the morgue guy.

dante velasco 36. pathologist. " oh dear corpse, don't you remember it? the first death is in the heart. "

[dantevelasco]

nikowrynn​:

Niko shakes his head and nods, a bright smile replacing the temporary softness of retrospection. “Will do, boss,” he chirps. Dwelling on sadness, he finds, is never productive. Niko snorts at Dante’s comment. “Oh, man, that’d be the best. I’ve been meaning to get back out west and get some more footage.” The sequel to his pride and joy—the groundbreaking sasquatch documentary that had put him on Blackwolf’s radar—had been under way for several years now and with the footage he already had, it was shaping up to be even grander than the first. “Hey, at least we got that new couch in the break room. It’s a real nap game changer.”

•

While Dante wasn’t really keen on honing in on the weirder parts of work, at least Wrynn had something to focus on on the off days. He just had... work, he guesses. That’s fucking depressing. “Don’t get eaten by Mothra or whatever—you’re not half-bad with the archives. It’ll fucking suck to get anyone else working over there.” A small curve of the lips, and it’s gone in a flash, only to be replaced by surprise about the whole new couch in the break room. It beat disinfecting and sleeping on a morgue slab, that’s for sure. “We’re going to have to keep that couch up to par aren’t we? What’s the throw pillow situation?”

[dantevelasco]

sagehawthorn​:

“and apparently you have to add going to a cult members rally to that list. it will be fine though” sage didn’t expect anything big to happen. a gathering like this with so many people at it seemed far too risky to try anything. and the church had not given them any sign they were unwelcome. at least not yet. “you’d take fighting lessons from me? i’d be honored to teach you to kick butt. i can fight when i need to. i think you’d be surprised.” she smiled.

•

"I’ll be waiting with bated breath, Hawthorn.” The gathering felt way too off, as if the community was far too deep in the Kool-aid to be of any use. Who knows, maybe Harper would slip up, accidentally do an evil monologue and talk about how he’ll something, something, something. Most villain movies do things like that at least. “Maybe our first lesson’ll be how to judo throw a cult leader.”

[dantevelasco]

what-the-fouke​:

“Gruesome.”  There’s just a hint of intrigue in her otherwise flat tone.  “Are those supposed to be mutually exclusive?  Can I vote both?”  Dante looks about one southern drawl from spontaneous combustion.  “Has he actually said what he thinks about the” cult “…church?  And do you need coffee–more coffee?”

A derisive snort comes from Dante, thinking about what poor fucker was going to end up on his morgue slab because of this. “Hell if I know, I don’t talk to anyone, if I can help it. Something about—” He snaps repeatedly, trying to get the words. “Me being too abrasive. Can’t imagine where they got that; I’m a fucking delight.”

[dantevelasco]

alienmarked​:

        ‘  working on it,  ’  gregor replied, pulling the cheap whiskey out of his backpack and topping off the cups, each poured with just enough room left for this purpose,  before handing it over.  ‘  sounds like the reason you  shouldn’t  drink, is the exact reason we’re going to. what’s the deal with evidence anyway  ?  removed or never there or  …  ?  ’

This was going to absolutely exacerbate the migraine he had building up, or knock his ass out for a good few hours. “Incompetence? Conspiracy? Either way, the damn things were missing,” he replied. The thing tasted like burnt Kahlua to him, but it was good all the same. “How ‘bout you, alien man? Anything happen on your end?”

[dantevelasco]

ohnoitsoscar​:

         Oscar cringes away from Dante’s glare like it’s a physical force, but he didn’t get to be on a team of paranormal researchers by always shutting up when he’s told, so he has to venture, “Caffeine can be bad for migraines. Maybe I shouldn’t have given you that coffee.” If he thought he had a chance in hell, he might attempt to take it away from Dante, but that’s… probably not a good idea. It’d end in tears. His own, most likely.

         He knows another glare is coming for merely suggesting that Dante might do something so ludicrous as not inhale coffee like it’s air, so Oscar hurries to continue with: “I could deal with the evidence for you. I can’t– uh, yeah, unfortunately I can’t the autopsy.” Blood already outside the body? Fine, good. Blood gushing from the body? Horrible, bad, awful. “But I could… help? Maybe? So you can take a few hours off?”

"Maybe you shouldn’t have, Doe, but try anything and I’ve still got a scalpel and the morgue.” His face dared him—as a joke of course, but the way he looked, it probably wasn’t coming across well enough. Dante, theoretically, knows that he’ll burn out in a day or two if he kept this up, but his mind already made up the fact that he’ll get his court-appointed five hours later. Maybe he could even hit the snooze button as a treat.

As he asked if he could deal with the evidence, Dante’s eyebrows raised slightly. Frankly, he liked doing the work sometimes, but Doe having to help would halve the time he needed, probably get tot the autopsy faster. That, and he was part of forensics—maybe a fresh set of eyes could help. “The morgue’s an acquired taste, but we’ll get you there soon. Maybe I could get you and Tseng together for something, but—well, the evidence part doesn’t sound horrible, and it beats standing up and cutting a body open.”

[dantevelasco]

ohnoitsoscar​:

         A slight stutter in speech. Unfocused gaze. Eyes closed for a bit too long. It’s a pattern that Oscar’s seen before, and if there’s one thing that Oscar’s good at, it’s patterns. Back in the early days, Oscar had been convinced that this pattern meant Dante was receiving encoded signals through a microchip. But then he got on better medication and now understands that it is merely the onset of a migraine, not anything sinister.

         “Yeah, she didn’t move the whole time, it’s weird,” Oscar agrees, distracted, as he reaches over and flips the light switch off – the morgue goes from near-blinding clinical white to the slightly softer yellow of just natural light. Not as much of an improvement as he’d hoped, only somewhat dimmer. “But, um, I think round two can wait. You’re displaying symptoms,” he says meaningfully, concerned. Scalpels and migraines seem like a really bad mix.

Dante’s eyes stay closed as he drinks from his coffee, and he takes a good long sip before he levels a baleful—no, an absolutely withering glare at Oscar. He isn’t sick, no. That’s the rule: everyone else could stay and rest, but there isn’t any to be found for Dante. He isn’t sick, he didn’t have migraines. He just had “weird hours” that he’d talked to the higher-ups for. Better to let them think he was a cryptid, rather than let them dote over him and make allowances.

The lights, a little dimmer, are at least a mercy, before he starts to speak. “I’m fine.” It’s a lie, one he’s perfectly content to live out just so he can do his job without anyone bothering him. “I’m just—” Dante waves his hand, in the universal language of ‘can’t be bothered to explain anything.’ “But you gave me coffee, we’re talking and I’m standing upright,” he continues, taking another sip, letting the room settle. “Unless you get Tseng to identify a body, deal with the evidence, and perform all my reports, don’t you think it’s a little moot at this point?”

[dantevelasco]

what-the-fouke​:

“It’s what?  Shit.”  He’s right.  She hates this town.  “Who in the-”  Lia catches herself, lowers her voice, “I have notes and xeroxes of parts, but we need to find that…you thinking incompetence or sabotage?”

"They better fucking hope it’s sabotage, because if I find whoever did this, I’m going to eat their liver on the morgue slab.” His jaw clenches, as takes a few breaths. This town was going to kill him on stress alone. “Did the kind sheriff leave a little out, or do you want to sic Ames on ‘em?”

[dantevelasco]

ohnoitsoscar​:

         It’s a good thing that Oscar’s holding two things that he anticipated Dante might ask for – in his right hand is a bloody knife in plastic evidence bag, in his left is a cup of coffee. He offers both. “Looks like this is the murder weapon. There’s fingerprints somebody tried to wipe off. I figured you’d want to take a look, see if it matches the stab wounds.”

         Fifteen stab wounds is a lot. While Oscar has never personally stabbed somebody, he knows it takes strength, and effort. It’s not easy. Doing that fifteen times would be exhausting. That’s either anger, serious anger, or paranormal strength.

         “Yeah, um, there’s–” Oscar glances at Victoria, gaze skittering guiltily away as he thinks about his earlier remarks to Dante, wishing for a more useful crime scene. “I don’t think she moved the entire time she was being stabbed. Everything’s really… centralized. And it looks like there was another person there, not just her and whoever killed her. A third person?”

Another cup of coffee. Doe was learning, and damn if that didn’t endear the man to him, even with the ungodly amount of metal that blared through the lab tech’s space. The coffee was barely passable, but the gesture was nice. It didn’t show on his face, but it never does.

“Put it on the—the table. I’ll get to it when I start round two.” The way the room seemed to focus again wasn’t lost on him, the outset of another migraine threatening to spring forth from his godforsaken head. He closed his eyes for a good, long while. Tomorrow wasn’t going to be pretty; but he just wished it was more irritating than debilitating.

As soon as Doe mentioned a third person, his eyes snapped open. A third person meant there was someone that Picking hadn’t mentioned, another person in on it, or even the mastermind behind it all. “I’d say the conversation turned violent, but look.” He gestures to her hand, cold and dead on the slab. “Nothing under the nails. No sign fighting. Either it was surprise, or she just—I don’t know. Stood there, let them stab her.”

[dantevelasco]

nikowrynn​:

“Took some pictures of the apartment,” Niko says, motioning in the vague direction of his laptop. He scrubs his fingers through his hair and winces. “It was kind of sad, really,” he admits softly. It is always difficult to talk to grieving families—though Victoria had seemed happy to see them, which was better than many. Death is part of the job, he knows, but it’s not the part he signed up for. “Everything looked pretty untouched and nothing really stood out at the time but I’ll forward the images to everyone to see if anyone else can pick something out.”

•

Dante puts a hand on Wrynn’s shoulder, and nods. “Forward it to everyone, sooner than later.” He didn’t know how to comfort him, especially since he’s always known to give him and Doe the widest berth known to man, but it couldn’t hurt to try. A squeeze on the shoulder and it’s off. He could admit that he wasn’t exactly the friendliest character in Blackwolf, but he still had a heart. Just buried under twenty feet of pavement. “Who knows, maybe we can get out of here in a week—get some fucking leave. I’d say I missed my bed, but I think I sleep at Blackwolf more than my apartment at this point.

[dantevelasco]

bvnyip​:

“well, what did she say?” now, she was more focused on hearing of any discoveries made by ingrid than dispute ( or reaffirm ) assumptions made about her colleagues’ performance. even as someone who fumbled through the rehearsed, monotone courteousness demanded from hospitality supervisors, gail saw the value in sprinkling in a bit of tact…. not that dante needed to hear that input. “i-i don’t know. perhaps. but i don’t think he’ll slip that easily. with so many eyes on him, he would probably make sure to keep his case strong until the end. maybe it’s worth looking at others around him too  —  i mean, just look at the manson case.” 

•

"Still has to get back to us, but I’m hoping that it’s something incriminating. God knows we need something to pull us forward.” The first few days always were a lull, something that he hated. No clues, no quotes, nothing that helped anyone, except the dull eeriness that seemed to dog the team everywhere they went. At least the new recruit had a sharp mind, new ideas and new blood and all of that. “Good idea, Tseng; at least we can get the accomplices, get them to point to the mastermind of the whole goddamn thing. Who knows, maybe we can get this done within two weeks. I’ll spring for lunch one of these days if we do.”

[dantevelasco]

ohnoitsoscar​:

@dantevelasco​

         It’s always that much more awful when the victim in the morgue is someone they meet on the case. Oscar didn’t talk directly with Victoria Sato – he’d hidden behind the others when they’d gone to Cynthia’s apartment, mumbled an introduction, and vanished into the scene of the crime pretty quick – but it’s still a shock to peer through the door of the morgue and see her laid out.

         Dante looks calm about the whole thing, but then, Oscar doesn’t exactly expect the guy to weep over dead bodies. He’d probably have lost his job a long time ago if he did that. He creeps hesitantly in, stops about six feet away from the body, and doesn’t look too close at what Dante’s doing or the multiple stab wounds. “Jeez,” he mutters, rubbing at his temple. “That’s brutal. Poor Victoria.”

There are scrawls in his notes about the amount of stab wounds, the way the body was found, notes from the team. Victoria rests there, eyes locked in a deep sleep. Dante’s already said a silent prayer for her, to whatever god, monster or afterlife there was going to be waiting, but right now, another prayer isn’t going to help solve anything. So he goes back to work.

“I count at least fifteen stab wounds, and the knife wasn’t serrated or anything. Punctured lungs, a small fracture on the third rib.” Dante sighs, and takes off the gloves, setting them neatly down on the nearby desk. Oscar, while he didn’t really seek out his company, was a bit of solace in the darkness of the morgue. At least if the body walked or the cult tried anything, he had a witness. “Bad way to go. Is there any progress on your end? A murder weapon or something?”

[dantevelasco]

sagehawthorn​:

“i think i have to go but thank you for making me feel good about going and totally don’t feel like i’m about to be kidnapped.” she sighed. “could be very informative about them all, you should come along too.”

•

“The only thing we have to do is pay taxes and end up in a coffin,” he gestured with his coffee, vaguely pointing at nowhere. The field agents could handle this, and while that meant Sage had to go, he wasn’t exactly pleased about it. “Are you going to teach me how to beat someone up? Because Kimo gave me some combat lessons and I’m interested in what your flower power self has going on.”

[dantevelasco]

@sagehawthorn​—

"So, are you going to the extremely Christian cult vigil? Because I am most definitely staying away from places where I could be kidnapped, and it all seems way too mob-y of them to not do anything with outsiders.”

[dantevelasco]

@what-the-fouke​—

"The fucking—the fucking evidence is gone! Do you know who’s in charge of filing, because I’m going to have to kindly ask them to point me where they keep the actual fucking evidence that could help the investigation.”

[dantevelasco]

@alienmarked​—

"I really shouldn’t drink in this town, but a recent murder with no clues, half-baked confessions and missing evidence really just isn’t good for my mood. Did you get these horrible gas station coffees an Irish makeover or do I need to walk down the street and get stabbed by a cultist?”

[valtsv]

im what the victorians would call a “vile, ill-tempered and thoroughly wretched little creature”

[dantevelasco]

biigfoots​:

               ❛   Hardly pasty or concave,   ❜    Kimo responds easily,   focus still on the papers.    They made a pact not to mention That Event,    so Kimo finds it necessary to defend the honor of his ass out in the open.    It’s perfectly fit like the rest of his body.   He doesn’t skip cardio day. 

    Dante’s words translate directly to    ‘yada-yada… yada…’    in Kimo’s head.   He sighs and leans back in his chair,    letting the report fall on the table to stretch his back.     ❛   I’m going to talk to Mrs. Soto later today,   so what are the findings ?   ❜

There was a response in the back of his mind, but that would mean recalling The Event, so Dante stays silent and dumps the folder, full of bullshit at the offending desk. He feels a migraine coming on, and at least this wasn’t Kimo’s fault. Yet. Dante gives him around an hour.

“Multiple spots of bruising, some few signs of asphyxiation,” he replies, waving his hand around. “Nothing conclusive, nothing good. Nothing that would date the body, no foul play either. No answers yet. Just bad paperwork and the sheriff maybe being on the payroll. Maybe.”