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It started as a standard call to action. How did he let it get this bad?
It wasn't like things never got out of hand, it just didn't seem like it would come from a situation involving a little girl and a bag of groceries.
*****
Cuajinais got a call at 12:49 PM. Which was certainly unusual, getting unscheduled calls. He always scheduled his calls, too risky otherwise. Chapulín said it was obsessive, Cuajinais called it precautionary.
But despite their rarity, they always had a pattern to them, these calls. It was either a death threat from another criminal or a notice that one of his crew members got put down.
But as many great men will tell you, life has no greater meaning than to fuck with you when you think you've got the patterns memorized. And so Cuajinais got a call from the police station.
*****
The car ride was cold and rushed. He sped through traffic, swerving and weaving through citizens who barely registered to him in the moment because this was it. This is the day he has to identify his lover's body.
Cuajinais was on autopilot thinking of all the horrible things that could await him beyond the threshold. Chapulín could be beaten, dead, or worse. Hell, he didn't even want to know what "worse" meant to him.
Finally he was at the station. Finally he didn't have to wonder anymore, he could walk in the door and see for himself exactly what the officer meant when he said he had his friend.
And he was afraid to.
Even if he had to keep it hidden underneath his luxury hat and expensive suit.
"Officer Valdez." A lanky older man greeted him with a handshake. It was firm and cordial, but his eyes seemed judgemental.
Cuajinais wanted to squeeze his hand until he felt it give under the pressure. He didn't, and instead hoped the officer couldn't tell how sweaty and nervous he was.
*****
Chapulín had been detained by the police and was currently sitting in a room with two officers, Cuajinais, and handcuffs around his wrists.
He didn't seem scared or ashamed, strangely enough. No, instead Chapulín was angry. Or rather, he was irritated.
And Cuajinais was delighted. Not just that he was alive and seemingly well.
"What's the charges? Demolish a home again trying to catch a rat?"
"Nothing yet."
Cuajinais was intrigued. Chapulín could speak about his "feats" for hours if someone let him. It was uncharacteristically stoic in this room.
Cuajinais watched his lover's dark eyes flicker to the officers near him. He stood up straight and poised, suit shuffling in the quiet of the room. The hum-buzz of the light above was the only sound filling the room before Cuajinais turned sharply with an expression of cocky intimidation plastered on his face.
"Gentlemen," he addressed the officers.
"My associate here and I need a moment to talk in private."
The two men looked at eachother suspiciously.
"We can't let you do that sir."
"Please, call me Cuajinais. I understand your hesitation, but I promise nothing bad will come of it."
The men sucked in a sharp breath of air at the mention of his name. Cuajinais, laden with blood and lead. Cuajinais the terrible, the merciless.
Cuajinais, the desperately hoping they wouldn't actually call his bluff because he forgot to bring his gun today and didn't really want to hurt anybody.
"Ten minutes. Don't make me regret it."
The other officer leaned his neck out and threw the other a look. The kind that said "what the everloving shit are you doing?" And still walked out the door behind him.
Creeaaak. Click.
"Cuajinais is was horrible! A little girl needed help finding the groceries her mom sent her out to get- really, what kind of mother sends a child to the store for her alone? I mean, my mom did the same but I'm a boy so it's really not-"
Cuajinais clapped a hand over Chapulín's mouth.
"Why did you get arrested, make it quick."
It was a futile request.
"I'm getting to it! So I was looking in the store cuz' you never know, y'know? And while I'm in there this big car pulls up and the guy inside starts talking to the little girl!"
"Chapulín-"
"Hold on, and he says - I asked the girl, I wasn't there when he said it - he says he knows what she's looking for and can take her to them, and he asks her to get in the car! Meanwhile I'm still in the store, and I'm asking the guy to check the security footage and he says they don't have cameras!"
"Chapulín-"
"Wait man, I'm getting there! So I walk out after getting zero progress on the disappearing groceries, and I see her getting in his car! And I didn't know if she knew him or if he was a stranger, and really, her mom should've taught her stranger danger if she was gonna send her out like-"
"CHAPULÍN!"
Cuajinais shouted above the raving man in front of him. Chapulín was silent again. Cuajinais rubbed his temples in exacerbation.
"Why. Did the police. Arrest you."
Chapulín looked down at the ground, finally ashamed about something enough to mumble instead of rant.
"I got into a fight with the car guy."
Cuajinais stopped dead in his tired tracks. His face held a blank expression, save for the large shocked eyes and furrowed brows. His head shot up.
"You beat up a pedo?"
Chapulín threw his hands up dramatically, clearly frustrated enough to throw aside shame.
"Yes! I did it! I started hitting the guy! Forgive me for not wanting a kid to get abducted!" He shouted at the ceiling!
Cuajinais barely stifled laughter.
"YOU. Of all people, got arrested for assault and battery?!" Cuajinais let loose cackles that nearly had him doubled over.
"And then the shop owner called the police! Like I was the one doing something wrong!" The other man stomped his feet and sulked angrily.
"Did you hit him with the hammer or were you just going bloody knuckles? Oh man, I wish I was there! I totally would've been your escape car!"
"It's not funny!" Chapulín pleaded. "Violence isn't the way to make the world safer! It only-"
Cuajinais was collapsed in a fit of laughter on the white table, banging his fist on the surface.
At this point Chapulín was getting nowhere and was beginning to regret having this man as his emergency contact.
"Get me outta this one, man! I didn't do anything!"
Cuajinais sat up, adjusted his tie, and removed his hat. Every time he tried to get serious again, a small snicker would emerge from his mouth.
"It's not like I don't fight people! I hit people all the time! It's just..." He sighed. "I busted him up real bad. And I don't even feel guilty, which is making me feel guilty because I don't!"
"Okay, okay! OBVIOUSLY im getting you out of here. But don't you think it's a liiiitle-"
"No."
"A little bit-"
"If the word 'unfunny' was printed on every single nanoangstrom of every one of the trillions of cells in my body it wouldn't equal one one-billionth of how unfunny this situation is."
Cuajinais sat with a pursed smile. The kind white tourists give you when they cross you on the street.
"... So do you have your bail yet?"
*****
The legal system is a fickle and expensive mistress. Which is to say it is corrupt and easily manipulated by those in power.
And Chapulín was never more grateful for this fact than when he got to drive home next to his husband, joined not in marriage but in having an extensive criminal record.