amop-series #62
/DRUG FIEND/
“You are doing it again,” Andy slung out into his empty squad room, his eyes firmly on Sharon Raydor who stopped midstride and with flustered innocence turned around and regarded him with surprise; she had most likely been on her way back to the rat squad.
“I thought you were all done for the night,” Sharon commented and by extension nonchalantly ignored his dig at her, her eyes roaming the vacated squad room questioningly.
“The guys are at O’Malley’s,” Andy replied with a shrug that implied he would be there too if it weren’t for her.
“And you are waiting for me?” she questioned with one lifted eyebrow. Her eyes briefly went to the hallway and for a second he thought she would flee but no, her eyes came back to him with determination.
Andy loosely crossed his arms as he leaned on his own desk, his feet out and one ankle over the other. He fixed Sharon with a good, long look, his eyes on her attire and the noticeable gun and badge for once at her hips. Without the obvious display of her profession, most forgot that she was in actuality a cop.
“I thought it was time we had a little talk you and I,” Andy nodded at a chair close by, courteous enough to let her sit down before he gave her the deserving earful he had extraordinarily postponed for her sake.
“Talk?” she did a fine job of mocking innocence today, even her tone perfected to sound blissfully unaware. Anyone else and he would have been annoyed. Instead of taking the offered chair, Sharon naturally put her hands on her hips and tilted her chin up, “What has you all in a huff this fine night?”
“Huff, huff,” Andy puffed out sarcastically and then showed his teeth with a dark smirk, “I feel like the big bad wolf alright.”
“And you are going to blow my house down, is that it?” she smirked.
“Something to that extent, yeah,” he smiled thinly and then calmly stated, “Honey, I have avoided this talk with you for long enough. I’m getting a bit tired of stepping around you lightly and sparing your feelings.”
Her mouth twisted with prepared scorn, “Sparing my feelings? Really, Andy? What exactly are you stepping around lightly?”
“You are withholding,” Andy replied and he made his voice soft for her, mindful that it was not an accusation as such but more like a beseeching plea for her to get her act together,
“Usually I wouldn’t bat an eye - ”
Here she snorted in disbelief.
Andy grimaced and then ignored her snort, “As I said, usually I wouldn’t bat an eye but you have been sneaking around, intruding or whatever it is you do when you slither around asking questions left and right, trying to weed out information for your benefit only.”
“You are tired of my work in professional standards? You don’t want me to find the leak, is that what you are saying?” she sounded perplexed and unamused, her eyebrows knitting together in consternation.
Andy shook his head, “No, no. You can investigate to your heart’s content - but I would like the benefit of doubt; as your friend, as your lover.”
“You are put out that I haven’t told you about my findings, is that it? Why haven’t you said anything sooner?” she avoided answering him directly, instead she neatly and professionally made it his problem, “you’ve been mulling over this for quite some time, then.”
Andy smiled and then gently said, “I haven’t said a damn thing because you are insecure when it comes to our relationship and how it’s supposed to work when we work in the same building. I did not want to push you more than you felt comfortable with.”
Sharon narrowed her eyes and quickly crossed her arms, “Do you really want to have this conversation here? Of all places, is your squad room really the place for me to tell you to fuck off?”
Oh yeah, he had hit a spot alright.
“Well, if we have this conversation at your place, you will accuse me of accosting you and then forcibly kick me out - and if we have it at mine, you will feel equally attacked and simply leave.”
“So, genius that you are, you thought work was the ideal place.”
“Look, I just want to get it out of my system now before it eats me up alive. I thought you were all done with the so-called non-existent leak business, okay, so I moved on. Obviously you are not done.”
She huffed, annoyed, “I still do not understand. What in the world does finding the leak in your division has to do with our relationship - or my insecurity?”
“It has everything to do with it. I want you to say it - to my face,” Andy bit out; he had an inkling the whole business with the chemo drug scam affecting children with leukemia and sick people, had more to do with his mood than Sharon not sharing her life with him; per usual she only shared what she deemed important. He had a different view when it came to the leak - if the supposed leak even existed.
“Say what, exactly?” she was still completely ignorant.
Andy glared at her, his eyes hard.
She only gave back in mutual amount of disdain.
The staring contest - silent, passive-aggressive frowns - lasted too long and just when Andy thought she was about to speak, Provenza bounced back in the squad room.
“You still here?” the idiot threw at Andy with an eye roll and then sneaked a suspicious look at Sharon. The old man gave Andy a long-suffering scowl, “Shouldn’t you two be out? - doing whatever it is you always do after hours.”
Sharon adopted a frozen expression, her eyes on Provenza with a haughty gleam.
Before she could snap something acerbic at his partner, Andy quickly commented, “Yeah, we were going to sit on your desk naked and do whatever it is we usually do - now that you are inconveniently here, we’ll just have to go elsewhere, now won’t we.”
Provenza looked skyward, “Geez, I wonder who has your balls all screwed up.”
“My balls are just fine, thank you,” Andy bit back.
“You sure?” Provenza nodded at Sharon who did indeed look thunderous with her silent stare.
Andy rolled his eyes at his partner and then he quickly took Sharon’s elbow and guided her out of the squadroom, taking the first free interview room and gently pushing her inside.
“Listen, I have ignored this for some time now,” he continued when she stood silently fuming in the interview room, glaring his head off.
“What have you ignored? I don’t understand what it is you need me to say to you?” she crossed her arms again, this time rigidly and tightly, once again not opting for sitting down and doing this calmly. No, she glared in that haughty fashion where a condescending smirk was at the corner of her mouth, mocking and meant to convey she was superior.
“The whole leak business, okay. I don’t mind that you are looking or monitoring; I don’t mind that you think someone from my team is whispering in Goldman’s ear. What I take offense at, okay, is the blatant fashion where you have entirely forgotten to tell me that you don’t think I’m the leak. That’s all I want to hear, frankly.”
She looked sufficiently shocked as if the thought had not even crossed her mind.
Great.
“Professional standards,” Sharon started in an official voice, the monotone connotation just short of raising his hackles.
“Fuck professional standards,” Andy spoke vehemently. He took a step closer to her, his eyes on hers with a demanding gaze, “It's not that hard, Sharon. I’m not asking you to divulge any crucial information to me. We are off duty the both of us and it’s not against regulation to tell me your unofficial opinion of my involvement in the leak business.”
“I had to investigate you like everybody else, Andy,” she sighed dramatically, “And I put extra emphasis on that being in past tense - this happened months ago. Why are you all fired up about it now? I haven’t asked you a single question in regards to Goldman and the lawsuit today or yesterday, now have I?”
“No, you have been sneaking around, like I said. You are still investigating it - and I have been waiting months - patiently I might add - for you to tell me that you don’t think it’s me.”
“I thought it was obvious that I don’t think you have anything to do with it.”
“That’s a load of bullshit, Sharon,” he breathed out, “I can’t read your mind, you know, and coincidently you still haven’t said it.”
She closed her mouth, her eyes still raging and her mouth tightly-lined.
“Say you don’t think I’m the snitch,” Andy told her, his voice low now.
“You could have talked to someone, inadvertently and not on purpose,” she snippily retorted as if he was some idiot traffic detective who had stepped in it big time.
“Who the fuck would I talk to, Sharon? Huh? I sure as hell haven’t told you a single thing about the case and you are the only one I talk shop with besides my team. So tell me, you think I just blabber my mouth left and right. Because if you think for one second that I’ve got something to do with this whole snitching and talking to that damn Peter Goldman, then you and I have a serious trust issue.”
Sharon stayed silent for a short second and then she exploded, her voice tinged by defensive annoyance, “Don’t try to contain you rage. Go right ahead and scream my head off - well, why don’t you go right ahead and yell some more. I’m sure it will make a nice video - maybe Mr. Watson will be so kind as to make me a copy,” she gave a derisive look at the hidden camera over her shoulder.
Andy laughed derisively, “Buzz could care less about you and me arguing and it getting caught on tape; the feed is off whenever we are off duty, so there’s no need to worry about that, honey.”
She crossed her arms more tightly, her breasts bouncing upwards in a show he was certain she had not meant to be arousing.
Well, then it was time to bring out another tactic.
“I guess Pope’s all up your ass about it, the leak business, I mean. Must be why you are this difficult and bitchy,” Andy commented casually.
“No one’s up my ass,” she huffed out between her compressed lips, her cheeks reddening.
“You sure about that?” Andy grinned cheekily, “Because I have a long list of objects people think are permanently stuck up your ass that says otherwise.”
The comment made her snort and smile, the reaction exactly what he had intended.
Sharon shook her head and then smirked darkly, “Oh, damn you. Well, then go on - say it.”
“What?” Andy pretended to be clueless, his mouth still curled upwards in humor.
She rolled her eyes, “Say how much you enjoy being up my ass - or something equally inappropriate and insensitive and lewd.”
Andy grinned and then leaned in close to her, “I do enjoy your internal affairs ass in all angles.”
She snorted again and instead of looking offended she appeared amused.
Andy inhaled and exhaled, and then said his final piece, “Listen, I know we are in a good place - and we have been in a great place for some time now, relationship wise and everything. But Sharon, honey, I can feel you hesitate, okay. I know what goes through that little skull of yours.”
Now she looked insulted.
Well, screw it. Andy needed her to open up; “You are waiting for me to screw up - and heck, I’ve done it enough over the years so that’s understandable - but it’s not going to happen this time around, okay. I learned my lesson.”
“What are you talking about?” she seemed less combative, her features softening.
“You hold your cards close to your heart, so close you cannot even share a tiny bit of your life with me, so close you don’t even take me into consideration. I am fine with that, that’s not the issue. I get that this, our relationship, is on your terms.”
“I cannot go around sharing the details of my cases with you, Andy - why, I would have to investigate myself for leaking information, now wouldn’t I?”
“I know, I know. But how about a little heads-up, like I don’t know: oh hey there lover, no don’t worry, I don’t for one second think you have anything to do with this - now that would have been appropriate - and would not have interfered with your investigation in any way.”
She looked uncomfortable.
After a period of tense silence, she spoke.
“I’m sorry,” she said and the apology surprised him in some way, “You are right.”
Andy breathed out. Well, at least that was out and dealt with.
“I’m sorry I’m a bitch.”
“I love it when you are a bitch,” Andy soothed her, his hand out and softly touching the outside of her elbow.
“Don’t make light of it now,” she scolded him and then smiled contemplatively - shyly - at the floor, “I’m not very good at this, I know,” she laughed self-consciously, “Sometimes I forget to consider you and other times I feel caught, ready to flee.”
“What are you not good at?” he asked, wanting her to clarify.
“Sharing my life, making room for you in it - emotionally and confidentially.”
“That’s okay,” he told her, zeroing in on that insecurity of hers that never was on full display unless something big and disastrous was happening.
“I’m not going anywhere, no matter what. I am not going to jeopardize my relationship with you again, Sharon.”
She pursed her lips, “What if I jeopardize it first?”
Andy laughed, “Good luck with that; I would like to see you try.”
She smiled briefly, “Don’t be all blasé about it.”
“I’m not - I know exactly what I signed up for with you, I know why I love you. I will help you bury Jack’s body the day you finally decide to get rid of him - and I will tell you to own up to all those silent, unsaid things that need to be said.”
In hindsight, it might be the first time in their acquaintance where the utterance of her husband’s name did not force her to flee to the nearest exit.
Andy held his arms out and she stepped into the embrace willingly.
“I love you,” she mumbled into his chest, her arms tightening around him.
“I love your ass,” Andy replied, his hands grabbing at her behind in a suggestive manner.
She laughed, without filter - it was the sound he liked the most.
…
=)
“You are doing it again,” Andy slung out into his empty squad room, his eyes firmly on Sharon Raydor who stopped midstride and with flustered innocence turned around and regarded him with surprise; she had most likely been on her way back to the rat squad.
“I thought you were all done for the night,” Sharon commented and by extension nonchalantly ignored his dig at her, her eyes roaming the vacated squad room questioningly.
“The guys are at O’Malley’s,” Andy replied with a shrug that implied he would be there too if it weren’t for her.
“And you are waiting for me?” she questioned with one lifted eyebrow. Her eyes briefly went to the hallway and for a second he thought she would flee but no, her eyes came back to him with determination.
Andy loosely crossed his arms as he leaned on his own desk, his feet out and one ankle over the other. He fixed Sharon with a good, long look, his eyes on her attire and the noticeable gun and badge for once at her hips. Without the obvious display of her profession, most forgot that she was in actuality a cop.
“I thought it was time we had a little talk you and I,” Andy nodded at a chair close by, courteous enough to let her sit down before he gave her the deserving earful he had extraordinarily postponed for her sake.
“Talk?” she did a fine job of mocking innocence today, even her tone perfected to sound blissfully unaware. Anyone else and he would have been annoyed. Instead of taking the offered chair, Sharon naturally put her hands on her hips and tilted her chin up, “What has you all in a huff this fine night?”
“Huff, huff,” Andy puffed out sarcastically and then showed his teeth with a dark smirk, “I feel like the big bad wolf alright.”
“And you are going to blow my house down, is that it?” she smirked.
“Something to that extent, yeah,” he smiled thinly and then calmly stated, “Honey, I have avoided this talk with you for long enough. I’m getting a bit tired of stepping around you lightly and sparing your feelings.”
Her mouth twisted with prepared scorn, “Sparing my feelings? Really, Andy? What exactly are you stepping around lightly?”
“You are withholding,” Andy replied and he made his voice soft for her, mindful that it was not an accusation as such but more like a beseeching plea for her to get her act together,
“Usually I wouldn’t bat an eye - ”
Here she snorted in disbelief.
Andy grimaced and then ignored her snort, “As I said, usually I wouldn’t bat an eye but you have been sneaking around, intruding or whatever it is you do when you slither around asking questions left and right, trying to weed out information for your benefit only.”
“You are tired of my work in professional standards? You don’t want me to find the leak, is that what you are saying?” she sounded perplexed and unamused, her eyebrows knitting together in consternation.
Andy shook his head, “No, no. You can investigate to your heart’s content - but I would like the benefit of doubt; as your friend, as your lover.”
“You are put out that I haven’t told you about my findings, is that it? Why haven’t you said anything sooner?” she avoided answering him directly, instead she neatly and professionally made it his problem, “you’ve been mulling over this for quite some time, then.”
Andy smiled and then gently said, “I haven’t said a damn thing because you are insecure when it comes to our relationship and how it’s supposed to work when we work in the same building. I did not want to push you more than you felt comfortable with.”
Sharon narrowed her eyes and quickly crossed her arms, “Do you really want to have this conversation here? Of all places, is your squad room really the place for me to tell you to fuck off?”
Oh yeah, he had hit a spot alright.
“Well, if we have this conversation at your place, you will accuse me of accosting you and then forcibly kick me out - and if we have it at mine, you will feel equally attacked and simply leave.”
“So, genius that you are, you thought work was the ideal place.”
“Look, I just want to get it out of my system now before it eats me up alive. I thought you were all done with the so-called non-existent leak business, okay, so I moved on. Obviously you are not done.”
She huffed, annoyed, “I still do not understand. What in the world does finding the leak in your division has to do with our relationship - or my insecurity?”
“It has everything to do with it. I want you to say it - to my face,” Andy bit out; he had an inkling the whole business with the chemo drug scam affecting children with leukemia and sick people, had more to do with his mood than Sharon not sharing her life with him; per usual she only shared what she deemed important. He had a different view when it came to the leak - if the supposed leak even existed.
“Say what, exactly?” she was still completely ignorant.
Andy glared at her, his eyes hard.
She only gave back in mutual amount of disdain.
The staring contest - silent, passive-aggressive frowns - lasted too long and just when Andy thought she was about to speak, Provenza bounced back in the squad room.
“You still here?” the idiot threw at Andy with an eye roll and then sneaked a suspicious look at Sharon. The old man gave Andy a long-suffering scowl, “Shouldn’t you two be out? - doing whatever it is you always do after hours.”
Sharon adopted a frozen expression, her eyes on Provenza with a haughty gleam.
Before she could snap something acerbic at his partner, Andy quickly commented, “Yeah, we were going to sit on your desk naked and do whatever it is we usually do - now that you are inconveniently here, we’ll just have to go elsewhere, now won’t we.”
Provenza looked skyward, “Geez, I wonder who has your balls all screwed up.”
“My balls are just fine, thank you,” Andy bit back.
“You sure?” Provenza nodded at Sharon who did indeed look thunderous with her silent stare.
Andy rolled his eyes at his partner and then he quickly took Sharon’s elbow and guided her out of the squadroom, taking the first free interview room and gently pushing her inside.
“Listen, I have ignored this for some time now,” he continued when she stood silently fuming in the interview room, glaring his head off.
“What have you ignored? I don’t understand what it is you need me to say to you?” she crossed her arms again, this time rigidly and tightly, once again not opting for sitting down and doing this calmly. No, she glared in that haughty fashion where a condescending smirk was at the corner of her mouth, mocking and meant to convey she was superior.
“The whole leak business, okay. I don’t mind that you are looking or monitoring; I don’t mind that you think someone from my team is whispering in Goldman’s ear. What I take offense at, okay, is the blatant fashion where you have entirely forgotten to tell me that you don’t think I’m the leak. That’s all I want to hear, frankly.”
She looked sufficiently shocked as if the thought had not even crossed her mind.
Great.
“Professional standards,” Sharon started in an official voice, the monotone connotation just short of raising his hackles.
“Fuck professional standards,” Andy spoke vehemently. He took a step closer to her, his eyes on hers with a demanding gaze, “It's not that hard, Sharon. I’m not asking you to divulge any crucial information to me. We are off duty the both of us and it’s not against regulation to tell me your unofficial opinion of my involvement in the leak business.”
“I had to investigate you like everybody else, Andy,” she sighed dramatically, “And I put extra emphasis on that being in past tense - this happened months ago. Why are you all fired up about it now? I haven’t asked you a single question in regards to Goldman and the lawsuit today or yesterday, now have I?”
“No, you have been sneaking around, like I said. You are still investigating it - and I have been waiting months - patiently I might add - for you to tell me that you don’t think it’s me.”
“I thought it was obvious that I don’t think you have anything to do with it.”
“That’s a load of bullshit, Sharon,” he breathed out, “I can’t read your mind, you know, and coincidently you still haven’t said it.”
She closed her mouth, her eyes still raging and her mouth tightly-lined.
“Say you don’t think I’m the snitch,” Andy told her, his voice low now.
“You could have talked to someone, inadvertently and not on purpose,” she snippily retorted as if he was some idiot traffic detective who had stepped in it big time.
“Who the fuck would I talk to, Sharon? Huh? I sure as hell haven’t told you a single thing about the case and you are the only one I talk shop with besides my team. So tell me, you think I just blabber my mouth left and right. Because if you think for one second that I’ve got something to do with this whole snitching and talking to that damn Peter Goldman, then you and I have a serious trust issue.”
Sharon stayed silent for a short second and then she exploded, her voice tinged by defensive annoyance, “Don’t try to contain you rage. Go right ahead and scream my head off - well, why don’t you go right ahead and yell some more. I’m sure it will make a nice video - maybe Mr. Watson will be so kind as to make me a copy,” she gave a derisive look at the hidden camera over her shoulder.
Andy laughed derisively, “Buzz could care less about you and me arguing and it getting caught on tape; the feed is off whenever we are off duty, so there’s no need to worry about that, honey.”
She crossed her arms more tightly, her breasts bouncing upwards in a show he was certain she had not meant to be arousing.
Well, then it was time to bring out another tactic.
“I guess Pope’s all up your ass about it, the leak business, I mean. Must be why you are this difficult and bitchy,” Andy commented casually.
“No one’s up my ass,” she huffed out between her compressed lips, her cheeks reddening.
“You sure about that?” Andy grinned cheekily, “Because I have a long list of objects people think are permanently stuck up your ass that says otherwise.”
The comment made her snort and smile, the reaction exactly what he had intended.
Sharon shook her head and then smirked darkly, “Oh, damn you. Well, then go on - say it.”
“What?” Andy pretended to be clueless, his mouth still curled upwards in humor.
She rolled her eyes, “Say how much you enjoy being up my ass - or something equally inappropriate and insensitive and lewd.”
Andy grinned and then leaned in close to her, “I do enjoy your internal affairs ass in all angles.”
She snorted again and instead of looking offended she appeared amused.
Andy inhaled and exhaled, and then said his final piece, “Listen, I know we are in a good place - and we have been in a great place for some time now, relationship wise and everything. But Sharon, honey, I can feel you hesitate, okay. I know what goes through that little skull of yours.”
Now she looked insulted.
Well, screw it. Andy needed her to open up; “You are waiting for me to screw up - and heck, I’ve done it enough over the years so that’s understandable - but it’s not going to happen this time around, okay. I learned my lesson.”
“What are you talking about?” she seemed less combative, her features softening.
“You hold your cards close to your heart, so close you cannot even share a tiny bit of your life with me, so close you don’t even take me into consideration. I am fine with that, that’s not the issue. I get that this, our relationship, is on your terms.”
“I cannot go around sharing the details of my cases with you, Andy - why, I would have to investigate myself for leaking information, now wouldn’t I?”
“I know, I know. But how about a little heads-up, like I don’t know: oh hey there lover, no don’t worry, I don’t for one second think you have anything to do with this - now that would have been appropriate - and would not have interfered with your investigation in any way.”
She looked uncomfortable.
After a period of tense silence, she spoke.
“I’m sorry,” she said and the apology surprised him in some way, “You are right.”
Andy breathed out. Well, at least that was out and dealt with.
“I’m sorry I’m a bitch.”
“I love it when you are a bitch,” Andy soothed her, his hand out and softly touching the outside of her elbow.
“Don’t make light of it now,” she scolded him and then smiled contemplatively - shyly - at the floor, “I’m not very good at this, I know,” she laughed self-consciously, “Sometimes I forget to consider you and other times I feel caught, ready to flee.”
“What are you not good at?” he asked, wanting her to clarify.
“Sharing my life, making room for you in it - emotionally and confidentially.”
“That’s okay,” he told her, zeroing in on that insecurity of hers that never was on full display unless something big and disastrous was happening.
“I’m not going anywhere, no matter what. I am not going to jeopardize my relationship with you again, Sharon.”
She pursed her lips, “What if I jeopardize it first?”
Andy laughed, “Good luck with that; I would like to see you try.”
She smiled briefly, “Don’t be all blasé about it.”
“I’m not - I know exactly what I signed up for with you, I know why I love you. I will help you bury Jack’s body the day you finally decide to get rid of him - and I will tell you to own up to all those silent, unsaid things that need to be said.”
In hindsight, it might be the first time in their acquaintance where the utterance of her husband’s name did not force her to flee to the nearest exit.
Andy held his arms out and she stepped into the embrace willingly.
“I love you,” she mumbled into his chest, her arms tightening around him.
“I love your ass,” Andy replied, his hands grabbing at her behind in a suggestive manner.
She laughed, without filter - it was the sound he liked the most.
…
=)