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Only a young boy, he sat next to his father in the uncomfortable and solid pews. His mothers brother had died. Stefan was relatively unaffected, the man had lived two states away. His mother sat with the rest of her family, away from him, his father, and his five siblings. His parents had been screaming a lot recently.
His grandmother, an old thing, practically an antique to him, stood and rushed out. Pushing through the row of sat mourners. No one in that front pew looked back to watch, except his mother. He had forgotten that face she made. No longer forgotten, was it?
He was accustomed to funerals, to grand, and not-so-grand, churches housing sad crying people. He was used to looking down at the dusty floor that had probably been swept up just the night before and yet, there the dust was. Did God put that dust there? Did God prefer his home dusty?
Cole Phelps’ funeral was all the same. On the page at least. He chose not to go. Instead, he holed up in his apartment drinking one too many and listening to the radio blearily. He knew it happened, he could barely remember it though.
Here though, he saw it as he heard of it. That snake Roy Earle, now literally a snake, stood spitting out an amalgamation of every sermon Stefan had seen all at once. It was a foul buzz he knew was wrong, how fitting. The church was still sparse here. He could fit this group in the palm of his hand if he wanted to, how pitiful, how undeserving.
He wondered if Cole’s parents were dead. He didn’t know if they would be here. What about his wife? Would she come here, after all that had happened? Would she bring the girls? He supposed some major family member had to come, just didn't know which one.
Supposing. Odd thing. He supposed a lot, he supposed. It seemed a word fit for Cole, he could imagine him saying it. “Oh, and I suppose you don’t remember if the drugs were yours Ms?” All confidence, no actual supposing. Stefan supposed Cole wouldn't use it in its pure setting, just be it, be supposing.
A part of him wanted to see Cole at work again, fully invested in it, no life altering case, just some grand theft auto where he discovers that there was no thievery at all and in fact the son had lied to his father. Ending in a foot chase, he wanted to see that blood pumping. He wanted to see that blood pumping? Really? Stefan swept that under a both real, or as real as anything is, and metaphorical rug. He wanted to see him alive. That's all that means. Another part of him just wanted to see him at a bar, sat on a stool holding himself uncomfortably. Just living, in his own odd way.
Suddenly, he was falling. Like Alice into the hole, except he had no dress to puff up and act as a parachute. Useless garbage fell with him, opened emptied bottles of beer, can openers, a horse with wheels, a weird amount of bells; as in five.
In an instant he was placed in a trench. The dirt was cold and warm all at once. His breath was deep and quick. Sounds of what he easily assumed were bombs resonated through the ground behind him, one after the other, oddly rhythmically. With a move one could call uncharacteristically idiotic he stretched up and looked to see what was going on.
In front of him was a giant lizard. Big as a van, and much longer. It was thin and wrinkly. Its face could be described as smooth, for a lizard at least. Its big head turned to show a deep green eye to him. Stefan didn't know lizard eyes came in that color, admittedly he wasn't proficient in lizard knowledge. Its little, in comparison to its torso, legs bent slowly down. It gave him a flick of the tongue. He was pretty sure that meant good things and not ‘I'm going to eat you’ things.
For a moment he took his focus away to find that the sounds of war were practically gone. All he could hear was music. Quite dramatic. Though it fit, he supposed. Then he realized his vision was blurry, but only at the edges, honestly he couldn't see the edges at all.
Ignoring whatever warning signs there were, he got out of the hole and climbed on top of the lizard. It seemed pleased at the attention, though a bit peeved that it now had to carry around some extra weight. Stefan was getting good at lizard face reading.
The lizard trotted around a while. Everywhere he saw was a thing he had seen before, just removed of life, and of death. The barren lands got boring after a while. Sure, he was on a giant lizard, but that's just how it is sometimes.
Before he could die of boredom, he was transported to a cold rainy L.A. night. The rain spattered against his window pain and the clouds screamed bloody murder before it all went white then black again. He was sitting at his couch; a paperback he didn’t recognize sat in his lap, tabbed to be at page 62. In his hand was an utterly unthinkable liquid, he assumed it was alcoholic in nature.
A knock came at the door, for a moment he assumed it was thunder and brushed it off, but the knocker was insistent. He got up with an unnatural creek to his bones, his pulse was skyrocketing, he felt as if someone had just electrocuted him back to life. He twisted the dirty gold knob open.
Outside his door stood one Cole Phelps, dripping all over the apartment's carpet like a stray dog. “Why’re you here?” Stefan asked, baffled.
“You called me. Said it was an emergency. I thought it had something to do with The Case.” Cole said, eyebrows drawing together.
He blinked. Had this happened? Maybe he had too much to drink. He could smooth this out, no doubt. “Yeah, yeah. Come in.” Stefan stepped back.
A clap of thunder sounded throughout the apartment, shattering a vase. He got that vase last month, unfortunate. He saw it on display through the glass, he wasn't normally the type but he went straight in and bought it. He didn't even remotely remember the price. Head wasn't in the right place, he supposed.
“Are you alright? Did something happen to you?” Cole grabbed his shoulder, looking oddly concerned. Was that what he wanted?
“Do you have a mother?”
Cole Phelps answered. “Yes, I have one. What is this about?” Cole Phelps answered. “No, she died a long time ago.” Then, once again Cole Phelps answered. “She’s in Huntington, West Virginia and she bakes pie, cherry pie. It's almost always too sweet. She helps the homeless and is the definition of a saint. She hates lions.” None of the Cole Phelps acknowledged each other. Two of them gave a salute and walked out the window, leaving muddy footprints on his window sill.
Stefan Bekowsky stared out the window for about half a minute too long.
“Do you have a concussion, Beckowsky?” Cole asked, practically shouting. He was clearly in accuse mode. Suddenly, materializing out of thin air came his little notepad, it looked like it had gotten some water damage since the last time he saw it.
Materializing at the same time came three words, blasted onto his eyes. Truth, Avoid, Lie. He picked Truth, though he didn't know how he did it.
“You’re dead Cole.”
“Is that a threat?” Cole shouted, his head moving around like he wanted it to pop out of his collar, grow legs, and run away to have a nice little family in a nice little slice of suburbia.
Stefan Bekowsky was a save scummer. Going through the title screen to the load game button surprisingly didn't shatter his little world. He tapped his thigh as he waited for it to load, although he wasn't sure he had a thigh at the moment. He resisted the urge to symbolically check his watch, out of fear of what he might find was missing.
“Do you have a concussion, Bekowsky?” Cole asked, practically shouting.
Stefan blinked and chose Avoid. “You ever listen to Johnny Guitar? Now that's a song.” What are these words he’s saying?
“Me and everyone else who has ever turned the radio on.” As Cole said this Stefan realized he had his own notepad, a little X appeared next the the sentence “TYPE OUT LATER. DO NOT FORGET” at least he knew what was right, now.
Nothing to do but try try again.
“Do you have a concussion, Bekowsky?” Cole asked, practically shouting.
He picked Lie. “Yes.” It didn’t feel like a lie, it felt as though he had a concussion with how bad his head ached.
Cole blinked at him, like a lizard.
Then, as he blinked himself, he was somewhere else. It was a crowded dance hall. Stefan had a pretty thing in his hand, literally. She was a very tiny lady, the size of baseball maybe. Her size didn’t stop her though, no, she was going at it. It was odd, foreign, he had never seen a dance like it and yet was entranced. The jukebox played the hits, nothing too out of the ordinary there.
He found he watched her flail around for a terribly long time. Just staring. Eventually everyone slowly filtered out, till it was just him and her. Her dress was as bouncy as could be, matching her hair physics-wise. It was as if she defied gravity.
Stefan kept his hand as flat as could be, fearing her falling with all her recklessness. He brought another hand up, to provide a wall so as to make sure that she wouldn't fall even if she tripped. With the second hand though, she stalled for a moment then turned her head at it. In an amazingly quick move she bit his hand with all her tiny might.
He flinched harshly, pulling his hand away as fast as possible. She followed the hand, being without the ability of flight she fell. Her tiny body ceased flailing as it came to the ground with a deafening splat.
WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM FOR A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR, ONE OF THE FIVE DIFFERENT BAKERIES ON THAT ONE STREET. WE DON’T KNOW WHY THERE ARE LIKE FIVE… BUT THERE ARE. AND THEY SPONSOR US. SO, I GUESS JUST GO AND STARE AT THE WINDOW. THEY HAVE NICE LOOKING CINNAMON ROLLS. BACK TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED BAD FIC IN A KINDA DEAD FANDOM.
Suddenly, he was the one who fell, this time into the seat of his car. Pedal to the metal he was shooting through the sidewalk. Pedestrians quickly side stepped and dropped their flowers, among other things. Stefan was going faster than he had ever before, and before he knew it he flew into a wall. The engine started spurting out black smoke.
Stefan launched himself out of that car. Standing hands on knees, practically begging his lungs for some air. How was he not dead? How was he not even a little injured? “Fuck.” He said, letting his head hang a little lower.
After what was probably an hour of de-escalating himself, he looked behind the car to see what path of destruction lay behind him. The sidewalk itself had terrible black tire marks, he didn't remember breaking or doing anything of the sort, but it was there. Surprisingly, there wasn't some dead body limp in the middle of it all, though there was probably thousands of dollars worth of property damage.
He remembered the first, he wished he could say the last, time he got in an accident. It was in the parking lot of a diner. He had just ordered a pretty decent burger and was feeling good for himself. Following all the driving rules he knew, he reversed, slowly, about to pull out. Then out of nowhere this big ugly truck rolls by and bumps into him, denting his car and scaring the shit out of him for a second. To add to it all, that was the first car he ever bought, pretty new too.
Then, he was sat at a dining room table, one he was incredibly acquainted with. The table runner was thin and red with an intricate design, one he had seen and memorized. In front of him lay a plate with some bright green amalgamation, a heaping serving. He always got a big serving, he had always been a hungry boy, as his mother would say.
His family sat at the table around him, his mother and siblings along with his grandfather. All happily chomping down on their meals. He stared at the table runner. His youngest sister whispered something to his oldest brother, he laughed. They were both staring at him. He carefully resisted the urge to throw his slop at them.
“So, you haven’t had dinner with us in a while. I understand you are a grand detective in homicide, but we miss you.”
“Sorry, Mama, it's just been busy. You know that.” He picked at the green stuff. “I miss you too.”
He was in the Los Angeles River. He was dressed in a sweaty suit, not cleaned for a few days too many. It had been a month, or more maybe, after what had happened. After that night.
He was walking on tilted ground, staying clear of the water itself, searching for the entrance to the sewers that Cole had used then. Step after step. It was night, he didn't want to do it at day, felt less real when it was dark. His flimsy flashlight shone brightly on plain concrete. Stefan saw bars after bars gating off any and every opening.
He didn't stop though, no. He spent an hour trudging through the river shining his light around. He didn't know what it was that he wanted. What exactly would be gained from seeing into that sewer? Would he actually go in?
The light shone on the tall gate in front of him, it spanned the entirety of the gap between the bridge and the ground. Locking eyes with it, just for a moment, he turned around and repeated it all over again. Walking the expanse, looking for what he was sure he had just missed and still existed.
Then, it was a bright summer's day. Stefan sat on a bench overlooking the street from a tall hill. The grass was a piercing green, almost too vibrant. It was perfect, the only sound other than his breathing was a bird's song. The sun even seemed to smile at him.
He stared out at the cars going by, they were all speeding but there were no collisions. A convertible parked in the middle of the street, the driver stepped out, he then walked away to get a hot dog from a stand. No one acknowledged it, there wasn't a single honk.
All of a sudden it all changed, Stefan had Cole pinned up against a solid brick wall in some dirty alleyway. Darkness enveloped the two, street lights far away. The air between them was hot, even with the cool thin breeze flowing through the wind. No care in the world. He didn't think about what would happen if some drunkard stumbled down and caught the two. Which made sense, there really aren't any penalties here.
Giving all his attention and devotion, Stefan lapped into his mouth like an overexcited puppy. Kissing him like a dying man and grinding up against him insatiably. Relishing every little sound, ignoring all the many ones he himself made.
He moved to Cole’s neck swiftly. Biting and soothing incessantly, savoring the taste of skin and sweat. It was heavenly, the feeling, the taste, every nerve was on fire. His blood seemed to travel everywhere but his head, running off in a hurry, like it was late to work. Soon, his lungs felt as if they were going to collapse.
Pulling off, for air and to ask if he wanted to move this to his apartment, he saw Cole. It was a horrid sight. The man was barely identifiable, bloated to the extreme. All warm red blood drained from the face, blue as ice. He could barely bear to look at it, but his eyes wouldn't stray from the sight. He couldn't look away.
“Oh God.”
With a rush he woke up. His room was dark and silent, he scrambled out of his poorly made bed and rushed to the bathroom. Falling to his knees he embraced the toilet, it took no time at all before he threw up. The foul liquid burned down and out his throat, falling pathetically into the white porcelain. He straightened up for a moment before immediately regretting it and going back down.
Eventually, it was over. All he was left with was a horrible taste in his mouth, a faint shaking, and a bead of sweat running down his temple. He sat there for a few minutes, panting, shaking, and attempting to bring himself back together.
Now that he wasn’t preoccupied, he thought, “What the in the hell was that dream all about?”