* victor !

He casts his gaze back down at Victor, curious to hear his answer. Instead, he finds himself slightly enamored at the sight of the former assassin on the verge of blushing. He would have figured after the night before, and even the current state the two of them were in at that moment, would have been enough to stamp down any lingering shyness between them, yet there Victor was, smiling into his chest as if he needed to fight off the urge to hide the grin. 

“Well I should hope so,” he chuckles quietly. He’d be offended to some degree if his name wasn’t one of the first out of Victor’s mouth, what with just what all Eris did in order to coax out the luminescent mist from the other auror’s wand. He doesn’t comment any further though, allowing himself to fall quiet again as Victor goes on. The mention of Cain is the first time he can recall Victor ever using his former boss’s name, in fact if Eris hadn’t did some quiet digging of his own he likely wouldn’t even know that was the original connection between the two, rather than simply an old boyfriend. 

He can’t help but wonder just what that relationship- if it could even be called that, was like. Victor’s urge to find anything and anyone to throw his loyalty behind wasn’t unnoticed by Eris, in fact it was one of the first things that drew him to the former assassin, realizing how valuable an ally he could be. For Victor to so thoroughly betray that trust, Cain must have done something unforgivable- if not once, then gradually over time, until Victor had no choice but to commit the act he did. 

Any such thoughts of Cain though, quickly leave his mind as Victor next mentions a daughter.  Now that certainly hadn’t come up in any research he’d done before. His confusion only grows further as Victor speaks though, as he seems to go back and forth on his own relation to the girl, then goes on to suggest that somehow his conduct could affect just whether or not she does become his or not. 

“Kind of your’s?” He asks, figuring it’d be better to address one source of his confusion at a time. “Does her other parent have custody or…?” 

It’s strange to share. Strange to give these parts of himself out just because someone asked a simple question. But Eris makes him feel torn open and vulnerable somehow, makes him want to find his heart where it lies under all the armour and hand out out, hand it over. He’s never kept it for himself, it’s always been someone elses to hold and to control. Cain had it in a pretty cage for so long, even after Victor saw him locked behind bars, even when he began to understand the myriad of ways that Cain had been bad for him –– bad to him. The therapist he went to see sometimes, not as often as he should, threw a lot of words around about it all. Words he didn’t like to think about. But he couldn’t change the fact that Cain had owned him in far too many ways. Victor hated him now, more than anything, but he was the largest thing that lingered in the world, in the past. 

He’s glad, for a moment, that his head is resting on Eris’ chest. He’s glad that he can behere now, instead of back there. He’s glad that he doesn’t have to look up, that he can close his eyes and think about the best way to tell the story. He used to do this for her, his little girl. Let her rest against his side and close his eyes, find a way to build a story for her until she fell asleep. She liked that, liked to hear him talk. The sound of his voice worked better than anything to send her away. “Kind of mine.” He echoes, the uncertainty that lives inside his chest is an insidious thing. 

“Cain –– he had a wife. She was. He didn’t love her or anything, she was a means to an end. He wanted someone to keep up appearances. He wanted someone to give him an heir, and it couldn’t be me. I wasn’t really supposed to be his, even if everybody knew that I was. So, they had Ileana together.” He swallows. “Something happened to her, I don’t know what. He must have had her put down, once her job was done. Or he sent her away.” That was what must have happened to Victor’s mother too. He held on to her for longer than most others had, until he was about Ileana’s age now. He remembers her soft touches and her soft voice. “But Ileana was mine, too. He said so.” 

This feels like the things they’ve been looking for. Maybe in another case it would be something small, because they still have no idea what he was doing there, and there’s still no known connection with the third arson besides the same materials being used to commit it, but here and now in this particular case, it feels like a revelation, because there’s been so little to work off of in the first place. And she feels pretty certain that with this, even without the ability to find out from Octavius himself what was going on, they’ll be able to find themself on the culprit’s trail. She has a feeling what they’re going to find is that it was one person a part of something bigger, taking down one part of a bigger web, but it’s always a start, on cases like this that involve illegal goods or black market trading, and getting a murderer arsonist off the streets sounds like a great start to her.

“Thank you so much, and we’ll make sure whatever we find gets back to you, too, especially if we find something that someone in the company might be hiding,” she adds, not the sort of thing she would usually offer outright, but Jackson has been a huge help, and seems genuinely interested in the outcome of all of this.

With that, they head out, leaving Jackson for the time being, with a trail to follow finally. Her thoughts are speeding around, as they so often do when a break happens in a case, all the possibilities swirling around in her head, but she makes sure not to let herself get ahead of things when all they have is a connection between two of the three arsons. Once they’re outside, though, they pause to talk through things, and it’s clear that Victor is thinking exactly what she’s thinking.

“I think that’s exactly what we need to do. If anyone’s going to be able to tell us what this business was, it’s definitely this lawyer, and I think we have a really good chance of a lawyer understanding why giving us all the nitty gritty details, even if they’re messy, is important,” she nods, looking at the name of the lawyer as Victor offers it to her. There’s a reason he of all people was on the list in the file, after all. He must know something, maybe he’ll be the key to connecting the third fire, too, and finding their person.

“I think we’re really close, I wouldn’t be surprised if he has what we need to figure this thing out and get our guy. I say we just jump in, see what he knows about what Donnelley was doing,” Emmy says, before holding her hand out, ready to get going. “Shall we?”

.

Victor feels the excitement build, as Emmy talks through it with him. The case, the way its unfolding in front of them. “I think we’re close, too.” He says, with a little nod. He feels settled in it, in the flow of working with Emmy. He feels like he shouldn’t be as comfortable with her, but he can’t help himself. He must just be one of those people, the warm kind that can make anyone and everyone feel welcome. He gives her a smile, one of his hesitant little things, the quirking of his lips. He’s still getting used to throwing that around freely, but if anyone is deserving of it, it’s probably Emmy. 

He holds out his hand and grasps hers, taking them away. They settle down neatly on a streat in the city, just a few doors down from the office where they’ll find Cyrus Fontaine. It’s one of those places that feels as important as it must be. Respectable, intense. Fontaine represents the wealthy and the important, he’s a pureblood with a pureblood name. And it itches at him, still, why he feels like he knows that so well. Why he feels like he’s forgetting something important. 

They show their badges to an assistant downstairs, and she gives them a warm smile as she leads them up to Fontaine’s office. She says that he’s free for a little while, that he’s been expecting that somebody would come to talk to him about Octavius eventually, and that she’d been instructed to bring them right up when they arrived. Anything to get through this as quickly as possible, and try and bring justice to the world. She knocks on the door when they reach it, the heavy wood making a dull clunking sound as he fist meets it. 

“Come in,” A voice calls out. And Victor rememebrs exactly why he’s been getting chills. Because he knows that voice. He’s heard it before, in sickening and intimate circumstances, put out on loan to someone important who needed him. He can smell death, he can feel damnation, bodies buried together and things destroyed. He pulls in a breath and shuts himself down slightly as they walk in to the room. 

“The aurors are here, from Pacific Squad. They have some questions for you.” His assistant tells him. 

“That’s wonderful, Bella, thank you.” He says. And he twists slightly in his seat. He seems unfazed by them. By Victor, lingering behind Emmy like a ghost. He used to stand like that behind Cain, once upon a time. He isn’t fazed by it, but Victor does note the spark in his eye, recognition. “Cyrus Fontaine, pleased to meet the two of you. How can I help?” 

She’s not wholly surprised to hear that there are no records at all, and that that’s a rarity for a company like this, but it does beg the question if someone working here is also in on this, and she has to believe the answer is probably yes, even if it was something like being bribed or threatened to make something go away. Or even being hit with something like a memory charm. That thought sends a chill through her, an involuntary thought, the place her mind always goes despite her best attempts at trying not to be affected by her own family’s history with charms like that.

Looking at the file that he hands her, her frown only deepens, seeing just what they mean, that the equipment was left there, the sort of things for advanced potion manufacturing, a goldmine for any sort of illegal operation. But the thing is that stuff wasn’t there, at least not to the extent that would indicate such advanced techniques. She catches Victor’s eye, and it’s clear that he noticed that discrepancy too. And then it just gets stranger somehow, perking up as soon as she hears the name Donnelley, a huge turn in this thing, she thinks.

“Three times in one week right before the sale?” she repeats, a little shocked by that number. Immediately her thoughts are racing. There wasn’t a lot of information on what exactly Donnelley’s business was in the case file, since it was his family home where the attack happened, but she’s pretty sure that’s the break they’ve been looking for, something that they can use to connect the dots and figure out who did it, if they can figure out why exactly he was in. She nods eagerly, stopping her thoughts from going completely off the rails before they actually have any more information. “Yeah, he is, the most recent victim, actually. Do you have any idea why he was in, what sort of business, if it seems like it could have been related to that sale or not?”

“It’s hard to say; like I said, there are no records of meetings surrounding the sale, and no one I’ve spoken to has admitted to being a part of it in the company, which in and of itself is suspicious, of course. It’s unclear just what his business is, but I think it’s a safe assumption the two were related,” Jackson nods, looking between them, clearly anxious about all of the things they’ve found.

She pauses for a second, considering it. Usually, she can get a pretty good read on people, and there’s nothing about Jackson that seems to suggest they’re a part of this, or hiding anything, so she decides it’s safe to ask. “Do you think it’s possible he might have been sort of a proxy in the sale? Doing business for someone else? Is that something that happens sometimes?” she asks, genuinely curious, not knowing the ins and outs of business like this. 

“It’s definitely possible. It’s not rare for someone else to come in a company’s place for one reason or another. Anonymity is rarely that reason here, but…”

“But it could be, if the people buying the warehouse were into something illegal,” she finishes Jackson’s thought. “Looks like we’ve got our connection, at least.”

.

Victor’s own heart is beating quickly with some kind of excietment. It was a break in the case, exactly what they had been looking for. Before, everything had seemed sperate, strangely apart from everything else. Nothing touched, there were no messy corners or overlapping edges where the victims met each other. But now, they had a connection between Octavius and the warehouse. It meant that everything really did make sense, underneith the cloud of mystery. All things had a reason, all things had an explanation. They just had to keep digging, him and Emmy, and they would learn the truth. He bites at the inside of his own cheek, to reign himself in. And he tries to think, careful. 

He examines what they know, how he feels about it all. He tries to trust his instincts. He trusted what Emmy had to say, about what the best way to run a case was. He was glad he was here with her. Victor knew that some people doubted her skills, thought less of her because she had been born without the magic that came so easily to the others. But Victor knew that she was good, and he was already learning so much from her. More than he had from most of the others, save Brittany perhaps. Maybe it was because he was somehow more at ease now, maybe because any tension had been swept out of the way early. He looks at her as she voices the thought they must all be having.

Octavius could have been involved in something illegal, under the table. He could have bought the warehouse for someone else, for this strange and shadowy work that he may have been involved with. They wouldn’t know for sure until they looked further in to it, but now they had a trail to follow. It made all the more sense that he was the only one from his family to die, if he had been involved in something apart from them. 

“I’ll keep looking in to the matter from here,” Jackson promises them. “But I’m afriad I might not find much more than that.” He sounds as if he regrets it, as if he wishes he could do more, be more involved. He must be curious by now, about everything going on. About shady business deals and horrible fires that destroy entire buildings and entire lives.He checks his watch with regret. “I’ll be in contact, if anything else turns up. But for now, i’m afriad I have a meeting to get to.” 

It seems like as good a time as any to say they’re goodbyes, and after a few moments they’re walking back through the building again. He’s quiet until they’re on their own. Still thinking, still walking through the case in his mind. Octavius and the warehouse, Octavius and two seperate fires. The links were starting to make themself clear, and he wanted to know more. 

“Donnelley had... what, a lawyer or something, that handled his business?” He asks, taking his little scraps of paper out and flipping through them, looking forthe name and the address that he was thinking of from the case file. He finds it, and holds it out to Emmy. The words on the page look vaguely familiar, but he can’t exactly remember why. It’s like something out of a dream, hazy and half remembered. Must have been from when he first read the file, while he was still working through his first cup of coffee for the day. “What do you think, boss? Wanna see if he knows anything about some secret under-the-table business deals?” 

He’s going to get addicted to this, he thinks distantly as more of Victor’s weight leans into him, his hands coming up to cup his face as he does so. He couldn’t possibly already take more than he hadn’t already the night before, yet here he was, greedy for more of not just this, but all of it. And that’s well… that’s a scary thought. A thought he doesn’t want to let himself entertain any further than he already has. 

There was a delicate balance here that’d serve not just him, but both of them better in the end if they stuck to keeping it in line. His position was still very much a precarious one, one that would make Victor a liability- a weakness that could easily be used as leverage. The only problem is he’s not quite sure how to best keep that balance, the spoiled little pureblood in him not quite willing to let this go now that he’s found it. 

That thought paired, with Victor’s comment on finding another “tutor”, sparks that more possessive side of his nature. Bending his head back down he catches Victor’s lips with his own again, this time a little more roughly than when he had before. His touch grows more purposeful as well, grabbing at him softly instead, seeking to bring him closer as if there was any possible way they even could get closer than they already were. When he breaks the kiss he lets out a low hum, smirking as he looks down at him. 

“Fine,” he replies finally, with a quiet chuckle. “I’ll cancel- but that only means I’ll be upping your charge.” He shoots him a challenging look, before his features melt again, and he leans forward to press another quick kiss against his lips. 

Letting his head drop back down to the pillow beneath him, he snuggles back into the sheets, and the warmth of that hazy morning/soon-to-be afternoon. He hoped Victor didn’t have any plans for the rest of the day, because at this point he was growing very comfortable with the idea of spending the better part of the day in that bed, and use the opportunity to reexplore the body next to him in the brightness of day. That could wait until a little later though, he thinks, surprising himself even after realizing how much more he still wanted to just linger in this morning haze. 

Draping his hand across Victor’s back, he draws soft circles into it, nearly lulling himself back to sleep again before a thought crosses his mind. 

“Last night,” he speaks up, voice still a bit cracked from disuse, “what memories did you use when you first managed to cast the patronus?” 

He surprises himself with the question, although he now realizes just how curious he was about it- or more specifically Victor in general. Given his particular “teaching style” he knows he at least had some part in the spell’s appearance himself, but he also was curious about just what other warm memories Victor pulled to create the small burst of light. 

He always thought it was strange, the power that people had over one another when they got tangled together through these base things. Sex, affection, Victor’s strange crush and the way that Eris, in some small manner, seemed to accept it. Eris wanted him around, that couldn’t be denied, and he cared enough about Victor to give in to the cloying little comment that he had made. The kiss he gives Victor is almost possessive, almost, and it sends a small flare of heat through him that settles in his stomach. A little rough, somehow wanting. But his hands are soft, and Victor settles impossibly closer to him, against his skin. He smiles softly, in response to the smirk that Eris gives him. 

Victor allows a laugh to escape him, as well. A soft and amused thing. He feels like he hasn’t had much chance to laugh like this, not in his entire life. It feels valuble, and he wishes he could do it again. He thinks he would give Eris anything that he wanted for this. The charge of his company, the repayment for services rendered. The lessons, the kissing. Victor would give in to any request, after the combination of both. Eris could tell him to jump and he would, with loyalty in his eyes. “Whatever you say,” He murmurs, in quiet amusement, before Eris captures him in another kiss. It’s softer this time, less rough. Just a thing they’re doing. The heat is still there inside of Victor, the strange wanting that may never fade away now. He wants, almost, to push for more. For Eris to touch him, for him to be allowed to touch in return, to return to the pleasure they had felt the night before. 

But there’s a different value that comes just from being held. The feeling of Eris wrapping arms around him, tracing patters on his back as they curl together innocently under the sheets. It’s a superior kind of being wanted, of being valued somehow as more than a body. It makes him feel safer and more happily kept than he ever has before. And maybe he’s reading too much in to that, but he thinks even if he is, he should enjoy it while he has the chance. So he lets Eris trace fingers, delicate, over his skin, and he closes his eyes. 

Sleep could take him again, and it almost does. But more words rise up in the cracked and sleep heavy tone of Eris’ voice. A question. He makes a soft sound, a hum. He flushes with an almost embarrassment, when he thinks about it. The memories, the things that he pulled from to make that slight haze of mist. Honesty should be difficult here, he should want to hoard those little rememberances and keep them safe. He should want to hide his vulnerability from Eris, in case it makes him change his mind about all of this. The last thing he wants is to come across as weak, and from what his father always taught her, sentimentality was his biggest weakness. He couldn’t let people know that he had a heart. 

But he does, and Eris knows how to pull at its dangling strings and inspire far too much feeling to ignore. If Victor feels safe here, so should his delicate memories, and the way that he cherished them. His own voice is quiet when he finally musters up the courage to voice it all, after a long moment. 

‘We’ll have to look out for them’. They’d laugh, if it wasn’t all so damn frustrating. Sure, they’ll have to look out for the guide, and Lucky will also have to look out for Sierra, and look out for the eight missing people as well. Of course the cherry on the top of this damn shit sundae, is that they have to do this in a cave, somewhere they knew they were going to feel immediately like a trapped animal in no matter what else they had to try to distract them. 

“No one really to question,” they huff a sigh, as they close their case file. “We go to Papley’s, we can talk to the tour guide, see if we can learn anything more before partaking in our own fun little tour ourselves.” 

Ready to go ahead and try to get it all over with quickly, they stand up, indicating to Sierra it was time to go. They should probably say more here, they think bitterly as they look down at him, as green to all of this as a damn cucumber. If Sierra was any other cadet they’d given him some words of advice, or fuck… a game plan at least should anything go sideways down there. 

“If I get myself killed down there, you go straight back up to the surface,” they say instead, “call Harbird, get some damn back up, then flush the cave out with a hell of a lot more than just two fuckin’ aurors and an underpaid tour guide.” 

After waiting to see if Sierra had anything to add, they nod their head in the direction of the door, before turning towards it. 

As much as he can seem it sometimes, Victor isn’t really an idiot. He may not be the smartest tool in the box, but he knows people. And he knew from the get go that Lucky was never going to trust him, was never going to really be okay with working with him. They knew too much, after all, about what Victor had been like in his old life. The things he had done, the job he had. Lucky had scars that told Victor they had run in to someone else like him, that they had been burned by this particular brand of cruelty before. But still, they were here and they were forced to work with him. That didn’t mean that they would trust him, but Victor had to work with what he had. 

Victor nods his head, as Lucky lays out the plan for them. Talk to the tour guide and head on in. Victor was trying not to be nervous, when it came to the idea of delving down into the depths of the earth, a place which contained untold horrors. He wondered if he would be able to produce even the small mist of a patronus he had before, down there in the dark. He thinks if Eris had been here with him, it wouldn’t even be a question. He would be able to cling to the warmth of those eyes, those hands. He would feel safe in the knowledge that Eris would do everything he could to keep the both of them safe. But surrounded by Lucky’s doubt, he didn’t know if he would be able to get past the guilt and hold on to the happy memories he had before. 

He arches an eyebrow, at the mention of Lucky getting killed. He supposes that it isn’t outside the realm of possibility, if something went wrong. But he doesn’t like the idea of it. If anyone should live through a nightmare, it should be someone like Lucky. He can’t help the slight frown. But he nods his head regardless, taks the order as he was bound to do. He would probably do whatever Lucky instructed him to, here, because they were the boss in the long run. “Call Harbird.” He agrees. He could do that.

He shifts out of his seat to follow Lucky, out of the cafe and through the streets. The two of them are quiet on the walk, and Victor doesn’t try and fill the strange silence. He doens’t think Lucky wants to hear much from him, and he can at least be quiet. It takes a small amount of time to get there, to find the tourguide. The middle aged woman that flags them down and looks grimly at them as they approach. 

Her stomach sinks, at the sight of the wand, snug inside its box, any last hope that Luca had left this place voluntarily and gotten lots somewhere along the way disappearing as she sees it. Because Victor’s exactly right—there’s no way he would have left his wand behind, and if he did, the chances of them finding him were so much lower. Her original suspicious, her gut instinct from having met Jenette, feel all but confirmed now, and it’s almost certain from the letter that this anti-wix church is somehow involved.

Which means their ability to save Luca will be entirely dependent on just what kind of church this is: the kind that wants to pray the magic out of a kid, or the kind that would rather be rid of him altogether. 

      “We need to tell Deliverance,” she says, voice quiet and solemn, and she knows Victor will understand that what she means by that is, the chances he actually ran away are damn near zero. 

She takes a moment, gathers up the loose scrapes of paper, waving them into her case file with a wave of her wand and sticking them there, picks up a few of the other pieces of paper on his desk to confirm his handwriting in case they need to. She nods to Victor to take the wand, too, takes a moment to try to decide if there’s anything else in this room they might want to take with them.

There’s a sweatshirt, on the back of the chair that’s sitting at the desk. Soft and blue, the cuffs worried down almost to shreds. She’s always getting on Charlie’s case for biting at the cuffs of her long sleeved shirts like that, a familiar gesture: this is a sweatshirt that Luca loves. So she picks it up, shoves it in her bag. For when they find him. When, not if.

     “Let’s go,” she says to Victor, and then braces herself for just a moment, and leads him out of the room.

And from the sound of it, the sound of voices carrying down the hall, Deliverance has his hands full. She can hear Jenette’s voice, from here, tearful and congested, like she’s been crying for several minutes, can hear Deliverance’s quiet reassurances, quiet questions.

      “I never thought they would go that far. They told us they could help, that they would help him, but I never realized they meant—”

      “Please, Jenette, just tell us where we can find him. Please, let me help.”

The quiet, solemn tone in Brittany’s voice speaks of diaster, of them both being on the same page here. This boy and the terrible things that might have been building in his life were like a storm that passed overhead, they left trouble in their wake. Wands and fragmented peices of parchment, things that told a story Victor didn’t think his family wanted to be told. And he hated them, suddenly. Anyone who had known Luca and not helped him, this delicate child. He should have been protected, he should have had better in his life. He shouldn’t have had to suffer. No child should. That was one of the tenants he lived his life by, in this day and age.  

Victor walks with quiet footsteps, when he hears the voices in the hall, the way that they carry. His footsteps are always quiet things, delicate. He moves like a ghost, he always has. Being loud was a death sentance, for little boys like him. It was as if he had been surrounded by predators, one wrong step and a branch would crack, would leave him vulnerable and easy to hunt. So he moved like he was sneaking through the night, even when he didn’t really mean to. 

He slows, at the sound of it. Delieverances pleading voice, the sound of Jenette, clearly at some kind of breaking point. They’re still unnoticed, in the hallway. And he reaches out to take Brittany’s hand. He doesn’t want to startle Jenette, make her close herself off from Deliverance again when she may be about to open up, when her words tell them that she regrets everything that happened here. 

“Father Simon took him away,” She sniffles, tears pouring from her eyes. “To help him. To make him better again. To the old Church outside town. I didn’t think —” 

“Which way? How many of them are there?” Deliverance asks, and they’ve taken her hands in their own. Gentle, pleading eyes. They look like the kind of person you would trust to do anything, to climb mountains and do the impossible for you, just because they believed it was the right thing to do. There was a hint of their own heartbreak in their voice.

The directions come in fits and starts out of Jenette’s mouth. Across town and out of it. Down along the river and near the tree-line, with the old abandoned church and the old abandoned graveyard, relics of a bygone time and an old history. Father Smith was a travelling preacher with an ever-growing flock, and he had made a home there for the time being, until the evil that plagued this town could be rectified, purified through prayer — or fire, if it came to that. He was not the type of man who would suffer a witch to live. 

It’s helpful to see the warehouse, but not helpful enough, and she’s pretty certain that whoever did this is professional enough at it that they know better than to leave behind anything they didn’t mean to leave behind in plain sight. But at the very least she feels certain about some part of it, that Victor is right when he guesses that this was sending a message, one way or another. The other fires feel that way, too, even without seeing the scenes of either of them yet, just knowing the seemingly unconnected circumstances, and the way that both of them were something of a shock. But maybe not a shock to everyone. She has a feeling someone slipped up here, or these people pissed off exactly the wrong person. She only wishes that they had something better to go off of from this first stop, but it was going to be one of those cases that kept them on their toes, where they needed to keep their eyes wide open, ready for anything to lead them to something helpful.

Victor agrees with Jackson being the next stop, and she just grabs the half charred recipe, and one of the partially shattered bottles carefully with the hem of her jacket before they leave, putting them into her bag, with plans to possibly bring them into the office for closer inspection, if need be. She also hopes against hope that they might end up hearing some news about the unknown body being identified before they get too deep, but she’s not holding her breath for that one. “I think we’ll get something from them,” she says as they head outside, though, and she does feel like that’s true. She takes Victor’s arm, and it’s only a few seconds before they’re outside the company that apparently sold the warehouse.

They talk to the receptionist, get directed to Jackson’s office easily enough, and find them there, not looking surprised to see two aurors walking through their door. Emmy goes through the normal introductions, and Jackson gestures for them to sit, and jumps right into things, clearly as anxious about this as they are, even without a personal connection to the case.

“I was wondering when someone else was going to come by. I haven’t had a lot of time to go through everything––it’s a lot more than you would expect from a sale that should’ve been simple, but I do have some things,” Jackson says as they pull out a thick stack of files from one of their desk drawers.

“Anything at all that you’ve found will be a big help for us,” Emmy reassures them. “It’s a weird case, not a lot linking these arson together, but figuring out who owned that warehouse will be a huge step in the right direction.”

“I’ve been trying my best to find what I can about the sale since I spoke with the last aurors, but I’ll be honest, it’s been difficult. And it’s…strange,” Jackson explains, with a frown.

“We just stopped by the warehouse ourselves, and it’s clear that it was being used for illegal activities, so I’m not surprised it’s been hard to find anything. When you say it’s strange, what exactly do you mean?” she prompts.

.

There’s something about Jackson that makes Victor think... well, not so much think as feel, that he really has no idea what had been going on. Not with the warehouse, not with the fires. He wasn’t the highest ranking employee at this company, that was sure, though he seemed respectable enough. He had an anxious look in his eye, like he knew now that something was very wrong indeed. 

Emmy prompts him further, after he makes his comments about the strangeness of everything going on. 

“To be frank with you, I mean all of it.” He pats his thick collection of files. “We keep very serious records of almost everything here at Lazarus, very serious. Detailed to the point that it’s almost excessive. It seems impossible to me that the records of a sale would just up and disappear. It should have really been as easy as pulling a file out of a cabinate in the archives. As simple as you could imagine.”

Victor arches an eyebrow. Becuause the tone of his voice makes it seem like this is a spy movie, like he’s anxious and strangely suspicious of everybody around him now. His eyes glance between the two of them briefly, taking them in. For a moment they linger on Victor, seemingly almost out of instinct, before he diverts them back to Emmy. It was clear that she was the lead here, after all, and she was the person who he should be addressing about all of this.  

He hands her one of the files. “That’s everything we have on the operations based out of that warehouse before the sale. Basic manufacturing, healing potions. It was well equipped for the task, even when it went up for sale. Most of the equipment therein was well serviced or fairly new. But it wasn’t removed from the warehouse before the sale went through and we lost control of the building.” 

Victor glances at Emmy, arches an eyebrow. It looks like their theory about the people in the warehouse manufacturing illegal potions for sale and smuggling was probably true. At least, even more likely now than it had been before. But its also curious, because... he’s pretty sure there would have been more of those machines left in the warehouse if the fire had been genuinely meant to destroy something. He didn’t think machines like that would melt under the heat of it, given how hot some potions had to get in brewing sometimes. “Okay,” He says, “I guess that is weird.” 

He wants to both stretch out his limbs, and curl up further into the warmth of the body next to him at the same time, feeling a bit like a cat whose found the perfect spot of sunlight to nap in. He generally didn’t do sleepovers, and when he has it’s usually not like this. He likes his space, likes being able to spread out and not get too hot with the warmth of another crowding in on his space. He’s not quite sure what’s different now, but he makes the decision not to try to psychoanalyze it to the point the pleasant peace of that morning is broken. 

Shifting his arm to allow Victor to move in closer, he lets his hand fall to a rest on the back of the other man’s head, lightly scratching at his scalp as Victor moves up to press a kiss against his jaw. He has every intention to drift back asleep again at the point, but the question of time pulls enough at his curiosity that he cranes his neck over to look at the small clock on his nightstand. The moment his eyes register the glowing numbers on its screen his chest shakes softly under Victor, as he huffs out a small laugh. 

“I hate to inform you…” he hums, voice becoming muffled as he turns his head and plants a kiss on top Victor’s head, “but it’s almost eleven.” 

Unbothered by how late the hour was, he pulls at one of the blankets that’d gotten kicked nearly off the bed in the middle of the night, and yanks it up over the two of them with a satisfied grunt. 

“It’s alright though,” he adds with a smirk, as he glances down to Victor. And when he speaks again it’s far quieter, like he was sharing some dark secret as he teases, “my next patronus student doesn’t come in until four.” 

His lips split into a smile, a warm and carefree thing, that gives away the tease if Victor hadn’t caught onto it already. Even if the smile isn’t enough to show him he wasn’t being serious, he leans down to catch Victor’s lips with his own, finding it’d already been too long since the last time he’d done such a thing. 

He feels himself sinking deeper into the quicksand here, the dangerous feeling of emotions taking hold. He’s always been a needy bastard, always clung too hard to things that he really shouldn’t have. Eris shifts and lets him move closer, scratches at his scalp until Victor almost feels like purring. It feels like destiny, almost. It’s foolish, but it feels like something falling in to place, something important. He doesn’t really know what he can call this, he’s too afraid to ask, to probe deeper into what Eris might actually want from him. It’s okay. He can have whatever he wants. However much, however little, Victor will let him have it. As long as sometimes he can have this. These touches, this warmth, the permission to curl close and be held. 

He hasn’t been held in a long time. Not like this. Not with this strange intimacy and the hope blossoming in his chest, so bright he might choke on it. 

“Eleven,” He repeats, in sleepy discomfort. There are practically butterflies in his stomach, when he feels those lips press against his head, the soft tone in Eris voice. Eleven. That had been a long sleep, indeed. They had stayed up late, certainly, but it was still better than he had managed in so long. He curls his fingers into the blankets as Eris pulls them up, wraps them around the both of them. The blanket is soft, softer than anything Victor could imagine. He couldn’t believe that Eris lived like this, with things like this. Part of him wanted to steal it somehow, but that was a silly thought. The bigger part of him wanted to come back and sleep here again, convince Eris somehow that he was worth keeping around. 

He peeks up at Eris, squinting, parsing the words for a moment before he breaks into his own grin, a mirror of the one that Eris gives him. A joke. A funny one. A laugh escapes his chest, and it’s cut off by the kiss. Which is... which feels nice, like something bright and fluttering has taken root in his chest. He kisses back, unable to stop himself from leaning into it. It’s impossible to press closer than he is, but he reaches up and cups Eris cheek. He kisses Eris again, and again, deeper this time, before smiling half against his mouth. 

location: 😏

time: saturday morning, following anniversary party 

status: closed to @victorsierraa​

It’d been a week since the anniversary party, and he feels like he’s spent half of it in a sort of haze. After the madness that’d consisted of the first two weeks following the NBO attack, between everything with Langer, and the case itself, he had to admit it felt nice for once to actually be still. To spend the majority of the week catching up on paperwork from the string of cases he’d just finished up, and spend the occasional moment in between shooting a knowing smirk up at Victor from the other side of his desk. 

He won’t be able to savor this much longer, not with everything else he still had to do and focus on. It didn’t bode well that the only threat he felt not currently surrounding him, was the very one he wakes up beside that morning. The warm little cocoon he wakes up in, in the middle of his vast bed, is a pleasant one, pleasant enough he nearly falls back asleep again. Instead though, he allows his eyes to flutter open, and looks to Victor’s still sleeping form. At least he’s fairly certain he’s sleeping, due to the relaxed slope of his shoulders and the complete absence of any kind of sternness in features that was generally so common. It’s rare still to see him this relaxed, and the only times he can think of seeing him like this is when he was sleeping, or for brief windows of time during the height of one of their stolen moments together or in the hazy after. 

The rare serenity in Victor’s features is enough to both warm him, but also serve as a chilling reminder of just how fragile this all was. Victor was not a threat now, but he could unintentionally become one if Eris didn’t remain careful. His loyalty wasn’t one he questioned, in fact it was one of the few things in his life Eris felt completely confident in. What he did fear though was the weakness Victor could prove to be for him, should anyone go looking for such a thing in his life. 

Ordinarily he would have cut off something like this now before the risk would even present itself, but as big of a weakness having Victor so close to him could prove to be, it also gave him a valuable asset as well. Surrounded by enemies, Victor was the one ally he felt he had. It would be foolish to turn him away now, even if he thought he could, which he wasn’t so sure of. 

Victor had the makings to be to him what Allen Snow was to his grandfather. An ally, loyal without a fault, and would likely follow him into the belly of whatever beast he saw fit to battle. As much as his grandfather’s relationship with Allen Snow served as an example of how he could properly use Victor for his benefit- it also served as a grave warning though. Allen Snow did not survive his grandfather’s ambition, but gave his life to protect Martin Hattori’s name, thus paving the way for his eventual ascension to claim the presidency. Allen Snow likely never would have become the great auror and eventual chief he was without the help of Martin Hattori, but it was at a steep cost that cut his life short. 

He had to be smarter than his grandfather, that was simply the only solution to the eventual problem he may one day face. When his grandfather was forced to choose between his ambition and Allen Snow, he chose his ambition. Eris just had to make sure he’d never have to make that choice. 

So caught up is he in his own thoughts, he doesn’t quite register the stirring body next to him, until he feels the bed beneath him shift from the movement of weight. “You can go back to sleep if you want,” he offers quietly, shifting to snuggle back into the warm cocoon of the sheets wrapped around them, “I for one am in no mood to leave quite yet.” 

It’s rare that Victor sleeps this well, a true peaceful slumber unplagued by nightmares or horrible recollections. His guilt comes quick and easy in the dark, plays in his mind into the small hours of the night until he can hardly bare to exist inside of his own skin. He feels like he’s a monster, sometimes, and he carries that into his dreams. They’re nonsense things, not true rememberances of any situation in particular. They leave him tossing and turing, sometimes. Leave him frozen with fear, with a strange longing, with the sense of loss.

The sleep that he wakes from today is a very different thing.

He feels more rested than he has in weeks. He feels warm, safe somehow. Victor is groggy and slow with the peace of it, with the feeling of expensive sheets against his skin, with the warmth of another body in the bed beside him. He definitely doesn’t usually have mornings like this. And he remembers with a warm flush where he is, who he’s with. He remembers the party last night and the quiet and tender moments alone with Eris in the study, the way that those hands had felt against his skin, the way it had felt to go home with him and fall in to bed, safe in the knowledge that they could touch and touch and touch, soak each other up. 

The warmth and softness swells in his chest, makes him ache. He feels tender and soft, grateful for Eris, grateful for the fact that he’s allowed this. Victor has known, distantly, that his crush was a silly thing. Eris was strong and brave and saved him from a monster, and it had unlocked something in him. The part of him that wanted guidance, the part of him that wanted to be kept and safe and for someone to look out for him. He was always a creature of devotion, the type of person who found the people they liked and would do anything to protect them, anything to keep them safe. For the last few years, that’s just been his daughter and Brittany, Todd as well, their kids. A small little family. Now he had someone else, and he didn’t know what to expect, but it was enough that Eris wanted him to be near, enough that he had been allowed to stay last night after everything. 

All they can do is let out a long disgruntled sigh when they see the case file flop down on their desk that morning with Sierra’s name typed below their own. They had a feeling this would happen sooner or later, especially when they made the decision not to put a request in with Lin to keep them off any cases with Sierra. They weren’t the one who did anything wrong here though, and if Lin wanted to have a damn former mob hitman on the squad, then it’d probably be better for them to at least get thrown on a couple cases with the asshole, if anything just to keep an eye on him. 

None of that though eases the tension in their shoulders as they have to consider the fact that being on a case with Sierra, especially one involving a damn cave with who knows what in it, would leave them in a position where they were going to have to find some way to trust Sierra, just so they could actually focus on the case rather than what he was or wasn’t up to. 

After they arrive at Hawaii, they make the decision to morph for at least the duration of their cafe meetup. Their face would be one easily noticeable out of a morph, which outside of work they didn’t mind all that much, but when keeping a low profile was key like it was in a case, they preferred to go the way of a morph whenever it was possible. 

And so it’s in the face that Sierra first saw them in, back when they worked his case, that they greet him with that afternoon, as they pull up a chair across him. 

“Yeah,” they sigh, “caves.” 

As much as they would love to just end the conversation there, they know their role as lead on the case means they actually have to contribute, and so they keep going. 

“In her chief notes, Lin mentioned a tour guide from Papley’s will be going with us, which will be good in the fact we won’t get our asses lost down there- but it’ll also mean we’re gonna have to make sure they don’t get themself killed down there by whatever the hell is in the cave.” It also meant they were likely going to have to spend the rest of the case out of a morph too, since there was no way in hell they’d be able to hold onto a morph for the entire duration of a case. 

Lucky looks different, when he sits down across from Victor. Brown hair, no scars. He was morphing, Victor realised, a thought that shouldn’t have been so delayed. Victor should have been quicker on the draw, here. He knows that he needs to be on his toes, that he needs to keep to his very best behaviour. Lucky already hated him, the last thing he needed was for them to think that Victor had no fucking clue what was going on around him. 

He shifts, awkward under the weight of all of it. He focuses in, makes himself look at Lucky instead of cowering away like his instincts told him to. He tried to lock all of his doubts and guilt away in a little box. He can’t get hung up on it, he can’t let it make him weak here. He had to stand up for himself. He thinks that Eris would probably tell him that Lucky didn’t matter, not to even worry about it, because he had earned his place here as much as anybody else had. It was easier said than done, and he wasn’t actually sure if he had Eris pinned right in his mind. He was the type of man that was hard to anticipate, most of the time. 

He nods his head, considering the case. Having someone else along with them obviously had its pros and cons, things that would work in their favour and things that would hold them back. Victor would have to be on the look out for whatever was coming for them, to keep everyone as safe as possible. He solidified that as his goal here. Figure out what was wrong, save everyone he could, make sure that no one else got hurt. The idea of being a protector was one that he liked. 

“We’ll have to look out for them.” He agrees, trying to be easy with it. 

The feeling of Victor under his hands, melting back into him as his breath hitches softly, is an intoxicating thing. Enough so he feels like he could easily do this the rest of the night, just to feel every delightful shiver and sigh breathed out from him. The promise of more though is far greater, especially here in the quiet little retreat they’d built for themselves again, away from the party just outside the double set of doors behind them. 

His kitsune cocks her head as she stares at the mist emitting from Victor’s wand, she’s waiting for something, much like they all were, but there’s a visible eagerness in her stance as she walks closer to the mist, sniffing at it before it dissipates away. It would have been quite the feat if Victor had managed to produce a fully corporeal patronus on just his second try, and it’s for that very reason why he’s not disappointed at all with the sight of the lone glowing creature before them. She fades after a moment, having fulfilled her purpose, leaving the two of them alone once more.

All he can do is chuckle breathlessly at first when Victor speaks, his hand still on the other auror’s chest while the other now hung limply at his side, his wand dangling between its fingers. 

“You’re getting to be too,” he cuts a grin as his eyes meet his, they flicker down to his lips for a moment, his thoughts clearly elsewhere, before returning back, “I wouldn’t be opposed to practicing more in the future- although I doubt the training room would be appropriate.” He chuckles again, another breathless thing that feels nice with Victor’s weight against his chest. 

He’s torn between doing several things in that moment, both too caught up in the nice haze he was feeling now to move, but also growing desperate for more. Stroking the side of his thumb across Victor’s chest, he returns his wand to his pocket, so that his other hand could be free to do as it pleased. When it is, it doesn’t return to Victor’s hip, but rather a new territory- his face, as he traces the length of his stubbled jaw, his own breath hitching slightly as he does so. 

“I do know somewhere else though…” he breathes quietly, bending his head down he brushes his nose against Victor’s, lips dangerously close to his, but instead of closing the distance he simply adds, “if you’d ever want to do this again.” 

That chuckle, the breathless sound of the laughter escaping from Eris’ chest, might be an addictive thing. It’s something that Victor wants more of, hungry for it in a way he usually isn’t. He isn’t really a people pleaser, he doesn’t think. Never the kid in the back of the class who could crack jokes and inspire mirth in those around him. He was like a grim fucking reaper, sometimes. Or an idiot who earned amused smiles. Or a loyal dog that deserved scratches behind the ear. He wanted to make Eris laugh, though. He wanted more of that genuine sound, that quiet amusment, the warmth of it as it brushes out against his own skin. 

Victor can’t help but smile, at it all. Him, being good at this. The idea that he might get better at it. That might be an addictive feeling as well. Becase Victor has only really been good at one thing, in his life: having sharp edges, being a tool that was easy to handle and shape, being the hand of goddamn justice. He was a natural, when it came to the thrill of the fight. He wants to be good, though. He wants to prove Eris right. He wants to make him proud and create something as beautiful as his little kitsune, something that can stand beside that and look right. He wants to be right, here, pressed in the space against Eris, so close to his body. 

Eris chuckles again, and it makes Victor’s smile grow wider, cutting across his face in a flash of thrilled happiness. “Maybe, not so much.” He agrees, and he should be embarrassed about how he actually sounds a little embarrassed about it. He was sure that no one else, teaching him, would have been this hands on. 

He wasn’t sure that anyone else would have been this sucessful. 

But Eris was clearly a man of many talents. And one of those talents was making Victor feel dizzy with a strange kind of longing. They were so close. So close he could shift forward and his lips would brush against Eris’ skin, he would be able to feel the warmth, taste it for himself. Eris touches his face, and it feels like a punch to the gut, the delicate expanse of it. He feels breathless, and he knows he won’t sound any more put togeher when he opens his mouth again. But maybe he doesn’t need to. He has this sneaking idea that Eris doesn’t want him put together at all. He wets his lips, quickly, with his tongue, and lets out a short breath. He really could brush forward and kiss him, and its an incisious and parasitic idea. He can’t, though. Has a knot in his stomach when he thinks about taking the leap, taking what isn’t his and what he doesn’t have a right to claim on his own. 

It’s easy for her to trust Victor, which maybe some people would be confused by, all things considered, but she’s always been good at reading people, even before her not insignificant schooling on the subject, and she can tell that he’s serious about all of this, that he means what he says, and he’s the sort that will have her back, no matter what happens on the case. So she doesn’t worry about taking a minute to investigate closer, knowing that he’s right there, looking out, too. And when he goes on, she nods to herself, because he’s definitely right, this isn’t the sort of place just one person was working, it wouldn’t have made sense, and there’s too much left over, too, not to have been some large operation.

She looks at the recipe that he finds, and it’s half cut off, hard to suss out, but it seems to confirm the suspicion, this place has been dealing with dangerous potions and materials, for what, though, it’s hard to say. She hasn’t had much smuggling work, rarely put on black market sort of cases, things that lead you into the underground, and she understands why, even if it annoys her. It’s dangerous to have someone without magic in a situation like that, it could mean putting her partner in danger for having to look out extra for her, when throwables and physical combat can’t fill in spaces. She’s glad, though, that Victor knows first hand what this sort of thing is like, how worlds like that work, it’ll help make this clearer faster, she thinks.

She almost has to wonder if they left behind bits and pieces of evidence on purpose. This seems to be a message sent, and she agrees with Victor that it would make sense that this is a statement, something intentional, possibly even the same people taking out a weak link in their operation. She could also see it being a case of almost the reverse, whoever did this being the person who sees things differently, who didn’t like how things were going; and the victim found out, ended up getting killed because of it, the warehouse destroyed, too, as a message. Both make sense in her mind, and she thinks that following both lines will be helpful, when they move onto their persons of interest.

“That definitely seems plausible, especially with the other fires, too, messages being sent, intentional statements of discontent made. I think the question might end up being, once we figure out the who, and the what, the why. Did this happen to these people because these people screwed over a bigger operation, or is the arsonist someone who sees things differently, and is making a statement on that? Or maybe it’s a bit of both,” she reasons out loud. “Whatever it is, though, there has to be a reason they didn’t clean out better, didn’t make sure more was destroyed, almost like they want people to know something was going on here.”

Emmy frowns, shaking her head. “Same group makes sense, I think, especially with the single victim. I just wonder how it all ties in with the other arsons. I think maybe we should talk to Cameron Jackson, see if they’ve found any more information in the meantime about who the warehouse was sold to,” she suggests, looking at Victor to see what he thinks about that idea being their next stop.

.

Victor waits and watches, as Emmy considers his own words and ideas. He can see the wheels turning inside her head, and knows that she’s one of those clever ones, the type that makes him feel dull and a bit slow sometimes, even when he knows he really isn’t. Okay, he’s not the brightest crayon in the box, but he can clearly get by well enough. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be like the rest of them, though. Not with all of his hang ups, all of his weird quirks, his heavy past that lingers in his chest and seems to drag him down in the waters of life. 

When she actually starts talking, he nods along. He’s selfishly glad that she agrees with him, that she thinks his ideas must hold at least a little bit of weight. If he knows one thing and knows it well, it’s probably shady bullshit like this, like the way you can kill someone to make a statement and get everybody else to fall in line. Victor saw that happen often enough, back in the old days. You were only as strong as your weakest link, and Cain believed that your weakest link should be destroyed when it was identified, before it gave the others any silly ideas. Ideas about what they could do, what they could be. Victor became the weak link, in a way, when he made his decsion to betray them –– but he was still here, he was still standing, and he had more of a life to live. 

Emmy agreed with him, but they still weren’t technically any closer to understanding what was going on here, what the exact motive for a crime like this might have been. Victor was sure there must be a common factor between each and every case, and he was sure that they would find it –– but it was impossible to imagine, in that moment, exactly how they would do it. He supposed that was where the detective work came in. They would have to keep looking, have to work until they found something that led them to the answer. And this was the first case he was on that was really like that –– Eris had know, like an instinct, what was going on when they were in Hawaii. The case with Brittany had become scarily clear scarily quickly. This was mystery after mystery, and it made Victor’s heart beat a little bit faster. 

He nods his head. “Jackson. I guess that makes as much sense as everybody else.” And it did, “Seems like it’ll lead us somewhere.” Somewhere. Somewhere was a hell of a lot better than nowhere. And strangely, he had a good feeling about it. He pulls out his notes, checks the address that they have for him, for this company that sold the warehouse in the first place, with a small hum, he nods his head. 

A smile blooms across his face at the sight of the small burst of energy flowing from Victor’s wand, followed by the happy chuckle that erupts from the other auror. It strikes him then that it was the first time he’d heard such a thing from him, and suddenly he felt the urge to get him to do it more, to give him some reason to wipe off that brooding expression he generally wears so often and replace it with something softer in these private places of their’s. 

“See, I told you that you could do it,” he hums with a smile from behind him. He’s certain he could get him to go even further from that small burst of energy, especially when he’d all but accepted the fact Victor may not be able to perform the spell at all in the beginning. Clearly he’d underestimated him though- something which he was determined not to do again. 

“We can try it again, if you like. It should only grow stronger with more practice,” he reasons out loud, although his desire to have Victor try once more came both from a place of selfishness as well as his own hope for Victor to succeed. If what small amount of contact he gave him was enough to produce that amount of energy, he was curious to see what would happen if he gave him more. 

Stepping back up behind him, he returns his hands to Victor’s hips, this time though there is more weight to his touch than there was before, his fingers no longer trailing but rather holding him as he steps closer back behind him until he’s standing flush against him. Dipping his head, he traces a line with the tip of his nose from the base of Victor’s neck up to his ear, “Get back in the dueling stance,” he requests quietly, a soft husk to his voice as he smiles against his ear. 

Dipping his head back down to Victor’s neck, his tongue darts out to lick at the small hollow in the nape of his neck, before kissing it. As he does, one of his hands snakes up and around Victor’s waist, taking in every sharp angle and soft plane of Victor’s abdomen before it lands on his chest, and stays there to hold him against him. 

“Think of every warm memory you can,” he instructs, voice muffled slightly as he begins creating a trail of kisses back up to Victor’s ear, where he pauses to suck on his earlobe. The hand that had remained on his hip, swoops down the length of his leg, again taking its time as it travelled across the smooth curve of muscle, until it finds a momentary resting place on his inner thigh where he squeezes his grip slightly, humming softly as he does, before removing his hand to reach for his own wand. 

“On the count of three cast,” he instructs quietly into his ear. “One… two… three.” Once he reaches three he casts his own patronus, the bright warm outline of his kitsune quickly taking form from the light emitting from his wand, it’s not his own patronus he eyes fall on however, but whether Victor was able to create one yet for himself. 

The feeling of elation is almost alien to him. The feeling of pride swelling in his chest. Because Eris had believed in him, and he’d managed to almost make something. He had been scared, almost, that nothing would come out when he spoke the words to the spell. It’s all the more powerful with the way that he can hear the smile in Eris’ voice, the slight hint of pride. It makes something in him squirm, want to do better, and he finds himself nodding when Eris suggests that they try again. If he can do it once, surely he can do it more, surely he can summon up even more magic, and create something beautiful.

His breath hitches, just a little bit, when Eris moves close again. Those hands find their way back to Victor’s hips, settling in place with a heavier touch. There’s a determination to it, and it makes Victor feel... far too much. And that’s before he presses even closer, and Victor gets caught up in the feeling of him there. It sends a flash of heat through him, something that burns almost to the point of distraction, but he still does what he’s told when Eris requests it, with that smile against his ear. His body moves under those hands, and he slips back into the stance, not quite as rigid still as it had been the last time he did it.

He thinks maybe he should say something, do more than shiver softly as Eris touches him. He should contribute, but he just melts into it instead, enjoys the warmth of it. He lets himself be a canvas, free for Eris to paint whatever he wants, to touch however he wants. The heat still lingers, catching his breath in his throat. He wants, badly, to twist around in the touch and take more, take something else. But he shudders out a small breath instead, and raises his wand. 

Eris’ voice is almost hypnotic. LIke he could control people with it. But Victor knows that he doesn’t need spells or magic to do things like that. He just needs him, to be who he is. Victor would do almost anything he asked, he was sure of it, and he would do it happily. The touch promised something, something more than Victor ever really expected to get from Eris. The little crush he had developed was supposed to be a silly thing, gone unnoticed by anyone else. It was born out of gratitude and loyalty that had been quickly born, the first time that Eris led him somewhere, the first time that Eris touched him kindly. But this touch promised that that small connection wasn’t only in his head. Eris saw him, and might actually give him more, might want him in his own way as well. 

It makes Victor burn all the brighter, makes him want to deserve it even more. More smiles, more pride in that voice. It should be impossible to fail, when Eris asked him for something. He should just be able to make it happen. 

He takes a deep breath, and gathers all the warmth Eris has given him. The litany of it. The mosaic of all of these touches, everything from before, the smile and the way he talked and the promise, unspoken, of something more in the future. When Eris reaches three, he says the words, a slight shake in his voice. Eris’ own patronus bursts forth, quick and so easy. Victor manages much less. The fog starts out as small as it had been before. Maybe its the continued contact, maybe its the burst of wonder again at seeing the little kitsune, but he thinks his own might grow stronger after a moment, brighter and more sustained. He makes a concentrated effort, lets himself feel the warmth of Eris against him, and he’s sure it does improve, and at the very least he can maintain it for longer. He lets out another shakey laugh, quiet into the air. 

When the case file landed on his desk, Victor had felt his stomach knot with panic. He hadn’t even opened it yet, but the name of his lead auror shone out like a beacon. He should have known that he wouldn’t have been ableto avoid it forever, the elephant in the room that was Lucky Caro, the person who didn’t think that he should be there. Victor knew that to Lucky, he was a monster. A beast that deserved to be serving time behind bars, not supposedly serving justice on Pacific Squad. And now they have to work a case together. Just the two of them, all alone. Part of him had wanted to lean over to Eris, ask for help somehow, ask to trade or for Eris to convince the Chief to reassign him. 

But he knew that he couldn’t be a coward. He knew that he had to face these things head on, when they came up, and not let himself drown under the pressure of it all. 

 He finds a cafe, out on the Island. Mimicing his deskmate on their first case, he got there early and ordered himself a drink. Part of him had considered talking to Lucky in the office, but it had seemed best to avoid them as much as possible until they were out in the field. So they plan the first part, this meeting, over telekit message and hope for the best. His nervousness had gotten the best of him and made him arrive earlier this time, so he sits and waits, and prays to whatever god will listen that this goes okay. 

Of course, the dread is something that he battles through when Lucky actually walks through the door. He shifts, sits up straighter, and waits for Lucky to approach. 

     “It looks like a—a journal, or…” she starts, and then a few more pieces slot into place, and she realizes that’s not right. “A letter,” she corrects herself, as the pieces at the top align themselves: Dear Andrew, it starts. Luca’s handwriting from the rest of the drawings and notes up on the desk above. 

     “Dear Andrew,” she reads, going slowly as the letter finishes forming in the air, pages and pages of it. “I’m sorry I haven’t called you. Mom and Dad haven’t let me use the phone, even when I told them I was just calling to tell you that I’m okay. They’ve been acting really weird like that, especially when I mention you, and I didn’t know how else to talk to you if they won’t let me call, and they won’t let me go back to school where I can send you an owl...”

She trails off, horrified at the letter, feeling like her suspicious about Jenette Walker have been all but confirmed. She skims the rest—Luca mentions that his parents have some weird new friends who he thinks are scary, and… some of the letter isn’t there. It looks like he didn’t get to finish writing it before either he or someone else decided to rip it up and hide it in the trash can beneath some other garbage. 

     “This isn’t good,” she says, looking back at Victor. It’s still possible that Luca ran away, though it seems from the letter like he would have tried to run to Andrew if he could, or maybe back to school, which means that either something bad had happened to him on the way to either of those places, or he didn’t run away at all. The friends he mentioned in the letter, the people his parents had been bringing over to the house, they must be members of this new church the case file had mentioned, and… she dreads to think about where else he might be, given that information. “Did you find anything in there?” 

A chill spreads through him as Brittany reads the letter, half finished. It tells more of a story than Jenette had, downstairs. He can see it in his minds eye, this isolated boy trying in any way he can to reach out –– to get in contact with the brother he loved, the one who loved him back. It didn’t seem like he was getting much from his parents, in the last few days of being present here. Things had clearly been wrong, worse than anyone could have imagined. If things had been okay before, they had gotten bad quickly, and Luca knew that things were wrong. 

It hurts, because Luca was innocent. Because Luca was a child. Because he should have been free and happy and safe. But he was out there in the cold, if he was out there. He was probably alone and probably scared, and he didn’t have his brother to help him through it. Victor can’t help the way that he feels, like something terrible has happened, like this might be one of those awful worst case scenarios. He wants to be hopeful that Luca is safe out there, but his gut tells them that he probably isn’t, that something bad happened here. 

And he’d put money on it being that fucking church. Whatever mess that Luca’s parents had gotten into. It couldn’t be good, that much was certain.

Victor heaves out a sigh, ragged, and picks the wand box back up to hand to her. The box, with its wand still inside. If he was going to run away, he would take the wand with him, his one pathway back to magic that he had been kept from. Just using it out there in the world would have probably alerted people to his presence, would have gotten him found by the right people and hopefully taken back to school. “Betting that belongs to Luca.” He says. “Also betting it isn’t a good sign. If i was going to run away from home, that isn’t something I’d leave in the back of my closet.”

Victor seems receptive to everything she has to say, which is a feeling she’s going to have to get used to. Not that it’s normal for people to be dismissive, but it feels big to have someone she doesn’t actually know, someone who’s respect she hasn’t actually earned yet already giving her so much, even outright saying that he respects her as the lead, and that he hopes he can learn a lot from her. She’s used to having to be on the defensive with people she doesn’t know yet and hasn’t earned the respect of. It makes her even more determined for this case to go well, to be able to give him something helpful that he might be able to use as he continues as an auror.

She gives him a smile as he agrees, mentions being able to freestyle it, and she can tell already that they’re going to be a good team together. “Definitely. The sooner we get starter, the sooner we can follow our guts to get this thing taken care of, keep anyone else from getting hurt,” she nods. And with that they’re off, easy to head out to the apparition point, to take his arm, and let the familiar sensation of being pulled through space wash over her. She’s glad every single day that her dad apparated with her from such a young age, so that she was long used to sidealong before it was even certain that she wouldn’t have magic herself.

They land just outside the warehouse, and as usual, reading about it and seeing it are two very different things. It’s a mess, charred and falling apart, but at the very least it seems like it hasn’t been tampered with much since the arson was discovered and connected to the others.

She starts heading towards it, giving a little nod of certainty, as much to herself as to Victor. “So we know from the file that this place was seemingly abandoned, sold by Lazarus Inc. to an unknown owner last year, but that it seems like it was home to some criminal activity during the past year,” she goes through things. “I think what we should be looking for here is anything that can tell us what they were doing, because that might give us a better idea of what sort of illegal activity these arsonists are part of, why they would’ve targeted these three seemingly unrelated places and people.”

Emmy pulls her telekit out just in case as they enter, ready for anything that could happen, but the place seems deserted, and utterly devastated inside. But sure enough, there are clear signs people were still using this place, broken glass, vials and potions ingredients seemingly. She moves to what seems like it must have been an alchemical table, and leans in, sniffing slightly, and the thing is, there’s a familiar smell, one she’s learned much too well in the past few weeks. She pulls out a vile, drops one drop of a bright blue liquid on the table, and watches as a puff of bright green smoke rises, which makes her step back.

“I think these people might’ve made explosives themselves, or at least handling highly volatile ingredients… maybe it was an argument between whoever did this, and the people using the warehouse, a disagreement,” she muses, pure speculation. “But only one dead, that seems strange. Intentional.”

.

The warehouse is a mess, even from the outside. Charred and burned, the sight of what must have been a painful death. Victor looks around when they land, gets his bearings with the world around them. It’s a quiet area, not much nearby to have been damaged by the fire, very little chance of any witnesses lingering around that might have seen something suspicious going on on the night of the fire. All they had was the building, and the evidence that might be left inside it. A building, a series of fires, and a dead body. He finds himself nodding along again, to everything that Emmy said. Trying to figure out exactly what had been going on here was probably their best bet of chasing down whoever had done this. The more that they knew, the easier it would be in the end. 

Victor follows Emmy toward the building and in the door. He keeps his wand at the ready, pulling it out from its holster as they enter the building. It rests easy in his hand, down by his side. He knows that he’s faster with a wand than most people, ready to leap into action at a moments notice. He tries to get into a position where he can have Emmy’s back, as she explores. Keeping an eye on their surroundings, in case any unwelcome company was lingering in a dark corner. Of course, the inside of the warehouse is just as brutally fucked up as Victor could imagine. He never dealt much with fire, wasn’t his thing –– the idea of getting burned scared him. But he could still imagine it, in his mind, the intense roar of flames that had swallowed this place whole. And he knew that other people saw it as a useful method of cleaning things up. Fire burned a lot, could get rid of so many of your problems, if you used it right. 

He watches, curious, as Emmy examines the table and whatever might have been spilled on it. She seems like she knows so much. He’s impressed with it. And her conclusion makes him furrow his brow in thought. Home made explosives. He glances around again, at the rest of the room. The broken bottles, the mess of it. “One person wouldn’t be running a place like this on his own.” He says, thoughtful, shaking his head. Theres a mess of charred objects, excluding the glass. “Two big, too much space, too much room for someone to sneak up on you.” He keeps talking as he pokes at some of it, a half charred book, when he flips it open full of nonsense words and things that he can’t make out, half a recipe for something. 

He thinks about it. The bottles and ingredients could have meant, what they might have been doing here. From what he can see remaining, it seems like Emmy is probably right. “You kill one person like this, from what must have been a group? That’s definitely intentional. That’s a fucking statement.” He can see how it might have happened. “Keep everyone else inline, show them their place, show them what happens if things go wrong. Intentional.”