Kelly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gonerunningaway) wrote2012-08-30 05:10 am
gonerunningaway) wrote2012-08-30 05:10 am
Entry tags:
- canon-compliant,
- character: arnold french,
- character: captain oliver queenan,
- character: frank costello,
- character: gwen,
- character: mrs. elizabeth queenan,
- character: original male character,
- character: robert messer,
- character: sean dignam,
- fandom: the departed,
- for: a big bang,
- pairing: capt. queenan/mrs. queenan,
- pairing: sean dignam/robert messer,
- rating: nc-17,
- setting: pre-canon,
- type: fic: chaptered fic
Tide-Water Dogs, Chapter Twenty-One
Title: Tide-Water Dogs, Chapter Twenty-One
Fandom: The Departed
Rating: NC-17
Word Count (this chapter): 2,095
Warnings this chapter (highlight to view): Explicit sex, homophobia, reference to prostitution, death threats.
Chapter Twenty-One
“It’s solid,” Marc Goetz says. His eyes are darting and he’s holding himself in a near fighting stance, and Sean believes him. A glance tells him Queenan does too.
“When?” Queenan asks.
“Three days.”
“How do you know?” Sean asks bluntly.
Goetz laughs. “I’m in on it. I’ll be there.”
Queenan nods. “So will we. You watch everything and do not give yourself away. I can’t protect you if you do.”
“Believe me, Captain, I know that.”
“Go on,” Queenan says, “and act normally. Text me when you have details.”
Goetz nods. “I will.” He strides off, arms hanging by his sides, his muscles looking tense. Sean watches him a moment before turning to Queenan.
“A gun sale,” he says.
“If we can’t nail Costello on that,” Queenan mutters. In a more normal voice, he continues, “I’ll put it together. I need you on the paperwork while I take care of the people.”
“Why do I always get the fun jobs?” Sean asks, smirking. “I’m starting to think you don’t trust me to be civil.”
“I trust you,” Queenan says, “but I don’t trust others yet. We’re working up to that.”
“They better be adults on Saturday,” he mutters. There’s no way Queenan is going to keep him away from this.
“We’ll have cameras up wherever it is,” Queenan says, like he didn’t even hear that, even though Sean knows he did. “Elizabeth’s going to be annoyed. She was planning to have you and Robert over.”
“Yeah, he’s not going to be too happy either.” They start off in the opposite direction from Goetz. “We had plans.”
“Sunday, after church, if everything goes well,” Queenan decides. “You’ll come over then. We’re going to need at least two techs for the cameras, and I want ten or twelve cops.”
Sean keeps his eyeroll to himself. “It would help with the paperwork to know how many,” he says instead, dry as he can manage with Queenan.
“When I decide who, I’ll tell you,” Queenan repeats. “We’ll need vests for everyone and to make sure they’re good shots, but that’s my job.” They reach the car, and Queenan slides into the passenger seat. When Sean gets in and turns the key, Queenan continues. “As soon as Goetz tells us where, we’ll have the techs figure the number of cameras, and you can requisition those.”
“Any chance we can get him to wear a wire?”
“We can try,” Queenan says with a sigh. “He’s scared of them, says he thinks French has a sixth sense.”
“French thinks he’s not a cop. He won’t notice.” He pulls out of the parking lot. “Make our jobs a hell of a lot easier. I want to nail the bastards.”
“Do you want French or Costello more?” At Sean’s glance, Queenan says, “I’m not going to condemn you for whatever your answer is. It’s just a question.”
Sean taps his thumbs on the steering wheel, squinting to make out the bumper sticker of the car in front of them as they wait at a red. “Both,” he says finally. “I want both the fuckers the same.”
The light turns, and from the corner of his eye, he can see Queenan nod thoughtfully. “We’ll do our best.”
“We’ve been doing our best since before I became a cop. No offense, but there’s got to be a reason Costello skates on everything.”
“I don’t know what it is, but there might be,” Queenan agrees. He shakes his head. “We’ll figure it out.”
Sean gets most of the paperwork filled out that afternoon, just leaving blanks for the number and names of cops they’ll be using and the techs they’ll need. He at least already has two of the latter roped into the deal.
“I can’t stay over Friday,” he tells Robert over supper, chicken and vegetables Robert made. “There’s a work thing Saturday.”
Robert studies him a moment, but he doesn’t ask. “I’ll stay with you, unless you have to leave at some ungodly hour. Your bed’s not as comfortable, but it works pretty well for my purposes.”
Sean snorts. “A floor could work for your purposes.”
Robert smirks. “It has before.”
Sean smirks back. “We could recreate that, but your bed’s much more fucking comfortable.”
“Let’s see how desperate we get,” Robert says, “and we’ll go from there.”
“That a challenge?” Sean spears a piece of summer squash, raising an eyebrow.
“It might be.”
It turns out it is, and it turns out they do land on the hall floor to rub together, managing to kiss and hump and bite, all at once. At least neither of them leaves marks above where a t-shirt would fall.
Sean doesn’t stay the night; he never does during the week. He spends Thursday and Friday sitting in on meetings, talking to people, and doing paperwork for the takedown on Saturday. The cameras are wired at the dock warehouse on Friday night, when no one is around. And Saturday, when they’re all in position, Queenan gets a text from Goetz.
“They’re not coming,” he says after a moment.
“What?” Sean asks. No one else looks like they’re going to. Then, before Queenan can answer, it hits him. “Someone fucking leaked us.”
“There’s no proof of that. Costello just might be paranoid.” Still, Queenan glances around the room, his eyes landing on each man there. Sean’s glowering around too, trying to figure out who looks guilty, like they told someone else. The problem with cops is that they can hide that shit, though, and no one’s showing a damn thing.
After everyone’s left, which isn’t until well after the sale is supposed to happen, and the techs have taken down the cameras, Sean lingers with Queenan.
“What do we do?”
Queenan lets out a breath. “We pay Costello a visit.”
Sean refrains from making a face, but disgust still creeps into his voice. “That’s going to be fucking fun.”
“At least he won’t shoot you,” Queenan says with a faint smile.
Sean laughs. “You really know how to comfort a guy, Captain. When?”
“Monday. I’m taking tomorrow off, and so are you.”
“I have a lot of paperwork,” he starts, and then pauses. He needs to talk to Mrs. Queenan, he remembers. “What time do you want us over?”
Queenan gives him an approving nod. “Church is over at eleven. Come by one. Elizabeth will have food for an army.”
“We’ll be there,” Sean promises.
When Sean and Robert get to the Queenan house the next day, lunch is already on the table, and Sean can imagine how many of the leftovers will be his. Not that he’s complaining; Mrs. Queenan is an amazing cook.
He gets a chance with her when she goes out back alone; Sean follows and gently takes the bowl she’s about to use to pick tomatoes. “I’ll hold it.”
“What’s on your mind?” she asks, bending to push through the leaves. A green smell drifts up, slightly bitter.
“How do you…”
“I have another son. You’re acting the same as Patrick when he needs to talk about something.”
He’s not going to let that ‘another’ sidetrack him. “Robert asked me to move in with him.”
She sets a pair of tomatoes in the bowl. “When was this?”
“A couple of weeks ago. On our three-month anniversary.”
“And you said…”
“That I need to think about it.” He watches her as she stoops and comes up with a giant yellow tomato.
“Why?”
Of course she’s going to try to make him talk about that. “I haven’t lived with anyone since college.” Simple answer, stick with that.
She gives him a shrewd look. “Now try for the real answer, Sean.”
“Why aren’t you a cop?” When she doesn’t answer, he goes on. “I’ve never lived with a person I love. It’s completely different.”
“And frightening.”
He gives her a look.
“You don’t have to say it, Sean, I know it is. It scared me when I moved in with Charlie. I’d known him for almost five years, and we were married. You’ve known Robert three and a half months. Of course it’s frightening.” She straightens, deposits a handful of cherry tomatoes in the bowl, and meets his eyes. “It makes financial sense, and with how you are together, I think you should do it. If you’re comfortable, of course.”
He nods. That’s something to think about, but he does trust her opinion. “Do you have more to pick?”
“There are always more to pick.” She delves back into the bushes, and he follows, taking everything as she’s done.
The next day, after a night of thinking over both what Mrs. Queenan said and their leak issue, Sean meets Queenan and says, “He’ll be at the dog track until noon, with French and maybe with Gwen.”
“You’re sure.”
Sean shrugs. “It’s what he did for five years, except in winter.”
Queenan nods. “We’re going to the dog track.”
The stands are mostly empty on a Monday morning, and Costello’s easy to spot; he’s in a Yankees cap, one of the only men in the city who could get away with that without being harassed, slouched down and studying a track rag, a glass of water in his other hand. French sits to his left, and Gwen is on his right, talking so close to his ear that her red lips almost brush against it. Sean and Queenan sit behind the three of them, and Queenan says, “How much did you make on Saturday, Frank?”
Gwen glances up, gives them a cold look, turns to face the track. Costello looks over his shoulder. “I don’t keep track of daily income.”
Sean can’t help his laughter at the bald-faced lie. “You have fucking ledgers your people update constantly.”
Queenan lightly nudges his ankle with his foot, out of Costello and Frank’s line of sight, and Sean shuts his mouth. “You had a special on Saturday, though, didn’t you?”
Costello turns back to the track, but his voice still carries. “Now that you mention it, Charlie, there was this girl…”
Gwen’s shoulders stay relaxed. Not for the first time, Sean wonders how the fuck that relationship can possibly work.
Costello continues after a moment, “I don’t like having faggots nearby. My skin crawls.”
French chuckles.
Sean leans forward. “Gwen’s the only one you don’t pay who would fuck you, and I’m not sure you don’t.”
That earns Gwen’s low, sneering, “You can go straight to hell, you two-faced queer,” but he’s more interested in Costello’s reaction.
Costello turns back, slowly, his eyes narrow and face tight, an expression that scares the piss out of everyone who works for him, even Fitzy. Only French seems immune. “Rats are bad enough. Rats who take it up the ass aren’t even worth the poison to get rid of them.”
Everyone gets that message. More than clearly, judging by Queenan’s face.
“Francis,” French says, “your dog just won.”
Like that, Costello grins, a chuckle escaping. “If you’re wondering how much I made today,” he says, “two hundred with that dog.” He stands, nodding at Queenan and exaggeratedly touching the bill of his cap at Sean. It takes effort to say seated and not say anything, let alone not hit him.
“That was helpful,” Sean says when they’re back in the lot.
“I wasn’t too hopeful,” Queenan agrees, “but we know something now.”
“Yeah, we have a rat of our own,” Sean mutters. “Have to root him out.”
Queenan nods. “Disinformation for SIU. We’ll come up with something.”
Sean nods. “How much work is it to find one?” He’s never dealt with this before, but he can imagine it isn’t easy.
“That depends on how good he is. If he’s like you, or any of our people, then it won’t exactly be a cakewalk. He’ll keep information to himself, won’t even communicate it through body language.”
Sean snorts. “You’re saying Costello places people the same way you do.”
“He’s not stupid, Sean.”
“No,” Sean agrees. “No, he’s definitely not stupid.” Which is really too bad. Life would be much easier if Frank Costello was a fucking idiot.
And while he’s wishing, Costello could be a dead fucking idiot. Then it would be easiest of all.
“Come on,” Queenan says. “We both have paperwork about Saturday, and I’m going to be questioned about our faulty information. You might be too.”
“That’s easy enough. Costello changed the location for unknown reasons.” Sean shrugs. “All I need to say.”
“Not all they’ll ask,” Queenan says, and Sean knows he’s honest by the look in his eyes.
Fucking brass.
Fandom: The Departed
Rating: NC-17
Word Count (this chapter): 2,095
Warnings this chapter (highlight to view): Explicit sex, homophobia, reference to prostitution, death threats.
“It’s solid,” Marc Goetz says. His eyes are darting and he’s holding himself in a near fighting stance, and Sean believes him. A glance tells him Queenan does too.
“When?” Queenan asks.
“Three days.”
“How do you know?” Sean asks bluntly.
Goetz laughs. “I’m in on it. I’ll be there.”
Queenan nods. “So will we. You watch everything and do not give yourself away. I can’t protect you if you do.”
“Believe me, Captain, I know that.”
“Go on,” Queenan says, “and act normally. Text me when you have details.”
Goetz nods. “I will.” He strides off, arms hanging by his sides, his muscles looking tense. Sean watches him a moment before turning to Queenan.
“A gun sale,” he says.
“If we can’t nail Costello on that,” Queenan mutters. In a more normal voice, he continues, “I’ll put it together. I need you on the paperwork while I take care of the people.”
“Why do I always get the fun jobs?” Sean asks, smirking. “I’m starting to think you don’t trust me to be civil.”
“I trust you,” Queenan says, “but I don’t trust others yet. We’re working up to that.”
“They better be adults on Saturday,” he mutters. There’s no way Queenan is going to keep him away from this.
“We’ll have cameras up wherever it is,” Queenan says, like he didn’t even hear that, even though Sean knows he did. “Elizabeth’s going to be annoyed. She was planning to have you and Robert over.”
“Yeah, he’s not going to be too happy either.” They start off in the opposite direction from Goetz. “We had plans.”
“Sunday, after church, if everything goes well,” Queenan decides. “You’ll come over then. We’re going to need at least two techs for the cameras, and I want ten or twelve cops.”
Sean keeps his eyeroll to himself. “It would help with the paperwork to know how many,” he says instead, dry as he can manage with Queenan.
“When I decide who, I’ll tell you,” Queenan repeats. “We’ll need vests for everyone and to make sure they’re good shots, but that’s my job.” They reach the car, and Queenan slides into the passenger seat. When Sean gets in and turns the key, Queenan continues. “As soon as Goetz tells us where, we’ll have the techs figure the number of cameras, and you can requisition those.”
“Any chance we can get him to wear a wire?”
“We can try,” Queenan says with a sigh. “He’s scared of them, says he thinks French has a sixth sense.”
“French thinks he’s not a cop. He won’t notice.” He pulls out of the parking lot. “Make our jobs a hell of a lot easier. I want to nail the bastards.”
“Do you want French or Costello more?” At Sean’s glance, Queenan says, “I’m not going to condemn you for whatever your answer is. It’s just a question.”
Sean taps his thumbs on the steering wheel, squinting to make out the bumper sticker of the car in front of them as they wait at a red. “Both,” he says finally. “I want both the fuckers the same.”
The light turns, and from the corner of his eye, he can see Queenan nod thoughtfully. “We’ll do our best.”
“We’ve been doing our best since before I became a cop. No offense, but there’s got to be a reason Costello skates on everything.”
“I don’t know what it is, but there might be,” Queenan agrees. He shakes his head. “We’ll figure it out.”
Sean gets most of the paperwork filled out that afternoon, just leaving blanks for the number and names of cops they’ll be using and the techs they’ll need. He at least already has two of the latter roped into the deal.
“I can’t stay over Friday,” he tells Robert over supper, chicken and vegetables Robert made. “There’s a work thing Saturday.”
Robert studies him a moment, but he doesn’t ask. “I’ll stay with you, unless you have to leave at some ungodly hour. Your bed’s not as comfortable, but it works pretty well for my purposes.”
Sean snorts. “A floor could work for your purposes.”
Robert smirks. “It has before.”
Sean smirks back. “We could recreate that, but your bed’s much more fucking comfortable.”
“Let’s see how desperate we get,” Robert says, “and we’ll go from there.”
“That a challenge?” Sean spears a piece of summer squash, raising an eyebrow.
“It might be.”
It turns out it is, and it turns out they do land on the hall floor to rub together, managing to kiss and hump and bite, all at once. At least neither of them leaves marks above where a t-shirt would fall.
Sean doesn’t stay the night; he never does during the week. He spends Thursday and Friday sitting in on meetings, talking to people, and doing paperwork for the takedown on Saturday. The cameras are wired at the dock warehouse on Friday night, when no one is around. And Saturday, when they’re all in position, Queenan gets a text from Goetz.
“They’re not coming,” he says after a moment.
“What?” Sean asks. No one else looks like they’re going to. Then, before Queenan can answer, it hits him. “Someone fucking leaked us.”
“There’s no proof of that. Costello just might be paranoid.” Still, Queenan glances around the room, his eyes landing on each man there. Sean’s glowering around too, trying to figure out who looks guilty, like they told someone else. The problem with cops is that they can hide that shit, though, and no one’s showing a damn thing.
After everyone’s left, which isn’t until well after the sale is supposed to happen, and the techs have taken down the cameras, Sean lingers with Queenan.
“What do we do?”
Queenan lets out a breath. “We pay Costello a visit.”
Sean refrains from making a face, but disgust still creeps into his voice. “That’s going to be fucking fun.”
“At least he won’t shoot you,” Queenan says with a faint smile.
Sean laughs. “You really know how to comfort a guy, Captain. When?”
“Monday. I’m taking tomorrow off, and so are you.”
“I have a lot of paperwork,” he starts, and then pauses. He needs to talk to Mrs. Queenan, he remembers. “What time do you want us over?”
Queenan gives him an approving nod. “Church is over at eleven. Come by one. Elizabeth will have food for an army.”
“We’ll be there,” Sean promises.
When Sean and Robert get to the Queenan house the next day, lunch is already on the table, and Sean can imagine how many of the leftovers will be his. Not that he’s complaining; Mrs. Queenan is an amazing cook.
He gets a chance with her when she goes out back alone; Sean follows and gently takes the bowl she’s about to use to pick tomatoes. “I’ll hold it.”
“What’s on your mind?” she asks, bending to push through the leaves. A green smell drifts up, slightly bitter.
“How do you…”
“I have another son. You’re acting the same as Patrick when he needs to talk about something.”
He’s not going to let that ‘another’ sidetrack him. “Robert asked me to move in with him.”
She sets a pair of tomatoes in the bowl. “When was this?”
“A couple of weeks ago. On our three-month anniversary.”
“And you said…”
“That I need to think about it.” He watches her as she stoops and comes up with a giant yellow tomato.
“Why?”
Of course she’s going to try to make him talk about that. “I haven’t lived with anyone since college.” Simple answer, stick with that.
She gives him a shrewd look. “Now try for the real answer, Sean.”
“Why aren’t you a cop?” When she doesn’t answer, he goes on. “I’ve never lived with a person I love. It’s completely different.”
“And frightening.”
He gives her a look.
“You don’t have to say it, Sean, I know it is. It scared me when I moved in with Charlie. I’d known him for almost five years, and we were married. You’ve known Robert three and a half months. Of course it’s frightening.” She straightens, deposits a handful of cherry tomatoes in the bowl, and meets his eyes. “It makes financial sense, and with how you are together, I think you should do it. If you’re comfortable, of course.”
He nods. That’s something to think about, but he does trust her opinion. “Do you have more to pick?”
“There are always more to pick.” She delves back into the bushes, and he follows, taking everything as she’s done.
The next day, after a night of thinking over both what Mrs. Queenan said and their leak issue, Sean meets Queenan and says, “He’ll be at the dog track until noon, with French and maybe with Gwen.”
“You’re sure.”
Sean shrugs. “It’s what he did for five years, except in winter.”
Queenan nods. “We’re going to the dog track.”
The stands are mostly empty on a Monday morning, and Costello’s easy to spot; he’s in a Yankees cap, one of the only men in the city who could get away with that without being harassed, slouched down and studying a track rag, a glass of water in his other hand. French sits to his left, and Gwen is on his right, talking so close to his ear that her red lips almost brush against it. Sean and Queenan sit behind the three of them, and Queenan says, “How much did you make on Saturday, Frank?”
Gwen glances up, gives them a cold look, turns to face the track. Costello looks over his shoulder. “I don’t keep track of daily income.”
Sean can’t help his laughter at the bald-faced lie. “You have fucking ledgers your people update constantly.”
Queenan lightly nudges his ankle with his foot, out of Costello and Frank’s line of sight, and Sean shuts his mouth. “You had a special on Saturday, though, didn’t you?”
Costello turns back to the track, but his voice still carries. “Now that you mention it, Charlie, there was this girl…”
Gwen’s shoulders stay relaxed. Not for the first time, Sean wonders how the fuck that relationship can possibly work.
Costello continues after a moment, “I don’t like having faggots nearby. My skin crawls.”
French chuckles.
Sean leans forward. “Gwen’s the only one you don’t pay who would fuck you, and I’m not sure you don’t.”
That earns Gwen’s low, sneering, “You can go straight to hell, you two-faced queer,” but he’s more interested in Costello’s reaction.
Costello turns back, slowly, his eyes narrow and face tight, an expression that scares the piss out of everyone who works for him, even Fitzy. Only French seems immune. “Rats are bad enough. Rats who take it up the ass aren’t even worth the poison to get rid of them.”
Everyone gets that message. More than clearly, judging by Queenan’s face.
“Francis,” French says, “your dog just won.”
Like that, Costello grins, a chuckle escaping. “If you’re wondering how much I made today,” he says, “two hundred with that dog.” He stands, nodding at Queenan and exaggeratedly touching the bill of his cap at Sean. It takes effort to say seated and not say anything, let alone not hit him.
“That was helpful,” Sean says when they’re back in the lot.
“I wasn’t too hopeful,” Queenan agrees, “but we know something now.”
“Yeah, we have a rat of our own,” Sean mutters. “Have to root him out.”
Queenan nods. “Disinformation for SIU. We’ll come up with something.”
Sean nods. “How much work is it to find one?” He’s never dealt with this before, but he can imagine it isn’t easy.
“That depends on how good he is. If he’s like you, or any of our people, then it won’t exactly be a cakewalk. He’ll keep information to himself, won’t even communicate it through body language.”
Sean snorts. “You’re saying Costello places people the same way you do.”
“He’s not stupid, Sean.”
“No,” Sean agrees. “No, he’s definitely not stupid.” Which is really too bad. Life would be much easier if Frank Costello was a fucking idiot.
And while he’s wishing, Costello could be a dead fucking idiot. Then it would be easiest of all.
“Come on,” Queenan says. “We both have paperwork about Saturday, and I’m going to be questioned about our faulty information. You might be too.”
“That’s easy enough. Costello changed the location for unknown reasons.” Sean shrugs. “All I need to say.”
“Not all they’ll ask,” Queenan says, and Sean knows he’s honest by the look in his eyes.
Fucking brass.