#tim rockford x benoit blanc

[babydin]

Night Crawling

- The CRACKSHIP you didn't know you needed - Benoit Blanc of the Knives Out mysteries and Tim Rockford of the Merge Manson franchise. - 18+, minors DNI! - Old queers solve murder as foreplay. Mentions of murder, descriptions of violence, MLM, swearing, Lovers to enemies to lovers - 1238 words - Comments/likes appreciated. Requests are open! A/N: Do I need to apologize for this? I won't. I can't promise I won't forget about the plot and just make this all about old queers This is part 1 of until I say it's over.

A sleepwalking man thinks he is in love with his best friend’s wife. One day he phones the police on himself because he wakes up covered in blood and his best friend’s wife is missing. He also hires a private detective to prove his innocence. What he doesn't know is the Gentleman Sleuth he called and the detective assigned to his case were lovers once, and tensions are high.

ONE: STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED AT SEA

 “Explain this to me one more time.”   Detective Tim Rockford rubbed his index finger over his lips as he pulled the car up to the crime scene.  He had seen his fair share of strange cases in his career, but this one had to have taken the lead for the weirdest one yet, so far at least. “The suspect sleepwalks,” his partner explained, tying her hair up into a tight pony, “he believes he’s in love with his best friend’s girl… now she’s missing and he just woke up covered in blood.” “And he called 911 himself?” Tim started to get out of the car after popping a tab of nicotine gum for a habit he told himself he was going to quit but never quite could. “Uh, yeah, he did – Tim, there’s something else…” Tim didn’t listen, he was already on the path up to the house. One thing about Detective Rockford, in the years Katie had known him, is that he marched to the beat of his own drum. Often because he was right. He was a good detective, a great detective in fact, but sometimes people weren’t his forte. She often wondered if that was why she had been partnered up with him, she was incredibly empathic, she was gentle, and Tim was rough around the edges, he thought in facts and logic. He still called her Rookie despite her coming up to a decade on the force, sometimes she thought it was his way of expressing affection.

   “What the fuck is he doing here?” Tim’s interjection when he saw someone on the scene who didn’t belong had the room filling with silence. Forensics staff paused briefly before continuing on, the suspect who was trembling in the corner looked between Tim and the other male. Benoit Blanc was not dressed for a crime scene, he very rarely was, he looked like he had just stepped off of a boat in Miami, with his linen pants and pastel pink shirt that was slightly open to make room for a neckerchief. He looked at Tim with eyes that were greeting an old friend who had just returned home from the war.  “What is that Kentucky-fried chicken shit doing at my crime scene?” “I tried to tell you.” Katie whispered under her breath, at the same time Benoit pushed his round, tortoise-shell spectacles up his nose and said “Well, come on now Detective Rockford, I was invited.”  Tim’s eyes flew to the suspect, his eyes burned into him like lasers and he silently demanded answers, but he did not give the man time to answer before he barked at his colleagues, “Why is he not in handcuffs? Get him out of here. Blanc, a word?”

Benoit knew Tim well enough to know when he was demanding and when he was asking, and that was a demand, he watched him slip away into a room with nobody in it and politely nodded at Tim’s partner before following behind him. The door closed. They were alone.

It wasn’t just that the private detective and the NYPD detective had worked together and didn’t get along, this wasn’t a clash of personalities or Tim thinking he was doing real detective work and Benoit was just a hobbyist. They were lovers once. They had met on a case almost 15 years ago, and their passion for solving a puzzle was almost like foreplay; they’d stay up until the smallest hours of the night, eating Chinese take out and trying to look for clues, the way Benoit would slip out of his suspenders and let them hang down by his thighs would drive Tim insane, then he’d bite into a spring roll and curse a stray splash of soy sauce and he’d suddenly see something they’d both missed and there’d be a sudden clash of teeth and egg fried rice spilled on the floor and race to see who could get the other’s pants off the quickest. Benoit always got a kick out of how gruff Tim was, how rough he was, but he was surprisingly gentle in the afterglow. But Tim’s edges got a little too rough, the long nights got too long, and Tim started to prefer solving cases alone, and when Benoit asked him why he couldn’t give him a reason, he just shrugged coldly and told him he had to go. Benoit told him he wouldn’t be there when he got back, the implication that he meant in their house that they had laughed in and loved in, that Benoit had filled with antiques and Tim had filled with books. And it wouldn’t just be for one night. He was telling him, without saying it, that their relationship was over. And Tim just looked over his shoulder without looking him in the eye and said “Fine.”

7 years later they were together again, and the tension was thicker than gravy.

  “What in the fuck are you doing here?” Tim barked, placing his hands on his hips, his fingers lucid as if that might make him appear more intimidating. Benoit leaned his rear against a nearby table and stretched out his legs to cross them, his arms folding across his chest, both men trying to appear as unapproachable as possible to hide the fact they wanted nothing more than to embrace, “A man sleepwalks, every night for 25 years, not only that, he also seems to have himself convinced he’s in love with his best friend’s wife–” “Blanc–” “--Now our suspect wakes up from his nighttime stroll, spattered with blood–” “Blanc–” “--best friend brayin’ on his door hollin’ about his wife not bein’ in bed when he woke up this mornin’--” “Benny!”

The nickname stopped him in his tracks. His face softened and he looked at Tim as if he was sorry for something; he had missed hearing him call him that, he didn’t know until that moment. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Despite the harshness of the words, the question was a lot softer this time,and somewhere Benoit knew that in his own Rockford way it was him asking where he had been, how he had been, how he managed to land this case. “I was invited.” Benoit echoed his previous words firmly, in that accent that just melted the ice around Tim’s heart. “I’m not stalkin’ you, I’m not here to dig up old ghost, or rekindle any flames. I’m here ‘cause I was asked. That delightful man you just put in handcuffs called me. I haven’t quite figured out why you and I must always end in handcuffs–” Tim was already frowning, although Benoit had learned not to take it personally. Tim’s brow creased a lot, he had a permanently concerned expression on his face, his forehead always so heavy, he often wondered if it was a con of the job. “The suspect called you?” Benoit nodded, “I have heralded quite the reputation for my detective work, don’t sound so surprised Timothy.” “He called 911 himself.. Too.. Is that not odd?” The Southerner’s lips twitched into a smile, and he shrugged his shoulders in a ‘kind of’ manner, “Stranger things have happened at sea. Admit it.” “What? I’ve never been to sea.” “No… You missed this. Didn't you?” Tim was stubborn as a mule but Benoit knew all his tells and the way the left side of his upper lip twitched upwards just a little, was a reluctant yes.