242: Bad news
"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but we need you--"
"Sir, I apologize, but if you could step this way--"
"I know this is hard, but I have to ask if you can--"
Rinse; repeat. There's only so many ways you can put it, even when you're as fucking fabulous a wordsmith as I am. There's only so many phrases, only so many combinations of the apology and the request that can be arranged.
Nobody ever fucking likes doing it. That'd be sick, after all, and everybody in law enforcement is a perfect model of mental health. Nobody likes doing it but some are better at it than others, and/or bitch less about doing it, and they're the ones who end up doing it, over and over, because someone fucking has to and when you've got the vic's family members sitting in a stunned haze in plastic lobby chairs just waiting while everyone trades glances and silently argues over whose turn it is to break the shitty fucking news--
So you do it. You do it because it's easier than pulling rank, than insisting on the protocols. Because the parents or the spouse or the children of whoever's lying on the table don't deserve all the goddamn shit; keep it to your fucking selves, keep it in the precinct or wherever. Do your job.
Like everything else, it is easier with practice.
With practice you learn the right voice, the right posture, the right expression. The right mixture of Bureau-sanctioned professionalism and distance, leavened with as much compassion as you can bring yourself to bring on the day in question, which is easier if you've popped three or four aspirin beforehand (I usually have) and gotten at least six hours of sleep sometime in the last twenty-four hours (I usually haven't).
And you shift the words around, try and make it new each time so that you never let it be rote, never let it be a fucking recitation, never let yourself forget that no matter how many times you've said it they're hearing it for the first time.
"--to identify the body."
"--verify your wife's identity."
"--confirm that this is your daughter."
And it still always sounds exactly the same.
fandom: boondock saints
muse: paul smecker
word count: 374
"Sir, I apologize, but if you could step this way--"
"I know this is hard, but I have to ask if you can--"
Rinse; repeat. There's only so many ways you can put it, even when you're as fucking fabulous a wordsmith as I am. There's only so many phrases, only so many combinations of the apology and the request that can be arranged.
Nobody ever fucking likes doing it. That'd be sick, after all, and everybody in law enforcement is a perfect model of mental health. Nobody likes doing it but some are better at it than others, and/or bitch less about doing it, and they're the ones who end up doing it, over and over, because someone fucking has to and when you've got the vic's family members sitting in a stunned haze in plastic lobby chairs just waiting while everyone trades glances and silently argues over whose turn it is to break the shitty fucking news--
So you do it. You do it because it's easier than pulling rank, than insisting on the protocols. Because the parents or the spouse or the children of whoever's lying on the table don't deserve all the goddamn shit; keep it to your fucking selves, keep it in the precinct or wherever. Do your job.
Like everything else, it is easier with practice.
With practice you learn the right voice, the right posture, the right expression. The right mixture of Bureau-sanctioned professionalism and distance, leavened with as much compassion as you can bring yourself to bring on the day in question, which is easier if you've popped three or four aspirin beforehand (I usually have) and gotten at least six hours of sleep sometime in the last twenty-four hours (I usually haven't).
And you shift the words around, try and make it new each time so that you never let it be rote, never let it be a fucking recitation, never let yourself forget that no matter how many times you've said it they're hearing it for the first time.
"--to identify the body."
"--verify your wife's identity."
"--confirm that this is your daughter."
And it still always sounds exactly the same.
fandom: boondock saints
muse: paul smecker
word count: 374