sᴏʀᴄᴇʀᴇss

“Still not quite right. Do you have any further ideas?” he asked while looking over her shoulder to the corpse and then casting a cursory glance at her notes. “I’ve brought tea, biscuits and sanitizer for your hands once your done. I thought you might like to join me in the barn after.” The barn as it was so inconspicuously named, was an old but secure building situated at the centre of his self made ‘body-farm’ and housed his latests projects, including grotesque sculptures of muscle and bone, as well as where he completed some of the more sensitive interrogations. For all intensive purposes it was an artist studio. 

“Sadly, no. At least, not any I am certain of currently.” Ian said with a a shrug. Dealing with this sort of thing took time and, though in her youth the very idea of not getting a trial perfect on the first try turned her mad, the older woman has grown to not give a fuck. At least, for the first few attempts. But after a while is just became rude. And this project was teetering on the line of rudeness. “However, I believe it might have to do with the temperature. Damn summer causing me to waste my time…. Perhaps I’ll bring in dry ice. Make this place really look like a haunted house of horrors.” There was a soft chuckle at the image.

At the mention of the ever so infamous ‘barn,’ Ian’s leg straightened up to a stand. The smug expression was gone, and eagerness, almost like a child’s, grew upon her face. “So, a new project.” There was no need to state it as a question, of course he would have something new. He always did. 

Should I get a water sprayer?

Alec rolls his eyes, then holds up his right hand. The damage wasn’t too terrible, cuts scabbed over and healing nicely. Alec gets distracted from his deadpan at Ian to glare down at her dog sniffing his foot. On the whole, Alec didn’t like animals. Senka and Divna were different, of course, but this fluffy puppy wasn’t his. And therefore, he carries a mild dislike for it automatically. But he sees Ian out of the corner of his eye and she is one person he never wanted to anger.

“Where did you find Petit, again?” Divna hops down from the couch finally now that Senka was done greeting their visitor, but she doesn’t drift over to Petit. Instead she goes for Ian, and Alec wonders if she remembered the woman who stole her in the first place. What a tiny little traitor.

With that investigated completely, her gaze dropped to Petit. The woman could see the shift in the Alec’s expression and she was beginning to wonder what the hell her pup was doing. There was a spark of pride when she saw Petit had gained enough courage to approach the fellow agent. “Churchfield Road. Figured he was lost. He looked fairly confused, anyway.” She knelt down to give the dog a scratch behind the ear, as well a boop of the nose when the cat made her appearance. 

“Enough of pet talk. Let’s begin something more adult. Like food. And then poison.” The woman held up the book high in the air, the holy relic it was, as she raised back to a standing position. Then it returned back to her chest as Ian made her way to the dining table. 

Life imitates art.

Jess redacts her reaching hand with a sigh. “That. That was for all the broken mugs, wasn’t it.” And she looks back up at Ian with a smirk on her face as she slips off the couch to pick up all the papers.

“Two down, two more to go.” Her fingers held up the total number of four, with two slowly curling down tight on her palm. Four of her mugs had been demolished by the other’s acts, and payback would come about slowly. Not that she particularly cared about her missing cups, however. Mugs were easy to acquire.

Ian knelt down on her knee with a fluid motion and snatched up papers along Jess. She inched her fingers closer and closer, subtle and strategic. The two of their hands lightly grazed each other. All part of the plan. Then without thought Ian’s hand surrounded Jess’s own... Less part of the plan. The sudden warmth felt nice on her fingers, but the situation finally dawned on her a few seconds too late. “Hm, well that’s.... not paper.... your hand feels slightly like paper maybe you should use more lotion.” 

Jump into a tub of milk mid lecture. That would start some buzz.

Ian distracts Alec with the scrapbook of mythicality and Alec grins. Okay. Maybe they all have terrible interests. “Is that what I think it is?” Alec says, moving closer to Ian. “Mother dear, I was afraid you were joking when you talked about it.”

“But first. Hand.” And with liking him, she also cared for his well being, despite his general disregard for it himself. The woman’s eyes dropped down to the hand in question for she had not forgotten the glass that had once poked out of it.