#smugliar

Wouldn't be the weirdest explanation he's heard for... well, for anything, really. The mundane is so much easier to believe, to compartmentalize, to accept. Everyone wants to blame haunted houses on carbon monoxide poisoning because that doesn't fundamentally alter your perception of reality.

The thing is that this guy hasn't seemed bothered by the notion that he'd skipped from one reality to another until now. When they found him in the motel he'd been casual about the circumstances, then apparently relieved when they pulled him out of the Oceanview and into the Oldest House. From what Miles gathered from the preliminary notes, the man has some understanding of shifting planes and alternate dimensions. He'd been lost -- trapped -- in another one, a darker one, and now he's here. That should be an improvement, and he'd been acting like it was one around the other agents and scientists until Miles entered the small interrogation room.

Interview room. Interrogation feels too pointed, too accusatory, even if the space is set up like every crappy procedural cop drama known to man. An ergonomic metal table and chairs. Obnoxious fluorescent lights. One-way glass off to the side. Except instead of officers and lawyers there's a slew of labcoats and clipboards on the other side, and the whole space is lined with Black Rock, and the light source isn't entirely identifiable. Still, he doesn't want to think of this guy like a criminal -- even if the way he's looking at Miles borders on twitchy. There's an easygoing persona about him, but the way his eyes keep darting across Miles' face suggests he's searching for something and coming up short.

That, and he said Miles' name the minute he walked in. Like it was a question. Like he recognized him. Not in a way that asked you must be but in a way that said is that really you?

Miles has let him do most of the talking. It's taken some prompting and persuading, and he can't fault the other for the lack of trust. He knows he hasn't gotten the full story by the time the man -- Ace Visconti, a fake name if he's ever heard one -- leans back in his seat and offers the neat little hallucinatory gas explanation, like he knows he sounds crazy and is trying to downplay it.

He's not looking at Miles anymore, but even then he's implicating him with his words. We both know that's bullshit. Like he's expecting the agent to go along with it. And the thing is, Miles almost wants to. He has half a mind to laugh like it's a joke, crack one of his own like this is a friendly conversation where he knows exactly what kind of comments he can get away with.

Do I know him? Do we know him?

The back of his skull prickles like pins and needles. That isn't a no.

"Mass hysteria's less common than you think -- real cases of it, anyway, not paranatural incidents the FBC has convinced people are all in their heads. Of course, this could all just be in your head, that's more likely than anything on a collective scale." There's humor in his tone in spite of the words themselves. He's not making light of what the other has been through, but his sense of tact is warped to say the least. "But you're right, I do know that's bullshit. Your story sounds credible to me. Fucked up, yeah, but credible." That nagging sense of recognition lingers, but he pushes it to the side, not wanting it in whatever official report comes out of this.

"So congrats for managing to dimension hop without scrambling your brain in the process. That's a rare feat around here."

     “Remember that guy you told me about? The who...got his finger taken off by a cigar cutter, ‘cause he was caught cheating in a game? Against, ugh, whatsit, a mafia guy? Were you...cheating in that one, too?”

     He was looking for a distraction. Perhaps too on the nose, blearily watching Ace wrap gauze around his stub of a finger. He had been disarming a bear trap, only to have gotten distracted by a footsteps approaching over broken glass. Ace at least looked a little apologetic for scaring Quentin into losing a finger.

She has been to many kind of houses due to her father’s business, some coming with stories of haunting she used to pass as a telltale before her real counter with the bogeyman. Despite creating a reclusive look towards the house, she turns soon towards Ace. Better get going while they still can. House is a house, and usually filled with supplies.

→ @smugliar​ ::  “I don’t think that’s the way it works.”

“You wouldn’t know. You’re not a parent.” 

  --   Words are quietly spoken, head hanging at the shoulders with the accompanying sigh. It wasn’t a habit he made often -- strangers at bars, easy, quick meals to hold one over during the long nights, but this was something else. A target over simple passerby in the night. His employer was one that sought this one out specifically ( don’t neutralize him, get him to come back willingly. the damage he can cause is incomprehensible if control is lost ) and for that they sent one of the best. It didn’t take a look into the spirit world to recognize the face of a man that felt trapped, however. A kindred spirit that thrived on movement and flight, free will the most powerful of weapons in his arsenal, one that withered under the watchful eyes of constant cameras and experimentation. 

Thomas could recognize it because, at one point, it had been him. 

     And so, more out of respect than pity, he allowed an extra moment of freedom in the empty bottom of a glass & a pair of cigars. 

     There was a question as to whether he would even be of any use in subduing this one; he’d read the case files, the lab reports, every note jotted down in regards to this subject, one possessed by a horror only known to a rare few ( a cult with minute information on at best ) after years of subservience to its ghastly whim. He knew possession. He understood it more than most. It was something that hit harder than any bullet could, and something he was the best at correcting through vicious exorcisms, often ending the host with the departure of spirit. But this thing was different. It was rooted, ingrained, it had burrowed into Visconti’s soul like a vile stain, and they’d wanted him alive. 

Sometimes I thought I could hear her, even when she went to Jack’s. It’s like we were...still connected, to hell with the distance. If I’d have reached out though, she would have hated me -- 

I don’t think that’s the way it works. 

     Lips quirk at the corner in a smile half-strained, that gaze keeping far from Visconti’s own. It was vulnerability in the presence of a conman, one of his riskier attempts at breaking away the walls this one had set up. Rekowicz knew well the art of negotiation -- one didn’t gain without losing. Cigar meets lips in a breath of silence, allowing his coldshoulder response to set between the two. A wedge he knew would hurt. He’d seen the interview footage; the names that came up first, the way the eyes seemed to soften just at their utterance, the way his spirit seemed to tense just enough to indicate concern. No living family members, but blood seldom decided a family. 

『❛  Bad turn old man.. You’ve got no where left to run.  ❜』  

handwritten notes