Warnings: This story will contain material some may not feel comfortable with, specifically case files featuring hate crimes: homophobia, racism ect. Though the premise of this story is not, in any way, based on that alone, I find it important to let the reader know.

Notes: This story glorifies slash! What else can I say? Raleigh Barron-Vasquez is a patrol officer in the Beaufort, South Carolina police department, a single father of one, a repressed bisexual, and a soon-to-be-captain in the marine reserves. Nate Hendrix, the captain of his unit, just so happens to be very open-minded in his own sexuality and ups the ante on his seductions after being informed of Raleigh’s promotion. Oh man, I’m going to have fun writing these boys.

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Texas Floods

Chapter One: Barstools and Cigarettes

Twenty past nine.

The ground beneath me shakes as lightning rips across the skies over Beaufort, and the inky black clouds take on a milky glow, like a horror movie playing out above me. I flick the smoldering cigarette butt onto the pavement and stub it out with the polished toe of my boot.

The keys still hang in the squad car’s ignition, and I can hear talk radio through the open drivers’ window to my back; the metal frame of the Crown Vic is like ice to my skin despite the heavy wool of my uniform, silver pins and buttons shining beneath the ghostly orange haze of the parking lot’s streetlamps.

My fingers itch to take out the crumpled pack of Kools tucked into my trouser pockets, flip open that godawful Zippo lighter, and take in that sweet, toxic death one pull at a time, but I fight the urge and instead take to watching the mass crowds force their way into the bar’s narrow entrance.

They all know me, they all acknowledge me. Some wave, and some, some even say a thing or two. Captain Hendrix always does. He’s always here, every damn night, getting a little bit wasted, hitching a ride from a fellow comrade by means of that charismatic smile and warm laugh. It works on his peers, but I still have yet to find out if his wily charms can get him out of a bind with his wife after staggering up the driveway in the early hours of the morning.

“Good evening, Officer…Lieutenant…Raleigh,” Hendrix drawls, years living in South Carolina paying off in a clichéd slow speak.

“Raleigh at the moment, sir,” I say, smiling. I’ve always found it amusing that no one’s quite sure how to title me: a patrol officer on the police force, a lieutenant reservist in the marines, an all-around good guy just looking to keep a house over his daughter’s head while keeping up with his friends when he can scrounge up the time.

The captain grins, leans a hip up against the squad car. He’s so close to me that I can smell his costly designer cologne and the sharp scent of black polish drifting up from his scuffed combat boots; his eyes are laughing and his right hand splays out across the roof of the cruiser, right behind my back.

Sometimes, it’s nice to know I’m not the only guy in town willing to walk both sides of the street, not that I’d ever consider walking the other side with him, the side I haven’t walked on since college. Maybe after my captains’ promotion next week, maybe after Miranda’s inevitable break-up with me plays out tomorrow morning across a Formica table.

“How goes it, Raleigh?”

“It’s going fine.” I smile and find Hendrix’s liquid expression endearing, find his gaze dropping down to my mouth flattering.

“The PD treating our guy well, huh?”

“Yes sir, I’m afraid so,” I reply. “They’ve dug their fingers in pretty deep.”

Hendrix’s brows furrow, his lips screwed into a warped sort of frown. “We miss having you around, Raleigh. Don’t mind me saying that I’m glad we’re getting called back up. We can steal you back.”

“October, right?”

“Right-o.” The captains nods and nudges me in the shoulder. “Going inside any time soon, marine…copper?”

I laugh, feeling myself flush as I look down and study the cigarette I had crushed against the pavement mere moments before the captain sidled up to me. I can feel his eyes on me, and though he’s only days older than me, only six days’ worth a higher rank than me as it is now, I still sense a superiority in his inquiry. Like I’m being ordered inside, being persuaded by the prodding finger on my shoulder blade.

“I’m waiting for Rebecca.”

Hendrix stiffens at the name, shuffles his feet, looks into the traffic moving up and down the parkway before the bar lot.

“She’s twenty minutes late. Probably stood me up again,” I supply, as if those useless words will put his mind at ease.

“Probably,” Hendrix mutters.

“She’s probably not going to show, you know,” I add like a broken record.

He turns his gaze back to me. “I haven’t seen her in years. How’s she doing?”

“She’s pregnant again. Very cranky, very not-Beka.”

For a split second, Hendrix smiles. Some distant memory reserved just for the relationship he and my partner shared so long ago. Throughout high school, they’d dated on and off. Not quite the golden boy and girl of the school, not quite prom king and queen material, but by far the biggest, bawdiest teenaged couple in the whole county.

Cruised town in Hendrix’s Corvette, laughed at the pathetic marine grads wandering the streets of Beaufort, eyes miserable and lifeless by the effects of countless weeks of boot camp, tossed smoldering cigarettes out the rolled-down windows at intersections where the tourists liked to flock.

Claimed Hendrix was related to the Guitar God, even if Beaufort’s Hendrix was very obviously Hispanic, surname gratitude to his father’s desperate attempt to Americanize the family upon entrance to the States. Bragged Beka’s unfailing ability to destroy anything in her way with a sucker-punch that’d have Ali on his knees, begging for mercy.

Christ, how people change. Thankfully, both for the better. Hendrix fell for the recruiter’s seduction, as did just about every senior guy in my graduating class (I tripped in after junior college); Beka joined forces with what she’d formerly tagged as the “pigs,” and life went on. Most townsfolk don’t remember the menaces Hendrix and Beka were eight years, but the two of them remember. Oh, they’ll always remember.

“Maybe you could say hi,” I say.

Hendrix scoffs. “You kidding?”

“Nope.”

“I’m not one to hold grudges, but I really don’t want to have to speak to her if I don’t have to. Goddamn this town for being so small. I see her every time I go grocery shopping,” he says.

“She’s always telling me to tell you hi.”

His face screws in bitter laughter. “Listen, I’m going in now. Buy you a drink?”

I shrug noncommittally, tapping my index and middle finger against the side hem of my uniform trousers. I think we both know Beka’s not coming and that it’s most likely that wonderful new husband of hers keeping her home, wrapping her up nice an’ tight in his wealthy arms, safe from the storm beneath the shingles of a million dollar home. I think we both know this, but we also know I’ll wait out here until it starts to rain, waiting loyally for my partner to not show up.

“Alrighty then,” Hendrix responds to the words I do not say, “I’ll see you on the inside.”

He pushes himself off the squad car and pats me on the shoulder before heading off to the bar, disappearing in the crowd, a captain among brainless tourists and drunken civilians.

I try to spot him out in the bustle, but his height’s sheer centimeters over my stand, five foot ten, and it’s impossible to distinguish him from the rest of them. I fall back against the Crown Vic, fight the urge to light up another smoke, and drown in the frantic chatter of sports talk radio.

Nine forty and like always, I’ve fallen victim to the tobacco industry, teeth clenched into the filter of a cigarette. Nine forty-three, and the place is now officially bursting at its seams, everyone from the ministry to the mayor’s office kicking back and chugging down whatever’s on tap tonight.

Nine forty-five and it starts to pour.

---

I can hardly breathe, it’s so crowded. Every table on the floor is packed to its capacity, and there’s no way this doesn’t violate city code. If a fire swept through this place right now, we’d all be goners, no questions ask. I scowl after noticing that there is a row of chairs blocking the only emergency exit to the outside.

“Hola, Roly-Poly!”

There’s no need to turn and see who has just spoken. Her baritone voice cuts through silky, smoky air, through the thunderous roar of the patrons. A smattering of uniforms mixed in with a rowdy bunch of well-dressed civilians; women in slinky cocktail dresses that cling to every voluptuous curve, men in suits and slacks and hideous ties.

“Hello, Irene,” I say as a slim hand slides up my back, fingers brushing my neck right above my collar.

She turns me around, a catty smile working its way across pair of full crimson lips. Jesus, my stomach flips at the sight of her.

Irene Marie, the woman with two first names.

She stands at five foot, but she’s all woman, from head to toe. With black hair that tumbles about her slender shoulders and eyes as black as the night behind small-frame glasses, she’s a lonely man’s wet dream. Crude? Perhaps. But I can’t name one man who’d disagree, not even the town flamer, who’s openly admitted to having that librarian fantasy starring Miss Irene.

Miss Irene and her little black dress and her hand leading me to the bar, sitting me down beside Forrest Whitaker, a deaf old man who’s been the local drug store pharmacist since before the place was officially established, and Walt Thomas, a friendly yes-man, chatterbox of an attorney working exclusively on the DA’s staff down at City Hall.

“Hiya, Mr. Whit. Mr. Thomas.” I nod politely, pushed up against the bar counter as Irene attempts to squeeze in on the space between me and the pharmacist.

“Young man, we haven’t seen you in quite awhile!” Walt cries, very obviously drunk. It wasn’t even ten, and the lawyer was already on his way to the greater lands of intoxication. People in this town, I swear….

“PD’s keeping me pretty busy.” I wave to the barkeep, ignore Irene’s hot breath bating my cheek, and focus on the task at hand: humor Walt, try not to get hard by the feel of Irene’s fingers dancing across my thigh, try not to get ha—okay, too late. Damn it. Well, God bless the dim billiard lighting cliché.

“That doesn’t mean you can’t stop by the offices after dropping a perp off in court.” Walt pouted, his moustache skewing at the move. “Jeannie’s always worried about you. Asking me if you get enough to eat, if you sleep eight hours a night. You’d think the woman’d try to adopt you or something. She’ll be the death of me, I know it. You’ve got to come over for supper some night when we have your folks over. It’ll be like old times. We’ll even try to pull Karen away from that ridiculous, good-for-nothing boyfriend of hers to drop by.”

I smile timidly, his quick words overwhelming. Motormouth Mike, the barkeep, pulls up before me and a ghost of a grin flashes over his tired face as I send him a look of distress, eyes darting towards Walt, who is either waiting for a formulated response or has just taken to staring at my ear. “I’ll have a Coors, Mikey.”

“Anythin’ for our boys in blue,” Mike replies.

“Irene, you want anything?” I ask.

She shrugs and looks away for a moment, thinking. “Me gustaría una cerveza, por favor.”

Mike blinks. “’Scuse me?”

“Just get her a Bud Light,” I sigh.

“Gracias Miguel!” Irene calls and slips from her place, having partially positioned her way onto my lap. Then she wanders away to a more exciting party, but she’ll come back for the drink I’ll most certainly have to pay for. Because she is a vampire. A blood-sucking, man-eating vampire with a heart of gold and a laugh that could’ve melted the Cold War.

When I finally get my beer, Walt has already begun talking again, unknown to the fact that I’m only partly listening; I’ve spotted Hendrix across the room, and he looks about as miserable as a twenty-six-year-old marine captain with God on his side could be. Women swarm him like flies to a carcass, and though he’s not the one talking in his party, they all seem captured by what he’s not saying.

“…so I told him, I told him, I said, ‘kiddo, you’re never going to step foot on the earth as a free man for what you’ve done, you little punk.’ Can you believe that bullcrap?” Walt screeches, rocking back and forth on his barstool, slapping his knee like what he’d just said is actually funny. And maybe it is, but I don’t hear a thing.

A group of people block my clear view of the despondent captain, but as they pass, Hendrix catches my eye, and I can’t even bring myself to feel embarrassed that I’ve been caught in a stare. I simply half-smile and turn my attention back to my beer, taking a long, hard pull and loving the feel of the icy alcohol coating the insides of my mouth, pricked by the feel of Hendrix’s stare piercing me in half and not caring half as much as I should.

Walt is talking again, Irene takes off with her beer, and I finish mine in record time. I won’t order another, I’m driving home, and my five-year-old girl’s got only her father because her mother’d believed six beers wasn’t enough to relinquish the keys. But that is another story, another five stages of grief back, and it is best left on her grave.

---

Saturday shift starts at eight-thirty sharp and Miranda’s planning on my meeting her at the Hungry Bear Diner on the waterfront for an early breakfast around seven. I’m not keen on suffering through her speeches about the failing anatomies of our lackadaisical relationship, and I’m definitely not all that jazzed about having to go into work on the weekend; it’s my only day off and I’d been scheming on picking my daughter up from my mom’s and taking her up the coast for a few hours.

God had other plans.

Two hours to closing time, and my work cell vibrates against my belt, tucked in between a small can of Mace and an appointed Glock. Warily, I drag myself through the crowd and fight my way outside, sight trained on the lit Motorola screen. I punch the red phone button and hold the phone up to my ear. “Barron-Vasquez,” I answer shortly.

“Raleigh, we got a problem,” comes the gravelly voice of my unit’s subbing dispatch on weekends, Danny Bruin, overlapping the low drone my hearing has acquired over the past couple hours in the bar, sitting above a flat Coke and a bowl of nasty-looking peanuts.

“Which is what?”

“Attempted murder.”

Ah, Christ. I begin the short walk to my squad car, my grip on the cell tightening as I speak, “Where’s the victim been taken to? Mercy or St. John’s?”

“We got him at Mercy. Squid on our hands, man, a fuckin’ SEAL. Jim Hart.”

“What the hell’s a squid doing in Beaufort?” I ask; I unlock my cruiser and slide inside, and only then become aware of the heavy rains I’d just walked through. My trousers are uncomfortably damp against my thighs, my skin sticky in the stale air of the Crown Vic’s cabin.

“No way to know right now, man. The doctors put him in a medically induced coma until they’re sure the guy’s got no internal bleeding. They say he’ll come to ‘round seven.”

“No concussion?”

“No concussion. Florez and Petri found him out on Richards Street, nearly drowned in the rain, body broken in more places than they could count. According to Florez, he was awake, respondin’ to questions, tellin’ ‘em where he’d been hit.”

“Did he tell them why this happened?”

Danny’s laugh is cold. “You think I’d be callin’ ya if he had? Lieutenant Garrison wants you at the hospital asap, wants you to be there when the guys wakes up, says you ain’t supposed to give him a break about this. Only thing he told us was that whoever done this is in the South Carolina 1st Ex.”

I nearly drop the phone into my lap. “Fuck” spills out before I can stop it.

“Hart said he saw the seal on one of the guys’ forearm.” Danny sighs. “Said there was three of ‘em, and one of ‘em, one of ‘em held a Beretta to his temple the whole time. Raleigh, Garrison wants you to try an’ talk to this Hart guy, mano-y-mano.”

“Jesus, Danny, Garrison’s gotta know what unit I belong to.”

Danny ignores my sharp comment. “You still at the bar?”

“Yeah,” I mutter, raking my trembling fingers through my short hair, bristling spikes against clammy fingers.

“Is Nate Hendrix there?”

“Yeah.”

“Bring him along.”

“Why?”

“Coz you’re about to help kick out the three guys that beat and raped Lieutenant Jim Hart.”

The line disconnects and I’m left to the sound of pattering rain against the roof, eyes unfocused on the silver trails running down the length of the windshield. I have only seconds to push open the door of the cruiser before throwing up my supper all over the asphalt.

It’s moments before I recover, hanging out the squad car by my seat belt and my shaky grip on the side frame, and it’s only when I feel a hand on my cheek do I realize that Hendrix has been there the entire time, face pale and eyes clear and more sober than he’s been since the beginning of the week.

“Better not have gotten vomit on my boots, marine.”

Weakly, I laugh. Pull myself up, wipe at my mouth, stare into an imaginary horizon, wait for the Captain to say something, anything to help me access this fuck of a situation.

“Your lieutenant called me.” He steps closer to the open door, and I can still smell his cologne, fading away in the rain rolling down his cheeks in rivulets. “Seems as if a couple of our boys may’ve fucked up the rest of their natural lives. Seems like the Lieutenant’s granting us permission to see these boys get the hard boot into fed pen.” His smile is faint, saddening. “Good thing I didn’t drink tonight then, huh?”

“Yeah,” I say, voice raspy. The insides of my mouth taste foul, as does the bile on my thickened tongue.

“Let me drive, Raleigh,” Hendrix says softly.

I want to tell him it’s against regulation, that I’m perfectly fine and my stomach isn’t in knots, but I just unbuckle and step out, chest to chest with him.

He looks like he wants to embrace me, and I wouldn’t have minded all that much. Not right now. There is no other side of the street right now, there is only the rain pattering onto the vomity pavement at my feet and the water dripping into my eyes, making me blink against the blurry bar lights.

---

It’s a ten minute drive from the waterfront parkway to Mercy General, but Hendrix drives slowly through the empty streets, says there’s no rush to question a guy who won’t answer until the sun rises.

“When I was a kid, I wanted to be a cop…well, a detective. Or a firefighter.” Hendrix smiles and looks out the driver window as we pass through an uptown intersection, his fingers drumming across the patent-leather steering wheel to some unheard beat of his own. “Never could get enough of those damn shows Emergency…Dragnet, Adam-12. They were all reruns, sure, but I watched them every chance I got.

“My brothers would make fun of me and shit, told me that I’d grow up to a blue-collar grunt just like my father. And I remember my mom telling me not to listen to them. She’d tell me I could be whatever the hell I’d want. President, General of the Army, actor, firefighter…whatever. Never really listened to her, just kind of fell victim to my brothers’ shit. I was a real asshole growing up, wasn’t I?”

“Not to me.”

“We might’ve always been equal in the strength/size category but, you, my friend, scared the shit out of me in high school.” He grins. “Biggest, baddest football player in the state, you were. How many titles did you win?”

“If you weren’t my captain, I might tell you to shove it up your ass, sir.” Two sirs in one night, and it must be driving him insane.

“Yeah yeah,” Hendrix mutters, waving it off with a casual flair. “You were the poster boy athlete of the school. No surprise the Panthers came after you sporting forks and knives.”

I don’t feel much like talking, and I know what questions follow with introduction, but his smile is hard to resist, as is the sincerity in his words, the flippant looks sent my way.

“We always wondered why you never signed with the Panthers, why you didn’t skip out of this shithole tourist trap, marry some bombshell blonde, have a half a dozen kids and retire early. You could’ve. Real easy, too.”

“Why did you come back after graduating at Penn State if you hate it here so much?”

He exhales slowly. “I thought maybe Beka’d be impressed, what with my whole cleaned-up act. Turns out, the long distance relationship we’d been holding over those three years, she’d been keeping Dickie Keller company. But you already knew that, right?” He laughs shortly. “Fucking grapevine, this town’s got. Can’t keep any secrets to yourself anymore, I swear.”

We fall silent. It’s not comfortable, it’s bordering on awkward, but all of a sudden, I can’t shut my mouth. “You only spill secrets when you want them to be known,” I say. His inquiring gaze tells me that I’m better off quiet, better off dropping my forehead against the cold window and watching as the city slips by.

“Mrs. Patterson—the piano lady at that Catholic church up on the Hill, you know?—gave me a cigarette when I was nine.”

I turn slowly, brows arched. “Is that bi—she still alive?”

“Unfortunately.” Hendrix grins. “Oh man, was she evil. Used to force the choir boys to garden her lawns. Half an acre in the front, two in the back. Never paid them or anything. I remember my mom sent me up to her place to get my brothers—we were leaving town for a trip or something—and not only did she refuse to let them leave early, she made me work too.

“So I’m working and I’m working and it’s getting late and it’s only a matter of time before my mom calls the cops because we’re so late, and then, that fat old bitch comes out of her house, lights up and gives me one. I was fucking nine years old!”

I can’t help but smile.

“And there was that time when Jocelyn Simon invited me back to her dressing room.”

“That news anchor lady with the big—” I manage to stop myself, with the image of her, not the fact that I was about to describe the plentiful anatomies of Channel 5’s most…privileged newscaster.

“After we got back from the ’05 tour. You were just a lowly staff sergeant then,” Hendrix coos.

“But you were still just as slimy,” I shoot back, smirk.

“Hornier than hell’s more like it. After the interviews and video documentaries and all that stuff…you remember when she asked me if I’d give an exclusive interview, one-on-one?” I nod. “Well, I guess you could call it an interview.”

My smile is not quite so sincere, but it’s pretty damn convincing for the pang in my chest at his blatant connotations.

“I trust you can keep that to yourself.”

Again, I nod, my expression faltering as he shakes his head and smiles. The other side of the street is sounding pretty good right now. Fuck, I’d take the whole damn neighborhood, and I think I’d take him all over it. Thread my fingers into his short damp hair and do things that would make the Virgin Mary keel over and die. I start up in the passenger seat as that familiar warmth spreads through me like the taste of nicotine in the mouth.

“You got any secrets you’d like to spill, BV?”

He looks me up and down as we pull into the hospital parking lot out in front of the emergency lobby, and suddenly, I feel transparent. Like he’s seen every one of my thoughts in the past thirty seconds, like he knows every single thing I’d done in college and everything I’ve wished I’d get the chance to do again.

“Nah,” I say, unbuckling as he throws the squad car into park.

I move to get out and already have one boot planted on the steaming ground when Hendrix’s fingers wrap around my wrist and pull me back down into the seat. My head bounces against the metal grate separating the front and back seats, but that pain fades fast as Hendrix twists me halfway across the gun rack divider.

“I’m no idiot, Raleigh,” he says, teeth glinting by the Crown Vic’s panel and the poor lighting near the back of the hospital lot, one of a half-dozen cars in the area. Not too conspicuous. I only hope.

“Never accused you of it, sir,” I murmur, struggling to keep eyes locked on his, fought to drop my gaze to his lips.

“Come Tuesday, you’ll have to stop that shit,” he hisses. His forehead is now aligned with mine and I can feel those silky strands fall across my skin, kickstarting that low burn deep within.

“Tuesday.”

“I’ll have you, Lieutenant,” he growls.

“It’s Raleigh at the moment, sir.”

He tears the keys from the ignition and shoves them into my chest before pulling himself jerkily out of the squad car without a word. My smug look is worn thin by now, but I still feel victorious walking across the parking lot, keys clinking in hand, making my way toward the brightly lit doors of Mercy Hospital.

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Reviews would be marvelous, dahlings.