Sunday, June 6, 2004

   Cream Filling & Nougat: Third Helping (Chapter XII)
Later that day, Cream and his team debriefed in one of the spare rooms in the precinct along with some of the ERT leaders.
"Alright," Cream said to the gathered men, "on the whole, we shot down a few gang members, arrested a whole lot more, and shut down another relatively large cryssal producer. Likewise, there were absolute minimal wounded. Sergeant . . ." He looked to one of the ERT leaders. "What was your number?"
"That would have been two wounded, in serious but not critical condition," the specialist answered.
"Good, good," Cream added quietly and drifted into a brief lapse in thought. Before anyone could notice, he continued. "Anyway, aside from losing the bulk of the physical evidence afterwards . . . and I don't blame any of you for that one bit . . . we did a good job. Well done, guys."

Cream asked if there were any final questions - naturally, Officer Pastille was the first to reply to the offer.
"Sir," he asked, getting Cream's attention, "so now that we've shut these guys down, where to next?"
"Uh, that is . . ." Cream choked back a small lump in his throat, mostly unnoticed by the attending officers. ". . . I will . . . I shall have that figured out for next day. Until I call the group for another meeting, just hang tight for a little while." Pastille nodded and leaned back into his seat. Cream just cracked his knuckles behind his back . . .


Nougat looked up from his book as Cream entered the office. Cream sighed as he slumped himself into his chair, making a large display of himself as he did it. After spinning himself around in a circle once, he looked directly at Nougat across from him - he was looking right back.
". . . What?" Cream asked, a slight sharpness in his tone.
"How old are you, seriously?" Nougat asked in as condescending a voice as he could muster. Cream sighed a second time and looked up at one of the far corners of the ceiling.
"Damn it, old man, don't piss me off. Not now . . . " Nougat cracked a mean grin.
"Oh yeah, you must be havin' a real tough day. Are you at risk of losing your job as well?"
"Look!" Cream said, slamming his desk, "if that's all you're gonna do, why don't you just leave the damn office?!"
"It's my office too, and I was here first." Showing another false smile, Nougat looked straight at the younger detective across the two back-to-back desks. "So live with it, or shut up." Cream huffed one last time before noisily pulling out one of his folders.

"So what're you readin', anyway?" Cream asked, killing the brief and eerie silence in the office.
"Municipal laws and codes," Nougat responded. "I'm sure as hell not goin' down without a fight . . ." Cream made some sort of acknowledgement, but the topic quickly died out as the two of them went back to their own studies.

"So . . ." Nougat said, breaking the bothersome silence, ". . . you working on the cryssal case right now?" Cream rolled his eyes up from his papers.
"Yeah, yeah I am. I've got a lot of pieces to pick up after you left the case and I screwed it over once or twice." Nougat didn't even bother to respond to that. The silence recommenced.

"Ya know, it's not like I wanted to leave the case," Nougat finally said after another few minutes of wall-to-wall nothingness passed.
"Yeah, I know, I know," Cream replied. "Just that . . . ya know, we're pretty much stuck here. And having you on the case could've helped a bit . . ." The griping found its way deep into Nougat's mind.
"Oh, I'm so sorry I had to get sued . . . . . geez . . . all you've done is bitch about everything I've done up until now! What's your problem?!"

"Alright," Cream said as he got out of his chair, "alright old man, come over here for a sec, I want to show you how things look from my side for a sec . . ."
"I can see ya just fine from here, detective," Nougat said while his face remainded fixed in his book.
"No, seriously, come on . . ." Cream, meanwhile, had closed the door to the office and locked it, unbeknownst to Nougat. "Just for a second, get your ass out of your book for a second and come over here . . . . ." Nougat, finally incensed, got up and walked over to the open space between the desks and the door.
"Fine, fine, what the hell do you . . ."

Nougat was cut off abruptly as Cream swung his fist hard into the older detective's side. Nougat grunted hard and clutched at his midsection, caught completely off guard.
"What the suck was that?!" he shouted as hard as he could while still gripping his side.
"Trust me, I owed you that," Cream said, stepping towards Nougat, chest out, chin up. With almost no hesitation, Nougat pulled back and swung his right hand at Cream's cheek - he was also quick to notice that the younger officer wasn't ducking away or putting up a guard . . . . . the hook impacted hard against Cream's face, forcing him to take a few steps to his right lest he fall over.

Cream regained his footing and looked back to Nougat - a large grin running from ear to ear, through the fresh redness on the side of his face. Nougat could only stand motionless, puzzled by the other man's actions. Cream, in turn, took advantage of Nougat's hesitation and landed a quick hook against the larger man's temple and forcing him to brace himself against the locked door. Nougat turned around and looked at the smiling Cream once again. Cream's face was still bright red, and his arms were soon stretched out away from his body as well. The man was completely defenseless - Nougat finally understood the point of the exchanges.

Nougat took two quick steps forward and swung his left fist into Cream's stomach. Cream grunted hard through his teeth.
"That one's for losing face in front of the others," Nougat said as he stepped back. After getting rid of the shake in his knees, Cream stepped forward and swung his wholy body behind his right, snapping Nougat's head away once again.
"For being happy that my entire team was wounded," Cream said raspily. Nougat, meanwhile, was already back in form, swinging his left towards Cream's right cheek. After the harsh slap of skin on skin, Nougat added,
". . . for not having faith in me."

Cream's face was glowing from what he figured would become very large bruises on both sides of his face. Still, he rushed forward, laced his fingers together, and hammered his fists into Nougat's solarplexus.
"That one's for calling me Whelp in the hospital," he let out, completely out of breath. Nougat grinned, the slightest hint of blood outlining his teeth.
"That's a lot of payback for some name-calling, don't ya think?" Cream coughed as he laughed lightly and answered,
"Hey, if you can think of something more petty, I think my forehead's still it's original colour right now . . ." Nougat nodded, stepped in, and belted Cream in the stomach again.
"We'll say that one's for your spite when greeting a superior officer, how 'bout?" Cream dropped to a knee and drooped his head. His breaths poured out of him like steam from a kettle.

"Nougat stood firm while Cream continued to force himself back onto his feet. After about half a minute, Cream finally had both soles of his feet against the floor while the rest of him remained in a low crouch. With a guttural cry, he sprung himself forward, swinging his right hand up towards Nougat's chin. Nougat closed his eyes and clenched his jaw while he waited for the uppercut to land. Finally, the knuckles hit and he staggered back. The older officer braced his stagger with his rear leg, but Cream's body continued in it's direction. Cream fell into Nougat and knocked both of them to the office floor. With the back of his head resting on Nougat's heaving gut, Cream spoke softly.
"For . . . . . for getting promoted . . . and . . . . . still being so damned ugly . . ."

Nougat immediately exploded into laughter despite the pain he felt all through his body. That in turn set Cream off, who laid while stille clutching his sides. Nougat reached his hand down and flicked Cream in the nose.
"That's for not being able to think of anything better," he said in between the torturous laughing. Cream coughed again despite his own laughter and tried to hammer his hand against Nougat's nearest knee, saying,
"For . . . um . . . . . for . . . for never breaking your habit of letting out little farts while you laugh . . . now stop tryin' to hide it, old man . . ." Nougat, still unable to contain his mirth, shoved Cream's head off his abdomen and laughed more when he heard the thud of Cream's head and the linoleum tiling.
"Whip'," he said, "you're one insane bastard, ya know that?"

Cream laughed more while he looked up at the window in the door. Outside was a large crowd of officers looking in at the two tired, beaten detectives.
"Fact remains, Noug', I might be insane, but you're still nuts."
"Yeah, I'm fine with that."


[I wonder how long this one went for . . . in any case, it went by really quickly - only about an hour - so I'm happy. Hehe . . . what can I say? I thought it was time to turn this story towards its final stretch or two.]
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