Fic: Someone Like Me
This is actually of crossover with the Phoenix Wright universe, but I figure most of you have probably played both. It's...a little on the crack side of things.
Title: Someone Like Me
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some blink-and-you'll-miss-it gayness. (Kyle Hyde makes a cameo.)
Notes: Knowledge of both Hotel Dusk and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (first game only) is required. The timelines are a little off for this to actually work, but they're close and I say that's good enough.
After Gant was arrested, they took him to a solitary holding cell where he stayed until the date of his trial. He declined the right to an attorney, pleading guilty to two counts of murder, one count of forgery, and a whole wide world of other charges. He was convicted immediately, sentenced to ninety years with no chance of parole.
He put up no resistance as they escorted him to his cell, just smiled calmly and said, "Sometimes there's no other way to fight what's out there. You try for a while, following the rules, but then you begin to realize there's only so much you can do. I cleaned up this town, you know I did."
They unlocked the door to his cell, then removed his shackles and left him to his solitude.
"You'll see," he said, clapping his hands together in the cold, empty silence. "You needed someone like me."
*
When Jeff turned himself in to the police, he made his one and only call to his father, trembling as he clutched the phone in his hands.
"I don't have time to deal with you right now," was the reply. "You can stay there overnight."
Jeff spent the next seventeen hours sitting on a hard wooden bench with six other men, memorizing the back of his hands. He didn't sleep, didn't move. The next morning an officer came in and called his name, making a note on his clipboard as he led him down the hall.
"You got too nice a face to be in here, kid," he said, shaking his head. "I ever see you again, it better be in a uniform."
He was left in the custody of his father, who signed the papers impatiently and declared, "I've decided not to press charges. But don't think this will go unpunished."
When they arrived back home, Jeff stood frozen in the entryway, waiting to be screamed at or beaten or sent away, but his father just took the money and the pistol and disappeared into his study, and eventually Jeff went up to his bedroom and slammed the door in disgust.
*
"But what if they're not innocent?" Jeff asked his father in a quiet voice.
"I'm a defense attorney. It's my job to defend them. Everyone has the right to a fair trial."
"But poppa," Jeff insisted. "What if you know they're guilty."
His father looked up from his desk impatiently. "I defend people," he repeated. "It's my job, and I'm damn good at it. Now go upstairs. I have work to do," he said, and didn't look up again.
*
The first time Jeff held a gun was when he was twelve. His father's gun, brand new in its fancy wooden box. He came into the study looking for an eraser and saw it lying there on the desk. Of course his father came in while he was holding it. He didn't have it poised to shoot or anything, just had it sitting there, delicately, in the palms of his hands.
"You like that, Jeff?" his father asked. "That's poppa's new friend. She keeps poppa safe."
Jeff fumbled it back into the box and looked down at his socks. "Sorry," he said quickly. "I didn't mean to-I was just looking for a pencil eraser."
His father crossed the room and picked up the box. "Would you like to shoot it?" he asked.
He took Jeff out to the backyard and placed the gun in his hands. "Hold it just like that," he instructed. "Squeeze, don't pull."
Jeff stretched his arms out in front of him and rubbed at the cold steel with his fingertips. "I-I don't want to."
"Don't be stupid. You're not shooting anybody. Just aim into the bushes."
"I don't want to," Jeff repeated, his arms still outstretched. "It's... It's stupid, shooting at nothing."
His father sighed sharply and took a step towards him. "I guess you can't after all," he snapped, taking the gun from Jeff's hands. "Oh, and from now on, you are never to come into my office without asking. Is that clear?"
Jeff nodded, staring coldly at the bushes until he heard the back door slam shut.
*
There was a time when his father would take anyone's case. Long before they moved into the new house, before they transferred Jeff into a private school and bought their third car. His father worked from an office in a small building downtown, dreaming of the day when his name would be added to the sign.
When the clients started coming to their house instead of the office, no one seemed to mind. Because private clients meant big money, and everyone loved the money, Jeff included.
As he got older, he tried not to think about where that money was coming from. Instead he thought about his father's near-perfect win record, or the trip to Cancun the family would be taking in the summer.
*
Jeff was twenty-one when he left home. He withdrew all the money from his savings account over the course of four months, leaving a little under a thousand dollars so that the bank wouldn't get suspicious. Then he tucked the cash into a roll of socks and moved into a hotel. He hardly took anything with him, just a week's worth of clothing and a couple of books that he really liked. Nobody was around to hear him leave, and he knew his father wouldn't come looking for him.
The hotel he stayed at was cheap and dirty, and the sheets made his limbs itch deep beneath his skin. Outside his room was a view of the swimming pool, so gritty and polluted that you couldn't see the bottom, even in the shallow end. It was never used for swimming.
Jeff would watch the drug deals go down from his second floor window, little more than shadows on the stained, cracked concrete, but he knew what was going on. He watched them from his bed with the lights off, digging his fingernails into the palms of his hands.
One night he put on his bathing suit and sat down by the pool, dangling his feet in the murky water as he gazed at the row of broken patio furniture. He sat there for two hours, until he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"What the hell do you think you're doing here?" the voice hissed in his ear. "Beat it."
Jeff turned his head slowly, catching another shadow out of the corner of his eye. "I was just going for a swim," he said after a moment, quietly. "Care to join me?" Then he smiled over his shoulder, thin-lipped and smug, and dove into the water.
*
"But poppa!" Jeff insisted.
"How many times must I remind you that this is none of your concern?" his father interrupted angrily. "Do not bring it up again."
"But poppa, you don't need their business! They're bad people, they're-"
"I said don't bring it up again!"
Jeff's face broke, then went blank. "I have homework to do," he said quietly, and turned away.
*
Jeff liked going to this one bar, just on the outskirts of L.A. It was a quiet sort of place, the kind where everyone minded their own business and left him alone. He liked it that way, just sitting there, listening to everything go on around him.
One night, someone sat down beside him and let out a mighty laugh. "Well if it isn't Jeff Angel."
Jeff looked up from his glass of vodka and grimaced. "Don't call me that. You know that's not my name." It was that salesman, of all people. The one from two years ago. He still looked about the same. Maybe a few more lines around the eyes, but the same old four-dollar haircut, same half-assed shave. "Hyde, wasn't it?"
Hyde flagged over the bartender and ordered a bourbon. "Mr. Hyde. Respect your elders, kid."
"I'm not a kid," Jeff cut in sharply. "That selfish brat you met back then doesn't exist anymore."
"Different kind of brat then," Hyde remarked. "Whatever. So what the hell are you doing in here? Daddy turn your bedroom into a casino?"
Jeff stirred the ice cubes in his vodka. "For your information, Hyde, I got out of there. Couldn't stand to be in the same house with him anymore," he said darkly.
Hyde seemed to soften a little. "Some people never change, huh. Sorry to hear that."
"I've changed," Jeff insisted. "I've been thinking about becoming a cop."
Hyde laughed. "Is that so?" Then he smiled, almost warmly. "Well that's great. And I mean that. Hey," he said, motioning to the bartender. "Another round for the kid."
"I said stop calling me that," Jeff snapped, taking a drink of his vodka. "I'm not a child."
"Oh, you're not, huh?" Hyde asked.
"No, I'm not," Jeff said, eyes sparkling in the dim light. Then he leaned forward and kissed Hyde on the mouth.
Hyde shoved him away roughly and laughed. "See kid?" he said, plucking Jeff's hand from his thigh. "You haven't changed at all. You still think you can get whatever you want."
Jeff stared back at him, eyes narrowed. The corner of his mouth lifted up into a little smile.
"But you know what?" Hyde added after a second. "That just might work for you."
*
"I hate you," Jeff hissed, standing in the doorway. "I hate everything about you."
His father crossed the room, raised his hand, and slapped him across the face, hard. "How dare you speak to me that way, you ungrateful little shit. Who do you think gave you this lifestyle?" he yelled. "Who do you think worked hard every day of his life so that you could have it easy?"
"I don't care!" Jeff spat, ignoring the sting burning his cheek. "You lawyers, you disgust me. Rapists, drug dealers, murderers, you don't care! You'll defend them all as long as they can pay!"
"Do you know how stupid you sound, speaking of things you couldn't possibly under-"
"Oh, I understand," Jeff interrupted. "Completely. But you'll see. One day we'll be free of people like you. Free of you and all the scum you defend. I'll see to it myself if I have to." Then he turned and walked away.
"Your ignorance is astounding," his father called after him. "Let me know how you do it."
*
There was only one thing Jeff needed to do before he joined the Police Academy, and that was change his name. He didn't want the other cadets to know him, didn't want his superiors to read his papers and think, that attorney's son. He needed a clean start.
So he filed his petition and stood before the judge, smiling graciously when the change was approved. After careful deliberation, he'd finally decided on his mother's maiden name: Gant. Quiet and unassuming, plain though not entirely common.
But in the end, he couldn't give up what his father had passed down to him, the family name that would always remind him just whose son he was. Because forgetting the name Larry Damon would be forgetting everything that Jeff despised in the world, everything he vowed to change. He needed those feelings, burning inside him, never relenting. So he took the name as his own and left Jeff Damon behind, that defeated child clutching at his father's gun.
On his first day in the LAPD, he stood eagerly in front of his sergeant, straight and tall in his newly pressed uniform, awaiting his assignment.
"Damon Gant," the officer read out loud, glancing down at his roster. "Looks like this is your first day. You must be excited."
"Yes, sir," he answered promptly. "Cleaning up this city is something I feel very passionate about."
"Is that so?" the officer said with a chuckle. "Well that's just fantastic. The LAPD could use someone like you."
"Thank you, sir," Gant replied, a slow smile beginning to pull at the corners of his lips. "I promise you I will do what I can."
Title: Someone Like Me
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some blink-and-you'll-miss-it gayness. (Kyle Hyde makes a cameo.)
Notes: Knowledge of both Hotel Dusk and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (first game only) is required. The timelines are a little off for this to actually work, but they're close and I say that's good enough.
After Gant was arrested, they took him to a solitary holding cell where he stayed until the date of his trial. He declined the right to an attorney, pleading guilty to two counts of murder, one count of forgery, and a whole wide world of other charges. He was convicted immediately, sentenced to ninety years with no chance of parole.
He put up no resistance as they escorted him to his cell, just smiled calmly and said, "Sometimes there's no other way to fight what's out there. You try for a while, following the rules, but then you begin to realize there's only so much you can do. I cleaned up this town, you know I did."
They unlocked the door to his cell, then removed his shackles and left him to his solitude.
"You'll see," he said, clapping his hands together in the cold, empty silence. "You needed someone like me."
*
When Jeff turned himself in to the police, he made his one and only call to his father, trembling as he clutched the phone in his hands.
"I don't have time to deal with you right now," was the reply. "You can stay there overnight."
Jeff spent the next seventeen hours sitting on a hard wooden bench with six other men, memorizing the back of his hands. He didn't sleep, didn't move. The next morning an officer came in and called his name, making a note on his clipboard as he led him down the hall.
"You got too nice a face to be in here, kid," he said, shaking his head. "I ever see you again, it better be in a uniform."
He was left in the custody of his father, who signed the papers impatiently and declared, "I've decided not to press charges. But don't think this will go unpunished."
When they arrived back home, Jeff stood frozen in the entryway, waiting to be screamed at or beaten or sent away, but his father just took the money and the pistol and disappeared into his study, and eventually Jeff went up to his bedroom and slammed the door in disgust.
*
"But what if they're not innocent?" Jeff asked his father in a quiet voice.
"I'm a defense attorney. It's my job to defend them. Everyone has the right to a fair trial."
"But poppa," Jeff insisted. "What if you know they're guilty."
His father looked up from his desk impatiently. "I defend people," he repeated. "It's my job, and I'm damn good at it. Now go upstairs. I have work to do," he said, and didn't look up again.
*
The first time Jeff held a gun was when he was twelve. His father's gun, brand new in its fancy wooden box. He came into the study looking for an eraser and saw it lying there on the desk. Of course his father came in while he was holding it. He didn't have it poised to shoot or anything, just had it sitting there, delicately, in the palms of his hands.
"You like that, Jeff?" his father asked. "That's poppa's new friend. She keeps poppa safe."
Jeff fumbled it back into the box and looked down at his socks. "Sorry," he said quickly. "I didn't mean to-I was just looking for a pencil eraser."
His father crossed the room and picked up the box. "Would you like to shoot it?" he asked.
He took Jeff out to the backyard and placed the gun in his hands. "Hold it just like that," he instructed. "Squeeze, don't pull."
Jeff stretched his arms out in front of him and rubbed at the cold steel with his fingertips. "I-I don't want to."
"Don't be stupid. You're not shooting anybody. Just aim into the bushes."
"I don't want to," Jeff repeated, his arms still outstretched. "It's... It's stupid, shooting at nothing."
His father sighed sharply and took a step towards him. "I guess you can't after all," he snapped, taking the gun from Jeff's hands. "Oh, and from now on, you are never to come into my office without asking. Is that clear?"
Jeff nodded, staring coldly at the bushes until he heard the back door slam shut.
*
There was a time when his father would take anyone's case. Long before they moved into the new house, before they transferred Jeff into a private school and bought their third car. His father worked from an office in a small building downtown, dreaming of the day when his name would be added to the sign.
When the clients started coming to their house instead of the office, no one seemed to mind. Because private clients meant big money, and everyone loved the money, Jeff included.
As he got older, he tried not to think about where that money was coming from. Instead he thought about his father's near-perfect win record, or the trip to Cancun the family would be taking in the summer.
*
Jeff was twenty-one when he left home. He withdrew all the money from his savings account over the course of four months, leaving a little under a thousand dollars so that the bank wouldn't get suspicious. Then he tucked the cash into a roll of socks and moved into a hotel. He hardly took anything with him, just a week's worth of clothing and a couple of books that he really liked. Nobody was around to hear him leave, and he knew his father wouldn't come looking for him.
The hotel he stayed at was cheap and dirty, and the sheets made his limbs itch deep beneath his skin. Outside his room was a view of the swimming pool, so gritty and polluted that you couldn't see the bottom, even in the shallow end. It was never used for swimming.
Jeff would watch the drug deals go down from his second floor window, little more than shadows on the stained, cracked concrete, but he knew what was going on. He watched them from his bed with the lights off, digging his fingernails into the palms of his hands.
One night he put on his bathing suit and sat down by the pool, dangling his feet in the murky water as he gazed at the row of broken patio furniture. He sat there for two hours, until he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"What the hell do you think you're doing here?" the voice hissed in his ear. "Beat it."
Jeff turned his head slowly, catching another shadow out of the corner of his eye. "I was just going for a swim," he said after a moment, quietly. "Care to join me?" Then he smiled over his shoulder, thin-lipped and smug, and dove into the water.
*
"But poppa!" Jeff insisted.
"How many times must I remind you that this is none of your concern?" his father interrupted angrily. "Do not bring it up again."
"But poppa, you don't need their business! They're bad people, they're-"
"I said don't bring it up again!"
Jeff's face broke, then went blank. "I have homework to do," he said quietly, and turned away.
*
Jeff liked going to this one bar, just on the outskirts of L.A. It was a quiet sort of place, the kind where everyone minded their own business and left him alone. He liked it that way, just sitting there, listening to everything go on around him.
One night, someone sat down beside him and let out a mighty laugh. "Well if it isn't Jeff Angel."
Jeff looked up from his glass of vodka and grimaced. "Don't call me that. You know that's not my name." It was that salesman, of all people. The one from two years ago. He still looked about the same. Maybe a few more lines around the eyes, but the same old four-dollar haircut, same half-assed shave. "Hyde, wasn't it?"
Hyde flagged over the bartender and ordered a bourbon. "Mr. Hyde. Respect your elders, kid."
"I'm not a kid," Jeff cut in sharply. "That selfish brat you met back then doesn't exist anymore."
"Different kind of brat then," Hyde remarked. "Whatever. So what the hell are you doing in here? Daddy turn your bedroom into a casino?"
Jeff stirred the ice cubes in his vodka. "For your information, Hyde, I got out of there. Couldn't stand to be in the same house with him anymore," he said darkly.
Hyde seemed to soften a little. "Some people never change, huh. Sorry to hear that."
"I've changed," Jeff insisted. "I've been thinking about becoming a cop."
Hyde laughed. "Is that so?" Then he smiled, almost warmly. "Well that's great. And I mean that. Hey," he said, motioning to the bartender. "Another round for the kid."
"I said stop calling me that," Jeff snapped, taking a drink of his vodka. "I'm not a child."
"Oh, you're not, huh?" Hyde asked.
"No, I'm not," Jeff said, eyes sparkling in the dim light. Then he leaned forward and kissed Hyde on the mouth.
Hyde shoved him away roughly and laughed. "See kid?" he said, plucking Jeff's hand from his thigh. "You haven't changed at all. You still think you can get whatever you want."
Jeff stared back at him, eyes narrowed. The corner of his mouth lifted up into a little smile.
"But you know what?" Hyde added after a second. "That just might work for you."
*
"I hate you," Jeff hissed, standing in the doorway. "I hate everything about you."
His father crossed the room, raised his hand, and slapped him across the face, hard. "How dare you speak to me that way, you ungrateful little shit. Who do you think gave you this lifestyle?" he yelled. "Who do you think worked hard every day of his life so that you could have it easy?"
"I don't care!" Jeff spat, ignoring the sting burning his cheek. "You lawyers, you disgust me. Rapists, drug dealers, murderers, you don't care! You'll defend them all as long as they can pay!"
"Do you know how stupid you sound, speaking of things you couldn't possibly under-"
"Oh, I understand," Jeff interrupted. "Completely. But you'll see. One day we'll be free of people like you. Free of you and all the scum you defend. I'll see to it myself if I have to." Then he turned and walked away.
"Your ignorance is astounding," his father called after him. "Let me know how you do it."
*
There was only one thing Jeff needed to do before he joined the Police Academy, and that was change his name. He didn't want the other cadets to know him, didn't want his superiors to read his papers and think, that attorney's son. He needed a clean start.
So he filed his petition and stood before the judge, smiling graciously when the change was approved. After careful deliberation, he'd finally decided on his mother's maiden name: Gant. Quiet and unassuming, plain though not entirely common.
But in the end, he couldn't give up what his father had passed down to him, the family name that would always remind him just whose son he was. Because forgetting the name Larry Damon would be forgetting everything that Jeff despised in the world, everything he vowed to change. He needed those feelings, burning inside him, never relenting. So he took the name as his own and left Jeff Damon behind, that defeated child clutching at his father's gun.
On his first day in the LAPD, he stood eagerly in front of his sergeant, straight and tall in his newly pressed uniform, awaiting his assignment.
"Damon Gant," the officer read out loud, glancing down at his roster. "Looks like this is your first day. You must be excited."
"Yes, sir," he answered promptly. "Cleaning up this city is something I feel very passionate about."
"Is that so?" the officer said with a chuckle. "Well that's just fantastic. The LAPD could use someone like you."
"Thank you, sir," Gant replied, a slow smile beginning to pull at the corners of his lips. "I promise you I will do what I can."