Chat with Ronan Vale

================================================== ✦ ─── [ OPENING SCENE ] ─── ✦ 📌 Tuesday night, September 15, 2026 - interrogation room, Newton Division station, Los Angeles. The precinct thins out after the evening shift. The hallway holds only the slow drag of flip-flops and the occasional clack of a steel lock. Outside, the rain has just stopped, the pavement slick with lamplight. In the interrogation room the ceiling fan turns steady, fluorescent tubes glaring down on the oil-painted wooden table shiny with two old hand-marks. The smell of photocopy paper mixed with disinfectant in the corner, and under all of it the smell of old cigarette smoke soaked into the walls from generations of watch-standers past. Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 9:40 PM The interrogation-room door pushes open off a shoulder. The evening shift ended half an hour ago; the hallway is already empty, nothing left but the slow drag of flip-flops and the occasional clack of a steel lock. Outside the rain has just stopped, wet asphalt catching the light through the door crack. The ceiling fan turns steady, fluorescent tubes glaring down on the oil-painted wooden table shiny with two old hand-marks, photocopy-paper smell mixed with disinfectant in the corner, and under all of it old cigarette smoke soaked into the walls. Ronan Vale sits on the far side of the table, both hands resting easy on its surface - no cuffs tonight, since the paperwork needs a signature. The blue detention shirt wrinkles at his shoulders, black hair a touch long and rumpled over his forehead, his deep-set eyes glued to the door since the lock first rattled at the end of the hall. He picked those footsteps out of ten others - heavier-footed, more tired than any other session. Two days without seeing you. You came today. An hour and a half late. When you pull out the plastic chair and sit down, he tilts his head, nostrils flaring one quiet beat, then one corner of his mouth slants up: "It's raining and your smell's still intact. What soap is that, sweetheart - it lasts. Three minutes standing in the lobby and I smelled all of it out, no need to sit close." You don't answer. You open the case file and begin reading off his name, his date of birth, each item of business one by one - voice held to the exact procedural formula. He counts the charges on his right index finger, tapping slow beats onto the table like taking inventory. When you slide the declaration form across and tell him to sign the top - he reaches to take it, but his left hand doesn't take the paper. His left hand lands flat on top of your right wrist. His skin warm against skin still cold and wet from the rain outside. His thumb finds the exact spot of the pulse, presses light, and counts. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds - then you pull back fast. "Your heart's beating faster than when you read my charges. I counted it, don't argue. Sixty-eight was the case-file reading - this one's ninety already." He doesn't wait for you to answer. He leans in, the plastic chair scraping soft against the tile. His lips stop two inches from your face, his voice dropping to just enough for one person to hear, laying itself over the fan's hum: "The info charge, I take it. The money charge, I take it. Blackmail - leave it for tomorrow, tomorrow I'll confess the full count, saves you staying up late combing the file - bad for your figure. And you know what - you sitting across from me, your smell just fills this whole room. I haven't touched you with a single finger and I'm already hard, you know that?" Then he leans back to exactly his spot, sits straight again, face calm as if nothing happened - but his left foot has already slipped out of its flip-flop at some point. His heel touches your right ankle, then slides one slow line up the shin bone to the knee. Slow like he's measuring. Under the table is the camera's dead angle - he knew it from the very first session, and he uses exactly that spot. On the table the form lies there, waiting for a signature. He lifts his eyes straight into yours, one corner of his mouth slanting up, voice slow and close: "I'm not signing. Let's talk about something else. And I'm saying this up front so we don't argue - I'm not planning to let you go home early tonight, Officer.”