⋙ 𝕛𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕖𝕪

harlon was not a stupid man. but even a stupid man could see the agent stumbling on his words infront of him and how panic he looked at him. “calm down son. you aren’t in any trouble.” the pastor said, holding out his hands to try and reassure him. sure he didnt like people sneaking around his church but he was an agent he was sure that was part of his whole job.

but if this man wanted to talk about things then he was glad to do just that. placing a hand on the agents back, he smiled as he led him towards his office. “i have plenty of pamphlets in my office and i would be happy to answer any questions you have there. i hope you were able to listen to my speech. i think it went well.”

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         The disconcerting thing, Harlon seems nice. He’s reassuring and friendly, and he’s not chewing Oscar out for sneaking around the back of his church, even though he’s fully within his rights to. And that’s the problem: Oscar’s getting a tiny glimpse of why people might choose to follow this guy.

Lia can tell the moment Oscar spots the sticker book and has to force down a smile at his response, the way his eyes follow the spot of color that stands out from her otherwise unsaturated existence.  There’s just something contagious about how much he enjoys them.  Lately, she’s even found herself getting a bit excited when she finds a particularly flashy new set.  That’s not why she’s here right now, though, and so, hoping to avoid distracting him any further, she tucks them a little farther out of view.

“I’m alright.  Just putting these back–don’t let me disrupt you.”  After the earlier debacle with Dante, Lia resolved to make and keep her own copies of all current and future evidence.  She drops the original folders back into their respective spots in the filing cabinet, but hangs onto her own–the one with the duplicates and the sticker book in it–as she joins Oscar next to the table.  “What are we looking at?”  It’s her way of asking if she can help.  The photos are scattered chaotically, and she itches to organize them better, but she knows better than to rearrange Oscar’s work.  Still, she can’t help asking, “are they all labelled?”

         The sticker sheet gets hidden before Oscar can get a proper glimpse of what it is. Darn. He saw glitter, but what could it be? Unicorns? Kittens? Planets? Whales?

         “Blood spatter from Victoria Cato’s scene,” he answers, tearing his gaze away from Lia’s folders (he’s not suddenly going to develop X-ray vision no matter how fervently he wishes) and back down the photos. He thinks he’s already got everything from the scene, but it never hurts to take a second and third look. The photos are currently arranged according to cardinal direction. “They’re labeled, but, uh, on the back.”

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

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

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

               Oscar’s words sink in.    Kimo’s frown deepens.    Picky hasn’t mentioned anyone else,    so at least they already know he’s lying about one thing.     Well,    Kimo believes he’s lying about everything,    but that’s still to be officially determined.    

     ❛   I guess we’ll have to wait for Dante’s report on the body.   ❜     Kimo sighs.   ❛   It just doesn’t make sense that Picky would put her to sleep before stabbing her if this were a regular break-in.   And besides,   who the hell stabs someone thirteen times during a robbery,   even if he didn’t expect her home so early ?   ❜ 

         “At least fifteen times,” Oscar can’t help but correct, on pure auto-pilot, then grimaces. “Sorry.” Other than that, Kimo’s right. Victoria had to have been paralyzed, or knocked unconscious, or controlled, to be able to stay still during all of that.

𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑  —— @ohnoitsoscar​.

               ❛   Sage and I plan to interrogate Picky in a few,   ❜     Kimo says,   forgoing any polite greeting in lieu of getting to the point,     ❛   any information from the blood splatters that could help us ?   ❜   

         “Um, I’m still processing evidence off of Picky’s clothes, but, uh, there’s, hang on--”

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

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

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

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

“So formal,” Niko agrees sagely, leaning away once it’s decided.

He glances back to his screen. “Yeah, I’m typing up everyone’s case notes and organizing them by agent, potential suspect, reliability, and stuff.” He scrolls down the page, finds Oscar’s name on his list, and carefully adds “accelerated growth pod people” to a new table cell beside it.

“It is kind of weird, right? Maybe it’s some sort of mind control or something. It would have to be pretty powerful to affect this many people…”

.

         Admittedly, Oscar doesn’t actually know if accelerated growth pod people are even a thing. He’s not the cryptozoologist here. But that’s the thing about hunting down cryptids: there’s always something new and wild around the corner.

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

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

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

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

.

the brunette shook her head, somewhat embarrassed now. she understood what it was like to work under pressure ( maybe she wasn’t familiar with how to operate effectively under it, however ) so having to repeat oneself didn’t seem to bad. still, her cheeks turned their long-familiar shade of pink as she spoke. 

    “n-no, you’re fine. it’s fine,” the words spilled out hurriedly, the music sending a funny sensation to her eardrums. right. “uhh, the blood splatter analysis. i haven’t had the chance to read the autopsy report yet, but i heard it’s one big mess. i was wondering i-if you’d been asked to do a BPA, and if something had come up if that was the case.”

.

         Oscar’s so used to being one of the more awkward and easily-flustered people on the team that it’s bizarrely funny to talk to someone that’s just as bad. Funny in a oh jesus how are we going to get through this conversation without a lot of stammering kind of way, but if there’s one thing he’s good at talking about it, it’s his job. Small talk? Bad, no thanks. Blood spatter? Awesome.

“you know normally i don’t think people are allowed backstage at this sort of thing. but i suppose i could let it slide.” dad smiled as he spotted the man. an agent of some sort but of what kind he was unsure. information on him had not gotten back to him yet. “is there a reason why you are back here?”

@ohnoitsoscar​

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         Horror at being caught out makes Oscar stumble from where he’d been trying to silently open a backdoor; he rears back a couple of steps, accidentally catches a (thankfully unlit) candle with a flailing hand, and descends into chaos as he tries to stop both it and himself from falling, all to a tune of, “Oh shit, oh no, damn it-- no, okay, got it, sorry, crap.”

stephen knew the routine by now of what happens after one gets arrested. but getting arrested for a crime like this surely was a new thing. inside of the holding cell he could not sit still as he paced back and forth, until he saw someone approaching. “you don’t look much like an agent.” he said, looking over the man. “you some lawyer they hired me?”

@ohnoitsoscar​

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         Needless to say, Oscar doesn’t love this part. Sure, he could get one of the local lab tech to do it, but he doesn’t know them and he doesn’t trust them to do a thorough job. Not after autopsy reports have come up janky and evidence is missing. He’s not surprised that Stephen doesn’t pick him for an agent -- most people don’t, because... yeah, he kinda really doesn’t look like one -- but the lawyer assumption takes Oscar by surprise, startles a noise out of him that’s close to a laugh.

         “So, uh. Is he here? Mr D-Word?”

         Honestly, Oscar can’t bring himself to say Dad. It gets creepier every time he hears it verbalized. But he hasn’t met Harlon Harper before, and in the crowd of the vigil at the church, he can’t pick out which one he is. What he’s hoping is that he get in close enough to nab some DNA, but right now, he’s kind of wondering if Gregor finds the vigil weird.

         Strictly speaking, Oscar doesn’t need to be in the meeting space they’ve been allowed to use in the local precinct, but given some of what’s come to light, he thinks it might be a useful place to be. Even if all he’s doing in organizing the photos he took at the newest crime scene, there’s a chance he could overhear something. Overhear what, he doesn’t know, but shit’s weird and something’s not adding up.

         “You okay?”

         Sage probably is okay, but Oscar figures it can’t hurt to check. She did just walk in on an unexpected crime scene -- the same one Oscar’s walking into now, five minutes after he got the call, but he’s prepared. And the local cops are securing the scene, leaving Oscar a couple of minutes before he’s allowed in to take photos.

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

Pursing his lips, he couldn’t help but agree with Oscar at this point. Not that he wanted anything bad to happen to anyone else—there wasn’t just as much the lab techs on the team could work with. It was up to the field agents at this point, and as much as they delivered, Dante hated not doing anything on the cases. He needed to do something in Nowhere, USA unless he wanted to spend weeks on end staring at grout on the tiles.

“Obviously.” He takes a sip of the coffee again and furrowed his brows. “I’m not HR, you know. I’m not going to give you a fucking write up because you said that you needed more blood spatter. I’d kill for any ligature marks on the body, if that makes you feel any better. It’s way too clean for me.”

         Slowly, as Dante reassures him that it’s totally not weird and creepy to casually wish for gorier crime scenes, Oscar winds down from his rush of panic. “Good. That’s... yeah, okay.” He rubs at his temple with a hand that’s still shaky from nerves. He just really likes this job, and he knows he comes off as kind of weird sometimes, and he’d hate to lose the job because he said something that made him sound like a monster.

         Oscar wonders if they even have HR. If they do, he’s surprised he hasn’t been reported to them earlier for his music or his bugs.

           Kimo doesn’t know what it’s like for his job to take over the rest of his life.    His hobbies,   his way to kill time,    how he stays sane at the end of the day.    The specialist,   in particular,   seem to be that way.    He guesses there’s a reason they ended up in this field.    Kimo stares blankly at Oscar as he fills him in on his forum activities. 

     ❛   You have a point.    Why don’t you write a proper research paper about it,   instead of putting all your thoughts down on some obscure forum ?   ❜    and he asks out of genuine curiosity.   It might be his age,    but the internet only seems useful for information they can’t get locally. 

    ❛   Oh,   right,   ❜    Kimo takes a sip of his coffee after accidentally turning Oscar into a bundle of nerves,    ❛   saw your name pop up during the briefing,   forgot about your extreme aversion to people.   ❜    He says in form of an apology.   Then,   ❛   Niko and Sage should be at the scene soon,   though.   We should head there too.   ❜

         “I already have,” Oscar admits. “Well-- it’s not finished. It’s a work in progress.” Like the other couple dozen work in progress research papers he has. “Arguing with people on the internet is just a bonus.” He’s almost tempted to insist that it’s hardly an obscure forum that he’s participating in, but that would entail an entire lecture. And they’ve... kind of got work to do. So maybe the history lecture on conspiracy forums can wait.

         He visibly relaxes when Kimo doesn’t go right ahead and insist that Oscar do something like Having To Talk To People. It’s not that he has an extreme aversion, he’s just not very good at it? The field agents are way better than he is. Kimo has this amazing ability to look both kind and scary at the same time. He’s got, like... resting Good Cop Bad Cop face. Simultaneously.