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mortemoppetere · 3 days

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TIMING: recent. LOCATION: axis investigations. PARTIES: @animotoph0bia & @mortemoppetere SUMMARY: emilio enlists finn to help him with a case. CONTENT WARNINGS: none!

Things were quiet on the ‘possibly turning up as a corpse after five days missing’ front and Finn truly, honestly didn’t care why. If it was a false sense of quiet, he would have been happy to accept it at that point. If it was because one of their guys had gotten eaten by a stupid alligator hybrid creature then that was… a harder pill to swallow but Finn would deal. Whatever the reason, the constant sense of looming dread had dialed back down to his usual like, seventy percent ominous, even if Finn still avoided lurking around at night by his lonesome. And then finally, somewhat of a confirmation from Emilio, someone Finn had not been expecting to ever be the bearer of good news. Well, the way he’d phrased it, the bearer of ‘neutral but probably eventually bad news’ was more accurate but to Finn, the words ‘they don’t seem to be around anymore’ were a heavensend.

Emilio cashing in the promise of getting some computer related help was… less of a heavensend.

Finn didn’t go back on promises, even those made to strange, stab happy detectives that had a constant air of craving death around them. Mostly, he didn’t go back on promises made to those types of people because of the whole stab happy part. Even if Emilio probably wouldn’t have saved his life only to later stab him… right?

“Alright.” That was more for his own sake than Emilio’s, a mental preparation to put his pristine laptop on any surface in this office. It shouldn’t be surprising that the man worked in these conditions and Finn was definitely being hypocritical considering how that damn motel room had looked at one point but… With a resolute sigh, he put the laptop down on the desk, dragging up a chair and then looking over at Emilio. “Let’s do this,” he prompted, trying to remember the warm feeling of Lucky against his chest this morning, the simple joy of Charlie having his first cup of coffee - anything to weigh against the sinking feeling that was Emilio.

—-

There were few things Emilio liked less than loose ends. The very idea of answers left uncovered in any area of his life made a cold sweat break across his forehead, made his palms itch and his heart pound in ways he couldn’t quite explain. It was why, even years after the massacre in Mexico, he was still hunting down every vampire who might know anything at all about what happened, why he interrogated them slowly and painfully and without much remorse. It was why he often continued investigating cases he’d been fired from or wasn’t being paid for, too, why he couldn’t let things go even when the people who’d initially asked for the answers no longer wanted him to find them. And it was why he’d kept an eye out for the people looking to kill Finn, even though the guy was one of the more annoying residents of Wicked’s Rest. It was less for the benefit of the other man and more to ease his own rampant paranoia.

At least, that was what he told himself.

Maybe there was less truth to it than he’d care to admit. Maybe this town had succeeded in softening something that had already struggled to be as hard as it was meant to be, turning him into more and more of a goddamn disappointment. Maybe he kept an eye out for those people who might want Finn dead not because he was curious, but because he didn’t particularly want to see the guy suffer a slow and painful death.

But he’d never cop to that. It was the kind of thing that stayed locked up inside his head, which wasn’t the sort of place anyone with a brain would go snooping, anyway. Emilio would blame his own nosiness for keeping an eye out for Finn, and Finn would believe it because that was the easiest answer, anyway. And he’d still feel that obligation, and Emilio would still use it, because even if he was softer than he should have been, he still wasn’t someone who would pass up a chance at free shit when he needed it.

And he really needed computer help.

Normally, he relied on older methods of investigation. Stakeouts, asking questions, generally poking his nose in places it didn’t belong. He was good at that shit, after all, and he found it a lot more fun than hanging over the ancient desktop he’d fished from the trash behind the library and placed on the desk in his Worm Row apartment. He had a nicer computer at Teddy’s — one he pretended not to know had most likely been bought brand new with him in mind — but he didn’t particularly want to invite Finn there. Not only was the guy annoying, but he attracted trouble. The Jones house had enough trouble without the added help.

So, Emilio hovered behind Finn in that shitty, rundown apartment, squinting at his laptop screen uncertainly. This particular case required a bit of technical know-how. There had been blackmail involved, and the blackmailer had demanded payment in some kind of coin that existed only inside a computer. But things in computers could be traced; even Emilio knew that. “I wrote down the, uh… account name the guy gave. Don’t think it’s their real name. Nobody’s that stupid.” Plus, the account name had a few too many numbers and odd letters to belong on a birth certificate. “You think you can find them? My guy can’t afford what they’re asking for. We don’t figure out how to stop this, he’ll be on the streets in a month.”

—

It was the first time he’d seen Emilio feel this… hesitant. His general lack of knowledge when it came to computers had been pretty obvious from the get go but the fact that the man was a tiny bit, dared Finn even think it, insecure about it? It was almost funny seeing as Finn would trade his skills at this for the skill to fucking stay alive any day of the week. Anyway, for that reason only, Finn bit his tongue when Emilio said he didn’t think ‘jer_m1lfb4ngs691234’ was the guy’s real name.

“People can definitely be that stupid,” was what he settled for instead because odds were, this guy had maybe connected his account to a work email that would lead an angry Emilio straight to his door. “But let’s see. Depends on a few things but… maybe like a soft 80/20 that we find him?” Glancing over his shoulder at Emilio’s unchanging expression, he made a face and returned his attention back to the screen. This wasn’t Finn’s usual gig but throughout the years, he had been known to… crack a case or two when he was particularly desperate for cash. And with stuff like this, the iconic ‘what, like it’s hard?’ phrase kept running through his head. Better to not give Emilio false hope though - Finn would much prefer impressing the guy (if that was possible) than letting him down.

In the lovely and eerie silence of the dank apartment, the sound of Finn’s fingers moving quickly across the keyboard was excruciatingly loud, the empath’s shoulders tensing further with every second. “So, uh… guess you’re not charging him a lot. Y’know, since he doesn’t seem to have all that much,” Finn pushed hesitantly, eyes never straying from the laptop as he booted up one program after the other, code starting to run rapidly across the screen. Much like Emilio still hadn’t officially charged Finn or even demanded to be paid back for all those nights at World’s Shittiest Motel.

—-

With a snort, Emilio nodded. People could be stupid, Finn was right. Often times, Emilio was impressed by just how reckless people could be. Most of the cases he worked that had human causes rather than supernatural ones were solved because someone, somewhere made a careless mistake that Emilio took immediate advantage of. He was hoping this one would be similar, despite his lack of knowledge about the subject matter. As annoying as he found Finn, he was pretty sure the guy knew what he was talking about with computers. That was why he’d called him in the first place. (Well… that and the fact that he really didn’t have anyone else to call.)

Finn seemed confident, in any case. He gave good odds for uncovering the truth; Emilio had certainly worked with worse. Most of his cases had a slimmer margin than that on the odds of him simply surviving to the end, so he was more than happy with an 80/20 shot of victory. “All right,” he agreed, leaning forward to watch the computer screen as Finn worked. He understood exactly none of what was going on, but that probably didn’t matter much. He didn’t need to understand it; he just needed it done.

Preferably, it would have been done in silence. Emilio preferred that, when working with people he didn’t know as well. He got chatty when he was trying to piss someone off, sure, and he was willing to have casual conversation with the people he liked, but for the most part? Emilio wasn’t one for small talk. It seemed as though Finn was, though, and since he was doing Emilio a favor, the detective figured he shouldn’t tell him to fuck off. Fingers tapping absently on the desk, he shrugged. “Sometimes I charge people money,” he replied, “sometimes they pay me with something else. This guy doesn’t have much cash, so he’ll owe me a favor. Nothing bad, you know. Just might ask him to help me with a case sometime. Good to have connections like that.”

—

Whatever tension had been gathering in Finn’s shoulders since Emilio contacted him for an assist now lessened by like, at least 10%. Getting this man to agree with him on anything felt like a win and it wasn’t surprising that he agreed with ‘people are stupid.’ He definitely felt that Finn was stupid if their online interactions were anything to go off but clearly not stupid enough to ask for help. Maybe the PI’s definition of stupid varied or actually just meant ‘I don’t like you’. Either way, he wasn’t currently giving off harsh vibes of dislike and that was something Finn could work with - reluctant neutrality.

Glancing over at the man in his periphery, Finn wondered if any of what he was currently doing made sense to him. He was peering, clearly taking in the abundance of information piled on the screen but as Finn allowed himself to delve just that bit further into Emilio’s emotional state, it was very clear that the answer to ‘how much does Emilio understand’ was zero. Did that mean he trusted Finn to be doing what he said he would? Or simply trusting that Finn knew enough about the PI’s knives to not fuck around?

It took a moment of hesitation on Emilio’s part, during which the empath fully kicked himself for asking stupid questions, but surprisingly it was followed by a civil answer. “So like a quid pro quo kinda deal. Cool.” Judging from the state of this apartment, Finn thought that maybe more of Emilio’s business needed to be funded by actual cash but this whole thing did betray his little routine of hating everyone and everything except like, knives. He kept that little thought to himself however, biting at his lip instead as he typed in more information and then the two of them were collectively staring at a loading bar slowly filling up.

The silence was fucking defeaning.

“So, uh… why a detective? Is it related to the whole vampire killing thing or just, y’know, side gig?”

—

As a kid, he’d always been quick to pick up new moves and techniques in a fight. He was more of a brawler than a strategic fighter, but he could still learn the strategies. He could still watch the way Victor swept his opponent’s legs and take notes, still memorize the grip Rosa used on her knife. He fell back on those moves often, carried a piece of his siblings in quick jabs and calculated kicks that didn’t quite fit with the rest of his fighting style. He’d picked up a few from Juliana, too, memorized the way Rhett carried himself when he was fighting something small. It made Emilio’s style a hodgepodge of different kinds of fighting, a thing that didn’t always make sense to anyone watching, but it was effective. He could figure out how to mimic a person’s style just by watching them. He was good at learning new physical skills.

He was less good at learning the things that weren’t physical.

Watching a fight, it was easy to pick out every individual move and deconstruct it. But watching Finn type felt like something else entirely. Emilio couldn’t make sense of what he was doing, had no idea if any of it was effective or not. In a strange way, it put him on edge. He’d never been very good at coping with what he didn’t understand. Like a child, he grew frustrated quickly in the face of the unknown, unease disguising itself as anger with nowhere to go. He tried to push it down now. Finn was trying to help him, after all, and there was a chance he’d have to call upon the guy again soon considering how utterly useless he was with computer-related shit.

“Yeah,” he agreed, watching the loading bar on the screen. He decided it was probably a good sign. At least it meant some progress was being made, even if Emilio didn’t know the first thing about what that progress meant. He was so focused on the loading bar that it startled him, a little, when Finn spoke. It took his mind a moment to understand the question, to translate it and unravel it. Considering it for a moment, he hummed. “Nobody pays me to kill vampires,” he replied, “and they won’t give me whiskey for free.” That was the noncommittal answer, the one that didn’t give anything away. After a beat, he offered a little more. “I like figuring shit out. I like knowing shit. I’m good at it. In this town, a lot of people… lose shit without ever knowing what happened. I like being able to tell them, even if it’s not an answer they might like. Better to know, right?”

—

Finn knew that him shutting up and just doing what he’d been brought here to do would be the preferred setting if Emilio had been given that much control. It seemed to shock him each time the empath spoke, maybe because he expected the ‘nothing’ he was giving in response to Finn’s blabbering to hint at how little he wanted to chat. And yeah, it was a very good hint but Finn was less choosing, more being forced, to ignore it. For a second, he thought it might get him hit or thrown out except Emilio wasn’t angry. No more than what his resting state of ‘seething’ seemed to be, at least.

At least with something filling the silence, Finn could keep his mouth shut for a little bit. He wasn’t used to this slow, closed off way of sharing information. Granted, he lived with someone who wouldn’t shut up even under threat of death so his baseline was definitely skewed but Finn felt a pat on the back was deserved when Emilio was given a moment of silence and actually continued speaking whereas pushing further might have made the man clam up. It made sense, that no higher organization was paying for vampires getting exterminated but that also made it cooler. Very vigilante, holy mission kinda deal. Finn kept that to himself, instead listening to the slightly more in-depth explanation of why.

“Knowing shit is good,” Finn agreed after a drawn out silence, eyes never leaving the screen, afraid it would break the spell of ‘chatting’. “I mean, it can suck to holy hell, ignorance is bliss and all that, but it’s still… better.” Trying to know was the reason he’d moved to this cursed town in the first place. “Sure people appreciate what you do. Even if you just do it to buy more whiskey.” Before he could accidentally psychoanalyze the guy further - and yeah, Finn remembered the last time any talk of emotion came up, fuck forbid - his laptop chimed happily.

“Yeah, he’s a dumbass,” he could now claim confidently, looking at the email staring back at him from the screen. “He used a work email for the account. Don’t have a full name but this makes it way easier,” Finn explained, half for Emilio’s benefit, half because he also maybe talked to himself at times. It looked less insane now that Lucky was forced to listen to his train of thought broadcast live. Once again, his fingers moved quickly across the keyboard, this time to pull up the company’s website. “There. We got his initials and where he works. Unless he used his withered up braincell to steal a coworkers email, highly unlikely, but… yeah.”

—--

Finn wasn’t the first person to tell him his work here meant something. It was the kind of thing Teddy liked to spout all the time, evidenced in the newspaper clippings they’d hung up in the new Axis office in places they knew his eyes would drift to when he was lost in thought. Teddy wanted him to feel like he was doing good; Finn was repeating the sentiment in a way that made Emilio wonder, briefly, if Teddy might have paid him to plant the same seed that they’d been watering for almost a year now. But Teddy rarely saw fit to convince other people to do their dirty work, and that meant Finn was acting of his own accord. Somehow, that was all the stranger.

It was a hard thing to believe, even coming from multiple sources. Emilio wanted to help people. He wanted to make up for the people he hadn’t helped as if he could undo the shit he’d done by doing for strangers what he’d never been able to do for his own family. So far, the tightly wound coil of grief that lived in his chest hadn’t reacted to the attempts at unraveling it with good deeds. He felt as shitty now as he had a year ago, most days. But… It didn’t suck, hearing someone with no stake in it imply that maybe he was appreciated.

Emilio didn’t let any of this show on his face, of course. He kept his eyes on the computer screen, pretending to find himself engrossed in things he didn’t even almost understand, and nodded his head. “Sure,” he agreed, “maybe.” The chirping of the laptop saved him from having to say any more than that, and he leaned in expectantly.

A work email. That was definitely something, and definitely more than Emilio had had before. He grinned, watching Finn’s fingers dance across the keyboard. A person’s initials and their place of employment was more than enough for Emilio to finish the job, and he gave Finn an appreciative clap on the shoulder; something that, coming from Emilio, was fairly high praise. “Can nail him to a fucking wall with this much,” he said, sounding almost pleased. “Client’ll be glad.”

—

It had just been a stream of consciousness comment and yeah, maybe tinted with a hint of his ‘please like me’ tendencies but Finn hadn’t expected it to actually hit home. Well, hit seemed a bit too generous for whatever shift had taken place in Emilio’s emotional state - a tap of a feather seemed more fitting for this barely there feeling. Finn was entirely incapable of analyzing the shift properly, so shrouded in everything that made this hunter the gruff and violence happy man he seemed to be but… it wasn’t negative. Always a nice change of pace when Finn’s dumb mouth didn’t instantly fuck everything up.

What was easy to interpret however was Emilio’s reaction to the information he’d managed to scrounge up. Finding a work email had been a jackpot, probably saved both of them a couple of hours of digging, but looking at the grin on the other man’s face made Finn hesitant to reveal just how much ‘luck’ had played a part here. The hand on his shoulder was a surprise, momentarily jolting the empath before he realized it was a friendly gesture. So Emilio was capable of those. And this stand in for actual praise definitely didn’t stir up teenaged Finn just wanting his dad around to pat him on the back and tell him he was doing a good job.

God, his daddy issues needed to stop rearing their head around men who weren’t even ten years his senior. Although maybe Monty didn’t count since he was technically ancient. Also actually nice and not aloof and kinda scary like Emilio.

“Happy to help,” Finn said in a way that was supposed to be casual but probably betrayed that he actually was kinda happy to help, since this hadn’t been entirely awful. And so what if he was beaming just a bit because he’d been useful, that didn’t matter. Grabbing a stack of sticky notes, he wrote down the information he’d managed to gather, hesitant to close his laptop. “So uh… that’s it, yeah?”

—-

It was hard to gauge what Finn might have been thinking while looking at the back of his head and, in a lot of ways, Emilio preferred it that way. In a fight, knowing every thought that might cross your opponent’s mind was a useful thing. It could help you trip them up, give you the upper hand. He’d used it plenty of times, and had it used against him just as often. But in situations like this, when the person in front of you was… not an enemy and not quite a friend… It did nothing for you to know where their head was at. Knowing what Finn was thinking would only be inconvenient. And he didn’t care, one way or another. That was a thing he needed to remind himself of a little more often. Finn was here doing him a favor because Emilio saved his ass and he owed him. There was nothing more to it than that.

He drew his hand back, slipping it into his pocket and watching Finn transfer the information he’d gathered from the computer screen to a sticky note. He squinted at the note briefly, ensuring he could decipher the handwriting with a nod before taking it. From here, he could find the blackmailer and make big threats of police intervention to scare him into backing off. Most times, that was all it really took.

Looking back to Finn, he nodded. “That’s it,” he confirmed. “Unless you want to come with me to confront the guy, but that doesn’t seem like your thing.” Finn seemed like the kind of guy who avoided confrontation whenever possible, which was something Emilio couldn’t relate to at all. Confrontation was often a good distraction, after all. “I figure I can crack him in five minutes. Maybe less. You saved me a lot of time tracking him down. So, uh…” He trailed off, shrugging. “Guess we’re even.” It was as close to thanks as he really got.

—

The offer, which probably wasn’t an actual offer what with Finn’s presence annoying Emilio and the fact that he would probably somehow manage to almost die, shouldn’t have been one Finn actually considered for a moment. It was an apt assumption that confronting some blackmailing asshole definitely wasn’t Finn’s thing, not counting that one occasion where he’d confronted a knife wielding psychopath. That had been solely because of the winged person’s fear and anger. Not like Finn was actually brave. “Think it’s better for all parties if I stick to my role of behind the scenes tech stuff,” he finally said after much too long of a pause.

Finn wanted to ask just how literal this ‘cracking’ process would be but by some grace of god, refrained. Getting this guy’s email was very much in a gray area of being illegal but using it to send an unhinged private detective to beat someone up? Ignorance was definitely bliss. Man, Finn really hoped he’d never piss anyone off bad enough to send someone like Emilio his way. The unspoken gratitude hung in the air between them as Finn snapped his computer shut and got to his feet. Definitely didn’t want it to seem like he was hovering waiting for that thank you.

“Sure, half an hour of computer stuff is definitely comparable to saving my ass from literal death,” Finn huffed sarcastically, still feeling that the two of them were far from even. Things had definitely changed since the PI had first offered his help, where Finn didn’t have a dollar to his name and now lived in the Wicked’s Rest equivalent of freaking Beverly Hills. Yeah, he was technically still broke as hell but Charlie wasn’t.

“I could… help out again if you needed it,” he commented nonchalantly instead of offering to pay, packing up his computer and glancing in Emilio’s direction. “Feel like I owe you at least a couple of cases pro bono, y’know?” And it did feel nice using his skills for something other than websites or dumb programs, something that actually made a difference. Even if it erred on the side of illegal. “If you think you’d have any use for that, I mean,” Finn added in a rush, backpack slung over his shoulder, ready to not overstay his welcome.

—

For a moment, it seemed like Finn was actually considering the offer. Emilio wasn’t even sure if it had been genuine or not — he didn’t particularly want a tagalong to a thing like this, but it seemed awkward to admit he’d only made the offer to fill the silence. Luckily — for both of them, probably — Finn seemed to decide better of it, and Emilio nodded his head. “Suit yourself,” he shrugged, pretending not to be relieved at the fact that he could continue this case on his own.

It was good, too, that Finn didn’t ask any questions. Emilio had learned that most people didn’t quite approve of his methods, even the gentler ones. He had no intention of killing the blackmailer, or even really roughing him up unless it became necessary; an empty threat to involve the cops would do plenty to persuade the guy not to do this kind of thing again. In Emilio’s experience, people who hid behind anonymity lost any semblance of bravery they might possess the moment that anonymity was lost. Still, something told him Finn would get squirrely the moment the confrontation began, and he didn’t feel like dealing with that.

He was a little surprised the guy didn’t take the obvious out he’d offered him, but Emilio wasn’t the sort to insist someone didn’t owe him something if he could get something useful out of them. Not when the ‘someone’ in question was a practical stranger, in any case. So he shrugged, shaking his head slightly. “Suit yourself,” he replied. “But don’t think I won’t take you up on it.” It’d be nice having someone to call on for shit like this. He’d definitely abuse it beyond ‘a few pro bono cases,’ of course.

Moving towards the door, he pulled it open and turned to Finn expectantly. Emilio wasn’t one to beat around the bush; now that Finn had done what he’d come here for, there was really no reason for him to keep hanging around. “Next time I need someone to do some typing,” he said, “I’ll give you a call.”

#animotoph0bia #finn: guy in the chair #wickedswriting

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