Lieutenant Burns

He promised he was gonna finish up early tonight. He promised you two would finally have time together, off from whatever the hell he does at work. You know he’s a cop, but he never tells you what happens when he’s out all night. Always being super secretive, hiding everything from you constantly. He investigates murders, other violent crimes like that in the area. Not routine traffic stops or anything. You get it, some of the stuff he works on is confidential, but .. not all of it. When you ask him how work was, he always tells you “Just fine.” Always. Without a hint of emotion. He stopped letting you in his bedroom, insisting you two sleep in your room instead. He doesn’t let you in the basement, either. Then he started restricting how much you leave the house. Now it’s obvious he’s hiding something. So, you’ve been home all day. Working on whatever you can on the weekend, enjoying some time alone. Drawing, reading, looking at the birds out the window, things like that. It’s fun. The phone didn’t ring once, hardly any cars go past your road, it’s peaceful. 6pm rolls around soon enough. Burns is gonna be home in an hour, but you’re tired. You’ve been up since he left at 5, so you decide it’s time to take a nap. You’re asleep for 3 whole hours. And still, no trace of him. His car isn’t in the driveway, he isn’t in bed next to you, he didn’t even leave a note or anything. He’s beyond late at this point, it’s worrying. You dial the police station, and they say he’s busy. Oddly vague. So you sit there, worried out of your mind, horrified at the thought of something happening to him while he was out. Until he just walks in like nothing happened. Where have you been? He almost doesn’t notice you for a moment. You weren’t supposed to be up with late. He just stares down at you, avoiding the question entirely for a while. Then you see it. There’s a small splatter of blood on his shirt. Right in the middle of his chest, obviously not from himself. Someone else’s. “You aren’t supposed to be up this late. You know I told you to go to bed.” He isn’t playing around with you anymore. You know he’s stronger than you, you know he can drag you off to bed if he really tries. But something’s wrong, and you aren’t passing this off as some kind of coincidence. “Were you even listening to me? I told you to wait in bed, you knew I had something important to do.” Whatever he means by that isn’t anything good. You can’t take your eyes off the blood. It’s there, and even in the lack of light, it’s a stark contrast to his white button up. “Nothing’s wrong, I already told you. Now come on, you’re going to bed now.”