Chapter Text
It was 8:38am when the crackling of thunder jolted him awake. For the millionth time asleep in his chair in the office, papers scattered across his dimly illuminated desk. The smoldering remains of a Cubic Cigar lay in the ashtray it called an early grave, small coils of smoke drifting up into the air. His head ached. His neck creaked a complaint towards his sleeping arrangements as he stretched with a rough groan.
The brown waves of his long, unkempt hair snagged the metal of his chair as he leaned forward, elbows propped upon his knees. Bones popped, creaked under his skin, under the weight of Garrett Garrison’s 45 years of life. A greyscale tragedy he preferred most days to ignore. Most often with the help of his two closest friends, the tobacco and the alcohol.
As he stretched, he knocked one of many piles of papers to the ground, dotted with case requests, letters from the Diamond City Golem Department, and bills. So. Many. Bills. Mostly unpaid. Needed as a Private Investigator was in this nightmare town, it had never paid as nicely as he figured it would. Between him, his work partner Alex, and their secretary Marlene, pay often ran thin; after paying them, his pockets were bled dry between his habits, his tastes, and the bank’s never-ending thirst for his mortgage payments. His bills and his debts wound up dust collectors more often than not. But, at the end of the day, that was another problem for the alcohol to keep away.
Thin strips of morning light poured through the gaps in the blinds, catching the glimmer of dust motes as they danced around the room. The light knocked at Garrett’s head, and, cursing the quickly mounting hangover, he slowly stood to meander his way to the office’s bathroom. Something in him prayed it was still early. He made a point to never let others see him this way. Or at least, he tried not to.
Garrett leaned over the sink, calloused hands scooping cold water and splashing sleep from his face. For a moment, he let himself stare at the reflection in the mirror, a sigh escaping his lips. He looked like death. Or the bottle and a half of Beetroot Red, more likely. Tired blue eyes stared back at him, pressed into tanned skin. His fingers combed through the scraggles of his brown beard, coaxing it into laying still and kept, framing his face alongside his waves of hair. He’d fallen asleep in his suit again, pants a grey tinged with a subtle pink that matched the coat he guessed still lay over his chair in the office. A black tie draped over a white dress shirt. Garrett took a moment to pull the tie back around below his shirt collar and re-tie it, before brushing his hands on his thighs and stepping back into the office.
By instinct his stature straightened, sharpened, as he noticed the sudden presence of Alex, his investigative partner. She was midway through tidying the fallen stack of papers, fiery orange hair tied back into a bun, as it usually was when she was at work. Green eyes watched him from behind rectangular glasses, and she hesitated only momentarily before she spoke, “Your liver’ll give out if you keep drinkin’ like this, Garrett. All that wine, all the whiskey,” She chuckled as she returned the stack to Garrett’s desk, “And not even a little company or partying to occupy yourself. I’m not sure if your liver’ll give out from the drink or the boredom first.”
Garrett shrugged, “I have better things to take up my time than partying, Alex. Some of us have lives outside of the women they frequent,” He gestured vaguely toward her as he shuffled to his desk. He pulled his coat over himself and rolled his shoulders, settling it over his arms, “That said, it would make the hangover a little bit easier to- “Before he could finish, Alex thrust an off-white mug of coffee toward him, and he chuckled, “You’re a saint.”
The two began the routine they started every morning with, as Garrett paced the office with coffee in hand as Alex updated him on their open cases. The missing man on Acacia Avenue was still nowhere to be seen, but she had a lead she was trying to pry from the DCGD’s cold metal fingers. The missing pearls turned up in some pawn shop, as suspected stolen by a raging newly ex-husband and sold for almost nothing. As usual, it also paid them almost nothing. It would cover Marlene’s wages for the rest of the month, but not much else. Empty pockets filled the heavy silence that lingered after they spoke finances. Marked only by the shuffling of Garrett’s feet as he paced.
“I do have one more case for you to look at,” Alex hesitated before she continued, watching Garrett’s movements with a well-practiced sense of concern. He wasn’t going to like this, was he?
“He pays well; he’s one of those ex-adventurer types. Supposedly settled down in the city for an early retirement. 47, rich, 100% your type-“
“Alex.”
“What, it isn’t my fault you’re alone every second.” She took a breath before continuing, “It should be relatively easy as far as our cases go. A little field work, but I can handle that part if you handle the clue work. The usual. Marlene and I scheduled him for an appointment in about- “
The signature tap-tap-tip-tap of Marlene knocking at the door cut her off.
“Oh, well there he is now!”
The door swung open before Garrett could move, revealing Marlene’s toothy, cheery grin, pink-nailed hand on the doorframe, “Your appointment’s here, Detective Garrison.” Her voice dripped with a sultry tone Alex had bet money came from some cheesy romance film she watched. She opened her mouth to speak again, but the figure beside her took a step forward and cut her off: “You’re Detective Garrison?? Oh, thank heavens!”
The man standing in front of Garrett, despite the 6-inch height difference between them, carried a presence about him that seemed to fill the room. Salt and pepper hair in brown and grey swirled from his head in messy waves. Dark eyes paired with a long, somewhat unkempt grey and brown beard. As he spoke Garrett caught the man’s heady perfume, a mix of alabaster, cherries, and heartbreak. A split-second break in composure caught Garrett speechless, before he hurriedly held a hand up, “Correct, and you would be…?”
The man shook his hand hurriedly, grip remarkably firm for his demeanor, “I uh- I’m Steve. Steve Black. Thank you for seeing me, I have nowhere else to go.” There was a sultry whine under the desperation in his voice, something buried that set Garrett’s nerves on edge. The man himself was peculiar; despite his scraggly waves of hair, he was dressed to the luscious, theatrical degree of a jazz club singer, with a black and blue suit lined with blue boa trim. The hem was lined with a hint of gold thread, sewn in a remarkably intricate pattern. A diamond brooch lined the collar of his dark blue dress shirt. Whether it was excess money or poor impulse control that had the man dressed so eccentrically, it was hard to tell.
“Yes, well, my partner Alex just mentioned you to me, I believe she agreed to take your case in my stead.” Garrett tried to limit the irritation in his words, “Please, have a seat, get to talking.” His free hand tapped at one of the chairs across his desk and he himself sat down in his chair, leaned back with one foot on the bottom drawer. Within moments Alex was sat next to him, chair backwards, resting her arm on the back. She adjusted her black and grey pinstripe vest to accommodate the position she sat in.
“And what a wonderful thing it is, her telling you,” Steve began, as if in the middle of an hours long conversation, “You see I wasn’t sure she still worked for you when I called her, I was worried she’d-“
“You know Detective Bergensten?” Garrett interjected.
“Oh! Uh…” Steve froze, caught in a secret.
Alex sighed, “Steve is an old college friend of mine. We studied together in Redcutter before I left for Diamond City.” Her gaze held steady meeting Garrett’s, as truthful as the day was long, “He reached out to me all frantic and, being candid, offered a fortune in payment the three of us,” gesturing to herself, Garrett, and Marlene, who hovered at the door still, forever curious, “could desperately use right now.”
So, it was money. “Alright then, what seems to be the problem? Lose some fancy set of pearls? What do you do for a living anyway?” Garrett didn’t bother hiding the hostility now. He found the sudden switch up usually got him the most answers this early in.
Steve seemed caught off-guard, a hand to his chest in dramatized shock, “Easy, Detective Garrison, you know it’s rude to ask such a question!” When little reaction came of the remark, spare an apologetic look from Alex, Steve sighed and continued, some of the eccentrism bleeding away from his voice, “No, it’s much worse than ‘some pearls.’ And I’m an architectural engineer, detective, and a good one. Half this city has my handiwork in it somewhere.” Now Steve was letting the hostility bleed into his tone, returning fire in an unspoken game of wits, “Simply put, my companion is missing. Dennis. My truest friend.” His voice broke a little, “I…I can’t completely say what happened, I’m still not sure. We were simply on a walk, and he heard someone call for help from that old, abandoned warehouse off Gravel Road, and when we checked it out-“ His gaze dropped and Garrett couldn’t deny the genuine pain in the man’s eyes as he blinked away tears.
“Did you get a look at who took him?” Garrett spoke, level.
Alex followed up, quickly, “Faces, clothing, demeanor, anything. Anything helps.”
Steve shook his head, “It was so dark, you must understand, I had a lantern, but something shattered it. Like- like a rock or something, it broke the light.”
A nod. Sigh. Garrett leaned back in his chair further, sharing an inquisitive glance with the cobwebs on the ceiling before he glanced back to the others, “Could you get me an address? If it’s an abandoned place, there could still be evidence.”
Steve nodded, scrambling to take the paper and pen Alex gently held towards him. Silence cut only by the scribbling of ink echoed throughout the room for a few moments, before Steve handed the paper to Garrett, insistent. Desperate, “Please, if anything happened to Dennis I…” He broke into tears again, full and open this time. Hands darted to his face as he wept.
He let Alex focus on the crying man for the moment as he looked over the address. 4521 Gravel Road. Not a great part of town, “And how much did you say you could pay?”
Alex shot a withering glare at him, but between hiccups Steve managed, “About 10 stacks worth, not much but it's- it’s something. Right?”
Garrett failed to hide the small smile on his face, “That’s plenty, Mr. Black. We’ll call you with any news, just leave your number with Marlene. Alex, if you could take care of this once he leaves, I’ll follow behind you once I catch up on our other cases.”
Alex nodded and helped her supposed friend stand, the two speaking softly to each other as they stepped out of the office, Marlene not far behind. She hesitated for a moment, glancing back at Garrett and thoughtfully chewing at her pink painted lips, “Will he be okay?”
Garrett nodded with a chuckle, “Oh it’ll be fine, Marlene. Honestly, this should be a pretty easy case.” He lit another cigar and smiled as he took a long, relaxed draw. This should be an easy case.
Right?