Work Text:
New York summers were absolute hell.
It was barely 9am when Lucas arrived at work but already he could feel the dampness of sweat in his hairline and sticking his t-shirt to the back of his shoulders. His complexion just wasn't suited to this excessive sunshine and he'd decided long ago that the gaming sessions that kept him and his friends locked in doors well past sundown were all that stopped him catching on fire. Or broiling alive like a lobster trapped in a cooking pot. During these months he really started to feel for those poor little guys.
The elevator doors opened into the blissfully cool morgue and, as he changed his damp shirt for a dry pair of scrubs, Lucas thanked every past medical advancement that had led doctors to conclude that corpses needed to be kept on ice if they were to be any use. In the past they'd preserved bodies by pickling them in alcohol – imagine if that had been the practice that stuck around. Yikes.
He was just hanging his Metro Card behind the computer when Dr. Washington came in. His boss barely glanced up from his clipboard before delivering a curt, “A little tardy aren't we, Lucas?”
“Sorry boss,” Lucas replied, utterly unperturbed. He was bang on time, but Dr. Washington never seemed happy unless he was nitpicking. Well, he didn't seem happy when he was nitpicking either but Lucas supposed that everyone needed a hobby. “Hard morning.” he continued, “Gaming night with the guys burning the midnight oil-”
“Yes, thank you Lucas. You're here to assist with this autopsy; the narration will not be necessary.”
“Got it.” He didn't pull a face at his boss's turned back, but it was a pretty close thing. Instead, he wheeled over the tray of equipment and drew the white sheet from their corpse and for a while they worked in Dr. Washington's coveted stuffy silence.
Lucas was beginning to wonder whether it was worth his boss's ire to simply jam his earbuds in his ears and turn his music up full blast for the rest of the session when they were interrupted by an unfamiliar voice from behind them: “Excuse me?”
They both looked up. A woman was walking towards them proffering an NYPD badge. She was tall and slim with lightly waving brown hair down to her shoulders, older than Lucas but considerably younger than Dr. Washington. She was pretty, Lucas noted, with large eyes and high cheekbones but the gold band around her ring finger halted that line of thought.
“Jo Martinez,” the woman announced. “NYPD. What have you got for us?”
“We are not painting by numbers here, Detective,” Dr. Washington said. “As much as I would like to simply pluck answers out of thin air I'm afraid you will have to exercise a little patience.”
Detective Martinez raised her eyebrows at his back, “Sorry.”
“We should be done soon,” Lucas told her, trying to throw her an apologetic look without Dr. Washington noticing.
“Oh that's fine, I can wait.”
Apparently Dr. Washington's blanket ban on noise also extended to visitors and the rest of the autopsy was passed in a rather awkward silence. Detective Martinez was clearly curious and attempting to investigate the lab without moving and disrupting the silence with her heels. The medical nerd in Lucas was itching to tell her all about their equipment and talk her through the process of dissecting the guy on the table in front of him. He kept his mouth shut, however, knowing how much it would aggravate his boss.
Finally, Dr. Washington was stitching the body closed again and Lucas set about clearing up the surgical tools. A phone rang in another part of the lab, and Dr. Washington pulled off his gloves, “I need to get that. I trust, Lucas, that you can give the Detective here the information she needs?”
“Sure, boss.”
“Very good.” He left the room and Lucas waited until the ringing was cut off before he turned to Detective Martinez.
“Sorry about him,” he said. “He can be... tetchy.”
“No kidding.” Detective Martinez glanced over her shoulder to make sure he was still out of earshot. “He always like that?”
Lucas started tossing the clipboard around in his hands. It wasn't in his nature to trash talk his superiors but quite frankly “tetchy” was putting it nicely and he was fairly sure that Dr. Washington had no such qualms about him.
“Pretty much,” he said, “I mean he's good at the job but he's not so much with the fun, you know?”
“Workaholic control freak?” Detective Martinez nodded. “Oh yeah, worked under a few of those in my time.”
“Really?”
“You kidding?” she grinned. “They're everywhere and most of the time they're our bosses and all they want is to make our jobs more complicated.”
Lucas sighed. He'd been hoping that he'd simply been handed a bum deal and that one day either he or his boss would transfer, or move on, or switch departments and he'd find himself in a better situation: one where he was actually allowed to open his mouth after he'd walked through the front door.
“Hey, it's not so bad,” Detective Martinez said. “So long as you keep your head down and stay on his good side.”
“I don't think Dr. Washington really has a good side,” Lucas told her. “At least not one I've ever seen.”
“Well, that's when you go out after work and talk about him behind his back.”
Lucas was about to reply but Dr. Washington chose that moment to reappear and the two of them found themselves springing to attention.
“Right,” Detective Martinez said, crossing her arms across her chest. “Can you give me that one more time? Don't wanna have any details missing from the report, you know?”
“Sure.” Lucas glanced down at his clipboard trying to make it seem like he wasn't just looking at it for the first time since his boss had left the room. “COD: blunt force trauma to the left side of the head, defensive cuts along his forearms made with a short blade, probably no more than three inches. There were blue fibres under his fingernails that'll be sent off to forensics. They could well have been pulled off his attacker's clothes in a struggle.”
“Got it.”
“Excellent,” Dr. Washington said. “Now, we're very busy here detective, I assume you can see yourself out?”
“Of course. Thank you for your time.” She threw a glance over at Lucas and, while her expression barely changed, her disapproval was clear. Lucas had to bite back a grin. Then she was walking away and Lucas took a final look down at the clipboard before wheeling the corpse to the refrigerators. Detective Martinez's ability to catch everything in a list of rapidly fired-off detail was impressive – though for her, he supposed, just part of the job. It wasn't at all uncommon for Lucas to get lost in a meandering thought and entirely miss his tube stop. He always came up with some excuse to avoid telling Dr. Washington that.
*****************
“Have you got all that down, Lucas?”
“Yes, boss.”
“Good. I got a call from the Precinct this morning. Detective Martinez is fielding this case, she's requested you to bring her the autopsy results.”
Lucas glanced up from where he was doodling on the corner of the form. “Me?” It had been a little over two weeks and several suspected murder vics since he'd last seen Detective Martinez. They'd been conferring with Detective Ruiz during that time so this request seemed completely out of left field.
“Indeed.” Dr. Washington said, “You've been granted the dubious honour of Messenger Boy. Don't ask me why, I've no idea.”
“Alright, I'll uh - ” He was dismissed with a wave of the hand and made his way over to the elevator, sticking his pen absently behind one ear.
Upstairs, he was greeted with an immediate wave of noise. The squad room was stuffy and crowded; the open space was scattered with desks and shelves. Lucas glanced around and spotted Detective Martinez across the room. Her back was turned and she was perched on the edge of a desk talking to another detective. Lucas weaved his way through the hubbub towards them, calling out, “Detective Martinez?”
She turned around, spotted him and hopped off the desk with an easy smile, “Hey Lucas.”
“You, uh, requested the autopsy results?”
“Right, yeah.” she said. “I could've come down, but I didn't think you'd mind getting away from Dr. Washington for a while.”
Lucas was surprised she'd remembered. “Oh, yeah, uh... actually yeah.” He glanced over his shoulder. Okay, he was an entire floor away but he wouldn't guarantee that stopping his boss. “Thanks.”
Detective Martinez chuckled. “Don't worry about it. Not exactly jumping to deal with him again, myself. Dr. Vaughan's been handling our vics recently.”
“Barely,” muttered the other detective from his desk.
Detective Martinez's expression turned into a look of intense exasperation that most people wouldn't have been able to get across without an exaggerated eyeroll.“Lucas, this is my partner, Detective Hanson. Hanson, this is Lucas, one of the Assistant MEs downstairs.”
“Hi,” Lucas offered.
Detective Hanson swivelled in his chair until he was fully facing him. “Lucas,” he said, “You know many kids? Nieces, nephews, anything like that?”
“Uh, no not really,” Lucas frowned, “Why?”
Detective Hanson sighed, “My own are just hitting the video game phase. Eldest has been badgering me for weeks to get Grand Theft Auto and at least I know enough not to let them anywhere near that.”
“Good luck with that,” Detective Martinez said. “Sooner or later one of their friends will get a hold of it. You wouldn't believe the number of parents who don't do basic fact checking before they buy stuff for their kids.”
“I can at least keep it out of the home.”
"Uh,” Lucas said. “If that's the kind of thing they're into you should try Portal 2.”
They both turned to look at him. “Portal 2?” Detective Hanson asked. “What happened to Portal 1?”
“Bit of a prototype,” Lucas said. “It's good, but it's got nothing on the sequel. Number 2's a platform puzzle game. Not the best graphics on the market but some really engaging characters and nothing dodgy, if you wanna avoid that.”
“Finally.” Detective Hanson turned to look at Detective Martinez, “Someone who speaks the lingo.” He returned his gaze to Lucas. “How d'you know this stuff?”
“Well, I'm no stranger to the console, you know. Playing through the early hours, just me and the controls, sometimes the gang as well.”
“Man, you'd probably get along great with my kids.”
“Anyway,” Detective Martinez cut across them, looking equal parts exasperated and amused, “Our murder vic?”
“Right!” Lucas drew his attention back to the clipboard in his hand, “The vic, yeah.”
*****************
This was just ridiculous. That stack of paper had not been that big when he'd left to go get more coffee.
Lucas groaned inwardly and glanced around the morgue half expecting to spot Dr. Washington lurking in a corner with extra paperwork ready to pounce when Lucas wasn't looking and make the already teetering pile grow even higher. He was confident that nothing he'd spent the past hour working on had ever been his but, as the most junior member of the team currently in the building, the overtime fell to him. The time and a half was not worth it.
He slumped back into the chair and took a big gulp of coffee wondering whether he had enough battery life left in his iPod to get him through to the end of this shift and back home. Knowing his luck almost certainly not. What was worse: filling out endless forms in silence or riding a tube full of weird strangers in silence?
Down the other end of the corridor the elevator doors slid open and Detective Martinez walked out. She had a form in one hand and made for Lucas the moment she spotted him greeting him with a wave and a, “You too, huh?”
“It's a beneficial experience according to Dr. Washington,” Lucas said, tossing his pen down onto the desk. “Whatever that means.”
Detective Martinez rolled her eyes. “We've all gotta pay our dues unfortunately. I need this signed off.” She handed over the form and Lucas reached for his pen again scrawling his signature.
“At least he didn't feel the need to stay and supervise me,” he said. “Not something I'd put past him.”
“And give up his precious time?” Detective Martinez asked. “Not even he could be that much of a control freak.”
“Probably,” Lucas conceded, handing her form back.
“Thanks. Hey, why don't you come join us upstairs? We've just sent Lewis on a pastry run, should be more than enough to go around.”
“Well, I don't ever wanna be the guy that says no to pastries.” Lucas pushed his chair back and slipped his pen into his breast pocket. “Thanks Detective.”
“Call me Jo.” Between them they gathered up the stack of paperwork and hauled it to the elevator. Up in the Precinct there was only a small gathering of detectives still around; several desks had been hauled away from their stations and grouped together in the middle of the room. Jo deposited Lucas's files in an empty space and pulled over a chair for him. Hanson glanced up at the papers and raised one eyebrow.
“Christ, Jo, you only went down to get a signature. What happened?”
“Found a victim of management laziness,” she said, slipping into her own chair.
Lucas sat down next to her. “She lured me here with promise of pastries.”
“Watch out, that's what she tells them all.” Hanson returned his attention to the form he was filling out, “Next thing you know you'll be hanging from your ankles at her apartment with a hole in your neck.”
Jo snorted. “You kidding? Sean would rat me out to you guys for getting blood all over the carpet.”
“Alright, so you'll do it downstairs.”
“If she did Dr. Washington would just gripe about having to find people to cover my shifts.” Lucas said. Jo patted him sympathetically on the arm.
The door swung open and a tall, skinny man with a wild tangle of brown hair and a face full of freckles came in. In his arms were several cardboard boxes with Patisserie Toujours written on the side which were met with enthusiastic cheers from the rest of the room. He set them down in the middle of the crowd of tables and Jo immediately reached across and snagged one dragging it down towards them.
The pastries inside were the posh, fussy variety: the kind with names such as swirl and profiterole. Hanson poked through the box dubiously. “These things are ridiculous,” he muttered. “What's wrong with a decent Bear Claw?”
“Shut up and eat one,” Jo said, mouth already full.
“Your husband's a bad influence on you,” Hanson grumbled.
“Ah, come on, this is like the one thing he's right about.”
Lucas tentatively picked one out: something square with a sort of jam in the middle and bit into it. It was good, he decided. His assistant-level salary meant that he couldn't often afford things like this.
Jo glanced at him with a smirk as he took a larger bite. “Good, right?”
Lucas nodded, and Hanson rolled his eyes.
*****************
The end of his shift saw Lucas down in the morgue preparing the latest John Doe to be refridgerated. Jo was leaning up against the counter, having come down to make sure that this wasn't her area.
“Nope,” Lucas told her, “Cut and dry case of exposure. We'll get his profile out, see if anyone knows him, but he was probably just a local bum. Nothing more we can really do.”
“It's weird,” Jo told him now, as he covered the body up. “The homicides are the only ones we have to worry about. It's easy to forget how many other bodies come through here.”
“Yeah, it can get pretty crowded,” Lucas said. “But that's okay – we see a lot of natural deaths, stiffs who just need to be put on ice until they go off to the funeral homes. It's nice to see that not everyone gets butchered.”
“I guess so,” Jo said thoughtfully. “But with the murders... at least we're granting them some justice, you know? It's not going to bring them back but the people they leave behind get some sort of resolution for what it's worth.”
Lucas nodded as he wheeled the John Doe into the next room. “The worst are always guys like this though,” he called back. “Everyone should have someone to notice that they're gone.”
“Absolutely.” Jo appeared in the doorway. “I should get back upstairs but, hey, some of us are heading over to the bar down the street when we get out of here. You wanna come with?”
“Uh, yeah sure! Let me just finish up here.”
“Sure, we'll meet you out front.” She left in the direction of the elevator and Lucas set about completing the last of his end-of-day tasks. Then he slipped on his jacket, grabbed his bag and Metro Card, and headed for the front of the Precinct where he found the small crowd of detectives, including Jo and Hanson, already assembled.
The five minute walk to the bar was filled with amicable chatter that, once they arrived, Lucas found matched the interior's warm, cosy feel. He was well acquainted with the bars and pubs in his area but this part of town was really only a workplace to him. Apparently he'd been missing out.
The group seated themselves at a round table near the back and almost immediately a couple of them were sent away for the first round. Once settled, Hanson leant over the table and got Lucas's attention. “Meant to say: that video game you recommended was a godsend, the kids haven't been so quiet in years.”
“Never fails,” Lucas grinned. “Just wait 'till they move on to the real action adventure games, those things keep you occupied for hours.”
“I'll probably be coming back to you when they do,” Hanson told him.
“Always happy to help,” Lucas said. “They're just starting out so they'll be hooked on the modern games for a while yet. It's a shame, really, some of the old text based games were fantastic but they don't have the graphics so they just get overlooked-” He glanced around and realised no one had a clue what he was talking about. “...Glad they're enjoying it.”
“Careful,” Jo said. “Carry on like that he'll have you babysitting before you know it.”
“Uh … ”
“You tryna imply that I fob my kids off onto people?” Hanson asked, leaning back and folding his arms.
Jo raised on eyebrow, “Are you seriously going to try and defend yourself? Be realistic, Hanson.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, then shrugged, “Maybe you're right but they don't wanna talk to me these days anyway.”
At that point the drinks arrived at the table. Lucas took a sip of his lager then suddenly remembered something. He turned to Jo. “Oh right! Guess who's getting a new boss!”
“Really? What happened to Dr. Washington?”
“He's still around but a new guy's starting so everyone's getting shuffled about a bit.”
“That's great!” Jo nudged him, “Told you – just keep your head down and do your time. Do you know who the new guy is?”
“Not really,” Lucas said, “His name's Dr ... Morgan? Or something? Either way, he's gotta be an improvement on Dr. Washington.”
“Here's hoping.” Jo tipped her glass in a salute before drinking. Then another detective – an older, dark skinned woman with the kind of artful make up job that made it look like she wasn't wearing any at all – drained the last of her pint and launched into a loud and confusing anecdote that, judging by the reactions from the rest of the table, she'd told many times before.
Lucas settled back into his chair, enjoying being in the centre of this web of conversations. In all the time that he'd been at the morgue he'd never thought to blur the line between work and fun, colleagues and friends. Perhaps because work had always been the place where he was told to keep quiet (and God, if nothing else changed with his new boss, please let him be allowed to talk on duty again. Prolonged silence just wasn't in his nature).
He realised he was grinning. The alcohol must already be going to his head. He dug into his pocket for his roughly folded bills, and stood up.
“Next round on me, guys?”