Fic: An Exaltation of Storm Troopers (Body of Proof, Sam/Megan)
Title: An Exaltation of Storm Troopers
Fandom: Body of Proof
Pairing: Sam Baker/Megan Hunt
Rating: PG
Warning: Description of a murder victim in the context of a case.
Spoilers: Through the end of the first season.
Summary: A good detective always gets her woman.
Word count: about 2,100.
Disclaimers: Body of Proof is the intellectual property of ABC and Gross Entertainment. This original work of fan fiction is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License; attribution should include a link to this post. This story is a labor of love, not money, so it's protected in the USA by the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976.
Notes: Thanks to annaalamode for beta reading! Written for femslash11 for sadieflood.
*
Aliens made them do it. That was how Sam would tell the story of how they got together, when people asked in the future. She'd do it mostly to get Megan to interrupt vigorously with the complaint that Sam was telling it all out of order. As a police detective, Sam should know the importance of the chain of events, the narrative that accounts for causation. This would be Sam's cue to shrug and say, "What I've learned as a detective is, people just do shit, and sometimes there's a reason."
"There's always a reason," is Megan's way of thinking. "You don't need to take it upon yourself to judge whether the reason is good."
"Oh, but I do," and this is Sam's cue to give Megan a kiss.
The aliens were at a science fiction and fantasy convention, a modest-sized one where the featured guests were novelists and webcomic artists. That wasn't a negative judgment on Sam's part: she respected the more artistic, literary end of the genre the most. She'd driven her brother to a few of these in high school, when she had her driver's license and a used beige Saturn she'd saved up for herself, and her brother and his friend Marcus would sit in the back seat nattering about action figures and limited-edition trade paperbacks. So many of those stories were about solving mysteries and giving bad guys their due, Sam wondered if she'd learned her life's calling through osmosis.
Today's victim slumped over the disabled-accessible toilet in a pose of humiliation. He'd been discovered by another convention-goer, who had jimmied the stall's lock open because a man in a wheelchair could only wait so long to pee. "I like going into the men's restroom," Sam whispered to Bud as they ducked past the police tape. "It feels sneaky."
Megan muttered something about natural causes, then took it back when she found strangulation bruises on his neck. She got meaner when word came through that he was a well-known fantasy writer. "He probably killed off someone's favorite character."
"Or did any of the normal things people do to get themselves strangled in a washroom," Sam couldn't keep herself from saying.
"Then why are all the witnesses in costume?" Megan wasn't going to let this go.
"Because they're at a con. Where it's safe to make believe," Sam said. "Haven't you ever had a hobby?"
"Not really."
When Megan was at her most obtuse, Sam thought most about kissing her. Sam resented that, but only a little.
The guy who found the victim was dressed as Charles Xavier. He was really upset. He offered to pay for the lock. He felt really bad for thinking the victim was a hack.
There were 400 people at the convention, plus a few dozen guests and who knew how many staff. Sam interviewed zombies and vampires, superheroes and starship captains, Vulcans and Klingons, and at least four incarnations of Doctor Who. Most of them knew the victim only by reputation; most of them were really at the con to see some other guest, or to see each other.
Damn, but there were a lot of them.
Sam got the shtick down. "Name? The one on your driver's license, please. Occupation? No, the one that pays for the Klingon armor." She said it with an insider's smile she wasn't sure she'd earned, although she had bought the new Songs of Ice and Fire book on her last payday. She kept it in the car to read during her lunch hour.
Sam had just run out for a sandwich and a chapter of epic medieval warfare when Megan called with her coroner's report. "Strangulation by hand. We're looking for a man who is either very large or very overweight. Thick fingers."
"Prints?"
"He wore gloves," Megan said. "Also, Kate told me to tell you I apologize for any insensitive remarks about fantasy writers."
"So do you apologize?" Sam baited her. "Or did Kate just tell you to tell me that?"
Megan sighed like she'd been pushed to the limits of her sensitivity. Sam imagined Megan's lower lip jutting, glistening. and her red-brown hair in the light. She thought of some things to never say. I'm sorry I'm thinking of kissing you right now. I'm sorry I've been thinking about it all day. I'm sorry that when you find all the dog-eared fantasy novels in the trunk of the Crown Vic, you will never want to kiss me back.
After she got off the phone with Megan, Sam tracked Bud down, and they rounded up all the men who fit the physical profile. They looked like a line-up of actors auditioning for the role of Bud, an observation which Sam kept to herself. All of them had already been interviewed, and all had been seen elsewhere at the time of the murder: most of them in the main ballroom for what had apparently been a very heated panel on depictions of terrorism in film and graphic media, and the others in the vendors' room or with spouses and kids.
"Maybe he fled the scene," Bud suggested. "In this crowd, no one would notice a guy leaving early."
"I got a hunch," Sam said. "I think he's hiding in plain sight, strutting around proud of what he's done. The con goes on through tomorrow night. Give me 'til then to work it out."
"Only 'cause I know you're a good detective with good hunches. I'm going back to the precinct to read the victim's hate mail and message board trolls."
Sam felt she had the sweet end of the deal, but she didn't know where to turn next. She sat in a stackable hotel chair in the hallway, reading her book and trying not to look so much like a police officer. The con was rolling up for the evening.
"Has anyone ever told you you have a Gwen Cooper vibe?" a girl asked. She had long, dyed-red hair and a lip piercing. She and her friend didn't appear to be in costume. "It's hot."
"First time for everything," Sam said.
The girl wrote her hotel room number on a Hello Kitty post-it note, which Sam pocketed. It wasn't a lead, but at least it was information.
In a quiet vestibule near the hotel's gift shop, she called Megan. "Got anything else for me?"
"On the sci-fi case? No, simple strangulation. I'm on to the next body. Sorry."
"So I guess it's my whodunit," Sam muttered.
As she was about to hang up, Megan replied, "Aren't those the best, though? The real mysteries. The ones you have to use your brain for." It was a sort of compassion.
"Want to get some dinner? Talk through the details?"
"I..." Megan sighed like five minutes ago she would have had an excuse, but her life had just fallen through. "That would be nice."
They didn't talk about the case at all. Instead, they shared a bottle of Cabernet, and Sam let Megan go on about her ex-husband's failed commitments and another weekend of not seeing her daughter. I could be the thing you'd never have to complain about, Sam almost said.
"You were right," Megan said. "It's so much better to share a bottle of wine than to drink one alone at home."
"One of the witnesses gave me her hotel room number," Sam told Megan, fishing the post-it out. It had stayed neatly folded in half, sticky side out.
"Why?"
Sam had come here suspecting that she'd have to use small words. "She liked me. People don't usually flirt with me while I'm on the job. Not people I'm interested in, anyway. It was refreshing."
"But you're not going to go? Or do you want me to convince you to go? I'm the wrong person to do that."
"I wanted you to give me a reason not to," Sam said.
"What kind of reason?" But Megan answered her own question. She had a clue, just a little one. "Oh." She fidgeted with her hair, making Sam stare at her precise, white hands. "Bud said something about you being gay, but I thought he was just making fun of you."
"He's not mean that way. I think he was matchmaking."
"More clued in than either one of us." Megan's laugh was like a bell, a flutter of eyelids.
"Sorry," Sam said. "I'll go with my sure thing."
"Not after I bought you a bottle of wine, you won't." Megan laughed, and Sam thought she'd brought out the hidden lightness in her, in both of them. But outside the restaurant, Megan put her armor back on. "I have to think about this."
Sam went home to drink more wine and read her book until the combination put her to sleep.
She went back to the convention bright and early and wound up strolling the vendors' room, thinking hard. She was missing something. She paused at a display of handmade weaponry and armor. The knives and swords were behind glass, but two pairs of thick leather gloves sat on the front table, ready to be touched. "My wife makes those," the vendor told her. "They're based on medieval French falconry equipment."
"Large hands," Sam said under her breath. "Large hands, or large gloves."
"What's that?" the vendor said.
"Have you seen anyone in a costume with gloves? Ones that would make their fingers thicker?" Sam flashed her badge so the question wouldn't seem as strange.
The vendor stroked his beard. "There's been a platoon of storm troopers making the rounds. A squadron? What do you call a group of storm troopers? A gaggle?"
"An exaltation," Sam said. "Thank you."
Sam dragged the whole exaltation down to the precinct for questioning. One of them used to date the victim's fiancee. Case closed, and Sam could still make the last panel of the day if she felt like it. But instead of heading back to the hotel, she found herself on the way to the morgue. Not in search of clues, but because she suspected Megan didn't have one.
She knocked on the doorframe of the examination room. Megan was the only person Sam knew who looked hot in medical goggles. "Closed the case," Sam said. "At the sci-fi convention. Jealous ex. Oldest story in the world."
"Except this time in costume?" Megan didn't look up from her incisions.
"Aren't they always? One way or another."
Megan pulled her goggles back over her hair. "Are you going to ask if I've thought about it?"
"No. I guessed you'd let me know."
Megan threw away her gloves and washed her hands. She scratched her nose like she'd been waiting for the satisfaction. "Should I wait until it's romantic, or can I kiss you here?"
"It's romantic here," Sam said.
Megan kissed Sam hard, before Sam had time to draw a breath or lean into it, Megan's tongue aggressive and determined. A good detective always gets her woman, Sam thought.
"So," Sam said. "You really working on a Sunday?"
"I ran out of Cabernet." The lightness was back, the glisten of Megan's smile.
"Want to go on a second date instead? We're going to watch three guys you've never heard of argue with each other about the future." Sam turned to go, not dragging Megan along, but believing she would follow. "Come on. You need a hobby."
Sam turned on the sirens so they'd get to the panel on time. They sat in the back and held hands. One of the non-murderous storm troopers waved, wiggling the fingers of his white glove as if in blessing. Were storm troopers aliens? They came from a galaxy far, far away. If Sam blamed them for this, they'd never catch up with her.
Fandom: Body of Proof
Pairing: Sam Baker/Megan Hunt
Rating: PG
Warning: Description of a murder victim in the context of a case.
Spoilers: Through the end of the first season.
Summary: A good detective always gets her woman.
Word count: about 2,100.
Disclaimers: Body of Proof is the intellectual property of ABC and Gross Entertainment. This original work of fan fiction is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License; attribution should include a link to this post. This story is a labor of love, not money, so it's protected in the USA by the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976.
Notes: Thanks to annaalamode for beta reading! Written for femslash11 for sadieflood.
*
Aliens made them do it. That was how Sam would tell the story of how they got together, when people asked in the future. She'd do it mostly to get Megan to interrupt vigorously with the complaint that Sam was telling it all out of order. As a police detective, Sam should know the importance of the chain of events, the narrative that accounts for causation. This would be Sam's cue to shrug and say, "What I've learned as a detective is, people just do shit, and sometimes there's a reason."
"There's always a reason," is Megan's way of thinking. "You don't need to take it upon yourself to judge whether the reason is good."
"Oh, but I do," and this is Sam's cue to give Megan a kiss.
The aliens were at a science fiction and fantasy convention, a modest-sized one where the featured guests were novelists and webcomic artists. That wasn't a negative judgment on Sam's part: she respected the more artistic, literary end of the genre the most. She'd driven her brother to a few of these in high school, when she had her driver's license and a used beige Saturn she'd saved up for herself, and her brother and his friend Marcus would sit in the back seat nattering about action figures and limited-edition trade paperbacks. So many of those stories were about solving mysteries and giving bad guys their due, Sam wondered if she'd learned her life's calling through osmosis.
Today's victim slumped over the disabled-accessible toilet in a pose of humiliation. He'd been discovered by another convention-goer, who had jimmied the stall's lock open because a man in a wheelchair could only wait so long to pee. "I like going into the men's restroom," Sam whispered to Bud as they ducked past the police tape. "It feels sneaky."
Megan muttered something about natural causes, then took it back when she found strangulation bruises on his neck. She got meaner when word came through that he was a well-known fantasy writer. "He probably killed off someone's favorite character."
"Or did any of the normal things people do to get themselves strangled in a washroom," Sam couldn't keep herself from saying.
"Then why are all the witnesses in costume?" Megan wasn't going to let this go.
"Because they're at a con. Where it's safe to make believe," Sam said. "Haven't you ever had a hobby?"
"Not really."
When Megan was at her most obtuse, Sam thought most about kissing her. Sam resented that, but only a little.
The guy who found the victim was dressed as Charles Xavier. He was really upset. He offered to pay for the lock. He felt really bad for thinking the victim was a hack.
There were 400 people at the convention, plus a few dozen guests and who knew how many staff. Sam interviewed zombies and vampires, superheroes and starship captains, Vulcans and Klingons, and at least four incarnations of Doctor Who. Most of them knew the victim only by reputation; most of them were really at the con to see some other guest, or to see each other.
Damn, but there were a lot of them.
Sam got the shtick down. "Name? The one on your driver's license, please. Occupation? No, the one that pays for the Klingon armor." She said it with an insider's smile she wasn't sure she'd earned, although she had bought the new Songs of Ice and Fire book on her last payday. She kept it in the car to read during her lunch hour.
Sam had just run out for a sandwich and a chapter of epic medieval warfare when Megan called with her coroner's report. "Strangulation by hand. We're looking for a man who is either very large or very overweight. Thick fingers."
"Prints?"
"He wore gloves," Megan said. "Also, Kate told me to tell you I apologize for any insensitive remarks about fantasy writers."
"So do you apologize?" Sam baited her. "Or did Kate just tell you to tell me that?"
Megan sighed like she'd been pushed to the limits of her sensitivity. Sam imagined Megan's lower lip jutting, glistening. and her red-brown hair in the light. She thought of some things to never say. I'm sorry I'm thinking of kissing you right now. I'm sorry I've been thinking about it all day. I'm sorry that when you find all the dog-eared fantasy novels in the trunk of the Crown Vic, you will never want to kiss me back.
After she got off the phone with Megan, Sam tracked Bud down, and they rounded up all the men who fit the physical profile. They looked like a line-up of actors auditioning for the role of Bud, an observation which Sam kept to herself. All of them had already been interviewed, and all had been seen elsewhere at the time of the murder: most of them in the main ballroom for what had apparently been a very heated panel on depictions of terrorism in film and graphic media, and the others in the vendors' room or with spouses and kids.
"Maybe he fled the scene," Bud suggested. "In this crowd, no one would notice a guy leaving early."
"I got a hunch," Sam said. "I think he's hiding in plain sight, strutting around proud of what he's done. The con goes on through tomorrow night. Give me 'til then to work it out."
"Only 'cause I know you're a good detective with good hunches. I'm going back to the precinct to read the victim's hate mail and message board trolls."
Sam felt she had the sweet end of the deal, but she didn't know where to turn next. She sat in a stackable hotel chair in the hallway, reading her book and trying not to look so much like a police officer. The con was rolling up for the evening.
"Has anyone ever told you you have a Gwen Cooper vibe?" a girl asked. She had long, dyed-red hair and a lip piercing. She and her friend didn't appear to be in costume. "It's hot."
"First time for everything," Sam said.
The girl wrote her hotel room number on a Hello Kitty post-it note, which Sam pocketed. It wasn't a lead, but at least it was information.
In a quiet vestibule near the hotel's gift shop, she called Megan. "Got anything else for me?"
"On the sci-fi case? No, simple strangulation. I'm on to the next body. Sorry."
"So I guess it's my whodunit," Sam muttered.
As she was about to hang up, Megan replied, "Aren't those the best, though? The real mysteries. The ones you have to use your brain for." It was a sort of compassion.
"Want to get some dinner? Talk through the details?"
"I..." Megan sighed like five minutes ago she would have had an excuse, but her life had just fallen through. "That would be nice."
They didn't talk about the case at all. Instead, they shared a bottle of Cabernet, and Sam let Megan go on about her ex-husband's failed commitments and another weekend of not seeing her daughter. I could be the thing you'd never have to complain about, Sam almost said.
"You were right," Megan said. "It's so much better to share a bottle of wine than to drink one alone at home."
"One of the witnesses gave me her hotel room number," Sam told Megan, fishing the post-it out. It had stayed neatly folded in half, sticky side out.
"Why?"
Sam had come here suspecting that she'd have to use small words. "She liked me. People don't usually flirt with me while I'm on the job. Not people I'm interested in, anyway. It was refreshing."
"But you're not going to go? Or do you want me to convince you to go? I'm the wrong person to do that."
"I wanted you to give me a reason not to," Sam said.
"What kind of reason?" But Megan answered her own question. She had a clue, just a little one. "Oh." She fidgeted with her hair, making Sam stare at her precise, white hands. "Bud said something about you being gay, but I thought he was just making fun of you."
"He's not mean that way. I think he was matchmaking."
"More clued in than either one of us." Megan's laugh was like a bell, a flutter of eyelids.
"Sorry," Sam said. "I'll go with my sure thing."
"Not after I bought you a bottle of wine, you won't." Megan laughed, and Sam thought she'd brought out the hidden lightness in her, in both of them. But outside the restaurant, Megan put her armor back on. "I have to think about this."
Sam went home to drink more wine and read her book until the combination put her to sleep.
She went back to the convention bright and early and wound up strolling the vendors' room, thinking hard. She was missing something. She paused at a display of handmade weaponry and armor. The knives and swords were behind glass, but two pairs of thick leather gloves sat on the front table, ready to be touched. "My wife makes those," the vendor told her. "They're based on medieval French falconry equipment."
"Large hands," Sam said under her breath. "Large hands, or large gloves."
"What's that?" the vendor said.
"Have you seen anyone in a costume with gloves? Ones that would make their fingers thicker?" Sam flashed her badge so the question wouldn't seem as strange.
The vendor stroked his beard. "There's been a platoon of storm troopers making the rounds. A squadron? What do you call a group of storm troopers? A gaggle?"
"An exaltation," Sam said. "Thank you."
Sam dragged the whole exaltation down to the precinct for questioning. One of them used to date the victim's fiancee. Case closed, and Sam could still make the last panel of the day if she felt like it. But instead of heading back to the hotel, she found herself on the way to the morgue. Not in search of clues, but because she suspected Megan didn't have one.
She knocked on the doorframe of the examination room. Megan was the only person Sam knew who looked hot in medical goggles. "Closed the case," Sam said. "At the sci-fi convention. Jealous ex. Oldest story in the world."
"Except this time in costume?" Megan didn't look up from her incisions.
"Aren't they always? One way or another."
Megan pulled her goggles back over her hair. "Are you going to ask if I've thought about it?"
"No. I guessed you'd let me know."
Megan threw away her gloves and washed her hands. She scratched her nose like she'd been waiting for the satisfaction. "Should I wait until it's romantic, or can I kiss you here?"
"It's romantic here," Sam said.
Megan kissed Sam hard, before Sam had time to draw a breath or lean into it, Megan's tongue aggressive and determined. A good detective always gets her woman, Sam thought.
"So," Sam said. "You really working on a Sunday?"
"I ran out of Cabernet." The lightness was back, the glisten of Megan's smile.
"Want to go on a second date instead? We're going to watch three guys you've never heard of argue with each other about the future." Sam turned to go, not dragging Megan along, but believing she would follow. "Come on. You need a hobby."
Sam turned on the sirens so they'd get to the panel on time. They sat in the back and held hands. One of the non-murderous storm troopers waved, wiggling the fingers of his white glove as if in blessing. Were storm troopers aliens? They came from a galaxy far, far away. If Sam blamed them for this, they'd never catch up with her.