am I coming out of left field?

Fitzwilliam Burke, formerly of Surrey, current expat and corporal in the MACUSA Eastern Squad, he/him current case(s): Vanishing Sickness in the Everglades The Murder of Lord Darley Missing Witch in East Harlem points: 485

[fitzwilliamburke]

aurormolina‌:

“Nope,” they chime, trying their best to act as though everything was perfectly normal as they return to their seat at the kitchen table. Curling up their legs underneath them, they reach out for the steaming cup of coffee in front of them, taking a steady drink of it to help calm the nerves still jittering just under the surface. 

“Well I guess it’s a good thing this just finished brewing,” Liu smiles as he hands Fitz a mug of what Jo can only assume to be tea. It’s just then that they realize they’ve been drinking something prepared by someone who they now know is linked to these deaths. Looking down at the coffee in their hand, they grimace slightly, hoping their gut was right about Liu and they just hadn’t inadvertently drank some kind of poison concocted by the magizoologist. 

“So what all do you have planned for today?” Liu asks as he returns to the stove to finish cooking breakfast.  Jo looks over at Fitz as the question hangs in the air, taking the moment while Liu’s back is turned to shoot their partner a worried expression. 

“Um I think we’re going to go back and talk to a couple of our suspects again”, they reply, “maybe you’ve heard of them? Their names are Donald Bondurant and Sylvia Lamore?” 

He takes the tea from Liu, and if he had any other way of getting tea in this place, he would probably treat it with a certain level of uncertainty based on what they’ve just discovered. But if Liu had wanted to kill him, he had ample opportunity the night before, and as far as he can tell, it doesn’t seem like Liu has any idea of what they’ve discovered, and so he begins to drink it anyway, needing something in his system to get him through what is certain to be a terrible, horrible day. 

     “Of course I have,” Liu answers, nonchalantly, not even looking up from the pan he has on the stove. “Well, you know small towns, everyone knows everyone. Good luck, with Bondurant -- I can’t imagine voluntarily going to talk to him more than once. Sylvia, though, she’s a good woman. A good friend. It’s a shame to hear she’s tangled up in something like this. I’ve never seen her mean anyone any harm.”

So Liu was friends with Sylvia, then. And yet, not surprised to hear Jo refer to her as a suspect... Fitz, with all his heart, wanted to be able to arrest the crazy swamp-man, and yet something about Liu’s nonchalance regarding Syliva’s involvement seemed to indicate otherwise. Seemed to indicate that Fitz’ first instinct from the beginning of the case, it’s always the widow, was right after all.

     ‘It is a shame. And did you know about the pregnancy?’ he asks, intentionally leaving vague the context of the information Bondurant had given them the day before, trying not to lead Liu into any information he might not actually know. 

[fitzwilliamburke]

frankbarnes‌:

The manor looks- well just exactly as one would think a haunted manor hidden from time would. Almost completely covered in vines, Frank could almost see how the former owner could have overlooked it if it weren’t for the shear size of the place. Looking up at its imposing structure, he lets out a shaky breath, his uncertainty over the case growing more. Feeling Fitz’s shoulder brush against his as he lingers beside him, he doesn’t even need to ask him if he feels the same. He’s just about to mention that maybe they should try to find a second assisting to accompany them on the case when suddenly the front door opens, revealing who Frank can only assume to be Horatio Quell. As Fitz steps forward, he subtly brushes his hand against Fitz’s, a quiet reminder that he was in this with him, no matter where it took them. 

“Ah, good you have finally arrived,” Quell greets, extending his gloved hand for Fitz to take before repeating the same action to Frank. “And we haven’t a moment to waste I’m afraid. It appears things are much more serious than I first expected.” 

“And how is that?” Frank asks from behind Fitz, stepping up to stand beside him again. 

“I’ll have the girls explain it to you, they’re just inside, here follow me,” he answers, and quickly turns back to the front door, ushering the two aurors in as he holds it open for them. 

Not being the lead on this, and to be honest, not really knowing himself what to do, he looks over to Fitz, waiting to follow his lead. 

He follows Quell into the building with as much confidence as he can muster -- he knows, after all, that the second he lets himself show anything but the utmost confidence, he won’t be able to trick himself into continuing on, to convince himself that he isn’t apprehensive about the whole thing. 

The inside of the mansion looks just as dilapidated as the outside, though as he takes a look around, waiting for Quell to introduce him to the owners, he notices that there are already signs of it being fixed up: a few rags float overhead, cleaning dust and grime off the window panes in the front hallway, and a rafter is being repaired overhead. Even in the midst of all of this investigating, it seems, the couple is determined to restore the house so that they can move in. Which makes Snow’s simple just get them to leave the house bloody well alone and burn the damned thing a little more difficult than Fitz was hoping for.

     “Sorry for the mess,” a voice says, and Fitz looks down from the ceiling to find the two young women standing in front of him now, one slim and with the haunted look that comes from having a rather gaunt face, and the other -- the one who had spoken -- rather more cheerful, round-faced, smiling in his direction.

     “Corporal Burke, Corporal Barnes, this is Virginia Mills and Marjorie Hayes,” Quell introduces them, and Fitz quickly shakes both of their hands before stepping aside to let Frank do the same. 

     ‘Lovely place you’ve got here,’ Fitz says, continuing his scan around the place. ‘I see you’re working on the restoration. How has that been going?’

[fitzwilliamburke]

aurormolina‌:

Jo nods their head in response to his suggestion, if they let Liu in on what they’d discovered they might not ever be able to get the truth out of him. From everything they’d seen from the man, his number one priority had been ensuring the safe capture of the hornets, and his arrest would squash all hopes of such. Looking down at the wrinkled slips of paper they go to take it before stopping their hand just above it. If they put them back in the bin where Fitz had found them it would help make sure Liu’s suspicions wouldn’t arise, then again they could lose the one piece of evidence they had should the magizoologist destroy it for good before they figure this mess out.

Looking up towards Fitz they try to get a read on his thoughts before muttering a breathless “Fuck it”, and quickly pocketing the damning evidence into their back pocket, hoping the choice wouldn’t come back to bite them later on. “Okay, so we play this cool then,” they reaffirm with a sigh, “test the waters to see if he’s close enough to either Lamore or Bondurant for them to know he had the hornets in the first place.” 

If he denied knowing either of them well, they were going to be back at square one. If given the time and opportunity they suppose they could try to sniff out some evidence of either suspects around Liu’s property, that was if he ever gave them the opportunity…. Letting out another shaky breath, they head back towards the door, opening it just a crack to see Liu’s back turned to the two of them, still cooking breakfast by the looks of it. 

“You ready?” they ask as they turn back towards Fitz. 

Half of him isn’t sure there is a way to be ready for this. He’s still startled, from the realization that, no matter what Jo says about it being unlikely that Liu is behind it all, they might be accepting the hospitality of a murderer. Staying in his home, eating his food. Sleeping in his bed, in Fitz’s case, among other things. He’s not exactly squeamish about murder, but there’s something particularly grim about the widowmakers, the fact that the vanishing sickness has spread past what might’ve been an initial target to so many people in the village, something Liu as a scientist certainly would have known to expect. 

The other half is a steady thrum of resignation at the back of his mind. Of course he couldn’t just have fun for a night without it turning into this -- not after the chaos with Bondurant the evening before, not after every unpleasant reminder of the decisions that brought him here. Fitz wasn’t destined to have fun affairs with nice men that ended amicably, no -- it seemed the destiny of his love life was to continue to be as tumultuous as it had always already been.

     ‘Sure,’ he sighs, giving them a nod. ‘Suppose I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.’

He’s tempted, walking out of the bedroom behind Jo, to just let them take the lead for this discussion, but he also knows that it will be suspicious if he doesn’t say anything, especially after his panicked summons a few minutes before.

     ‘Misplaced my damned cigarettes,’ he says, as he exits the room, doing his best to fake his normal light, jovial tone. ‘Thought I was losing my mind. Can’t be trusted to do anything before I’ve had my tea, can I, Jo?’

[fitzwilliamburke]

frankbarnes‌:

He nods along as Fitz goes over the plan, recollecting the various contents of the case file as he does. When he’s finished the bed is bare again, and the file in question has found a new residency on his nightstand. “Yeah, that’s what Snow said anyway. I guess Quell is going to meet us there, so that should help us out, since he’s already done his own digging into the manor’s history.” 

He wasn’t expecting this case to be an easy one, not with still so many strange and bizarre questions still circling around it. Still though, he’s glad that for once the case that will occupy the two’s time for the next week isn’t that of their usual one. 

Returning to his original spot seated next to Fitz, he looks over at him expectantly for a moment, the hint of a playful grin fighting its way across his features. “So…” he draws out, “do you have any plans until then?” 

     time: Monday morning, just past 9      location: just outside Cooke Manor

He and Frank hadn’t talked about the case for the rest of the weekend, though they’d spent just about all of it together -- all but that morning, when Fitz had apparated back to his own flat to have a shower and get dressed, to get his things together before they were set to meet Quell at the Manor. 

But now that he was stood in front of the house itself, a sense of dread and uncomfortable anticipation raising gooseflesh across his arms-- or was it just the New England chill, colder than he would have expected this late into the spring-- he was beginning to wish that maybe they had. Maybe he’d been too cavalier, assuming that he could handle this just like any other case, despite the unusual supernatural elements.

He finds himself standing closer to Frank than he ordinarily would, like his presence, or maybe just his body heat, could chase away the uncomfortable cold. And he finds that when a man exits the house, walking towards them with a hand raised in greeting, he doesn’t want to move away, can barely summon the courage to.

     ‘Quell, I assume?’ he asks, finally, when he knows he’s got no other choice, striding forward to meet the man’s offered handshake. ‘I’m Corporal Burke, and this is Corporal Barnes. Thanks for meeting us so early.’

[fitzwilliamburke]

frankbarnes‌:

Shifting closer to where Fitz sat on the edge of the bed, Frank looks down at the file over his shoulder, none of it he hadn’t read before, but he was curious to see what Fitz had thought of the same pages. He ultimately comes to the same possible outcomes he had thought of himself when he read the file hours ago. The real question though was how were they going to be able to find out which it was though, a case of mistaken location, or something more nefarious in nature. 

“Maybe…,” he begins the thought still forming in his mind, “maybe, we should try to just solve his murder like he wants us to- carefully of course. If he really is who he says he is, we should be able to figure that out in a murder investigation, if not, then we’ll have a better idea of who or what we’re dealing with here.” It was a bit more on the risky end, playing into whatever game this spirit had up his sleeve, but it could give them the answers they were looking for one way or the other. 

“Have you had much experience in haunting cases?” he asks suddenly. The few he had were nothing to write home about, all simply taken care of in an afternoon with the help of a medium. None of them even close to the likes of Lord Darley and the mysterious Cooke Manor. He’d grown used to feeling a bit in over his head though with the cases he’d been getting lately, these were federal cases after all, if they were easy then the local divisions wouldn’t have given them up. 

     ‘Next to none, really,’ he answers, but Frank’s plan isn’t far off from the one that had been forming in his mind. Whatever was strange about this case, it was also just another case, another problem to be solved. If he stepped back from the weirdness, from the unsettling strangeness that surrounded it, from the curse breaker and the mansion appearing out of nowhere and the lack of evidence, it was just a murder, really -- or, at least, just like any other murder case: as likely to be a murder as to not be one.

Everything he’d come across had human explanations, human motivations. It was why he was good at his job. A ghost lying to you wasn’t all that different from any living wix lying to you: there would be a motive, there would be evidence, there would be some driving force underlying it all that would make things make sense as soon as you found it. When he thought about it that way, his unease about hauntings and the like seemed to abate. He only hoped it would do the same once he was actually in the mansion, face to face with the alleged ghost. 

     ‘I think that sounds like a good plan. See what we can do about solving the murder and keep an eye out for why he might want us to solve a murder, if there wasn’t really a murder at all. We leave first thing Monday?’

[newblogisjacindaelena]

 andre govia

[fitzwilliamburke]

fawnward‌:

Something flashed hot in her stomach at his comment – she couldn’t help but think about Frank. Was that just pretending? Her guard shivered and grew a few more feet. “Right,” she agreed, teeth nipping at the “t” sound. “Well, I guess we’ll see.” She tipped her eyes to the street-sign and really tried to swallow her ill-will. Her personal feelings had no room here, on the case. And, even still, those feelings were entirely unfounded. Burke shouldn’t have to deal with her bullshit.

Blowing out a noisy exhale, she met his eyes languidly. “The boy is just around the corner, yeah?” She had looked up the address already, scrawled in the margin’s of the file, and was sure that Burke knew it as well. But it was something to ask that was easy and simple.

A girl was missing. She just had to remember that. They had a job to do – find the girl. Or, at least, make sure that there wasn’t anything dangerous going on. If this ended up being some kind of soppy Romeo and Juliet teenage love story, Fawn was willing to just walk away from it.  Even if there were Rappaport implications. That was a parent’s job, not an auror’s. Heading off in the direction of the Lehman residence, Fawn shook her head a little. “I almost hope this was just some stupid teenager running away from home or something.”

Maybe, if that was the case, they could wrap up quickly and Fawn could go back to avoiding the situation like she so desperately wanted.

He felt strange, tense. On his guard, in a way he ordinarily didn’t. He didn’t like it, whatever it was that had infected the air in between them. He needed a drink, maybe, to clear the air, or at least to clear his head. He’d been drinking, after all, the other night, when they’d got on so well; maybe they both needed to be drinking to get along. Not that that’d get them very far with this case...

     ‘I’ll be surprised if it’s not,’ he said, knocking on the door and then moving to stand back, hands in his pockets. ‘People ought to stop being surprised that their dated laws have started causing more trouble than they’re worth.’

Just then, the door creaked open, just enough to see the woman who stood beyond, an older no-maj woman in a housedress, cigarette between her lips, a stern frown on her face as she waited, expectantly, for one of them to explain their presence. 

     ‘Mrs. Lehman?,’ he said, as soon as the creaking had passed, his voice a damn good convincing Midwestern accent, all traces of English gone from his voice and replaced with a soft and polite sounding drawl. ‘I’m Detective Hamish Simeon. I was hoping we could speak to your son, David?’

     “About what?” she snapped, her voice impatient.

     ‘Ahh, I’m afraid I’m not exactly at liberty to say, ma’am.’

[fitzwilliamburke]

frankbarnes‌:

He lets out a quiet groan of protest when he feels the bed move beneath him, signaling the break they’d taken was now over and they had to move on to their other matter to attend to that evening. Sitting up, he uses one hand to move the sheet up over his lap as as he rubs the sleep out of his eyes from the other. “Yeah basically,” he nods, smiling to himself briefly at the thought that this was now the pillow talk he was going to have to be getting used to- ghosts, and murders, and weird mansions that defined the laws of physics. 

“But that’s the thing though, there’s no record of the guy having ever lived there, or ever existing at all for that matter. Sure it’s not like they were exactly keeping great census records at the time, but there would have been at least a newspaper article or something on the murder if there had been one.” 

Leaning over his bed to where his wand lay within its holster on the floor, he grabs it and gives it a quick flick in the direction of his open doorway, the file in question soon hovers its way into the room and onto the end of the bed. Flipping it open he hands Fitz the case summary laying on top. “There’s a cursebreaker that’s been looking into it since the beginning, and he’s not so convinced Darley is who he says he is either,but if he isn’t though, then I’m not sure why the whole murder mystery plot. It’s weird.” 

He takes a seat on the edge of the bed, cigarette in hand, and listens for a moment as Frank explains the case, flips through the file absently as Frank hands it to him. He, as a rule, excels at cases guided by the whims of human nature -- jilted lovers, scorned exes, revenge and greed and everything that comes with it. That’s where he’s always been most comfortable, with break ins and murders and missing persons grounded in human emotions. Cases where the thing that needs figuring out revolves around strange occurrences and magic, as such, have never been his forte. Or at least, not his comfort zone. 

So the murder mystery of the ghost of a man who never existed, or at least was never murdered, appearing in a house that ought not to exist either, isn’t exactly the kind of case he’s used to taking on willingly. He takes a moment to read a bit further, with a bit more attention than he’d given it before, before responding. 

     ‘Well, it seems to me like there are two options,’ he starts, slowly, and then takes a drag of his cigarette before going on. ‘Either: this Lord Darley belongs somewhere else and somehow mistakenly ended up trapped in the wrong manor, or Lord Darley isn’t who he really is.’ Why a ghost would be faking his identity was beyond Fitz but... well, no, actually, it wasn’t beyond Fitz: there were probably several perfectly good reasons a ghost might be faking his identity. It was just a matter of finding them.

[fitzwilliamburke]

aurormolina‌:

They fall silent as he hands them the two small halves of paper, the two fateful words scribbled across each half. They don’t say anything at first, they can barely even think straight let alone voice anything that’d be of any help at the moment. They’re not sure how long they stare at the two slips of paper, hoping if maybe they read them just one more time they could come up with a reasonable explanation. No matter how many times they do though, the outcome always ends up the same. 

“But I don’t get it,” they shake their head, “he’s a magizoologist, he clearly is concerned for their safety, why let them loose only to end up having to fight tooth and nail just to get them back again?” No matter their feelings towards Liu, it truly didn’t make sense to them from a magizoologist’s point of view, the hornets were invasive they didn’t belong in the swamps of Florida, where not only they’d kill off the locals, but the native animals- native animals Liu had spent his life’s work studying and protecting. 

“Maybe he did buy them, well obviously he bought them,” they sigh, as they place the slips of paper down on the dresser nearby, “but I don’t think he released them. We know he’s wanting to send them to some reserve, maybe that was always his plan? To buy them off the black market, save them from that fate, then to ship them elsewhere?” They weren’t sure if what they were saying made any sense at all, or seemed like they were just grasping at straws, but they sure as hell hoped they were right. 

“Maybe Bondurant got wind that he had them and released them? Or Ms. Lamore after she heard her husband knocked up another woman?”, there was really only way to find out, they knew that, but that didn’t make the thought any easier. “We’re going to have to ask him, he must have some idea what happened to them after they left his care.” 

    ‘Or maybe I just slept with a murderer, Jo, using the whole magizoologist thing as a cover to convince us of exactly that. It never even occurred to us to ask if he had any connection to any of the victims.’ His voice hinged on hysterics, as he spoke, audible even through the low whisper, but even he didn’t fully believe himself as he said it. Jo was right, it didn’t make any sense: his concern about the hornets, during their conversation in the boat, had seemed so sincere, and he really had been fighting hard to keep them from being destroyed. Why would he put them in harms way?

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down, trying to convince himself that they were right. Bondurant seemed like the type creepy enough to break in and release the hornets, and if Liu was felt responsible for their accidental release, it made sense that he would be concerned about their safe capture. Still, the rational part of him was outweighed by the panic that had set in, and he found it hard to think practically for a moment. 

     ‘No, it’s fine, you’re right. I’m sure there’s a rational explanation. We should see what connection, if any, he has to both of them, see if he seems suspicious at all. We should certainly not, under any circumstances, let him know we found that--’ He pointed to the order form. If they took it for evidence now, would Liu notice it missing from his waste bin? Would he be able to distract Liu, keep him out of the bedroom for long enough that it went unnoticed? Its mere existence seemed to indicate that he wouldn’t remember it was there in the first place, but still, it was a risk...

[fitzwilliamburke]

aurormolina‌:

When they wake up the next morning, to a room that is as empty as when they first walked into it the night before, they can’t stop the wide grin that sweeps across their face. They knew they were going to get the two men together somehow during the week, but never did they think they’d manage it the first night. Rolling out of the small cot Liu had set up for them, they change into a fresh pair of clothes before heading back towards the kitchen, where they are immediately met with Liu, the coffee pot brewing quietly in the corner as he gathers the needed ingredients for breakfast. They could really get used to this, they think to themself as they plop down into a chair at the kitchen table, living out in the swamps, going off on adventures only to come home to homemade meals by some dashing magizoologist. It was a good thing Liu was a dude, or they’d probably never leave. 

With Fitz still asleep, the talk between the two of them quickly veers in to both of their interested fields of study. For once though, it’s not Jo asking the questions, but rather Liu, curious to know more about the affliction that was still so largely unstudied in their field. 

“So then even when not transformed, you still hold some of the wolf’s natural instincts? Do you find they fluctuate depending on the lunar cycle as well?” 

“Um, yeah for the most part”, they nod, before taking a sip of the steaming cup of coffee in their hands, “Like in the week leading up to a transformation, my appetite increases to that typical of an animal that size. And I have more pent up energy as a result. Then right after a transformation I usually just sleep for the next couple days, I’m so wiped out.”

“Fascinating, and so-” Liu begins, but is cut off by the sound of Fitz’s voice as he call out from his bedroom. The two look at each other for a moment over the table, both clearly trying to figure out just what was going on. “Is he alright?” He finally asks, and nearly goes to stand up to check himself. Normally Jo would have let him, but something tells them, that whatever Fitz needed, it was for their ears only. 

“No, no, it’s alright.” they motion for him to stay as they get up, “he probably just like, forgot his hairbrush or something, and is too shy to come out”, they laugh with a roll of their eyes, trying to sell the lie more. Popping their head back into the spare room, they grab their bag before heading towards Liu’s room. 

“Hey, what’s up babe?” they ask as they slip into the room, shutting the door behind them when they take a look at Fitz’s distressed state. They were going to make some joke about him needing more anti-hornet salve/lube, but the look on his face tells them now was far from the time for it. “Is everything alright?” 

He spends a moment, as he waits for Jo, putting the torn halves together along the tear and the pulling them apart again, like doing one or the other will reveal that there’s a mistake, that the form doesn’t actually say what he thinks it says. But, of course, nothing changes. 

It’s sloppy, he thinks, is the worst part of it. Unless someone is framing Liu with this, and badly, it just seems so careless, knowing that you’ll be inviting aurors into your home, to not destroy the evidence more thoroughly. That’s almost enough to convince him that it’s a frame job, that Liu’s just an innocent pawn. But he thinks back to what Jo had said, about Bondurant not being able to work alone, needing someone to assist that was smart enough to know how to handle the hornets without getting themself stung... and the picture of Liu and Bondurant working together starts to clarify in his head. It makes sense, except that he doesn’t know enough about Liu to know why Liu would do it. 

 When Jo slips into the room, he’s already speechless again, and so instead of answering their question, he wordlessly hands them the two halves of the form, takes a moment of them looking at it to find his voice again. 

     ‘Please, tell me this isn’t what I think it is,’ he croaks, his face going pale just at the prospect of having to say it out loud. 

[fitzwilliamburke]

fawnward‌:

If she examined her feelings honestly (not one of her most favorite pastimes), Fawn would have to admit that she was dreading this case with Burke. And when she was finally able to confront why that was… Well. It came along with more examination of feelings, and confrontation of certain feelings. All ending with Fawn ignoring the whole thing, having one or two too many glasses of whiskey, and then going to bed.

But now the day had come and she had to meet Burke out in East Harlem. At least there was a different identity in her pocket. Someone else she could slip into for a little while. Detective Flora (haha, very fun, Snow) Wheeler. With a sigh, she came upon the corner she was meeting Burke on. He greeted her and she nodded once in return. “‘Lo,” she muttered back, eyes skipping down to her feet. East Harlem, too, was a useful place for this – full of bustle and sounds and smells. It reminded Fawn, in some way, of the commune, with Trip. Life and community.

Tipping her eyes back to Burke, she jutted her chin toward the badge in his hand. “You’ll be able to play a convincing NoMaj, yeah?”

He had expected, when Fawn showed up, to be greeted with the same pleasantly agreeable woman he’d gone on a hunt for the bar with at the President’s Gala -- easy conversation, a fairly no-nonsense and low-drama approach to getting their case solved. He’d heard good things about her work as an auror. But when she approached, he could already feel a difference, one he couldn’t account for.

Something about her greeting was cold -- and maybe she was just tired, or overwhelmed, but he suddenly felt a lot less certain about whether or not she’d be amenable to letting the case run cold intentionally if they happened to come across a missing person who didn’t want to be found. 

Either way, he reassured himself, he was lead on this case. If he had to make a call she didn’t like, well, at least he had some of the authority to do so. 

     ‘I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how good I am at pretending,’ he replied, slipping the badge back into his breast pocket. Frankly, he didn’t appreciate the insinuation: he’d been working as an auror for just as long as she had, if not longer. He’d worked his fair share of cases with no-maj involvement. Sure, he was a pretty face and a pureblood, but that didn’t mean he was an idiot. 

[fitzwilliamburke]

frankbarnes‌:

It’s hard to describe exactly the way he feels as he watches Fitz collect the case file, the same one that he’d once spent months obsessing over, hunting down dead-end lead after lead, until finally he tucked it away for the sake of his own well-being. It was almost like coming up for air in a way, after years of the case weighing down on him, now to finally try to right the wrong with the person he’d wronged the most. It won’t undo what he’s done, he knows this guilt is one he’ll carry for long past this night, but it makes it easier to bear. 

His eyes follow Fitz’s to the other case file on the table, the documents within it more crisp and clean than the other, barely touched by the hands of time. He doesn’t think he’s ever quite had a case like it, the haunting cases he had in Missouri were few and far between, and nothing like the peculiar nature of the events at Cooke Manor. At the moment though, he doesn’t quite feel up to the task of pouring over yet another case file, not after the emotional weight of the last one. 

Fortunately Fitz seems to be of similar mind, although a bit more in the gutter than his was, but that was common for the two of them. Just as common as the small grin that hooks the corner of his lip at the suggestion. “No,” he shakes his head, “I’m free all weekend.” Free to do what exactly he leaves for Fitz to interpret on his own. 

It’s a few leisurely and enjoyable hours later, when Fitz finally decides he’s up to the task of talking about the new case they’re meant to head out on, come Monday. And while he’d rather spend the entire weekend in Frank’s bed, not thinking about anything in particular, he also knows that they’ve got a job to do -- just because he’s got a new lead on the case he’s been working on for his entire career, and just because he’s got a warm and rather handsome body in the bed next to him doesn’t mean he gets to be a shoddy auror all of a sudden. There’s work to be done.

     ‘Alright,’ he says, after a while, rolling over to press a kiss to Frank’s bare chest before pushing himself up out of bed and pulling on the spare robe he’s started keeping at Frank’s apartment. He pulls his telekit out of the pocket of his abandoned trousers, too, finds himself a cigarette. ‘So: Cooke Manor. Fill me in.’

He’d had a cursory glance at the case file before coming over, but he knew Frank had paid it more mind than he had -- he’d been distracted, after all, by the prospect of having to relive his past all evening. 

    ‘Mysterious mansion appears out of nowhere, occupied by a ghost asking for his murder to be solved. That’s the gist of it, right?’

[fitzwilliamburke]

aurormolina‌:

Jo stays remains for the most part quiet during their meal, not because of what happened with Bondurant, but because of what was currently happening between their partner and the charming magizoologist. They can’t believe they’d once thought they’d have to do a bit of work in getting the two together, after seeing how naturally the two seemed to get along. 

Every once in a while, between mouthfuls, they’d shoot Fitz a knowing looking, and if Liu had seen them, he never commented on it. Instead his attentions stayed mainly focused on Fitz, except for the one time he asks Jo if they’d like a beer as well, before teasingly questioning if they were even of legal age as he hands them the sweating bottle. 

When Fitz steers the topic away from that day’s investigation, they’re silently grateful for it, not quite wanting to relive their time with Bondurant quite yet. After the day they had they were more than content with just enjoying the night ahead of them, hopefully with a room all to their own, which was looking to become more and more of a sure deal as dinner began to come to an end. 

“Fair enough,” Liu nods with a grin, “I can show you around some more tomorrow if you want. Maybe take you out to some of the hives I’ve managed to capture and secure safely, that is if you feel up to venturing out into the swamps again.” 

With their mouth still full, Jo looks expectantly at Fitz, grinning around the swells of their full cheeks. 

It’s not too much longer before all three of their plates are cleared, and Jo begins to get the hint that they were more and more becoming the third wheel in this little get together of their’s. After finishing off what remained of their second beer they stretch their arms, and feign a yawn that didn’t seem all that convincing, but did the trick regardless.

“Okay, guys,” they smile as they get up from the table, “I think I’m gonna turn in, big day and all. You get the deal.” They add, shooting yet another smirk in Fitz’s direction before heading towards the door of the spare room Liu had pointed out to them earlier. Sing-songing a quick “Goodnight” in the two’s direction, Jo soon disappears behind the door, leaving the men to themselves, hopefully until morning. 

Liu is up first, in the morning, already in the kitchen making coffee by the time Fitz manages to roll over and pull himself out of bed. A very comfortable bed, despite the sticky Florida heat, only exacerbated by another warm body next to him. He can hear Jo up, too, out in the kitchen and talking to Liu, that kind of youthful morning energy that Fitz hasn’t been able to summon in a long, long time. 

He’d stay here all day, if he could, lounging in the aftermath of a good evening and an even better night, but there’s an investigation to continue, he knows, and he could use a shower, slick with sweat already, the way you can only be in this close proximity to a swamp, and so he rolls out of bed and grabs his robe from the bag he’d thankfully not bothered to put away in the guest room yesterday. 

First, he thinks: tea, there’s got to be tea in this house somewhere. Tea, then shower, then back to the investigation. Jo had been right about Bondurant not being smart enough to operate alone without getting himself killed, so they’ll need to look for an accomplice, someone else involved who might be. He takes a tissue from the box on the bedside table, to wipe the sweat from his face, make himself presentable, drops it in the bin on his way out the door--

And stops, dead in his tracks, spotting a folded piece of paper, torn in half, atop the bin. An order form of some sort from the looks of it, and he has a bad feeling about what’s written on it. He picks it up, delicately, as if it were a volatile potion about to explode, and has to close his eyes for a moment before he reads what’s written on it.

     Widowmaker Hornets.

     ‘Er, Jo?’ he calls, but his voice comes out weak, faltering with the surprise of it all. It’s too early in the morning for this. He clears his throat, tries again. ‘Jo, I need, ah-- something from your bag. Could you come here?’

[fitzwilliamburke]

frankbarnes‌:

He can’t stop himself from looking back down at the drawing, continually making sure that it was in fact the same one inked across Lobo’s arm. After sixteen years of collecting dust in his trunk, it seemed nearly impossible that now he’d finally gotten a break in the decade and a half old case, yet here it was. Fitz’s words only confirm his own suspicions, and he replies back with a nod. Lobo wouldn’t have been in the gang at the time of the murder, from everything he’d heard about the auror he was only gone for about six years before reappearing in the squad again with his new collection of gang tattoos. But still, he could at the very least lead them in some new direction. 

“Lobo has to know something,” he replies, “I have some general descriptions of the men as well, maybe he might recognize one of them? Or at least point us in the direction of someone who could?” It was worth a try, anything was with a case as cold as this one. 

They’ll need to take care of this Darley matter first, given the still very alive wixes living in the house, but once they were finished with that bit of nasty business, there was nothing stopping them from diving head first into whatever lead Lobo could give them. 

“We’ll need to head to the manor Monday morning, but we could track down Lobo afterwards. How does that sound to you?” 

He nods and then reaches a hand out to take the file -- the images of the tattoos, everything else that Frank had collected. It’s going to be a delicate task trying to explain the situation to Lobo without giving too much away: the last thing he wants is for the other man to know his entire sordid history, everything he’s spent eleven years in the department doing his best to keep under wraps and out of the rumor mill, not to mention the complications that might come with someone else looking over all of the evidence. But he’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it.

Frank’s right, after all: they’ve got a case in front of them that hasn’t gone cold to work through first, a mysterious re-appearing mansion, the ghost of a murder that was never committed, and a young couple who had, apparently, been trying to get someone to come out and take the case for months. It’s delicious, the kind of case Fitz would normally let absorb him completely, and it’s only a matter of poor timing that he finds himself reluctant to move on to the other file on the table, finds it hard to focus his energy on the trip to New England Monday morning and strange investigation bound to take place once they’re there.

     ‘You’re right, of course,’ he says, setting the old case file to the side. ‘I’ll talk to Lobo once we’ve wrapped this up. And as for Cooke Manor...’

He glances at the second case file, means to move to pick it up, but he finds it hard to summon the energy, or the will, to do it. It’s just today, he thinks, just the fatigue of seeing all those old photographs, of dredging up the past. He’ll be able to throw himself fully into the case once he’s had a break, once he wakes in the morning with a fresh start.

     ‘Well, we haven’t got to go over it now, have we?’ he continues, letting his voice tip its way over into suggestive as he reaches for his glass again, finishing off its contents. ‘Feels like we deserve a little time not focusing on work first.’

[fitzwilliamburke]

aurormolina‌:

They’re slightly surprised by the feeling of his hand landing on their shoulder, not having ever seen him as the comforting type. Out of everyone in the office, Janus had always been the one that served as a more mentor figure, and Fitz the source of fun. But they like this version of him, they think to themself, leaning slightly into his touch. Turning their head they look to the hand on their shoulder, then up at him, a warm smile tugging at each corner of their lips. “Thanks.” 

Despite everything that happened at Bondurant’s though, they still weren’t liking him for this. He seemed crazy enough to do it sure, but in order to unleash a swarm of widowmaker hornets you had to be more than just crazy- but smart, less you be stung yourself. And while Bondurant may have been many a thing, they couldn’t quite see him having the wit or resourcefulness to commit such a crime. 

“Without getting vanishing sickness as well?” they ask aloud, “I don’t think so. Besides he seems the type to boast about it if he did do it, as much as I’d like to throw his ass in jail just for being a creep, I don’t think he’s our man. Unless he had an accomplice, but I’m not sure who in their right mind would want to work with him.”

No sooner are the words out of their mouth than the door in front of them clicks open, Liu’s still just as devastatingly handsome face smiling back at them. “Well there you two are, I was beginning to get worried you got yourself lost in the swamp, that or you got carried off by a dragon-gator.” 

Opening the door further, he ushers the two of them, the smell of what Jo immediately recognizes to be grilling ground beef instantly pulling them into the kitchen area. “I’m gonna assume you prefer your burger rare?” Liu chuckles as he watches Jo rush in, obviously having made the connection to their affliction already. 

“Actually raw is preferable, but this will do just fine,” they tease with a grin.

He doesn’t have time to comment on Jo’s assessment of their latest suspect before the door is opening and their host and resident magizoologist is stepping into the conversation, ushering them inside. They’ll talk it over later tonight, he thinks, or maybe in the morning before they start their work for the day. As it is, he’s hot and he’s tired and he doesn’t much want to think about Bondurant at all and, well, now that Liu’s mentioned it, he’s hungry. 

The kitchen smells amazing, the first breath of something that smells like anything other than swamp Fitz has encountered since setting foot in Florida, but it isn’t just that: the home feels cozy, in a way that nowhere else he’s been today has. Not stifling, especially with the sun beginning to set and cutting through the day’s heat, but effortlessly lived in. The kind of place that makes it easy to settle in, comfortably, into a familiar kind of banter -- with Jo, of course, but with Liu as well, as if he hasn’t just met the man this afternoon.

Liu offers him a drink -- a beer, rather than his usual whiskey, but he’s not one to complain. The bottle is cold against his skin, and he makes a place for himself in the kitchen, half giving Liu a hand with dinner and half just easing into his company, the playful flirting that comes with two handsome and interested men sharing a space. By the time dinner’s ready, Fitz is more than half certain that Jo won’t have to worry about sharing the guest room with anyone, and he hates to admit that they were right but, well, they were right. 

     “So, did y’all have any luck with your investigation, today?” Liu asks, casually, once they’ve all sat down to eat, and Fitz can see that Jo’s mouth is already too full to even consider answering.

     ‘I’d say we made some progress,’ he answers for them, sitting back and taking another sip of his drink -- his second beer, now, though they go down more slowly than liquor. ‘I’d hate to bore you with work over dinner, though. Bad habit, for us aurors, to drag all our paperwork with us everywhere we go.’

[fitzwilliamburke]

     location: East 128th Street      time: morning           ( @fawnward​ )

He was considering the forged P.I. license that had come attached to the case file when he received it, while he waited for Fawn to arrive. Detective Hamish Simeon -- that’s who he was going to be, at least to the no-maj boy that the missing girl was supposed to meet, and his family. Maybe, he thought, he’d put on some kind of old-fashioned accent to help him play the part, have a little fun with a case that he was almost certain was going to end up being a wild goose chase trying to find a girl who had simply decided to run away from home.

He had very little interest in chasing down runaways. He’d made his mind up about that already: if they found Stella, and she didn’t want to be found, he’d make something up so that she could stay lost for as long as she wanted. He was an auror, not a dogcatcher, and if she’d really run away it was likely there was a good reason for it. Teenagers didn’t run away for no reason, and when they did, they usually saw reason before federal law enforcement got involved. 

He leaned against the corner of the building he was standing in front of and lit a cigarette as he considered the forged ID in his hands, taking a drag as he finally saw Fawn approaching at a distance.

     ‘Morning,’ he greeted, lifting the cigarette in what was not quite a wave.

[fitzwilliamburke]

frankbarnes‌:

He watches Fitz carefully for a moment, trying to gauge just how much further he wanted to go. He’d gotten the impression that Fitz had been looking into the case for some time before he had brought up the file, but that couldn’t have made it any easier to hear it all rehashed out again now, as he pulled out photograph after photograph of the faces of his past. Reaching his hand out, he goes to grab Fitz’s as he finishes lighting his cigarette, his fingers curling around the palm of his hand.

He continues to question himself on just how healthy this was for either of them, but mostly for Fitz. After being in the division for sixteen years he knew all too well that some cases, no matter how much you dig, or how badly you want to find justice, just never got solved. This case had been one of the first of those for him, having to learn the hard way himself after his lead’s own stern warning on digging any further. It could very well be that all of this dredging up the past would accomplish nothing but push Fitz back into a time it seemed like he’d managed to move on from for the most part.

He nearly considers shutting the file right then and there, but then Fitz looks up to him again, dark eyes boring into, asking him to continue. He could say no, or suggest that maybe this was a bad idea after all, but as he’s already become fully aware of since the first night Fitz came to his apartment, he could never say no when it came to the other auror.

“I did,” he nods, and begins rifling through the file, “One witness managed to draw up a couple sketches of the tattoos she could see. She was a waitress the night of the tournament.” Coming across the small collection of sketches he spreads them out between them, all of them are fairly standard looking all things considered, nothing that stood out to him, some nude pin-ups, the occasional skull and dagger, and then a black wolf or dog of some kind. 

Wait a minute….

As he lays out the last of the collection he freezes, turning the portrait of the black dog in his direction as his eyes widen. Sixteen years ago he’d hadn’t though much of the dog, not able tie it to any particular gang or group he was aware of. But now, as he looks down at the familiar image of the dog in mid run, its eyes a deep shade of red, he realizes its not just any dog or wolf- but rather a hellhound, the same one he’d seen a dozen times since he first was brought into the squad, inked across the arm of one of their fellow aurors. Flipping the image back in Fitz’s direction he looks up at him, mouth slightly ajar at the realization that they’d just inadvertently come across the first break in the case in sixteen years.

Frank’s hand on his steadies him, for the moment that it’s there, brings him back to focus, back to the moment at hand instead of reliving the past. The rough of his fingerprints against Fitz’s palm is calming, easy; he can relax into it the same way he relaxes into the gentle burn of whiskey, a sensation to anchor him in the present, to keep his thoughts from drifting too far, drifting back to the person he’d been when that photograph was taken.

He watches patiently, mildly, as Frank goes through the file for pictures of the tattoos, as Frank spreads them out on the table between them, recounts how he managed to come across them. He lets his eye linger on each one, none of them familiar except in their unremarkability, exactly the kind of tattoos you’d imagine a handful of shady troublemakers who got pissed over gobstones to have on them, like the waitress had just thought shady gang members and drawn the first thing that came to mind--

       Except for that one.

He sees Frank make the realization at the exact same time he does. The hellhound, black and red. The one on Lobo’s arm doesn’t glow like this one does, but he knows enough in passing to know that Black Hellhounds tattoos glow red, when danger is nearby. The likelihood of Lobo happening to know the gang members who were there that night is unlikely, at best, but it’s better than nothing: they know, now, at least, who those men were connected to, what kind of backing they had. 

He knows, now, that they were the kind of men who would’ve been angry enough to do it, and well-connected enough to have the means. 

     ‘Hellhounds,’ he says, looking up from the images on the table.