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𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔞𝔩𝔱 𝔠𝔞𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔡𝔯𝔞𝔩 with @hochmvt, continued from here.

Outside, the faint drizzle had escalated to a full-fledged storm. Droplets of rain drummed a steady rhythm against the window, the fogged-up�� glass battered by years of resisting the harsh weather conditions. Still, Stiles felt like the dampness was creeping in through the brittle window frames, carrying with it the distinct scent of wet pavement and soil. His gaze flitted towards the window, the thought of a possible crack somewhere briefly distracting him from Isaiah’s last words. But once his attention snapped back to the blond in front of him, Stiles’ eyes narrowed, head tilting, sarcasm slipping into his tone at his next words. “Oh, really? You don’t say. Do they prefer Build-A-Feds with poorly forged credentials here?” He scoffed, tossing Isaiah’s fake ID back on the desk after he’d picked it up and scrutinized it.

Stiles had been in Harrow’s Deep for days, chasing leads that only ever led to dead ends, loose threads, and doors slammed in his face by townsfolk cloaked in silence. Imagine Stiles’ surprise when, during his attempts to question the locals, he was briskly–and repeatedly–brushed off with the remark that they’d already talked to his colleague, and weren’t willing to answer the same questions all over again. If the townspeople had half their wits about them or had bothered to look at the fake ID for more than a split second, they surely would’ve called Isaiah’s bluff. He must have either gotten lucky, been particularly smart, or just charming enough that the citizens of Harrow’s Deep didn’t bother looking into matters too closely. Though based on Stiles’ experience with them, that seemed unlikely. Then again, the circumstances under which the two men had met were less than ideal, to put it mildly. At least for Isaiah. It didn’t seem too far-fetched of an assumption that the version of him that Stiles was seeing right now wasn’t the same he’d presented to the people of Harrow’s Deep. Which might come in handy later on.

The ID landed on Isaiah’s desk with a soft thud, and Stiles crossed his arms over his chest as he propped his hip up against the edge, wood creaking suspiciously under his weight. Truth be told, he couldn’t care less about Isaiah posing as an FBI agent. Stiles would run out of fingers if he were to start counting all the occasions on which he had done worse, much worse, in his time. Both before and after joining the bureau. The only difference was that he’d never let himself be caught. Or his dad had made whatever charges were brought against him go away. Which, in the end, amounted to the same thing. The executive decision made by the motel’s architect to begin cost-cutting measures on insulation, of all things, had simply presented him with the perfect opportunity to shift the odds in his favor. And boy, did he need it.

“Warm, writhing flesh.” Stiles scrubbed a hand over his face, then ran it through his hair, leaving the dark strands in disarray, before he dropped the hand at his side and shrugged. “Sure. Why not.” His voice was edged with the sort of resignation that came with realizing that yet another thing that should have only existed tucked away between the pages of horror stories had quietly stolen away and slipped into his reality. And Stiles wasn’t granted the luxury of ignorance, couldn’t claim that he didn’t believe in this kind of stuff–whatever it was. Because experience had taught him that whatever you can imagine in your worst nightmares already exists somewhere. Hidden, but real. So whatever Isaiah had expected, or feared, his reaction to be–disbelief, a joke, even shock–failed to materialize. Instead, the blond was met with Stiles’ voice, dry and unimpressed. “That’s not the worst thing I’ve ever heard, but… It’s certainly up there.”

It made sense, in a twisted way. Since the moment that Stiles had been pulled into this investigation, the case had felt odd. Unsolvable. The information provided by Isaiah confirmed a suspicion that had taken root in Stiles’ mind the more he’d tried to dig into the case: he didn’t have the full picture. He’d been thinking of this as just another missing person’s case. Without the supernatural angle, he had only been looking at one half of the picture, like a chessboard with half the pieces missing. “That tracks,” Stiles muttered, more to himself than to Isaiah. Nevertheless, the blond’s gaze lifted instantaneously, and a hint of curiosity flashed across his face. Mischief sparked in Stiles’ eyes, his hazel irises glistening as he raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Sorry. Confidential.”

Isaiah scoffed, and something in his eyes flickered, the shift so subtle it could have easily been missed. But Stiles had been watching him intently ever since he’d shoved past Isaiah into the motel room–gaze measuring, studying, taking note of the amount of times Isaiah had run a hand through his hair. The restlessness of the gesture stirred something akin to recognition in Stiles. It nearly bordered on sympathy. He got the feeling that, if he was willing to look past their differences, he would find a lot of himself in Isaiah. As of right now, he wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

The subtle change in Isaiah’s eyes at the mention of confidentiality–the FBI's favorite phrase–made him wonder if he had heard those same words before. Not jokingly, the way Stiles had intended, but meant to brush him off. To get him to stop asking questions, to keep him from looking into things he had no real authority to look into. Maybe that was where the barely-concealed disdain for the FBI stemmed from. The blond had a warranted suspicion about him that Stiles not only recognized but deeply understood, and could have even appreciated under the right circumstances. Now, however, it was greatly hindering his plan, and therefore an absolute pain in his ass.

“Christ, dude, I’m just kidding,” he sighed, then quickly corrected himself, “I mean, kinda. Like, I really shouldn’t be telling you this.” But what he should and shouldn’t do were hardly more than loose suggestions to Stiles. Always had been. Be it curfews implemented by his dad growing up, rules set by teachers, or the legal bindings of his job. Stiles had never been one to blindly follow rules, and he wasn’t about to start now. Isaiah had given him something, however minor and non-committal. If they were ever going to work together, it would have to be a matter of give and take, which meant Stiles, too, would have to volunteer something.

“Brock Reynolds isn’t the first case of an outsider just disappearing here.” He slumped against the edge of Isaiah’s desk, rubbing the heel of his palm over his forehead as he recounted the findings of last night’s research session. “Those disappearances aren’t mentioned anywhere in the city archives, as I’m sure you know.” Stiles spared Isaiah a pointed glance, the corners of his mouth twitching treacherously. “Not a trace of them anywhere except in some backchannel FBI database. There’s a whole trail of reports and case files going back to 1912.” Considering that the FBI had been founded in 1908 and had only become a federal investigative agency much later in 1933, this tidbit of information had struck Stiles as especially noticeable. In those early years, the agency–back then still dubbed Bureau of Investigation–had neither the authority, jurisdiction, nor the manpower that distinguished it today.

“Here’s the kicker though: They’re all sealed. Can’t access any of them, which… shouldn’t even be possible, because I do have the required level of security clearance.” To think that the bureau, while still in the fledgling stage, had spared its limited time and resources to make some of their earliest case files essentially inaccessible was suspicious, to say the least. “But they were all filed around the same time: every two years, always close to the spring equinox.” One of two times a year when the sun was positioned directly above the equator, ensuring an equal edge between day and night, rendering them both approximately the same length. Many cultures implemented festivities, celebrations, and rituals around the spring equinox to bid farewell to the cold winter months and welcome the fresh start of spring.

The repeating pattern, paired with the convenient timing, had gotten Stiles thinking about sacrifices. “So… circling back to what you were saying. What if it’s like a trade? Cages get lowered down, whatever is inside somehow gets out. Maybe whatever is down there thinks of it as an offering and… the flesh,” a shiver trailed down his spine at the thought of it, “is what it is giving back?” Uneasily, Stiles wondered if sometimes there was something else in the cages when they were lowered down, soon swallowed by waves. Not bait. Something bigger. Human.

When Stiles stepped through the door to Isaiah’s room and out onto the balcony that connected all the rooms on the upper story of the motel half an hour later, frustration lined his shoulders, muscles rigid, tight. Any attempt at luring the fisherman’s full name out of Isaiah had amounted to nothing. All he’d been willing to give was a first name: Jack. Which, without the addition of his last name, wasn’t entirely useless to Stiles, but certainly made finding him unnecessarily complicated. Rain was still falling hard, coming down in thick curtains that pelted against the rusty railing lining the balcony, spurred by gusts of wind whipping past. It pulled at Stiles’ flannel as he struggled with the key at his own door, metal slippery between his damp fingers.

The flick of the light switch revealed the state of chaos that Stiles had deserted his room in. An open suitcase on the bed, bursting at the seams with hoodies and shirts, all entangled in a messy heap. The desk lamp that he’d forgotten to turn off cast a soft glow across the half-eaten pizza left in a soggy box on the desk, grease seeping through the cardboard onto the files that were strewn across the table. He’d never hear the end of it when he sorted those back into the filing cabinet in New York. Stiles shook the rain from his hair, sending droplets flying, before he flopped down on the creaky chair and pulled up his laptop, nimble fingers hacking away at the keyboard. He was looking for an angle. A motive. Some personal stake. It couldn’t be a mere coincidence that, in a town full of people sworn to secrecy, Isaiah just so happened to stumble across the one person willing to help. Stiles didn’t believe in people doing things out of the goodness of their hearts. Not anymore. Call it intuition, paranoia, or simply experience. But there was always an angle.

By 2:37AM, Stiles was in sweats, hoodie half-zipped, hair sticking up in spikes like he’d run his hand through it five hundred times. He was hunched over the desk, one knee drawn up to the chair like posture was optional. The leftover pizza had been reduced to a single cold slice, and his fingers trembled with fatigue where they curled around a half-empty Red Bull. The desk lamp flickered at irregular intervals where it sat, perched at an awkward angle like it was trying to look over his shoulder. He had six tabs open, tiredness blurring their contents before his eyes: CoastalTown.gov, a local fishing license database. A sketchy, poorly scanned PDF of harbor logs dated back three years, the black ink of the original document smudged in several places. A community group called Hook, Line & Local that he’d pulled up on Facebook, browsing for any mentions of users named Jack. Digitized property records from Harrow’s Deep, the IRS access portal, plus the sleek user interface of LinkedIn. Because apparently fishermen have LinkedIns.

Stiles strained his eyes against the screen’s faint glow, letters momentarily growing hazy as he typed “Jack” into the town’s active fishing licenses, fingers hovering over the keyboard after hitting enter. As expected: too many hits. Much obliged, Isaiah. Up until an hour ago, Stiles had heard faint murmuring from Isaiah’s room, adjacent to Stiles’. The noise had been much softer now that Isaiah knew Stiles was listening, too quiet to make out any words, the thrum of the rain outside additionally drowning out the conversation. Still, Stiles had welcomed the noise. It made him feel less alone, even if it was only through a wall. For most of his life, he had felt that sort of divide between him and everyone else–not quite as literally, but distinctly there. The sort of invisible line that he’d never quite figured out how to cross. Like he was there on one side, alone, and everything else happened on the other side. And no amount of wishing and longing could transport him over there and make him a part of it.

Discarding the thought, Stiles focused on the list of just short of twenty Jacks listed in Harrow’s Deep’s fishing licences. “Okay, Jack… Jack who? Jackoff,” he mumbled, then shook his head. “Nope. Focus.” He filtered the list down to people over forty, following a gut feeling, and cross-referenced the data with boat registrations. The search spat out three boats registered to Jacks in Harrow’s Deep. Pelletier, Libby, Bouchard. Not ideal, but he could work with three. Stiles set down the energy drink on the table, the condensation immediately leaving a circular mark on the wood while Stiles flipped through pages of handwritten notes and wrinkled print-outs of newspaper articles, all taken from the digital archives of The Harrow’s Deep Gazette, reporting on boating accidents on the town’s shore. Though his eyes burned and felt dry like sandpaper, they remained vigilant, scanning the pages for highlighted passages, skimming sticky post-it notes scrawled with his messy handwriting.

“Come on, come on, give me something…” Stiles muttered, absent-mindedly picking up a pen, worrying at the cap with his teeth as he rifled through the newspaper clippings. He stopped when he hit an article dated nine years back: Tragedy Strikes Again: Teen Lost in Weekend Boat Outing. He skimmed the article, eyes jumping so fast between the words that he nearly stumbled over them. There it was. “... as the town mourns the loss of Bennett Libby (17)...” Stiles yanked the pen from his mouth, cap demolished, and spun it between his fingers as he flicked through more articles, heart rate spiking. The next stack of papers turned up nothing, so he hastily set it aside, paying no mind to several pages slipping over the edge of the desk and gliding to the carpeted floor. Then, finally, a clipping with curled edges mentioning a Samuel Libby: Family Mourns Second Loss to Sea. The father of two, descendant of a long line of local fishermen, never returned from a morning fishing trip. Neither his body nor his boat was ever found. Stiles’ eyes skipped to the end of the article and widened at the last sentence: Samuel Libby is survived by his son Jack and wife Nora. He is the second member of the family to die at sea, joining son Bennett, who tragically drowned two years prior.

Stiles didn’t bother checking the other surnames. Instead, he turned back to his laptop, movements so jittery from a cocktail of excitement and sleep deprivation that he knocked over the energy drink. He caught it at the last second before the contents spilled all over his notes. Harrow’s Deep didn’t keep public death records the way many other small, underfunded towns did. Not digitized, at least. And even if they did, they would only provide him with the most basic information–death certificates, public obituaries or registries, maybe annual coroner’s reports, but those would most likely be anonymized. His fingers made quick work of entering his federal credentials into CJIS, a database for local criminal justice agency data-sharing, and ten minutes later, he flipped open a new page on his notepad, frantically jotting down the findings from Bennett Libby’s official autopsy report. COD: undetermined. Unexplained injuries, inconsistent with drowning. Mentions of rust in lungs?

By the time Stiles crawled under the thinning sheet–beige-grey and stained in several spots–of his motel bed, the alarm clocks’ ageing digits flipped from 3:59AM to 4:00AM, flickering with the effort. Two water-related deaths across the same family in the last ten years, and that was only what he had found at first glance. He was sure that if he were to dig deeper, he would uncover more drownings, boating accidents, or Libby family members going missing at sea. Stiles was lulled into sleep by the satisfaction of proving himself right once again: There was always an angle.

The next morning, smudged patterns of raindrops bore witness to the intensity of last night’s storm. They stained the dirtied windows to Stiles’ room through which the light filtered in, though barely. The rain had ceased, but the sky had not cleared overnight. Clouds hung low over the horizon: A thick, impenetrable wall that made it impossible for the sun to peek through, and equally hard to tell where the dark sea ended and the grey sky began. Lines blurred, the boundary between what was above and what was below dissolving, until it looked like it was all one and the same. A dark, gloomy realm of hidden secrets whispered between crashing waves and howling wind.

The sea out here was… different. Stiles had noticed it the second he had swung his legs out of his Jeep upon arriving in Harrow’s Deep. Granted, the only other time he had been to the ocean was Santa Monica beach, back in California. His parents had taken him three or four times on the rare occasion that his dad managed to get time off work long enough to spare a day-trip. Though treasured greatly, the memory of sand between his toes, melted ice cream making a sticky mess of his fingers, and the sun burning on his skin felt like it belonged to a different lifetime. Still, Stiles distinctly remembered the waves: mellow, rolling toward the shore slowly, as if careful not to disturb the children playing in the shallow water. Some had dug for seashells or pebbles while others had passed a ball with yellow and white stripes between them, erupting into fits of laughter whenever the inflated plastic had dropped from their hands with a splash, floating seamlessly along the waves.

But in Harrow’s Deep, the sea seemed almost angry. Hungry. A beast scorned. Like it was owed something it had yet to receive, and every day that it went without it only spurred its ancient wrath. And the town seemed to know it, too. Stiles had yet to hear a single bird chirp. He’d spotted a couple of seagulls at the harbor, circling the fishing boats, but had never once heard their distinctive cries. An eerie quiet hung over Harrow’s Deep, no matter what part of town he wandered into. Like the collective was holding its breath. As if by making themselves as small and as quiet as possible, they might evade whatever was coming for them.

As Stiles walked along the cobbled main street, jacket pulled tight around his shoulders to shield himself from the crisp air laden with moisture, fog wafted over from the harbor, thick billows swallowing the surrounding buildings. Every now and then, a silhouette peeled out from the fog, but they all hurried past him, eyes cast downward. Freaking weirdos. He passed dusty souvenir shops that cluttered the sidewalk with their stand-up displays, necklaces made from seashells dangling in the breeze next to stacks of postcards, paper curled at the edges. Maybe he should send his dad one. Give him something to pin to his fridge besides the grocery list consisting solely of red meat and deep-fried food specifically designed to send his blood pressure soaring.

A few steps from the wooden stairs leading up to The Lighthouse Grill–his destination–Stiles’ steps came to a halt, eyebrows drawn together in irritation. Since the motel offered little to no on-site parking, he had parked his Jeep by the diner and walked the rest of the way after arriving in Harrow’s Deep. Now, as he was walking past, something caught his eye: A slight crack in the windshield. Barely noticeable, but Stiles knew every inch of his car like the back of his own hand. Better, even. Stepping closer, he eyed the fissure, noticing that it looked like something had been flicked against the windshield. Stiles’ gaze skirted up, but there was no tree overhead from which something could have dropped on his car, and he was sure the crack couldn’t have happened on the drive to Harrow’s Deep. He would have noticed. His frown deepened. Maybe he should have taken the bureau up on their offer to use a company car – one of those sleek, flashy black Chevrolet Tahoes that looked ripped straight out of a bad crime drama. But those had never been Stiles’ style. He patted the Jeep’s hood as if trying to apologize, clicked his tongue, then jogged up the stairs to the diner.

The Lighthouse Grill was a relic of the 1950s. Overhead, a rundown neon sign cast a flickering red glow through the fog. The D didn’t light up at all anymore. Facing the misty harbor, the front door–made of salt-stained wood and chipped paint–wore a sign with etched out letters above, the diner’s name barely legible. As soon as Stiles pushed open the door, the bell overhead gave a half-hearted jingle, and the diner fell almost comically silent. The low hum of conversation that had been buzzing through the air just moments before died in an instant, snuffed out like a candle’s flame. Stiles paused for half a second, feeling the weight of the silence settle over him like a cloak, then rolled his eyes and stepped inside fully. Freaking weirdos.

With every step further, the distinct smell of cooling grease crawled into his nostrils, overwhelming his senses. It clung to the cheap seats, pine green covers peeling from the booths lining the windows in several places. The interior of the diner looked like it had been frozen in time. Framed pictures of fish with glazed-over eyes hung crookedly on the paneled walls, fishing boats bobbed on sun-bleached waves in photos turned sepia with age. The crown jewel, however, was a single Yelp review printed out, laminated, and framed proudly at eye-level above the counter: “Best pancakes around, small-town charm!” Whopping five stars. Stiles wouldn’t be surprised to find out the owners of the joint had written it themselves. He slid into a booth by the window, the vinyl seat letting out a soft sigh under his weight. The table was worn smooth in some places and scarred deep in others, initials and hearts carved into the wood. Stiles ran his index finger over a jagged I+Z that looked like it had been there longer than he’d been alive.

A waitress–name tag reading Connie in peeling green letters–ambled over, her heels clicking against the checkered flooring. She didn’t bother with a notepad when Stiles rattled off his order: coffee (even though it was thin and tasted distinctly like dish soap), chocolate chip pancakes drowning in maple syrup, scrambled eggs, and a side of bacon. “Coming right up, hon,” Connie said with practiced cheerfulness, and wandered off. Stiles slumped back against the seat, tapping his fingers against the table, gaze drifting lazily around the diner until it snagged on a familiar sight. There, perched at the counter, was a mop of messy blond hair that, even after having only seen it once, Stiles was confident he’d be able to pick out of a crowd.

He was out of the booth in an instant, hands curled at his side to keep his fingers from fidgeting. The floorboards squeaked under his Converse, one cracking at the heel, the sound unnaturally loud in the hush that still lingered. Isaiah looked up when Stiles stepped up to him, close enough to lean an elbow against the edge of the counter. “You know, I’ve been wondering,” Stiles said, not bothering with a formal greeting. “What’s your stake in all of this? Didn’t exactly sound like trouble in paradise drove you out here.” The smirk that curled around the corners of his mouth didn’t falter under the weight of Isaiah’s exasperated stare. “Come on, I’m hardly to blame here. I figured someone as wary as you would’ve kept his voice down,” Stiles continued, an amused glint in his eyes, voice thick with sarcasm. “Don’t you know the government is always listening?”

A beat of silence passed between them, then another, in which Stiles’ gaze lingered on Isaiah, unwavering, one eyebrow arched in expectation. Finally, Isaiah sighed, as if by answering he was admitting defeat. “If you must know, I’m just looking for inspiration for my next episode,” he explained. “I host a horror podcast, so I’m always looking for stories to get inspired by. And I figured, why not try to help people along the–” Stiles slammed his palm down on the counter. The sharp crack of it cut Isaiah off mid-sentence. Heads turned, forks clattering onto plates. Isaiah stiffened at the sudden attention, but Stiles paid it no mind, already grinning widely, hazel eyes lit up. “Shut up,” Stiles said, breathless, like he couldn’t quite believe it himself. The pieces clicked into place fast, and realization settled over him, body buzzing with excitement. “You’re Isaiah Pines? No way, dude!”

There had been tales told at the bureau–across state lines, no less–about a young podcast host with a bad habit of showing up at crime scenes, poking around where he shouldn’t, interfering just enough to leave agents gritting their teeth. Some told the stories like jokes, exaggerated over beers, others twisted them into cautionary tales for rookies. But where the bureau told those stories with exasperation and scorn, Stiles had always been amused. It took a special kind of stubbornness to be that much of a thorn in their side. He couldn’t help but respect it. Maybe even admire it a little. The laugh that burst out of Stiles was bright and sudden, too alive for the somber diner. Something wildly out of place. Like such a joyful sound hadn’t reverberated off the walls in a long time. It startled a few of the guests back into their breakfasts. “Oh, the bureau really doesn’t like you,” he said, grinning like he couldn’t stop himself if he tried. “You’re like this myth that gets passed down hallways.” He paused, let it hang between them, then smirked even wider, teeth flashing. “Not in a good way.” There was no judgment in it, words coated in a thick layer of admiration. Stiles felt an electric jolt of kinship spark between them, like he was seeing the parts of himself that had never quite fit neatly inside the bureau’s rigid lines reflected in Isaiah, staring back at him. Without thinking, Stiles reached out and clapped Isaiah on the back, a solid, friendly thump that jolted the blond forward slightly. “You’re a legend, dude,” Stiles said, laughing again, warm and genuine.