"Hold the Lid Down Tightly", part 3
Fandom: Miami Vice
Rating: PG? What's a good rating for angst?
Warnings: spoilers for seasons 3-5
Finally finished. (Parts one and two.)
He takes a deep breath, opens his hands and drops them to his thighs, wiping his palms on the denim. He frowns as he realizes the jeans are still damp from Stan crying. "Ain't we a pair." It's a statement rather than a question, and Stan shakes his head. Around them, the Miami night has come the closest it ever does to sleep: crickets, cicadas and somewhere in the darkened complex, a tv up too loud, an old Western, cowboys and Indians, bad guys and good, clearly labeled by their drawls. Farther away, the sound of traffic has faded to a distant thrum, a soft but steady pulse; they're far enough away from the city's heart that the highway noise has faded, but then again, they're not ever really far enough away from this city's heart. It's not gonna get any cooler, that's for sure.
Sonny wonders if he should try to tell Stan about Caitlyn, about how it was between them, how she made him feel ten years younger with a fixed address, a new start, a way out of the hall of mirrors. He wonders whether anyone will listen to him anymore, all the things he's lost and done. He can't help remembering how light she felt in his arms when she fell, obscenely light, like a kid or a pet. Even now he doesn't remember letting them take her away from him. Looking over at Stan, he wants to ask if it was the same for him with Zito, and is struck by the crazy thought that they probably weighed around the same. He wonders if he can actually speak any of these thoughts aloud, or if he's just gonna carry them around with O'Grady and the rest. But in Stan's eyes, he sees that 19-year-old kid with a fiancee and a black lab back in Waukeegan, the ones he went home to in a bag, and Sonny knows he's gotta try.
"Seriously, Stan, what's going on? You can do this job in your sleep, but you're just phoning it in." Stan smirks at Crockett's pun, but Sonny's too tired to even notice he made one. "And then there's this...." He indicates the folded, stained black notebook in Stan's hands. "Where's your head at, man? You're a great cop--"
"Sonny?" Stan's voice is barely above a whisper now. "I wasn't good enough to keep my partner alive."
Sonny, just as soft. "That's not fair, Stan."
"I miss him, Sonny. I do. I miss him every damn day. And I keep dreaming about that day, the stupid shower. In the dream,"--Sonny knows where this is leading, 'cause he's had those dreams himself--"I get there in time, ya know? I get there just five minutes earlier--five minutes--and put a couple rounds in those punks."
"You can't go down that road, Stan. What happened wasn't your fault. Zito knew the ris--"
"But you know what the worst part is, Sonny?" Stan continues like he's not even listening. "The worst part, is that the last time I had the dream, it didn't matter whether I was on time. " Stan's voice catches. "It didn't matter, because I couldn't picture Lar's face anymore."
Sonny realizes there's nothing he can say, no speeches, no answers for this kind of pain, the kind a department shrink's never gonna hear. He realizes it because he's been where Stan is, even if he's never been able to talk about it, spill it all out into the open for someone. Sonny realizes he just needs to keep sitting there, keep listening, keep holding it together, keep breathing. That this is the most important assignment he's had in a long, long time.
"No one ever talks about him, Sonny. That's what gets me. No one ever mentions him anymore. He was a part of this squad for a long damn time, as long as any of us, and now...now it's like he never even existed! No one remembers. No one will even say his name, or at least not around me." Stan swallows hard, and Crockett can see his eyes shining with tears again in the gold porch light.
Sonny looks pained and stares down at the sidewalk. Thinks about Maria Rivera again.
"And I see some of the others looking at me sometimes, and I know they're thinking, 'Hey, there goes the albatross. There goes the guy who couldn't save his partner." Stan folds his arms across his chest and stretches his legs out in front of him. Sonny's just noticed his slippers, cheap moccasins with the sole worn down to a thin gloss. "You know what the department shrink told me? She told me that live cops never talk about dead cops because they just remind us that this job is dangerous. They're a reminder of all the sacrifices we have made and are gonna make just to do it. But, damn it, Sonny, Zito's more than some...reminder! He was a great guy, and he was my partner, and--" Stan trails off and Sonny puts a steadying hand on his shoulder. "It's just not right, that's all. He deserved better." Stan takes a deep breath. "I wish it was me. I'd give anything, ya know? Anything for it to have been me instead. Damn it! He was a helluva guy." He looks over at Crockett. "D'y'ever feel that way about Eddie? Y'know, that it was you instead?"
Crockett looks uncomfortable. "No Stan, I can't say that I do. Because if I did, I wouldn't be able to do my job anymore."
Stan's staring at him now, so Crockett takes a deep breath, and tries to explain. "I saw a lot of guys go down before I started this job. Over in 'Nam...we lost so many guys. You never knew whether the guy you bummed a smoke off of one day would be around for you to return the favor the next. And they were all good guys. All of 'em, great guys. But you couldn't stop to think about it, you couldn't stop to...miss them, or wonder who was next. Not even for a second, because there were no timeouts. No one was gonna stop shooting at you just because you felt bad."
"So what you're telling me then, is to get over it. Gee Crockett, thanks. Wish I'd thought of that!"
"All I'm saying...is that eventually you've got to let go, because if you keep on dwelling on what could have happened, what you wish had happened, you're gonna get your ass blown off. Or mine."
Stan's eyes are glittering now with something more than grief. "You too, huh Sonny? You think I'm bad luck. You think I'm gonna get you killed too? Well screw you, 'pal'! You're so damn unhappy working with me, why don't you do something about it?" Sonny looks up sharply, and takes his arm away from Stan's shoulders. Don't push me, Stan. But something in Switek seems to have burst. "Go on! You can just tell 'em you were Burnett again! That worked so well last time!"
Sonny leans his head forward, staring at the sidewalk. Blinking rapidly, he watches a black bug crawl out from a crack in the cement below the steps, something between a roach and a mosquito. He can taste the anger now, and he pushes his palms together, keeping it all in. Easy, tiger. Easy.
"Back off, Stan."
"Not this time, Sonny. Come on. You had your shot at me once, used good old Stan as your patsy." Sonny takes deep breaths, eyes closed, increasing the pressure in his hands. "'Where's Sonny, Stan?' Gee sorry, Lieutenant, he clocked me one and escaped back out into the big bad world to kill some more cops. Sorry!' How'd ya think that conversation went, Crockett? How'd ya think that looked on my record? You, 'pal', are the reason I'm still stuck in that goddamn van. You!"
Crockett's eyes are closed, against the night, against the past, against everything he's seen and been and done. But he can't stop what he's hearing.
"Seems to me like you did pretty well for yourself, Crockett. Went out of your head for awhile, shot a few cops and then you're back, and we're all supposed to act like nothing ever happened. Like you're not gonna snap again the next chance you get."
Enough. "You know what? This isn't about me, guy, it's about you. The gambling, and the drinking and the fact that you can't get over Zito. Look at yourself."
Stan tilts his head to the side, his expression unreadable. "Why'd you do it, Sonny?"
Sonny looks up, wide-eyed. Turns to stare at Stan.
"It was your idea, Sonny."
"What?"
"Sending him undercover on that job."
"Stan--"
"Why? Why wasn't it you or Tubbs? Why'd you have to choose Larry?"
"Stan, he was the right guy for the operation, and he was doing a damn good job at it. He knew the scene. Rico and I would have stood out like sore thumbs. Besides....no one could have known how it would go down. No one. It was just a case of right place, wrong time."
Stan's quiet again, and Sonny thinks maybe that's worse than the accusations. Far off in the darkness, the credits have rolled on the old Western, and there's a sudden jump in the volume as a commercial for a local furniture discount outlet comes on. Sonny recognizes the name, knows it's just a front for a smalltime dealer they've had their eyes on for a couple months. As soon as the thought comes, Sonny wishes the recognition wasn't so automatic, his knowledge of Miami's underbelly a little too complete for anyone's comfort.
Stan's voice, when he finally finds it, is cold and distant. "Yeah right, maybe it's no one's fault, but it got Larry killed all the same."
"You gotta stop this, pal. You gotta let it go. It's killing you, man." Sonny's whispering now. He reaches deep inside and tries to find the words to bring Caitlyn to the table, to bring her back to life, if only for a moment. But to do so would only mean having her die all over again, and he doesn't know how much more he can take, how many more times he can see the light go out of her eyes. "When Caitlyn..." He stops, tasting bile at the back of his throat, unsure if he's taken a breath in the last minute, or the last month. "When Caitlyn, uh...when she was killed..."
Stan looks over at Sonny from under thick eyebrows, sees Crockett's narrowed, unfocused eyes, and his anger dissipates like fog rolling down a mountain.
Crockett clears his throat and starts again. "White Shoulders." He shakes his head. "She wore that stuff everyday and I swear, I still smell it. In the car, on the boat." Crockett grins. "Y'know last week I could have sworn I smelled it down at OCB? Walking down the hallway, minding my own business and then suddenly...dammit. Every time is worse than the last. I keep thinking I can close my eyes, and when I open them, everything will be different." Crockett sighs and the two of them stare off into the darkness. Whatever happens, is what we make happen. That's what she'd told him. He'd looked into those big blue eyes, listened to that pretty lilting voice of hers, and thought for a moment it was all true. That a guy like him could have a normal life, a life outside the job, outside the drugs and guns and lies and pretense. He sighed. It had all come so close to being true. When he'd told her they would make it work or die trying, he hadn't expected to be a prophet.
Stan puts a huge hand on his friend's arm. "I'm sorry, Sonny."
"Yeah, some guardian angel I turned out to be."
Unbidden, Sonny gets a sudden flash of gunshots riddling a doorframe as he pushes Caroline and Billy to the floor. He rubs a hand across one eye to clear his head. Too many ghosts for one night. Is it morning yet? Does it matter? He's greeting the dawn in the same clothes he woke up in watching Switek check for dregs at the bottom of the bottle.
"I was so close. So. Close."
"Y'ever wonder if maybe we're not cut out for the family life? Because of the job?"
"All the time, Stan. All the damn time."
"We were rootin' for you two, y'know? This job. It makes me wonder if maybe we're not cut out for the family life. Like this squad's as good as it's gonna get. Besides, the way I figure it..." He hesitates, looking skyward. "If I can't even keep my partner alive, how'm I gonna protect a family?"
Startled, Sonny stares at Switek. Apparently the guy had sobered up without him realizing.
Switek stops. Behind them in the dark, someone turns the tv off, and Stan can hear the hitches in Sonny's breathing, the places the pain should be coming out from. Sonny's eyes are wild, wide open in the moonlight. The two men stare at each other. Neither of them know what to say, how to take back anything they've said, how to move on. It hits them both then, everything that Crockett's lost, his pain so much more than one man should bear, so many people gone from one lifetime.
"I'm sorry, Sonny. I'm just runnin' my mouth."
There's no answer, and Stan can see Crockett's eyes, still wild, unfocused, staring off at things he can't imagine, and hopes he'll never see.
"Sonny?"
Crockett gets up off the steps, and walks away into the darkness without looking back.
"Sonny?" Stan whispers.
At this point he can't even hear footsteps, and even the cicadas seem to have quieted down. The roar of the Testarossa pulling away from the curb rends the night like a scream, but then it too fades into the waning night. Stan shakes his head and mops his face with his shirt, reaches behind him for the rest of the beer. Long after Sonny's driven off, Stan sits there on the stoop, clutching the empty bottle. He's having that nightmare again, only this time he doesn't feel like he'll ever wake up. He just wants to open his eyes and have the last two years be gone. He wants to open his eyes and see his partner coming up the walk, reeking of bait and cheap perfume, chewing on a cigar butt. He just wants things back the way they were.
When the sun comes up, he's still sitting there on the steps, eyes still closed.
Rating: PG? What's a good rating for angst?
Warnings: spoilers for seasons 3-5
Finally finished. (Parts one and two.)
He takes a deep breath, opens his hands and drops them to his thighs, wiping his palms on the denim. He frowns as he realizes the jeans are still damp from Stan crying. "Ain't we a pair." It's a statement rather than a question, and Stan shakes his head. Around them, the Miami night has come the closest it ever does to sleep: crickets, cicadas and somewhere in the darkened complex, a tv up too loud, an old Western, cowboys and Indians, bad guys and good, clearly labeled by their drawls. Farther away, the sound of traffic has faded to a distant thrum, a soft but steady pulse; they're far enough away from the city's heart that the highway noise has faded, but then again, they're not ever really far enough away from this city's heart. It's not gonna get any cooler, that's for sure.
Sonny wonders if he should try to tell Stan about Caitlyn, about how it was between them, how she made him feel ten years younger with a fixed address, a new start, a way out of the hall of mirrors. He wonders whether anyone will listen to him anymore, all the things he's lost and done. He can't help remembering how light she felt in his arms when she fell, obscenely light, like a kid or a pet. Even now he doesn't remember letting them take her away from him. Looking over at Stan, he wants to ask if it was the same for him with Zito, and is struck by the crazy thought that they probably weighed around the same. He wonders if he can actually speak any of these thoughts aloud, or if he's just gonna carry them around with O'Grady and the rest. But in Stan's eyes, he sees that 19-year-old kid with a fiancee and a black lab back in Waukeegan, the ones he went home to in a bag, and Sonny knows he's gotta try.
"Seriously, Stan, what's going on? You can do this job in your sleep, but you're just phoning it in." Stan smirks at Crockett's pun, but Sonny's too tired to even notice he made one. "And then there's this...." He indicates the folded, stained black notebook in Stan's hands. "Where's your head at, man? You're a great cop--"
"Sonny?" Stan's voice is barely above a whisper now. "I wasn't good enough to keep my partner alive."
Sonny, just as soft. "That's not fair, Stan."
"I miss him, Sonny. I do. I miss him every damn day. And I keep dreaming about that day, the stupid shower. In the dream,"--Sonny knows where this is leading, 'cause he's had those dreams himself--"I get there in time, ya know? I get there just five minutes earlier--five minutes--and put a couple rounds in those punks."
"You can't go down that road, Stan. What happened wasn't your fault. Zito knew the ris--"
"But you know what the worst part is, Sonny?" Stan continues like he's not even listening. "The worst part, is that the last time I had the dream, it didn't matter whether I was on time. " Stan's voice catches. "It didn't matter, because I couldn't picture Lar's face anymore."
Sonny realizes there's nothing he can say, no speeches, no answers for this kind of pain, the kind a department shrink's never gonna hear. He realizes it because he's been where Stan is, even if he's never been able to talk about it, spill it all out into the open for someone. Sonny realizes he just needs to keep sitting there, keep listening, keep holding it together, keep breathing. That this is the most important assignment he's had in a long, long time.
"No one ever talks about him, Sonny. That's what gets me. No one ever mentions him anymore. He was a part of this squad for a long damn time, as long as any of us, and now...now it's like he never even existed! No one remembers. No one will even say his name, or at least not around me." Stan swallows hard, and Crockett can see his eyes shining with tears again in the gold porch light.
Sonny looks pained and stares down at the sidewalk. Thinks about Maria Rivera again.
"And I see some of the others looking at me sometimes, and I know they're thinking, 'Hey, there goes the albatross. There goes the guy who couldn't save his partner." Stan folds his arms across his chest and stretches his legs out in front of him. Sonny's just noticed his slippers, cheap moccasins with the sole worn down to a thin gloss. "You know what the department shrink told me? She told me that live cops never talk about dead cops because they just remind us that this job is dangerous. They're a reminder of all the sacrifices we have made and are gonna make just to do it. But, damn it, Sonny, Zito's more than some...reminder! He was a great guy, and he was my partner, and--" Stan trails off and Sonny puts a steadying hand on his shoulder. "It's just not right, that's all. He deserved better." Stan takes a deep breath. "I wish it was me. I'd give anything, ya know? Anything for it to have been me instead. Damn it! He was a helluva guy." He looks over at Crockett. "D'y'ever feel that way about Eddie? Y'know, that it was you instead?"
Crockett looks uncomfortable. "No Stan, I can't say that I do. Because if I did, I wouldn't be able to do my job anymore."
Stan's staring at him now, so Crockett takes a deep breath, and tries to explain. "I saw a lot of guys go down before I started this job. Over in 'Nam...we lost so many guys. You never knew whether the guy you bummed a smoke off of one day would be around for you to return the favor the next. And they were all good guys. All of 'em, great guys. But you couldn't stop to think about it, you couldn't stop to...miss them, or wonder who was next. Not even for a second, because there were no timeouts. No one was gonna stop shooting at you just because you felt bad."
"So what you're telling me then, is to get over it. Gee Crockett, thanks. Wish I'd thought of that!"
"All I'm saying...is that eventually you've got to let go, because if you keep on dwelling on what could have happened, what you wish had happened, you're gonna get your ass blown off. Or mine."
Stan's eyes are glittering now with something more than grief. "You too, huh Sonny? You think I'm bad luck. You think I'm gonna get you killed too? Well screw you, 'pal'! You're so damn unhappy working with me, why don't you do something about it?" Sonny looks up sharply, and takes his arm away from Stan's shoulders. Don't push me, Stan. But something in Switek seems to have burst. "Go on! You can just tell 'em you were Burnett again! That worked so well last time!"
Sonny leans his head forward, staring at the sidewalk. Blinking rapidly, he watches a black bug crawl out from a crack in the cement below the steps, something between a roach and a mosquito. He can taste the anger now, and he pushes his palms together, keeping it all in. Easy, tiger. Easy.
"Back off, Stan."
"Not this time, Sonny. Come on. You had your shot at me once, used good old Stan as your patsy." Sonny takes deep breaths, eyes closed, increasing the pressure in his hands. "'Where's Sonny, Stan?' Gee sorry, Lieutenant, he clocked me one and escaped back out into the big bad world to kill some more cops. Sorry!' How'd ya think that conversation went, Crockett? How'd ya think that looked on my record? You, 'pal', are the reason I'm still stuck in that goddamn van. You!"
Crockett's eyes are closed, against the night, against the past, against everything he's seen and been and done. But he can't stop what he's hearing.
"Seems to me like you did pretty well for yourself, Crockett. Went out of your head for awhile, shot a few cops and then you're back, and we're all supposed to act like nothing ever happened. Like you're not gonna snap again the next chance you get."
Enough. "You know what? This isn't about me, guy, it's about you. The gambling, and the drinking and the fact that you can't get over Zito. Look at yourself."
Stan tilts his head to the side, his expression unreadable. "Why'd you do it, Sonny?"
Sonny looks up, wide-eyed. Turns to stare at Stan.
"It was your idea, Sonny."
"What?"
"Sending him undercover on that job."
"Stan--"
"Why? Why wasn't it you or Tubbs? Why'd you have to choose Larry?"
"Stan, he was the right guy for the operation, and he was doing a damn good job at it. He knew the scene. Rico and I would have stood out like sore thumbs. Besides....no one could have known how it would go down. No one. It was just a case of right place, wrong time."
Stan's quiet again, and Sonny thinks maybe that's worse than the accusations. Far off in the darkness, the credits have rolled on the old Western, and there's a sudden jump in the volume as a commercial for a local furniture discount outlet comes on. Sonny recognizes the name, knows it's just a front for a smalltime dealer they've had their eyes on for a couple months. As soon as the thought comes, Sonny wishes the recognition wasn't so automatic, his knowledge of Miami's underbelly a little too complete for anyone's comfort.
Stan's voice, when he finally finds it, is cold and distant. "Yeah right, maybe it's no one's fault, but it got Larry killed all the same."
"You gotta stop this, pal. You gotta let it go. It's killing you, man." Sonny's whispering now. He reaches deep inside and tries to find the words to bring Caitlyn to the table, to bring her back to life, if only for a moment. But to do so would only mean having her die all over again, and he doesn't know how much more he can take, how many more times he can see the light go out of her eyes. "When Caitlyn..." He stops, tasting bile at the back of his throat, unsure if he's taken a breath in the last minute, or the last month. "When Caitlyn, uh...when she was killed..."
Stan looks over at Sonny from under thick eyebrows, sees Crockett's narrowed, unfocused eyes, and his anger dissipates like fog rolling down a mountain.
Crockett clears his throat and starts again. "White Shoulders." He shakes his head. "She wore that stuff everyday and I swear, I still smell it. In the car, on the boat." Crockett grins. "Y'know last week I could have sworn I smelled it down at OCB? Walking down the hallway, minding my own business and then suddenly...dammit. Every time is worse than the last. I keep thinking I can close my eyes, and when I open them, everything will be different." Crockett sighs and the two of them stare off into the darkness. Whatever happens, is what we make happen. That's what she'd told him. He'd looked into those big blue eyes, listened to that pretty lilting voice of hers, and thought for a moment it was all true. That a guy like him could have a normal life, a life outside the job, outside the drugs and guns and lies and pretense. He sighed. It had all come so close to being true. When he'd told her they would make it work or die trying, he hadn't expected to be a prophet.
Stan puts a huge hand on his friend's arm. "I'm sorry, Sonny."
"Yeah, some guardian angel I turned out to be."
Unbidden, Sonny gets a sudden flash of gunshots riddling a doorframe as he pushes Caroline and Billy to the floor. He rubs a hand across one eye to clear his head. Too many ghosts for one night. Is it morning yet? Does it matter? He's greeting the dawn in the same clothes he woke up in watching Switek check for dregs at the bottom of the bottle.
"I was so close. So. Close."
"Y'ever wonder if maybe we're not cut out for the family life? Because of the job?"
"All the time, Stan. All the damn time."
"We were rootin' for you two, y'know? This job. It makes me wonder if maybe we're not cut out for the family life. Like this squad's as good as it's gonna get. Besides, the way I figure it..." He hesitates, looking skyward. "If I can't even keep my partner alive, how'm I gonna protect a family?"
Startled, Sonny stares at Switek. Apparently the guy had sobered up without him realizing.
Switek stops. Behind them in the dark, someone turns the tv off, and Stan can hear the hitches in Sonny's breathing, the places the pain should be coming out from. Sonny's eyes are wild, wide open in the moonlight. The two men stare at each other. Neither of them know what to say, how to take back anything they've said, how to move on. It hits them both then, everything that Crockett's lost, his pain so much more than one man should bear, so many people gone from one lifetime.
"I'm sorry, Sonny. I'm just runnin' my mouth."
There's no answer, and Stan can see Crockett's eyes, still wild, unfocused, staring off at things he can't imagine, and hopes he'll never see.
"Sonny?"
Crockett gets up off the steps, and walks away into the darkness without looking back.
"Sonny?" Stan whispers.
At this point he can't even hear footsteps, and even the cicadas seem to have quieted down. The roar of the Testarossa pulling away from the curb rends the night like a scream, but then it too fades into the waning night. Stan shakes his head and mops his face with his shirt, reaches behind him for the rest of the beer. Long after Sonny's driven off, Stan sits there on the stoop, clutching the empty bottle. He's having that nightmare again, only this time he doesn't feel like he'll ever wake up. He just wants to open his eyes and have the last two years be gone. He wants to open his eyes and see his partner coming up the walk, reeking of bait and cheap perfume, chewing on a cigar butt. He just wants things back the way they were.
When the sun comes up, he's still sitting there on the steps, eyes still closed.