Chapter Text
Fillmore was exhausted and, judging by the fact she was dozing on his paperwork, so was Meryl. Ever since ‘catching’ H.K., Parnassus had decided to reward them both by making their beat twice as long and giving them mountains of paperwork to complete. They were almost too tired to plot against him.
Almost being the key word. They would email each other from their home computers over the weekend and delete the emails the night before going to school or early in the morning on Monday to cut down on the risk of being discovered. They also hung out with each other, usually in the garage as Simon worked.
It was weird though, it seemed like Parnassus was one step ahead of them. How though, Fillmore couldn’t guess.
He reached down, opened his drawer, and froze.
Hall Passes. A drawer full.
Fillmore jerked his head at Meryl and she looked down, her eyes widening in alarm. She immediately peeked in her drawer and made a noise of fear. Fillmore peered over as discreetly as he could and narrowed his eyes.
Ten boxes of Red pens. One box was bad enough, ten meant suspension from school at best and suspension from the force at worst. Their drawers must have been filled that morning but by who?
As Fillmore puzzled over this, Meryl whispered, “What do we do?”
“...create a distraction, then we get rid of the stuff. If I get caught with these, I’m done.”
Meryl nodded. Then they both jumped as Parrnassus appeared in front of them. He smiled at Fillmore, sharklike, before saying, “Officer Fillmore, can I see you in my office?”
“Sure…”
With that, Meryl was alone. She wasn’t sure what to do exactly but, as she looked around while discreetly throwing the red pen boxes into her backpack, she noticed the sprinkler system and smirked.
The security system was down for maintenance too, making this even easier. Jackpot. Now all she needed was a reason to throw things.
Meryl looked around the office and settled on Brian, AKA Bri-Dog, who was currently intimidating a shy but sweet kid called Wilbur. He’d been in and out of the patrol office all week due to being suspected of candy smuggling after helping bust the smugglers, and even the most corrupt officers felt sorry for Wilbur. Even Parnassus thought Brian was coming down too hard and warned him to back off, meaning he was not terribly popular at the moment.
He was the perfect target. She popped Fillmore’s drawer open slightly and dumped her water bottle into it before opening the drawer all the way.
Then, Meryl made her way over, hiding the pen boxes in her front hoodie pocket. At this point, a small crowd of dissenters was surrounding the bully. This included Danny, the resident psychic Alistair Greystone, Sonny, Cachi and Brian’s own partner, a kid known as Bear.
Bear snapped, “he clearly doesn’t know anything Brian, so lay off!”
“You gonna make me Bear-Bear? You gonna make me?”
Bear was not as tall or broad as Brian but nearly everyone flinched away as the smaller darker boy animalistically snarled at Brian. Brian, who had neither survival instincts nor a brain, did not flinch.
“Awww, little mutt gonna growl at me?”
Sonny snapped, “Seriously Bri-Dog, just leave Wilbur alone before Bear puts you on “Forensic Files”.”
“Oh please, as if he’ll do anything to me! The three strike rule is in place!”
Meryl interjected, “Hey, sorry to bother you Brian, but can I borrow your stapler?”
He waved her off, “Yeah, sure, whatever.”
Alistair piped up, “Psychically, I’m feeling that Wilbur didn’t do it and Bear is going to put you in the hospital if you keep going.”
Brian snapped, “Psychically, you’re full of shit!”
“I suppose you’d be the expert on it.”
There was a roar and Alistair was pinned against the wall as Danny, Cachi, and Sonny tried to pull Brian off while Bear quickly escorted Wilbur out.
Everyone’s attention was on the chaos before them. Time to sell it.
Meryl stood in front of Brian’s desk, opened the drawer, pulled out the stapler, and then held up the pens, dropping a few for dramatic effect.
She screamed, “I can’t believe you Brian!”
Everyone stopped and Brian turned to look at Meryl as Sonny held his arm back from punching Alistair.
The girl pointed at Brian accusingly, “He’s got ten boxes of red pens! In his drawer!”
The boy dropped a gasping Alistair and protested vehemently, “No, I didn’t- This is a setup! She’s setting me up! What was she even doing in my drawer?!”
Everyone was glaring at him. Sonny shook his head, “That’s low, even for you man. She asked you about the stapler, you just were too focused on bringing attention to Wilbur.”
Brian glared at him, “As if you’re so clean! Besides, I never had red pens! Check the cameras!”
Meryl replied, “Cameras are down Brian and they’ve been down all weekend. You’ve got no defense, you bully!”
“Shut up!”
“Kiss my ass!”
Meryl threw the pen boxes at him and, to her surprise, most of the patrol members were picking them up and joining in. Some were even throwing things from their own desks.
Taking the chance, the small girl grabbed Brian’s mug, swung her arm wide, and hit the sprinkler. Then all hell broke loose.
They all stood outside as Folsom yelled at both Parnassus and Meryl. Parnassus for not knowing Brian had red pens in spite of the weekly drawer checks and falsely accusing Fillmore of carrying hall passes (when it was clearly ruined homework). She was also telling off Meryl for starting a pen war.
“I’m honestly surprised at you, Parnassus! I’m going to have Raycliff check the drawers with you for the next month! As for you” Folsom turned to Meryl (who looked deeply pleased with herself) and snapped, “Don’t throw things! I understand no one likes Brian but that doesn’t mean you pelt him with pens! If it happens again, I’ll have no choice but to give you detention for the rest of the year! Do you understand me, Miss O’Shea?”
“Yes ma’am!”
“Good.”
Meryl was jumping over cracks behind Fillmore as they walked to his house. After everything had been cleared up, he’d done some thinking and the only person who could have planted the goods was Danny, which bothered him.
He hesitantly began, “Hey Meryl, I’ve been thinking and the person who planted the contraband and-”
Fillmore stopped suddenly and Meryl ran into him, “Oof, hey!”
She peeked around him and saw H.K, Gretchen, and a goth girl she didn’t recognize.
“Who’s she?”
Fillmore ran forward and picked up the girl in a tight hug, exclaiming“Ingrid!”