LUCKY CARO

auror sergeant | 40 | they/them point total: 260 current cases: foul play at national wizard's chess tournament disappearances on donner lake hidden terror in kazumura cave

[aurorcaro]

jdelacruz​:

They reach out, put their hand on his, and his instinct, sheer muscle memory, is to pull away. He doesn’t, but the muscles of his forearm jump, all the same, tense for a long moment until he wills them to relax again. He looks at their hand, at the way the ink of their tattoo moves across the skin; he can’t look away from it, or anywhere else, as he listens to Lucky talk, voice dropping into something quiet and serious. 

He doesn’t think he could look at them if he tried, now. He didn’t realize he was looking for a specific answer until he didn’t get it—doesn’t even think he wanted the answer he was looking for, not really, except in some desperate attempt to find something else, someone else, to cling to. That he’d woken up miserable and reached out to Lucky out of, what, some sort of pathetic, misplaced hope that there was something to salvage a decade after Lucky had stopped caring about him, a decade after he forfeited the right to their care. 

He realizes, belatedly, that he’d wanted them to say No, Julián, you have me. But of course that was absurd. Of course he didn’t. 

He can practically hear Rafael’s voice in his head, more scathing and pointed and right than it ever really was out loud. The real Rafael would have made some snide comment, sure, but it was only the version of Rafael that lived at the back of his mind and never left that knew enough about him to say they just feel sorry for you, Julián. They pity you. They’re doing this for Vesper. They’re doing it to clear their own conscience. 

      “I’ll see what I can do,” he answers. But he can’t imagine it. It’s been so long, since he was alone, since he was reminded so sharply of how lonely he is, without Vesper. He used to think it was better to be alone than to be with his family, but the truth is he isn’t so sure anymore. Maybe he’s like a stray dog, too, the hunger pangs of loneliness bad enough that any scrap of attention is enough, touch-starved enough that even a kick feels like a mercy. 

They watch him closely, hoping to find some further guidance in just what he wanted from them. The moment their hand touches his, they can feel a small seize in the muscles, and they almost pull back, worried they’d overstepped and had misinterpreted the situation again. 

But that doesn’t quite feel like that’s the case... they think to themself, feeling the muscles relax under their hand, and notice the lost look that soon seems to plague Julián’s features. He’s stuck in his head, they think, thoughts seemingly miles away from the counter they were currently sitting at. They’re not quite sure how to pull him back, even as someone who spent half their time wrapped up in their own spiraling thoughts.

They try to take a figurative step back though, to get a better read on it all. Brushing their thumb over the top of his hand, their brow knits in thought. The scale seemed to be a bit off-balance between them now, what with everything they saw the night before, and what he’d confessed to them since they sat down. They now knew a lot more about shit he probably didn’t want them to, the gritty and ugly details of his life over the last decade laid out now fully for them to examine. 

They needed to even the deck more, they decide, no matter how much the thought of doing so caused their chest to tighten and burn as stomach acid began to creep up their esophagus. 

“I wasn’t- I wasn’t mad at you...” they begin, taking a deep breath as they do, “when you didn’t recognize me. I mean fuck... I hoped you never would, even though the name would have eventually clued you in.” They’re not sure if airing out at least their own part to play in what happened in the last couple years would help or not, but they feel like if they were going to try to offer themself up as someone that could help him, they at least had to explain why they waited until now to do so. 

“I tried to stay in New York after it happened,” they say, before gesturing towards their face and then the rest of their body, “but it’s hard to try to move forward from something, when every time someone looks at you it’s all they see. So I moved out here, you know, where no one knew fuck all about what happened, and didn’t look at me like I was some broken thing, because it’s different when this face is the only one you know.” 

They pause for a second to take a drink of their coffee, wishing it was something stronger as their knee viciously bobs under the counter. They’re the one not making eye contact now, not really wanting to see what he was thinking until they were through. 

“When I first saw you in the bullpen after I got hired, I was so fuckin’ scared you’d recognize me some how, I was afraid it’d be New York all over again- but worse because it was you.... But then you looked past me- well sort of,” they chuckle weakly, only imagining what Julián‘s first impression of them was without realizing who they were. “And I was so relieved- but then....” 

But then they made a mistake, they think to themself. They couldn’t remember just where they were specifically when it happened, but they remember walking into the headquarters in full morph, and passing him. The encounter couldn’t have lasted but a few seconds, but they can still remember the look of recognition in Julián’s features, followed by what they interpreted as shock and horror, after he realized the scarred up new auror and the old cadet/eventual officer he used to fuck around with were one in the same person. 

“I thought it would be easier for the two of us, if I made myself more scarce when you were around. Hell, I even sent in a request to Lin to not put us on any cases together, and told her about our history as a reason why.” And damn, wasn’t that the most fun conversation they ever had with their chief.... It got the job done though, and they have to hand it to Lin for actually following through with the request for the last few years. “I figured after how things ended before, you wouldn’t necessarily take any offense to it, but prefer it anyway.” 

They look to him then finally, because if they don’t they feel like they’ll bolt out of there if they wait any longer to do so. They’re not sure just what they expect or hope in the form of an answer, but they feel like he had to know, if anything just so they could find some way to move past this shit that keeps tangling their feet up as they try to move on from it. 

[kieselguhrkid]

Tribeca Film Festival | “Blame” portrait for deadline.com.

[aurorcaro]

victorsierraa​:

Lucky looks different, when he sits down across from Victor. Brown hair, no scars. He was morphing, Victor realised, a thought that shouldn’t have been so delayed. Victor should have been quicker on the draw, here. He knows that he needs to be on his toes, that he needs to keep to his very best behaviour. Lucky already hated him, the last thing he needed was for them to think that Victor had no fucking clue what was going on around him. 

He shifts, awkward under the weight of all of it. He focuses in, makes himself look at Lucky instead of cowering away like his instincts told him to. He tried to lock all of his doubts and guilt away in a little box. He can’t get hung up on it, he can’t let it make him weak here. He had to stand up for himself. He thinks that Eris would probably tell him that Lucky didn’t matter, not to even worry about it, because he had earned his place here as much as anybody else had. It was easier said than done, and he wasn’t actually sure if he had Eris pinned right in his mind. He was the type of man that was hard to anticipate, most of the time. 

He nods his head, considering the case. Having someone else along with them obviously had its pros and cons, things that would work in their favour and things that would hold them back. Victor would have to be on the look out for whatever was coming for them, to keep everyone as safe as possible. He solidified that as his goal here. Figure out what was wrong, save everyone he could, make sure that no one else got hurt. The idea of being a protector was one that he liked. 

“We’ll have to look out for them.” He agrees, trying to be easy with it. 

He considers again how new he is at all of this. How he doesn’t really know where to start the most of the time. “Is there anyone you wanna question, first? Or should we head straight in and see what’s down there?” 

‘We’ll have to look out for them’. They’d laugh, if it wasn’t all so damn frustrating. Sure, they’ll have to look out for the guide, and Lucky will also have to look out for Sierra, and look out for the eight missing people as well. Of course the cherry on the top of this damn shit sundae, is that they have to do this in a cave, somewhere they knew they were going to feel immediately like a trapped animal in no matter what else they had to try to distract them. 

“No one really to question,” they huff a sigh, as they close their case file. “We go to Papley’s, we can talk to the tour guide, see if we can learn anything more before partaking in our own fun little tour ourselves.” 

Ready to go ahead and try to get it all over with quickly, they stand up, indicating to Sierra it was time to go. They should probably say more here, they think bitterly as they look down at him, as green to all of this as a damn cucumber. If Sierra was any other cadet they’d given him some words of advice, or fuck... a game plan at least should anything go sideways down there. 

“If I get myself killed down there, you go straight back up to the surface,” they say instead, “call Harbird, get some damn back up, then flush the cave out with a hell of a lot more than just two fuckin’ aurors and an underpaid tour guide.” 

After waiting to see if Sierra had anything to add, they nod their head in the direction of the door, before turning towards it. 

[aurorcaro]

jdelacruz​:

It’s the same thing they said last night, more or less. At the end, when he’d already shut himself down from the conversation, just trying to muscle through the rest of the night as best he could. He hadn’t known what to do with it, then, and he doesn’t know what to do with it now. How had they put it, last night? Managing isn’t living, or something like that? And what is all of this, except for proof that they’d been right. His apartment, sad and a little pathetic. His existence, sad and a little pathetic. But just because they’re right doesn’t mean he knows how to change it, how to do anything else. 

Don’t forget about yourself, they say, and that’s the whole problem. The whole crux of it. He’s spent so long with people telling him that he isn’t worth their time that he’s never stopped to wonder if he’s worth his own time, either. Every selfish, cowardly act of self-preservation, and he hadn’t stopped to think about what it might mean to remove himself from the source of the harm. 

     “You always did think more of me than I had any right to,” he says, finally, after a long moment, finally looking them in the eye. 

He feels torn open, feels about as vulnerable as it gets. Lucky, here in this space that’s hardly his and yet is as close to his as anything he has. Lucky, seeing the full extent of his entire pathetic existence. Lucky, having seen his family, having seen his home, having seen every piece of him laid bare and still, somehow, thinking he deserves more than this. It feels unfathomable. It makes him wonder, for just a moment, what had happened to them, all those years ago, why he’d been so certain his time was running out. 

     “Vesper’s all I have,” he says, but it’s not an argument this time. It’s not a contradiction. It’s a truth he’s been living with for so many years, been so comfortable with for all this time. Vesper had so much more than just him—had friends, had people who loved them, had any number of places to turn to—and of course they did, they deserved it. 

It’s not an argument, this time. It’s a quiet little plea he can’t bring himself to say any other way. 

He meets their gaze, and they’re honestly not sure what in the hell to make of it all. They feel like they’re back in the breakroom again, smacking their shoulder off the side of the vending machine, as they’re caught off guard by a certain nostalgic fondness Julián seemed to be harboring. It all only serves to pull them back into the internal argument they keep having with themself, because he’s not talking like someone who cared so little for them he didn’t give them the benefit of a heads-up before disappearing. But he was that someone, they quickly remind themself, he did hold them in so little regard. 

They felt like they were being pulled around like a rag doll, by the small war in their head, not necessarily due to anything that Julián was doing in that moment, but more having to do with their own self preservation instinct. They cared for him enough that they wanted to try to help him, but not get too close, not close enough where they were going to screw themself over again, and get the wrong idea about this all. 

“We’ll that’s just because I’m a damn annoying little shit,” they huff a laugh, grateful at least that they felt somewhat calmer than they had before. “I’m like a fuckin’ stray mutt, you feed me once, and I won’t leave you alone until you give me a good enough kick.” And damn did he sure give them a good one, but here they were again, ten years later looking worse for wear, but still not able to shake whatever weird loyalty they seem to hold for him. 

They fall quiet again though, as they glance back over to Julián, the mood clearly shifting into a territory they shouldn’t be cracking jokes in. He was being more open with them now than he’d ever had, even in those few years they shared together back in New York. It should be downright horrifying that this is what it took for the two of them to finally actually talk about shit that mattered, and maybe they were a bit horrified, realizing how much really was going on without their notice all this time. 

“Stay until they finally get the nerve to leave,” they reply quietly, “but leave the minute they do”. Without putting much thought into it, because if they did they knew they wouldn’t do it at all, they reach their hand across the table to rest it on his. It was the hand whose grip they had full control over, which allows them to give his a small but firm squeeze. The octopus tattoo on it reacts in kind, its inked tentacles moving and twisting as if it too were trying to gain a grip on Julián’s hand.

“If not for yourself then at least for them,” they shrug, shooting him a half smile, “they’ll be better off knowing you got out of there too, rather than stuck there on your own.” 

[aurorcaro]

jdelacruz​:

Lucky sets their food aside, half eaten, and before they’ve even said anything else he can tell he’s messed this up, somehow, said something wrong, because he’s never seen Lucky leave breakfast food left behind on a plate. And suddenly it feels like last night, all over again, like they’re both talking around one another and nothing is sticking, nothing is landing, like they’re both too caught up in their own shit to see eye to eye on anything, to understand what the other is saying. 

     “I’m not—” he starts, his hand flexing against the counter and relaxing again as he struggles to find the words for this, to find a way to explain to Lucky why this is so much harder than it seems like it should be, why it’s not their fault that any of this is so hard. But how do you explain away the years of this, to someone who hasn’t known you in a decade? To someone who never understood it in the first place? How could he make Lucky understand why any of this was the way it was, when Lucky had always seen a different person when they looked at Julián than anyone else had? 

He’d never understood what they’d seen in him, in the first place. It was pure happenstance that they knew him at a time when he could let himself pretend it didn’t matter, when he honestly believed he could fool someone into thinking he was something worth loving. When he could put his family and everything they’d ever said to him away in a little box in the back of his head, for a while, pretend to be a good auror, imagine that he really was the man Lucky seemed to think he was, and not just a constant disappointment. 

Disappointing Lucky had been inevitable from the start. At least when he’d left New York he didn’t have to see it. Now, he’s not sure that he can bear to look them in the eye while he does it. 

     “I don’t think I owe them anything. I don’t do any of if for them,” he explains, trying his best to make it clear to Lucky, hoping desperately that they’ll understand this time. “But I owe Vesper. They’re my family. As long as they’re in it, I’m in it. Because I’ve never been good at very much of anything in my life, but somehow, against all odds, I’m good enough at this to make it easier for them. And I should do at least one decent thing with my life, while I’ve got the chance.” 

He’s imagined it before. Vesper, escaping it all. Getting away. Getting to live the life he knows they’d thrive in, out from under Rafael’s thumb. Taking Pandora with them. Maybe finding someone who loves every part of them. He can imagine Lucky being a part of that—it’s so, so clear how much they care about Vesper. But he’s never imagined there’s a world where he gets to do anything other than bear the brunt of it in their absence. He’d been born to this, and they hadn’t, and all of it would be worth it to know they could have the life they actually deserved, instead of this.

     “I know that’s not the way you think of things. But I made my choice a decade ago, when I decided to love them. I can’t change it now.” 

They listen closely when he speaks, because they want so desperately to try to understand this all better, and to actually have some kind of idea just what it was they could do here other than make it worse somehow. He’s not meeting their eyes, which feels like a good representation for the issues they both seemed to be having right now communicating one with another. They feel like they’re trying to solve a puzzle with only half the pieces, because there is still such a large gapping hole in all of this that has left them feeling uncertain of just how to respond to any of it all, because they’re so uncertain whether he even wants anything to do with them or not. 

“I know why you stayed,” they start, their gaze dropping away from him and down to their coffee cup, “if there’s anything here I can understand, it’s certainly the urge to try to shield the kid from as much as you can.” 

They wished they could do the same somehow, instead of letting Julián continue to bear the brunt of it. But circumstances prevented them from doing anything more than what they managed to do last night, for the spare few minutes they managed to sneak Vesper away from the party without attracting the eyes of others. 

“But there’s gotta be an in between here, Julián...”, they trail off, letting out a sigh as they struggle to piece together the right words. “Somethin’ in between leavin’ the kid at the mercy of your family, and takin’ on all of it on your own. This whole time you’ve been helpin’ create an eventual escape plan for Vesper- what with the job and everything, but you’ve gotta make one for yourself too.” 

They finally look up to him then, because they’re afraid they’re starting to cross a line, and step into territory he didn’t feel they had the right to venture in. And they probably didn’t, having made the choice a decade ago to try to no longer think of Julián de la Cruz as someone they had any right to any more. 

But even that thought doesn’t stop them from what they say next. 

“Because none of this,” they add, gesturing to the bare bones apartment around them, “could have been what you wanted when you left.” They say the last part quietly, because up until that point the topic of his leaving had been completely unspoken between them. A taboo subject that was better left in the past, but always seemed to be lurking quietly in the corner of every room they shared.

“No matter what you feel like you do or don’t deserve, you definitely don’t deserve this,” they add, and it isn’t until then do they realize the slight shake to their voice, their nervousness beginning to be more apparent. Taking another sip of their coffee they try to resettle themself before adding, “help the kid, but don’t forget about yourself either is all I’m tryin’ to say.” 

[aurorcaro]

rileymetzer​:

Riley reaches up, scratches behind his ear for a moment. There hasn’t been a day in a long while where he wished this badly to just go home –– curl up in bed, drink some tea, maybe plan a fishing trip. Anywhere but here, anything but something like this. And maybe he was being dramatic. Okay, he was pretty sure he was being dramatic. But he just had a bad feeling. Not an unusual occurance, but something he’d grown used to trusting when he felt it. 

They nod along to Lucky’s words, because as much as they want to, they can’t actually run away. It’s just another case, just another thing to get through before the week is over. 

“Sounds like a good idea,” He says. It made sense. And it would be helpful if they could all be narrowed down to this one common factor, to the place that they stayed and lived on their trips. It would mean that whatever beast they were looking for probably, at the very least, followed its prey from there. It didn’t mean that any other suckers wouldn’t get pulled into its path, but it would be a starting point, at the very least. 

And he glances up, then. Nods a little bit. “Sure, we can drive.” That sounds nice, actually. Some time to get his head together, to gather his thoughts. “Probably a good idea. Apparating doesn’t really agree with me, all the way.” 

He shifts, and starts to gather his own things, wanting to get this started so they can get it done with. “You ready to head out now? We can talk more about it on the drive, if that’s good with you.” 

Their eyes brighten up a little as Metzer agrees on the car drive- because okay, while half the reason they asked about driving was because they heard Metzer preferred it, the other half was because their was a damn Camaro that’d been gathering dust on the seized property floor that absolutely was begging to be driven. Unfortunately, not knowing how to drive a stick, they couldn’t bust the beauty out themself, but their gut was telling them that Metzer just might. 

“Sounds perfect,” they agree with a nod, a smirk that generally means they’re up to something creeping across their features as they do. 

When they reach the elevator they give away their plan the moment they hit the floor for seized property rather than the garage holding the small fleet of absolutely boring cars generally used for this sort of thing. 

“I have an idea,” they add as a way of explanation, the smirk still present on their features. “Now, when we get down there and you don’t want to follow through with it, that’s totally cool with me, I just wanted to make sure you were aware of the absolute tragedy that is currently taking place in seized property.” 

When the elevator dings back open, they lead him onto the floor, and by sheer muscle memory alone, guide him through the various rows of seized property in the warehouse sized floor, until finally they come across the beauty in one of the back rows, half hidden under a tarp. 

“1969 Camaro SS,” they speak up as they pull back the tarp, “hasn’t been touched since it was brought in in ‘17. I’d have driven it myself by now, but I burn out the clutch on every stick shift I’ve ever gotten behind.” 

Tossing the tarp off to the side, they clap the dust off their hands before looking back over to Metzer. “So what do you think? You want to sign it out for the day, or grab one of the Corollas in the fleet?” 

[aurorcaro]

jdelacruz​:

He sets his plastic fork down, rolling his eyes at the teddy bear comment—nothing about that was surprising, that Vesper thought it, or that they talked to Lucky enough for them to know, but it’s strange to think about the two of them talking about him, over drinks or at work or wherever they spent their time together. He forgets, sometimes, that he’s a person who exists in other people’s lives and not just his own, a thing people can talk about when he’s not around, a thing people might want to talk about. Forgets even more that Vesper, even if he knows they love him, might say kind things about him and not just for his own sake. 

     “It depends on what you mean by like that,” he says, letting out a sigh and picking the coffee cup up. “Rafael was in rare form; I’d imagine he was off put by his lack of control over the guest list. He doesn’t like unimportant people running around the place, which is why Vesper’s the only reason I’m ever invited to these things. He… takes these parties so seriously, staking his reputation on everything going to plan. I never got the hang of that, really, when we were younger, which I suppose is why reputation’s so… uh, shit.” 

He’d spent far too many years pursuing a reputation like Rafael’s, trying to make people think he was impressive and successful, but the older he got the less important it seemed—though, perhaps that was just that the reality had sunk in that it was pretty much unachievable for someone like him, utterly unremarkable, painfully mediocre, flaws he’d never been able to fix for himself. 

     “But if you mean like that in the more general sense, then yes, that’s dear old mother at her best. In my defense, I usually manage to stop her from making Vesper run away from the party weeping, but Jacinda de la Cruz isn’t happy until someone is in tears.” 

It’s strange, to talk about it; he doesn’t, usually, not to anyone but Vesper, and there’s nothing he needs to explain to Vesper, since they’ve seen it with their own eyes again and again. He keeps family and work as separate as humanly possible, just another part of trying to find something for himself outside of his younger brother’s remarkably large shadow. That, and he isn’t particularly comfortable with people feeling sorry for him, especially about things he toughened his own skin against a long time ago. So he shifts the topic slightly, to something easier to talk about—the whole reason Lucky even cared about all of this in the first place, probably the real reason they were here.

     “Look, I know whatever Vesper told you has you worried about them. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t be—I mean, they were barely twenty when I met them at their engagement party. I’m not pretending there’s anything healthy about that. But unfortunately there’s no easy answer here, or I would have found it already.” 

They take the occasional bite as they listen to him quietly. So much of what he says though is so foreign to them, it’s hard for them to really comprehend it all completely. The constant fight and struggle to maintain a reputation in a circle of a bunch of a rich assholes, was a far cry from anything they ever lived. They couldn’t imagine getting that upset or put out by the idea of a damn party going the wrong way, or being that scared to look bad in front of everyone. Even before they looked like the genderqueer bastard of Frankenstein’s monster, they weren’t exactly brought into the same circles Branwen and de la Cruz spent their free time in.

They try to understand though, fuck do they try, as they continue to pick at their food as Julián continues. Even as he does, all it seems to do is reinforce the idea that they were completely out of their depth, and had walked into a situation their presence was not particularly welcome, especially as de la Cruz seems to begin to steer back towards the topic from the night before. His tone is calmer now, there was no doubt about that, and he did seem to be giving them validation for their concern now, but they still couldn’t help but read between the lines that he didn’t quiet feel the need for their presence. 

They feel like they want to crawl out their own skin, the unease that’d settled in them growing as they struggle to figure out what to say, if there really was anything to say at all. 

“I’m not exactly an expert on getting out of shit like that,” they confess, because it was the damn truth. They may have an idea what it was like to be a slave, but their freedom wasn’t one they earned themself. “And that was never my intention to act like I had the magic answer or whatever, if that’s what it seemed like.” 

Taking a drink of their coffee, they let out a sigh, before closing the lid of their half eaten container of food, not particularly having the stomach for it anymore. 

“I’m sorry if I fucked shit up for the kid last night- with your mom. I shouldn’t have gone,” they shake their head before glancing back up to him, “but my offer still stands. You don’t deserve any of that shit either. They might be your family, but you don’t owe them fuck all, especially if that’s how things usually go.” 

[aurorcaro]

rileymetzer​:

Harbird isn’t exactly Riley’s favourite person, today. And this isn’t exactly the kind of case that he looked forward to. But Riley knew who he was, what he could do, and he knew that he was one of the best to send on a case that had dark and bloody clues to explore. It was always easier to find out what happened to a victim when there was a chance, even a small one, to see it for yourself. He spent a long moment ignoring the file, after he read the title. He looked at it instead, and only reluctantly pulled it close to flip through it. Exactly as he expected. Bloody disappearances. 

Victims more likely dead than alive. 

More ghosts for him to harbour inside himself, if the universe saw fit. He reigns in the sigh that wants to come out, the huff of breath that would speak of his exhaustion when it comes to things like this. 

It doesn’t take long for Caro, his lead on this case, it would seem, to come over and sit in Jal’s chair. Maybe its his bad mood in general, but it makes him wish that Jal were there instead. Someone softer around the edges. He knows that Lucky has been cursed with a complicated past. The scars on their face speak of their own victimhood, and its something that Riley doesn’t want to think too much about. What might have happened. How it might have felt. He’d had enough pain already, he didn’t need to share anyone elses. 

“Goodie for us.” He says, and he does sound tired. But he’s resigned to it. “Bloody disappearances at a historically horrible location. I’m sure people would watch that movie.” 

It did sound like a hell of a horror movie, although they preferred to watch the thing than to semi-live it. If they were following horror movie rules, then the chances of them- the authorities, being able to solve much was slim to none, and likely end up missing themselves, but this wasn’t some horror movie, they remind themself, but rather a very real case involving seven very missing people. 

“Doesn’t look like we have any witnesses to interview,” they speak up as they flip open their case file, “we could check with the cabin rental place, see if any of the other victims stayed with them outside Scarcliff and Allen. If they all three stayed in the same area that at least narrows down the search area- sort of.” 

Crime scene investigating seemed to be their main job here if the case file were anything to go by, with only three deserted locations and not a single witness around to tell them what could have happened, they were largely going to have to run on their own investigative skills to find leads. 

“We can drive up there if you like,” they offer, because they’re fairly certain they’ve heard something about Metzer preferring that mode of transportation to any other. 

.

[aurorcaro]

victorsierraa​:

( a cafe, early afternoon, the week after the party / @aurorcaro​ )

When the case file landed on his desk, Victor had felt his stomach knot with panic. He hadn’t even opened it yet, but the name of his lead auror shone out like a beacon. He should have known that he wouldn’t have been ableto avoid it forever, the elephant in the room that was Lucky Caro, the person who didn’t think that he should be there. Victor knew that to Lucky, he was a monster. A beast that deserved to be serving time behind bars, not supposedly serving justice on Pacific Squad. And now they have to work a case together. Just the two of them, all alone. Part of him had wanted to lean over to Eris, ask for help somehow, ask to trade or for Eris to convince the Chief to reassign him. 

But he knew that he couldn’t be a coward. He knew that he had to face these things head on, when they came up, and not let himself drown under the pressure of it all. 

 He finds a cafe, out on the Island. Mimicing his deskmate on their first case, he got there early and ordered himself a drink. Part of him had considered talking to Lucky in the office, but it had seemed best to avoid them as much as possible until they were out in the field. So they plan the first part, this meeting, over telekit message and hope for the best. His nervousness had gotten the best of him and made him arrive earlier this time, so he sits and waits, and prays to whatever god will listen that this goes okay. 

Of course, the dread is something that he battles through when Lucky actually walks through the door. He shifts, sits up straighter, and waits for Lucky to approach. 

“Hey ––” He says, thankfully not sounding as nervous as he feels. “So. Caves.” 

All they can do is let out a long disgruntled sigh when they see the case file flop down on their desk that morning with Sierra’s name typed below their own. They had a feeling this would happen sooner or later, especially when they made the decision not to put a request in with Lin to keep them off any cases with Sierra. They weren’t the one who did anything wrong here though, and if Lin wanted to have a damn former mob hitman on the squad, then it’d probably be better for them to at least get thrown on a couple cases with the asshole, if anything just to keep an eye on him. 

None of that though eases the tension in their shoulders as they have to consider the fact that being on a case with Sierra, especially one involving a damn cave with who knows what in it, would leave them in a position where they were going to have to find some way to trust Sierra, just so they could actually focus on the case rather than what he was or wasn’t up to. 

After they arrive at Hawaii, they make the decision to morph for at least the duration of their cafe meetup. Their face would be one easily noticeable out of a morph, which outside of work they didn’t mind all that much, but when keeping a low profile was key like it was in a case, they preferred to go the way of a morph whenever it was possible. 

And so it’s in the face that Sierra first saw them in, back when they worked his case, that they greet him with that afternoon, as they pull up a chair across him. 

“Yeah,” they sigh, “caves.” 

As much as they would love to just end the conversation there, they know their role as lead on the case means they actually have to contribute, and so they keep going. 

“In her chief notes, Lin mentioned a tour guide from Papley’s will be going with us, which will be good in the fact we won’t get our asses lost down there- but it’ll also mean we’re gonna have to make sure they don’t get themself killed down there by whatever the hell is in the cave.” It also meant they were likely going to have to spend the rest of the case out of a morph too, since there was no way in hell they’d be able to hold onto a morph for the entire duration of a case. 

[aurorcaro]

jdelacruz​:

He wasn’t expecting Lucky to bring coffee for them, let alone breakfast, but maybe he should have. He’d never been much of a breakfast person, usually skipping it altogether, but he’d eat breakfast more times when he and Lucky were together than he had in probably the rest of his life combined. He doesn’t know what to expect, when Lucky sets the bag in front of him, looks inside—french toast, a side of hash browns, probably not too dissimilar to what he would have ordered if he’d been pressed. 

     “No, it’s fine,” he says, taking it out of the bag; he’s not sure he will eat it, because he feels nauseous with anxiety, but he appreciates the thought, the pseudo olive branch Lucky’s extending after their conversation the night before, something they really didn’t need to do given how badly it had all gone. 

He leaves the coffee he put on there, ignoring it, taking a sip of the one Lucky brought instead, because even if he can’t stomach breakfast, he can still drink coffee as a gesture of good faith here. He… honestly doesn’t know what he’s doing here, doesn’t know why he messaged them or what he wants to say or how he expects this conversation to go. Everything at the party had been so… frustrating, and jarring, and terrible, and Lucky had pissed him the hell off but he knows they hadn’t meant to. 

     “I, um. Yeah, thank you. This is great,” he says, gesturing down at the container of food, moving to pull a plastic fork and knife out of the bag as well, and then he grabs the second stool, pulls it around to the other side of the counter, because it feels strange to sit next to them, easier, somehow, to have the counter between them. 

And once he’s sitting, he finds that, despite the sinking feeling in his stomach, he is hungry, so he takes a bite of the hash browns, and they’re greasy and salty and… good, in a way he didn’t expect, so he takes a second bite, and then a third, reaches over to the little tubs of syrup that Lucky has on their side of the counter and slides one over, opens it up to pour over the french toast when he gets to it.

     “I don’t usually eat breakfast,” he says, by way of explanation. “But last night was… awful, honestly.” 

There is a small relief they feel as they look back over to him, and find him not entirely off put by the by the small peace offering. This they could work with, they think to themself, as they dump a couple of the syrup containers onto their waffle and bacon strips. It would still be harder than it normally would have been for them, and they’re certain they’ll be thinking about their words much more carefully than they usually would before they leave their mouth, but they can work with it. Or at least they were going to try their damn well best to. 

When he speaks again, they’re already beginning to censor themself. The first thing they wanted to say was, “I know.... I remember”, not to the fact the night was awful, even though they fully agreed, but to his views on what Lucky would easily call their personal favorite meal of the day. It wasn’t the first time they’d heard him say so, but they do recall when he had for the first time, and they shot up from the bed like it was the most ludicrous thing they’d ever heard, before demanding to know just what grievances he held against a good breakfast sandwich- or dare they say a bagel even. 

But they let that memory fade back among with the others, along with the words that lingered on the tip of their tongue. Instead, they focus on the latter half of his comment, regarding the dreaded night before. They’d much rather forget it even happened, just move on, and not bring it up again. That didn’t necessarily seem like the right move though, not when it seemed the whole purpose of this “talk” was to dissect what neither of them had the energy to do the night before. 

“Is it usually like that?” They find themself asking instead, because they are genuinely curious. As much as they thought they knew him before, there were certain things the two of them didn’t ask one another, his family being one of them as he clearly seemed to make a point to not mention them. And for their own part in it all, they made no attempt to try to dig any further than surface level when it came to the older auror they’d found themself attached to. Largely because they didn’t want anything to change, they were perfectly content in what it was, enough so they allowed themself to get far too comfortable in the familiarity of it before it no longer was as such anymore. 

“The kid told me a little bit about it all,” they add, before taking a bite of their bacon. Then they can’t help but snort out a small laugh as they think back on something Vesper had said to them, “they called you a fuckin’ teddy bear, if ya can believe it,” they smirk as they look back up to him. 

Once again they choose to censor themself and leave the comment where it stood, choosing to keep back the tease, ‘it’s alright, they see me as some kind of mentor figure, so we both know their sense of judgement is fucked’, because they’re uncertain whether they had the right to.

[theaurorfileshq]

– Hidden Terror in Kazumura Cave

CASE LEVEL: Two

POINTS REQUIRED: One Hundred Sixty 

OVERVIEW:

Kazumura Cave is a vast lava tube, located on the Big Island of Hawaii on the eastern slope of Kīlauea. Running over 40 miles in length and 3,614 feet deep, it’s considered the largest lava tube on the planet, and is believed to have first been formed over 500 years ago during a large volcanic eruption on the island. The first known record of the lava tube being used by the public dates back to the 1960s, where it was designated as a nuclear fallout shelter during the midst of the Cold War. 

The majority of the cave resides within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. While most tourists visit the cave through the National Park Service, others also frequent tours provided by private property owners who have access to the cave system through openings on their own property. It is one of these private property owners, a pureblood witch by the name of Leona Papley, that has offered tours for the wixen tourists in the area. Every hour on the hour, a tour guide working for Leona will take wixes down the miles of interconnecting tunnels located on the Papley property. There are multiple tours offered, and visitors can choose from taking a nature and geology based tour (going over the science aspect of the cave), a history tour (going over the wixen history tied to the ancient passages), and finally a a ghost tour (a tour aimed to discover the ghosts of the various lives lost within the massive cave system). 

Papley’s Cave Tours has been operating since 1981, however, it wasn’t until recently when strange reports began flooding out of the popular business. The reports first began about a month ago, when one tour group described hearing various growls and snarls somewhere deep in the cave. None of the wixes on the tour said they saw the creature, but many reported seeing strange shadows and felt like they were being watched. Several other reports, similar in nature, would later come out of the cave from additional tour groups, but it wasn’t until two days ago when a tour group vanished without a trace, when the true severity of these claims became clear. The Hawaii Auror Division had previously scoured that particular portion of the cave, looking for the cause of the noises, but weren’t able to locate the sounds’ origins. After this latest disappearance the case has since been turned over to MACUSA.

PERSONS OF INTEREST:

Leona Papley: Owner of “Papley’s Cave Tours”, Leona’s family has owned the property the caves are located under since 1974. In its run, Leona says the tours have always been a safe and enjoyable experience, and until recently the only run-in’s tours have experienced would be an occasional spirit. 

Tucker Papley: Leona’s grandnephew, and the tour guide of the missing group. Tucker has been guiding tours for the last six years, and is one of the youngest tour guides employed by Papley’s Cave Tours. Tucker has never received a complaint or ran into any trouble while in the caves until this most recent incident. When the Hawaii aurors searched the cave for the fifth time, right after the group went missing, they found Tucker’s wand and wallet, but no signs of violence at the scene. 

The Manalo Family: A wixen family of five that was part of the lost tour group. The tour the Manalos booked was one that would take approximately two hours, and take the family through a part of the cave known to be haunted. The family is made up of two adults and three children varying from ages 13-17. 

The Digbys: A young wixen couple on their honeymoon. The Digbys were part of the same tour group as the Manalos. Neither families knew one another, and had only met minutes before embarking on their tour. When the Hawaii aurors searched the cave shortly after the disappearance they found one of Mr. Digby’s hiking boots, but no sign of blood or violence. 

CHIEF’S NOTES:

We have eight people missing, and have now passed the 48 hour mark, which means it’s more important than ever to track this missing group down and figure out what could have caused their disappearance. Your telekits will still work even that far underground, so please give me regular updates when you can. One of the Papley’s tour guides will be accompanying you on your journey below ground, they will meet you after arriving on the property.

- Chief Lin

Tours have been going through the cave for years, so it’s interesting that its only been recently that the disturbances have started. I would check to see if any additional work has been done on the cave recently, or whether any additional tunnels have been uncoverd. 

- Deputy Chief Harbird

CASE STATUS: TAKEN

| RPG HOME | PLOT | WANTED CONNECTIONS | OPEN CASES |

[aurorcaro]

location: pacific squad offices

time: week after anniversary party

status: closed to @rileymetzer​

They’d been stuck in the office a lot lately, mostly stuck on desk duty because Lin was sick of the stack of paperwork they still hadn’t gotten through. The chess tournament case they’d done with Branwen had been their only chance to get out and stretch their legs in nearly two weeks, and so when Harbird drops a case file on their desk that morning, they nearly jump up out of their chair from the excitement of it. Of course, that enthusiasm soon ends once they actually start flipping through the case, and it becomes almost abundantly clear that these missing people were more likely to be found dead rather than alive due to what had been left behind of them. 

Picking up the case file, they head over to Metzer, their assisting for the case. They hadn’t worked with Riley much in the past but they can bet good money that the very reason why he’s on the case is because of his sight thing rather than anything else, given his still fairly low rank in the bullpen for a case such as this one.

“Metzer,” they greet as they plop down onto al Jalasi’s empty chair from across him. “you get a chance to read that Donner case yet? If you haven’t yet you might as well heat yourself up some popcorn- shit is a damn horror movie in the making.” 

.

[aurorcaro]

vesperbranwen​:

They give Lucky a smile, something small and encouraging, as Vesper watches them slip back into the morph. They hope that the break was long enough, but they could always take another one after they talked to Church, if they needed. This wasn’t the type of case where they needed to move fast, fast fast. This wasn’t the kind of day where faltering for a moment would cost them a case, would cost someone their lives. And Vesper was glad for that, of course, because it meant that they got to have some fun with things. It meant that them and Lucky could do what they did best, get a little playful with things. They were already having a hell of a lot of fun with their morphs, after all. Freddy Wyoming was a genius, and Vesper was sure of that. 

They get up and follow Lucky out of the room, giving Boucher a little wave as they exit, before Lucky closes the door behind them. With a soft laugh, they shake their head, warm and amused and overjoyed that they got to deal with something like this. “I didn’t expect relationship drama when we walked into this. You know, den of the nerds and all that? But dude, Boucher is hot. Good for them, man,, good for them.” 

They still feel warm and amused as they walk their way through the hotel, giving the occasional nerd a wink here and there just to watch them flush with it. They knew that Lucky and Vesper were quite the pair. They stood out, among most of the rest of the people here. 

It doesn’t take all that long to get to the hotel’s lounge, and Vesper notices Church sitting exactly where Boucher said they might be. 

With a slight nudge to Lucky’s arm, they lead the way over, slinking between tables until they get to the one where Church is sitting. They give them a bright smile, warm and a little flirty. “Mx. Andrew Church?” They ask, voice a little playful. “Do you have a sec, we have some pretty important questions to ask you.” 

.

“What do they say, it’s always the quiet ones?” They ask with a laugh, “then again I wouldn’t call Boucher very quiet.” The kid was right though, a tumultuous affair possibly being the cause of all of this was the last thing they would have expected, but it made the whole thing even that more fun to play around with. 

When they finally get to the hotel’s lounge, they’re once again met with a decision- whether to keep up with their morph, or reveal themselves to be aurors. After everything Boucher said, Lucky feels like the auror route might not be the best one to take, especially if Church was the one who was cursing chess pieces. In that same line of thought though, pretending to be a chess player in that tournament likely wouldn’t go as well either. If they were to get Church to talk to them candidly, they were going to have to appease to the hotel owner’s stance on the chess tournament. 

“If you have any questions regarding your stay, I assure you the receptionist at the front desk or the concierge will be happy to assist you,” Church replies to Branwen, clearly not too happy with their lunch being interrupted, but not to the point they were going to be rude to a couple of paying customers. 

“Actually,” Lucky pipes up, “we were hopin’ to talk to you about this damn chess tournament going on downstairs. I took my Missy here to Vegas to celebrate our 6 week anniversary, to see the sights, gamble a little bit, and catch a few shows- I didn’t take ‘em here to see a bunch of nerds packing the pool, and slowing down the buffet line as they read over every allergy warning, on every damn dish.”  

They’re confident the kid can keep up with the quick change in storyline, and that they could learn a thing or two when doing it. Shit like this was what Lucky excelled in back in New York, when the undercover cases were the only ones they worked on for a good while. Being able to skillfully flow in and out of different characters and backgrounds was key in getting a witness to do what you wanted them to do- and doing so without changing your face first had become a fine art of their’s. 

“Ah... yes the chess tournament,” Church replies with a roll of their eyes, the distaste in their tone clear, “well I can assure you that here soon you will no longer be troubled with it.” 

[aurorcaro]

jdelacruz​:

The second he gets Lucky’s reply, he’s struck with the inexplicable urge to clean. Or—to do something. The apartment isn’t dirty; in fact, quite the opposite, it barely looks lived in, and he finds himself, faced with the prospect of anyone else seeing it, suddenly and acutely embarrassed about it, the expensive and uncomfortable furniture, the sparse fridge, the impersonal decor. The only pieces of it that feel like his—the bed and the closet—are things Lucky won’t even see; the living room and attached kitchenette feel like he ordered them wholesale out of a catalog and then never did anything except walk through them to get to his bedroom. The whole place, he knows, has a weird air of desperation to it, the same way his whole life does; like it can’t decide what it wants to be, and so it fails entirely at being anything at all. 

But there’s nothing he can actually do to change that, not when it won’t take Lucky all that long to get there, and even if they were going to take ages, it seems like a lost cause. It’s so far removed from the place he’d had in New York, expensive but with some character, his own mess occupying the place—and Lucky’s, too, on top of that, more often than not for the last little while. 

Instead, he finds himself pacing, and then rearranging the two throw pillows in muted colors that sit on the low-backed couch, and then putting a pot of coffee on and sitting on one of the weird wicker bar stools at the kitchen counter while he waits, either for it to be done or for the knock on the door.

The knock comes first, and then the unfamiliar beep of the expensive coffee machine he rarely uses, just moments later, and he makes his way to the door, opens it—takes the coffee from Lucky, surprised to see it.

     “Oh,” he says, looking at the cup, and then back to the coffee machine. “I was just—” He trips over the thought for a second, and then looks back at Lucky, shakes his head. “Never mind. Thank you. Uh— come in.” 

There’s a look of what they can only describe as panic on Julián’s features when he opens the door. At first they think they might have over stepped, such as maybe Julián had expected this to be a rather short visit, and not one that’d take the duration of a meal. But then they follow his line of sight to a coffee machine that looks like it came off a space station, and they can’t help but bark out a small laugh.

“The coffee pot this came out of looked a good thirty years older than that one. So I won’t take it personally if you’d rather not take the chance and use your own instead.”

Slipping past him, they head inside and towards a space on the kitchen counter near a set of bar stools. They just about ask him when he moved, because by the state of the apartment they’d have figured it’d have been only recently. They don’t though, for once telling themself to shut up before they hit a nerve they didn’t know was there.

It is a nice place though, all in all, very hotel like, and makes them feel like they were supposed to take their boots off at the door- but it’s nice. It was the polar opposite of their well lived in studio apartment, but that didn’t surprised them. They’d always been opposites to a certain degree even back when they had more in common than they did now.

Setting the plastic bag down on the counter, they pull out the first container and find it’s their’s- a large blueberry waffle with a couple strips of bacon next to it, both ready to be smothered in syrup as Lucky fully intended to do.

They leave Julián’s in the bag for him to get himself if he wanted it. His order was one that was fully a shot in the dark, and based solely on his palette from a decade ago. Back when they had to coax breakfast orders out of him in the early hours of the morning, through his groggy protests as they nipped and kissed him out of his full order, and adding a few unnecessary questions such as pulp or no pulp orange juice before finally letting him sleep again.

As they ready their own meal, they the occasional glance over to him, curious to see how on or off the right track they were. They felt in a constant battle with themself, when it came to their confidence in knowing how he would react to the things they said or did. In some instances they felt like they know him better than anyone, and in others (especially lately) he feels like a stranger to them.

That constant tug and pull had resulted in them unintentionally pissing him off the night before, when their attempt at a joke and to make him laugh, blew up so completely in their face, leading him to accusing them of insulting him in his brother’s home, then asking if they stole anything. And fuck that last one still hurt.... Even as they sit there they feel their shoulders tense at the thought that somehow that’s what they’ve turned into in his mind’s eye, and once again they’re forced to reconsider just how welcome they really were in this space of his. 

“You don’t have to eat that,” they say suddenly, without thinking, as they glance over to him, “I should have asked first.”

[aurorcaro]

location: julián’s apartment

time: sunday following anniversary party

status: closed to @jdelacruz​

When their telekit first buzzed that morning they had to be honest, the last person they expected to find a message from was Julián. After their run-in the night before they figured the conversation wouldn’t extend much beyond how far it’d already gone. After a night to sleep on things they expected both of them would fall into their old routine again of subtle avoidance. After a decade of that same routine in one form or another, it was almost hard to believe that anything would change.

Yet here they were, knocking on the door to Julián’s apartment, a plastic bag in one hand filled with two take out containers from the diner across the street from their own apartment, and a drink carrier with two coffees in it in the other. They’re actually not even sure if Julián has had breakfast yet or not, but they were raised with the concept that hard conversations were best had with comfort food and at a kitchen table or counter or some kind, so here they were.

When the door opens they extend the coffee out towards him, as close to a peace offering they could probably get.

“Figured you hadn’t had a chance to eat yet.”

[aurorcaro]

[incoming telekit message] Corporal Julián de la Cruz: You might as well come over here. I'll send you my address.

See you in a few then. 

[aurorcaro]

[incoming telekit message] Corporal Julián de la Cruz: Late, but fine. No worse for wear. We can talk, if you want to talk, or we can forget about it, too, it you'd rather.

We probably should. 

Talk that is. 

How’d you prefer to do it?