The rest of Arlo’s shift went so slowly he could’ve sworn he was at his desk for three days straight. Witness. Paperwork. Interrogation. Paperwork. Criminal. Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. Piling up and up on his desk, the ever-growing stack of files never seemed to go down. His eight-year-old self would never have guessed that being a detective would include filling out so many forms. If he’d have known, he probably would’ve followed his dream of being a dinosaur-tamer instead. Despite the tedious data entry and the unsavoury partner, however, there were some highlights to Arlo’s day. Most notably, Officer Sophie Lake, whom he had met in the break room and had spent a full hour with being shown photos of her various dogs. He looks up at the clock and watches the second hand meet the minute hand at twelve.
“Working overtime, Maxwell?” Speak of the devil. “It’s eight already, go home.” Arlo looks up at Sophie with her motorbike helmet under her arm and smiles.
“I didn’t even notice. I’d probably just be working at home anyway. Reports don’t write themselves.” He chuckles lightly, a sort of sad chuckle that he was sure Sophie would’ve picked up on had she not just received a text. She sighs.
“God damn it.” She breathes, barely audibly.
“Everything okay?” Arlo asks.
“Huh?” She quickly looks back at him, “Oh! Yeah, no, everything’s fine, my wife’s parents are just coming to dinner. They’re not exactly the most tolerant of people so we eloped instead of having a big fancy wedding and apparently they’ve just found out.” She rolls her eyes and shoots Arlo a sad smile, “Family drama, never boring.”
Arlo returns her sad smile with his own and nods slowly, “I know what you mean. My parents still haven’t really come to terms with me either, just one more reason I moved here.”
“Oh, you’re…?”
“Pan.”
“Oh, nice.”
“And demi, which makes the whole family approval thing extra complicated.”
“Oh Jesus, I can’t even imagine.” Sophie looks at Arlo sympathetically.
“Yeah, it’s a tough one. I mean, how do you tell your mother who’s always wanted great grandchildren that her son’s never met anyone he’s loved enough to… well, love, and that when he finally finds that person, it might not even be a woman?” He takes a breath, “If he finds that person.” He amends. After a moment, he looks up, slightly embarrassed at his outburst. Sophie, however, doesn’t seem fazed.
“Don’t you have a twin sister?” She asks.
“Aromantic and asexual. Mum’s not getting any grandkids there.” Arlo replies. Sophie nods and gives a small ‘ah’ in understanding.
“Well, hey, this just means that one of you is going to have to get a pet.” Arlo laughs,
“That’s not a bad idea, Soph, any recommendations?”
“You seem like a cat kinda guy.”
“I’m allergic.”
“Coward.” She grins at him and puts her bike helmet on, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Maxwell.”
“See you tomorrow. Good luck with the in-laws!” Arlo’s smiling long after she’s gone, whilst he’s getting himself ready to leave. It was nice to have a new friend he could be honest with. He had spent so much time lying about his sexuality and his life to everybody that, when he moved away, he swore he would do his best not to carry on the same way. Cara knew, of course, and his dad suspected he was some kind of queer by the fact he caught Arlo hugging another boy on their doorstep, and when asked about it, Arlo turned all shades of red and almost had a panic attack, but this was the first time he had ever purposefully come out to anybody, and it felt better than he had expected.
Still in the highest of spirits, Arlo leaves the precinct and calls a taxi. The drive back to his flat is dark, drizzly and uneventful. The cabbie’s playing what sounds like an 80s hits playlist on the lowest possible volume which is driving Arlo insane. He can just about make out the familiar hook of ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ but can’t hear enough to know how far through the song is. The cabbie makes some idle conversation about the weather, as expected, and Arlo gives some half-baked, polite reply. They then sit in silence for the rest of the journey.
When they pull up outside Arlo’s block of flats, he wastes no time in jumping out of the cab, unlocking the front door and starting the trek up the four flights of stairs to his floor. Moving out and starting a new job at twenty-four meant living cheaply, and living cheaply meant perpetually broken lifts and tiny flats on fourth floors. It was a less-than-ideal arrangement, but now it was home. Arlo was no stranger to decorating either - he had changed everything he reasonably could to shades of gunmetal silver and blue, a shift that had turned a once old and dingy looking apartment into a classy and mature home base for a modern detective. It made him feel like he should produce a bucket of ice from under the kitchen counter and pour himself a glass of whiskey, which would’ve been much less suave than he was imagining considering all his glasses were colourful and mis-matched due to them being one of the many things Arlo supplied his flat with from a nearby charity shop.
He drops his keys on the coffee table and falls into the sofa, face first. The thought of falling asleep right there occurs to him, but as he considers it, his stomach lets out an almighty growl and he groans into the sofa cushion. Reluctantly, he makes his way over to the fridge and opens it, flinching at the bright light that attacks his eyes. Nothing but milk and the day-before-yesterday’s take-out. He sniffs the box of leftover chicken and immediately recoils in disgust. Apparently an extremely second-hand fridge doesn't always, well, refrigerate. He tosses the chicken and reluctantly sniffs the milk. Still okay, thank god. Cereal for dinner it is.
Arlo’s mind wanders as he pours the milk into a bowl of mini chocolate-chip Weetabix. He looks around at his new home and wonders if it’ll ever feel less cold and lonely than it does right now. Thinking back to his conversation with Sophie, he exhales and scratches the back of his hair. Truth be told, his love life had been a bit of a disaster. He had grown up around friends and classmates that had loved to talk about relationships; in primary school they’d have play-dates and get married under the monkeybars, in secondary school they would giggle about who was sleeping with who, nervously ask each other out at the prom and get caught making out in music rooms, hell, in university, two of his classmates were already married. Arlo had had a few crushes, but pursuing them felt like too much, too fast. He simply couldn’t fathom the idea of being that intimate with a stranger, or even a classmate, and celebrity crushes were a completely foreign concept to him. He knew he wanted a big, sweeping love story, he could fantasise about a crush for days, but he figured he probably just wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure of one. Every time he thought about the closeness he was supposed to have with a partner, he got a lump in his throat and he began to panic. Once, when he was eighteen, he thought that perhaps he could feel that way about his best friend, and so they went on a date, a horribly silent, uncomfortable, tense date that ended with an awkward hug on a doorstep. That same night, after crying for what felt like forever, Arlo researched and researched until, at 6am the following morning, he anxiously knocked on his sister’s door and confided in her that he was demipansexual. After the initial shock of being awoken at such an ungodly hour, she embraced and comforted him for a while, before coming out about her own sexual identity, and they spent the rest of the day in that room talking about anything and everything. If one good thing came from losing his best friend that night, it was that he finally bonded with his sister in a way they had never managed before, which, in his mind, was a worthwhile trade-off.
Arlo settles on the sofa with his bowl of cereal, kicks his feet up to rest on the edge on the coffee table, and grabs the tv remote. Flicking through channels, he settles on a food network showing reruns of Kitchen Nightmares and sinks into the sofa cushions, officially done for the day.
Empty bowl by his side and one foot on the ground, Arlo begins to snore lightly. His capacity to stay conscious when watching tv on the sofa was shockingly inadequate, Cara always used to beat him with pillows until he’d wake up whenever he dozed off during her favourite movies. Typically, he was impossible to rouse, “sleeps like the dead” his father used to say, but this time something woke him very abruptly. His phone was vibrating on the kitchen counter, the sound echoing around the walls. He looks at the clock on the wall, drowsy and confused. Who on earth would be calling him this late at night? He walks over to his phone buzzing along the counter and peers at the screen.
[UNAVAILABLE]
Curious, Arlo hesitates for a second, then picks up the phone and presses the round, green button.
“Hello?” He says, cautiously. The person on the other end of the phone makes a surprised sort of sound and takes a moment to respond.
“Oh, uh, hi there. I was told this number was for a police precinct, is that right?” Arlo’s hit with a wave of realisation as he recognises the lilting Irish accent on the other end of the phone. He didn’t really think he’d call. He meant to write down the precinct’s number, it was too late before he realised he’d written his own instead. The nerves had gotten the better of him on his very first case and he had made an extremely embarrassing mistake.
“Eli?” There was hesitation on the line.
“Yes?”
“It’s Detective Maxwell.” Arlo was trying to sound professional, but he had his head in his hands and was practically melting from the heat radiating from his face. ‘Embarrassing’ may have been an understatement.
“Oh, Detective!” Eli sounded happy to hear that it was Arlo - scratch that - Eli sounded absolutely delighted to hear that it was Arlo on the other end of the phone. “How are you?” Arlo furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.
“How am I?” He asked, his head swimming with disbelief and impatience, “Eli, why are you calling this number this late? If you have more information about the robbery you can-”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Then what is it?” Silence. “Elijah?”
“I seem to be, um, lost.” Arlo blinks, waiting for more of an explanation. He hears Eli exhale and shuffle around and wonders if he might be drunk or high. “Look, I was… walking around, and I got lost. I was hoping that the precinct could send a car to come pick me up or something. You know, track the telephone box with their super duper technology? Pick me up via helicopter? Something a little action-movie-esque like that?” A certain tone in Eli’s voice tempts a smile out of Arlo that he manages to suppress.
“Just find a street sign and call a taxi, Elijah, calling me this late is so unprofessional.”
“Hey, you’re the one who gave me your number. Besides, I can’t call a taxi, I have no money and no phone.” What kind of person these days walks around at night with no money and no phone? The suspicions about this man just kept piling up in Arlo’s head. There was something, he could feel it. He opens his eyes and sighs, he’s just had a very, very stupid idea.
“Stay on the phone. I’m coming to get you.”
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