@vengeancedemon replied to your post “[pm] You left a knife here.”:
[user doesn't realize he has messaged the wrong person.]
[pm] What? No, not a butter knife. The one with the tape on the handle. I don't know where you found tape that color, but I know /I'm/ not using anything like that to fix my shit.
[pm] I don't have any knives with tape on the handle!! It's a good idea, and I would do pink if I did put tape on a knife handle, but I don't have any of those. Also [...] what? Aren't you the chinchilla dust denier guy?
@vengeancedemon replied to your post “[pm] You don’t even like pigs, do you? Why would...”:
[pm] [user realizes he sent this to the wrong person, but now he's intrigued.] You want a pig tail to do magic? A normal pig tail?
[pm] Not a normal pig! A happy pig! It has to be happy, it fucks up the potion otherwise. I'm not doing the magic with the pig's tail, it's a component of the potion. Well, I guess it's more like a salve but for alchemical purposes, it's a potion. Most potions are made up firstly with normal ingredients. I mean, technically, there are a lot of ways to make this but this is my granny's recipe. Anyway, the pig's tail is the thing that always trips me up.
[user stops himself. it's a stupid notion, he thinks; what he needs is not anything xóchitl can give him, because xóchitl is kind and gentle and soft and emilio needs something angry and harsh and painful. he takes a shaky breath as he closes out of the message. the air isn't necessary. he takes another, anyway.]
[ Regan’s gift is left beside Jade’s on the porch. It’s in a box that looks like it was wrapped by a t-rex. Inside is a shoebox containing a dead rat Emilio found in the alley outside his apartment on the way over. There is also a note:
TIMING: Current
LOCATION: Axis Investigations
PARTIES: Siobhan (@banisheed) & Emilio (@vengeancedemon)
SUMMARY: Boobs Realperson needs help from Emilio!
CONTENT WARNING: implications of child death, implications of past domestic abuse (child abuse).
PREVIOUSLY: (mentioned) Siobhan Dolan and Ingeborg Endeman teamed up to kidnap and torture Rhett Tangaroa in an abandoned factory, where Siobhan joyously claimed his leg. Emilio Cortez burst on to the scene, bargaining for Rhett's life, ultimately saving him. [ part 1 & part 2 ]
Siobhan strangled someone while Double Indemnity played on his CRT TV once and so, she knew a thing or two about noirs. There was a certain style about them: long trench coats, dark glasses, curling plumes of cigarette smoke and a dame with blonde hair. Though there was no saxophone playing in the background, and her blonde wig left much to be desired, she was sure that Emilio would be none the wiser. She’d gotten the look: she had the coat, she had the hair, she practiced her French accent, her large sunglasses obscured most of her face. And, anyway, Emilio was an idiot.
“Bonjour,” she said. The sniffles and the meek voice were intentional, though aided by the sheer volume of dust around her. Had the building always been like this? Didn’t he have the money to hire a maid by now? Siobhan straightened out her brown coat. “It is moi, Boobs Realperson…” Siobhan had always been terrible with fake names; for all the lifetimes she’d lived, she’d always insisted on using her own. “...we spoke on ze phone? Monsieur Cortez? Are you in?” She tapped her foot. Fates, she hated being French but she’d still take it over being British. Would it be too late to change her accent?
“Seal voos play—” She rolled her eyes. “—it is so scary here and I am a…woman.”
—
The first time he’d been seriously injured on a hunt, he’d been thirteen. It was less than a year out from Victor’s death, and grief made him sloppier than he’d ever been before. He’d had close calls before that one — moments that would have been worse if he’d ducked a heartbeat later than he had, injuries that would have lasted longer if his healing factor weren’t willing to work overtime — but at thirteen, he came the closest to death he ever had at that point in his life. He remembered thinking his mother might worry over him, and then he remembered wondering why he’d thought that at all. She hadn’t, of course; she’d chastised him for his mistake not because the idea of his death nauseated her, but because his injury had left Rosa unprotected in the remainder of the fight. When you make these stupid mistakes, it isn’t just you who suffers. You have a job to do. Why can’t you just do it?
He’d been on another hunt less than a week later, still aching and unsteady. Cortezes didn’t let silly things like near death experiences slow them. And maybe Emilio was a blight on the family name, but he still followed that philosophy. He still had a job to do, still clung to it. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead, but couldn’t he be useful, still?
It was less noble than that. He knew it, deep down. He didn’t want to be useful, he wanted to be distracted. He wanted to think about anything other than the stillness in his chest. He couldn’t be alive, couldn’t claw his way back to a heartbeat, but he could make it so he didn’t have to think about the absence of it. He wanted to forget, needed to. Axis had always been a good method of doing that.
So, when his phone rang, he answered it. He listened to a painfully French woman complain, and he thought, this is good. He thought, this is better. He told her to meet him at his office — the one in Worm Row, the shitty one, the only one he was planning on using now — and he hoped that whatever she brought to his desk would be interesting enough to let him forget he was dead for an hour, or maybe two.
He was in the bedroom when she arrived, sitting on a dirty mattress he no longer needed and staring up at a stained ceiling that had almost grown unfamiliar in his absence. There were new stains there, different ones. He was trying to work out which he remembered when he heard her enter, her voice calling out through the empty apartment. It was familiar; more so in person than it had been on the phone. He didn’t know who it could belong to, but… his recent experience, the case that ended with him dead in a dumpster, had him moving cautiously out to the living room.
“It’s a fucking apartment,” he called out gruffly, irritation clinging to the words. “Don’t have to be nervous about —” He cut himself off as he entered the living room, narrowing his eyes. The wig was bad. The jacket was ugly. The accent, he was realizing, was fake. (How was he supposed to know? He’d never spoken to a French person before.) The name was… one he probably should have clocked, sure. But he’d just died, and everything felt so goddamn heavy all the time.
Still… it was a little embarrassing that it had gotten to this point. He stared at her with a sigh, rolling his eyes. “Get the fuck out of my apartment,” he ordered, fingers itching for a knife. He probably needed to be careful here; he remembered, in the van with Eve, how easily he’d been consumed by rage, how hard it was to control himself after. Control was still a fickle thing, even now. He needed to try not to lose it.
—
Siobhan waddled into the apartment, it was hard to move with all the knives she had in her coat. She didn’t want them to start clanging around, lest Emilio begin to wonder why she sounded like a coin purse. Something was…terribly warm. Under her coat, through her skin, between her ribs, her slow heart hummed. She blinked. Emilio didn’t have a dead body in the apartment, did he? How dare he keep that from her; dead bodies ought to be disclosed at the door. No matter, she was here now and she would liberate the body from Emilio’s grimy clutches. Where was it, exactly? She waddled forward, her wig tipped over. She was being led towards Emilio. She stepped forward again and again, her heels clicking. Eventually, she was facing him. He was telling her to leave. Her heart was singing. Her skin tingled. The concentration on her face broke and her lips twitched. She fell over, laughing wildly.
Siobhan was terrible at fake names and accents and picking wigs, sure, but she’d always had a talent for finding humour in things no one wanted her to find humor in. You couldn’t be an outcast for forty years without learning to laugh a little, or a lot. She threw her head up to the ceiling, clutched her stomach and wheezed with uncontrolled amusement; she was crying. A knife clattered out of her coat and she didn’t care. It was the irony that tickled her most—an undead slayer! Fate did agree with her idea of comedy, or rather, she had always agreed with Fate’s ideas. She threw her mind into Emilio’s and laughed harder; oh, how he must hate himself! Oh, how it must feel to become the thing you hunted! She’d offer all her coat-knives to read his mind just this once. Everytime she glanced at him, her laughter was renewed.
What flavor was he? A vampire? While the funniest option, she couldn’t imagine that he’d allow that to happen and she wasn’t sure it was possible. A zombie? When had he gotten bit? Would he have let it go this far? A mare? Could he have left his dreams so unprotected? No, he didn’t look like he slept. Well, he didn't when he was alive, now he couldn’t sleep even if he wanted to. A fury? It would fit his general sad-angry demeanour. If he was an upior, would he show her how long his tongue was? She wiped her tears and drew her knees to her chest. Her wig had fallen off during their fit of laughter and so she was sure she didn’t need the accent anymore—a small mercy for them both. “Oh, you poor, poor thing,” she said, setting her sunglasses aside. He could keep those, and whatever knives fell out of her, he could call it a Death gift. She stood up and brushed herself off.
It was true that the undead were vile, disgraceful creatures but Emilio had also been that in life. As far as Siobhan was concerned, the only thing that changed was how funny he was, and how much more useless. She snorted and covered her mouth, hoping to stop herself from descending into laughter again. She wanted to insult him; a thousand and one things to say fluttered across her mind. “I suppose you don't want to hear about my treacherous husband anymore, do you?” She wanted to tell him he was a mistake. She wanted to remind him that the thing he was now was the culmination of everything he hated. Yet, she was gathering the sense that he knew these things already. In fact, he must’ve known them better than her. After all, he was the one stuck inside his own corpse, dragging it around.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, “I failed you.” She hadn’t meant to say it; through the laughter and the realization that nothing she could say to him was worse than anything he was already thinking, a truth slipped out. With a banshee in town—with two, even if Regan was as much a banshee as Emilio was currently a slayer—one needn’t develop into a mockery of nature. If a slayer was a fix for an existing problem, a banshee was preventative care; or they could be, should be. If Siobhan had been there, if she’d screamed, if she'd seen it, would she really have offered Emilio a proper death? Siobhan shivered as she tried to imagine herself doing something nice for Emilio.
“Do you want me to finish the job?” Siobhan asked, pulling out a knife. “Or have you got unfinished business?” In truth, she didn’t like killing (could it be called killing?) the undead. For a surety, they needed to go back to Death, but it wasn’t the same as taking a life. What was true—what would always be true—was that something was better than nothing. Some Emilio, no matter how putrid, was still an Emilio. He was himself, whether he liked it or not and from where she stood, it seemed he didn’t like it much. But then again, he’d always seemed miserable to her. “Your next family reunion should be fun.”
—
Back when he’d slept, Siobhan Dolan had been a common feature in his nightmares. It wasn’t the kind of thing he’d share with anyone, least of all Siobhan herself, but in the privacy of his own mind, it wasn’t something he could deny. Siobhan had once been responsible for one of the most harrowing moments of Emilio’s life, had tortured someone he’d loved for days on end for Emilio to find and torn a promise bind from his throat to stop it. Seeing her here, in his apartment during the newest most harrowing time of his life, was not a welcome surprise.
Her laughter made it worse, of course. It cut through him with the same painful force as the blade that had ended his life, shoved itself into his ribcage and shredded everything in his path. The pain of it wasn’t even a useful thing anymore, was it? Pain was a signal sent to the body to warn it of damage, to warn it of something wrong, and what good was that to a corpse? It was as useless as he was. Siobhan’s laughter only drove the point home.
She was on the floor now, the force of her laughter having felled her and torn away whatever flimsy pretense she’d come here with. Gone was the bad wig and the strange attempt at an accent; he wondered how much of it had been a real attempt to fool him and how much of it was something she was doing only to prove to herself that she could. For the first time since his death, Emilio wished he’d been dragged back into his body as something else. A vampire could sink teeth into her throat and drain her dry; a zombie could tear into her skin no matter what she threw to protect herself; a mare could flitter away into the astral and attack her from behind. But Emilio wouldn’t gain the strength a fury boasted until he fed, and he hadn’t done much of that. He was weaker now than he had been in life. He wondered how on earth something like that was fair.
Rage burned through him, making it difficult to concentrate on anything but. He felt the claws trying to push through his hands; it was hard to remind himself why he shouldn’t use them. All Siobhan had to do was scream, and he’d be incapacitated at the least. His left ear was still dulled from his last banshee encounter, death not enough to repair it. If she took the building down, other people would suffer, too. Emilio could excuse petty rage bringing about his own demise, but he had a harder time allowing for it to doom his neighbors.
She talked about her husband, about the fake case she’d invented to push her way into his apartment. He wondered why she’d bothered. She could have barged in without it just as easily, could have shown up with no pretense. Was it a game to her, then? Was everything?
And then, the strangest part yet — she said she failed him, and his fingers twitched. He’d spoken to Regan often enough to know that banshees thought death a duty that belonged to them and them alone. Emilio disliked it with Regan, but he hated it with Siobhan. “Fuck you,” he snapped harshly, the rage making his voice loud enough to echo. He used to be afraid of her; he didn’t think he was now. What more could she do to him? There was nothing worse than what had been done already.
She held a knife, and he thought about the one in the alley that had ended his life. Would it feel the same going in now as it had then? He still felt pain, despite the fact that the signals it sent were no longer necessary. Would his body remember the blade that killed him? Would it recreate the feeling? His stomach twisted into a knot, his hands clenched into fists. She talked about his next family reunion, because she didn’t know enough about him to know that he had no one to return to. He kept his eyes on the knife, which was the only thing that could grant a family reunion. “I want,” he said lowly, “for you to get the fuck out of my apartment. Or maybe I rip your throat out. Either one is fine for me.”
—
“Such anger!” Siobhan clutched her chest. “Is that it? Is that what you…” She leaned in. Being a fury had a bit of a redundant stink to it. Did he really need to shove more anger into his tiny body? “Do you want revenge?” She flipped the knife around, pointing the hilt towards him, offering it out like the morsel of food it was. “I did hurt that man, didn’t I? Your brother? What was his name…” Rhett. She could never forget it; she had his foot. And she adored his foot, really, it was a great foot. Part of her wanted to ask Emilio how he was. Part of her hoped he was doing alright—she always hoped for it, like wishing good luck upon an old friend. The people she hurt were more her friends than anyone else. Torture was the most intimate act she knew; violence was a love language. But most of the time, it was just violence. She hoped the post-torture sentimentality was one of her more charming quirks.
“Is this not the bounds of your curse?” She continued, “what do you want? My blood? My brain? Go on.” She whistled low at him, like a dog. “Come. Rip my throat out. What are you going to use? Do you have claws? A tongue? Is there metal fused into your skin now? Magic—oh that would be dreadfully boring, say it’s not that.”
Siobhan wasn’t afraid of pain; all her life she had endured it. When she possessed enough shame to beg, no one listened. She stopped hoping that someone would. Her life could be catalogued by scars and blood and the last place to feel sudden shyness was on the precipice of something interesting. Meaning had been stripped from her life but she knew a place where she could find it again. It was inside Emilio’s mind, running down his cold skin and sitting on the tips of his fingers. It was what he could give her.
Siobhan wanted very simple things: bones, knives, home (never happening), appropriate worship for her attractiveness, fun. She was ravenous for fun. In any place she could find it, she hoped to pull it out roots and all. But even fun was secondary to this. “I want to hold your idea of me in my hands,” she whispered. And then she could know it too, and then she could have it. He could give it to her. Siobhan wanted a very simple thing: be told who she was. If Emilio could say it while giving her a show, it was all the better for her.
“Go on,” she said. “Come on. For what I did to Ringo.”
—
She leaned in, and he wondered what she knew and how she knew it. He knew so little about banshees; like furies, they were a rare thing. Even Rhett had known precious little about them beyond the most basic of facts. Emilio had learned a little more thanks to Regan (who was hardly a standard, when it came to banshees) and Siobhan (who never had any intention of helping him understand more), but his knowledge remained so full of holes that what he knew far outweighed what he didn’t. Siobhan seemed to know, as soon as she entered his apartment, that he was undead. Did banshees have a sense like slayers, then? Something that alerted them to a thing that was moving, but not alive? Was theirs more specific? Did Siobhan know exactly what he was, and how he’d become it?
He knew he’d get no straight answers from her. To Emilio, everything in this apartment was an apocalypse. To Siobhan, it was a game. This was a common theme between them, something that had been true in the warehouse where she’d tortured Rhett and in their online conversations where she frequently brought it up.
Of course she was bringing it up again now, too. Of course she’d mention it, would drag it out of the shadows and drop it on the floor between them. Look! She seemed to boast. Look at how easily I tore your world apart. Wasn’t the boasting proof that she could do it again? He’d exchanged a bind, made her promise not to hurt Rhett again, but weren’t there other people she could go after? Was the promise he’d fought so hard for even still in place now, or had it expired when he had? Were the dead bound by things they’d promised in life? He wished, for a moment, that Rhett were here to ask. But if Rhett were here, Emilio wasn’t sure he could count on his brother not killing him for what he’d become. The undead weren’t a warden’s usual target, but Rhett had never been picky.
The more she spoke, the more impossible it seemed to hold his anger in. It grew with every word, made itself bigger and bigger like a snowball rolling down a hill. Emilio hadn’t been good at controlling his rage when he was alive, and he was useless at it now that he was dead. Siobhan whistled, like he was a dog she could call, and the hilt of the knife was pointed towards him like an invitation. And wasn’t there something poetic about that? Stabbing Siobhan with her own knife, when it had been his blade that took his life in that alley… The thought sent a rush of something unrecognizable through him.
Her ‘misremembering’ of Rhett’s name provided a straw big enough to break the camel’s back, and Emilio didn’t realize he was moving until his hands wrapped around the hilt of her blade. He rushed forward with a hoarse, guttural cry, fueled by the rage burning in his chest. Nothing about it looked human, but maybe that was to be expected. After all, there were no humans in this shitty apartment, were there? Only monsters.
—
As the knife plunged into the soft skin of her abdomen, Siobhan realized that the issue with the knife was that it didn’t give her any new information. A vampire could stab her just as well as a zombie which was probably as well as a mare which was certainly about the same level as a fury. Did it look like he was slurping up the vague idea of revenge? Her blood gushed out over his hand, streaming on to the floor. Well, he wasn’t one of the vampires, that was certain—but she already guessed that. Did his dramatic battle cry mean anything? Was that the rage of a fury or the rage of a sad man? Honestly, it was so hard to tell with Emilio; it looked just about the same as when he skewered poor Ingeborg with a sword. He really hadn’t changed much.
She snapped one hand over his wrist and the other around his forearm. Her blunt nails dug in. She wanted to keep him there, looking at her, looking at what he’d done. There was always a moment of painlessness while the brain was catching up to the body. Siobhan could count the seconds to the exact moment her stomach would burn up and her legs would buckle. She’d been stabbed more times than Emilio had ever stabbed people, she guessed. She had about ten seconds before her need for medical care became too obvious. The knife was a terrible idea; what idiot thought the knife was a good idea? Ten seconds. “How does it feel? Does it feel good? Do you feel better? Describe it to me.”
She stumbled back, clutching the knife. Pain rammed into her, blossoming from her stomach. It wasn’t the pain she minded. Fates, there was so much blood. “Ha, I’m going to be inside your floorboards forever now.” Her back hit a wall and she laughed. The knife was small, the coat caught most of it, and it didn’t feel like he hit any of her jumbled organs, but she didn’t feel great. It was odd how stabbing had that effect. It was odd that some piece of her mind really believed she’d get a crumb of his catharsis. He was being so selfish about it. “I could scream,” she said, but she wasn’t going to. There was a terrible truth about love, it existed like a cockroach. Rhett loved him so dearly, and where there was one, there were more. So many loves spun out from his pathetic body, inside his pathetic life. She wanted to know them desperately. She reached out, grasping air; she could take them, they could be hers.
Her hand dropped. To Emilio, she was evil. The stabbing and that impassioned cry of rage made it all very clear. She had what she wanted to know and yet, all she could think about was fighting it, simply because it was there. Why was it that nothing ever seemed to be enough for her? “I know it’s disgusting,” she said, “what you’ve become. I know how you hunters think, it’s all monsters and innocents to you. But there are no monsters, Emilio. There never have been. Life is predictable and boring and undeath is just the same…” She trailed off, trying to find the door. Her hands were shaking. “How does it feel?” she asked again.
—
The knife sunk in, up to the hilt. Blood splurted out, got on her blouse, on his hands, and somehow, he thought it would look different. Somehow, when he’d imagined Siobhan bleeding — and he had imagined it, hadn’t he? So many times, in so many different ways now — he’d pictured her blood as something so completely unlike his own. Black, like a vampire’s or glittery, like a mare’s. But it was red. Like Rhett’s in that factory, flaky and half-dried. Like Flora’s on the floor of his living room, seeping into the floor. Like his in that alley, spilling out so quickly that his vision was going black around the edges before he realized he was losing it at all. Siobhan’s blood was red; he wondered if it was supposed to be.
It took him a moment to recognize that the color of her blood wasn’t the only unexpected result of the ordeal because normally, this felt different. Normally, Emilio sunk a blade into someone looking for solace and found emptiness instead, found nothing but more grief and anger swirling around in his chest with the already substantial amount of it that lived there full time. It never felt the way he wanted it to, never felt better.
He still wasn’t sure it felt better now, but it felt… different. Felt… good, maybe. It sent a surge of something through him, felt like a gust of wind on a hot day cooling his sweaty form. He swore his fingers were tingling with it, though Siobhan’s grip on his arm prevented him from pulling back to check them for changes. There was a hollow in his stomach that felt a little fuller now, he thought; an emptiness that still existed, but wasn’t quite as vast.
How does it feel, Siobhan asked, does it feel good? And it did. Fuck, it did. It took him a moment to realize why, took him a moment to understand it. Siobhan had wronged him, and he’d fought back. This wasn’t a temper tantrum, wasn’t an angry man lashing out against something bigger than himself and making no difference at all, wasn’t screaming into a void. This was a meal.
She stumbled back, and he watched her. Her back hit the wall behind her, and he clenched and unclenched his fists as if it was an experiment, as if he was figuring them out. Would he be stronger now? How much? For how long? He couldn’t unsheathe his claws in front of her without giving away more than he wanted to, so he shoved his hands into his pockets instead. The burst of energy that had come with the rage of the conversation was faltering now, like a brief rush of adrenaline that was difficult to hold for long. Numbness seeped back in. Siobhan threatened to scream, and he nodded. “So scream.” She would have done it already, if she were going to. He figured they both knew that.
She talked a lot, for someone who’d just been stabbed. He hated that he could relate, hated that he was just as mouthy when he was in pain, hated having anything in common with her at all. He hated it, too, that her assessment of him was right. It was disgusting, this thing he’d turned into. He’d spent his entire goddamn life knowing it.
He let out a laugh, sharp as the knife, when she continued. There are no monsters, said the monster bleeding on the floor to the monster who’d put her there. There never have been.
“You’re wrong,” he told her. “In here, there are only monsters.” But that wasn’t all she said. There was that question again, hanging pretty above his head. How does it feel? A good man would say it was harrowing. A hunter would say it was necessary. Emilio, when his heart was still beating, would have said it was empty. But he was none of those things now, was he? He’d never been a good man, and he could no longer claim the title of hunter. His heart no longer beat, and he wasn’t even sure he felt like Emilio now. So how did it feel? What would the monster say? “It feels pretty goddamn good.”
—
Siobhan slid across the wall, groping wildly. The door was here somewhere. Wasn’t the door over here? She croaked and sputtered. Standing in front of her was the man that had turned Ingeborg into a kebab, but she couldn’t find the other one. She was waiting for the man who cried, the man that begged, the man that would’ve thrown his life aside for a man who didn’t deserve it. The man whose desperation gave her a promise. The man who had loved so strongly that it was still Rhett and Emilio that came to her mind when she heard that cursed 4-letter word. Did Emilio seem flushed? Did he seem filled? Or was it that she’d finally reached the stage of being stabbed when her vision decided it wanted to swim?
“Not monsters,” she said. “Just a sad man and a…” She swallowed back her blood. “...sexy woman.” But he seemed so sure of what he was saying, that it felt good to him. Where was he? Where was the Emilio that Rhett had begged for? The one he swore was “good”? She found the door at last, her bloody hand slipping off the handle, again and again as it pinged, useless. “How lovely for you. Feeling generous with that ‘good’ feeling?” Even if he could transfer it to her, he probably wouldn’t. The door’s handle pinged again as she failed to find her grip.
“Was Rhett a monster too? Is that why you begged for him? You loved him.” Despite what he was, despite what he had done. She didn’t understand it then and she understood it less now, with this man staring at her. “Where is he?” She swallowed. “That… That Emilio. You said… You said…” Siobhan replayed the scene. Rhett was his brother, he said. He loved him, he said. It didn’t matter why, there was no why, he said. He wasn’t good, Rhett wasn’t good, she wasn’t good, Ingeborg wasn’t good, he said. Rhett said Emilio was good, though. Siobhan certainly thought Ingeborg was good, despite everything, though she’d never say it to her face. “Does it still feel good?” Finally, the door swung open and the sudden pull tossed Siobhan’s body against the frame.
She was watching him, she was still waiting to see it. “Still?” she asked in a whisper. There was always that moment after, when the victim started to look like what they were: a life, a person. When all that was left were the actions, and all of one’s past unfurling to join the present. One person could look so much like someone else; one drop of blood could so easily transform into the memory of another. It was the inevitable humanity. Siobhan had learned to work despite it. “You begged for him.”
—
She was sliding, was flopping, was moving with none of the grace she usually boasted, and Emilio wondered if he’d looked like this. Everyone wanted to imagine their final moments as a noble thing, wanted to believe they’d face it valiantly and bravely with their chins held up high, but no one ever really did. In the end, when death came knocking, all anyone ever was was afraid. Emilio had been, in that alley. He’d thought it so strange at the time, thought it preposterous. He’d spent years chasing death, longing for it, and when it came for him, it hadn’t come with relief. It hadn’t welcomed him with open arms, hadn’t embraced him and laid him down to rest. It chewed him up and spat him out as something else, something worse.
He wondered if it would treat Siobhan more kindly. She loved it, didn’t she? She talked about death like it was a god, like it sat at the head of every table and bowed everyone’s heads with a stern look. If he took her knife and slit her throat, would she die smiling? Or would she, like he had, learn that death was so much crueller than you’d imagined it would be?
She insisted, again, that there were no monsters. He stared down at the blood seeping into the floorboards, felt the stickiness on his hands, and remembered Rhett on the floor of that factory, his leg already starting to rot a few feet away from his body. If that wasn’t a monster, what was? The things he killed in the woods, the ones that didn’t look human anymore? Things like spawn, or ghouls, or wights that only ever wanted to eat? What Siobhan had done to Rhett wasn’t about earning a meal; what Emilio had done here had fed him only by coincidence. If this didn’t make them monsters, then the word had no meaning at all.
Was Rhett a monster too, she asked, and he thought yes. He remembered every terrible thing his brother had done, remembered loving him in spite of them. He thought of Eve, calling him her friend in the darkness of her van even as he snapped at her. He thought of Teddy, who he knew would love him just as much now as they had when his heart beat if only he would let them. And he thought about how he had no intention of holding himself back from snapping at Eve. He had no intention of letting Teddy love him, still. He wondered if that made him better or worse.
Was a monster that knew it was a monster better than the one that didn’t? Was the beast with sharp teeth and deadly claws that called itself what it was more forgivable than the one that tortured and hurt while insisting that monsters were things of fairytales? How much did it matter that he accepted the definition if he spelled it out with blood, anyway?
“He died,” he replied blankly, thinking again of that alley, of the knife in his chest, of the way death wasn’t an old friend but a mouth full of teeth that hadn’t bothered to swallow its meal. It was jarring, saying it aloud. He died. The Emilio from that factory, the one that begged for his brother’s life and would have fallen on the sword to save it, had died bloody and alone, with no one to plead for him.
The surge of the brief feeding was fading now, the morsel too small to provide a full meal. If he finished the job and killed her now, would it be better? Would the feeling last longer, would he be stronger? Or would the only change be that the monster was well-fed for a moment instead of starving? A hungry monster was dangerous, but was one with a full stomach any better?
He could have done it, he thought. He could have taken the knife and shoved it in her throat, and maybe she would have screamed and brought the building down around them both, but maybe she wouldn’t have. Maybe she would have screamed and killed him, and maybe the resulting explosives that came with a fury’s demise would have taken her out, too. It didn’t feel good anymore, he thought; it didn’t feel bad, either. He wasn’t sure if it was supposed to.
“Would anyone beg for you?” He asked it slowly, watching as she crawled towards the door. Would it change his mind if they did? If someone showed up now, if they pleaded for Siobhan the way Emilio had pleaded for Rhett, would the guilt seep in? Or would he still feel what he felt now — this deep, endless chasm of nothing?
He followed her towards the door, hands still shoved into his pockets. Maybe he’d kill her, still. Maybe it would make him feel better, make him feel something. Maybe the monster that felt anything at all was better than the monster that was empty.
—
Siobhan couldn’t find him. Her eyes darted between his, snapped to his feet, watching his hands stuffed into his pockets. She clutched the knife in her stomach, comforted by its familiar hilt. She wasn’t expecting remorse; something like that would require Emilio to like her and she was under no delusions that he did. She wasn’t expecting sympathy; something like that would require her to be sympathetic, and it was much harder to be delusional about that. She had stood where Emilio was hundreds of times before. She liked to watch them. She liked to be standing where he was. Always, the spear of emotion found her in the end—for just a moment, for a minute or for days. It wasn’t remorse and it wasn’t sympathy but it was some nameless swirling pit inside of her. It was something. There was only one person she’d never seen hold that something but her mother was not someone she wanted to think about.
Siobhan laughed. “Don’t be so dramatic.” She leaned against the wall and coughed, a stab (ha) of pain surged through her. “It didn’t die. You can’t—it’s still there.” She swallowed. She still had the sensitive child, the arrogant teen, the impulsive adult. She was still the girl that buried moths and drew wedding dresses into the margins of Austen. She was still the adolescent with the raw voice and the knife’s determination: steeled and sharp and carved into a line. She was still the woman who’d choked on dirt as her mother pulled her wings out. All of them there, screaming at her all of the time, inside her head. There was always something.
What did you become if there was nothing?
“I still see you holding him. They always—they always say they have family. Kids. They always beg for themselves. But I’d never seen someone… for someone else. For someone like him. For you.” Siobhan wasn’t afraid of Death; how could someone like her be? And yet, like everyone she had killed, she didn’t want to die. She limped away from him. She didn’t walk into his filthy apartment thinking he could kill her but she was certainly leaving it with that impression. No, no one would beg for her, she’d known it for more years than Emilio had been alive. Foolishly, she always seemed to hope that someone would. Even the twin scars down her back hadn’t worn out that optimism.
“Why…” She smiled. “You’d beg for me, wouldn’t you? The knife is practically a marriage proposal. I don’t accept, by the way.” She swallowed and puffed her chest out, tensing against the pain. She sucked air into her lungs and turned to face him. “You’re a little too dead for me.”
The scream was a weak one, there wasn’t much left inside of her to burst pipes or pop windows. She wanted a moment to limp down the hall and she’d always been skilled at tight, focused shrieks anyway; she could thank her mother for that, at least. She didn’t turn around to see if it’d worked. She pushed down the hall, out of Emilio’s path and away from his sight. Her nightmares would thank him for the fuel: his slow, steady walk; his hunched body; his blank face. She heaved, she winced and lurched around. She crashed into walls and groaned and dragged herself across gravel and dirt. She felt terrible. She felt hollowed out and reassembled. She felt foolish.
Most of all, she felt sorry for the man who begged for his brother.
—
Her eyes kept darting over him, and he wondered what she saw there. It had been years since he’d felt comfortable looking at his own reflection, but he’d avoided mirrors with a desperate vigor since waking up in the backseat of Eve’s van. Did he look different now? He thought, inevitably, of his daughter. He thought of his wife, of his mother and his siblings. He thought about how, even if you’d washed the blood from their corpses, they wouldn’t have looked like themselves. When a person died, wasn’t there something that left them? Not just the animated features of life dancing across their face, but something deeper.
No corpse ever looked exactly like the person who had once inhabited it. So what did Emilio look like, now? What tiny differences was Siobhan cataloging, what small changes could she notice? He felt as exposed now as he had in that body bag, like a thing on display. She was the one with the knife sticking out of her gut, but Emilio didn’t feel much like the person in control anymore.
She insisted that it wasn’t gone, that version of him that had used this body before the knife tore through his chest. She sounded so sure of herself, because didn’t she always? There was a part of him that wanted to believe her, a part of him that yearned for it to be the truth. He could still be him, even without a heartbeat. He could still be him, even if he was dead. But that feeling in his chest, the quiet hunger that had been awoken by the smallest hint of a meal, was so loud. The monster didn’t leave much room behind for the man. It was always going to be one or the other.
Had it really rattled her so much, the fact that he loved his brother? Was it really something that sat with her, still? If she were anyone else, some part of him might feel sorry for her. If something as simple as Emilio not wanting Rhett to die had tilted her world so fully on its axis, it must have meant that love was a hard thing for her to come by. But he could feel no sympathy for the monster that had haunted so many of his nightmares, could muster no grief for someone he’d hated so completely. Siobhan was unloved, and Emilio told himself it was because she’d deserved to be. He told himself that there were people who hadn’t earned any form of affection.
He told himself that monsters were unlovable, because wasn’t that easier than facing the people who loved him now? Wasn’t it better to pretend that he wasn’t capable of receiving that love? It would hurt less. He thought it would hurt less.
“I would never beg for you,” he said lowly, half-offended that she’d suggested it. He wanted to take it further, wanted to insist that he’d never beg for a monster, but hadn’t he begged for Rhett? Didn’t he love his brother, even now? He pushed the thought away, focused on this instead. It was easier, wasn’t it? Keeping the violence at the forefront of his mind, ignoring all the things that lurked behind it, that was easier. It had always been the thing he understood best.
She said he was dead, and she was right, but he wanted to flinch anyway. He wanted to close his eyes to it, wanted to pretend. He wanted to turn it around and taunt her, wanted to say, you will be, too, wanted to make it true as much as he didn’t. He wanted to do a lot of things, but she screamed and he did none of them. His hands went to his ears, a curse clattered against his teeth. He ducked his head away from the sound and, by the time his ears had stopped ringing and he looked back up again, she was gone.
He could have gone after her. He wasn’t very fast, but she was probably a lot slower now. He could follow the trail of blood to find her, could track her down without much effort and finish what he’d started, but he stood in the living room instead, staring at the bloody floor. His hands dropped from his ears, his claws resheathing. He wondered, somewhat absently, if that desperate screech to ensure her escape counted as a banshee screaming for him.
There were two monsters in his apartment, and now one. There were two monsters in his apartment, and now a lone corpse and a bloodstained floor. He stared at the red until his vision swam, watched it twist itself into imagined shapes. There was a monster in his apartment, still. It wouldn’t leave until he did.
Turning away from the bloodstained floor, he made his way back to the bedroom. The apartment door stood open behind him, but it felt like too much effort to close it, felt like too much effort to do anything. It was hard to worry that someone might come inside with poor intentions, hard to feel concerned that anyone might hurt him. Whatever damage there was to do had been done already, with a knife in a dark alley. Eventually, he’d probably face some kind of consequences for the blood on the floor for the same reason the open door didn’t bother him now.
LOCATION: wicked's rest general hospital & a country bar that has obviously always existed
PARTIES:@pagingdoctorhart & @vengeancedemon.
SUMMARY: Emilio was very clear that Mickey wasn't invited to the investigation. Mickey is not a great listener.
CONTENT WARNINGS: hospitals.
Top 10 regrets? Well, Mickey actually had no clue what would make that list. But he was certain now that never knowing this bar existed until tonight made it somewhere on there. Whiskey Business was every cowboy’s dream bar. Of course, Mickey wasn’t a cowboy. Far from it actually, guns terrified him. Despite this, he could recognize when something had immaculate vibes even if the vibes weren’t specifically catered towards him. Completely western themed, saloon doors, line dancing. Even a mechanical bull! Since Emilio had dropped him (horrible partner in crime), Mickey had pivoted and decided to scope the place out for himself. That is, if ‘scoping out’ meant going inside and joining the crowd.
Naturally, the place played exclusively country music. Mickey had never been a huge fan personally, but it only took a few beers and some girl telling him that they were going to start the line dancing classes soon to convince him that maybe country music wasn’t so awful. By the second hour, he was even singing along to some of the songs despite not knowing the real lyrics and had mostly learned the moves, minus a few improvisations. He had even managed to score a cowboy hat off of someone. It paired well with the jeans and the cow print button up that he had dug out of his closet from a former halloween costume. All he was really missing was a piece of straw to hold in his mouth.
Mickey was in the middle of one of a line dance when he spotted the man he had been coming here looking for. Emilio had made it pretty clear that the two were not partners and therefore Mickey was not invited to any future parts of his investigation. Unfortunately for Emilio, Mickey had seen the coordinates prior to their break-up. He had a feeling it wouldn’t take long for Emilio to make an appearance either. Technically speaking, it could have been a total coincidence that the two showed up at the same time (after multiple attempts on Mickey’s part). At the very least, Mickey would definitely be returning here after tonight anyways. So in a roundabout sense it basically was a coincidence.
Excusing himself from the dance, Mickey squeezed through the crowd and made his way over to the bar. He slid up and leaned across the bar towards Emilio. “Howdy partner!” Mickey yelled out over the music, tipping his cowboy hat towards Emilio once he had captured his attention. He had slapped on the practiced imitation of a southern accent, “Fancy meetin’ you here. You come round these parts often?”
—
Of all the locations he’d expected his investigation to lead him to, a cowboy-themed bar had been pretty close to the bottom of the list. Emilio hadn’t known places like this were a thing at all, much less that there was one in Wicked’s Rest. He certainly hadn’t thought he’d be here trying to get answers on why a comatose fae was… well, a comatose fae. He would have been more satisfied with an abandoned warehouse, or a shack somewhere in the woods with twisting branches casting shadows on its roof. (Maybe the accusations he’d faced about the ‘noir detective aesthetic’ weren’t so far off after all.)
But, unexpected or not, this shitty bar was the next stop in this investigation. Emilio couldn’t discount the evidence found on that phone, even if he’d wanted to. And despite the fact that this bar seemed like the exact fucking opposite of the sort of place he wanted to spend his time, he didn’t want to discount the evidence. He’d never been good at leaving a mystery unsolved, even if only for a day or two. And so, he’d made quick work of looking into the coordinates after leaving the hospital. He’d researched the bar, made sure it wasn’t a front for something, looked into the reviews and used those to look into the clientele. There was no reason to think it would be dangerous, but he had a knife on his belt, anyway. It didn’t look out of place here; most of the other patrons had guns, though he suspected at least some of them were more decorative than operational.
Making his way to the bar, he nodded at the bartender. He’d order a drink or two, get on the guy’s good side. It would make him far more likely to answer the questions Emilio planned on asking him, and he was going to need anything he could get to make this whole thing easier. This case would be a hard one to crack. He had one witness in a coma, another who was bound to keep him from saying anything worthwhile. He needed anything he could get to make it a little simpler.
He’d only just sat down when he felt someone approaching, and he tensed as he prepared to fight off any advances that might be coming his way. But instead of someone looking for a quick fuck, he found a familiar face staring back at him. Somehow, it was a lot worse. Emilio groaned, shooting Mickey a glare. “What, did you follow me here? I said I didn’t need your help for this.”
—
Emilio didn’t look excited to see Mickey, which was expected but still a bit hurtful. He completely understood that he was not everybody’s cup of tea. Like most things however, Mickey found that if you forced yourself to drink it enough you could eventually start to like the taste. Mickey survived college by forcing himself to like coffee after many sleepless nights and many disgustingly bitter and forced coffee runs. Call it stockholm syndrome or whatever, the end result was the same.
“Follow you? I’m not a PI.” Mickey over exaggerated his scoff as if he was truly offended by the accusation. “Maybe this just happens to my favorite bar in town and us being here together is a huge coincidence.” Mickey suggested playfully, “Or maybe I caught the coordinates over your shoulder when you had the note earlier and wanted to check the place out. Either way, I had no way of knowing you’d actually show up tonight.” Just a pretty educated hunch. Mickey hardly knew the guy, but he was ready to make bets that patience wasn’t one of his stronger qualities. “I don’t think you need my help. I’m sure you’re very capable on your own. Maybe I just want your company? Or to get some answers of my own?” Both were technically true. Even if Emilio didn’t really like Mickey, Mickey had decided that he liked Emilio. There was a certain charm to his grumpiness and apprehension to play nice. Maybe it was some sort of challenge that Mickey had subconsciously accepted. “Plus, I’m not leaving this bar until I ride that bull” he pointed over to the corner dedicated to the mechanical bull. There was a line already in place and a large crowd drinking and cheering around it. There was no way Mickey was missing out on that. “So, learn anything interesting about this place?” Mickey slid into the chair next to Emilio and rested his chin in his palms innocently, hoping that Emilio was bored enough to play along and share some information.
—
He probably should have seen this coming. Emilio was not an optimistic man — in fact, he was very much the opposite — but after his bickering session with Mickey about whether or not the doctor ought to accompany him on his investigation, he’d thought they were on the same page. Mickey would hang back, and Emilio would share whatever answers he found with him. Evidently, he’d been wrong about that. And of course he had been. Wasn’t that how it went in this town? There wasn’t a single resident in Wicked’s Rest who knew how to leave well enough alone. Emilio had been stupid to believe that Mickey was actually capable of letting him do his job. Time and time again, he’d had it proven that no one was.
Still, he shot the doctor an unamused glare at the comment. “You say that, but you’re here trying to take my case,” he replied flatly. He knew Mickey would likely argue that he wasn’t trying to ‘take’ anything, that he wouldn’t be paid for his efforts and would rather work with Emilio than do this solo, but there was some small chance that the implication would guilt him into backing off. It was very small, though. Microscopic, really. He’d spent maybe an hour with the guy, and he already felt he knew Mickey well enough to know that he wasn’t the backing off type. “Why were you looking over my shoulder, anyway? That’s rude.” He pressed his tongue against his teeth, growing more and more irritated with each word out of the doctor’s mouth. “Nobody wants my company. And I told you I’d let you know what I found out. You don’t trust me? I’m a lot of things, but I’m a man of my word.” He had planned on filling Mickey in on everything he found out, too. At least… the parts that were relevant to Mickey. There was still some semblance of confidentiality between Emilio and his clients.
Emilio groaned as Mickey slid into the seat beside him. “I’ve learned that they let very annoying people in,” he replied. “If you want to ride the bull, you should go get in line. Then you can leave.”
—
Emilio’s accusation truly perplexed Mickey, and he hoped that the confused look on his face expressed it as such. “Take your case?” Sure, he supposed a good actor could fake something like this. Most people didn’t believe him when he told them he was an open book, but it was mostly the truth. He never really got the point of lying. Unless it had something to do with his sister and mom, his alleged ghost talking past or unless telling a small lie was funny. In the latter case, he almost always ratted himself out immediately. “I have no interest in taking your case. I just hate being bored. So here I am.” That excuse always made sense to Mickey. He had no idea why so many people wouldn’t accept it. “Sorry for my rudeness. Considering you were nothing but polite to me, it was really inconsiderate.”
Mickey tipped his hat backward since it kept blocking his view. It fell off his head and onto his back. Luckily the thing had a built in strap that had been around his neck and kept it from falling to the ground. Genius invention, but a little uncomfortable. “Well that’s just sad. I’m sure somebody in this town wants your company. If you were a little more inviting, I’d want your company.” Despite it all, Mickey was here bothering him so he supposed that he had chosen he wanted his company regardless of the cold lack of invitation. “I know you told me. But I went home after work and then I tried to play some games but I couldn’t stop thinking about it and I remembered the coordinates because I have a pretty solid memory. I mean things get lost up here sometimes because I have a lot going through my head at any given moment. Anyways, I looked up the place and figured out it wasn’t just a bar but a cowboy bar? I mean, come on dude. I’ve never been to a cowboy bar before. How could I pass up an opportunity like that?”
Assuming Emilio meant that comment as a dig at Mickey, he gave a fake pouting face, “Words hurt, Private. Words hurt.” Not enough to drive Mickey away, but still. “Something tells me that bull’s not going anywhere. Which means I have some time to kill with you. So what’s your game place? I’ll even stay out of your way.” Probably.
—
Bored. It was probably true; Mickey seemed like the sort of person who would stick his nose just about anywhere in order to alleviate his own boredom. If anything, it was impressive that he’d lived as long as he had with such a habit, but maybe he was new to town. In most places, curiosity in the face of boredom wasn’t punished quite as severely as it was in Wicked’s Rest. Emilio knew well enough to know that discouraging it wouldn’t do anything. In fact, in his experience, it often had the opposite effect. “Yes,” he agreed, “you are very rude. Do your patients like you? I can’t imagine they do.” Maybe if he was enough of a dick, Mickey would get pissed and leave. That would probably be more effective than giving a shit about the guy’s well being, in any case.
The hat was stupid, but it wasn’t out of place in this particular bar. If anything, Emilio was the one sticking out like a sore thumb. He’d gotten a few odd looks from people dressed similarly to Mickey, something that did little to quell his never-ending paranoia. (Were they looking at him because he was dressed differently, or could they tell he was dead?) “But I don’t want your company, so why would I do that?” He didn’t think Mickey was leaving. But maybe continuing to be a dick anyway would be calming… or, as calming as things ever managed to be for Emilio. “And you couldn’t have waited to come to the cowboy bar until after I was finished with my investigation? I told you I don’t need your help. If anything, you’re going to slow me down.” That was true. Emilio worked best alone, most of the time.
He sighed, irritated but now having little choice but to accept that Mickey wasn’t going to walk away from this. “I can think of a few other things that would hurt much more.” Not that he’d do any of it. But Mickey didn’t need to know that, did he? Emilio pulled out his phone, holding it up. “I’m going to contact the number,” he said, “and have them meet me.” That was about as far as he’d gotten in the planning process. Being at the bar was a plus, because there was a good chance the person who owned the number was a regular here if this was where he’d met their coma patient. If Emilio called the number and no one picked up, he could scan the crowd and see whose phone was ringing. One way or another, he’d find this person. And then, he’d find out what he needed to know. That was a given.
—
“My patients love me actually. I keep their mind off of the pain.” Mickey spent half of his life distracted by various things, so it seemed only fair that he tried to distract others from time to time. Despite what many of the doctors at that hospital seemed to think, Mickey did actually take his job mostly seriously (or at least as serious as he was capable of). He did care about the idea of helping people. He just never understood why it had to be so boring and uneventful in between the patients.
Emilio was being especially mean, either a side effect of his personality or a targeted attack to ward off Mickey. Maybe both, he hardly knew the man well enough to judge one way or the other. All that was clear was that Emilio had no interest in hanging out with Mickey. Which made this whole thing pretty awkward. “I don’t want to play that card but, technically I was here first. Maybe you should have held off on your investigation until I was done living out the cowboy fantasy?” Mickey shrugged as if there was nothing else that could be done about this. “Luckily, unlike you I’m very friendly and inviting so I’m perfectly open to allowing you to share the space of my new bar with you. You’re welcome.” Again with this help thing. When was Emilio going to believe that Mickey didn’t think he could do this investigation better? He just wanted to tag along. He was quite literally just here for the vibes. Unless he actually wanted to buy into the whole Sherlock Holmes thing, in which case Mickey was definitely sold.
Mickey liked to think that Emilio wasn’t serious about the hurting thing, mostly because he was pretty sure if he had been serious than Mickey would have been hurt already. He wasn’t any more annoying now than he had been all day up to now. “To be fair, if you punched me I might actually leave. I don’t do violence.” Probably not the ammunition that Mickey should have given the man, but he was putting some completely unfounded trust in the dude. “You really think this person that put someone into a coma is just going to agree to meet you? What if they also put you into a coma?” Didn’t seem like the strongest plan, but he was the expert.
—
“Your patients say they love you because you’re the one controlling their meds,” Emilio replied flatly, looking as unamused as he felt. It was always bothersome when civilians got involved in his investigations, but it was so much worse when the case was supernatural in nature. It was lucky that Mickey already seemed to be in the know; if he weren’t, Emilio had no idea how he’d have explained any of the shit he’d needed Mickey’s assistance with. (He was trying not to just… tell strangers everything anymore, if only because he’d like it if Eve didn’t kill him.)
With Mickey, though, his luck ended pretty much immediately after the ‘aware of the supernatural’ tidbit. A little more luck, and he might have been able to convince the doctor not to show up as he continued his investigation. He shot the doctor a look as he insisted that he’d been here first, expression stormy as he struggled to put a lid on his irritation. He needed to at least finish his investigation before he was inevitably banned from this particular bar. “You can come back and live your stupid fantasy any day of the fucking week. I think me figuring out why someone’s in a coma is more important than you sitting on a hunk of metal.” Maybe he could punch Mickey just one time without anyone noticing. Not hard or anything. Just enough to convince him to go home. Emilio weighed the option, glancing to the bartender. The guy was watching out of the corner of his eye, which probably meant that plan was a no go. Shame, really.
A real shame, actually, because now Mickey was confirming that he would leave if he was punched. Emilio mourned the option that was very likely off the table. “They’d make me leave the bar,” he replied, sounding a little disappointed. “But these things do usually get violent, you know. I’ve been punched many times. Kicked. Stabbed.” There was a hint of bitterness on the last one, the scar on his chest burning as it reminded him of the consequences that could arise from a thing like that. “Well, they don’t know who I am. From what I can tell, they met with coma guy for a reason. If I can make them think I can give them the same thing he did, I’m pretty sure they’ll come. And they won’t put me in a coma. I’m very hard to put in a coma. People have tried. Another reason why you should leave. You seem more coma-able.”
—
“Technically I can only write prescriptions under supervision right now.” Mickey noted, though he understood that was hardly the point. Or the joke. Not that Emilio seemed to be joking, but whether he was serious or not did little to change how laughable the idea was that Mickey’s patients didn’t like him. He was a delight!
Logically, Mickey could understand the reluctance to have somebody unversed in investigating tagging along for the ride. Though he himself had already told the man that he didn’t have any interest in impeding the investigation. He barely cared about being involved at all. He just wanted to tag along to alleviate some boredom, and eventually get some answers to why he had been silenced (a la Orpah). He couldn’t promise to be quiet, one because making promises is exactly what got him into this mess in the first place and two because being quiet was something he wasn’t sure even a fae bind could successfully make him do. But he could minimize his talking to a certain extent! Before he could even defend his position again, Emilio elicited a genuine gasp from Mickey. “Don’t call George Mooney a hunk of metal!” Mickey glanced over at the mechanical bull, currently being ridden by a woman that had already last three times as long as Mickey would later. “That’s what I decided to name the bull.”
Mickey did have to wonder if Emilio actually would have punched him if getting kicked out of the bar had been a genuine possibility. The thought alone made Mickey’s jaw hurt. He was way too delicate for a bar fight, and he didn’t think Owen would be crashing into this bar to save his ass this time. “Probably. That bartender’s already taken a liking to me too. Told me about his wedding plans. If I play my cards right, I may even swing an invitation.” Emilio did bring up a good point about the impending danger of something like this. Whoever was responsible was willing to put someone into a coma, they’d probably be welling to start a bar fight too. “Does that happen a lot to you? You seem like you could hold your own in a fight.” he thought of Owen and the ruthless way he took down those drunken dicks at the dive bar. He couldn’t exactly picture Emilio fighting with that same fury, but that was mostly because the guy looked too exhausted to put that much effort into it. “Oh I’m totally comable. So we’ll compromise. I’ll hang out here and be out of the way and you do your investigating thing with the dangerous coma person and fight off the dangers. I’ll just be here for comedic relief.”
—
Really? That did surprise Emilio, who knew very little about what doctors were and weren’t allowed to do. What was Mickey’s job, then, if he couldn’t give people medication without someone holding his hand? Wasn’t that a waste of resources? Giving medication didn’t seem like the sort of thing complex enough to require supervision but then again, Emilio was someone who was taught to hold a knife before he learned to walk. Perhaps his ideas on the amount of learning a person needed to do a certain job were a little skewed.
If Mickey wasn’t going to walk away, maybe the only thing Emilio could do was ignore him and go on with the investigation like normal. Unfortunately, this was something that was far easier said than done. He didn’t like the potential of collateral damage, and Mickey represented a whole heap of it. He was already collateral to a certain extent, bound by a promise he probably hadn’t meant to make. His being here meant the potential of physical harm on top of that – physical harm far worse than the punch to the face Emilio was threatening him with. This case had already left one person comatose. Emilio wasn’t really looking to add to that tally. No matter how annoying the guy was. “You can’t decide to name someone else’s stupid fake bull,” he insisted, crossing his arms stubbornly over his chest. He didn’t think the bull ought to have a name at all, given the fact that it was fake, but he didn’t think that argument would work on Mickey.
It was hard to know if Mickey was being genuine with the comment about the bartender. Emilio couldn’t imagine telling a stranger about a wedding, nor could he fathom inviting them to one, but other people were often a little (or a lot) more open than he was. Perhaps Mickey had befriended the bartender already. “I can handle my own,” he confirmed. “But sometimes, other people don’t really fight fair. Still come out on top,” usually, “just a little bloodier.” He was pleased, somehow, that Mickey thought he looked like he could hold his own. He didn’t always feel like it these days, didn’t always believe it. He kept going back to the alley with the vampires who had killed him, to the cemetery where Rosemary had unintentionally pinned him to the dirt, to the cave where Owen held him down. He’d won more fights than he’d lost, but the losses always felt heavier. “Fine. You can stay out of my way.” He hoped Mickey actually would, but he didn’t think the odds seemed great. He seemed like the kind of guy who liked sticking his nose in things. (This was, of course, coming from Emilio, who’d made a career out of sticking his nose in things.) “And you can stay out of my way quietly. I don’t need camed – comid – that.” Comedic relief was a little hard for him to get his mouth around, especially with the irritation building in his chest. “Deal?”
—
“I don’t see his name posted anywhere.” Mickey defended his actions. He actually had no idea if the bull had a name. For all he knew it was posted somewhere. It seemed like something that somebody would name, right? “I feel like you’d be surprisingly good at riding mechanical bulls. Not sure why.” It wasn’t that Emilio reminded Mickey of a cowboy really, but more like the vague interpretation of a sheriff in an old western. Maybe it was the grumpiness. They were always grumpy.
Mickey wasn’t sure if he should feel comforted or concerned by Emilio’s claim to handling his own and coming out on top. Just like watching Owen demolish those dicks at the bar, watching the fight unfold was both exhilarating and terrifying to the doctor. Mickey’s entire schtick was finding ways to end boredom, but one fight broke out and he crawled behind a bar in fear. He felt the rush during the fight while also wishing he had been at any other bar in the state. The juxtaposition piqued his curiosity, which was a dangerous mood for Mickey to be in. Still, he didn’t think he was hoping for a fight to break out here “I’d bet on you. If I bet on fights. Which I don’t. I don’t really bet at all, actually. I think I have terrible luck.”
Finally convincing Emilio to let him tag along truly felt like a miracle. There really was power in the art of wearing someone down. Mickey pumped his fist in triumph and bounced back and forth before forcing himself to settle down. That whole reaction was definitely part of the reason that Emilio didn’t want him around right now. “I’ll be quiet as a church mouse.” Mickey stated, before rethinking the words and backtracking, “Well, quiet isn’t exactly my specialty. But I am going to let you do your thing and limit my words to one-offs. I’m definitely going to keep the rambling to a minimum.” So far, so good. “So deal. I’ll let you lead the charge with your ominous phone number thing.”
—
“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t have one,” Emilio replied, immediately making a face at having referred to the mechanical bull as a he. Mickey was getting to him here, apparently. Fucking asshole. “I’m not going to try to ride a mechanical bull.” With his luck, he’d manage to fuck his knee the rest of the way. Or, somehow worse, he would be good at it, and Mickey would never fucking let it go. Neither option was one Emilio enjoyed, and so he didn’t entertain them for long.
It was more fun to think about fighting, anyway. Emilio wasn’t sure if one would actually break out here or not — his inclination was to say no, but fights were a thing that tended to happen when he was around — but he almost hoped it would. It would make more sense to him than whatever else was going on in here, with the hats and the outfits. He gave Mickey an unamused look as the doctor rambled on and on. “Saying you would bet on me and then saying you don’t bet because you have terrible luck is not making you sound very confident that I would win,” he pointed out, a little irritated. He would win. He was pretty sure.
He regretted agreeing to allow Mickey to stick around the moment the words left his mouth, regretted it all the more when Mickey celebrated as if he’d just won some great prize. Was it too late to punch the guy? Emilio spared the bartender a glance. He was watching, expression suspicious. He probably couldn’t get away with punching Mickey. “You’re already not being quiet,” he pointed out irritably, but there was little to be done about it now. Mickey clearly wasn’t going to leave, and Emilio couldn’t waste any more time trying to convince him to do so. “I’m calling the number,” he said. “If you want to do something useful, watch the fucking crowd. See if anyone out there takes out their phone.
—
Mickey did the mental math in his head. He supposed Emilio’s conclusion was correct, bad luck betting on someone didn’t exactly inspire confidence. Not what Mickey was trying to elude to, but if the shoe fit, he guessed that was what he would have to roll with. “Great point. Maybe I subconsciously have less faith in you than I thought I did.” Still, if it came down to a fight against the two, Mickey knew who he was hiding behind.
Not doing himself any favors right now, Mickey actually felt determined to shut himself up. Or at the very least, shut himself up slightly more than normal. Like whatever the lite version of shutting up was. Mickey didn’t see Emilio as the type who would punch him just for the hell of it, but he could tell he was pushing those limits. “Smart thinking. That’s why you make the plans round these parts” Mickey put the accent back on, immediately contradicting his own plan to be a bit less grating and a bit more quiet. Really shooting himself in the foot here. He spun around in the chair casually, getting a preliminary view of the crowd and settling on the group of line dancers off towards the open stage. Seemed like a fair enough excuse to be watching a crowd of dancers. “My eyes are on the lookout for the prize. Mission is a go.”
—
Emilio shot Mickey what must have been the hundredth dirty look he’d given the man since running into him in this bar. If he’d been charmed by the doctor in the hospital, Mickey had certainly relinquished all that now. Mickey was mostly just annoying, at this point. Especially now that the modifier of ‘useful’ that he’d earned when Emilio had needed his help in the hospital was all null and void.
But he wasn’t leaving, and he’d made that pretty clear. At least he seemed willing to go along with Emilio’s plans, something the detective certainly couldn’t say of most people. (Most of the time, his plans were pretty quickly shot down no matter how decent they were; perhaps people just hated to see Emilio coming out on top.) He could have done without the accent, but he’d let Mickey have it for now if it meant he’d stop some of his other ‘quirks’ momentarily. “Doing it now. Try being quiet and keeping an eye out.”
It was the only real warning he gave before he was dialing the number into his phone, eyes scanning the crowd. He hoped Mickey would be smart enough to make note of where Emilio was looking and direct his own attention to a part of the crowd not being covered by the detective’s sweeping gaze. The guy was a doctor. Emilio figured that implied some semblance of common sense.
—
Mickey’s biggest weakness: staying quiet. There was some space-time distortion in effect. Any time someone called someone on the phone and either waited for an answer or voicemail time slowed to a halt. Mickey pulled his legs up into his lap on the barseat, sitting pretzel style while spinning back and forth, smiling at the dancers while trying to stay focused on the task at hand. It felt like an eternity, sitting quietly and waiting for some reaction from Emilio. Whether that was words to the potential assailant or the confirmation that it had gone to voicemail.
It didn’t help that this was 2025, which meant watching for people on their phones in a club was basically akin to searching for a fork in a kitchen. People had their phones in hand recording videos and taking selfies and scrolling pages to kill time. Of course, getting a phone call, especially from an unknown number, looked a lot different than the casual phone checker at a bar. Scanning his half of the crowd, the only person that stuck out to him was someone that pulled their phone out of their pocket, stared at the screen for a few seconds too long and then ignored it. Not exactly a smoking gun, but the most suspicious thing he had seen. Considering it had been approximately seven years since he had spoken last, Mickey couldn’t take the silence anymore and risked Emilio’s fists, “Is it still ringing?”
—
He’d had much better partners on cases in the past. Nora was his ideal, of course, willing to sit with him in silence for as long as was needed. Wyatt hadn’t been bad, happy to do the dirty work (and follow up the case with a bit of dirtier work). Jade talked a lot, but Emilio liked her enough to enjoy her company even when she was going on and on about things he didn’t understand. Teddy was… He shook off the thought. It was best not to think about Teddy now, best not to think about anyone. It didn’t matter who he’d rather have on this case. The person he did have was Mickey. He’d have to figure out some way to make it work.
Having another set of eyes wasn’t a bad thing, though Emilio wouldn’t have admitted to that if Mickey had asked. He wouldn’t give the doctor an inch for fear of him taking a mile. Besides, he had to focus on what he was doing — making this stupid phone call. He held the phone to his ear as he scanned the crowd, listening to the ringing on the other end. He didn’t see anything suspicious, but when the call was declined, a voice played in his ear. “This is Trevor. You know what to do.” There was a beep, and before Emilio could pull the phone away to redial, Mickey was breaking his (very brief) silence. “No,” he replied irritably, “it isn’t still ringing. You got anything, or are you just being annoying?”
—
“Usually a mix of both” Mickey admitted, and luckily for him two things could be true. He had to admit that it was a little gratifying at work when his superiors had to begrudgingly admit that he was right following some incessant rambling. Half the time Mickey stopped listening to his own words halfway through. He always eventually circled back around the point. Usually. “Maybe. I saw someone check their phone. They could have been ignoring a call, but they also could have just been checking a text or something.” Mickey wasn’t sure what the standard operating procedure was when it came to these. He figured something more concrete would be needed before they moved on to whatever phase two was. Not that Mickey even knew what phase two was. Sharing didn’t seem to be a particular strength of Emilio’s.
“Did you get a voicemail? Did it say anything?” Mickey questioned, trying to figure out some plan. He was sure Emilio was already on that though. Thinking up something in the brooding, inquisitive brain of his. Still, Mickey could try to contribute. “If you call the number again and he does the same thing, that might help.”
—
It wasn’t exactly a smoking gun, but Emilio knew they wouldn’t get anything substantial unless the guy picked up, anyway. Someone who checked their phone in the middle of a crowd during a moment that aligned with him calling the person they were after was at least a start. He’d done more with less, after all. “We’ll start with him, then,” he said, offering Mickey a nod. “Who was it?” He scanned the crowd, trying to determine where Mickey was looking before he responded. Patience had never really been Emilio’s virtue. (He wasn’t sure he had a virtue.)
Glancing back to the doctor, he nodded. “Said his name was Trevor,” he replied. “That was all.” Calling the number again could provide them with more answers, but there was a chance it’d spook the guy to get two calls from the same number in such a short span of time. Considering for a moment, Emilio stuck out his hand. “Give me your phone.” Maybe changing up the number would lower Trevor’s defenses a little.
—
It took a second for Mickey to find the guy again, who seemed to blend in and out of the crowd with relative ease. It didn’t make the stranger their guy, but he probably had some familiarity with the bar scene. Again, not exactly a dead giveaway of anything at all. “I guess I can’t say it’s the guy with the plaid button up” That described half of the men on the dance floor right now, and half of them were the same color of burnt orange or red, it was hard to tell in the dim lighting. Did people dress like this to match the theme of the bar like Mickey had, or is this genuinely what they wore all the time. If it was, Mickey was starting to feel like a cosplayer here. “Shoulder length dark hair. Looks like he may have some kind of tattoo on his arm, but it’s hard to tell from this distance.”
Mickey briefly considered the implications of letting Emilio use his personal phone to call someone that allegedly put someone into a coma. Probably not the smartest move around, considering if he could magically coma someone he could damn sure track a phone number. Probably. Unfortunately for Mickey’s limited amount of self preservation, he only briefly considered it before he slipped the phone from his pocket and handed it over. “Good idea”.
Looking for something to occupy himself this time while Emilio tried again, he spun back around towards the bar and waved over the bartender. “Hey! So when my friend recommended this bar to me he told me he had a friend that hung around here pretty often. Trevor, I think? Do you know a Trevor that frequents the place?” Mickey downed the last of his beer and handed off the empty glass as he waited for the man to answer. “Yeah I know Trevor. Not sure if it’s the same one. Comes here multiple times a week. Always goes home with someone new. That sound like what you’re looking for?” The bartender took it upon himself to pour Mickey a new beer, a gesture that was greatly appreciated, and slid it across the bar to Mickey. “Hmm. Maybe. Not usually my thing, but when in Rome. Or maybe Texas? Anyways, have you seen him tonight?” He glanced over towards Emilio to see if the call had ended and if he had tuned into Mickey’s conversation. “I poured a drink for him a little bit ago. Not sure if he’s still around.” Well, they had confirmation that whoever there was indeed a Trevor and he had indeed been here tonight. It was a start.
-
It really was an added headache that half the men in this bar were dressed exactly the same. Emilio, who had made no effort to switch up his usual attire, stuck out in a way that wasn’t ideal for detective work. Mickey, in his ridiculous outfit, somehow fit in a little better. That was a little annoying, but there were other things to focus on. Namely, scanning the crowd for the man that fit Mickey’s description. Emilio zeroed in on him right away, narrowing his eyes at the stranger. He looked normal enough; most shitty people did. “I see him,” he acknowledged with a brief nod.
Mickey handed over his phone with little hesitation, which probably said something about his critical thinking skills. Emilio didn’t care much about it at the moment. He had no intention of allowing Mickey to get caught up in any of this — he figured the case would be over by the end of the night, and he saw no harm in using Mickey’s phone as a secondary tool. (Of course, he also knew little about tracing phone numbers back to their owners or using them for location tracking.)
It was hard not to be just a little grateful when Mickey wandered off. Emilio wasn’t foolish enough to believe that he’d stay gone; even if he hadn’t been holding the doctor’s phone, he figured Mickey wasn’t the sort of guy who’d keep his nose out of someone else’s business for more than a few minutes at the most. But for now, his departure granted Emilio a brief moment’s peace, and he busied himself with entering the number into Mickey’s phone and pressing dial. He stared intently at the man Mickey had pointed out, watching him yank his phone from his pocket, look at the caller ID, and jab a finger forcefully against the screen to decline the call. Just as he did so, the phone pressed against Emilio’s ear played the tinny sound of Trevor’s voicemail again. Gotcha.
—
Mickey was actually pretty thrilled to rejoin Emilio with an honest to god tip. Proof that he contributed more than just a lab coat and general disregard for hospital rules. It may surprise people to learn that Mickey actually considered himself to be pretty humble. Sure, he liked to talk a lot and through that medium he would talk about himself. But he usually kept the conversations sarcastic and even self deprecating. He wasn’t going back to Emilio to brag about the news, but simply excited that he had made a contribution.
“The bartender says that there’s a Trevor who frequents the place and goes home with someone new most nights. He also said that he saw Trevor here tonight, but couldn’t point him out to me on the spot.” Still no proof that the two Trevor’s in question were the same Trevor, but Mickey figured Emilio would take the lead where he could get one. “I don’t think that Trevor is invited to the wedding, but he never actually said that. Just sort of a vibe I picked up on.” Also important context. Not to Emilio, surely, but someone! “Do you think that guy is our Trevor?”
—
When Mickey rejoined him, Emilio was still watching the presumed Trevor carefully. Now that he was reasonably certain that this was their man, he made note of the way Trevor scanned the crowd. Looking for his next victim, or was he aware that someone was on to him? He never looked Emilio’s way, which was a good thing. It wouldn’t take more than a quick glance to recognize that the PI didn’t belong with the rest of the crowd, and that was the sort of thing that might raise some questions.
He glanced over as Mickey returned offering him a brief nod. If Trevor went home with someone new every night, that could explain why he was scanning the crowd. But was he interested in hookups, or was there something else driving him? “Pretty sure that’s our guy,” he said, nodding to the man on the dance floor. He ignored the comment about the wedding. Maybe if he didn’t indulge Mickey’s antics, the doctor would stop. (Wishful thinking, he suspected.) “We’ll need to get him away from the crowd to question him.” He eyed Mickey. “Think it’s your turn to flirt.” If Mickey was here, he might as well be useful. People apparently found him charming enough to invite him to weddings, after all.
—
“You’re totally making me bait right now. Wow.” Mickey hadn’t been sure that he would have provided any actual use to Emilio in their hunt for answers. Considering this person had allegedly put someone into a magical coma, Mickey was also certain that agreeing to play along was an incredibly stupid move. This was definitely how people got abducted and murdered in basically every cop show ever made. Despite this, Mickey’s real concern was whether he could even pull it off. Mickey was well versed in the art of flirty banter and baseless suggestions. All of that talk usually kept him within the walls of bars. One night stands had never really been his style, with few exceptions. He wasn’t sure he’d even know how to suggest it. “If I end up in a magic coma, just find Alexis at the hospital. She’ll know who I don’t want treating me. She’s the mean nurse you talked to today.” Apparently, Mickey’s own words were ahead of his brain. His body followed shortly after as he tipped his hat towards Emilio and wandered off towards the dance floor.
“Did you plan on dancing, or just standing around in the middle of the action?” Mickey practically yelled towards the man, drawing his attention despite how loud the music was closer to the dance floor. Up close, something seemed wrong with him. He seemed pale and covered in sweat. Mickey had assumed the man was paranoid because he had kept looking around the club, but upclose it seemed like he had the jitters more than any real suspicion. Mickey was familiar with the look, he saw it up close and personal when he did a rotation in a rehab facility. It looked like the man was going through some type of withdrawal. Despite this, the man’s face broke into a grin when Mickey made contact, settling into a more confident glare. Either Mickey was far more charming than he thought he actually was or the man had been looking for someone to talk to. “I’m kinda new to this line dancing stuff. You think you could show me the ropes?” Or lasso. Mickey grinned to himself for the joke, but demonstrated a herculean feat of strength by keeping the joke within. Not everyone responded well to Mickey’s humor.
“I’m not much of a dancer. I was thinking about grabbing a drink. You in?” The man was quick with the offer to move away from the crowd. Well that was easy. Which was definitely concerning, right? Mickey didn’t pick people up at bars ever, but he was almost positive that he shouldn’t be this simple. Like an idiot though, Mickey nodded his head and grabbed onto the man’s offered hand, letting him lead the way as they weaved through the crowd and back towards the bar. The bartender gave Mickey a knowing look, and Mickey responded with a thumbs up, completely ignoring the drink that was ordered for him in place of glancing over at Emilio to make sure the man hadn’t up and left him. “It’s still kinda loud here, yeah? Maybe we find a place a bit quieter so we can talk? I love talking.” Mickey offered, holding his glass up to cheers the man’s own and waiting for the man to agree before they were off again, heading towards the back and away from the thumping of the bass. Mickey really hoped that Emilio was following closely behind.
—
“You said you wanted to help,” Emilio replied, clapping Mickey on the shoulder. He didn’t add that there was no way he was letting the doctor wind up in a magical coma, not because it wasn’t true — Emilio would make sure he was never more than a few feet behind the pair if Mickey did convince Trevor to go somewhere more private, and would step in long before Trevor got a chance to make a move — but because he didn’t want Mickey to get the wrong idea. If Emilio made his intentions to protect Mickey clear, Mickey was going to be annoying about it. That was inevitable. He’d run like a dog with a bone, refusing to let it go under any circumstances. And Emilio was many things, but he no longer considered himself a patient man. If Mickey was annoying, he was probably going to punch him. And that would make him more annoying, he was sure.
At least there was no real argument from Mickey. He made his way through the crowd far easier than Emilio would have been able to, both because of his outfit and because his legs seemed to work a bit better than the fury’s. (Though not perfectly, it seemed; Emilio noted a slight limp sometimes. He wouldn’t ask about it in the interest of not having the question turned around on him.) Emilio watched Mickey approach Trevor, making note of how quickly their suspect seemed to give in to the idea of leaving the dance floor. Or… was Trevor the one who had offered it? It seemed as though he was offering his hand to Mickey rather than the inverse. Unease pooled in Emilio’s gut, and he quickly threw back what remained of his whiskey. One might assume that he preferred it when things were easy, but… in Wicked’s Rest, easy was usually little more than a precursor to things going incredibly wrong.
Mickey and Trevor made their way to the bar, and Emilio caught Mickey’s gaze as he glanced towards him. He nodded, jaw tight. Until the moment things went wrong, they’d need to continue as if they weren’t expecting it. One hint of suspicion could spook Trevor, and they wouldn’t get another chance like this again. Emilio thought of the still form in the bed of that hospital room, steeling his resolve. Trevor had to know something that would end that coma. And if he didn’t… Emilio swallowed the fire burning in his throat, ignored the hunger gnawing at his gut. That wasn’t who he wanted to be, either.
Movement from down the bar caught his attention, and he watched Mickey and Trevor get up. Waiting only a few seconds, Emilio got to his feet as well, slipping off after the pair. He stuck to the quiet shadows, trying to make himself look more like a slightly tipsy man in search of a bathroom than a determined detective following a suspect. He waited until Mickey and Trevor settled far away from the crowd and the pounding speakers to slip in between them, propping an arm against the wall behind Trevor to ensure he couldn’t slip away easily. “Mind if I cut in?”
—
Maybe it was paranoia, but Mickey definitely felt different since he held the man’s hand. His hand tingled, and he started feeling a bit lightheaded and the once blaring music had started to feel further away and out of his grasp. That could have been the drink though, he wasn’t even sure what he had been handed after all. He was placing a lot of blind faith in the bartender here, since clearly Trevor couldn’t be trusted. He had also noticed that the color in Trevor’s own face seemed to be returning, something that was probably not caused by the man’s immediate attraction to Mickey, even if he would definitely take the credit for it later. “I hope you know where you’re going, because I’m lost.” he heard himself mumbling, a small grin spreading across Trevor’s face. The bartender had been clear that Trevor left with people all the time, which must mean that he wasn’t in any actual danger here, right? Unless the man had become desperate or power hungry post comatose victim.
Once down a hallway and away breaking away from a few stragglers also looking to escape the crowd, Trevor released Mickey’s hand. Mickey kept following, flexing his fingers to ensure they could still move. He was still unable to shake that tingling feeling. Mickey found himself against a wall, Trevor hovering away from him. It was right about now that in any normal situation, Mickey might suddenly realize that his so-called harmless flirting had landed him in a situation that he had not meant to imply and he’d start talking incessantly to ruin the mood. He was right in the middle of deciding whether he needed to keep up the facade of flirting or if he had completed his job and could resort to mindless yapping when Emilio showed up just in time to save the day.
“What the hell?” Trevor didn’t seem thrilled about the interruption. Sliding across the wall and slipping behind Emilio, Mickey immediately felt safer. “Sorry, I forgot to mention that I already had a date tonight. How do you feel about making this line dance a triangle?” Mickey gave the man a thumbs up, feeling much braver when he was behind someone who had self identified as a fighter. “Oh I should clarify that was not a request for a threesome. I don’t want to give mixed signals.” On second thought, maybe Mickey wasn’t quite as calm and collected now as he thought he was. “Maybe you should lead this next part,” he nodded to Emilio, “I’m supposed to be staying out of the way.”
—
Mickey seemed no worse for the wear, and though Emilio had always intended for that to remain the case, there was a quiet hint of relief at it all the same. Whatever it was Trevor had done to leave their victim in a coma, he either needed more than a few minutes of privacy to achieve it or he simply hadn’t done it to Mickey at all. (There was a chance it wasn’t the sort of thing that worked on humans, since their only known victim was fae, but that was also assuming that Mickey was human. Emilio really had no proof of that.) The information was filed away carefully, another piece of the puzzle that he wasn’t quite sure where to place yet.
There were other things that felt far more certain now, though. Now that he was (more or less) alone with Trevor, without the crowd muddying the waters, Emilio was certain that the man was guilty of something. He could feel it rolling off of him the same way it had the buggane in the tunnel, and it was enough to make his stomach clench in the only way it knew how to express hunger. Emilio shoved the thought away, refused to dwell on it for longer than a heartbeat. He wasn’t here for a meal. He wouldn’t lose sight of that.
“You should definitely not be talking,” he told Mickey dryly, sparing the doctor a glance that might have been longer had he not been keeping most of his attention focused on the Trevor of it all. Trevor, for his part, looked understandably nervous. Emilio felt a surge of satisfaction at that. He was willing to bet their coma victim had felt nervous, too. “You didn’t answer my call,” he said, tilting his head to the side just a little. “If you had, I would’ve asked about the guy you left in a coma at the hospital. Would’ve asked how you did it.” He shifted his weight, eyes dark. “Would have asked how to undo it. But that’s okay. I can ask all that now. So…” He trailed off, hand absently going to his pocket to retrieve a knife. He didn’t look to Mickey for his reaction, though he wasn’t sure the doctor would like the idea of a threat. “Do you want to answer now, or should I ask again?”
—
“You’ve clearly got the wrong guy. I don’t know anything about some dude in a coma” Mickey wasn’t impressed by the lie, and Emilio didn’t seem to be either. Next time Mickey looked he was holding a knife and Mickey’s eyes grew wide at the sight. Was this normal private detective behavior? He was pretty sure that it wasn’t. The man didn’t seem thrilled about the playtoy either, holding his hands up in surrender and trying to back away only to find himself pushed up against the wall. “Seriously, I know nothing!”
Mickey scoffed. He wasn’t exactly a criminal, but he detested the idea of blatantly lying. If you were going to do something, at least own up to it. “Magic coma, to be exact.” he noted from behind Emilio, aware that not talking was supposed to be the modus operandi here. Unsurprising to both Mickey and probably Emilio, the doctor just couldn’t help himself. “I’ve learned that he’s not super patient. Making him ask again isn’t advised. Besides, we already know that picking up people here is normal for you. If I had to bet, it wouldn’t take much for the two of us to find someone that remembered you being here with our coma victim.”
Trevor seemed to contemplate this further, deciding whether continuing on with facade was worth his time or not. How he could find a way out of it. He had to be somewhat dangerous, given the unconscious man in the hospital bed. Eventually, it seemed like he had finally accepted his fate. “I never meant for that to happen. It’s never happened before.”
—
Trevor was lying. Emilio could feel it, the guilt that came off him in waves. Or… was guilt the right word for it? He didn’t think so, though he didn’t know what else to call it. He only knew that it stirred something in him just as that buggane had, only knew that the need for retribution was here and clear and he could not let himself carve it into this man no matter how much he wanted to. Trevor had done something, and there was a patient in a coma in the hospital because of it, but he was still human, as far as Emilio could tell. The idea of harming him and making a meal of it felt far different than the idea of doing the same to the buggane had.
But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t put on a show.
His body blocked Trevor from moving, and his blade moved until the flat side rested at the man’s gut. He was just about to make a threat to use it when Mickey, evidently unable to keep his mouth shut for more than five minutes at a time, decided to pipe in. Surprisingly, though, the doctor’s commentary seemed… almost helpful. And probably more effective than Emilio’s threats might have been. People were honest enough under the threat of death or injury, but they were often more honest when they already knew they’d been caught in a lie. Trevor seemed uncertain and then, all at once, he relented.
He never meant for it to happen. Emilio spared a glance back at Mickey, as if silently attempting to ascertain whether or not the doctor believed the claim. It didn’t matter much, really, because Emilio believed it. It was the tremble in Trevor’s voice, it was the way he wouldn’t look Mickey in the eye. Whatever this was, it hadn’t been intentional. (The call for vengeance swirled in the air all the same; evidently, that feeling cared more about action than intent.) “You’re going to tell us everything that happened,” Emilio said lowly, knife still held steady against Trevor’s gut, “and we’re going to figure out a way to fix this.”
—
Mickey sucked at this lying stuff. Unless lying was for a punchline, he found it incredibly boring. What was the point of making decisions if he wasn’t willing to take ownership of them? Unfortunately, this aversion to lying had the adverse effect of making him pretty gullible. He supposed his brain’s logic to that was: If I never lie, why would others? They must also be telling the truth. Of course that wasn’t the case, but real logic could only go up against Mickey’s logic for so long without eventually caving in. Naturally, this meant that Mickey believed the man pretty quickly after he started spilling his guts. He couldn’t get a read on Emilio’s thoughts, but when the two made eye contact Mickey offered a brief shrug.
“It doesn’t usually hurt people, okay? I just like to refill on magic by borrowing some energy from others” the man briefly looked between Emilio and Mickey to see if the idea of magic was going to set them off in some way. Mickey wasn’t sure why since he had already dropped the magic coma bomb, but he supposed to others in town the idea of magic at all would sound like some crazy DnD campaign. When neither gave a reaction, Trevor continued, “Usually it just wears them out a bit and then I see myself out. But this guy had some weird reaction to it. Start feeling numb and then… I don’t know. I freaked out and ran.”
Mickey had to wonder if any of that made any sense to Emilio, because it certainly didn’t mean much to Mickey. Besides the whole draining thing. “So what, you’re some kind of magic succubus?” Mickey questioned, the confusion evident in his voice. It only took a second for realization to dawn on him. “Hey! Wait a minute. You were totally about to suc me weren’t you?” Mickey hurled the accusation before thinking it through entirely, “Or succubus me. Whatever it’s called.” Clearly he had known he could have been in danger by playing bait for Emilio. And while this story made it sound like magic coma wasn’t the intended outcome it almost felt more violating. “What if you could like, I don’t know. Put magic back in or something? Do you think you could reverse it?”
—
The knife remained a constant companion to Trevor’s explanation, resting firmly against his gut with the threat of shifting ever-present. Emilio’s hands were steady; they always were when there was a blade in them. They were less so when they were empty, sometimes trembled without the weight there to hold them still. He knew that this probably wasn’t a good thing, knew that the relief was meant to come when you put the knife down and not when you picked it up. But that had never been his story. Right now, at least, it made him useful.
Trevor stammered his way through his excuses, and though Emilio disliked him on principle alone, he could tell that this was Trevor at his most honest. He did this often, but it didn’t usually end like this. He made a habit of it, but it wasn’t supposed to hurt. Emilio wondered if that made it better, if stealing a part of someone was more forgivable when it only exhausted them instead of placing them into a coma that no one knew how to reverse. It was still taking something that didn’t belong to him. It was still selfish. His fingers itched to move the knife, and the inclination startled him a little. He didn’t want to kill this man. He just wanted answers. (Didn’t he?)
Mickey’s voice cut the thought short, and Emilio glanced over at his temporary ally with a quirk of his brow. Had he only just realized that Trevor intended to do to him what he’d done to the fae in the coma? Emilio had figured it the moment he’d sent Mickey off with the guy, though he’d been equally as certain that he wouldn’t allow such a thing to happen. Mickey’s second question was a better one, though, and Emilio looked back to Trevor with a nod. “Yes,” he agreed. “You took it out, so you can put it back. And you’re going to.” He shifted, the hand not holding the knife gripping the back of Trevor’s shirt collar. “Come on. We’re going to the hospital. Either you fix what you did, or… Well. At least you’ll have doctors nearby. Maybe they can put your guts back in after I cut them out.” A bluff, but Trevor didn’t need to know that. And, judging by the terrified look on his face, he didn’t know it. Good. This guy deserved at least a bit of discomfort.
—
If the two were lucky, they could get Trevor to the hospital and the comatose dude awake by the end of the night. Mickey could get un-promise bound and more importantly, some answers as to why he had been in the first place. And Emilio could get… whatever it was Emilio wanted out of this. A case solved? An invoice issued? Unsurprisingly, Emilio had not been super forthcoming on all the details of this case. He wouldn’t exactly describe the process as being simple or easy, but it hadn’t resulted in himself being in a coma or anyone being stabbed. At least not yet. The night wasn’t young, but it was young enough.
“I’ve never tried anything like that before.” Trevor warned. Not that Emilio was listening. Emilio seemed to have the utmost confidence that Trevor would be successful. Mickey, as always, was just along for the ride. He hoped it would remain simple. For the patient in the hospital’s sake and also for Trevor’s blood remaining inside his body. The man wasn’t a saint, but he didn’t seem super malicious either. Emilio’s threat, coupled with the knife inch closer to the man’s skin, seemed to scare Trevor into silence. Mickey had to wonder the likelihood of Emilio actually using the knife on that man. According to Emilio, he knew how to fight and defend himself. But he hadn’t punched Mickey earlier, which was a feat of self control that not everyone had managed. For whatever reason, Mickey felt strangely calm despite the threat of violence, as if he had no inclination that Emilio would use the knife he had branded. He had no idea where that confidence came from, though.
Mickey didn’t think they’d get much pushback from the man anymore. It wouldn’t make for the best car conversation, unfortunately. As usual, tonight’s entertainment would rest entirely on Mickey’s shoulders. “I would like to point out that he was already near a doctor, but I do recognize that the threat was more effective that way.” Mickey shrugged, trailing behind Emilio and Trevor. Emilio kept close to the man and led him towards the exit. “Okay, super weird vibes for a roadtrip, not gonna lie. But I do think we can break the ice with a good playlist. The country fit the bar, but I think it’s time to shake things up, yeah?”
—
Trevor seemed uncertain that returning the fae’s magic was a thing he was capable of, but Emilio figured that was a bridge they’d cross when they came to it. The important thing was that Trevor was afraid enough to give it a genuine try and, given the panicked expression on his face and the way he kept glancing at Emilio’s knife, he was. It was hard to feel much sympathy towards the man. Whether or not he’d put their coma patient in the hospital intentionally, he had been stealing something from people for nothing more than selfish gain. Given the fact that he’d pulled Mickey to a more secluded area of the bar and hadn’t disclosed anything about his intentions until Emilio came in with his blade, the fury doubted Trevor had asked anyone whether or not he could take their magic.
It was hard not to let his mind drift to Teddy, too, to how much their magic was a part of them. Having something like that taken from you, even if only temporarily, was bound to send a person into a spiral. Emilio tried not to let himself imagine his fiance — ex-fiance in this kind of position, but his mind was prone to worst case scenarios and his stomach churned with the thought. His grip on Trevor’s collar tightened, resolve strengthening. When they were done here, he was going to make sure Trevor knew never to do this shit again.
He’d almost forgotten Mickey was there, though the doctor had the sort of irritating presence that was hard to ignore for long. “That is assuming I wouldn’t stab you, too,” he replied dryly, though this threat was even emptier than the ones made towards Trevor. “Do you have a car? I’m not putting this pendejo on my motorcycle. I don’t trust his dumb ass not to jump off while we’re going down the fucking street.” He paused, shoving at Trevor. “If he doesn’t have a car, we’ll take yours. I’ll drive.”
—
“You have a motorcycle? You’re even cooler than I thought you were.” Mickey laughed, not at all surprised by the vehicle of choice. Emilio definitely had those vibes. Mickey had considered a bike on multiple occasions. Part of his ‘avoid boredom at all costs’ crusade. But his rotations in the emergency rooms had veered him from pulling that trigger. Instead he had stuck with the car that had no payments to be made, a side effect of the lack of income associated with med school.
“I took an uber here” Trevor muttered quietly, and Mickey wasn’t entirely sure the man was telling the truth. But the three had already come this far, starting to lie now felt useless. Plus, the man sounded so pathetic at this point that Mickey almost wanted to throw an around him and comfort the man. Considering the man had admitted to using some energy vacuum magic on others, Mickey opted against any form of physical touch.
“We can take my car.” Admittedly, the “zero payment” car was still pretty new and nice to fit the bill of someone that was just starting to make income after four years. It had been a compromise. Mickey takes an old car from his parents so they didn’t buy him a brand new one. Almost fifteen years later and he still wasn’t used to all the money that came with being a Hartmann. It was only a matter of time before he made a trip home and found a brand new car wrapped in a bow waiting for him. Mickey knew that it was insane to complain about rich parents and the privileges associated with it, so he settled for a quiet discomfort instead. He considered insisting that he would drive, but he was actually shocked the two had made it this far together today, so he had to pick his battles here. So instead he pulled his keys free and handed them off to Emilio. “I’d make a Dukes of Hazard reference, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t get the joke.”
—
Emilio only shrugged at Mickey’s mention of the motorcycle, swallowing a twinge of nostalgia that he couldn’t afford to hold. The bike, of course, had been a gift from Teddy. His then-partner had always been good at knowing what Emilio needed at any given moment, often before Emilio himself was aware of it. Maybe it had been shitty of him to take the bike when he left, to keep something given to him by a person he was abandoning. Emilio wasn’t sure. But he knew he preferred using the bike to ‘borrowing’ his neighbors’ cars on a near constant basis, and so he justified it however he could. It was far from the worst thing he was justifying these days.
He growled in quiet displeasure as Trevor insisted that he’d taken an uber to the bar. He figured it was probably true — at this point, Trevor had little reason to lie, especially knowing that Emilio had a knife on him. If he said he took an uber, he probably had. And if Mickey didn’t have a vehicle for them to use, that would mean either procuring a car some other way — Emilio was good at borrowing — or walking back to the hospital. His leg would surely protest the latter, but he thought he could probably manage it. Even if it might mean being unable to walk much at all in the following days.
Luckily, though, it seemed it wouldn’t come to that. Mickey had a car, and Emilio grabbed the keys with a momentary rush of relief that there would be no argument against it. “You’re right. I don’t know what that is.” He gripped the keys and pressed the hilt of his knife into Mickey’s hand to replace them. “Sit in the back with him. Stab him if he tries anything.” He figured Mickey probably wouldn’t stab anyone, but the instruction seemed to concern Trevor all the same and that was enough. With little more fanfare, Emilio climbed in the driver’s seat of Mickey’s car and, after making a few adjustments for his comfort, started back towards the hospital.
The drive was short and largely uneventful. Being in Mickey’s car meant Emilio could park in the employee lot, though he probably would have done that even if they’d been in Trevor’s vehicle. (What did he care if Trevor’s shit got towed, after all?) Once parked, Emilio returned Mickey’s keys and retrieved his knife, returning his grip to Trevor’s collar. “You can get us in with no questions?” He tilted his head towards Mickey. Maybe the doctor could still come in handy, even if Emilio hadn’t exactly wanted him along.
—
Mickey was deeply uncomfortable with the idea of holding a knife against Trevor. Emilio did not seem to care, as the option was not given to Mickey when he was ordered to sit in the back and threaten to stab him. Trevor also seemed aware of this, as the man seemed to relax a bit more while Mickey was with him versus when Emilio had been. Luckily, Trevor didn’t try jumping from the vehicle of coma-ing him, so the most uncomfortable part of the drive were the palms of his hands that were drenched in sweat at the thought of putting the knife in his hands to use. He tried to convince himself that this knife was no different from a scalpel. He never accomplished that goal. Mickey had never been happier to climb out of his car and into the hospital parking lot.
As soon as Emilio was out of the car, Mickey was handing the knife back to him, barely held between his thumb and pointer finger as if the thing was radioactive. “I hated that, by the way.” He breathed a sigh of relief that the weapon was finally free from his hands. Luckily, he had thought ahead to this and did some pre-planning on the drive over. Luckily, he wasn’t the only person working at this hospital with arguably questionable morals. “Yep. I’ll be escorting you to visit your sick relative. If you’ll both just follow me this way.”
Getting into the hospital was easy enough. As Alexis promised, the visitor badges were waiting on the desk and Mickey grabbed them both from the nurse sitting behind the desk. He passed them off to Emilio and Trevor. Unsurprisingly, Alexis was waiting behind the desk up on the floor where the victim was. “I’m losing track of all the IOU’s you owe me at this point. This relationship is starting to feel a little one sided.” Alexis’ giant shit eating grin made Mickey’s eyes practically roll to the back of his head. Unfortunately, he had nothing to defend himself with at this point. Today alone she had helped him borrow belongings from a patient and sneak in two strangers to visit the same patient, all without asking any questions. He couldn’t even imagine what she could possibly ask to pay that back. Even more embarrassingly, the thought truly excited him.
“Yeah, yeah. Add it to my tab.” Mickey feigned disinterest, but the two both knew how much he appreciated her help. “We will be out of sight and out of mind before you know it.” Mickey gave her a thumbs up and led the two back down the hallway, hearing Alexis shout a quick ‘I hope your brother’s okay!’ to the two.
Now, Mickey and Emilio found themselves back in the same room they had been in earlier today. Armed with some answers they didn’t have before and either a new ally or more likely, reluctant partner, the two could hopefully answer the questions they asked each other earlier. “Well, here we are. Time to put that magic to the test, eh Trevor?”
—
He shrugged as Mickey informed him that he hadn’t been a fan of holding the knife, because Emilio had known that already. When you were around weaponry as much as he was, you got a pretty good sense who was comfortable with it and who wasn’t. He didn’t need to put a blade in Mickey’s hand to know that the doctor would hate holding it; one look at the guy told him that much. But it didn’t matter. Trevor had the good sense not to try anything, and Mickey never had to reveal that he’d never had any intention of following up on the threats Emilio had asked him to make. The knife was back in the fury’s hand, and the one not holding it gripped Trevor by the elbow to ensure he didn’t try to make a last minute break for it. He thought he probably wouldn’t, though. Now that they were at the hospital, Trevor seemed resigned to his fate. Maybe he felt guilty for what he’d done, or maybe he just knew that Emilio would track him down again if he tried to run. Either way, he seemed like less of a flight risk.
Emilio decided that Mickey was decent to have around after all, if only because the visitor badges he hung around his and Trevor’s necks would make the job a lot easier. He nodded to the nurse who was waiting for them at the table, recognizing her from the earlier investigation in the hospital. She seemed to enjoy making Mickey sweat, and so Emilio decided he liked her just fine.
And, with little resistance, they continued on their way. Emilio tugged Trevor along, knife hidden beneath his jacket. Trevor had the good sense not to drag his feet, even when Emilio turned to throw a quick gracias over his shoulder to the nurse and her well-wishes.
It didn’t take long to get to the room. Emilio kicked the door shut behind them, shoving Trevor towards the bed housing the unconscious patient. Trevor stared down at the man, whirling to look back at Emilio and Mickey as the latter spoke.
“I — I don’t know if it’ll work,” he stammered. His eyes fell on Emilio, panic clear in his gaze. “Are you going to kill me if it doesn’t work?”
“I don’t know,” Emilio replied. Nothing in his voice betrayed the lie, and it was clear from Trevor’s panic that he believed it.
“Please,” he whined.
Anger sparked unexpectedly in Emilio’s gut. “Did he say please, too?” He nodded to the still form in the bed. Trevor paled. “Uh huh.” The fury scoffed. “Get to it. If it doesn’t work, then we decide what we do next. But if I were you, I would be hoping for it to work.”
Trevor stumbled towards the bed, placing his hands on the comatose patient’s face. He closed his eyes, clearly deep in concentration. A soft glow began to emit from his palms, seeping into the fae’s skin. Emilio glanced to Mickey, nodding to the machines by the bed. “Can you… tell anything?” Trevor was still going; Emilio had no idea how long to expect this process to take.
—
Mickey studied the steady beeping of the heart rate monitor. It appeared as level as it had since they hooked him into the machine. No signs of deterioration were always good, but it also meant no change to the condition. He glanced over at Trevor, practically shaking as he stood next to the coma patient and fed energy into the man or whatever magic shit he had going on. He still looked completely terrified.
Mickey remembered his own parents, and the memory caused Mickey to adjust in the chair uncomfortably. He often thought about his birth parents, but he only really thought about their time together, being normal. He rarely thought about their part time gig. The ghost hunting and exorcisms that they had convinced him had been real. The delusions that they had been helping people. He didn’t like to think of those memories, but watching Trevor work brought back a memory that Mickey would have preferred to stay buried. They had never kept their hobby a secret from Mickey. It had been late at night when his mom had come out of the room drenched in sweat and teary eyed. Mickey had tried to ask her what was wrong. He had been far too young to understand what she tried to explain to him. Why they were doing what they were doing or why it seemed to take so much out of them. But he remembered her telling him, “There’s nothing more dangerous than letting yourself get distracted. Too many things can go wrong if you’re not in the right state of mind. It’s best to take a break and go back to it with a clear head.”
This wasn’t the same, not exactly. Mickey knew little about spells by lack of exposure and less about exorcisms by intentional avoidance. If exorcisms were even real, a possibility that made Mickey want to vomit for even considering, they would both have to involve magic in some capacity. He left his chair to stand across from Trevor and on the other side of the coma victim’s bed. Mickey knew nothing about the spell being performed, but he did understand how to handle emotional patients and their visitors in the hospital. “Hey. Take a breath.” Mickey put his hands next to Trevor’s and slowly led them away so that the magic was no longer flowing. He began taking deep breaths of his own in an attempt to inspire Trevor to follow suit. “I don’t know a ton about magic. But I do know that emotions can alter spells. I doubt you’re ever this nervous when you do it the other way, yeah? Don’t risk hurting yourself or him. Clear your head first.”
Mickey was sure that Emilio wouldn’t love the idea of Trevor taking a break. But he also hoped that his reluctant partner would put some faith into Mickey. This was his domain, after all. “I get being nervous. We all didn’t get the best first impressions of each other. But if you can get this guy awake, it’s basically a clean slate. You never hurt anyone in that case. It’s like it never happened.” He had no idea if that was the truth. Emilio may have other plans for the man regardless of how this spell goes. For now, Mickey couldn’t know either way, so it wasn’t technically a lie. Mickey did hate lying, after all. Mickey certainly wasn’t a miracle worker, and he couldn’t cure the man of his fear of being stabbed, but Mickey liked to think that after Trevor’s break and when he started feeding back back into the patient again, he seemed a bit calmer than he had before.
After spending so long around heart rate monitors, it became second nature to take notice when something changed. Mickey jumped up at the first erratic beat. The steady, uninterrupted beating had changed. It didn’t mean anything, or could mean something worse than being in a coma, but it was a change. Everyone seemed to hold their breath at the sound, waiting for something, anything. The new heart beat didn’t level out, at least not like before. It was shifting, hopefully changing with the patient’s condition. “I don’t know if it’s a good thing. But it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Keep going.” Mickey egged Trevor on. And he kept feeding magic until the patient shifted, his arm readjusting, probably from the discomfort of lying motionlessly for over a day. He wasn’t conscious, not yet at least, but he was responsive. That was definitely something. “Holy shit. I think it actually worked.”
—
Trevor seemed nervous, and some part of Emilio felt pleased about that. He’d always been the vindictive sort — something that was probably a necessary attribute of the kind of person angry and vengeful enough to be risen from the grave by their rage. As Trevor stood at the coma patient’s bedside, trembling and shuddering, all Emilio could think about was the inverse of this moment — the moment Trevor had taken what he was giving back now.
He didn’t know the comatose fae on the bed. He didn’t know what kind of person they were, didn’t know if they hurt people, too. For all he knew, the fae was a monster on par with Siobhan, someone who took great pleasure in hurting other people. Maybe Trevor had done the world a favor, siphoning away enough magic to leave this fae prone and still on the bed. But it was easier to think of Trevor as the villain, for Emilio. It was easier to think of the guy hurting people actively as a threat instead of the one not conscious to do so. He could trick himself into thinking that this situation was black and white, even if only for a moment. It was a selfish notion, sure, but it’d give him at least a second or two of feeling decent about himself if this thing worked out the way he hoped it would. Maybe that was worth something.
Mickey stepped forward when it seemed like Trevor was seconds away from a breakdown, speaking to him in gentle tones as if he hadn’t planned to do the same thing to the doctor that he’d done to the victim on the bed. Emilio scowled, but made no move to stop the man. If it seemed like Trevor might make a move towards Mickey, Emilio would step in. Otherwise, he’d let the doctor do whatever he figured was best for his patient. He was a professional, even if he was a mildly irritating professional.
The detective let his eyes slide to the monitors, though he had no idea what he was looking at. He didn’t know if the slight change was a good thing or a bad one, let his eyes go back to Mickey to gauge where they were at. Mickey didn’t seem to think it was bad, at least, and so Emilio nodded, keeping back to let the doctor and the spellcaster do whatever it was they were doing. And then, the patient moved. A small movement, but after so long of nothing at all, even a twitch would feel significant. Emilio let out a quiet exhale, taking a step towards the bed.
“Good,” he breathed, a smile passing over his face briefly. He schooled his features as quickly as he could, replacing the expression with a scowl again as he turned to Trevor. “Good for you, at least. Means I don’t have to stab you.” He glanced towards Mickey, trying to decide if they’d done enough. “If the doc says our guy’s good, you can go,” he decided, glancing back to Trevor. “But only if you agree not to do shit like this anymore. And I’ll know if you go back on that.”
—
Trevor took what may have been the first breath he had taken since Emilio had shown up in that bar hallway. “Thank you. And I’m sorry. It won’t happen again!” He practically spat the words out, already backing towards the door. Mickey wasn’t surprised that the man was eager to escape the people that had just held a knife to him.
“And I’m going to be frequenting that bar a lot more often,” Mickey informed, “And if I catch you doing anything sketchy I’ll-” he trailed off for a second while he considered if he could make any threat believable. Probably not. “Well I probably won’t do much. But I’ll call my partner here and he’ll hightail it over.” There was a sense of pride at calling Emilio his partner, knowing that under most circumstances the man would protest the title.
Trevor didn’t hang around any longer than he had to, and soon Mickey was back in the hospital room with Emilio and the same patient from earlier, albeit a bit less comatose. Little victories. “We totally make a better team than you thought we would. Or would ever admit to.” he immediately teased the private investigator, knowing that it wasn’t the smartest move given the plethora of threats Emilio had incited tonight. Unless Emilio was deep in denial, even he’d be hard pressed not to admit it. “I doubt he’s going to wake up tonight, and even if he does he probably won’t be in any shape to answer questions yet. You want me to call you once he's functioning?”
—
Trevor was inching towards the door, and Emilio made no move to stop him. He’d done what they needed him to do, after all. If the patient on the bed didn’t wake up or showed no signs of improvement, Emilio figured it wouldn’t be hard to track Trevor down once more, to insist that he do something else to fix the fae, even if Emilio himself had no idea what that might be. But… Mickey seemed to think the patient would be all right now, and Emilio found that he trusted the doctor’s judgment.
He tilted his chin up in confirmation as Mickey made his own… sort-of-threat against Trevor, whose eyes widened as he scrambled towards the door. Good. It was for the best that Trevor remain afraid of him — or of both of them, maybe, even if the fear towards Mickey was only there because of his perceived ‘partnership’ with Emilio. If Trevor was afraid of them, he probably wouldn’t do this shit again.
Once Trevor was gone, Emilio turned back to Mickey with a scowl that lacked most of its usual heat. “We’re not a team. You’re just some guy who follows me around while I work.” But there were worse people to have following him, he figured. At least Mickey had proven himself useful, in the end. He glanced to the patient on the bed, sighing. He didn’t look much different than he had the last time Emilio had been in this room, but… there was something a little looser about him. Like he was sleeping instead of comatose now. Maybe it was only in the fury’s head. “Yeah,” he relented, looking back at Mickey. “That’d be nice. I’ve got other things to do.” Drinking, mostly. “But… thanks. You ever need a half-decent detective, you can give me a call. I promise not to hit you. At least, not right away.” And with that, Emilio moved towards the door.
@monstersfear [pm] Should have known you'd be into that shit. He'll help you paint your van, but I'm not picking up a [...] brush. [del: Or whatever you use for that.]
But it is good. It'll be good. He's going to [...] help with the bind shit.
Don't ask him about that.
[pm] Sweet, I want a sunflower van because I’m a ray of sunshine... or something. Either way, I can see the color yellow and it’ll look cool. Yeah, yeah, you can watch and drink beers, boss.
Good, if he’s a warden he’s gotta be smarter than us.
Why would you tell me if you didn’t want me to ask? Of course I’m gonna ask now.
[...]
Super unrelated, but I have an exorcist stopping by. She said I shouldn’t be alone right now, so uh, if you wanna spend time alone with Teddy just drop me by Kaden’s first. And don’t crash my van because I will punch you if you do.
