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he didn't make a habit of dealing with drunk and disorderlies. sometimes, jean vicquemare was just in the wrong place at the wrong time (which always happened to be on his off fucking time). it was like revachol wanted him to live at the precinct.
fuck revachol. and he thought maybe the city heard him because that was when a purse slammed into his jaw with a stunning force. he staggered, barely.
“i'm too old for this shit.” he shifted his jaw, hearing more than feeling the loud pop it made. a glob of blood and saliva spit out of his mouth, darkening the macadam beneath his feet. he flicked a tongue along his teeth, making sure they were all accounted for. there didn't seem to be any loose either.
anger boiled under his skin. what the fuck was in that purse, a fucking brick? the heavily intoxicated woman attempted another swing but jean was ready for it. he grabbed her wrist and turned it just enough to make her drop the makeshift weapon. when it clattered to the ground, it popped open and the contents spilled out. there was, in fact, a brick in there. and a gun.
“you fucking serious?” at least he was still in uniform after his shift.
he pulled his cuffs from belt and more than happily slapped them over the woman’s wrists. she fought like hell but lost steam pretty quickly. she wasn't even spitting nonsense at him anymore. only then did jean bend to scoop everything back into the bag and tuck it under his arm.
hand firmly on her upper arm, jean made toward the precinct, only a two minute walk away. two minutes is how long he managed to be off shift. two fucking minutes.
he passed her off to processing and considered just going home. the report could wait until the morning. if he went upstairs now, the likelihood of him getting pulled into something else was high. he contemplated for a moment, fingers coming up to scratch at his beard.
it was better than going home and staring at the ceiling for hours.
with a long-suffering sigh for no one but himself to hear, he made his way back to his desk. jean pulled out the forms he needed from a desk drawer and began to fill them out.
everything was done in less than fifteen minutes and not a soul came through to bother him. it was almost unnerving but he didn't give enough of a fuck to put any real thought into it.
jean signed his own paperwork and dropped it in the outgoing box on his desk. he felt exhausted and his jaw hurt. he hadn't looked in a mirror but he could feel the bruise blossoming across his skin. his beard would cover most of it, he hoped.
usually taking a hit like that would exhilarate jean. it would make his heart race and his expression crack into a manic grin with a near giddiness in his movements. now he feels nothing at all. there was the brief anger but since that seemed to be his norm he didn't think it could count as feeling something.
no, there was a distinct feeling of nothingness. a black void that lived in his chest. it had been there a long time. he hadn't felt in a long time.
and, really, was he even remembering the past exhilaration correctly or was he just putting false memories and feelings into his mind to try and fill the nothingness in his chest?
god, he needed a cigarette.
he found himself on the roof a few minutes later, cigarette lit the moment the door opened into the cooling air. it was nearly dark. the neon lights and shouts from below and honking of the freeway was almost overstimulating. at least it was something.
he went to the edge of the roof, forearms coming to rest on the railing that was too rusty and unstable to be considered safe. he took a deep drag of his cigarette, holding the smoke in his lungs as long as he could bear it. he hung his head and sighed, the smoke escaping his lungs as he looked down to the street below. jamrock nightlife was just beginning to come alive.
he almost pitied the evening patrol officers. almost.
up here, on the roof, stories above the rest of the city, jean wondered not for the first time what it would be like to hit the ground. would he feel anything? would he feel the thrill of the fall, his stomach in his throat? maybe he would feel terrified, regret too late a decision he couldn't take back. maybe he would feel free. happy for a fleeting moment. would he even feel himself hit the ground with a sickening slam or would he finally fade into the fucking pale?
thinking about it should have elicited something inside of him. anxiety, terror, hopelessness, a complete mental break. still, nothing.
with a final drag of his cigarette, jean straightens and steps away from the railing. he stubs the butt out on the rusting railing and flicks it into the corner where a pile of finished cigarettes laid. he didn't start the pile but he wasn't going to clean it up either.
he made his way back through the precinct and outside to the street. it was a seventeen minute walk home. maybe he would stop at that club a little out of the way, the one with a basement under a back room, where illegal boxing matches and fights occurred. the rcm didn't involve themselves unless they had to.
maybe punch after punch after punch would get him out of this fucking daze. he felt like a ghost in his own life. he wonders, again, how close he had to get to death to feel something. and if he died trying, well. he shrugged to himself. it wouldn't be his problem anymore.
as he made his way to that shitty club, it dawned on him he hadn't taken his meds for two days. he stopped abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk, hands coming up to scrub at his face. he ignored the pain in his jaw.
with a sigh of defeat, he shifted course toward home.