Adult Content Warning
This work could have adult content. If you continue, you have agreed that you are willing to see such content.
-
The Cleaner by NarminMalik
Fandoms: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
23 Jan 2026
Tags
Summary
Some people are stained.
Others are born to clean the stain.The city wakes up to a different male corpse almost every morning. All of them have criminal records, all of them lived under the shadow of dark crimes… and beside each one, the same detail is left behind: a worn, old teddy bear.
The press gives him a name: The Cleaner.
When the homicide division hands the case over to Commissioner Carol Aird, the investigation stops being merely professional. Carol is one of the coldest names in the Agency—respected both in the field and behind a desk. She lives by rules, not by emotions.
Until one night, beneath fog and rain, she walks into a small café and locks eyes with Therese, the newly hired barista.
Therese is gentle, quiet, and innocent—everything Carol has suppressed for years standing right in front of her. The bond that begins to form between them creates the first crack in the life Carol has built on control.
And some secrets seep through cracks.
Love doesn’t always heal.
Sometimes, it only makes the truth more painful.Because some secrets, once exposed,
alter justice itself…
and the person you love with it.