Flowers for a Grimm

Minutes to Murder

It was five minutes until the six o’clock shift change on Friday for the Ever After Police Department. The entire department itched to go home. Most of them had been on the Boy Blue gang round up for the last couple of days. They were tired, most of them starting to get a little ripe and all of them longing for their beds and loved ones.

Omari Rose glanced out of the window beside her desk. The sun hung fat and lazy right above the skyline. Only a few more moments to freedom. Freedom was looking good right about now. Getting home and into her pool sized tub was number one on her priority list. Second was getting out of her grungy cargo pants, jackboots and sloppy ponytail. Stake outs were hell on the hair. Normally Omari walked out of the house fresh as a spring rain. She was the only child of Briar Rose, looking pretty was encoded in her DNA. With five foot five inches of copper brown skin and long jet black hair, she was a spitting image of her mother. Before the mass exodus from Faery into the human realm Omari spent her formative years trussed up in corsets, walking dresses and ball gowns. Evening wear was require dinner attire. After their assimilation into the human world Omari found an addiction in human fashion. Especially the denim. She never knew a woman could feel so sexy, so pretty in something that wasn’t festooned with pounds of precious stones. Jeans were her drug of choice. 

A cough brought her out a mental walk through of her closet. Her partner was fighting his way through a pile of paperwork that she had no interest in doing. Omari carried the wand, Cesar did the heavy lifting. Which included all the paperwork.

“Are you going to help?” It was a useless question that he should know the answer to. 

“Not likely. Hand still hurts from punching out Boy Blue.” Strictly speaking she didn’t have to punch him, but he had been trying to push her off the roof of a building. A little bodily harm wasn’t out of the question. 

“How long are you going to use that excuse?” He grabbed another report. 

“As long as I need to.” She flashed him a grin.  

She leaned forward in her chair to tap away with her pencil. She knew the sound annoyed her partner, but it was a fun way to past the time. And if it relieved a bit of stress well that was just gravy. 

Cesar was the brother Omari begged her mother to have so getting under his skin, she felt, was the sisterly thing to do. 

"If you're going to keep doing that why don't you just leave." Cesar snapped. His calming techniques never worked where Omari was involved. It was her special talent to piss him off. He looked up at his partner hoping his award winning stare would distract her from annoying him.

Omari grinned at him. The stare didn't work. He bit back a curse.

She tapped her pencil a few more times as a smirk danced across her face. "Ezra will have my head if she catches me leaving early again. And I have to stay to make sure you finish our reports.” The grip Cesar had on his pencil told Omari that she was toying with the line of Cesar's patience.

She dropped the pencil. Pissing him off was fun. Suffering his mood, not so much. He might go on strike and make her do the paperwork. Instead Omari started to pick at the acid green polish on her nails. In an attempt to keep herself awake she had done her nails. It wasn't regulation, but what's life without a little rule breaking now and again? "The last time she caught me leaving early she had me on Pixie Patrol for a month. Do you know how annoying pixies are during the full moon?"

Cesar ignored the question. Everyone knew what pixies were like during the full moon. There were pamphlets.

Only two more minutes for bath time. Well accounting for traffic and the drive all the way to the north-side it was more like 45 minutes to bath time. Omari reached into her desk to root around for a piece of bubblegum. She smiled in delight as she spotted her last piece. With quick hands she snatched it up before Cesar noticed and popped it in her mouth.