Guidelines 4, Power Play, Chapter 5
Jun. 5th, 2006 02:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lit_galOkay, I finally got my Sentinel mojo back! Here's Chapter Five of Guidelines: PowerPlay!
Jim/Blair
Jim's undercover assignment may turn out a little different than anyone had planned
Warning: Animal cruelty. Jim doesn't like it either, but it happens. Feel free to fantasize about torturing the bad guys because Jim is.
Jim scratched his stubble beard irritably as he looked around the darkened interior. Smoke slid past him in thick clots, making his skin itch and the sound of shouting men forced him to set his hearing far too low. The darkness and hollow, distant sounds made Jim feel like he was walking inside a tube sunk far below the ocean's surface: an unreal feeling of pressure wrapping around him.
Irritably pushing aside a drunk who careened into him, Jim focused on the bar. Bar might be too kind of a word for the old plywood door propped on two sawhorses, but Jim shouted a single word to the man behind the bar and then watched as the thin man grabbed a bottle and poured the amber whiskey into a glass. Jim took the drink with a nod and dropped a few dollars on the makeshift bar.
The first taste of the whiskey made Jim's taste flair so that the alcohol burned down his throat and made his eyes water; however, at least the booze killed the germs because Jim sure didn't hear any water sources. At best, the bartender was wiping glasses between customers—not that any of these guys would notice the difference.
A small group gathered around a wire enclosure. Tonight's entertainment included two roosters that flapped awkwardly against each other, silver gaffs, sharpened metal talons attached to their feet, flashed in the low light, and the crowd cheered as the darker bird fell back under a flurry of feather and wing.
Part of keeping cover meant doing what everyone else did, so Jim stood and watched impassively as the losing bird was tossed into a pile of dead animals while still flapping weakly. He took another big shot of whiskey to get rid of the sour taste in his mouth. Part of him wanted to arrest every drunk, pathetic excuse for a human in the place and call the humane society to put the birds to sleep quietly, but he had other orders.
With eyes that stung from the smoke and the whiskey, Jim scanned the crowd looking for Hanes. If he was going to be honest with himself, he also checked the crowd for Wilke's narrow, pinched features. The man might not be trying to shove strobe lights in his eyes, but his ability to follow Jim everywhere was bordering on insanely annoying, and if Jim guessed right, Blair was actually closer to snapping than he was.
A small group of men broke away from the new cock fight, and Jim watched as they found a dark corner where they could trade drugs with at least some privacy.
"You lookin'?" a dirty-blond with a nervous twitch in his right eye slid close to Jim, and he looked down at the dealer.
"If I am, I'll find better shit than anything you have to offer," he dismissed the man and focused again on the cockfight, or rather the men watching the cockfight as they shouted and pounded fists against the rough two-by-fours that capped the chicken-wire enclosure.
"Meth, crack, barrels, crank, Special K—man, I can make you fly," the dealer followed with his sales pitch. Looking over, Jim memorized the man's features: light-brown phlegmy eyes, short hair, spider tattoo under his left ear.
"Not buying," Jim turned his back on the man, ignoring the goose pimples that sprouted along his backbone. Undercover meant doing stupid shit, like turning a back to a threat, because these people were stupid.
"Best prices," the man tried again, and Jim spun back around, grabbing the dealer by his t-shirt and hauling him close enough that Jim could smell the man's sour breath.
"I said I'm not buying, and you're turning into a nuisance," he growled his frustration. The man's eyes dropped, searching the floor with nervous movements that made Jim even more on edge. Every instinct said the man was on an edge and ready to do something monumentally stupid. "Stay the fuck away from me," he said as he pushed the man back so hard that he went stumbling into a pillar. Jim turned his back and pushed closer to the cock fight.
"Oh Peters, you really haven't learned any manners at all."
Jim turned slowly and found himself looking at Ricardo Hanes. Jim nodded as Hanes twisted his hands nervously, reminding Jim of a bug on a hot sidewalk with the way he constantly shifted as though standing on something hot.
"Hanes," Jim offered without emotion.
"Didn't know if you'd come," Hanes said as he moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Jim, his eyes focused on the fight. The two birds had sunk their gaffs so deeply into each other's flesh that handlers had waded in to pull them apart. The crowd wanted action: not two animals slowly bleeding to death as metal stuck them together. Jim fought down an urge to flinch.
"Need the money, but if you fuck me over the way you did last time…" Jim let his words trail off, and Hanes twisted his hands even faster. The man would make a horrible poker player. The crowd roared as the newly freed birds attacked each other ferociously. Jim briefly entertained a fantasy of making these men fight for their lives in a cage while the birds watched. His disgust and the smell of dying animals, and bird droppings and blood nearly drove him from the room.
"Let me treat you to a drink," Hanes gestured toward Jim's nearly empty glass. Jim looked down at the whiskey and downed the last bit in a single swallow.
"Hanes, I'm working for you; I wasn't your drinking buddy back then and I'm not now." Jim turned around and headed back for the bar, digging in the pocket of his jeans for the dollar bills wadded into the bottom corner.
"This the man?" a voice wheezed, and Jim nearly lost himself in the wet sound of air rushing through laboring lungs. Even without turning around, Jim knew it was Wallace—the asthmatic. Jim put the money and his empty glass on the bar, watching as the same bartender tilted the whiskey bottle and refilled it. Jim took a drink before he turned back around.
"You the boss now?" he asked as he looked Wallace over. The man's neck had folds that reminded Jim of Jabba the Hut, but his eyes, blue and sharp, made it clear that only the man's body was soft.
"I hear you left Hanes high and dry a couple of years back. Doesn't inspire confidence."
"I remember Hanes getting stupid and blabbing to the wrong people, getting my place tossed by the cops, making me leave town to avoid certain questions," Jim shot back.
"I never… well how was I to know that Pickling was a cop?" Hanes finally stammered. Wallace shot the smaller man a withering look.
"Let's talk," Wallace waved a hand toward the shadows. Jim gave Wallace a suspicious look, not because of anything he saw in the dark corner of the warehouse but because anyone who wasn't a Sentinel wouldn't be able to see past the pool of light formed by a dangling bulb hanging over the far side of the bar. "What's the matter, don't you trust me?" Wallace asked with a rattling laugh.
"I don't trust anyone," Jim answered as he made a gesture inviting Wallace to go ahead of him. Wallace laughed again and then started toward the small table against the wall. Hanes looked toward Jim once and then followed.
"I like you," Wallace said as he settled into a chair with a heavy sigh. He leaned forward and Jim took the chair next to the man so that he didn't have to put his back to warehouse. Wallace glanced at him, and Jim tried to look like a thug and not a special ops trained soldier whose instincts demanded keeping an eye on the enemy.
"I don't want to get too deep into any of the trouble you have with Fielding. I got a parole officer riding my ass," Jim said as he put his drink down on the table and looked away toward the cock fighting ring.
"I heard you got in some trouble down in Arizona."
Jim snorted in response to Wallace's comment.
"Fielding's death made thinks a little complicated," Wallace started, and then he hesitated. Jim listened to the slight jump in the tempo of the man's heart, the muscle thumping a little faster now. "He was in the middle of a shipment, and some merchandise is missing."
Jim looked over at Wallace. "Little stupid to kill a man without knowing his secrets," he suggested, coming as close as he dare to the question of the murder.
Wallace stared back at Jim for several seconds before shrugging. "Tell that to the man who murdered Fielding; I sure didn't." Wallace heart remained steady and his pupils didn't dilate at all.
Jim took another drink of the whiskey. "So, you need me to find something."
"Fifty thousand or the shipment Fielding was going to receive for the money," Wallace confirmed. Jim kept his face impassive as he scanned the crowd. Suddenly, this simple in and out case was looking more and more complicated.
"Thought Fielding handled your dogs," Jim said.
"Oh, Jimmy, for someone who doesn't want to get in too deep, you're asking a lot of questions," Wallace said as he leaned forward, the wood creaking under the weight of the man's elbow on the table.
"I don't want to get blindsided. I got parole transferred up here because of my sister being sick, but I don't have any reason to trust Hanes or you," Jim slammed back the last of his whiskey and stood up to leave. From the jump in Wallace's heart rate and the near rabbit-fast pounding from Hanes' chest, he knew they'd stop him. These people were desperate.
"Peters," Hanes called out as he stood so quickly that he knocked his chair over. When the man came at him, Jim stepped into him, putting a forearm across the man's chest and driving him back into the wall where he pinned him.
Wallace moved slowly enough that Jim could have intercepted him, but winning wasn't the point of this fight. He didn't react until the click in his ear. Then he turned slowly, letting his fingers open so that Hanes could wiggle away as Jim remained frozen with his hands open and away from his body. The gun pointed at a spot just behind his ear remained steady for several moments as Jim studied the arm for those minute muscle twitched that would give him only a fraction of a second to respond if Wallace made the unlikely decision to pull the trigger.
"I don't like people manhandling my employees," Wallace said quietly.
"I'll keep that in mind in the future," Jim answered as respectfully as he could. Slowly the gun lowered and Jim dropped his hands to his side.
"So, you don't want to go stumbling around in the dark? I tell you this, and you're in, whether you want to be or not." Wallace gestured toward the table with the gun, and Jim carefully moved that direction.
"I won't go down for conspiracy," Jim said as he slowly lowered himself into a chair, his hands on the table where Wallace could see them. Wallace laughed.
"I wish the cops were the worst of our trouble. Fact is that Fielding set us up with a group out of Cranbrook. Feds and their damn Sentinels are so busy watching the docks and the Mexican border and the airports that the north border is open game. So, while Hector Carasco twists in the wind and struggles to get shipments into the country, Fielding's new contacts drove down with fifty thousand in crank and E in the trunk of their car.
"You're taking Carasco's territory," Jim said with a leaden feeling that made his fingers twitch. The last thing Cascade needed was a gang war.
"We don't have to take his territory, Peters. The government has shut him down, so he has nothing to sell, but you know the old saying: when a door closes, a window opens."
"And Fielding was the window," Jim finished. Wallace smiled.
"Someone on the inside crossed us. I know it wasn't me, and Hanes doesn't have the balls for it, but anyone else…" Wallace let his voice trail off.
"I really won't go down for murder," Jim said as he narrowed his eyes.
"You don't need to get your precious hands dirty. I guess you got enough of prison food in Arizona, huh? You just find the money or the drugs, find out who double crossed us, and if you can make contact with the connection out of Cranbrook, I'll double your fee." Wallace finally slipped his gun back into his waist and sat down at the table. Jim flexed his fingers and pulled them back under the table where they were closer to his own gun.
"And what would the fee be?" Jim asked.
"Ten thousand," Wallace said with a straight face. Jim blinked.
"We're on the verge of becoming a power in Cascade… of replacing Carasco and maybe even giving Furukawa a run for his money, but we can't count on the government forever, so we need to move now. You help me recover from this… disaster… and I will remember you when I run Cascade's drug trade," Wallace leaned back in his chair and watched Jim.
"This could be complicated," Jim answered slowly. "If Fielding was working drugs, Carasco, Furukawa, or a dozen street-level dealers could have caught wind."
"Expenses come out of your fee," Wallace said as he pulled a roll of bills out of his jacket pocket and slammed them down on the table. Then he pulled out a notebook and wrote a few names and numbers in a cramped, uneven handwriting, adding it to the top of the pile. Jim didn't reach out for it until after Wallace had pulled back his hand.
"I'll get what you want," Jim promised as he took the large stack of twenties. The note he folded and carefully slipped inside his wallet. "Whoever is moving in on the drug trade is going to be very sorry he ever heard of Cascade," Jim promised. Tucking the bills into his pocket, Jim took his empty glass in hand and nodded before heading for the door. Simon was not going to be happy… not at all.
Jim/Blair
Jim's undercover assignment may turn out a little different than anyone had planned
Warning: Animal cruelty. Jim doesn't like it either, but it happens. Feel free to fantasize about torturing the bad guys because Jim is.
Jim scratched his stubble beard irritably as he looked around the darkened interior. Smoke slid past him in thick clots, making his skin itch and the sound of shouting men forced him to set his hearing far too low. The darkness and hollow, distant sounds made Jim feel like he was walking inside a tube sunk far below the ocean's surface: an unreal feeling of pressure wrapping around him.
Irritably pushing aside a drunk who careened into him, Jim focused on the bar. Bar might be too kind of a word for the old plywood door propped on two sawhorses, but Jim shouted a single word to the man behind the bar and then watched as the thin man grabbed a bottle and poured the amber whiskey into a glass. Jim took the drink with a nod and dropped a few dollars on the makeshift bar.
The first taste of the whiskey made Jim's taste flair so that the alcohol burned down his throat and made his eyes water; however, at least the booze killed the germs because Jim sure didn't hear any water sources. At best, the bartender was wiping glasses between customers—not that any of these guys would notice the difference.
A small group gathered around a wire enclosure. Tonight's entertainment included two roosters that flapped awkwardly against each other, silver gaffs, sharpened metal talons attached to their feet, flashed in the low light, and the crowd cheered as the darker bird fell back under a flurry of feather and wing.
Part of keeping cover meant doing what everyone else did, so Jim stood and watched impassively as the losing bird was tossed into a pile of dead animals while still flapping weakly. He took another big shot of whiskey to get rid of the sour taste in his mouth. Part of him wanted to arrest every drunk, pathetic excuse for a human in the place and call the humane society to put the birds to sleep quietly, but he had other orders.
With eyes that stung from the smoke and the whiskey, Jim scanned the crowd looking for Hanes. If he was going to be honest with himself, he also checked the crowd for Wilke's narrow, pinched features. The man might not be trying to shove strobe lights in his eyes, but his ability to follow Jim everywhere was bordering on insanely annoying, and if Jim guessed right, Blair was actually closer to snapping than he was.
A small group of men broke away from the new cock fight, and Jim watched as they found a dark corner where they could trade drugs with at least some privacy.
"You lookin'?" a dirty-blond with a nervous twitch in his right eye slid close to Jim, and he looked down at the dealer.
"If I am, I'll find better shit than anything you have to offer," he dismissed the man and focused again on the cockfight, or rather the men watching the cockfight as they shouted and pounded fists against the rough two-by-fours that capped the chicken-wire enclosure.
"Meth, crack, barrels, crank, Special K—man, I can make you fly," the dealer followed with his sales pitch. Looking over, Jim memorized the man's features: light-brown phlegmy eyes, short hair, spider tattoo under his left ear.
"Not buying," Jim turned his back on the man, ignoring the goose pimples that sprouted along his backbone. Undercover meant doing stupid shit, like turning a back to a threat, because these people were stupid.
"Best prices," the man tried again, and Jim spun back around, grabbing the dealer by his t-shirt and hauling him close enough that Jim could smell the man's sour breath.
"I said I'm not buying, and you're turning into a nuisance," he growled his frustration. The man's eyes dropped, searching the floor with nervous movements that made Jim even more on edge. Every instinct said the man was on an edge and ready to do something monumentally stupid. "Stay the fuck away from me," he said as he pushed the man back so hard that he went stumbling into a pillar. Jim turned his back and pushed closer to the cock fight.
"Oh Peters, you really haven't learned any manners at all."
Jim turned slowly and found himself looking at Ricardo Hanes. Jim nodded as Hanes twisted his hands nervously, reminding Jim of a bug on a hot sidewalk with the way he constantly shifted as though standing on something hot.
"Hanes," Jim offered without emotion.
"Didn't know if you'd come," Hanes said as he moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Jim, his eyes focused on the fight. The two birds had sunk their gaffs so deeply into each other's flesh that handlers had waded in to pull them apart. The crowd wanted action: not two animals slowly bleeding to death as metal stuck them together. Jim fought down an urge to flinch.
"Need the money, but if you fuck me over the way you did last time…" Jim let his words trail off, and Hanes twisted his hands even faster. The man would make a horrible poker player. The crowd roared as the newly freed birds attacked each other ferociously. Jim briefly entertained a fantasy of making these men fight for their lives in a cage while the birds watched. His disgust and the smell of dying animals, and bird droppings and blood nearly drove him from the room.
"Let me treat you to a drink," Hanes gestured toward Jim's nearly empty glass. Jim looked down at the whiskey and downed the last bit in a single swallow.
"Hanes, I'm working for you; I wasn't your drinking buddy back then and I'm not now." Jim turned around and headed back for the bar, digging in the pocket of his jeans for the dollar bills wadded into the bottom corner.
"This the man?" a voice wheezed, and Jim nearly lost himself in the wet sound of air rushing through laboring lungs. Even without turning around, Jim knew it was Wallace—the asthmatic. Jim put the money and his empty glass on the bar, watching as the same bartender tilted the whiskey bottle and refilled it. Jim took a drink before he turned back around.
"You the boss now?" he asked as he looked Wallace over. The man's neck had folds that reminded Jim of Jabba the Hut, but his eyes, blue and sharp, made it clear that only the man's body was soft.
"I hear you left Hanes high and dry a couple of years back. Doesn't inspire confidence."
"I remember Hanes getting stupid and blabbing to the wrong people, getting my place tossed by the cops, making me leave town to avoid certain questions," Jim shot back.
"I never… well how was I to know that Pickling was a cop?" Hanes finally stammered. Wallace shot the smaller man a withering look.
"Let's talk," Wallace waved a hand toward the shadows. Jim gave Wallace a suspicious look, not because of anything he saw in the dark corner of the warehouse but because anyone who wasn't a Sentinel wouldn't be able to see past the pool of light formed by a dangling bulb hanging over the far side of the bar. "What's the matter, don't you trust me?" Wallace asked with a rattling laugh.
"I don't trust anyone," Jim answered as he made a gesture inviting Wallace to go ahead of him. Wallace laughed again and then started toward the small table against the wall. Hanes looked toward Jim once and then followed.
"I like you," Wallace said as he settled into a chair with a heavy sigh. He leaned forward and Jim took the chair next to the man so that he didn't have to put his back to warehouse. Wallace glanced at him, and Jim tried to look like a thug and not a special ops trained soldier whose instincts demanded keeping an eye on the enemy.
"I don't want to get too deep into any of the trouble you have with Fielding. I got a parole officer riding my ass," Jim said as he put his drink down on the table and looked away toward the cock fighting ring.
"I heard you got in some trouble down in Arizona."
Jim snorted in response to Wallace's comment.
"Fielding's death made thinks a little complicated," Wallace started, and then he hesitated. Jim listened to the slight jump in the tempo of the man's heart, the muscle thumping a little faster now. "He was in the middle of a shipment, and some merchandise is missing."
Jim looked over at Wallace. "Little stupid to kill a man without knowing his secrets," he suggested, coming as close as he dare to the question of the murder.
Wallace stared back at Jim for several seconds before shrugging. "Tell that to the man who murdered Fielding; I sure didn't." Wallace heart remained steady and his pupils didn't dilate at all.
Jim took another drink of the whiskey. "So, you need me to find something."
"Fifty thousand or the shipment Fielding was going to receive for the money," Wallace confirmed. Jim kept his face impassive as he scanned the crowd. Suddenly, this simple in and out case was looking more and more complicated.
"Thought Fielding handled your dogs," Jim said.
"Oh, Jimmy, for someone who doesn't want to get in too deep, you're asking a lot of questions," Wallace said as he leaned forward, the wood creaking under the weight of the man's elbow on the table.
"I don't want to get blindsided. I got parole transferred up here because of my sister being sick, but I don't have any reason to trust Hanes or you," Jim slammed back the last of his whiskey and stood up to leave. From the jump in Wallace's heart rate and the near rabbit-fast pounding from Hanes' chest, he knew they'd stop him. These people were desperate.
"Peters," Hanes called out as he stood so quickly that he knocked his chair over. When the man came at him, Jim stepped into him, putting a forearm across the man's chest and driving him back into the wall where he pinned him.
Wallace moved slowly enough that Jim could have intercepted him, but winning wasn't the point of this fight. He didn't react until the click in his ear. Then he turned slowly, letting his fingers open so that Hanes could wiggle away as Jim remained frozen with his hands open and away from his body. The gun pointed at a spot just behind his ear remained steady for several moments as Jim studied the arm for those minute muscle twitched that would give him only a fraction of a second to respond if Wallace made the unlikely decision to pull the trigger.
"I don't like people manhandling my employees," Wallace said quietly.
"I'll keep that in mind in the future," Jim answered as respectfully as he could. Slowly the gun lowered and Jim dropped his hands to his side.
"So, you don't want to go stumbling around in the dark? I tell you this, and you're in, whether you want to be or not." Wallace gestured toward the table with the gun, and Jim carefully moved that direction.
"I won't go down for conspiracy," Jim said as he slowly lowered himself into a chair, his hands on the table where Wallace could see them. Wallace laughed.
"I wish the cops were the worst of our trouble. Fact is that Fielding set us up with a group out of Cranbrook. Feds and their damn Sentinels are so busy watching the docks and the Mexican border and the airports that the north border is open game. So, while Hector Carasco twists in the wind and struggles to get shipments into the country, Fielding's new contacts drove down with fifty thousand in crank and E in the trunk of their car.
"You're taking Carasco's territory," Jim said with a leaden feeling that made his fingers twitch. The last thing Cascade needed was a gang war.
"We don't have to take his territory, Peters. The government has shut him down, so he has nothing to sell, but you know the old saying: when a door closes, a window opens."
"And Fielding was the window," Jim finished. Wallace smiled.
"Someone on the inside crossed us. I know it wasn't me, and Hanes doesn't have the balls for it, but anyone else…" Wallace let his voice trail off.
"I really won't go down for murder," Jim said as he narrowed his eyes.
"You don't need to get your precious hands dirty. I guess you got enough of prison food in Arizona, huh? You just find the money or the drugs, find out who double crossed us, and if you can make contact with the connection out of Cranbrook, I'll double your fee." Wallace finally slipped his gun back into his waist and sat down at the table. Jim flexed his fingers and pulled them back under the table where they were closer to his own gun.
"And what would the fee be?" Jim asked.
"Ten thousand," Wallace said with a straight face. Jim blinked.
"We're on the verge of becoming a power in Cascade… of replacing Carasco and maybe even giving Furukawa a run for his money, but we can't count on the government forever, so we need to move now. You help me recover from this… disaster… and I will remember you when I run Cascade's drug trade," Wallace leaned back in his chair and watched Jim.
"This could be complicated," Jim answered slowly. "If Fielding was working drugs, Carasco, Furukawa, or a dozen street-level dealers could have caught wind."
"Expenses come out of your fee," Wallace said as he pulled a roll of bills out of his jacket pocket and slammed them down on the table. Then he pulled out a notebook and wrote a few names and numbers in a cramped, uneven handwriting, adding it to the top of the pile. Jim didn't reach out for it until after Wallace had pulled back his hand.
"I'll get what you want," Jim promised as he took the large stack of twenties. The note he folded and carefully slipped inside his wallet. "Whoever is moving in on the drug trade is going to be very sorry he ever heard of Cascade," Jim promised. Tucking the bills into his pocket, Jim took his empty glass in hand and nodded before heading for the door. Simon was not going to be happy… not at all.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-06-05 10:50 pm (UTC)Thanks for posting! =>}
no subject
Date: 2006-06-05 10:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-05 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-06 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-06 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-07 04:40 am (UTC)XXXOOO
no subject
Date: 2006-06-07 04:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-07 05:07 am (UTC)Hmmm, I wonder who that would have been?? LOL Poor Jim, just when his life is getting more and more complicated, his past comes back to bite him like this!
I haven't read the other comments yet, so I'll likely be repeating some folks, but I love how you show us Jim fighting his Ranger instincts in order to go undercover. It's very evident that he's been out of the game for a long time, and that he's more vulnerable that he should be in this situation. Simon must have been very desperate indeed to let an out-of-practice officer go undercover alone like that!
And Jim has a lot more guts than I do when it comes to dealing with bad-guys. I don't know if I could stand to ALLOW someone to point a gun at my head, even if he was pretty sure that they wouldn't actually hurt him. As for the animal cruelty... they all deserve to have those spurs buried up to the hilt in their balls for the rest of their days. Ugly, disgusting people. :-(
For some reason I could tolerate the torture from Beautifu Broken a lot more easily than I could read the cock fight in this story... maybe because this feels so much more real. Once again, you've done a marvelous job weaving together plot, emotion, and character development. Now on to chapter 6 for me!
no subject
Date: 2006-06-07 05:13 am (UTC)And the animal cruelty is disgusting, but it gets through the caliber of people Jim is dealing with. These people prey on the weak... they're heartless monsters, and cheering as animals died horrible deaths got that across pretty quick. It's a little funny that you're having a stronger reaction to people torture than bird torture though. I'm not one to talk, however. I did have this as a pit bull fight, and I just couldn't write it. *shudder*
no subject
Date: 2006-06-07 05:25 am (UTC)Yeah, I'm not sure why that is, but it's always been that way for me. Animals are like children, i guess. We bring them into our homes and our lives and take away from the their ability to defend themselves or live without us. That makes them our responsibility. And even though the same could really be said of humans when we make them slaves, for some reason it just doesn't hit the same level of outraged sadness in me... at least not in fiction. In RL I can barely stand to watch some of the crime shows on the History channel... too much glorying in blood and dead bodies and broken, twisted minds.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-07 10:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-10 02:21 pm (UTC)I almost need a shower after your vivid description of this location. It's like the grit has settled on my skin. You've drawn his new playmates with your normal amazing skill. "I never... well how was I to know that Pickling was a cop?" Hanes finally stammered. Wallace shot the smaller man a withering look. Oh ya, that sums up the dynamic perfectlyy.
Psst I think you mean thingFielding's death made thinks a little complicated," Wallace started
no subject
Date: 2006-06-10 02:27 pm (UTC)