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Post by Halleigh Robinson on Jun 27, 2011 22:25:10 GMT -7
"Barn party" were two words that Halleigh usually preferred to keep apart in the English language, but even she couldn't say no to making a quarter's worth of living in an hour. Putting on her game face, Halleigh had managed to tie her long, curly hair into a messy knot at the base of neck and threw on the first pair of matching clean clothes she found before pronouncing herself ready to go. After all, she was hardly going to pick up guys- she had a job to do.
As she made her way over to the refreshment table, Halleigh scanned the crowd that had gathered. It looked like the entirety of LSU had converged on Bon Temps for the party, and she couldn't help but count her blessings that she was a month from being done with all of this nonsense. Parties were hardly her idea of fun, but when coupled with handsy, drunken frat boys (one of which had attempted to paw at her on her way in,) and loud, pounding Euro-trash music, Halleigh wanted to poke herself in the eye.
Just sell the vials and go before someone calls the cops about the noise, she told herself with a sigh. She picked up a beer from the table and cracked it open, looking for any of her usual customers. It usually didn't take much- once she got one to nibble, the others followed. Besides, she only had a handful in her pocket, it shouldn't be hard... the only problem was avoiding telling the wrong person exactly what she had for sale.
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Post by Andy Bellefleur on Jun 28, 2011 19:42:56 GMT -7
"Where the fuck are you Stackhouse?"
It had been a good two days since Jason had been M.I.A. and Andy was teetering on the border of having a fit and sending out a search party. Jason was always getting himself into stupid shit and Andy was always trying to figure out a way to pull him out of it. Sometimes Andy didn't know why he bothered with Stackhouse - oh wait, yeah he did, the boy saved his life. Probably more than once and Andy hated to admit he actually liked the dumb fuck.
"If that little shit thinks about disappearing for a year like his sister he has another thing coming!"
Talking to himself again. It was a bad habit, but who else was he going to talk too? He was doing his rounds in the police car, working longer hours than he should of been but everyone knew Andy took his job seriously. Damn. His hand was shaking again, a craving rushing over him as he glanced at the visor again and cursed underneath his breath.
"Dammit Stackhouse!"
Just one more drop, one more drop was all he needed. He could make a vial last for longer, he could have self control - just one more drop. If you asked him a year ago if he would know that he would even touch the stuff he would of swore to high heaven it would never happen. But he had become curious, he still had that damn broken arm and it was right there in front of him. One drop turned into one vial, one vial turned into three and well, a year later and despite Jason's attempts to help him quit he was still using it whenever he could. It was all he thought about anymore, his attitude was changing and he was even doing things he shouldn't be doing in order to try and score more V. Andy Bellefleur was slipping.
Maybe that was the real reason he was cruising the back roads at two in the morning. He wasn't looking to bust up any parties, he was looking for his next score. He drove down the back roads with his window down, rounding the corner of an old dirt road when he heard the loud music coming from a farm. He wasn't even thinking about the noise as he quietly drove up the back road, he wasn't even thinking about how many people were there as he parked his car off to the side and walked up to the barn - he was thinking about V.
The closer he got the louder the noise got, but he didn't want to alarm anyone quite yet so he stuck around the corner where he could still hear what was going on inside. If anyone dropped a name of some V he would be making his move - the addiction completely over taking anything else in his mind.
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Post by Halleigh Robinson on Jun 28, 2011 21:46:46 GMT -7
It didn’t take long for someone to notice her where she had set up shop in the corner.
”Halleigh! What’s up!”
She raised her brows. These were new- it seemed her clientele had been talking about her, spreading the word. Part of her was irritated, a part that was almost as big as the relieved side. At least it meant more money, but it also meant that her web grew and grew- which could prove to be dangerous if it fell onto the wrong ears. “Nothing much.” She answered flippantly enough, taking a drink. Her eyes didn’t linger, she didn’t want them getting ideas that she was interested in anything besides business.
”We hear you got a little something for us.” The one with the shorts said, and she stared at him expressionlessly. ”You know, that you have some vam-“
“Shut up already.” She growled, narrowing her hazel eyes and casting a cursory glance around. “Pay up. The full price, don’t even think about shorting me.”
”Fuck, all of it? Can’t you just give us a-“
“Pay me, or you aren’t getting anything.” With a little more grumbling, he extracted a crisp hundred dollar bill and a fifty, no doubt fresh from the ATM on the ride over. Halleigh slid it into the pocket of her gray hoodie and extracted one of the vials from her pocket, placing it in his palm so it was hard for any bystanders to tell what she had given him. “Pleasure doing business with you.” She said with a wry smile, watching as he left. Four more vials and she’d be done for the night, which shouldn’t be too hard in a party this size.
Sure enough, as the music got louder and the space became less, two more bottles found their way out of her pocket and a few more bills found their way in. She had had time to finish two beers by this point, and was in relatively good spirits. No one had seemed overly threatening yet, there had been no hard sells, and she was almost free to go back to her dorm and catch the end of the news before she began studying for her final next week.
By the time the third vial had sold, Halleigh had decided it was time to get a bit of fresh air. She slid off of the hay bale she was perched on and shoved her hands into her pocket, ducking under the arm of some “dancing” partygoers. She slid out of the barn and blinked into the clear night sky, already feeling a lot better. Halleigh wasn’t a big fan of crowds; they always made her feel so claustrophobic. She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes for a moment. Despite the loud bass still pounding in her skull, she could feel the tension in her body unwinding. Nothing like a good jaunt through nature to make a girl feel more at ease… even if nature was really just two feet from her “job.”
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Post by Andy Bellefleur on Jun 29, 2011 15:42:06 GMT -7
Andy had found his stump underneath the window, standing on a wooden box to spy on the party goer's inside. He didn't want to startle anyone - the last thing he wanted was for someone to yell "COP!" because they would all scatter and there were far too many of them to try and book without any back up. That and he wouldn't get his hands on any V, which seemed to be the main focus on his mind lately. He was watching a particularly suspicious transaction going on in the barn, faintly hearing the name "Halleigh" shout from the boy's lips.
Andy swallowed when she saw the woman in the gray hoodie, she was a beautiful girl. Sure, Andy felt many women attractive but he knew where his place was when it came to the pickings in Bon Temps and he was sure he recognized her. Maybe just in passing, she didn't seem like someone that normally caused any trouble so that made him even more curious as to why she was in a place like this.
Then he saw the transaction, as subtle as Halleigh had tried to be Andy had caught on to it right away. So she was a V dealer? Just to be sure he kept his eye on her, the boys she had been selling it to weren't that smart as they took a drop almost right after she had sold it to them. Andy had a better view from the outside looking in, and he almost fell off his stump when he saw her coming outside.
He didn't want her to see him right away so he waited until she sat down, clearing his throat when he approached her. He of course didn't know she was empty handed, because he was hoping to "confiscate" whatever she had left.
"I'm not going to beat around the bush, I saw you selling V in there. You can give me whatever you have left for um.. evidence and turn around and go home"
Not his smoothest or sternest moment, but desperate times called for desperate measures and he wasn't exactly in the right frame of mind recently.
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Post by Halleigh Robinson on Jun 29, 2011 22:49:25 GMT -7
"I'm not going to beat around the bush, I saw you selling V in there. You can give me whatever you have left for um.. evidence and turn around and go home"
Son of a bitch, where had he come from?
Halleigh rose to her feet with a start, blinking at Andy. She had never been caught before, and she was all but ready to throw up her hands in surrender and offer him anything- anything- to get out of trouble, but a good look at him quelled her own nervousness.
“Aren’t you the cop that got all that press last year?” She asked, raising her hands to her hair and pulling the pin out. She needed something to do with her hands, or else she’d give away the fact that under her cool, melodious voice, she was nervous. She began to run her fingers through her curls, watching him through her lashes. “You are, aren’t you? Bellefleur, right?” She smiled, certain she had the right of it. Halleigh prided herself on her ability to remember faces, nearly as well as she remembered the various teaching factoids from her textbooks.
“So tell me, Mr. Bellefleur, just what is a respectable cop like yourself doing hitting me up for V?” She hadn’t missed the signs- the fact that his hands were shaking slightly, or he had that feverish look that addicts got coming off of a high. Halleigh didn’t use the stuff herself, but she had certainly been near enough V addicts in the last four years to know what to look for… and if he was using V, he certainly had no basis to hold anything on her, lest she just might forget her manners and spill his secrets…
Satisfied that she had all the knots worked out of her hair- and that she had made it perfectly clear that she knew that “evidence” wasn’t the main reason he was talking to her- Halleigh offered a pretty smile, the sort that fit with the ideas church choir and animal shelter volunteers, not drug dealers. “I’m afraid I don’t have anything of, ah, interest to you. Sorry." She shrugged as she lied easily, turning to walk away from him in the direction of her car, if only she could find it in the dark. When she was certain he was gone, she'd fetch the last few vials from under her driver's seat and see what she could make of those, since the others had gone faster than anticipated.
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Post by Andy Bellefleur on Jun 30, 2011 18:33:41 GMT -7
“Aren’t you the cop that got all that press last year?”
Andy looked a little stunned that she recognized him, but he couldn't help but to feel his ego swelling a bit when those words left her mouth. He smiled at first, then coughed before adjusting his belt almost absent-mindedly. “You are, aren’t you? Bellefleur, right?”
"Yeah, that was me" Strangely however, he didn't seem to want to expand on it at all. "Sheriff Andy Bellefleur" Ever since getting that promotion after Bud had "retired", Andy had insisted on making sure everyone knew he was sheriff of Bon Temps now. Not "Andy", and not "Detective" - just Sheriff Andy Bellefleur.
“So tell me, Mr. Bellefleur, just what is a respectable cop like yourself doing hitting me up for V?”
Shit.
Andy's mouth dropped and he immediately began to stammer, tripping over his own words. "Whaaaa what? I don't know what you are talking about, I'm not hitting you up for V. Don't be stupid! I am an officer - I am the Sheriff of this county! I am just doing my job!"
Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit. All bloody hell! He was as red as a cherry tomato, struggling to think of what to say next. This woman had managed to leave him tongue tied and sputtering nonsense in all of five minutes. “I’m afraid I don’t have anything of, ah, interest to you. Sorry."
Andy was still sort of standing there with a dumb founded look on his face. He wasn't about to search her and he certainly wasn't going to book her either - so what the hell was he suppose to do now? Finally he cleared his throat, numerous times before he finally decided what to say next.
"Yeah well, that is good and everything. But - "
She was already walking away and he stood there for a moment - deciding to follow her anyway. He waited until she had found her car and he went straight for it, moving faster than the average human given the effects that V had had on his body. He opened her passenger seat door, leaning his left arm on the roof of her car while his other hand held a flashlight he was now shining in her face.
"Given that you told me back there you have nothing of interest, I guess you wouldn't object to me searching your car would you?"
Andy Bellefleur was desperate, but he had a hunch that if she had sold her vials in the barn than she certainly had more. He use to be a detective after all, Andy had no problem just going on a hunch.
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Post by Halleigh Robinson on Jun 30, 2011 19:10:20 GMT -7
"Yeah, that was me. Sheriff Andy Bellefleur"
“That’s right.” Halleigh agreed, folding her arms over her chest. “Sheriff.” She said the word slowly, drawing out the syllables. Her expression was one of patience- disappointment, but patience. Halleigh was a bit of an idealist- she liked her good guys to be good guys, and her bad guys to be bad guys. The fact that the sheriff of her town was a druggie? Well, that was just downright depressing.
"Whaaaa what? I don't know what you are talking about, I'm not hitting you up for V. Don't be stupid! I am an officer - I am the Sheriff of this county! I am just doing my job!"
“Last time I heard, the police academy sort of frowned on the use of drugs. Selling them’s sort of out too, or else hey, maybe I could have become a cop.” She shook her head, the fear she had been feeling replaced by something else. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “So what do you really want? If you were doing your job, I’d be in handcuffs and in tears by now, neither of which are present. I can’t sell you something I don’t have, so you’re out of luck there…” She shrugged, appearing a lot more nonchalant than she felt. Maybe she should revisit the getting a real job thing if she made it out of tonight without actually seeing the inside of a cell.
"Yeah well, that is good and everything. But - "
“Look, sheriff, go home to your wife. This isn’t a good place for you to be.”
She stuck her hands into her pockets, turning away from him before he had a chance to stop her. Despite her own questionable ethics, Halleigh wanted the best for other people. It was how she was raised, how she thought, and how she wanted to raise her eventual children. She hoped for his sake, that Andy got help.
"Given that you told me back there you have nothing of interest, I guess you wouldn't object to me searching your car would you?"
She straightened slowly from where she had gone to grab the handle to her car, her pupils shrinking in the bright glow of his flashlight. Son of a bitch. “Be my guest.” She snarled through grit teeth, hoping that he wouldn’t catch on to where the vials were tucked in the flap of her seat cushion.
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Post by Andy Bellefleur on Jun 30, 2011 21:22:19 GMT -7
“Last time I heard, the police academy sort of frowned on the use of drugs. Selling them’s sort of out too, or else hey, maybe I could have become a cop.”
It was too bad Andy had no comeback for that one, besides a grumble underneath his breath. He never really was the one to be on the ball with snappy comebacks anyway, especially when he was put on the kind of spot that Halleigh had him on. It could of been worse though, he could of come up with a comeback that made totally no fucking sense - a famous example would be about anything Jason Stackhouse came up with.
“So what do you really want? If you were doing your job, I’d be in handcuffs and in tears by now, neither of which are present. I can’t sell you something I don’t have, so you’re out of luck there…” It was met by another grumble as he watched her walk away after mentioning that he should go home to his wife. Well if that wasn't the lowest of all blows to hit Andy's pride, which was another reason he headed over to Halleigh's car when her guard was down.
“Be my guest.” Her short remark to his request had made him even more sure that she was hiding something. He proceeded to search the contents of her car, starting with the visor, the cubbyhole, in the backseat, underneath the seats until he had stumbled upon what he had been looking for.
"Aha! I knew it!" He took out the three vials almost triumphantly, looking up at her accusingly as he held them up. "So you have nothing left? I could arrest you and keep you for at least three months in a jail cell you know."
Andy had tucked the three vials in his shirt pocket and eased out of his car, taking out his wallet and three hundred dollar bills. Without a word he tossed the bills on her passenger car seat and cleared his throat. "This isn't a good place for you to be either."
He just couldn't do it. He couldn't arrest her and he couldn't fight his addiction either, not tonight. "None of this happened, as far as I am concerned I am at home with my uh.. fuck, I don't have a wife. None of this happened, agreed?"
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Post by Halleigh Robinson on Jul 1, 2011 8:17:09 GMT -7
Halleigh was treading on very thin ice. She knew it, she was pretty sure he knew it, and yet she kept going. She wasn’t so sure what had got into her tonight, where this Boudicca spirit had suddenly showed up from, but she was pretty sure she was going to get herself in trouble.
It wasn’t very often that she had to give thought to the people she sold the drugs to- in fact, the less she thought about the V, the happier she was. Halleigh wasn’t proud of her activities, to say the least, but they achieved an end. The fact that there were people to buy the drugs she supplied? Well, usually that didn’t give her much pause. Halleigh wasn’t anybody’s mother, and she wasn’t going to tell them how to live their life- including trying to interfere when they were being stupid. If they wanted to fry the few brain cells left to them on vampire blood, why was it her problem? They were going to get it from somewhere, so she might as well make a profit on the supply and demand chain.
But Andy Bellefleur? He made her mad. It wasn’t just because he was a cop, though that didn’t help matters. It was because that the few times she had seen him on television, he had seemed so incredibly smart. Not necessarily comfortable in the limelight, but a good guy with good instincts, doing the right thing. Yet here he was, just like all the other idiots that sought her out… but he wasn’t an idiot. It baffled Halleigh, which was a rare occurrence indeed. This just wasn’t right.
So as he went through her car, Halleigh stewed. She folded her arms over her chest and glared a hole in the metal of her door, waiting. As fate would have it, luck still wasn’t with her tonight.
"Aha! I knew it!"
Her gaze was impassive as it swung to his. She didn’t have to look in his hand to know exactly what he had found.
"So you have nothing left? I could arrest you and keep you for at least three months in a jail cell you know."
“But you won’t.” She said quietly, but in the summer night, her voice seemed to carry. “Because you’re just as guilty as I am.”
She was fairly certain that she wasn’t going to ever recoup any sort of loss on the those three bottles (which served her right, she needed a better hiding place,) which is why she looked so surprised when he tossed money on her car’s seat.
"This isn't a good place for you to be either."
“Now hold on a minute!” Her cheeks flushed angrily, and she set her jaw as she moved around the car. “I didn’t agree to sell you those!” What the hell are you doing? Do you want to get yourself arrested? The truth was, up until he had actually paid for them, Halleigh could lie to herself and say that they were for evidence, that he wasn’t really using them, but cutting her a break because… who the hell knew why. But paying her? Halleigh’s polar world view was fast slipping into gray, and she didn’t like it one bit. “How would you like it if I went through your car and ‘bought’ your gun without asking you?”
I am a dead girl.
Her temper, such as it was, always had a way of getting her in trouble on the rare occasion it reared its head. She had a feeling the results were about to be catastrophic.
"None of this happened, as far as I am concerned I am at home with my uh.. fuck, I don't have a wife. None of this happened, agreed?"
“No, I don’t agree.” Her tone was calmer, but her eyes were stormy. “This shouldn’t be happening.”
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Post by Andy Bellefleur on Jul 1, 2011 13:46:44 GMT -7
Most people would of just agreed, figuring that they received a lucky break and thanked their lucky stars they got home without a criminal record. But not tonight, and not this girl, of all the people in Bon Temps who dealt V he got stuck with Ms. "Self-Righteous" Robinson. Everything he said was met with a remark that most officers would of already arrested her for just out of principle. The night could of ended worst, and it sounded like it was going to end worse once Halleigh's voice interrupted his thoughts.
“Now hold on a minute!”
He looked shocked that she was calling out to him when she could of just being driving away right at that moment.
“I didn’t agree to sell you those!”
He was generally shocked by her behavior, but that didn't mean he was going to back down this time. He had the V, just having it in his hands was causing his body to sweat and his heart to race. He was seconds away from going to his car and having a drop and this crazy woman wanted to challenge him - she was even more fucked up than he was.
"Well then give me back my money and I'll take it in as evidence!"
“How would you like it if I went through your car and ‘bought’ your gun without asking you?”
"Don't go doing that whole shoe on the other foot mumble jumble! You should be counting your lucky stars I am not handcuffing you and taking you in!I was trying to be decent by paying for it because there is obviously a good reason why a pretty and intelligent pain in the ass of a woman is selling V in the first place!"
Even when she said she didn't agree and that it shouldn't be happening he angrily turned around and swatted his arm in her direction to "swoosh" her away. He was hoping she would take the hint, and go damn home.
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Post by Halleigh Robinson on Jul 2, 2011 8:30:04 GMT -7
Having two older brothers, Halleigh should have been used to being bullied. Heaven knew they had teased her, taunted her, and made her life miserable from the beginning, but it had taught Halleigh one thing: she might be pushed around, but she wasn’t simply going to stand back and take it. Once Halleigh had discovered quite how to stand up for herself, she realized that her brothers weren’t nearly so big or scary, and that they lost their interest once it became more of a chore to get what they wanted from her.
Halleigh had allowed herself the preconception that most people were like this. Apparently not the Sheriff. He was like a dog with a bone in this case, and no amount of her own growling and grumbling was going to get her anything that she wanted. It was best to just back down and give up. The sooner the better.
But it didn’t mean she had to like it one bit.
"Well then give me back my money and I'll take it in as evidence!"
“Just… take it.” She shook her head, the fight draining out of her wiry frame. Maybe she’d be lucky and he’d find a different supplier next time, and she could pretend none of this night had ever happened. She only had a semester left of school… she could probably avoid him for that long, right?
"Don't go doing that whole shoe on the other foot mumble jumble! You should be counting your lucky stars I am not handcuffing you and taking you in!I was trying to be decent by paying for it because there is obviously a good reason why a pretty and intelligent pain in the ass of a woman is selling V in the first place!"
Halleigh bit her lip. Sure there was a reason, but she didn’t want to give it to him. He just might change his mind about the whole arresting her thing when he heard that she was a member of the FEA. He had said he didn’t have a wife, but that didn’t mean he had never had one, or that he didn’t have kids. A drug conviction on her part would make all of her schooling obsolete, and bar her from ever taking her Praxis test. She’d probably never get employment, but certainly not as a teacher.
“You’re right.” She said softly, taking a step back when he waved her off. The angry gleam in her eyes had changed to something else, something that made less sense. It still wasn’t fear, but perhaps confusion. Confusion and sadness. “I’m sorry, Sheriff. Have… have a good night.”
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Post by Andy Bellefleur on Jul 2, 2011 10:14:58 GMT -7
“Just… take it.”
Andy had to be honest with himself, he was kind of surprised by Halleigh's sudden change in demeanor. Up until that moment she had been sharp and was out-witting him at every corner. It was concerning to him, even if he wasn't quite sure at that moment why. He was curious about her, but right now his body's need for V had seemed to overrule his desire to question her further and find out more about her.
“You’re right. I’m sorry, Sheriff. Have… have a good night.”
He felt terrible, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Except keep an eye on her, he already knew who she was and all he had to do was input her name in the computer back at the office to fill in the rest. He knew this wouldn't be the last time he saw her, especially not in the small town of Bon Temps. For tonight however, at least he had another two months supply.
"You.. you too."
It was final thing he said to her before he got in his car and drove off.
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