(no subject)

[sociallychallenged]

[VIDEO]

[Hank's looking a little more haggard than usual when he makes this post. He's tired and fucking wore out from a long stretch of just being perpetually pissed and sad. And goddammit, he wants his hope back, but it's been sliding.]

[He's still fuckin' trying, though.]

[He positions the phone so it's showing an old-timeyish looking Detective's office. We're talking he went for the Sam Spade aesthetic. He plants himself in a desk seat.]

So, I know I just fuckin' talked about getting a promotion. But I had some things go wrong with my last case. [Some big things. People kept going missing, for one.] Connor got assaulted by a decorated officer. And while he's getting what's due uh... I don't know. I figured it'd be better if I got him out of there while he was recovering emotionally. And this fuckin' job would require less walking.

[Those are his excuses? Real reason number one? Connor can't understand all those extra languages at the moment. Real reason number two? Being in the middle of the police station when his year runs up doesn't sound like the best plan. And for some people? Seems like it's not taking a year.]

[He sure as shit would like to stop losing fucking friends. Thanks.]

[Hank turns himself in his chair.] This is my new private detective's office. So now I get to take pictures for paranoid fuckin' people looking for reasons for divorce. I'm really goddamn excited about that. [He smears his hand down his face, then scratches his beard.]

But uh. It was time I said good-bye to the job. [He'd always said this was his last chance to be a cop, and here it is. But damn if the heaviness of that loss isn't weighing on him too.]

Comments

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[morethanatrickster]

[Loki's all smiles, but there's a knowing in his eyes. And something else, a hardness Hank's only seen once: When he was ready to set the city on fire after the executions.]

Such a handsome office, and quite a fitting theme. Tell me, is it sufficiently private?

[There's a subtle emphasis on the word 'private', as though he's actually saying, 'do your walls have ears, Hank?']

video;

[sociallychallenged]

Private enough.

[That between Loki's abilities and Connor's constant bug searches, it could be easy enough to have conversations there. But it's not 100%, at least not without extra effort.]

video » action

[morethanatrickster]

Splendid. Perhaps I'll drop by with an office-warming gift.

[And he does, later that afternoon, with what might be the cheapest coffee pot money can buy, for appearances alone. Hank might recognize the call-sign of Loki's sound cloaking spell at this point: an utter lack of reverb of any kind. He begins as soon as the door closes behind him.]

Are we alone?

[sociallychallenged]

[Hank is not a man of exceptionally refined tastes. He reaches out to take the pot.]

We're pretty alone.

[He's been listening to Jazz, and without him actually touching his speakers or old phone (something shaped like an old timey radio that he can set his old Detroit phone in) it changes songs to something louder and jumpier.]

We keep track of most of the bugs but he can put them into places where we're not immediately observing. Pretty fucked up. So we gotta be careful but I think I got the room set up pretty safely.

[He only turns off distracting noises when cases come in.]

What's on your mind? [He asks as he opens the coffee pot.]

[morethanatrickster]

[He nods at Hank's claims. One could never clear all the Head's bugs, but the effort was appreciated. Even still, he doesn't drop the sound cloak in which he's enveloped the room in order to dampen whatever a missed piece of technology might pick up.

He crosses his arms, watching Hank unpack the product he'd brought with thought if not practice.]

You quit.

action

[notalive]

He can't really explain the nerves about doing all this, because it's nothing rational, by any means. At least, once you get beyond the rational worry that they can't make enough money for Hank to live on.

He doesn't want to fail.

But when you're creating your own parameters for success, what is failure?

For now, failure would be not doing this because he's afraid of an abstract concept.

The ping of a network post by Hank brings him out of the strange funk he's sunken himself into in the back room and brings him out into the front, where he wraps an arm around Hank from behind and leans into the chair.

"How's it feel?" he asks, because Hank's feelings are more interesting to him than his own right now.

[sociallychallenged]

Hank's pretty good at what he does. He's not worried. There's not been a lot of 'real' cases for a while anyway. But he does know enough to know where to go to find stolen property for people now. He knows how to search for most people. And with Connor's help, he can get a lot of additional info that can confirm or bust a situation.

He's not that worried, because he knows people always want the chance to prove their paranoid suspicions correct. He'll be honest with his work, and he's not looking forward to it, but he's sure they'll make money.

Even with clones around, they still have their faults. Their petty, normal, obscenely average faults.

"It fucking sucks." He finally says, reaching up to hold Connor's hand, staring at his tacky desk (tacky in it's kitschy, retro look that is along the lines of his fashion).

"We still got a lot we gotta do, though. I need a job that'll let me keep looking around." The excuse is necessary, increasingly so. "But uh... Mike Morbius was my friend. I trusted him with my fucking blood."

Connor's done enough searches for bugs that he thinks with regular background noise and careful language, they can have discussions like this.

[notalive]

He kisses Hank's temple and moves around to perch on the desk next to him. One of his hands doesn't let go of Hank's, but the other is closed in a fist on his lap.

"I know," he says quietly. "I'll keep a watch out for Morbius. He seemed like a decent person, the one time I met him."

And anybody who Hank trusts enough to offer up his blood is someone Connor trusts as well.

"He's still Morbius. Even back home, that other Connor was still Connor. Just..." He shakes his head. "I don't know. I want to try talking to him at least once. Maybe there's something I can pick up. You know him better than I do, maybe we can both chat to him. Maybe the clone even considers you a friend still."

He lays the other hand on the table, opening his fist. He'd been holding a pair of scissors by the blades, and now they sit on the table under his palm. Over their connection, he shares an image of another bug he just found and deactivated a few minutes ago, in a place he already checked before.

They're going to have to accept that there's nowhere that's completely safe from bugs. The Head - and though he doesn't know for sure it's the Head, who else would be interested in bugging some business that only really opened its doors a couple minutes ago with that network post? If anything, Connor's going to have to work all the harder at it now.

"I need a favour, if you've got a minute," he says suddenly, as if it's bursting out of him.

[sociallychallenged]

"I hate that I gotta ask you to keep doing this shit, but yeah. Let's talk to him. If he'll have it..." He'll need Connor there, at least his ability to sense stress. If anything he could tell when Morbius was trying to play Hank, he couldn't trick him into something by suddenly feigning cooperation. Connor's ability to sense stress would be invaluable.

Hank looks at the scissors just as Connor informs him of the bug. He's getting used to sudden images; they're not that different from his own intrusive thoughts. Just sudden ideas and scenarios that he knows aren't his, separate from his own hateful memories. He's suspected all rented buildings would be bugged for a while. His one hope is that the Head could be a busy man.

But the suddenness of the favor, and the fact that he came in here with a fucking stabbing impliment, makes the surveillance, for once, less of a priority. "Uh.... yeah. Depending. If you wanna cut my hair let's at least wait until after it gets warmer."

[notalive]

"Don't," Connor says, waving off Hank's words easily. "We're a team. If you need me, here I am."

Whatever Hank wants him to be.

But then Connor pauses, and grins a little uncertainly. "I never thought of that." He eyes Hank appraisingly. "You'd look good with it short."

Not that Connor doesn't think he looks good with it long as well.

"But that's not what I meant." He presents Hank with the scissors, holding them by the blade. He's hesitating as he goes on, "I want you to take this off for me."

He indicates his LED.

Audio, UN - RankA

[skyward_eyes]

If you ever need someone to moonlight handling stakeouts for you, I've got plenty of experience. And send Connor my wishes that he recovers from whatever happened.

[sociallychallenged]

I'll let him know.

[He might have to, he doesn't know if Nida speaks English, though judging from their conversation about Seifer's name chances are they at least sound similar enough.]

And yeah, I'll give you a call. I'm pretty sure it'll be about as interesting as watching paint dry but eh. You'll get some soap opera level drama out of some of it.

[skyward_eyes]

[Yeah, no, Nida doesn't speak English at all. Three languages, none of them something of use. But hey, his translator is working for right now, and as long as it works, well, he's going to take advantage of it.]

Paint drying is boring. Watching other people do things was my training. I know how to keep from getting bored. Besides, people having affairs are WAY less careful than people guarding industrial secrets.

[sociallychallenged]

Oh, yeah.

Well, if you're up for the challenge I can dig up some surveillance work. It's not pretty but... there's still a lotta telltale damage from a case I was working on. Never got the bad guy in the end, but we shut down a lot of her business.

[And he found a lot of helpful contacts and information.]

So there are some people looking for addicted loved ones still. Which I gotta ask for money for, hate that part, but I can throw in the extra mile with recovery resources.

[skyward_eyes]

I mean, insomnia is still a thing. I can definitely take some work now and then. Otherwise I wouldn't offer.

[But then his voice gets softer. Nervous.]

I'll help look for addicts for free.

audio; un: jane doe

[scathefires]

You take missing persons cases? I got one and I’m obviously not gonna take it to the cops if you’re gone.

[sociallychallenged]

Yeah. Missing persons and stolen property.

I'll take that as a compliment. Come in and see me.

[scathefires]

You got it. I’ll come by in a few.

[literally about 10 minutes later, jason materializes inside hank’s office, courtesy of his new teleportation spell ink.]

Brought you a present. [he holds up a large padded envelope, then places it down on hank’s desk and takes a seat in the nearest available chair.] You watch the news lately?

[sociallychallenged]

Holy shit! [Hank barks, startling in his chair.]

...I'm gonna have to come up with a way for people to knock if they pop in.

[Hank reaches over and turns up the metal that he was listening to. Not so much that they have to shout, but it'll certainly garble their conversations. Even if Connor's done a pretty reliable sweep for bugs. He then takes the packet to look inside of it.]

Yeah... Yeah I've been watching.

[His grimness returns there. Morbius being... whatever he is... hasn't helped anything.]

[scathefires]

Sorry. [the shit-eating grin stretched across his face says otherwise.] Still getting used to this thing.

[jason pulls the chair closer to the desk so he can lean in closer for the discussion.]

Ol’ Mikey always kept weird hours, but after a week of not seeing him I got concerned. And it turns out I was right to be concerned - he just vanished. Didn’t ever come home, didn’t answer my calls or texts. And he left all his notes behind. [he points to the packet he brought for hank.] Figured you might know what to do with all that.

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[blitzcheer]

[ This language malfunction sucks, and for the instances where Tidus thinks he can understand a word, that doesn't actually help, and so he doesn't manage to make any sense of the video until later.

So, after that later: ]

Hey, saw the job change and about Connor. Hope he's doing okay. And congrats on the new job -- I bet you'll do great! Gotta be easier than working in an office with everyone else. And you don't got to deal with the messy parts of a break up! Like the arguments, property damage ... whatever else you call the cops for.

[ Trying to sound more enthusiastic than Hank did (or looked) about it? Absolutely. ]

[sociallychallenged]

Yeah, he's recovering. His knee is better, there's just some mental stuff, still. A lotta pressure.

[That's slightly odd phrasing Tidus used, but he doesn't question it yet.]

I think it's more that it was my calling for a long time. Gonna really miss it. But I can't throw away a whole lifetime of goals.

[blitzcheer]

[ Eesh. Poor Connor. ]

It's cool you can still have that though -- a job that's still you. I've been working at a bar and grill, but it'll never be blitzball.

[ And if he never hears about blitzball being here, he'll be happy about that. ]

But I've been playing basketball! Now and then, with some guys in the city. Just if I see them around. [ Cheekily: ] I guess it's not a bad game.

[ He's joking. The rules are weird for a guy who just wants to go and not to be thinking about bouncing around a ball, but it's been...nice. Bizarrely normal. Maybe too normal. ]

[sociallychallenged]

Maybe you should get a job at the arena?

I mean... these are just garbage fuckin' jobs anyway. You might as well get one you can tolerate. Unless the bar and grill thing works for you.

[But hey, the mention of basketball cheers him up.]

Managed a three-pointer yet?

[blitzcheer]

[ He'll...let the idea of an arena job drop for now. Good distraction, basketball. ]

In an actual game? [ There's a laugh. ] No way; I'm too busy getting fouls when I play. I really wanna knock people whenever they get too close... I haven't hurt anyone! But it's bad. My mind keeps going to blitzball rules!

[ It's an embarrassing kind of bad by the sound of his voice. ]

It's fine though. A few of the guys don't mind helping me out if I see them, but I'm learning all the dribbling moves on my own and getting used to aiming for the basket. Our goals are bigger in blitzball. Closer to... you heard of soccer?