The Witness Wore a Puppy Tail, chapter 12 (Patreon)

Ken started the car and headed for a nearby school where he could park and have a little privacy. The last thing he needed was for Robert to tear into Captain Jenkins and undo any of the progress Ken had made. Maybe people in the university were different, but with cops, the more you told them to do x, they more they insisted on doing y. It was a rule.

The military had been easier in some ways. The person with the highest rank automatically won any pissing match, so there was less reason to start one. Ken missed that.

Maybe Ken had enjoyed the military because he so often didn’t know how to engage in male competition. Too often it involved sports, women, and sex—and Ken ardently avoided two of those three. Sticking with just sports made for some boring conversations, but he’d seen what happened when men didn’t fit into the macho mold others expected. Usually the hatred wasn’t the sort that this case embodied; usually it was a more subtle sort of distancing and a slight current of disrespect. 

More than one gay or bisexual cop suffered for letting himself be too open, and the way some people talked about lesbians made Ken ill. Being different rarely paid off in tight-knit cultures. Well, other than the military. Ken had been pleasantly surprised at how little anyone gave a shit as long as a person held up his or her end of the log while running the obstacle course. He’d seen people give short women or thin men a hard time based off the assumption they wouldn’t be able to hold their own physically, but as soon as they proved themselves, the shit stopped.

One woman in basic couldn’t have been over five feet and a hundred pounds. She was kissing the minimum requirements. By the time she joined the wresting team, qualified for specialized marine training and kicked ass on the obstacle course a few times, people didn’t give a shit what she looked like. Of course by then she was packed on muscle and looked like she could fuck someone up in a back alley.

A sharp intake of breath warned Ken that Robert had woken up. “Where are we?” His voice had a sharp edge of panic.

“Hey, you’re fine,” Ken said. He glanced in the rear view mirror, and Robert was looking around in jerky, frantic motions. “I’m going to pull off up here, and we can talk about where you want to go for tonight.”

“What? I want to go to my apartment.” As Robert woke up, his stubborn streak started showing again. Unfortunately, his logical brain was waking up a little slower. He’d packed a bag because he couldn’t go home, but apparently the part of his brain that knew that was still asleep.

“Your apartment is a crime scene,” Ken said as gently as he could.

“And it’s where I live.”

Ken pulled into the parking lot of the school to have the conversation. Ken parked and then twisted around to look Robert in the eye. “Your apartment is a crime scene and the perps know where you live. That means you can’t go back. Not right now.” 

Robert leaned back against the seat and stared up at the car’s headliner. “Oh fuck. The carpet.” A shiver went through him. “I'm not sure I’m ever going to be ready to see that again.” He took a deep breath and shook his head as though shaking off an unwanted emotion. Then he plastered a smile on. “I have a couple of friends who will let me crash with them. No problem.”

Something in Robert’s tone made the hair on the back of Ken’s arms stand up. "And where would these friends live?" Ken asked.

The quick shrug and the lack of eye contact told Ken everything he needed to know. The little shit was probably going to go right back to that complex and try and sleep on someone couch. “Hey,” Robert said, “I can call for a ride. You can leave me here.” Robert reached for the car door, and Ken grabbed his wrist to stop him from escaping. 

“Oh no. I am not dropping an assault victim on the street. And I am not going to let you go back to that apartment building.”

“I have friends other places,” Robert said without denying that he had planned to head back.

Ken narrowed his eyes at the attempted evasion.  “I'm not letting you out of this car until I see your ass safely behind a secure door."

Robert gave a salacious wiggle. “Someone's been practicing his Dom voice. You certainly have a commanding grip." Robert looked down to where Ken still gripped his wrist.

"Some people have it naturally," Ken shot back. "Now, where am I driving you, taking you to the door, and checking the security before I leave?" Ken asked. He prayed that Robert would ask to go to his father’s place. No teenager got past the door in those fancy downtown condo buildings. They feared teenage graffiti more than they feared terrorists. Probably because they had more experience with them. That would keep Robert safe.

"If I show up with a cop, no way am I going to get a warm welcome," Robert protested. That ruled out his father’s condo.  "Just drive me to Loyola, and I'll be fine."

Horror filled Ken. "You are not crashing on some dorm room floor," he said in his most commanding voice.

Robert shrugged. “I've slept in worse. I sold my silver spoon for a social consciousness and some teen angst when I was fourteen. I had a homeless goth phase that taught me to sleep anywhere my head landed, so I have slept in way, way worse places."

Ken had flashbacks to his own days of propped outer doors and lax security from dorm monitors who were little more than kids themselves. "I doubt that you've slept in more dangerous."

Robert snorted. "Buddy, have you been on the streets of Chicago? Like, ever?"

"Dorms have lots of people coming and going. How hard do you think it would be for one of these perps to push in there?" Ken demanded.

"Don’t go all drama queen; you wouldn’t look good in a dress. Dorms are full of people, so no way would they break in there. I mean, yeah, if I slept on the street, some bad shit could happen, but with all those people around... no way would they have the privacy they needed to fuck with me."

"If they want to shut you up, they'll get in there. And I doubt they wanted to just intimidate you. The last victim is lying in intensive care, his brain swelling so badly the doctors had to cut a piece of his skull open. If you've stirred them up enough to come after you, they aren't going to stop at fucking with you.”

“What?” Robert lost most of the color out of his face.

Ken sighed. He hadn’t meant to say that, but Robert’s inability to take this seriously was testing Ken’s patience. “The press hasn’t covered it much, but these three attacked again just outside a gay youth center.”

“Of course the press hasn’t covered it. Fuck. If some heterosexual poster child for middle class normalcy gets a hang nail, they put the story with a link for a Go Fund Me on the evening news. But let one of us get hurt, and it’s like a cone of silence descends on the whole press. It’s so fucking unfair I could shoot someone.”

“Please don’t,” Ken said. “I want you to think about something. If these idiots get it in their heads to come back with a gun... are you really prepared to deal with the consequences of that? Are you prepared to put other people in that dorm in danger?"

Robert stared angrily, his lips pressed together so tightly that a drop of blood leaked from his cut lip. "What do you want from me?" Robert demanded.

“Listen to reason. Let me take you to your—”

"I can just camp out in a shelter. The Chicago Union to End Homelessness down on Kedzie has great security. They won’t let me in this time of night unless you pull your badge, so drive me over there, flash your creds, and you can go home safe in the knowledge that I am behind some really big locks.”

"You are not sleeping on the streets," Ken snapped. He couldn’t believe the stupidity of even suggesting that. Robert needed quiet and rest and a chance to get his bearings after being attacked. He didn’t need to be in a communal room with dozens or hundreds of men where he had to keep his guard up.

"Who are you? My father? No, scratch that. My father knows that if he orders me around in that tone of voice, I’m going to do the exact opposite of whatever he wants. You are clearly not bright enough to understand that.” Robert shook free of Ken’s hold and bolted out of the car.

Ken ran after him. "Get back to the car.” Ken tried to keep his tone even, although he wanted to grab Robert by the nape of the neck and shake him until his brains rattled. The idiot hadn’t even taken his bag out of the trunk of Ken’s car.

"Make me," Robert gave Ken a sarcastic smile, the kind Ken usually saw on seven year old boys taunting an older brother over the last cupcake.

"Damn right I will.” Ken pointed a finger in Robert’s direction. “You sit your ass on the concrete, and I will arrest you for vagrancy. You sit on a street bench for more than ten minutes, and I'll arrest you for loitering. If the only way I can keep you safe is to throw your ass in a holding cell, I'll fucking follow you all night until I get a good enough reason to do it." For a second, Ken spotted a flash of anger, and he braced for an explosion right there. Instead, Robert sighed.

"You take the alpha-dog routine two steps too damn far, you know that, right?" Robert asked tiredly.

Taking that as permission, Ken took Robert's arm and guided him back toward the sedan. "Yep. It’s a cop thing.”

"While I normally enjoy getting hauled in on illegal grounds and the righteous drama I can create, a holding cell sounds like too much work tonight, so is there some sort of compromise we can make?"

"I'm not taking you to holding. Is there any chance you’ll compromise and go to your father’s?" 

“Zero, nada, nekas, nichts, not happening.”

Ken sighed. He had barely gotten the captain to treat this case like it might be a major crime, so a safe house was out of the question. Ken had one or two buddies with spare rooms, and that might be the most practical solution, but Ken didn’t trust Robert to stay at the house once Ken had left. The only way Ken could think to keep Robert safe was to stay with him, and that meant doing something that was going to make Captain Jenkins give birth to more kittens. At this rate, Ken’s next evaluation was going to end with him on probation, but that was better than waking up to a report that Robert was dead.

Ken opened the front passenger side of his car and stood there while Robert climbed in. "You can stay with me for the night."

Robert gave him a honeyed smile—slow and far too sweet. "The witness goes home with the big, bad detective. This sounds like the first sixty seconds of a porno. Where's the ba-chicka-wa-wa music when you need it?"

"Buckle up."

"Sir, yes sir.” Robert threw him world's sloppiest salute, but he did fasten his belt. Ken slammed the door and walked around to the driver’s side, half expecting Robert to make another run for it. The early morning drivers had started to appear on the roads, but the roads were still fairly quiet. As Ken headed for home, he grew increasingly concerned about Robert. He stared out the passenger side window, clearly lost in thought. Ken hoped he wasn’t running the attack in his head. Not only would his brain start generating details that didn’t exist, but he would drive himself insane..

When Ken had finally reached a US facility after having a wall fall on his head, he had done that. He’d replayed the dull roar, the pain as he threw up his arm to ward off the first stone. That’s all he should have remembered, but over time, his imagination filled in the gaps. He imagined (have I given his local guide a name yet?) crying out in pain, his hand reaching for Ken. He imagined the attackers climbing over rocks, spitting on (---)’s dead body before walking away for the wildlife to claim to remains. While he’d never had much of an imagination growing up, his brain had depths of talent that had gone untouched until that moment. Ken didn’t want Robert losing himself in those sorts of imagined horrors—or even obsessing over the real ones.

“So, you had a goth period, huh?”

Robert looked bewildered for a moment, and then he blinked, and seemed to find his bearings in the present again. “Oh yeah. Black fingernail polish, make up, all black clothes. When I do something, I don’t do it by halves. I was going to tear down the establishment and out of the chaos would grow a fair society. I was an idiot.”

“I thought you were still trying to tear down unfair systems.”

Robert snorted. “I just put enough dents in them to remind them that when you step on people, sometimes people strike back, ya know?”

Ken nodded. If this was the quieter, less idealistic version of Robert, he must have been a terror as a teenager. Ken felt a little sympathy for Sebastian Millan. 

“No offense, but I am not into talking. Not now.” Robert turned and gave Ken a view of his back and the seat belt stretched to its full length. As hints went, that wasn’t subtle, so as much as Ken was still worried about Robert losing himself to his own thoughts, he decided to wait until they reached the apartment. Then maybe he could have a substantial conversation without Robert shutting him out. Maybe. And maybe Robert was looking for another chance to run for the hills. At this point, that was looking more and more likely.

Chapter 13: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-13-18583563 

Chapter 14: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-14-18835280 

Chapter 15: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-15-19009742 

Chapter 16: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-16-19049610 

Chapter 17: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-17-19064720 

Chapter 18: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-18-19083274 

Chapter 19: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-19-19142224 

Chapter 20: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-20-19153311 

Chapter 21, 22, 23: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-21-21192263 

Chapter 24: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-24-21260957