#Interview Me I Guess but larissa says she was too scared to after that

[alliluyevas]

was thinking about Kremlin Wives by Larissa Vasileva again (specifically interviewing subjects as a historian) and about how she primarily interviews female relatives of the women she profiles (rather than male relatives) and I’m guessing that’s probably a deliberate choice to focus on those relationships, but also I’m wondering if female interview subjects might be more willing to meet with a female historian and same with male subjects and male historians? Like she interviewed both of Polina Molotova’s granddaughters but not her grandson, and she interviewed Victoria Brezhneva’s daughter-in-law but not her son. But yeah idk if she sought out female subjects or whether these women were more responsive.

[waveridden]

FIC: a ghost story.

But Rita’s no fool. Rita keeps track of these things, see, and she has a theory that she knows is right. She’s not about to look it up, because that’s an invasion of privacy and she doesn’t want to invade Mister Steel’s privacy, but there are too many pieces for there not to be a puzzle.

A story about ghosts, and the people who become them. 3.9k, gen. This piece was originally written for the @penumbrazine.

read on ao3

#

Working for the police is boring, not that Rita will ever admit it. Her family had warned her as soon as she’d told them she’d gotten the job. “You’ll be wasted,” one of her cousins had said, Peggy or Janey or maybe Jojo, “absolutely wasted, Rita,” and the thing is, now she doesn’t want to tell them all that they were right. It’s really just insistence to prove them wrong that keeps her from telling them how boring it all is. She doesn’t do much as a secretary here that she couldn’t do anywhere else, which is a disappointment and maybe too much of a surprise.

She makes do, of course. She answers calls and makes friends with the nicest-looking officers (who aren’t always the nicest officers, but she’s always liked a friendly face). She watches her streams at work, not that anyone ever bothers to stop her, and she starts trying to figure out which cops work for which gangs, like it’s a game.

But other than her slow, steady loss of faith in the institution of law enforcement, and other than finding ways to keep herself busy, police work is boring. It’s all kidnapper this, robbery that, one horrible crime after the other. And half the time they get away, because once someone figures out who it is it turns out the perp is in cahoots or in debt or in something with some officer. There’s not a lot of justice. It’s enough to make a girl go crazy.

And speaking of going crazy, Rita’s pretty sure a ghost just walked into her precinct.

“Mister Steel?” she gasps, before she can think better of it. If this is a ghost, she doesn’t want to spook him, although maybe spooking a ghost in a police station is a good thing. Ghosts stick around because of unfinished business, so maybe a ghost in a police station means an officer will be around to help her solve some kind of crime. Or maybe the location doesn’t matter and oh god the ghost is turning to look at her, what if he has creepy eyes and what if-

“What?” the not-ghost demands, and some piece of Rita’s chest caves in with relief, and some other part caves in with disappointment. The nose is too flat, and the shoulders are too tense, and the muscles are all wrong, and plus he’s got too many scars. “And it’s Officer Steel.”

“Officer Steel,” Rita repeats, and glances down at her schedule. Isn’t there an Officer Steel who’s supposed to be visiting her precinct today? That has to be where she got the name from. No ghosts here. “You’re here about, uh, the Lorraine Barilla case?”

“That’s me.” Officer Steel, HCPD, shoves his hands a little further into his coat pockets. He looks like he’s not trying to take up much space, but he sort of sticks out anyways. Like no matter how small he makes himself, you can’t help but look at him.

Rita clears her throat. “Uh, Detective Van went on lunch a couple minutes ago, you just missed them.”

Officer Steel groans. “What, they couldn’t wait until after our appointment?”

Rita considers reminding him that technically he’s the one who showed up twenty minutes late, but the lady already kind of looks like he’s having a rough day or maybe a rough couple of months, and she’s never been one to make a situation worse when she could make it better. That’s what her ma used to say. Or at least she thinks that was the order her ma used to say it in.

“You could wait in here,” she offers at last. “Maybe not in Detective Van’s office, but there ain’t rules against sitting down for a little while, or telling a nice secretary what brings you in this neck of the woods.”

Officer Steel blinks at her. “I thought you just said you knew why I was here. The Lor-”

“Lorraine Barilla?” Rita shrugs. “Yeah, sure, it’s a real shame what happened to that lady’s apartment, especially since you and I and probably Detective Van all know that the robber was aiming for the apartment next door. But you can’t talk to them about it right now, and none of the good streams start for another couple hours, except for the serial spin-off of The Larissa Redemption but that doesn’t hold up that well, we all know it even if we pretend we don’t, so-”

“Hold on,” says Officer Steel, looking a little thunderstruck. “What do we all know?”

“That the spin-off doesn’t work,” Rita says patiently. She should’ve known, this lady doesn’t look like he’s one for keeping up with streams. “See, the first Larissa movie was classic. Not the best, mind you, the best in the series was-”

“No,” Officer Steel says, and he’s thrown off that whole smallish aura now. He strides over towards Rita’s desk to look her in the eyes and it’s one of the more intimidating things she’s ever experienced, not that she’d tell him that, of course. She bites her cheek and doesn’t blink, and Officer Steel says, slowly, “What did you say about Lorraine Barilla?”

“Oh!” Rita sits up a little straighter. “Detective Van did the interviews with all the witnesses, and one of them was Lorraine Barilla’s next door neighbor. Real nervous guy, came in and practically started shaking at the sight of me. Me! Can you believe it, Officer Steel, anyone who’s scared of me has to be hiding something, or maybe just shy, but he was shaking before I even opened my mouth.”

“Ma’am,” Officer Steel says, sounding pained. “The case.”

“The case!” Rita bounces in her chair and leans forward, propping her elbows on her desk. “Well, Detective Van left all their notes lying around and asked me to clean their office, and since that’s obviously not part of a secretary’s job description and they owe me big-time for even thinking about doing it, I did a little snooping. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” he echoes. He sounds like he’s aiming for flat or maybe disapproving, but she’s pretty sure he’s impressed.

Rita likes this officer. “I like you,” she says, because she can. Officer Steel’s eyes narrow. “Anyways, they left out some notes about this case, including a witness statement from the neighbor that didn’t make much sense. Said he didn’t hear anything but backtracked to say he heard something but stuck to saying he didn’t hear anything, you know, that kind of business.”

“The lying kind.”

“The lying kind! And I know Detective Van noticed, because they made a note about it.”

“So why don’t they think the neighbor did it?” Officer Steel tilts his head. “Or… I guess maybe the better question is, why don’t you?”

Rita shrugs. “Just got a feeling, you know?”

“Got a feeling,” Officer Steel repeats.

“Got a feeling, and on top of the feeling the guy mentioned like three or four times that he was worried about more break-ins. Kind of thing that doesn’t seem weird on its own, but combined with the jitters and the lying, it looks to me like Mister Caruso’s scared of something.”

Officer Steel stands up ramrod-straight, so quick that Rita has to blink to adjust. “Caruso?”

“Uh,” Rita says. “Yeah.”

“As in, Antonin Caruso?”

“That’s the one.”

“As in,” Officer Steel says, a slightly manic look in his eyes, “the Antonin Caruso who I’ve been trying to track down as a murder suspect for two weeks?”

“I don’t know about that part,” Rita admits. “But it might be worth checking into. You need the address?”

“Isn’t it next door to the case I’ve already been investigating?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“This makes so much sense.” Officer Steel tips his head up towards the ceiling. Rita can almost see the dots connecting in front of his face, the process of things clicking into place. “And if he’s there- god, of course, that would mean- you’re a genius, uh-”

“Rita.” She sticks a hand out. “I get the feeling you got places to be, but it was a real pleasure meeting you, Officer Steel.”

“Juno Steel,” Officer Juno Steel says, and shakes Rita’s hand. He has a good handshake. Not as good as Rita’s, of course, but pretty good. “Thanks for the tip, Rita.”

“Anytime!” Rita waves at him as he makes his way back to the door, and then flips back over to her streams. Maybe if she’s quick, she can catch one of the good episodes of the Larissa serial.

“Hey,” Officer Juno Steel says, and Rita glances up at him, standing in the doorway. “Anyone ever tell you you’re wasted as a secretary?”

Rita blinks, and then grins. “Who’s to say I’m not exactly where I’m supposed to be?”

“If you’re supposed to be anywhere, it’s not with the police,” Officer Juno Steel says, and is gone before Rita can process that, the way he sounded kind, the way he sounded sad.

#

The problem is: Rita is pretty sure she was right about the ghost thing.

Not literally, of course, because Mister Steel (who was Officer Steel for a while, and Hyperion City Police Detective Steel for a hot minute there too) is as real as anything. He shakes Rita’s hand and eats Rita’s cooking and isn’t tied to a precinct or a building or anything at all. They move offices five or six times in the first few months of the whole private detective agency thing, and by the third time he even remembers to tell Rita about it before they move. He’s alive, even though he always looks tired, a little rough around the edges.

But Rita’s no fool. Rita keeps track of these things, see, and she has a theory that she knows is right. She’s not about to look it up, because that’s an invasion of privacy and she doesn’t want to invade Mister Steel’s privacy, but there are too many pieces for there not to be a puzzle.

Like, for example:

“Boss, you gotta cut me a break on this left-and-right thing,” Rita says. She’s not whining, because she’s a grown lady, and Mister Steel might be a lady but he’s not the kind of lady who you want to whine to. He’s not sympathetic like that.

“I will cut you a break when you make this mistake at a better time,” Mister Steel says, in what he probably thinks is an angry, mean tone of voice or something. He actually just sounds kind of tired. “When I am running from someone, and you say to go left-”

“I panicked!” Rita protests. “And I had a one in two chance of getting it right!”

“One in-” Mister Steel sighs and moves to stand behind Rita. “Hold your hands out and spread your fingers.”

Rita obediently spreads out her fingers, and Mister Steel lifts one finger to trace down the first finger and thumb of her left hand. “See how that looks like an L?”

“Yeah, boss.”

“L is for left.”

“I know that trick,” Rita says, because her ballet teacher taught it to her when she was a kid and couldn’t keep track of which foot to move when. “I just didn’t have time to check earlier!”

Mister Steel sighs. “I’m going to put a note on the left side of your screen, so when you think left, you turn towards the note. Swear to God, Rita, I’ll do it.”

Rita blinks. Her ballet teacher used to joke about doing that, too. He said he’d put a sticky note on the left side of the mirror so she could keep track. He actually tried it once, too. It worked great, till she had to spin around and somehow ended up with the note on her right. It hadn’t worked so great after that.

“Maybe,” she says at last, and even without looking she’s pretty sure Mister Steel rolls his eyes.

Or, for example:

“Your lunch smells,” Rita announces as Mister Steel trudges into the office. She wouldn’t normally say anything, honest, she’s not about to judge someone for how they eat, but Mister Steel doesn’t normally bring food to the office. He says he likes to eat out, and she’s pretty sure he actually does some days and forgets about it other days. But today, he brought a paper bag and left it in his office to go meet with a client. And Rita ignored it as long as she could but cripes, the thing is starting to reek.

“Thanks,” Mister Steel says dryly. “That’s what I wanna hear when I’m starving.”

“I didn’t say it smells bad!”

“Do you think it smells bad?”

“That’s not what I said.”

Mister Steel huffs out a laugh as he makes his way into his office. “Rita, don’t dodge questions, it doesn’t suit you.”

Rita slumps in her chair a little. “It smells awful,” she admits. “What’d you bring anyways?”

“PB&J.” He comes back out, brandishing the bag in front of him, and drags their extra chair over to Rita’s desk. “With my secret ingredient.”

“What’s your secret ingredient?”

“What, can’t you smell it?”

Rita sniffs the air. “Smells like harissa.”

Mister Steel blinks. “How’d you know that?”

There’s a right answer to the question: Rita’s dance teacher saw her eating a PB&J before class and told her about his secret ingredient. And she laughed, because who puts hot sauce on a sweet sandwich? But he swore by it, and made her pinky promise that she wouldn’t tell anyone. He said his family didn’t like the way he did it, but he did it anyways. She tried it once. It wasn’t good, but she could see why someone would like it, if it were the right someone.

“The real question,” Rita says, “is why does it smell so bad?”

Mister Steel shrugs. “I didn’t have time to buy actual jelly, so I found an apple, smashed it on the counter, and scooped it onto the bread. But I think the apple was already going bad, so it smells a little rotten.”

Rita stares. Mister Steel stares back, like he hasn’t just said the craziest thing Rita’s ever heard, and takes a bite of the sandwich. She can see him holding back a grimace, although she’s not sure if it’s because of the rotten apple or the harissa, but he keeps himself steady as he eats the sandwich. It’d be impressive if she didn’t think he was actually miserable.

(The next morning there’s a huge jar of jelly waiting for Mister Steel on his desk. Rita’d have to be crazy to let him keep smashing apples.)

Or, for example:

A client is begging Mister Steel to help them. Their sister is in trouble, and it’s the kind of trouble that even Rita knows from half-listening through a door there isn’t really any coming back from. But they’re begging, and crying, and Mister Steel is saying no, and then the client says “Do you have any siblings, Detective Steel?” and it goes silent. Not just quiet, but silent.

“I did,” Mister Steel says evenly, and Rita forces herself to stop listening.

They take the case. It doesn’t go well, because this is the kind of story that doesn’t have a happy ending. Oh, they do everything they can and try for a few things that they wouldn’t try for and Mister Steel has this wild-eyed look to him the whole time, like he’s trying to fix this, fix everything. But they can’t. He refuses to take payment, and he hunches a little further into himself for a few days. Like he’s trying to be small again. It even sort of works, this time.

Rita was right about the ghost thing. It’s just that Juno’s not the ghost, he’s the haunting.

#

One day, Mister Steel loses an eye.

And that ain’t even the half of it. One day, Rita gets to the office, same as she’s been doing, ready to make the same eight phone calls and worry some more about her boss who’s been missing for weeks, and there he is, lying on the floor in front of her desk, with an eyepatch, looking like hell.

Rita screams at the top of her lungs. Sometimes, screaming is faster than words. Like when you’re happy. Or when you’re terrified.

Mister Steel slowly blinks awake. Or does he wink awake? Is it still blinking if you only have one eye? She’d ask, but she has some bigger things to deal with, like her boss looking blearily at her, down an eye but much more alive than she’s been expecting lately. “Rita?”

“You,” Rita says, and then the words stick in her throat. There he is, right in front of her, plain as day. “You-”

“Me,” Juno says, and the edge of his mouth sort of ticks up into a smile, the worst and saddest smile Rita has ever seen. “Hey.”

That should be the end of it. That’s the fade to black. That’s their happy ending, he’s home in most of one piece and everything should be okay now. So what if he’s sad, and stares off into space when he doesn’t think Rita’s looking? So what if he doesn’t seem happy, seems even less happy than he ever used to? So what if Rita walks in and finds him asleep on the floor or under one of their desks or curled up in a ball in the corner of the office, time and time and time again?

(Rita kind of hates fade to black endings. The story always keeps going, even if you don’t see it.)

She gets to the office one day and Mister Steel is sitting in her chair, right in front of the window for the whole world to see, passed out with a bottle of whiskey on the desk in front of him. The door isn’t even locked. Rita has the good sense to be horrified, but not just because of what he’s doing. It’s because he’s not getting better.

She sets out some water and some aspirin, taking care to make as much noise as possible to wake him up, and then goes to get breakfast. When she comes back he’s sitting on the floor, curled around the glass of water, and he doesn’t look up at her. “Sorry you had to see that.”

“Mister Steel, if you apologize one more time,” Rita says, but doesn’t finish. She hasn’t finished it any of the other times she’s said it, either.

He still doesn’t look up at her, so Rita makes the executive decision to get a little closer to him. “Scooch,” she says, and without waiting for him she plops down so she’s sitting next to him, crammed between a fake potted plant that she got (it really brightens up the office) and the side with his good eye. He takes a sip of the water, winces when he sort of misses his mouth and the glass clacks against his teeth. Rita ignores it, because she knows that he’d go ballistic if she said something about depth perception or even raised an eyebrow, and instead goes to rummage in the takeout bag.

“You know,” she says thoughtfully, trying to remember which breakfast burrito was for which of them, “I used to take dance lessons as a kid. I was real graceful, an angel in ballet slippers, except for the part where I fell on my face every other minute.”

Mister Steel snorts. “Hey, angels fall all the time, right?”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Mister Steel.” She fishes out a burrito and decides, hell, he’ll probably eat it no matter what it is and it’s not like she would order something he’s allergic to, so she drops it in his lap. It bumps against the water glass, jostling it, but nothing spills. “Most’a my teachers were awful, and not just in the normal, don’t-really-care way that teachers are. Dance teachers can be mean. They’re not afraid to tell you when you’re bad at it.”

“Are you telling me I’m bad at my job?”

“You’re not bad at your job.”

He doesn’t answer that, just looks despondently at his burrito. Rita sighs, plucks the burrito out of his lap, and starts unwrapping it, because it’s worth a little extra effort on her part to make sure he actually eats. “What I’m telling you is, I had this one teacher, used to sit with me after lessons because my ma would be so busy picking someone else up from some other lesson that she’d be late picking me up. He told a lot of stories, he was nice.”

“And?” Mister Steel says, like he hasn’t figured out where this is going. Maybe he actually hasn’t.

“And one day I fell on my face in front of the class,” Rita says, businesslike, “and ran out crying, and he sat with me the whole time I cried. And he said to me that even if I fell down, hit rock bottom, that just meant I knew my foundation, see. It just meant I could build myself up even higher.”

Mister Steel is staring at Rita now. She doesn’t meet his eyes, just takes the glass of water away and sets it on the ground between them, carefully replaces it with the breakfast burrito. “You might be at rock bottom, boss,” she says softly, and a muscle in his jaw twitches, and she wants to hug him, and she wonders if his brother used to say this same thing to him too. “All that means is it’s time to build.”

His throat works for a second before he says, quietly, “Hell of a secret to keep.”

Rita scoffs. “It’s not really a secret, isn’t it?”

“The first time you saw me,” Mister Steel - Juno, right now he’s Juno and that’s different - says slowly, “you already knew my name.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You thought I was him.”

Rita pulls out her own breakfast burrito and sets about unwrapping it. “He wasn’t wrong, you know.”

Juno leans back, head colliding with the wall with a soft thump. “He was always saying that kind of thing, you know? Rock bottom, just means you can build. Fall down seven times, get up eight .”

“Oh, he said that one to me a lot. I asked him what to do if I fell down an eighth time.”

He snorts. “What’d he tell you?”

“That I was outta luck.”

Juno actually laughs at that, a weird, raw, wet laugh that kind of sounds like someone punched a hole in one of his lungs. “That sounds like him.”

Rita wants to ask what happened. Rita wants to ask why Juno can’t say Benzaiten’s name out loud, or maybe at all. Rita wants to ask what she can do. But she’s pretty sure she’s already doing it, and Juno is still making these weird noises that are halfway between chuckles and tears and if he’s sad for long enough then maybe he’ll forget to laugh. She can’t let that happen.

She pokes his arm. “Eat your burrito.”

“What?”

“Eat your burrito.” She takes a bite of hers, like she’s trying to demonstrate. He watches her, completely bemused, as she swallows it. “Gotta get that energy. We got a lot of building to do.”

Juno looks up at the ceiling, and his eyes slip shut. She watches him take a slow breath in, a slow breath out, and then lift the burrito. “A lot of building to do,” he echoes, like he’s really trying to believe it, and he takes a bite of the burrito.