Heathens chapter iv

It's been a while since I updated this because I got busy with other stuff, but hey, I managed to like, reread it and find where I was plot-wise. And also it's a super good cooldown from ALFG because it's like, less...complicated..............kinda. Also I'm still not over the Adventure Time finale, so uh, I'm kind of dead inside and just, screaming. 

It’s been a week. 

It’s been a week since A has left the house, and B has spent that week as best as someone under house arrest can. He tries everything he can think of to deactivate his ankle monitor - taking it apart by a screwdriver, after soaping up his foot so it’s slippery and he can try to slide it, attemping to lob off his whole foot - he plays tetris and chess with MONIKA, reads, plays his new violin until his fingers hurt, plinks around A’s piano when he feels like it, and tests the limits of how far from the house he can walk away and how long he can stay out. It’s a pretty productive week, kind of. 

He can’t deny he’s bored though. There’s only so much he can do to entertain himself without it becoming repetitive and stale, and a week by himself in a house with no internet connection (for him, anyway) gets old pretty fast.

He’s lying down on the solarium’s floor, just laid out on the carpet, when MONIKA reminds him that he can always work on a case.

He frowns up at the ceiling. “How many cases do you have for me right now?”

“Six,” MONIKA says.

“Just six?”

“Pride cometh before the fall.”

“Very funny,” he says, turning on his side for a moment and staring out at the view through the glass wall. He thinks for a second. He hasn’t heard anything from A, although maybe that’s because they’ve been banned from contacting him so his location’s not given away, but then again they also could have always just set up a secure line.

Maybe they’ve forgotten about him. He wouldn’t be surprised, but.

But.

He pauses. “Six cases?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How difficult would you say they are?”

“Considering A has given permission for you to access them, I would say not to worry and they’re definitely not above your capabilities.”

He glares up at the ceiling for a second and frowns, before turning his attention outside again. Six cases. Those’ll probably keep him occupied for a week. Maybe two if he takes his time, but he also likes to be efficient whenever he can. Hopefully he’ll have another source of entertainment by then.

“Okay,” he says, “Print out the files, then.”

Half an hour later, he has a hefty stack of papers on his bedroom floor, and he’s currently arranging them by case. Focus is something he need for solving things, but he’s also the type to work better when he’s multitasking, so he’s decided he’s going to review every case he’s being given on the same day, and he’ll solve them all side by side, write an essay on the evidence or something, and present it all to A once he’s done.

He’s reminded of Wammy’s for a moment - of being in school - and the thought leaves a sour taste in his mouth.

Thankfully, that’s washed out as soon as he starts reading the first case file, and then rereads the beginning even when he’s not even halfway through just to make sure he’s gotten this right.

“MONIKA?”

“Yes, sir?”

“A compiled these reports?”

“Yes, sir.”

He hesitates. “They don’t have any typos in this or anything of the sort?”

MONIKA takes a second to reply. “No, sir. All case files are proofread to have accurate reports on the investigation and all evidence gathered.”

He spends another minute reading the file until he gets to the part with - “Eels.”

MONIKA says nothing. She probably doesn’t know anything about the case, only that B has permissions to get to it - that, or she’s actually somehow able to enjoy his discomfort and is keeping silent to watch him squirm. It’s a pity A’s not here so he can ask his questions.

Fortunately, a little perfectly-timed beep comes from his room’s speakers, and MONIKA announces that he has an incoming call from A. He tells her to accept it.

“Hey, sorry I wasn’t able to call earlier, it’s been a hectic week,” A says, voice bouncing around his room cheerfully. He stiffens a little when he realizes how quiet the house has been since they’ve left. “But I have a bit of free time right now, so I thought I’d check in.”

“I was starting to think you weren’t allowed to call me.”

A laughs. “I almost wasn’t,” they say, but before he can ask for clarifications, immediately follow up with, “So, how have you been?”

He raises an eyebrow even though they can’t see him. “That’s a very mundane question to ask.”

“You’re right, MONIKA’s updated me on exactly how many escape attempts you’ve done and how many electric shocks you’ve had.”

He winces. “To be fair, it wasn’t a lot.”

“Yeah, I’m actually impressed. And glad I requested a warning protocol so you didn’t get zapped all the time she thought you were going against the rules,” they say, “But really, don’t try to dismantle your ankle monitor.”

“No promises.”

“Of course,” A says, “How bored have you been?”

“Immensely, but I’ve also managed to reach a state of Nirvana without you here.”

“You’re so rude, wow,” they say, tutting a little. “And here I was, considerately leaving you things to amuse yourself with.”

“You left me six case files, that’s not a lot.”

“Have you solved one?”

He quiets, and then frowns, a little offended. “Not yet.”

“See?” A says, “I’ll hopefully be back when you’re done with them.”

“Still can’t tell me where you are?”

“Nope.” There’s a rustling noise over the line. A sounds like they’re adjusting some pillows. “Sadly that’s still not an option. Try asking other questions.”

“When are you coming back?”

“I can’t give an exact timeframe for that either for reasons related to the case, but I will try to wrap this up within the week.” A pauses, and then snorts a little. “Why, d’you miss me?”

“I think I’ve had enough practice to not be able to.”

A doesn’t answer for a minute. B only knows they haven’t ended the call because MONIKA hasn’t announced that they have.

“Fair enough,” they say, “Anything else?”

“Yes, actually,” B says and lifts the papers he has in his hand. “Eels? Really?”

“You have to admit, it’s a little ingenious.”

“Is this what you actually do with your training?” he asks, “L takes on cases with high body counts, or with a lot of money at stake; you take the actual weirdoes.”

“I just find the weirdoes first, he can find his own cases if he wants,” A says. They actually sound a little defensive, if a little miffed. “And besides, I thought you’d find this case interesting too.”

“I wouldn’t say interesting,” he says, “It’s eels.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

He gives them an unamused expression, or tries to, because then he remembers again that they can’t see him, but MONIKA saves him the trouble by saying, “He’s making that face he makes when he’s constipated, A.”

Okay, maybe that’s not much help.

A laughs. “Do you like it, B?”

“A – ” B takes a deep breath, pinches the bridge of his nose, and can’t believe he’s the one exasperated here. “There were eels. Down the victims’ throat. And up his ass.”

“And it’s an ingenious murder method, don’t you think?”

He lifts a finger as if to demonstrate a point, and then puts it down and looks away. “You know, sometimes, I don’t even want to imagine what would have happened had your disposition been just a smidge closer to mine.”

A only laughs. “If you feel like the printed files are lacking, you may ask MONIKA for access to the digital copies. You can probably review photos better when she can zoom in for you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says, “How’s your case doing?”

“Awfully,” A says, “We have all the necessary material for an arrest and a conviction, but we have a runner.”

“Ah,” B says, “You haven’t cornered them yet?”

“We’re tracing down a phone call. We’ll wrap it up soon, don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Pity, I was touched and everything,” A says. “Have you - “ They yawn, and he wonders what time it is, wherever they are. “ - made any progress on the cases I’ve given you, or have you just started?”

“I haven’t finished reading through this case file yet,” he says, “What time is it over there?”

There’s a pause, and then, “9:32 p.m.”

“You should sleep,” he says. “If this is free time for you, you have plenty of time to catch up on rest. Fatigue is detrimental to performance.”

“I was going to sleep soon, it’s fine,” A says, “I’m not breaking a schedule here. Kind of. No need to start getting itchy over it.”

“I don’t get itchy over it,” he says.

A laughs again, but this time it cuts off in a yawn, and B finds himself yawning as well even when it’s still broad daylight for him. He hears another rustle. 

“Yeah, I definitely need rest now. I’m getting sleepier now that you’ve mentioned the time.”

“It wasn’t my fault you weren’t sleeping when you should have been.”

“It’s nine o’clock, B, I’m not a child,” they say, “Good luck solving your eels.”

“Not that I need it - and I hate that,” he says. He hears them laugh before the call cuts off, and he reads through the rest of the file before instructing MONIKA to pull up the digital one on his television. He half regrets doing so when he sees the photos blown up on his screen, but it’s a lot easier than squinting at the ones he has on hand.

“They’re different species of eels, right?”

“Yes, sir,” MONIKA says. Ah. So she did just refuse to answer him earlier. “Their species have been listed on the file.” On cue, the latest image he’s asked her to pull up - a photo of an eel still intact after it was extracted from the second victim’s esophagus - shrinks to make room for the aforementioned list. 

“Three different types of eels, all live when they were used to murder the victims,” he says.

He doesn’t expect any response, but MONIKA still affirms him. “Yes, sir.”

“Four victims so far with no known links,” he says, “Or nothing the cops have found.”

He pauses for a moment, reviewing what he’s read so far. Four victims. Three men and one woman, all living in different places, all without connections to each other, and yet found dead in their own homes with live - or they were live when they were being put in them, anyway - eels down their throats and, well, up their asses, which sounded like an incredibly uncomfortable way to die, as the eels had eaten through their esophagus and their anal canal. They’d choked on the eels and had bled out too, so that was varying degrees of discomfort and pain, all at once.

Very...crude, if he has to describe it. But A’s right, it’s odd enough to be creative. Odd enough to be eye-catching.

“We know the culprit knew where their victims lived.”

“Would you like me to put together a map, sir?”

“That would be helpful, yes,” he says, “And can you put together a comprehensive history of the victims, please? Credit card purchases, academic records, criminal records,  medical histories; the like.”

“I would have to have permission from A to be able to grant you records, sir.”

Huh. Strange answer, but perhaps A solved this case another way. But still. “Ask them, then, they’ll probably answer in a few hours,” he says.

“I’ve sent a message. Anything else?”

“Timeframe. It’s in the case file and I’d make it myself, but you’re around and you’d put it together faster.”

MONIKA immediately does pull up a timeframe as she shrinks down the photo and the list on the television screen.

“Anything else?”

He pauses. “I’ll let you know if I think of it,” he says. Then he realizes he’s actually focused on this case now, and throws the remaining case files he’s set around him a quick glance.

Well. He’s got a week before A might possibly get home, and it’s not like they’d take the files away from him once they’re back. They set these ones aside for him after all.

He gathers them up and walks over to set them on his desk. He has no paperweights so he picks out a book from his shelf to lay it over them, and then he turns back to his television.

The speakers in the room let out the notification noise.

“A’s answered already?” he asks.

“No, sir,” MONIKA says, “A’s just forwarded to me that there’s been a fifth victim.”

B blinks. 

Fifth victim.

“Oh,” he says, staring at the TV screen of what he’d thought was just a very recently-solved case of A’s. “This is still ongoing.”

-

At least the victim count stays at five in the three days he spends sitting in front of his television, combing through all the victims’ records and sending requests to be approved by A. He’d work faster if he was able to immediately act on his requests, he knows, but sadly everything he wants to know and have done has to go through A for review, and so far they’ve knocked five out of eight requests he’s had, out of his hands. At least they’ve given him the courtesy of having this case credited to him instead of filing it under one of the many aliases they use. He’s still using an alias, of course (pity he can’t use Rue Ryuzaki), but this is less insulting.

Five victims. All from different areas. All who didn’t know each other. Seemingly no pattern for the time of deaths as the first victim was murdered six months ago. The second four, the third and fourth just at the beginning of this month, and the fifth just very recently. 

Another Paige Turner? Someone who’d discovered the high murder gave them and decided to act on their urges, getting more and more impulsive as time went on?

“Well, I know they’re all well-off,” he says, out loud. In the past few days, he’s learned that MONIKA is a good sounding board. “Not rich, exactly, but well-off. Enough to able to afford…” He looks at the list of places in which all the victims had gone to, on the corner of his television screen. 

There were three places three of the five victims had all gone to - a hospital, a hotel, and one train station, but their visits were too spaced out. Months, even years apart, but still, taking note of it was making sure he was covering all bases and making sure not a detail slipped past him. There was, however, one last place on the list he’d had MONIKA take note of,  and he’s waiting for the confirmation from A once they’ve heard back from the cops they’d sent to investigate the scene.

In three of the five victims’ credit card histories, several purchases were from a high-end restaurant that served fresh seafood. Like lobsters, mudcrabs - 

And eels.

He wrinkles his nose. He definitely doesn’t plan on eating eels again anytime soon, and he’s glad he hasn’t had any recently either. 

“Sir, A is on the line.”

“Accept the call,” he says, sitting down on his bed. The windows on his television screen close themselves as MONIKA preemptively pulls up the new files A’s sent to B: the reports and audio filez from the cops they’d sent to the Silver Cove restaurant to see if victims Patricia Wilson and Marlon Waide had gone there. 

“Hey, how are you doing?”

“Close to cracking this, and wondering how the cops missed such obvious connections,” he says, already beginning to read through the report. He grabs the remote from where it’s fallen to the floor, to hit the down button as a way to scroll through the file. “Didn’t they bother to ask around?”

“They did, I think, but the first victim had an aquarium in his house,” A says, “As did the third.”

“And nobody thought to look up how to care for eels?”

A laughs. “I suppose not. They simply thought - rich guy, big aquarium, an eel inside of the aquarium. The culprit must have used the pet to murder them.”

“The others didn’t have aquariums.”

“Which threw them off. The first murder gained so much publicity that the second was initially thought to be a copycat. Popular opinion is that it still might be.”

He scoffs, and is silent until he finishes reading through the report, and once he’s done he leans back on his hands, grinning, satisfied.

Second victim Patricia Wilson and fifth victim Marlon Waide had both dined in the restaurant, but they’d paid in cash, so their purchases hadn’t showed up on their card histories. The other victims had dined here too, but had paid with their cards.

“Cops didn’t think to go through their card histories either because the first victim was last seen in the restaurant four months before he was murdered. He'd gone to other places with eels before that. It could have been those places too,” A says, “And all of the restaurants he'd gone to in the last two months were interviewed. They skipped Cove.”

“Culprit was biding their time. Letting the anger fester.” B waves his hand.

“Anger?” A says, sounding intrigued. “What makes you say that?”

He pauses. 

There are some things, he knows, that shouldn’t be shared with other people, not because they’re too personal, but because it might be too much for their sensibilities. He’s known this for a long time, used it against his therapist back when he’d still been at the hospital, much to A’s exasperation. 

Well, that or it sounded too farfetched and dramatic for anyone.

But this is A, he thinks, and if there’s anyone whose sensibilities have long been trampled into the ground, and who’s used to hearing him wax poetry over things, it’s them.

So he says, “The way you kill someone speaks a lot about how you feel about them.”

A is silent, and then they prod, gently ushering him to continue: “Similar how mutilations often point to crimes involving deep-set anger?”

He laughs. “You know what I mean. There’s that, and there’s also elaborately planning things to make sure your victim suffers, make sure that what they go through is as uncomfortable as it is painful. Make it horrifying. Give thought to how every carving you make on their skin expresses whatever you wish to express.”

“Like hatred?”

“It’s usually hatred,” he says, and shrugs. “But then there's also fondness, admiration, respect, pity. That's why mercy-kills exist.”

A makes a curious noise. “Why do you think your culprit used eels, then?”

“Well, if they met the first victim at the restaurant, I’d say it’s poetic justice,” he says, “If not, then I’d say there’s just a lot of anger in this. A lot of contempt. And the desire to watch their victims be horrified even before they’d gotten an eel down their throat.” He huffs out a breath. “There’s three different types of eels used here though. How many does Silver Cove have on their menu?”

“One. Longfin.”

“Can you trace the nearest sources for the other two?”

“Already did. Thought you’d ask,” they say. He turns to a camera with a look, and MONIKA replaces the police report with A’s list of places for the nearest sources of European and American eels. There’s several farms on the list.

“Have you gotten people to comb through those farms?” he asks.

“Yeah, just got them out on the field, you should be getting their reports soon,” A says. “What are you thinking?”

“That our murderer’s in the restaurant,” he says, “But throwing two other types of eels into this spreads the net out a little. It could be a farm worker using the restaurant as a cover, or a restaurant worker using the farms as a cover.”

“That is possible. It's something that would require more effort, but very possible, and necessary if a culprit were to protect their own identity.”

He nods. “...or we have two murderers.”

“Also very possible,” they say, but then there’s a little tinny noise in the background, like their own laptop’s just received a notification. B hears them sigh and confirm it. “I’m...sorry, I still have work to do. Any other request you want me to get done?”

He thinks it over. “Can you get me a list of restaurants that serve European and American eels within the map I had made?”

“I can, no problem. You’ll have them in a few minutes,” A says. Then, after a long pause between both of them, sighs again. “I should go. Talk to you later, B.”

“Yeah,” he says, a little awkward and hesitant. “Talk to you later, I guess.”

-

A moves fast with his requests, so he has his list of places and the rest of his police reports before the day ends, and he spends most of his evening piecing everything together until he passes out. There’s seven restaurants who serve European and American eels, but only one restaurant has been visited by a victim, and that had been three years ago, and Ivan Richards, their fourth victim, had switched to getting his dinner at Silver Cove a little later. 

But as it may still be important, he reads through every report he’s given and has A interview all of the staff in all the restaurants, and find that none of them are suspicious, but there has been a theft of eels in the restaurant Islands a few months before their first victim was murdered.

Pre-meditated. Very pre-meditaed. B puts out a request for interviewing the staff of Silver Cove and when the reports come in, he only has to spend an hour reviewing the audio recordings until he gets to the one with a Jeremiah Katzberg, one of the wait staff who’s worked in the Cove for six years, who refers to the fourth victim by his first name without even being prompted to. 

His attention is immediately caught, and he leaves a message about searching Jeremiah’s house to see if there’s anything suspicious there. They find him and his roommate, whose cousin happens to work in a high-end restaurant that serves European and American eels, and while the boys are lying through their teeth in the living room, there’s aquariums of eels found in their basement.

“The effort is commendable,” B says, eating pop tarts on the kitchen counter. He’s sent in his report to A hours earlier, and they haven’t responded yet, but they probably will get back to him in a few hours. “I mean - stealing eels beforehand and setting up tanks to keep them isn’t an easy job. Neither is stealing supplies even before they’ve stolen the eels.”

“Very premeditated, as you said,” MONIKA says. 

He hums. “If we get a confession, everything’s going to be neatly wrapped up, but even if we don’t, it’s a case solved.” He takes a moment to imagine closing this case and moving on to the next one with only theories and no confirmation of the boys’ motives. It makes him frown. “But that would be unsatisfying.”

“Would you like me to send a message to A about a confession, sir?”

He nods, and crunches into a poptart. “Yeah, send them a message.”

He has an idea of why they did it. Jeremiah seemed like the type to be resentful - from his school records, he seemed like a nice, smart boy but one who was pushed around too often and he’d actually snapped once, and had snapped dramatically. He’d set a chem lab on fire and didn’t admit it was him until a week before he graduated high school, and his parents begged the school to let him graduate as the offense was three years ago anyway. He'd gotten ‘nicer’,  everyone had said. B just thinks he got better at acting. What a loss to the theatric world. 

And he worked as one of the wait staff in Silver Cove. Customers could be irritating sometimes.

The effort really is commendable.

He gets an e-mail from A the next day that his work has been turned in, credited under Akame, and attached to the e-mail were recordings of the murderers’ confessions. 

Both boys had broken down under the pressure and had sobbed in front of the detective interrogating them, and B can’t help a snicker as he listens to the audio. It’s a good day, all in all, even when he practically has nothing else to do as he’s still not in the mood to start on the other cases yet. A doesn’t call, and he just ends up watching a movie and falling asleep on the living room couch.

A doesn’t call the next day either, when he finally starts on another case, this one with more sensible and reasonable weapons than a bunch of eels, and B sends A his requests once he’s read through the file and figured out where to start piecing things together. A doesn’t respond until evening, and he sleeps, expecting a response when he wakes.

Except he doesn’t get one. Nor does he get one the next day, and the next, and the next, that he actually starts to wonder if A’s actually forgotten about him or if A’s just too busy to reply to any of his e-mails for now. The thought actually makes him a little miffed, and he spends one afternoon glaring at their piano as he tries to read in the library in peace. It’s quiet, and yet even the silence offends him.

A doesn’t reply for a total of a week and a half before he asks MONIKA if she’s gotten any word from them.

“No, sir, I haven’t,” she says.

This should be a chance for escape, he thinks. A’s not paying attention to him, after all, and maybe he can use that to his advantage even when all previous attempts have been foiled by MONIKA. He can probably find a way around her. Which reminds him - he still doesn’t know what her name means. It’s probably high time he seriously got working on that, now that A’s finally neglected him, or finally got caught in the crossfire of whatever case they’ve been working on, or finally dead - 

(He is sixteen and the treehouse is on fire. It is raining, and he is screaming, and yet no matter how hard the rain pours and no matter how loud he screams, the flames don’t stop, and no one steps out of the burning house. A branch crashes onto the ground, embers sparking upon the impact, steam hissing from the grass as it hits, and B - B can do nothing but plead that, please, please, get out of there, please - )

He frowns, slowly. He stops his pacing - because he has been doing that for the past half hour and wearing down the soles of his feet and the library carpet - and sits instead, crossing his legs under him. “Can you call them?”

“I can attempt to, sir.”

“Call them then.”

He waits and listens as MONIKA calls A, the beeping gurgle of a connection in progress ringing in the silent library, and his hands twitch when he hears the automated ‘The number you are attempting to reach is unavailable, please try again’ recording sound out.

“GPS?” he asks.

“Yes, sir.”

A minute later, MONIKA announces that she can’t locate their phone. He frowns further.

“So they’ve somehow disappeared off the face of the earth,” he says.

“It appears so, sir.”

Just like last time, he thinks, and his lips slant up in a mirthless smile. He exhales through his nose, slowly, focusing. 

If A has forgotten him, he’s here all by himself until he runs out of supplies. He doesn’t know if MONIKA can even order things for him without A’s approval. If A’s has forgotten him, he’s isolated here for who knows how long. If A is dead, there is the possibility that Wammy will remember him and decide he’s not worth all this and just throw him to the wolves. If A is dead - well. Possibilities are endless.

“Sir?”

“Yes?” he asks, sitting up straight as he snaps out his thoughts. “What is it?”

“I’m receiving an incoming call - “

“Accept it.”

MONIKA does, and he hears the click of the line being opened.

“Took you a while,” he says, but instead of A’s voice, he hears someone else, someone he hasn’t heard from in a long time, and someone who sounds very, very different from the last time they’d been face to face.

B blinks as he registers exactly who’s talking.

“Hey,” says Mail Jeevas, awkward and unsure, but he’s definitely trying, alright. “So, A is missing.”