ds_flashfiction | Fuck or die challenge by lakester

Title: Filing systems
Author:

lakester
Rating: PG
Summary: What's the code for being strung up by your belt by a gang of angry Smurfs?

Lieutenant Welsh is a patient man. He does not throw things at Francesca when she Feng Shui's his office. He attends openings for big piles of rocks and he does his best not to cause a diplomatic incident with Canada when Fraser disrupts a long planned surveillance operation with a complaint about noise pollution.

If someone had told him how much paperwork would be involved in his promotion... Well he still would have taken it. Then he met Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who first came to Chicago yadda, yadda, yadda. Having to explain to his bosses why a case collapsed because of a bong rather than a beep or needing to apologise to the Feds - the Feds - for crashing their arms-dealing party has given him a new perspective.

Hence, the cabinet. Elaine helped set it up. Originally it was every weird case that Vecchio and Fraser were involved in - every case which read like it was pulled from Ripley's Believe It or Not. But Welsh's plan to trap the weirdness in a filing cabinet failed. There were Elvis's, replacements, amnesiacs and the curse on the precinct. And last but not least there was Miss Vecchio.

Welsh had no objection to hiring her, dismissing her brother's complaints that had frequently echoed around the station. But then he introduced her to the cabinet. And she started organising it. Not arranging it by date, by criminal or by crime, but a bizarre system of acronyms. He'd been looking for the Morgenton case - it looked like they had a copycat kidnapper on the loose. It had been filed under DAP, and - when he'd asked - she'd told it meant 'Dief and pizzas.' He didn't ask any more questions - just went back to the cabinet and went through the most recent case files. Francesca had been her usual creative self, and several acronyms had proved impossible to decipher.

Some, however, did not. Constable Fraser may have become accustomed to Chicago, but his reports were usually precise and accurate. FOD cases usually involved kidnap situations, a perpetrator who had a grudge against Vecchio, Fraser or on one memorable occasion the Greater Chicago Flowerarrangers and required an escape using a piece of string and a magnet. In these cases Vecchio's reports were patchy - when they existed at all - and the constable's were more clinical. Francesca's designation of 'Fuck or die' was blunt - but accurate.

However, there was the occasional case in which the Mountie was not involved.

+++

We were ambushed at the warehouse entrance by three men in blue, wearing large white hats…

”And I told her, only with a hosepipe!”

”And she laughed?”

”Sure she did. It’s the old Dewey charm, Jack. Some men just have it.”

”And some don’t. Is this the right building?”

”Looks like it. On five.”

“What do you mean, on five?”

“You know. One, two, three, four, five go!”

“So going on five, not going after five?”

”Of course, on five. Look…”

~~~

We were disarmed, tied up and suspended from the ceiling.

"Isn't this what we have a Mountie for?"

"Shut up."

"No, seriously. This is what he and Vecchio do, right?"

"Dewey, I really think you should be quiet."

"We get the normal, boring, over by lunchtime cases; and they get corpses that wake up and insane clowns plotting to blow up City Hall."

"That's it. If we get out of this I will shoot you myself."

"Hey, I was just making conversation."

~~~

I was knocked unconscious for some time.

"Ow!"

"You'll be fine, Jack. Just try not bleed on the suit, would you? It's new."

"That's new?"

"Yeah."

"You voluntarily wore that."

"You're worse than..."

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

~~~

The criminals left for several hours, in an orange Nissan.

"I’d have thought they'd be here by now."

"The Smurfs?"

"No, the cavalry."

"They’ll be here. You haven’t pissed off Vecchio much more than usual. They’re probably tracking us right now.”

“Yeah, tasting things.”

”Sniffing tyres.”

”Yeah.”

”They’re not here yet though.”

~~~

We were found some hours later by Vecchio and Constable Fraser, after they had captured the perpetrators.

“Is that it, gentlemen?” Welsh looked up from the report that lay on his desk.

“Yes, sir.” Neither Huey nor Dewey seemed quite able to look at each other.

“Yes, Lieu.,” added Ray.

“Nothing you’d care to add, Constable?” Welsh looked over to an uncomfortable looking Fraser hovering by the door.

“Well, actually…” Fraser’s voice petered out as Ray caught his eye. “Nothing at all. Detective Vecchio and myself entered the warehouse to find Detectives Huey and Dewey in a state of distress and following the location of the illegal store of handguns, returned to the station with the suspects under arrest.”

“And with the missing internal surveillance footage…” There was an almost imperceptible sigh of relief from Huey. “About which we will be having further words - make no mistake about that. Get out of here. Go on, get yourselves cleaned up.”

“And Fraser.” Welsh handed over the file. “Tell Francesca this is one for the cabinet.”