out with the tide

He has to bite back a grin after they enter the island manor, and Tide begins to speak in an accent slightly thicker than their own. He hadn’t thought they’d go through with the little charade of “Frenching themself up” a bit more for the sake of the elites around them, but damned if it doesn’t work, when Loddington seems to instantly gravitate towards Tide over himself. 

“We plan on doing everything in our power to find out what happened to your employee, ideally before the wards come back down Monday morning,” Jim replies. The fact that Loddington seemed more concerned about his club’s reputation than the actual murder that occurred, certainly spoke to just how much this club meant to the man. Or perhaps how little his employees meant to him in comparison. 

“Excellent. My staff have all been informed to help you out as much as they possibly can. And we’ve established lodging for you in the manor,  Mx. Esmund, the butler for this weekend should be down shortly to show you where you’ll be staying,” he replies. Normally Jim would prefer to not sleep within the same home as a group of suspects, but nothing about this case was going to be normal. Without being able to get back home due to the wards, Tide and him were now for all intents and purposes stuck on the island, whether they wanted to be or not. 

“Mx. Esmund is one of the actors here, right?” He asks, figuring he may as well use this time with Loddington well before they’re taken away to their next destination. “The one that was supposed to be killed this weekend?” 

“Yes, they were,” Loddington replies with a small sigh, “they were supposed to ‘die’ this morning. The members were intended to find their body on the back patio where breakfast was to be served.” 

There’s something thoroughly bizarre about Loddington’s priorities and his general attitude, the way he seems hardly concerned that someone in his employ had died at an event he was ostensibly responsible for, but then again, they don’t know exactly what the liability situation here is. Still, the general nonchalance with which he’s approaching the situation feels strange, and detached, like he’s talking about the actual murder with the same audible scare quotes with which he’s talking about the butler “dying” during the course of the party as planned. 

     “Do you have a list, we could have, of the guests who are here this weekend, in addition to the employees who are currently on the island?” they add, their mind snapping back to the subject at hand as Loddington mentions the other members. All of them will be in costume, pretending to be other people, and while there’s plenty they can do it interview each individual guest, Tide gets the feeling it will be more difficult to persuade some of them to break character than others. “We’ll need to see if anyone might have an outside connection to the victim, or—”

     “I’ll have someone bring you a list,” he replies, tersely, cutting them off before they can finish what they’re saying, and then he glances down at an actual honest-to-Merlin pocket-watch, before tutting lightly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do have to be getting back to things.” 

And he’s gone, out of the room, before they can say anything else, disappearing out of the study and into the hall beyond. Tide watches after him, thinking about stopping him for a moment before they realize even they probably won’t be able to, but they flag his suspicious behavior for later; he’s just as much a suspect here as any of the guests or the other actors. And then they exchange a glance with Jim, the two of them finally alone again, only a matter of time before the “butler” shows up to take them to their room.

The “locked door mystery” aspect to this real life crime certainly was going to make it easier on their end to narrow down a list of suspects, but at the same time, part of him worried it’d also work against them in their task to prove to these members they were in fact real aurors. Of course, maybe they didn’t necessarily have to convince everyone, he thinks to himself, all they had to do was figure out who actually killed the wix in question, it very well may be the case that having some of the club members think they weren’t real aurors could work in their favor. 

“Maybe we should talk to the club president first then, this Charles Quincy Loddington the IV” he reads aloud from the case file, his face twisting into another cringe as he says the name, “he might be able to tell us more if “Mr. Nash” had any past run-ins with any of the club members. Or if he’d received any complaints from anyone?” 

Whatever they did, they were going to have to head out soon, this ward business may have helped keep the murderer on the island, but also put them on the clock before the wards went down again Monday morning. 

Standing up he grabs his coffee as he looks down at them, “You should try that French stuff on him,” he adds with a wry grin, “if either one of us are going to impress someone with “the fourth” tacked on to their name, it’ll definitely be you.” 

.

     “Oui,” they reply, mirroring his grin, getting up as well, getting their coffee and everything else so that the two of them can head out and get to work. And then, exaggerating the bare hints of their natural accent to something stronger, something a little more like Hadrian’s, airy and elevated and sophisticated, they add, “That sounds like as good a place to start as any.” 

MACUSA has set up a floo for them, specifically set up to get them past the wards and onto the island without any trouble, and so it’s easy enough to get there from the office. As they stroll out of the grand fireplace in what looks like a grand library in the manor on the island, Jim close behind them, they find themself already face to face with a profession and somewhat severe looking man in a suit that looks like it costs more than they make in a year, a man who they presume must be Charles Quincy Loddington IV. 

     “You’re the aurors I was told to expect, then?” he confirms, looking between them and then choosing to let his gaze settle on Tide as he asks the question.

      “We are,” they confirm, their accent landing somewhere halfway between their real voice and the over-exaggerated voice they’d joked to Jim with, enough to make them sound distinctly French without sound like they were putting on some kind of character for all of this like the guests would be. “You’re the one who reported the murder, I presume. Mr. Loddington?” 

     “Yes, and I’ve been assured that the two of you will solve this quickly and quietly without making a spectacle of the entire situation. We have a reputation to uphold, you know, as an organization. I’d hate to see this get out of hand.”

It feels almost like old times again, sitting across from Tide, and happily content in one another’s company as they go over a case together. He needed this, he thinks to himself, with everything going on around them, from the chaos that was the impeachment trial to now whatever in the world was going on with the Vice President, leaving for a day or two with Tide seemed like the perfect remedy to make the world feel right again. 

“Well, despite my yuppie upbringing, I’m awful at it,” he chuckles softly before taking a sip of his coffee. Opening up the case file he begins to skim over it, hoping to see if anything or anyone in particular stood out to him. All in all there was plenty of things that stood out to him, but no one screamed suspect. 

“At least we won’t have concealments, but the fact that all the guests are in them will probably be a pain in the ass,” he adds as he looks up to them, more amused than annoyed. He didn’t want this case to stretch on for weeks like Louisiana had, but maybe a night or two in a fancy island getaway wouldn’t be too bad, even if that island was in the middle of Lake Superior, and most definitely harbored a killer somewhere among its various guests. 

“It’ll probably be easier on us if we can solve this before the wards drop down on Monday and everyone leaves. At least for now we know that whoever killed “Mr. Nash” is still on the island somewhere.” 

. 

They can’t help but laugh at his mention of his yuppie upbringing, only because it seems to completely antithetical to everything that makes him Jim, seems like something he would have been so out of place in, but it only takes one glance over at the Savages’ desks to remember that he had been out of place, in it, that the Jim they knew hadn’t entirely taken shape until he’d gotten out from under his father’s thumb, moved to take his own place in the world, a place he defined by being as far from his father and uncle as he could possibly manage. 

      “Agreed,” they say, sitting back, case file open in their lap. “At this point it sounds like the wards are going to be our greatest asset here. Keeping everyone in and ensuring that no one else could have gotten in.” 

It’s the stipulation that makes this crime feel exactly like the ones the murder mystery weekend had been intended to emulate, the Agatha Christie-type detective stories that were fun little puzzles but lacked the messiness and unpredictability of actual crimes: all the suspects pre-defined, all the clues placed ready for you to find. It would be tempting, in a case like this, to shift into that kind of thinking, but this wasn’t a carefully plotted party, it was a real murder, with a real motive, just as messy and unpredictable as any other actual murder outside of a carefully warded island was. It was paramount not to be lulled into a false sense of security by it.

He’s relieved that it seems like the items had never gotten further than the store, although he still can’t quite believe Fox had gone to such lengths just to screw Alexi over. He’d certainly had his fair share of boredom in the office, and decided that his time was better spent pranking a Savage, but this was far beyond a simple prank. If he and Tide hadn’t done their job right, Alexi could have easily been going to jail for years, and not what will likely be the slap on the wrist Fox will get since he hadn’t sold anything yet. 

“Yeah, here, come on,” Fox groans, waving them to follow him, as he leads them back to the back of the store again, and into an area that looked to be his workbench. Items were strewn about, but none of the items were the ones on the list. After Fox bends down though to pull out what looked to be a woman’s purse taped under his desk, Jack begins to realize just where he’d hid all the items. 

Opening up the purse that clearly had some kind of extra storage charm on it, something similar to what Miranda had on that clutch she always carried around, Fox carefully removes each item contained within it. Once all was said and done, each of the missing items were spread out across Fox’s workbench, the cursebreaker swooping open his arms in a ‘ta-da’ motion after he’s done. 

“Well I think that’s everything we’ll probably need from here,” Jack sighs as he looks between Tide and Fox. One of them were going to have to collect the items, while the other cuffed Fox, and he feels like it’s fairly clear just which of those two he should be doing. 

Slipping the warded cuffs from his pocket he steps towards Fox and begins reading the cursebreaker his rights. Once he’s finished he looks over to Tide to see if they had anything left to do before they all three went back to MACUSA and officially wrapped this case up. 

“We’re ready whenever you are, partner,” he adds as he gives Fox’s cuffs a light tug to ensure they’re on tight enough. He’s sure he was the last person Tide wanted on a case like this, but he hopes it wasn’t all that bad for the other auror, it certainly was’t for him, surprisingly. 

.

They take a pair of curse-proof gloves out of their bag and slip them on as Fox takes each of the items out of the bag and lays them out on the table, as well as the list Mansouri had given them when they’d met with him earlier that morning, so they can cross-check the two and make sure everything actually is here and he hasn’t sold any of it, or kept any of it hidden somewhere else. 

And sure enough, each piece is there, and they’re relieved, both because it means they don’t have anything left to follow up on, trying to track any last missing items down, and because it means it’ll probably make all of this significantly easier for Fox. Who they don’t like, but they’ve never been the kind who wants to see people behind bars unless they actually deserve it. He’s an asshole , and possibly a bigot, that part’s hard to say, and they can’t imagine he’ll be working in this shop again when all is said and done, but he’s not really a criminal. 

     “Alright, let’s get this wrapped up,” they say, once they have each item safely sealed in a curse-proof bag and stowed away in their own shoulder bag, ready to take back to MACUSA to have them catalogued and examined before they can be returned to their rightful place in the shop, and head for the door.

But they hesitate, for just a second, once they’ve reached the door the door, and then turn back to Jack waiting a moment until he’s looking them in the eye and actually paying attention to them.

He lets out a deep sigh of relief when he hears the familiar high-pitch voice of Lottie ring out from behind him. He wasn’t sure just how much longer he was going to be able to keep dangling himself like a carrot in front of Heath before he’d have to let him take a bite, but he’s relieved he doesn’t have to worry about it any longer. 

Rebuttoning his shirt, Heath’s eyes narrow in on him, but Tide soon pulls his attention from the room’s entrance. 

“Ah shit,” he groans as he looks back at them, “should have fuckin’ known this was going to be a set up. I don’t think I landed a guy that fast since the Winter Dance at Ilvermorny when Susie Appleton spiked the pumpkin juice with firewhisky.” 

Letting out a sigh, Heath rests his hands on his hips, seemingly having realized he had little else to do here but precisely what Tide had asked. 

“What do you all want to know? Is it where all the shit is? Because it’s still in the back, I wasn’t plannin’ on actually selling half of it. I mean I’m an asshole, but I’m not going to let a fuckin’ death necklace just end up on the black market for some psycho to buy. The thunderbeads definitely, just so I can hear an auctioneer try to explain them or whatever. But anyway.” 

“If the plan wasn’t to try and sell all of that, then what was the whole point of this?” Jack asks, as he steps forward to return to Tide’s side. 

“Fuckin’ Alexi. Asshole has been stealing the show around here ever since he was hired. Figured it’d be a good way to knock him down a peg. Also, I was just pretty fuckin’ bored, so I thought, why not?” 

It’s a relief, to hear that he hasn’t sold any of the items yet, that it’s still in the shop somewhere, that they hadn’t been too late, that they won’t have to track down a death necklace and some vampire hair or whatever else had been on the list. Something like that would have been a nearly unbearable chore. And, they have to say, they’re a little relieved that there didn’t seem to be a motive behind this other than petty vengeance and, apparently, somehow, wildly, boredom. They weren’t exactly going to let Fox off the hook, here, but him being the only one involved made it much easier to deal with.

     “And what did you think was going to happen?” they ask, skeptically, because it seems like an awfully risky move to make just because some centaur is stealing your spotlight, or because you’re bored. He had to have known that Mansouri would call the aurors, had to have known that—well, okay, maybe he didn’t think that aurors would be smart enough to rapidly realize Alexi had nothing to do with it. Maybe he really did underestimate them enough to believe that they’d take the easy solution here, given his general disposition about the entire situation.

     “Fuck, I dunno,” he says, “something something would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for you meddling aurors, something like that. I didn’t realize the doll would give it away.” He sounds deeply resigned to the situation, and Tide would almost feel bad for him except for the part where they’d overheard what he’d said about them when he didn’t know they were listening.

     “If you didn’t want anything giving you away, maybe you shouldn’t have charmed something to talk,” they say, and then, glancing over at the talking doll in question, they add, “No offense, Lottie.”

     “None taken,” she replies, blithely, clearly amused by the entire situation. 

A small swell of pride blooms in his chest, when it seems like only minutes after he’s started talking to Fox, he’s already managed to get the cursebreaker to take him back to the store. Having established their plan, Fox finishes off his drink before taking Jack’s hand in his, shooting him a wink before leading him back out the bar and in the direction of the store. Once the door shuts behind them, Fox turns and is on his way to backing Jack up into the door to do what normally Jack would want him to do, but Jack manages to carefully evade the action. Stepping forward, he avoids getting cornered in, and plays off the act as a little game as he looks back behind him, and shoots the cursebreaker a knowing smirk. 

“If I remember right, you promised me a tour first,” he hums, as he begins stepping backward into the store, aiming to head in the direction of the room with Lottie. 

“Tease,” Fox chuckles, clearly not all too annoyed by the evasion as he follows Jack deeper inside. Jack has to give him some credit though, because he does end up giving him a tour of the place, albeit a cheeky little one with far more flirting than he’d imagine the cursebreaker usually did on his guided tours of the place. 

“And what about that room?” He asks, as they draw closer to where Lottie sat. Stepping forward, Fox catches his wrist, leaving him straddling between the room they were in and the one he needed to get Fox into to get Lottie to give her positive I.D.

“It’s exactly like the other two you’ve seen,” Fox answers, “bunch of weird shit, that’ll give you the heebie jeebies.” 

“That right?” Jack asks, arching an eyebrow as he manages to slip his wrist from Fox’s grip. “Good thing then, because I like getting the heebie jeebies.” 

Stepping backward, he moves his hand to begin unbottoning the top of his shirt, which luckily does the trick as Fox begins following him again. With his back turned, he can’t tell how close he’s getting to Lottie, but he hopes it’s close, because for one he’s running out of buttons, and two, Fox looks like he’s just about to remove any others for him. 

They take a moment to silently pray that this will be quick, and it’s not, but thankfully at least most of it is some kind of actual half-assed tour of the shop, which they would much rather listen to than what they were sure Fox was hoping to do once he got Jack back to the store. They wait, silent and patient, as Fox shows him room after room, and Fox’s attempt at derailment from this tour the moment they reach Lottie’s room is loud and clear; even without Lottie having identified him yet, Tide is positive they’ve got their guy.

They hear the few words of banter back and forth, as Jack attempts to persuade him, and then the sound quality coming from the pen in Jack’s shirt pocket gets muffled, too much to hear anything that’s actually happening, as fabric shifts against it and makes it all but useless. And so they finally make their way in the direction of the room, keeping out of sight, but moving close enough to be able to hear what’s going on without needed the charm to work. 

     “Oh, I didn’t realize I was getting a show,” they hear Lottie’s high voice say from inside the room as they approach. “I thought you just wanted me to identify him. Which, that’s him, by the way, but please, don’t let me stop you.”

And that’s it. A positive ID. Jack Monday, as surprised as they are to admit it, had done it. His plan worked. 

And so Tide steps into view, crossing their arms over their chest, wand in their hand. 

Jack didn’t think it’d take much effort to get Fox lured in, but this almost seemed too easy, he thinks to himself as the cursebreaker comes in closer, and leans against the space of the bar beside him. From the way he’s looking at him, he can already tell precisely what Fox was hoping to get out of all of this, which all in all probably involved the bar’s bathroom and not a return to the shop, but Jack figured he could find a way to convince him into doing the latter. 

“Well today is kind of like my Friday, so I get what you mean,” he replies, and when the cursebreaker shoots him a confused look he goes on to explain, “I just wrapped up a case, which means I’m free for the evening, and don’t need to be worried about going into work in the morning.” 

Now that definitely piques Fox’s interest, he notes as he watches the realization wash over the cursebreaker’s features. And he’s fairly certain in more than one way when the man goes to speak again. 

“The rest of the evening, huh?” He hums with a smirk. “So what, you two finally come to the realization I was right the whole time? That it was that Honduran shit?” 

“Something like that,” Jack grins, and takes the moment to quite visibly give Fox a long once over, which the cursebreaker seems rather pleased by when their eyes meet again. “You know you guys had a lot of cool shit in there, I wanted to look around some more but my partner wouldn’t have it, they just wanted to get in and out of there. Get it all said and done with, you know how it is.” 

“Pft, yeah they seemed like a stiff,” Fox replies, and Jack really hopes Tide isn’t going to give him hell for that. Sure, he thought they were could use some loosening up, but not so much they deserved a comment like that being said about them. Hopefully though, Fox’s next comment won’t let them stay too mad at the other auror, “You know what, we can head back there if you like, it should be closed up now. Osiris rolls out of there right at five- probably so he can get to bed by seven or whatever.” 

“Really? Yeah that’d be great,” he grins before biting his lip, “maybe after you show me around a little we can check out the old man’s office? It looked pretty cozy in there, creepy shit aside.” 

.

Jack takes all of forty five seconds to get Fox to agree to showing him around the store which... Tide isn’t sure whether that says more about Jack’s particular aptitude for this kind of thing or just about Fox, but they’re so close to getting what they need to wrap this case up that they don’t want to question it. Close enough that they hardly pay any mind to Fox’s opinion about them, an opinion which they wouldn’t take much stock in at this point even if they cared. 

They listen and wait until they can tell that the two men are doing just that, leaving the bar and heading across the street, back to the shop, and then they wait a minute longer so they won’t run into either of them outside, and then they leave their untouched drink behind, carefully following after them, listening closely. It doesn’t sound like Fox is onto them. In fact, it sounds like Fox is significantly distracted, and Tide only hopes that Jack has the decency to make his way to the talking doll early in this little excursion back to the shop so that Tide doesn’t have to suffer through hearing any more than they really need to. 

Still. If this works, and they’ve managed to catch Fox before he can sell of any of the items, or use them for anything dangerous, they’re going to have to buy Jack Monday a drink.

“I promise, if something sounds off, I’ll head straight out of there,” he assures them, and normally he’d be a little annoyed in the seeming lack of faith Tide has in him. But he knows it’s well earned, his reputation over the last year hasn’t necessarily been a glowing one, and he had a well known habit of putting himself in risky situations. He was determined though not to make this one of them, he was going to give Tide what they needed to solve this, and without getting himself killed in the process. 

Slipping off his coat he hands it to them. “Here hold on to this for me,” he says as he extends the worn leather trench-coat in their direction. Looking up at them, he shoots them a smirk before adding, “it hides my best asset.” 

Giving his curls a last minute tousling, he heads in the direction of the bar. When he enters he does a quick scan, just to find Tide, and quickly sees them, their back turned away from him. With the pen he knows he can hear him though, so the sight doesn’t throw him off. 

Stepping over to the bar, he leans against it in a way he knows will gather some attention from those looking for some, as he orders himself a rum and coke, holding the rum. It’s only seconds later when he can feel someone walk up behind him. 

“Hey, you look familiar,” turning around, Jack comes face to face with Fox, who was currently giving him a rather long once over, before flashing him a smirk as his eyes reaches his. 

“Hmm, I just have one of those faces, I guess” Jack shrugs, playing just as coy as Fox seems to be. 

“You wouldn’t believe how many times I get mistaken for this auror guy I’m always hearing about. His name is Tuesday or something.” He doesn’t for one second believe Fox genuinely doesn’t recognize him, but the banter will be a good way to loosen him up more. 

Their attention perks up after a few minutes when they hears the sound of Fox’s voice in their ear through the charm they’d set on the pen they gave Jack, hears the two of them start to talk. They don’t move, don’t shift their posture, but they turns their attention sharply to the sound of the conversation, focusing on anything that might indicate Jack’s in any danger here, or anything that might signal they’re making a move to head for the store so that Tide can follow behind and keep close.

But as the two of them start to quite obviously flirt with one another, Tide can’t help but roll their eyes slightly. The pen had been a good idea, for keeping Jack safe against a suspect who could be far more dangerous than either of them guessed, but it hadn’t really occurred to them until now that it was going to mean they’d have to sit here for several minutes and actually listen to Jack Monday flirt. Merde, what had they gotten themself into by agreeing to this. And all because they wanted the younger auror to feel like he had a chance to prove himself after a tough couple of weeks. This was the last time they were letting themself feel charitable while on a case.  

He cracks a smile when they answer him, both at the confirmation they too were willing to try this out, and tread into unknown waters, but also at the light tease. Scratching his now bare lip he chuckles. “If I recall,” he grins as he looks over to them, “I had a mustache when we first met.”  A mustache and about five more inches of hair, he thinks to himself, amused as he runs his hand through his much shorter hair. It was the ‘70s though, he was far from the only auror on the force sporting a similar look. He also fit right in though with the little group of revolutionaries Tide had found themself in at the time too, which maybe was why they got along so well back then. 

All of that seemed like a lifetime ago, and in a way it was. June wasn’t even born yet, and he was still some city kid trying to take a stab at country life in his early years in the Texas Auror Division. Who would have known that one run-in during a rally would suddenly bring the two of them all the way here, decades later, both squad aurors now and dependent on one another in more ways than he’s sure he even realizes. 

“But thank you,” he adds quietly, reaching his hand out to their’s and giving it a small squeeze. “Really.” 

They can’t help but let out a little laugh, at the reminder. Almost twenty years ago, it feels like half a lifetime. It was almost half a lifetime, though not quite as close as they might like to think. Still, it was a remarkable thing to think about, that he’d been in their life for that long and they still cared about him just as much, if not much more. That they’d accidentally stumbled into one another, entirely by accident; that he’d happened to say the right thing at the right time, meet them at a crucial crossroads that had let him lead their life down an entirely new path they never would have imagined. 

He was the best thing that had happened to them, in most of their life. Changed the course of it in ways they’d probably never fully understand. 

    “And I had a perm,” they counter, making a mocking face of disgust at the idea. “But we were young, we didn’t know any better. Everyone makes mistakes when they’re young. 

They shiver a little bit when Tide touches their hair, there’s an echo of another touch that Hadrian has to chase away. They feel shaken, they feel scared, but they know that they shouldn’t asssociate someone like Tide with that feeling. Tide is wonderful and Tide is safe. There’s nothing here that could hurt them. So they let out a shakey breath and they sink into the touch, they letthe soft wave of Tide’s voice wash over them and calm them.

Tide has always told them the truth. They’re not the kind of person who bullshits with things like this. Hadrian is so scared, and so guilty, but they know better to doubt Tide when they say something. Their soft voice assures Hadrian that they aren’t to blame here, that no matter what the only people at fault were the ones who had done this in the first place. Those men had been the ones who kidnapped Alina, who wanted to use her and sell her and treat her like something less than a human being, like something strange and animalistic and useful only for her parts. Those men had been the ones who tried to take them as well, who tried to hurt and kill Eden so badly. Hadrian still feels like they should have been smarter, like they should have known sooner, that they should have done something more to stop this all from happening. 

But there’s no changing the past, so they just focus on Tide instead.

They nod their head, a brief little motion. A hollow kind of acceptance. They want it all to be true so badly, so they let it be true for the moment.

With a soft sigh, they lean a little closer, settling some of their weight on Tide. “Thank you, Tide. I am glad that you are here with me.”

They can feel Hadrian recoil, instinctively, from their touch, for a moment, so they move their hand back down to their back where it doesn’t seem to bother them as much, keep them close. They settle back in, after just a moment, and Tide can feel them nod, can tell that they don’t entire believe them but that at least they’re trying. They know it isn’t that easy to accept, that it will take time to stop blaming themself, but it’s a step in the right direction, for now.

     “When Eden is out,” they start, sure to phrase it as a certainty, to keep Hadrian thinking positively about Eden’s uncertain wellbeing. “Do the two of you need somewhere to go? If you don’t want to be alone, I mean... I have an extra bedroom, at home. Big bed, very comfortable. Plenty of food. You wouldn’t have to worry anything, while the two of you rest, and recover.” 

He holds his breath as he waits for their response. It doesn’t surpass him that this is nearly the same situation that happened back at Racine- him thinking he might be able to bait the culprit and make a break in the case. But he’d learned the hard way that going about it the way he did then was definitely the wrong move. If Tide thought it was a bad idea he wasn’t going to push it, or run off and do it anyway like he’d done before. No, he’d accept it and move on to whatever other idea they come up with. 

But that’s not what happens this time. Instead it feels an awful like Tide is actually considering on taking him up on his offer. At first he’s not sure what the whole deal with the pen is about until it dawns on him, that duh, it’s Tide’s way of keeping track of the conversation. Which was good, another precaution to prevent a fiasco like Racine. 

“Got it,” he nods his head, “make him think we’re all on board the centaur did it with the artifacts in the cupboard train, work my charms on him then bring him back here.” He’s already fairly certain how he could get him back there, There was enough cool shit in the store he could easily charm Fox into showing him which stuff was his, and go from there. 

“Do you think Fox is still in the store somewhere?” He asks them, but Lottie quickly speaks up from her chair. 

“He goes to the bar after work,” she replies with a grin. “I hear him talking about it all the time.” 

“There’s a bar across the street,” Jack adds quickly as he looks over to Tide, and he’s a little annoyed how he knows that given how this was his first time in the shop. But he knew the bars in Port Steward like the back of his hand, and he knew for a fact there was one right there. “We head in at different times, make sure he doesn’t see us together, and we can go from there?” 

.

It reassures them, a little, as Jack repeats back the important parts of the plan. There’s still a risk, there always is, but it feels less like sending him off into direct danger without knowing what he’s doing. They’ll be close by, they remind themself, close enough to step in if anything goes wrong. A bar across the street. They nod, in agreement. A bar is good, somewhere they’ll be able to stay close without being obvious. 

     “Be careful, Jack,” they say, just before leaving him. “I mean it. No unnecessary risk. If you feel like you might be in danger, get out of there.” They fix the pen in his pocket, just to give themself a second to accept the plan, and then put a hand on his shoulder, giving him another nod, confident and certain.

And then they head out of the shop, cross the street to the bar Jack had mentioned and make their way inside. They take a minute, ordering a drink at the bar that they won’t actually drink just to help them blend in, and then find a table that puts their back to the rest of the bar, so they’re close enough to react if Jack needs help but won’t be noticed if Fox happens to look their way.  

“I certainly wasn’t looking to get shot,” he chuckles, voice still raw and cracked. “I made a promise to you and June, and I had every intention of keeping it. That was until suddenly someone brought a gun to a wand fight.” And he hopes they know that, that despite the injury, he really had gone out of his way to keep himself mostly out of trouble’s way. Half of the reason why he so easily followed Baron’s request to head back to the barn was because it would help him get back home more safely. 

Looking back down to the leg, he bends it, testing the muscles strength. His knee was sore, but that was more from just a night spent of being on it, rather than the wound itself. The only thing he did feel was a phantom ache of pain from where the bullet had been extracted. “No,” he shakes his head, “definitely had worse.” 

Leaning against the headboard beside them, he slips his leg under the covers again, and back into the relative warmth of their combined body heat. He’s not sure how to talk about the fact that they were sleeping in his bed, after a night of relatively good sleep it sounded on both of their ends. He was content with just seeing how things went, but it also didn’t feel right just simply not talking about it either. 

“You know,” he speaks up again, as he looks over to them, “we could do this more, if you wanted to.” His words are filled with caution as he says them, unsure where Tide was in all of this. “I know I said I didn’t think I could before. But I’m okay so far- well, more than okay. And I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m open to keep testing just what I’m comfortable with, if you’re willing to put up with me during it all.” 

They’re surprised he brings it up—they’d figured he wouldn’t want to talk about it, wouldn’t want to risk bringing up anything that might make him feel worse about crossing a line he had been so stubbornly reluctant to cross just a few weeks ago. And if he hadn’t wanted to, that would have been fine; it was an exceptional circumstance, after so many people they cared about had been thrust into danger, almost died; after he’d been shot in the leg and almost didn’t make it back home; after they’d been so scared, and upset, and furious, and terrified. If it never happened again, if he decided to pretend it hadn’t in the first place, that would have been fine. 

But... they’re glad he does. Glad he feels okay about it. Or, more than okay, as he says. Glad he says it, when so much between them has gone unspoken for so many years. Jim is their best friend, the person they care about probably the most in the world. They’ve loved him for a long, long time, as nothing more than that. And they’re not exactly sure when, in the past few months, that feeling has slipped into something else, similar enough that they could write it off, could pretend not to notice. But it did, or else they wouldn’t be here, right now, wouldn’t have agreed to stay. 

If this was it, that would be alright too. Someone to sleep beside, sometimes, someone to wake up to. But Jim deserves not to be alone, if he feels like he might be ready to admit that to himself, too. And they feel a little bit like they deserve it, too. They watch him as he talks, considering what he’s saying.

They swallow, they close their eyes momentarily, as they lean against Tide. The comfortable weight of them beside Hadrian, the gentle warmth of their skin, their touch, their very aura. It always called out to Hadrian, they were always souls that should have known one another, that were supposed to be in each others space. Tide kisses their forehead, and they feel like they could weep at how gentle the touch is, how soft and how safe.

Hadrian reaches down. They take Tide’s hand, they hold it in a weak grasp. They need this, something to hold on to, someone warm and unspeakably kind that they can lean on. They’ll feel bad about it someday, that they’ve put the weight of this atop Tide’s shoulders. Hadrian knows that they’re prone to feeling like a burden, that their feelings can be big and all encompassing and they often need more support than is comfortable. They know that Tide has to do this for so many people, that they’re the strong force which so many people seek out in times of trouble. Hadrian vows, in a distant kind of way, that they’ll make it up to Tide. They’ll offer support in turn, when Tide needs it. They’ll spend weeks offering every inch of themselves.

But for now, they let themself lean. “Thank you,” They say again, weak. Tired. They’re exhausted. They’re so, so scared. “If anything happened to them, I think I would die.” They say, too honest, too shakey. They look over at Tide, look at the comforting expanse of their face, feel the warmth, draw in a breath. “It was my fault. All of this happened because of me. Merde, it was a mess.”  

.

They squeeze Hadrian’s hand, gentle and reassuring, back, and when Hadrian looks at them, they take their face in their other hand, smooth the hair back gently from their forehead, searching for that little spark, little flame that is Hadrian, deep within their tired eyes. Still there. Shaken, and burning low, but still burning. And it feels like a relief, to know that this has not broken Hadrian, not entirely. 

     “This is not your fault,” they say, certain and sure. They don’t have the full story of what happened, not by any means, and they won’t ask Hadrian for it when they’re in this condition. They don’t want to ask, right now, a small part of them already furious that Hadrian and Eden were put in this kind of danger through whoever’s fault it might have been, without needing to know. But either way, they’re certain that Eden getting hurt is not Hadrian’s fault, no matter how they may blame themself for it. “The only people at fault here are the monsters that did this to the two of you.”

They use Hadrian’s word. Monsters. Whether Hadrian means it literally or in a storybook kind of way, maybe it will help them, to think of whoever did this as monsters. What had happened must have been monstrous. And it is so much easier, sometimes, to imagine that the depth of cruelty human beings are capable of can be ascribable to something easy to understand like monstrosity instead of acknowledging that some people are just evil, plain and simple.