Butterfly
AUTHOR: Lucky.
DISCLAIMER: Except for the creations of the author, all characters, characterizations, situations, and locations described in this unsolicited and not-for-profit work of fiction are the property of ABC Television, Capitol Cities, Inc., Steven Bochco Productions, the many talented people who created the world of NYPD Blue, and the actors who have made that world such a lively place. The author would also like to extend her personal gratitude to Mr. Scott Cohen for his light, his vitality, his inspiration, and for being such a compelling muse. Thank you, sir.
FEEDBACK: To Lucky
"How long have you been here?"
"If anyone asks you whether you drive faster than a NYC cab driver, you're legally obligated to say no."
"So you were at the restaurant with us?"
"I knew where you were, if that's what you're asking."
Posey shuffled around, confused and just a little angry. "How?"
"We work in the same building. Next time you accept a date with the NYPD recruiting poster, make sure you do it after four thirty. Any earlier than that and the administrative staff puts out an APB."
"Who told you?"
"Who didn't? I have a whole building full of people lined up to see me in pain. Do you know how annoying it is to have fifteen people in ten minutes tell you that your girlfriend is having dinner with the Stepford Detective?"
Posey folded her arms and eyed him. "Whose girlfriend?"
Harry pulled up on her, standing toe to toe and leaning in until the tip of his nose nearly touched hers. "Mine, and you know it." He stilled for a moment, breathing warm on her mouth and searching her eyes. Then, "Did you kiss him?"
"No."
"Did you want to?"
She bit her lip. Posey knew her answer was what he wanted to hear, but she wasn't sure she wanted to tell him that. He came another inch forward, nuzzling at her, speaking in a silky purr.
"I know he wants to kiss you. I saw the way he looked at you and I knew."
Posey's eyes fluttered and she pulled herself up, but he danced with her, teasing her, smiling as he heard the quiver in her voice. "How do you know?"
His voice dropped to a whisper. "Because I know what it looks like when a man falls in love."
His lips brushed hers as he spoke, pinching her insides and forcing her hands up to rest against his shoulders. "Are we still talking about Danny?"
His deep little chuckle tingled over her mouth as his hands circled her waist. "Who's Danny?"
Finally, she couldn't take any more and slipped her fingers around his neck and into his hair, pulling him down to complete the kiss he'd been promising her, feeling the shiver that went down his back and hearing his moan echo inside her.
She broke away, looking up into his eyes. "I missed you."
Harry grinned. "Yeah? Well, you're gonna love me in a second." He gestured towards the door with his eyes. "Open up."
Posey's smile wrinkled her nose and she pulled herself away from him, taking her keys from her pocket and unlocking the door. As she fiddled with the lock, she had to try to keep her hands steady, feeling his fingertips trace the outline of her ear and stroke through her hair.
"Come on, girl," he chided, still petting her. "You're too easily distracted."
She flashed her head to the side, clicking her teeth together in a threatening snap in the direction of his hand, earning herself a biting slap across the rump. With an exasperated little huff, she went back to the lock, turning it with one hand and rubbing her backside with the other.
Finally, the door opened and she pushed it wide into the dark room. Harry actually bumped her shoulder aside with his arm in his haste to reach around the doorway and flip the lightswitch. She looked around with a little gasp.
All of her furniture had been moved and rearranged in a pleasant manner, adding space and flow to the room. She hadn't been able to move the heavy pieces too much on her own, and now ceased to wonder at Harry's disheveled appearance. He must have spent hours shoving these leather coated whales around the room.
Hours... wait a minute.
"Harry, how did you..?"
"Shh. Keep moving." He put a hand into the small of her back and propelled her forward. As she cleared the topline of her big couch, she saw the source of his excitement.
"Harry... it's beautiful."
A saguaro cactus, with heaven-held arms and a sandy green body, perfect as a postcard, stood nearly three feet tall out of a two-foot container painted in the same colors as Harry's apartment, in full bloom. She took a few prancing steps towards it.
"Careful," Harry said after her. She tossed him a dirty look and he stuffed his hands into his coat pockets, rolling his eyes a little. Returning her attention to his gift, she reached in, carefully avoiding the spines, and touched one of the pink flowers.
"How did you get it to bloom?"
"It took a few days, but I managed to trick it into thinking it was raining." She could hear him take off his trench and lay it over the back of the couch.
Posey studied the beautiful living thing in wonder for another moment, then re-asked her original question as she stood, turning. "Thank you, but you still didn't tell me how you got into my... oh, sweet Jesus what the hell is that?"
"You really should talk to your super about letting delivery people in. Anyone in a uniform can talk their way into your apartment."
"Yeah, but what is that?" Posey's eyes ran up and down the tacky white and red racing stripe that threw everything about her heretofore gorgeous boyfriend out of balance. The institutional blue clashed horridly with the flush of his face and the pitch of his hair. She wanted it gone. She wanted to watch it swirl as she flushed it down a big, industrial toilet somewhere. She wanted to stand in a limp fire's glow and smell the acrid, plastic stench as whatever it was made of burned into nothing.
"Just a small 'remember me' gift from your friends at Citi-Wide Courier Services, Incorporated."
Posey came at him with a start. "You look like Goober from Petticoat Junction. Come here."
Harry giggled and tossed his hands up in mock helplessness as Posey ripped at the little plastic buttons lining his chest. In her rush, she popped one of them completely off, following it with her eyes as it skittered across the floor.
"Sorry."
"I don't think I'll be needing it again."
She went back to exterminating the thing that had crawled up his body and attached itself, finally yanking it from his shoulders and dragging it down his arms, leaving him in his slender white tee as she punched the uniform shirt into a wad and looked at it with unbridled hatred.
"This is really disgusting."
"Repellant," he agreed in a low voice, taking the shirt from her.
"Don't ever put that on again." Posey ran her freshly emptied hands over his white cotton chest.
"With pleasure." She heard the shirt hit the wall beside her, still fixed on the breadth of his body in front of her. He stood, cupping her elbows as she touched him, then he lifted his hand and slipped a finger under her chin, lifting her eyes to his.
"How about we get rid of the rest of it now?"
"Little feet... little pink toes... little red toenails..."
"Harry!" she squealed, wiggling her toes as he scattered little kisses over them. "Stop it! That tickles!"
They lay together, cradled in the arms of Posey's leather loveseat, wrapped up in her comforter, each resting on opposite arms. One of his long legs ran off the couch and onto the floor, the other slung up over her shoulder and propped against the arm of the couch. She, in turn, had made the mistake of presenting him with her feet.
"But they're so cute," he murmured, pressing the flat of his palm to the sole of her foot. "Look at that... that is just adorable."
"Wonderful. Thank you, Harry, but..." Her words slid up into a bright, giggling sigh as he ran his fingertips over the bottom of her foot. He handed her a wicked grin and pulled himself in, disappearing into a lump under the blanket and turning himself around. She watched as the lump wiggled a little, then crept over to her side of the couch, feeling his mouth travel slowly up her body. "What are you doing?" she asked, laughing.
"Paying homage." Finally, Harry reappeared over Posey's chest, settling himself down with a happy grunt. She pressed a kiss into his messy hair and rubbed his back for a few seconds, then spoke again.
"Why?"
"Because I said so." He gathered her breast in his hand and pressed it to his mouth as he spoke.
"No, goofy," she giggled. "Why a cactus?"
She felt his brow cross as he explained. "Well, I was thinking about all the things you said, about hunters and prey."
"Right."
"You said that every living thing is one or the other, but that's not true. That plant is neither... and both." Posey turned her head to regard the saguaro, realizing that Harry had a point. He continued. "It just stands, defending itself so well that it drives everything around it away, warning everything with its sting."
Sweetheart... She stroked his hair, following his thoughts with a gentle voice. "He must be kind of lonely."
Harry shrugged a little, using the give of the cushion to slide his arms beneath her. "He never really thought about it until recently."
"Why recently?" Harry picked his head up, bracing himself on his elbows and looking into her eyes.
"Someone started to care about him."
She watched him, understanding. After a few moments, she pressed his head back down to her body with soothing little sounds, cuddling him until she felt him fall asleep. She turned her head again, looking at his gift to her, feeling her own body relax. With a little sigh, she let her eyes slide shut.
"And then he bloomed..."
"Okay, everyone! Everyone?" Fancy glanced around the tavern at the group of detectives who weren't paying attention to him in the least. He turned to the only one who was. "Greg, hold this chair for a second."
"You got it, Lieu."
Fancy stepped up on the chair and raised his voice to a boom. "Will you all stop drinking long enough to find out why you're here!!"
The room fell expectantly silent, save for the low grumble of laughter.
"Good. Now I have an announcement here that I haven't seen since my days in the field."
A voice in the back that Fancy immediately pegged as Andy's piped up. "When dinosaurs ruled New York."
Fancy didn't miss a beat. "And you were the only one of us old enough to drive, either." He waited for the laughter to die down, then continued. "I'm sure you all know about Detective Jackson in my department. She's been with us for four months and she's been invaluable to all of us for her involvement in bringing the Borga investigation to a complete close. We can now consider that entire case finished, thanks to the efforts of Narcotics, Detective Denby, and Detective Jackson."
A raucous round of applause and cheering followed the announcement. Harry and Posey locked eyes over the sea of bodies between them.
Fancy continued, now waving a piece of paper over his head. "Wait a second, wait a second... Now because of that investigation, and the hard work of the detectives involved, a new department has been commissioned by the City of New York. The NYPD Office of International Criminal Investigation will act as liaison to the FBI office here, as well as to the rest of the investigative departments of the precincts. I don't have a full department roster at this time, but the first team of detectives has been announced." He brought the paper down, flipping it open and reading aloud.
"Detectives Harry Denby in Narcotics and Mariposa Jackson in Homicide, both of the one five."
The crowd, as they say, went wild. Both detectives received pats and congratulations as they crossed the room, but they were fixed on one another. Their relationship had been a constant subject of office gossip for four months, but neither Harry nor Posey had made any confirmation one way or the other.
As they met, there wasn't any doubt left. Posey wrapped herself around Harry and he lifted her clear of the floor as he spun her around. Even if they had tried to talk to each other about it, they couldn't have. The celebration around them was deafening.
Then right in front of everyone, he bent her back and kissed her.
"You know, this makes you a senior detective, now, Pose."
Posey's eyebrows jumped as she set down her champagne glass. "I never thought about it that way, Greg. You're right."
Medavoy grinned into his beer. "Appointments to the new department are gonna be a real prize. You guys are gonna have a great crop to pick from. And, I hear you have an excellent lieutenant."
"Oh, yeah? Who's the lieu?"
"Sherill Perry. Just got promoted two years ago and she's been working in Juvenile ever since. It was never supposed to be her permanent position, so I think she's been waiting for this for a while."
"A lady lieu. Harry's gonna piss himself."
Greg picked up his beer and grinned over the lip of the glass, commenting as he took a sip. "I'm sure you two'll keep him in line."
Posey blushed a little, watching the bubbles spin in her champagne. Over the speakers in the tavern, the bright beginning of Bobby Darin's "More" kicked in and before she could even turn to look for Harry, his hand came over her shoulder. She twisted around, meeting his smile with her own, sliding her hand into his and coming out of her chair.
"Can I help you, Detective Denby."
He stepped back, pulling on her a little. As she followed, he took her other hand, pulling her close and searching her eyes.
"Dance with me."
The End... But the sequel is called Dance With Me.
