#detective basira

[actualmagus]

TMA and TMAGP FANS, IMPORTANT QUESTION

Do you think, like how elias called basira "detective" and jon "the archivist", as their roles to the eye, we would be "the listeners"?

[occudo]

Sooo... anyone remebers @annabelle--cane 's detective AU? I think Daisy would make a great femme fatale~ second pic was made because I saw this and I had to

[thedistortionshallways]

I support lesbians rights and wrongs but if you put me in a room with season four basira she's walking out with at LEAST a black eye and a broken bone

[wix-0-nightshade]

Detective AU

Unnamed

Characters - Part 1

• Elias Bouchard: Head of police, he doesn’t like getting his hands dirty. Unless otherwise. Eyes always everywhere.(Isn’t that badge always looking back?…)

• Jonathan Sims: Lead detective ever since Gertrude was presumed dead, seen to many dead bodies in his life. Tired 24/7 and dislikes leaving unsolved cases that can’t be figured out.(What is the deal with “Unnatural deaths”?)

• Martin Blackwood: Assistant of Mr. Sims. Always bringing him the next report or siting of a likely case. Started working there a year and a half after Sims did. Never liked the siting of a dead body since his mother’s death. Comforts those of the victims and asking them question before interrogation the next day.(Why do I feel separate?…)

• Sasha James: Quit her job before Gertrude was found missing. Was head of the archives/records. She lives in with Timothy Stoker. Been friends for a while and soon fell out of contact with Sims.(What did she mean?… What were those…… Things)

• Timothy Stoker: Never joined the force. Works down at the docks having a decent paying job. Always welcoming tourist and making sure fishermen have everything before departing. Rarely appearance from Peter Lucas. Ships started go missing……(Are the water’s getting deeper? Why does that fog roll by when he comes?)

Master Post(+Other AU’s)

[squeeneypod]

anyway the character that brings out the most fun in elias as a character is basira send tweet

[occudo]

a detective AU you say...

detective au where basira is a sleep deprived, weathered, beaten down PI who spends her days so heavily stressed that a good hug might physically snap her in half and jon is her (comparatively) plucky assistant who is psychic and keeps trying to tell her that he knows who the killer is but she just says "shhh quiet jonathan can't you see the weight of the world is on my shoulders" before staying up for another three days and accidentally getting lost in the london sewers looking for clues

[thermodynamic-comedian]

i wanna talk about tma characters and the concept of a facade. because i have a lot of thoughts.

so most people understand how ironic it is to characterize martin blackwood as a soft boy that can do no wrong, because one of the most interesting parts of his character is how much of a subversion of that trope he is. he's manipulating people by acting like that. this is addressed in the canon. he wants everyone to like him, and he knows he'll almost always get what he wants if he puts up this facade.

something people talk about a bit less, but is still equally canon, is that gertrude robinson was doing basically the same thing. pretending to be just a boring old woman, when she's actually extremely clever and ruthless. she plays into everyone's pre-existing biases and assumptions masterfully to hide just how competent she really is. she knows exactly what she's doing, and she's willing to sacrifice anything and anyone for the sake of her self-appointed mission. characterizing her as a grandmother figure is the funniest form of irony to me.

but do you know who isn't putting up a facade? do you know who isn't changing their behavior to affect your idea of them?

the older avatars.

peter lukas isn't pretending to be passive-aggressive and overly cheery, he just kind of...is. why would he ever bother putting up a facade? he doesn't want people to like him. his authentic self is this talkative yet asocial man, who specifically aims to be awkward and unlikeable.

people say that simon fairchild's polite and carefree demeanor is an act, but i really don't think that's true either. i guess i might see it differently because i personally resonate the most with the vast out of all the fears, but i really think that a lot of that behavior makes perfect sense for his character. he doesn't think that anything in life matters. his personality reflects the lightness and carefree nature of that mindset. he just doesn't care. he does everything for fun. he's not pretending to be anything he isn't.

this could be me reaching, but honestly, i don't think even jonah magnus is putting up that much of a facade. he's lying, sure. he's manipulating people, obviously. but he's not changing his behavior in order to do that. even in mag 160, there's no big, henry mildmay-esque "dropping of the act" when he has his monologue. if you look at his behavior as elias bouchard, it's exactly the same as the little bits of him that we get to see in s5. the elias whose last words are "good luck" is the exact same elias as the one who always greeted basira with "hello, detective".

humans put up an act. monsters don't bother to.

[kairos-polaris]

Names can be weapons and Elias is well versed in using them against people. Like my cool mutual @rosalineandrosemary pointed out Melanie doesn't like Elias calling her by her first name and Basira isn't comfortable with being called Detective. He calls Jon the Archivist in the birthday tape because it's a way of telling Jon this was always meant to happen, this was always who he was meant to become

Except, this is the only time Elias calls Jon the Archivist when talking to him. Every time else it's his first name (he says Jon's name more than anyone else's btw). I think it's because he views Jon to be on the same level as him ("the world WE made") and for Elias he is always the person before he is an avatar of the Beholding. And the same applies to Jon

Anyway, what I am trying to say is that it's important to me that Elias calls Jon by his first name at all times

[zabala0z]

I got 2 friends into TMA and I’m slowly finding my reason for existence. Anyways hi, welcome back to “hearing a random persons thoughts on TMA S4” I’m your host, that random person!!

MAG 146: Threshold

I love it when TMA brings statements that have a different perspective on a situation or have a callback to something like 120 episodes ago (aka MAG 27)

Also is it just me, or is Helen’s laugh starting to sound more like Michael’s?

MAG 147: Weaver

Jesus Christ, hill top road is just cursed. Literally avoid it. Forever. Annabelle’s statement was chilling. Girls breaking the fourth wall and I support it!

“Can I call you Jon?” WHY does everyone say that, just fucking call him Jon. I guess it’s because his official title is “Archivist” by like everyone but still. Oliver Banks said it earlier. Nikola said it but towards Elias instead but still. It’s kinda funny that Jon seems to be the center of The Web in some way considering his childhood trauma with Mr. Spider and all that.

MAG 148: Extended Surveillance

YEAH BASIRA BEAT HIS ASS. Also is it just me or did he sound a lot more panicky? Like he usually sounds calm and collected but when Basira was beating the shit out of him, he actually sounded a bit different. Also, he calls her detective like other people call Jon archivist which may be important, I don’t know. Is she an avatar of The Eye? Is everyone who works at the institute an avatar of the eye or is it just Jon and Elias?

Jon’s mini monologue at the end got me rethinking my perspective on him and all the avatars like Jesus Christ.

MAG 149: Concrete Jungle

Brazil mention ‼️‼️ anyways, my first thought was The Stranger because y’know, vaguely human like things appearing as human but not human. Y’know? But yeah, The Extinction could also be it. I want to know more on Adelard Dekker. Was he an avatar?? is it The Web because he did use the table back then to trap one of the Notthem.

Also Georgie!!! Yay!!! I haven’t brought this up yet but it’s been floating around my mind: Georgie cannot feel fear. Like she can’t feel it. And there’s entities that feed primarily off fear. So. Is she gonna do some important shit? She has to

ALSO THE STATIC NOISE AND MARTIN DISAPPEARING I HATE THIS STOP. KILL ME.

Okay that’s everything! I feel so useless when ever I can’t connect anything but I guess I’m on episode 149 and we’ve already explained most of the major plot points throughout the podcast (keyword: most) so what’s left to connect? Still pisses me off. I want something to dig my hands in.

If there’s something I’m missing, gimme a hint so I can comb through transcripts like the good ol days

[pupil-of-the-eye]

"Ceaseless Watcher"

Date of event: XX XX 2017

An epicene voice echoed down the hallway, catching Elias's ear in his cell. He knew who was coming, of course; he had been watching them since he allowed himself to be arrested a few days before, and he couldn't say he was pleased with how roughly the detective was handling them.

“Basira, what are you doing?” Camille demanded. “Let go of me—”

“Be quiet,” the detective ordered in that impatient way of hers. “You didn't listen to us, so see for yourself.”

A small frown twitched Elias’s lips at the forceful tone Basira took with his spouse before he schooled his expression again.

He wasn't surprised the detective was doing this; he knew it was only a matter of time before Camille was brought in to talk to him. But that didn't necessarily mean he was looking forward to this confrontation, even though a twisted, voyeuristic part of himself was, in fact, looking forward to it.

His own spouse… He could have lied and said that they were the one line he wouldn't cross, that he would leave them out of the Eye's line of sight, as it were, but it would have just been another one of the many lies he told himself about them. He did love them in his own way, but it was a selfish love, one borne of obsession borne of curiosity about the one so heavily marked by the Corruption.

“What are you talking about?” Camille questioned. They were right outside his cell now. “Ow– Basira, you're hurting—” Camille's pale eyes fell on Elias sitting on his cot, dressed in that awful orange prison jumpsuit the guards had put him in, and they fell silent.

“Hello, mon ange,” Elias said coolly, gazing up at his spouse.

They stared at him. They slowly tore their eyes off him and looked back at Basira. “...What is this?”

“He killed two people, maybe more,” the ex-police officer said bluntly. “Just like we tried to tell you.”

Elias spread his hands without taking his eyes off Camille. “Guilty as charged,” he confirmed. He watched as Camille slowly shook their head, backing away from his cell. He stood and placed his hand on the door separating him from his spouse. “Camie,” he purred, the tone of his voice making Basira roll her eyes. He ignored her, keeping his gray gaze on his spouse. Their back hit the wall behind them, and they stopped.

Their ice-white eyes were fixed on him, and they were afraid. He could feel the Ceaseless Watcher's gaze on him as the secret side of himself that he had kept hidden from Camille for most of their relationship began to come to light.

“No,” they mumbled. They crossed their arms as if to defend themself. “No, this isn't—” Their voice died and they shook their head again.

Elias’s expression softened, but he Knew that Camille now doubted how genuine it was. “Camille, darling…” he said, his hand flat against the door to his cell.

“I thought…” Camille shook their head again, blinking quickly as they tried to reconcile the man they thought they knew and the one sitting in prison.

Elias tilted his head and tapped his cheek below one eye. “You thought this was the worst of it,” he deduced. “Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, my dear, but it wasn't.”

And he was sorry; he hadn't wanted to have to lie to them of all people, but it was necessary. If they knew of his plans, they would try to make him stop, and he couldn't have that.

“Clearly,” Camille muttered. They shook their head one final time and turned away. “I can't,” they said. “I– I can't.”

“Camille?” Elias called, but they were already gone, walking briskly back down the hallway. He sighed and rested his forehead against the door. That had gone about the way he had predicted, but he wasn't happy about it.

It would be a few weeks before Elias saw Camille again. After their last meeting, he couldn't in good conscience bring himself to continue to spy on them and violate their privacy.

His hands were cuffed in front of him as he was brought to a small visitation room. The guard attending him wasn't particularly gentle when pushing him down into a chair. “Tch,” Elias scoffed through his teeth. “Is this really necessary?”

The guard didn't respond, merely cuffing Elias to one of the heavy metal table legs, causing the Beholding acolyte to roll his eyes with another scoff. His eyes fell on the other door as it began to open.

“Darling,” he breathed, watching as his pale-haired spouse silently entered the room, accompanied by a second guard, and approached him at the small square table in the center of the room.

Elias guessed from the guards’ annoyed expressions that they weren't thrilled about his spouse meeting him in such close proximity, but what could be done? Camille Bouchard was, when they needed to be, quite a frightening individual.

Camille looked down. When they spoke, it was clear they were speaking to the two guards. “Leave us.”

The guards exchanged a look. “We can't do that. He's a dangerous criminal.”

“He is my husband.” Elias smirked at those words as Camille's hand, the fingers blackened and discolored from the Corruption infection that had killed them nearly two hundred years ago, rested on the back of the chair opposite the one Elias sat in.

“Leave us,” Camille said again, the chair beginning to decay under their hand, the metal itself seeming to die at their touch.

The guards looked at each other again, the unspoken threat not lost on them. They both left the room without another word, leaving Elias and Camille alone. “Hello, darling,” Elias said.

“Shut up.” Elias obediently fell silent, clasping his bound hands on the table in front of him. Camille paced back and forth on the other side of the table, their fingers pressed to their lips. “I am so unbelievably angry with you right now. Two hundred years—two hundred years—and you just—” They turned on their heel to face him and planted their hands on the table. “How long have you been lying to me?”

Elias sighed. His eyes lingered on Camille's wedding band. “It started around the time your first husband disappeared. I saw how he treated you and I called in a favor from Mordechai Lukas. You remember him, I believe?”

Camille rolled their eyes. “I suppose doing that was out of the goodness of your heart,” they said dryly.

Elias took a breath and confessed, “Would you believe me if I said that it was?” He saw the way Camille's expression soured, and he knew they thought he was still lying; so, he decided to tell them the entire truth.

“No,” he sighed. “I suppose not. So, the truth: I saw something in you that I wanted on my side, something ancient and dangerous, but I knew your husband at the time wouldn't have allowed me near you. I also guessed you wouldn't have mourned him, so I had him… removed.”

Camille exhaled and crossed their arms. “Well, thank you for that. So, why did you lie to me? And don't give me that, ‘You'd have tried to stop me’ bêtises again.”

Elias tilted his head to the side. He hadn't anticipated his spouse to prioritize the lies over his more serious crimes. “What about the murders?”

Camille impatiently waved that away. “What about them? I'm an avatar of the End, you infuriating man.” Elias pursed his lips, but he supposed Camille’s harsh tone was understandable.

“Everything dies,” they went on. “What do I care for the cause?”

“Well, then, why are you yelling at me?”

“Because you've been lying to me!” Camille shouted. They began pacing again, gesticulating in agitation as they moved around the room. “I thought I knew you, you know, I thought, ‘This man isn’t like Isaac; he's charming and interesting and intelligent, and he won't hurt me,’” they ranted. “But no, you've been lying to me for two hundred years!”

Unable to help himself, Elias interrupted to say, “Mm, closer to two hundred and one.”

“Jonah,” Camille growled in frustration, making a rather violent gesture with their hands. Elias's mouth snapped shut, and he leaned back in his chair, gesturing for Camille to continue.

“Just– I–” They practically collapsed into the chair opposite Elias and buried their head in their hands. The room was silent for a long moment. When Camille next spoke, their voice was anxious and weak, as if finally asking a question that had been weighing on their mind these last few weeks: “...Did you ever even love me?”

Elias's fingers twitched. “Of course I did,” he said calmly. “I do, in my way.”

They scoffed, a humorless laugh. “Ah, oui? What way is that?”

“Selfishly,” Elias said simply.

Camille slowly raised their head. They stared in angry contemplation at Elias for a moment before standing and rounding the small table. They hauled him to his feet, noting not for the first time the height advantage they had over his current body, and lifted his bound hands to their forehead. “Show me.”

In a rare moment of uncertainty, Elias Bouchard hesitated. “Darling, are you sure?”

Their grip on his hand tightened. “Do it.”

Elias closed his eyes with a sigh. “All right.”

He placed his fingers on his spouse's forehead and felt them shudder as he pressed into their mind, showing them every detail of not only the complexities of his affection for them, but also the deaths he caused, either directly or indirectly, all for the sake of power and personal gain: Gertrude, Leitner, Barnabas, Albrecht.

He also showed them the fear that he himself had felt that awful day when Camille had suddenly taken ill, doubling over in pain and collapsing to the floor, their skin clammy and ashen. Elias had been unable to do anything but watch as the parasitic thing inside of his spouse ate the light and life out of them.

Elias wrenched his wrists away from Camille's forehead and gazed up at them, his gray eyes locked on their face. He didn't speak immediately, giving both himself and his spouse a chance to pull themselves together. “Well?” he finally said quietly.

Camille said nothing for a moment before their angry expression twisted into something closer to resignation. They huffed and, to Elias's genuine surprise, wrapped their arms around him like the jaws of a bear trap.

Elias took a moment to fully grasp what was happening before laying his head on his spouse's shoulder with a contented sigh. He longed to wrap his arms around them, but the cuffs kept his wrists bound between them.

“You're infuriating,” Camille muttered, turning their head and burying their face in Elias's hair as one hand gripped the back of his jumpsuit, and the other holding the back of his head.

Elias grinned in amusement and kissed their shoulder. “I know.”

“I hate you,” they lied.

“I know.”

---

Mini Fics (Salome, Michael, Peter, etc.)

Mini Fics (Camille, Elias, Jonah, Eleanor, etc.)

[jazzically]

you could not pay me to be evil

UNLESS IT'S THE VAST

i am relistening to manuelas 2014 statement (sent to the institute, addressed to gertrude, read by jon in mag 135) and oh my god holy shoes i am seeing it now. it was hard for me to feel the fear of the dark being channeled through the Dark episodes but i only just tried to mentally put myself in actual pure solid darkness and lord. the fear of the unknown, of anticipation, of making one wrong move in a perilous situation - it's not there in the eye, the stranger, the hunt, anything. it bleeds with all of those, of course, plus elements of the lonely and the spiral, but the dark truly is its own. i remember jonny said the dark was probably the hardest one to write because of how much it was already covered in media as a concept of fear but i think if we were all just a little closer to how we felt as children, without the rationale we possess now that shields us with the crude, banal predictability of life devoid of supernatural danger on this earth, we'd. really. feel it.

OMG MANUELA DISSED GERTRUDE FOR HURTING AND SNIPPING UP JAN KILBRIDE.. ok shes kinda right tho go off queen ily manuela

i love how you can see darkness even though it exists as the absence of sight it's kinda very pretty

ok vast and dark have claimed me what else is gonna speak 😭😭

its so funny how elias cant know things about the dark because you cant See in the Dark duh

if he says detective like that to my girl basira one more time im going to smash his skull in and carve it like a pumpkin

[cult-of-the-eye]

MAG 91 BABEYYYYY

TEAAAA

Omg why does mike crew sound kinda hot tho

I know he's probably just refusing tea cause he doesn't trust Mike crew but I like to think it's also cause it's not made by Martin lol

He's stressed cause the last time he fucking talked to an avatar he got his hand burned off and he's not expecting Mike to be so...normal

Bro didn't think he'd get this far he didn't prepare his questions dumbass

Oh my god the AIR fuck

And I was trying to be polite OH HE'S SO COOL ACTUALLY

Why do I kind of love seeing Jon being battered around like this

Hmm I would've thought the vast was the idea of not knowing, not knowing exactly how deep something will go, not knowing your place in the world

You need to learn some respect???? Oh my god

"Fed that which feeds me" that's such a good way of putting it

"I'm not usually the sort for speeches" god he seems so human oh my god the guy just wants be left alone while throwing people off skyscrapers

BRO STILL DOESNT LISTEN. LEAVE.

I didn't get the mike crew stans before but now I absolutely do I would let that man throw me off a skyscraper

DAISYYYYYY AHHHHHHHHHHHH

My favourite corrupt detective 😘

The way she goes from "he" to "it"

Oh my god did she shoot him???

THE CIGARETTES...THE LIGHTERRRRR

The way he's more stressed about the fact that the tape recorder appeared than literally daisy tonner

THE CHOKING NOISES

BASIRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

God they're such lesbians

The way daisy is trying to convince basira that she only kills monsters, she's still sort of justified, maybe even good

Oh my god daisy hates being manipulated, she's always in control and someone has reached into her mind to make her do something and she hates it

She's also so smart she'd put it together way before everyone else did and she decided to do something about it, maybe in like a really bad way but at least shes trying

Call me number one daisy tonner apologist with these comments lol

"for god's sake look at him!" That's so funny girl was really like you think Jonathan Sims resident whimpering wet cat of man could murder two people???????

Oh my god they're literally using him as a fucking lie detector

AND JON GOES ALONG

I guess it's cause he also really wants to prove his innocence and find out if it really was Elias

Bro has no survival instincts he just does not give a shit

GRAB A SPADE she's so nonchalant about it

NOOOO MIKE

NO I GET TO KNOW HIM AND NOW HE'S DEAD

NOOOOOOOO

God fucking cliffhanger man

[ao3feed-jonmartin]

oxford blood

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/NAwmQ7f by fossilgoblin Jon sticks a cigarette in his mouth on the first step he takes away from O'Hare International Airport, even though he didn't bother trying to sneak a lighter through customs. He shoulders his way into the 7-11 with it firmly between his teeth, buys the first green BIC he sees, and lights up the moment the door's swung shut behind him. America smells like pesticide and a landlocked mustiness he can't describe. And even as he'd bought his ticket back in Beijing, he hadn't been entirely sure what he was searching for. OR: Jon's in America. Jon gets MSG sick and calls Martin almost every night. Jon realizes he might be in over his head, in more ways than he anticipated, and finally accepts some help. An ode to grimy Ole Chicago, phone calls home, casual queer love, disability, amateur detective work, unlikely friendships, and all the weird shit in my Jonny Sims Spotify playlist. Words: 3245, Chapters: 1/3, Language: English Fandoms: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood, Julia Montauk, Trevor Herbert, Basira Hussain, Mentioned Elias Bouchard | Jonah Magnus - Character, mentioned Melanie King - Character, Mentioned Not-Them (The Magnus Archives), mentioned Georgie Barker - Character, many random American NPC's Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Additional Tags: Set in Episodes 107-113 | Jon's Trip to America, Getting Together, Phone Calls, Autistic Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, He/Him and They/Them Pronouns for Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Gender Non-Conforming Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, ARFID, Whump, Sickfic, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Comfort/Angst, loving relationship, The Magnus Archives (Podcast) as a Workplace Comedy, The Mechanisms Were Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist's College | University Band, Fix-It of Sorts, Disabled Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Monster Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, almost canon compliant, I really fucking tried folx, Episode: e107 Third Degree (The Magnus Archives), MSG as a plot device read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/NAwmQ7f

[brownish-bear]

middle of sunday rush im just trying to make sandwiches and i have an epiphany

and i havent been as in touch with the fandom for tmagp so i be rehashing here but:

basiras a school deputy thing--important thing here is this is simply a different career that still is very much a position of power over a population of people, and typically i feel people who do wrong bc wouldnt she be dealing with like suspensions and the like. thats a new thought i just like wow the parallels are actually insane BUT ANYWAYS NOT THE POINT

so really my thought is the universe is just barely shifted

consider: jon only tape recorded cases that didnt work on his laptop. this was explained in the first episode of tma. it wasnt EVERY case, it was certain cases. same way only CERTAIN cases are text to speech in tmagp

consider: in tmagp universe, jon, martin, JURGEN LEITNER ILL COME BACK TO HIM NO I WONT JURGEN LEITNER HELLO I FEEL LIKE WE'RE BREEZING PAST THE FACT THAT WE'RE HEARING JURGEN LEITER READING US HISTORICAL CASES ITS NOT JUST FOR THE VIBES BABES IN THIS UNIVERSE JURGEN LEITNER WORKED FOR THE MAGNUSE INSTITUTE, yeah thats what im getting at in this universe jartin and leitner worked on creating a text to speech or something of the like or SOMETHING they worked in the institute for sure im sure of it sam just needs to get better detective skills

(AMMENDUM: I NEED BETTER DETECTIVE SKILLS IT ISNT JURGEN LEITNER IM JUST BAD AT VOICES. JONAH MAGNUS?)

okay ive got my word vomit out

jon martin jonah. worked at the institute. perhaps worked on text to speech technology for institute. because this universe. is just barely shifted.

mess of an explaination but its all ive got and no i wont try any harder to make it coherent

pls pls add or argue against or anything im foaming at the mouthing thinking about this

its so hard listening to good podcasts as they come out bc wdym i have to WAIT before i can know all the things wdym i cant guess everything immediately

[wix-0-nightshade]

Tim

I find this so funny for no reason—having the brightest smile pictured in my mind pulling off his best first impression all the while Jon, Daisy, and Basira are staring at him like “Why so much joy?”

I’m also like. Going between 2-3 different part makings. This one was the discharge from hospital situation. Or wait—I don’t think I brought it up. Ehhhhh. It’s fineeeee

Anyway have fun :3

Character’s — Worms

[milkteamoon]

She wanted to be a cop.

It’s not something that she goes about broadcasting to anyone now; you don’t tell people that you wanted to be a cop if you don’t end up being a cop. It’s just something that you think is cool as a kid, watching all those crime shows with simple, clear-cut villains, and then you grow up and learn that cops aren’t all that the telly made them out to be because there’s no one putting pen to paper on who the bad guys are, so you keep that bit about childhood ignorance to yourself. It’s not like Alice wants to be a cop now, anyway. It’s just something that she thinks about from time to time — what it’d have been like if she didn’t have a bad back from that childhood injury and had chosen a different path, traded in her baton for a gun. Alice doesn’t think she’d like carrying a gun. Too noisy and too messy, from what people who have actually shot one say, and she’s much happier when things are quiet and uncomplicated.

So: Alice Tonner isn’t a cop, even if she may have wanted to be one a long time ago, and that’s fine by her because her current job has unlimited paid leave and her coworkers aren’t too nosy as to get on her bad side. Most of the time she doesn’t see them at all, being the number one choice for night shifts, but they still invite her out to drink even though she never gets drunk, and she still goes along because she doesn’t have anything better to do. Mostly, she just goes along to see Basira. There’s something about her that just intrigues Alice; every time she goes home for the night, she tells herself she ought to talk to Basira more when they aren’t squeezed in some dingy bar, and then she never does. But she’ll do it next time. She just has to remember.

The point is, Alice isn’t a cop, so the email she gets addressed to “Detective Tonner” stands out like a sore thumb in her inbox, to the point that she almost thinks it’s spam.

She’s not even sure why she opens it instead of deleting it immediately. The address doesn’t offer any sort of identifying features — doesn’t even have a name attached to the handle, just “js” with a string of seemingly random numbers behind it, and c’mon now, Alice isn’t stupid. She did all that pain-in-the-ass phishing training when she got hired, and if this is one of those “exercises” her boss thinks will teach his employees the dangers of technology when all it really does is just royally piss everyone off, then it’s doing a very, very poor job at it.

But it doesn’t seem like that, is the thing. There are no links, no flashing lights. No strange fonts or misspellings or promiscuous language. There’s not even the promise of millions from a nigerian prince if only she’ll send her credit card information — it’s just...a letter. Addressed to one Detective Tonner. Asking if she’s available for work, and offering to pay for her time, and apologizing for wasting it if she isn’t. It’s not like Alice isn’t a stranger to freelance work, dealing security at some rich tosser’s birthday party or standing outside a concert for six hours just to make sure no one decides to climb the fence. Simple work. Straightforward. Most of the time, the job is easy and the pay is good. Most of the time, she takes the check without asking questions.

This doesn’t feel like most of the time.

...She really should delete it.

So instead, she goes to her fridge, grabs a beer, and then replies, asking where to meet.

Funnily enough, the mysterious stranger decides on a bar.

It’s a bar that Alice knows even. Sorta. The owner, Calvin Benchley, is a boy she went to school with, though she doesn’t think he’d remember her all those years later. Probably for the best, if she’s being honest with herself. Always was a bit of an arsehole.

There’s only a handful of people inside when she arrives  — easy enough to pick through, if needed  — though the stranger she’s looking for zeros in on her immediately. In fact, she’d reckon that she frightened him, the way he’d jumped up when he’d seen her. Looked just like he’d seen a ghost as he looked her over from head to toe, then shuffled out from the booth he’d been seated at. Meandered over with his hands close to his chest. Looked up at her with these big, wide eyes that look more like a sad animal’s than a man’s, and hell, Alice almost feels bad about the way she towers over him. Like he didn’t even get a chance, as scrawny as he is.

“D— er, Miss Tonner?”

“That’s me,” Alice tells him, “though Alice is just fine.”

The man nods, wrings his hands together, then sticks one out in a belated sense of politeness. “J-Jonathan. Jon. Uh, Sims. Just Jon is fine.”

“Pleasure to meet you, ‘just Jon,’” she says wryly as she takes his hand. The texture of his palm is strange, she notices, and glancing down she can see that it’s scarred over. Huh.

The nervous energy flitting around him eases slightly at this, and he even manages the smallest of smiles beneath all that painted-on worry. “Right,” he says softly, then clears his throat, and repeats louder, “Right. Shall we sit down then?”

Alice shrugs, but doesn’t argue as he leads her back to the booth.

The thing is, once she settles in and gets a proper look at her date, Alice realizes he’s nothing like she had expected him to be. Something about the bar being in Chelsea had her picturing an old bastard in a stuffy sweater vest and dress pants — in truth, Jon’s wearing jeans and draped in a jumper about two sizes too big for him that can’t possibly be his own. His hair is long and braided, looking as if it took the brunt of the morning’s humidity, and while the hand had been the first abnormality to notice, she now can see that his skin is peppered in small, circular pockmarks, spread in clusters all over. Not like acne, exactly, more like cigarette burns. They don’t fit him at all, she thinks to herself.

“Would you like a drink?” he finally asks once he’s squirmed enough under her scrutiny.

Alice half shrugs, half nods. It’s only noon, but she doesn’t have to work until nine. “Sure. Get me—”

Jon’s already risen and wandered over to the bar before she can finish, and a moment later he returns with a beer for her and a glass of water for himself. The strange thing is, it’s the brand she typically drinks anyway. The even stranger thing is, Jon doesn’t seem to find this strange at all.

“...Right,” Alice says as she takes it from him. The lid pops off with barely a flick of her thumb. “So then. Business.”

“Business,” he echoes.

“What kind of gig are we looking at then? Office party? Concert? I don’t really like dealing with things that are too private, so—”

"What?" Jon cuts her off, brow furrowed in genuine confusion. "It's— I didn't contact you about a security job."

That makes Alice pause. She stares down the neck of her bottle at him, trying hard to parse his tone. If he’s cracking a joke. Jon doesn’t look like the type of guy to make jokes, if she’s being realistic, but if not a security job, then what? Something that requires knowledge of one? "...No?"

"No," he says agreeably. And then he takes a long sip of his water and says, "I lost someone recently."

“Oh,” Alice replies. She doesn’t know quite what to say to that, but the sense of finality is so palpable that all she can think to respond with is, “Sorry.”

"O-oh, no he isn't— ah. Well, thank you," Jon ends up settling on, smiling at her in a way that feels as if he's the one consoling her. “I um. See, the reason I contact you is...I’d like your help in finding him.”

Alice blinks. That is...not what she’d been expecting. Slowly, as if the moment might crack like an egg at any misstep, she asks, “Find...him?”

“Um. Yes.”

“You...do realize I work security, right?”

Jon flushes. “W-well, yes, I know, I’ve seen your work history — um, very impressive, by the way — I just thought...”

“You’ve seen my work history?” Alice asks, face neutral. She sets down her bottle as softly as possible. “Where?”

“It...was on your employer’s website.”

“And I take it that’s where you found my email?”

“...Y-yes.”

Liar, Alice thinks, and a poor one at that. She knows her personal email isn’t listed anywhere online, and that’d been the one that he contacted her with. Enough of a lead to snag him with, surely. but she sets aside as she presses on.

“So this,” she begins slowly, folding her hands in front of her, “‘person,’ you’re looking for—”

“Martin,” Jon supplies. “Martin Blackwood.”

“He’s...what to you? Friend? Family?”

Jon’s mouth twitches into a mournful sort of smile. “My partner.”

“Hm.” She nods. “Lover’s quarrel drove him off?”

Jon laughs a little, and Alice catches another scar in the light, just across his neck as his adam’s apple bobs. Deeper than the rest, she reckons by the color. Cleaner too. Like it was intentional. “If only it were that simple.”

“So why not go to the police?” she asks, genuinely, “or hell, even a P.I. Seems like you have a case for a missing person.”

Jon swallows visibly, shifting in his seat. “Ah—” he starts, “we, er, w-we were sort of living off grid...”

“Huh. Legal troubles?”

“Not...not quite legal.”

“You don’t so sure.”

Jon snorts at this. “I’m not sure of much of anything around here, to be honest,” he explains. “I-I mean I know he’s...he’s here, somewhere— i-in the U.K., at least, but it’s...difficult to see clearly here. Suppose it’s to be expected...”

Alice glances up at the tacky light fixture overhead, a horrid myriad of colored glass that was probably the cheapest in the catalogue. She isn’t exactly sure what he means by that; it seems bright enough for her, anyway. Passively, she chooses to ignore the comment.

“So you lose your boyfriend, you can’t go to the police, so you hire...a security guard to find him?” Alice muses, not maliciously, just trying to put things together. Trying to find the line of thought in a seemingly random string of actions.

Jon winces, grimacing as he sinks back into the booth’s fake leather. “Well, I guess it does sound pretty terrible when you put it like that.”

That barks a laugh out of her. She’s not exactly sure why. In the half hour she’s known him, Alice can say that Jon Sims is definitely one of the shadier men she’s met in her line of work — and she’s met plenty of corporate arseholes who spend their breaks doing coke in the company bathrooms — but there’s something about him that she finds awfully...genuine? Candid, she supposes. Endearing, even. Maybe it’s just part of getting old. Maybe she’s just going soft.

Alice takes a sip of her beer, then nods to his folded hands. “What happened to your hand?”

“What?” he asks, brow furrowing before following her gaze down to the spider-webbing scar that wraps around his palm. “Oh. The scar?”

“Yeah.”

“It...um, a wax burn.”

“And...” she gestures to the side of her face in a mirror of where the little circles are heavily clustered on his own, “this?”

He looks at her sheepishly. “Uh...worms?”

“Wh— worms?” she repeats, the bafflement bleeding past her composure into her tone.

“Lots of worms,” Jon agrees, and she gets the feeling that she’s not going to get much more of an answer than that.

“...Right,” she says, swirls her drink, and then— “What about your neck?”

That seems to be where she finally finds the nerve.

Because as soon as she asks, Jon winces, hand reaching up to the line across his throat. Covering it, possibly, as if he doesn’t want her to see. Protecting it, maybe, like she’s going to cut it back open. He opens his mouth slowly, then closes it. Opens it again as he fishes for words. There’s a line there, Alice recognizes, that she’s in danger of stepping over — maybe she should pull back. 

She doesn’t want to pull back.

“...Pocket knife,” he finally says, barely above a whisper.

It’s not really an answer, if she’s being honest with herself. Alice decides against pressing further.

Instead, she looks to her bottle and swirls it around. She takes in the sounds of the bar around her — the soft chatter between bartender and patron across the room, the low television hum, the fan ticking above. Jon breathes in, and breathes out. And then he doesn’t breathe anymore. She counts in her head, just how long he holds it, until she loses count and has to start again.

“You know,” she starts slowly, finding his gaze on her hands, “I’m not a detective.”

Jon frowns like she’s saying something trivial. “I know.”

“Or much of a hunter, really.”

“I...yes, I know.”

“Sims,” she begins. That draws his full attention. Good. She can see his eyes better, like this. They’re brown with just the faintest hint of green around the rim, in a way that reminds her of colored contacts; though, something tells her that isn’t the case. “I don’t think I’m the man for your job.”

He’s already small, seated with his shoulders hunched in over him, but she can still see him deflate at the statement. The disappointment as it flickers across his face. The way his mouth twitches and quivers as he swallows, painfully, and he nods before moving to stand, to get away from his discomfort. “R-right. Right. I’m sorry, I don’t know why— I’m wasting your time, I’m very sorry. I’ll—”

“Sit—” Alice snags his arm, giving him a yank back into the booth, “down.”

Jon sits without another word. She’ll give him credit — at least he’s obedient.

Alice downs the rest of her bottle, watching him closely. 

Here’s the thing: despite his timid voice, his skittish nature, his eyes that never seem to quite meet her own, Alice Tonner knows without a doubt is that Jonathan Sims is not prey. That much is obvious. Call it intuition. Alice knows the type and she know how to deal with them, and she could easily put the strange little man sitting adjacent from her in his place with one quick motion, if she cared to.

She isn’t going to, though.

Because the fact that he’s out here asking someone else to hunt for him? Now, that’s the part that she finds interesting. That’s the part she desperately wants to learn more about. She is going to learn more about it, one way or another.

“I think,” she begins, leaning onto her crossed forearms, “that I’m going to give you two options. The first is that you can get up and leave. Get out of my sight, and never contact me again.”

Jon flinches at this. He chews his chapped lip. “...and the second?”

Alice feels a smile tugging at her lips. “The second is that you tell me your story, and I sit here and listen. And then once I say you’re finished, I’ll tell you what I think.”

That gives him pause, clearly taken aback.

“...Everything?” he asks softly after a long moment of thought. She can see the gears in his head spinning. She so desperately wants to stick her fingers in between them.

“From the very beginning,” she answers.

Jon heaves a breath, like he’s just remembering how to, and nods. “Right,” he agrees quietly, to himself, “from the very beginning.”

Alice watches as he picks up his glass, takes a long drink, and then proceeds to tell her everything.