Chapter Text
Driving late at night has its abundance of pros and cons as everything typically does. However, unlike most things, you could easily draw a hefty chunk out of equal factions.
Pro number one: you’re alone on the road,
Pro number two: It’s peaceful at night,
Pro number three: you don’t have to worry about traffic lights as much as you would during the daytime.
And now the cons;
Con number one: You’re alone,
Con number two: It’s harder to spot the sneaky little bastards in county deputy vehicles,
And Con number three: You should have stopped when the lights were red.
The red and blue lights that swelled out and flooded through the back window of your car was almost too bright to not ignore or overlook, and the immensity had every capability to impair your vision to drive further.
You ripped out a long and dragging sigh, not being your first time in being pulled over and most definitely not being your last as you had a consistent record of being pulled over for speeding a handful of times and plenty others for having an outdated license plate.
You were just hoping that you could get off easily tonight by running a simple red light. Your excuse: no one else on the road.
The firm plating of your nails had been wedged between your teeth, where you gnawed and chewed, striping your nail length down by a few inches when you heard a tapping against your the glass of your car door window, nearly making you shift with uneasiness before slowly thumbing the window switch downward, ensuing for a long—dragged out humming that came with the window sinking into it’s see.
You attempted to eye the officer that had pulled you over, but the police overwhelming combinance of a beaming flashlight and the stark black of the moonless night seemed to cast him faceless. Only did the cold kindling of what little the moon could cast, showed over the minimum bareness of his hair and the upper parts of his forehead.
“Do you know why I pulled you over?” His voice derived from someone younger than the typical old-timer cop with years of experience, yet you wouldn’t be so far to assume that he was racking up in years worth of expertise himself. Give or take 3-4 years so far?
His spontaneous question was a question you had grown more than accustomed to within your driving career. If you had enough gal to spare, you would’ve asked him the same question. But, you knew that would warrant disciplinary action involving cold vises of steel handcuffs behind a set of iron bars; something you couldn’t say you hadn’t experienced a few times in your teenage years.
You shivered slightly, feeling it ride up and down each outer ridge of your vertebrae.
Your local county jail was so cold and merciless.
“I’m not sure,” You muttered, swallowing before hastily adding,”—officer.”
Silence epilogued your response and for a split moment you had wondered if the young officer would ever say anything else, or even had anything else to say.
You wondered if he was processing a slight notch within your tone that could’ve been read as sarcasm or insolence; and then your mind returned to those gold steel handcuffs, digging into your wrists.
You frowned, eyes averting to your steering wheel where your hands were coiled around like vises, nails eating away at the synthetic leather covering anxiously.
Before you fought up enough courage to consider excusing yourself of whatever possible grievances you had caused you heard the officer clear his throat, hearing his gloved digits dribble softly against the framing of your vehicle’s door.
That’s new, you thought.
That’s weird…
But, the only thing you did was shift your eyes to the side and in the direction of the window, fingers screwing all the more around the wheel.
You could hear the faceless officer exhaust out a lung full, sighing.
“You do know that red means stop, right?.” He asked, lacking a tone you would’ve thought necessary, it felt personal and breaching of that unspoken professionalism between a servicing individual and an abiding citizen.
You looked down, lacquering your lips with spit and rubbed them together, “Apologies, officer.”
Silence intervened all but momentarily, giving you time to hear the sounds of swelling cicadas in the distance before an unmissable feeling of weight was lean up against the outerwear of your door.
When you looked down at the bottom seal of your window, you were met with his forearm propped against it, the bend of his wrist peeking past the open window’s threshold, fingers bent slightly.
”So, where exactly are you coming from?” You could feel this unseen sensation that he was leaning in close to you, too close, as if overstepping boundaries that were already laid out for anyone and everyone, yet he was making you slightly lean away, your side pressing uncomfortably against your armrest.
“Pine Ridge.” You muttered out, the flashlight growing hot against your face,
“Pine Ridge?” He repeated, almost seeing him tilt his head to the side behind the beam of light, as a puppy or a young hound would do, confused when sampling your answer in his own mouth,”That’s pretty far from here, what’s your business up there?”
You swallowed,”School. I go to school there, sir.”
You could hear him begin to softly breath out a breath of amusement, one huff away from being an unexaggerated laugh.
Perhaps, being called sir tickled a certain neuron in his brain. Caressed his ego, maybe?
A hum briefed from him, leaving for you to simply sit there, wordless. Where you were unable to really say anything at all.
“License and Registration, ma’am.” He expected out, bending his voice in a way when “ma’am” flicked from his tongue, as if taunting or deriding you in some further capacity.
It felt degrading.
You quietly nodded, where you then twisted around and leaned over into your passenger side to dig through your purse and then file through the mess in your glove department; all while doing so, feeling this hot and lecherous feeling of a gaze pulverizing into the small of your back where your shirt could have been riding up.
You shook the feeling off before twisting back around and handing both flimsy pieces of documentation over and he took it with consideration, almost eagerly so—but you didn’t want to linger on that.
He stood quiet for another moment before humming with satisfaction and lowering the flashlight, thankfully. Eyes dulling.
“I’ll be back.” He informed before hearing footfalls trail away and back to his cruiser parked inches from your car, hearing his own car door swing open before shutting behind.
You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you had been holding in. The cold air sucking back into you lungs made you shiver and your esophagus sting.
It was truly just your luck to get pulled over at a time like this. But, what did you really expect? You’re reckless driving was gonna get you in serious trouble one day if you didn’t stop.
Your eyes glared into your rear view mirror, staring at the shadowy mass that was blinking a blinding array of blues and reds.
You were already in trouble currently, you just weren’t sure to what degree yet.
The sound of tapping interrupted you from your thoughts, where the sight of your license and leaflet of vehicle registration was wedged curtly in between a pair of calloused digits.
“You’ve got a record.” He commented,
You carefully pinched the corners of your license and registration collectively by their corners and pulled, only to realize there was no give and that they were still bound in between a firm and unrelenting grip.
“This isn’t your first time.” He stated, and you tugged again, looking to the side.
“No, sir.” You confirmed, sensing him shiver.
You purchased one more tug before almost giving up, bringing your digits away by only an inch before feeling something warm and rough clasped around your wrist.
It startled you. It startled you so much that you couldn’t bare to draw out a single shout, as if your vocal folds were paralyzed.
You looked at your hand and the large hand roped around it and then back up at the officer to which the intruding hand belonged to. Still faceless.
“Sir?” You could feel his thumb sample across the inner bedding of your wrist, teeth-gratingly running circles across the solidity of your radial artery, as if testing a pulse.
“Girls like you should be more careful when out on the road like this. Especially at your age.” His grip tightened and your lips trembled.
“What year in college did you say you were in, again?” He then quizzed softly, randomly, and intrusively.
Yeah,
You really had no clue on what degree of trouble you were going to be in tonight. Not then, not five minutes later, and probably not an hour subsequently, either.
Your parents were going to be so disappointed.
Not that they never were aware of your pesky rebel streak.
“U,um…sophomore.” You answered quietly and tentatively.
“Hm,” he hummed again, though with a tinge of amusement that you hadn’t picked up before,”I don’t think I’ve see you around here…” he then muttered at such a moderate volume that you weren’t even sure if it was for your ears to catch or only for him.
You didn’t say anything. What could you even say?
A release was granted around your wrist as he slipped your license and registeration from the sill of your window and into your lap, making you stare at the documents with a dazed look.
“I shouldn’t do this, especially with your past occurrences, but I’m going to let you by with a warning, okay?” He muttered out, voice dragging at the varied pits of his vocals, and you could barely yet softly hear a lofty leer entangled in his voice as he granted what he probably thought was a mere blessing on the crown of your sweet little head.
“Y, yes, sir.” You muttered, teeth cold against the night air.
He let out a shaky breath, hearing the brutality of his palms pat the steel outer wall of your car making you flinch as you collected your belongings in your lap. Carelessly dropping it into the seating of your passenger seat and then turning back around to turn the window up, only did you then see the uncharted canvas of your nightly martinet—your car’s dash light casted out a warm light onto the face of an older blonde man with persistent stubble bridging over the entirety of his jaw, pale blue eyes stared back at you with the same immensity that yours did back.
“Have a goodnight, Y/n.”
Your bottom lip tremored, “Goodnight, officer.”
You pressed down on the window’s button, dragging out a long and tormenting hum as the small little plate of glass that rose up between you and the officer just couldn’t connect with the upper frame of the window faster.
However, once it did, you made sure the car lock knobs were down, hearing the muffled scraping of heavy shoes walk away from your vehicle and retreat to his own sent you plunging into a wave of relief as you nearly collapsed against your steering wheel, forehead pressed firmly against the arch of the wheel to the point that it would make a pink dent into your face, but you didn’t care.
You hoped it was the last night you would see that officer, but in reality you knew your wishes would never truly be answered under the universe and it’s brutal will.
In actuality, a small notepad rested on the armrest within the comfort of that varied cruiser that sat behind you, issuing your full legal name, date of birth, address, and license number.
You were being lied to when you were told you were going to be let off with a warning.
You just didn’t know it yet.
But, taking everything into account, a servicing deputy needed to keep his eye on potential trouble when the opportunity came,
And his eyes were all on you.