that had a sleeping agent in it? You never know with drink brands these days, putting in any brand new chemical into their juice to make it taste better."
Fulbright startled slightly at that assessment.
"I think your days of missing out on full seven hour sleep cycles are catching back up with you, my friend." Fulbright pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a semi-serious air. "Justice may never sleep, but you do!"
"Probably, Bob, probably. When should we reschedule it for?"
"I've got an opening next Saturday. I've been dying to check out this new steakhouse in town."
“Hey, Fulbright, cut the watercooler chat and check this out, this is your more thing than mine.” Candice waved him over from across the room. Some rookie detective she was assisting was clearly having trouble with some reports.
Fulbright saluted Gumshoe and marched right on over. Gumshoe seemed a little flustered by it, giving a half-hearted wave back as he left to get ready for work.
As they exchanged spots, Candice gave him a knowing smile.
“Oh right, before I go, how was your night with Gumshoe? He was talking his head off about it yesterday, just wouldn’t shut up about how excited he was for it. Hope you boys didn’t get up to anything.”
“Unfortunately, something came up.” He tapped his pointer fingers together with a pout. “I forgot to call him and tell him that I was going to be busy last-minute. He texted me earlier today telling me that he accidentally fell asleep watching television and missed it too, by three hours! But I know that won’t dampen our partnership, because we’re both working towards justice together, and nothing is better than that!” He ended it with a salute.
Candice studied him, raised an eyebrow, smirked, then walked away with a humored exhale out of her nose.
Fulbright had a job to do, so he looked over the case file with a steady eye.
"So, what do we have here?" Fulbright knew he needed to ask to make the rookie feel like they were actually doing anything helpful.
“It’s a-a uh,” the rookie detective muttered, “they’re thinking it’s a homicide. There's no way the guy set himself on fire then threw himself into the pen, there's no signs of uh, uh, fire, anywhere in the vicinity. We couldn’t find much there, it’s actually just that one piece left, the one in the picture. Apparently when the farmer came out to feed his pigs this morning, he u-uh, found that in the middle of the pen.”
A burnt hand. Of all the body parts to be left over from pigs eating a corpse, thankfully for the side of potential justice, it was the one that could maybe have some fingerprints on it.
Can’t say he hadn’t seen something like this before.
“There hasn’t been something like this since those mobsters were still doing business around town. What sort of horrible criminal could do something like this ?”
Fulbright wondered.