Can we talk about this scene in Nobody Lives Forever? The one where Rico shows up lookin' like:
And Sonny just stares at him, lookin' guilty af?
Then it CUTS straight to the office scene, where Sonny is taken off the case?
Well. I was a little frustrated by this jump in time, and so I started a missing scene fic to fill it. It isn't completely finished, but on Miami Vice Day y'all at least deserve to see what's done:
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Even with the sunglasses covering his eyes again, it was clear that Tubbs had been badly beaten. Sonny looked his partner up and down, ignoring the gasp from Brenda behind him. He pushed forward, closing the door as Tubbs shifted to let him stand beside him. "Have you gone to the hospital?" He said at last, not liking the way that his partner seemed to be favoring one side, and hating that it was something that he might have prevented had he been there.
"You just woke up." Tubbs' voice was inflectionless, and it was much worse than if he had been shouting. An angry partner, Sonny could deal with. It would have even felt deserved, almost like a penance for his idiocy. But the fact that Tubbs was more disappointed than anything else …
"Yeah." He didn't deny it. For a long moment they stood in silence, and then Sonny asked again. "Have you gone to the hospital?"
"What do you care?" Tubbs was moving, and it was away. Down the steps and towards his Caddy, which was parked haphazardly behind the Daytona.
"You know I care." Sonny felt his temper spark, and for a moment spared enough thought to wonder if it was really Tubbs that he was angry at.
"You got a funny way of showin' it." Tubbs was reaching for the door, but Sonny sped up to put his own hand on it first.
"I know. I know I messed up. I know how I messed up, and I know why, but don't punish yourself just to get even, man. How many guys jumped you? Were you unconscious?"
Tubbs - for a moment - paused. He was clearly debating just hopping into his car and leaving. Finally he nodded instead. "Two guys. One with a crowbar. Didn't really get a good look at 'em, but one was the guy who made us yesterday - Morgan's men."
And that piece of information made Sonny feel exponentially worse. "Lemme take you to the hospital."
"Don't need it."
"Were you unconscious?" Sonny didn't take his hand off of the door, and Tubbs sighed through his nose, his irritation finally rearing its head.
"I made it here, didn't I?"
"You shouldn't have had to." Sonny countered, his heart sinking when his partner replied.
"I know."
"Okay, look." Sonny let go of the door, recognizing that his friend wasn't going to stay calm for much longer. "At least let me take a look at it, huh?" Tubbs stood stock still, his eyes black behind his glasses. "Please?" Sonny didn't want to beg, but in this case he would. If there was one relationship that mattered more to him than any other it was the one he had with Tubbs. His partner. His best friend.
"Not here." Tubbs said at last, and Sonny instantly agreed.
"No, I'm takin' you home."
Another moment of silence, and then Tubbs held out his keys. Sonny took them with the same desperation as that of a drowning man reaching for a lifeline, knowing that it was likely his only chance to make things right. Certainly a chance that he didn't feel he deserved.
Tubbs walked stiffly around to the passenger side, slumping into the seat after opening the door. Sonny hopped in behind the wheel, unable to keep from noticing the blood on the leather. And he called himself a professional. The drive was made mostly in silence, giving Sonny far too much time to think; to think about Brenda, about where that was going, and about what it would cost him. By the time they arrived, he had decided that the cost would likely be too high.
It already had been.
They took the elevator up, and Sonny stayed a step behind his partner until they'd made it into the penthouse. As soon as Tubbs had collapsed onto his couch Sonny was pulling out the first aid kit (something which was always well-stocked) before going to sit in front of his partner on the coffee table. "All right, lemme see."
Silently Tubbs removed his glasses, and Sonny scowled at the damage revealed underneath. Based on pupillary response his partner didn't seem to have a concussion, but he had still been beaten pretty badly. Tubbs seemed to read the question in his expression, and quietly said, "I only blacked out for a couple seconds."
Well at least his partner hadn't been lying unconscious in some ditch for an hour - a small blessing. "Well you don't look concussed." Sonny said as he put ointment over the cuts and cream on the bruises. "They beat'cha anywhere else?"
Tubbs took a little while to answer, but finally nodded, "My ribs."
Sonny didn't like the fact that his partner wasn't concussed and yet had lost consciousness, even if it had only been for a short period of time. "Stay here. I'll call it in."
"No, I'll call it." Tubbs started to get up from the couch, but Sonny stopped him.
"Please." He got a tired nod, and headed over to the phone, keeping an eye on his partner the whole time. It only took a few seconds to call the office, and Sonny found himself practically tongue-tied when his boss's voice came on the line.
"Castillo."
"I was late to the stakeout. Tubbs was beaten. Morgan did it."
There was a silence on the other end just long enough that Sonny could picture the other man's face. Then Castillo said, "How is he?"
"I took him home - he said he didn't need the hospital. He doesn't seem to be concussed, but, uh, they worked him over pretty good." Shame burned in his stomach as he spoke, but he would rather be the one to say it than listen to his partner make the report.
"Stay with him. If he's well enough, have him come in with you for the meeting at five." Castillo hung up, and Sonny replaced the receiver. Tubbs seemed to have partially melted into his own couch, and it was with a sigh that Sonny realized he would have to move him.
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Nobody Lives Forever (Jean Negulesco, 1946)
Cast: John Garfield, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Walter Brennan, Faye Emerson, George Coulouris, George Tobias, Robert Shayne, Richard Gaines, Richard Erdman. Screenplay: W.R. Burnett, based on his novel. Cinematography: Arthur Edeson. Art direction: Hugh Reticker, Max Parker. Film editing: Rudi Fehr. Music: Adolph Deutsch.
Changes of heart are always risky, especially in film noir, so when Nick Blake (John Garfield) falls in love with the rich widow Gladys Halvorsen (Geraldine Fitzgerald), who has been chosen as the mark in a con game, things get a little screwed up. Originally planned as a vehicle for Humphrey Bogart, Nobody Lives Forever benefits from Garfield's good looks, making the romantic twist a little more interesting. Jean Negulesco, better known for glossy romance than for noir, handles the material well, especially the climactic shootout.
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Stephanie Lauter is initially defined by her archetype as the popular girl in high school, but she must have been so lonely before Pete. Her mother is dead. Her father hates her and makes no attempt to hide it except to protect his reputation, constantly insulting, belittling and exerting authority over her when he isn’t busy with politics. She talks back to him, but doesn’t deny his descriptions of her. Miss Tessburger is the same. Her apparent friendships with the other cool kids, the kind of people who openly state the belief that looks are everything (not so different a paradigm to the one her father lives by), seem to be shallow and distant. Max rules the main popular clique with an iron fist to the point that they all stop bullying immediately and the school’s rigid social hierarchy crumbles once his influence is gone; and yet despite him having enough respect for her to try to protect her from what he believed were the undead during the prank, she was unaware of how big a problem his bullying was until she saw what he did to Pete, so she can’t have ever been that enmeshed in his circle. She dismisses her kindness to the losers as “the bare minimum” rather than lean into the potential for real friendships with them or leverage it to have power in this new group. It’s almost as if she doesn’t want to mislead them into thinking that she’s worth their time.
She’s cool because she acts like she doesn’t care about anything, and why would she? Life has never given her anything to care about. In fact, it’s punished her for caring. No matter what she does, her dad tells her that she’s worthless and stupid, so she stops trying to do well in school and starts sneaking out to parties full of alcohol and following through on flirting with the football players. She might as well make her body feel alive, as she can’t fix the fuck-up in her skull. Her phone is legitimately what she cherishes most in life. It can’t love her back or hug her or make the real world better, but at least it gives her an escape. It’s her space to control. Her pictures that she likes to look at, her music that drives her dad’s words out of her head. Her private conversations with people she chooses. At least it’s hers. (It isn’t. Her dad has been bugging it since she was twelve.)
Then Pete is nice to her, and in two weeks he becomes what she cherishes most.
Then she has to kill him. And shouldn’t she have seen this coming? Shouldn’t she have learned her lesson by now? Caring just means you have something to lose. That’s why she never wanted to love him like she does.
She pulls the trigger.
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