Realistic or Modern — 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐃.

[birth of venus]

THE CRADLE OF CHILDHOOD —
fbi investigations into the horrible unknown.

by FloatingAroundSpace & birth of venus ​

 

[birth of venus]

FIONA HERNANDEZ.

THINK WITH YOUR HEAD / THINK WITH YOUR HEART

♡coded by uxie♡

FULL NAME: Fiona Sarita Hernandez Rincon
AGE: 33 years old.
D.O.B.: May 1st, 1990
OCCUPATION: FBI Special Agent and Forensic Linguist

❝I TOOK A DEEP BREATH AND LISTENED TO THE OLD BRAG OF MY HEART. I AM, I AM, I AM.❞​

The limits of language mean the limits of my world. Once a "genius" child prodigy, now a demoted divorcee approaching her mid-thirties, Fiona has begun to exhaust herself in her endless pursuit of knowledge. There was something bright there, once. A diamond in the rough, a girl who prevailed crossing borders alongside her family to search for a better life. Born in Medellín, Colombia, the youngest of four children to working class parents, she was seen as the family miracle - a weight was placed upon her shoulders as they realized the sharpness of her wit, the accelerated rate at which she flew through her early years of education. The guilt lodges in her throat, even twenty-something years later.

Though the world seemed to fly by her, onward she went. Leaning a new language opened a world of opportunity for her, and it would define the structure in which she viewed the world. An informational sponge more interested in academia than real people, study was much easier than ever getting to know people - her knowledge of human behavior is thorough and you can't escape the scrutiny of an FBI profiler, but her social life leaves much to be desired. A walking talking encyclopedia, with what seems to be an endless fountain of knowledge about nearly anything in the world. While pursuing her masters degree, Fiona met her soon-to-be husband Edwin, her first true endeavor into a relationship as an adult that crashed and burned with a righteous fury. Though her career in the FBI had been impeccable - an impossibly good job landed during her university years, starting off as an analytical linguist before working her way up the ranks into a full blown special agent in the field, her recent messy divorce has been the subject of much gossip and, eventually, a rather grim demotion.

The biggest mistake I made was believing that if I cast a beautiful net, I'd catch only beautiful things.

It's a uniquely unsettling situation, the flip of the coin; from translating witness testimonies in ongoing investigations, to becoming the very victim witnessed in the courtroom. She had never meant to get this far, she had never went into the FBI intending to work in the field. And yet, switching out books for gun training, and viscera and analyzing the taunts of killers and knowledge that curdled her stomach, it all became inevitable. An empty home with a now ex-husband in jail, an insistence on returning to field work far too early, and a tense hostage negotiation went miserably wrong, horribly wrong - and Fiona was politely reallocated to work in the New York City field office.

FRANCIS FLOWERS.

TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF MY NECK & HOLD ON TO THE GHOST OF MY BODY.

♡coded by uxie♡

FULL NAME: Francis Flowers
AGE: 23 years old.
D.O.B.: October 10th, 2000.
OCCUPATION: His business card reads "Paranormal consultant, haunted house expert."

❝HEAVY BOOT ON MY THROAT, I NEED, I NEED SOMETHING SOON, I NEED SOMETHING SOON!❞​

Somewhere in Flushing, Queens, around the corner of a coin laundry, awaits a door. All split old wood and grimy frosted glass, taped over its original text is a manilla folder with thin tall letters. F. FLOWERS - PARANORMAL CONSULTANT.

A walking curiosity, Francis is barely all there - a thin, lanky man with barely any substance, a ghost shimmering into view for a few fleeting moments. With decades old clothes and a spacey disposition, you'd be hard pressed to get a conversation with him or any tangible evidence. Previously a social recluse now selflessly offering his services to the public, whether its a farce or its real isn't what's important - Francis provides services of a paranormal flavor, and he always gives his clients results. No one knows where he's from or if his name is even real, but behind his thin-wire frames are wide open blue eyes, owlish and unblinking, not exactly looking at anything in our world but always, inevitably, tangled into the beyond.

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

GU ZHENG.

THE BREAKDOWN COMES WHEN YOU STOP CONTROLING YOURSELF

♡coded by uxie♡

FULL NAME: Gu Zheng
AMERICANIZED NAME: Elijah
AGE: 40 years old.
D.O.B.: March 24th, 1983
OCCUPATION: FBI Special Agent

❝I TYPICALLY ARRIVE THREE YEARS TOO LATE
I WISH I HAD BEEN ABLE TO SIT IN THAT WHITE, AROMATIC KITCHEN AND LOOK YOU IN THE FACE
BUT I WAS NOT READY. I WAS STILL ON MY WAY.❞​

An American dream shattered the instant it was conceptualized, a fairytale derailed before happily ever after could be spoken, a different tale that is as old as time; a tragedy.

Zheng’s father uprooted his mother and their young daughter to come to the United States in search of opportunity, and where the miracle that he had been hoping for happened; a son to carry on the family legacy, with an American passport gifted to him at birth. A chance for something new, something great, something he was willing to mold forcibly with his own two hands if he had to.

Loneliness became Zheng’s first friend, the yawning chasm extending between him and others enforced by cultural differences and language barriers and the looming shadow that was his father. An unhappy childhood that curdled into an unhappy teenagehood that began an unhappy adulthood— until—

Shi Lian, with hair the color of a starless midnight, dark eyes that peered into his own, perhaps seeing him for the first time. Theirs was a whirlwind romance, passionate and fiery and filled with love— yes, love. For a flicker of time, he could claim happiness with someone else and his life could blossom.

Alas, it was not meant to be.

But he wanted it to be.

His wants had never been considered before, and now would be no different. A screaming baby, a silent wife, the snarling voice on the other end of the phone telling him to come home chased him to the office over and over again. He climbed the ranks swiftly, his dedication rewarded with more work, grueling and difficult and unrelenting, a familiar rhythm no matter how cruel.

That too was shattered. A scene one step away from becoming a horror turned into a massacre, blood and sinew and viscera seared into his mind, a permanent reminder burned into the left cheek of his daughter. It was all beyond repair, a bloated corpse he dragged behind him. Soon, the decay was too great, and the woman that perhaps had nearly known him was gone and he was facing his own shadow and the daughter standing within it.

GU MING XIA.

THE WORD "FATHER" ROTTED IN MY MOUTH

♡coded by uxie♡

FULL NAME: Gu Ming Xia
AMERICANIZED NAME: Juliet
AGE: 18 years old.
D.O.B.: June 21st, 2005
OCCUPATION: Student at Julliard

❝I AM THE SHAPE YOU MADE ME.
FILTH TEACHES FILTH❞​

Your father holds you in his arms, gentle and sweet, rocking you to sleep.

Your first mistake is to cry.

You are ungrateful.

And so the cycle repeats.

 

[birth of venus]

CHANGES.

CASE FILE 001:

© REVERIEE

 

[birth of venus]

I will cast abominable filth upon you,
Make you vile, and make you a spectacle.
Nahum 3:6

—​

Somewhere in the empty void, the hinges of a door creaked a slow tinny hum of metal against wood.

The noise grated her ears. If she focused on the sound, that endlessly frustratingly familiar sound, she knew it by heart. She had always known it. The front door of her home, her lovely townhouse once upon a time. Fiona dreamt of doors constantly - the doors of her house, of her childhood bedroom, the doors of old classrooms. Always leading her back to the same door, the same hesitation behind a door barely left open. No need to turn a handle. Just reach out and—

And her hands were occupied, and aside from the creak, she was suddenly made aware of the heaviness of her own breath, all too loud as air wheezed through her lungs. She realized she was hyperventilating. Tears streamed from her face and dripped to her shirt collar. In the darkness, pushing herself back into the void and hiding amidst winter coats and old boots, clammy hands were slick on the grip of cold steel. A standard issue glock, and footsteps approaching, sickening thuds marking each torment of destruction ripping through the foundations of her home.

It was too late to close the door now. He was so very close - she would be seen.

Thud, thud, thud.

"Where are you, darling? You stupid little-"

The door creaked open. A gasp, a snarl, and a gunshot, before reality crashed into existence — and Fiona found herself laid askew on her couch, drenched in sweat and startled from banging a foot into her coffee table. The tiny apartment shook with a rumbling force, a reminder of the real world. Reality was safer than her dreams, memories that could no longer reach her, but the thought gave little respite to her trembling state of half-wakefulness. Fiona sat up and breathed deeply. Lights flickered by the kitchen window as the overhead train rumbled again.

New York hadn't been her first choice, but her career always came first, always. The instructions had been clear. 'It's not a demotion, per se, but we feel you need some time. Some change would be helpful, we all agree. You're being reassigned to the field office in New York City.' She had caused too many problems, mishandled her last big case. It was all a rather shameful affair. She felt like a package, jettisoned to the wrong address, now confined to an overpriced one bedroom third story walkup in Chelsea.

The drive up the eastern coast, Virginia to New York, had almost given her hope. Long and contemplative, if she ignored the feeling of something always chasing her, something always riding on her back bumper or lingering behind gas station signs, Fiona could convince herself it would be worth the trip. The cold stone of fate changing sat low in her chest. Something was waiting, but she wasn't sure of what. Changes, hopefully.

Though the clock barely inched beyond 3 A.M., Fiona knew sleep would be unreachable now. Work was waiting, and though her newest of coworkers seemed more prickly than not, she was hardly one to judge in her state. Borderline hyperactive, overenthusiastic and desperate to seem qualified for her job, she knew she had arrived to their office in a state and rumors floating around her head. But work would distract her, set her back on the right path. Something was coming, and she was ready to reach out and face it head on.

-

Sunlight streamed through tall windows in thin streaks, rays blocked by various skyscapers and business offices alike. The new office wasn't exactly intense, just...intimidating. Fiona had found herself at a crossroads, a frustrating paradox, a gridlock of a mindset - though change was inevitable, Fiona was utterly resistant to the thought. Though she yearned for change, she loathed to make the first move, to force herself out of her comfort zone.

She hoped for something soon. Something substantial, a craving for a new purpose, a new case to round out her thoughts and to dissect behind her eyelids at night. The woman was nothing if not diligent in her line of work. Though not the chattiest of coworkers, it was obvious that Fiona was a dedicated agent. Interviewing witnesses or working case files just came easier than socialization. While coworkers smiled and politely introduced themselves, the same old nicknames still seemed to linger (wiz kid, walking encyclopedia, 'Hey wasn't she on the news last month, the killer got away and the boy got-'). Self doubt was relentless, permeating her thoughts with every new day of work.

Tuesday arrived, so very ordinary and terrible. Fiona served herself a cup of coffee to steel her nerves; she had been delegated to sorting and organizing the latest of cases, and providing official translations as needed. Eight days of desk duty and counting. There had been a love for the busy work, once upon a time, but at some point she had put down her books and picked up a gun and badge, and there was no turning back from that. Work in the field was more fulfilling than anything else. Making a difference, and whatnot.

With such a lack of sleep, caffeine only served to frazzle her nerves instead of energizing her thoughts. Reading glasses pushed atop her head, exhaustion lined her vision after two hours of translations. A thin hand rubbing at her brow paused when the deep baritone of their unit chief's voice rang from the upper offices.

"Hernandez, Gu, my office, if you'd please."

Something? Finally. Fiona sat up straight. She never forgot a name or a face, and from across the bullpen's maze of desks she scanned interested looks until settling upon the back of Elijah's head, already two steps ahead of her. She treaded lightly around new people, even more so around a man with such a sternly set brow. (Somewhere on the drive to New York, at a rest stop, Fiona had leafed through magazines with lists of '10 best conversation openers and jokes!', as if it would help at all. Her sad attempt at introductions and icebreakers jokes had fallen flat when thrown at Elijah.) Though out of her element, Fiona was still an agent with years of experience now under her belt. She would not let herself pale in the face of new challenges.

Up she went, smoothing her sweater and straightening her glasses. Down she sat, before the very wide oak desk of their unit chief. And under his gaze, she fidgeted but poured diligently over opened case files and crime scene photos.

"You're being assigned a new case. We've got at least four bodies lining the 1-95, from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, two up into Maine. The connections hadn't been made at first, but it looks like the last two were the closest in time of death. From two bodies in two weeks, to two bodies in three days."

Their chief explained, a man of wide stature and a temperament not to be trifled with.

"Local authorities are worried, many of these bodies were found either gutted, dismembered, or borderline unrecognizable. Whatever we're dealing with, this individual is unstable and on the move. We need agents tracking the trail, and that will be your newest assignments."

the linguist

fiona.

• aaaaaaaaa
• aaaaaaaaa

• filler tab!
• 
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  mood

  
  
  
  

  anxious, excited?

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  outfit

  
  
  
  

  v-neck sweater, slacks, boots.

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

I hope the fences we mended
Fall down beneath their own weight
And I hope we hang on past the last exit
I hope it's already too late

No Children - Mountain Goats

—​

Every day started like the last.

They had begun to blur together, leaching into his dreams and making it so that when the alarm blared somewhere to his right in the still darkness of morning, there was a half decent chance that he would be blinking away the visages of a dream so mundane that it faded immediately from memory. The only way he would know that his mind had bothered to spit out a dream would be the twitch of deja vu, the constant thought of I just did this hovering about as he shuffled to the bathroom, going about his morning routine as it had occurred for the past year-and-some-months without fail— relieve himself, wash his hands, then his face, shave the sorry excuse for stubble that still insisted on pushing its way out of his skin even four decades after no results, then brush his teeth. Some days he would bother with moisturizer and sunscreen and some days he would gargle mouthwash instead. A bit of variation in his beige-washed life— a whitewash would bring in some much needed brightness.

The remaining motions would be as follows; heading towards the (more than) half-empty walk-in closet, picking out a collared-shirt followed by a blazer that was matched to a trouser, and rooting around the bin that had all of his dress socks in order to look the part of a milquetoast American citizen— uniform. Unchanging.

Lian had mentioned it was part of the reason for the divorce.

Occasionally, even all these months later, a remark from her deposition would flitter into his mind, spoken in a stronger voice than he had heard in years, accusing him of being neglectful (to her or their daughter, it was never quite clarified) utilizing words like “uninspiring,” “distant,” “troubled.” Where she had found that vocabulary after nearing two decades of almost dead silence, he did not know, but it had spilled out of her in those fucking courtroom visits, where half the time he would be faced with a lawyer she had conjured up with her parents’ money, reading off a piece of paper and offering to take nothing— including responsibility.

It seemed that today was a day where the memory seared brighter than most, his teeth gritted together as he rolled on striped dress socks that Lian may or may not have bought for him when he began his career at the FBI. Some flickering maybe-memory of her glancing over at him, taking in his appearance as he arrived at their court appearance a handful of minutes late due to work, the frown of the judge prickling the hairs on the back of his neck. He had looked at her, too, caught her gaze, and something unreadable had been hidden in it as she trailed down his form, to his shoes, where they had rested until the court had been called to order.

He didn’t know what it meant.

The scream of the blender and the potency of bitter greens washed out the acid bile in his mouth as he chugged his breakfast, glancing down his phone to check and see if Juliet had responded to his text the previous day. The last time she had reached out was nearing three weeks ago, a simple and straightforward can u venmo me $50? at nearly midnight, with no further context.

He had not asked for any, obediently playing piggy bank to have some sort of tether to his child.

He sent another message as he shut his car door— Hey 宝宝, hope you have a good day today. Let me know when your recital is so I can come!

It would remain unanswered, he knew, even as something squirmed in his stomach, like hope, tangled and inscrutable, unpleasant and indigestible.

The drive to the office was uneventful, permitting him to fade out of the action of driving for a while, floating in his mind somewhere quiet. The rumble of the car, the flashing of the stoplights, the screaming of the city of New York barely reached him as he inched along in the morning rush of traffic, a sucker one might say for his usage of a car rather than the myriad of public transport options he had. But parking was free at the office, and there was something about riding in a vehicle only he could control, only he was in that offered comfort.

(The yawning, gaping absence in his home was another matter entirely that he did not dwell on.)

The attendant at the parking complex seemed as disinterested in their job as Zheng was in his, eyes barely open, hand outstretched for his ID that was pushed into a machine for just a moment before returning to him, lingering and awaiting the next car in line. They were all drones, it seemed, dull-eyed, listless, and churning through the motions, turning the mechanisms because what else did they have to do?

His job, apparently, if the sharp tone of Luis was any indication. That man had something akin to a life, as evidenced by the glint of light still on his right hand, something that frequently faded in and out of existence amongst the agents lining the halls, hunkered down in their cubicles, eyes trained to the screen or the sheets of paper before them.

Zheng stood up, straightening out his suit jacket, picking up his notebook and a pen, and followed the newest agent (the one who thought it was a good idea at lunchtime to introduce herself again to him and declare,

“I bought the world’s worst thesaurus yesterday. Not only is it terrible, it’s terrible,”

and stood there waiting for him to laugh) into the chief’s office.

For the first time in a very long time, for the first time in at least a handful of months, since he had returned home to Lian sitting at the dinner table, back straight and eyes clear and a manilla folder presented in front of her, he felt awake. His mind seemed to rouse from whatever sleep it had descended into, demanding he pay attention as the chief began to speak, his tone calm and formal and so opposed to the roiling within Zheng’s own chest, the tension that had sunk into his sternum and was pulling him forward to pick up the pictures, to examine the way the bodies were flayed open, the guts and viscera smeared across the road and the grass and the asphalt like a painting. One he may have seen before.

“Seen anything this bad before?”

Luis asked— to the both of them, but Zheng knew the gaze was on him, the question a test.

“Similar,”

was his response. There were no further questions asked— he had passed the test.

This had been given to him. A test to see whether or not he could do the work, whether the divorce had well and truly cracked his head open or if it had simply sapped strength that needed to be built back up.

One image brought the hovering thought back— I just did this, I just saw this.

A young girl, dark, curly hair fanned out from her head like a halo. Her cheek was red and pink, the muscle exposed as the blood poured out of her, a burn that had singed away the skin and turned it dark and burning.

He glanced up at Luis, who only gazed back steadily.

“When do we hit the road?”

“Whenever you two are ready. Conference room 9-A4 is reserved for you two to get started going over these case files.”

A dismissal, and Zheng took it with a nod, gathering the images and papers that had been provided to them and standing without looking at either of the other two, turning away so that he could inhale and center himself for just a moment before he would be stuck in a room with Fiona for hours on end.

the father

zheng.

• aaaaaaaaa
• aaaaaaaaa

• filler tab!
• 
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  mood

  
  
  
  

  depressed > alert

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  outfit

  
  
  
  

  collared shirt, blazer, trousers, dress shoes (and socks from the ex wife)

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[birth of venus]

This is something you'll need to start getting used to.

An exchange she didn't quite understand had passed between Elijah and their unit chief Luis - witnessed with a small glance between the two, but barely paid any further attention, as the case files in question were a sight. A steadying breath, a small nod. Through chaos there were patterns, something was there connecting - she would find it somehow. There was an odd sense of deja vu, a memory of her past unit chief years ago, assigning her earliest of cases. Serial murders, repeated offenders, and worse. You're not just typing up cases anymore, you're actively pursuing perpetrators. You just never find them until it's too late.

"Something, sure, but nothing of this magnitude."

She answered honestly, clear despite a tense pause in the air.

"This...this has to be some kind of spree killer. The first two are spread further out, but the last two are within a week of one another."

Theories ran through her thoughts, a flurry of sudden calculations and laying the facts out in her mind, a mental map of locations and times. Of how exhausting the act of the murder must be, a frenzied rush before scurrying off to the next town, to the safest leap of the pond. Repeating something familiar, over and over. An urge with no respite, a thirst beyond understanding. Running and destroying and running, running away from what? From the end? From inevitability-

A steady balance of gruesome and compelling. Nothing could be done until gaining a further understanding of the facts, of laying it all out and pouring the blood off the pages.

Fiona's career had started early on in life. Recruited during the start of her master's degree, years younger than the rest of her peers, much of her earliest years had been spent tucked away in the basement archives, research centers, only seeing the light of day to function as a field translator when the occasion called for it. Then, field work called for field certification, which meant putting a gun in her hands and power behind her fists, teaching her how to defend and how to hurt. She had seen her first body in person two years into her marriage. There was a time where she'd get home after a long day; with each new case, she could almost hear Marcus' reactions to the evidence file's she'd study at home. 'That's a gnarly one, babe. You sure you can handle this?'

Hesitation was death. She had learned that the hard way. A nasty voice echoed in response to the horrible voices of the past. Yes, I'm sure. I have to be.

There were naive intentions once, had never joined with the goal of solving crime - her skills were useful, an overqualified polyglot happy to memorize archival files day in and day out. It was safe, it was stable. Suddenly, she was being paid far more than anything else in her life. Suddenly, her parents didn't have to worry about mortgage payments. But so much skill had to be put to good use, after all.

The coffee in her stomach turned acrid. Red as archival ink, nonsensical violence, straight out of the photo and into reality itself. She slowly inhaled and reminded herself this is reality, this is what you will be facing. The dismissal was met with a nod and a reshuffling of files. A box of case files tucked under one arm, Fiona silently retreated to their delegated conference room.

Just...breathe. Lay it out, piece by piece. As they quietly reshuffled and migrated to a conference room down the hall, Fiona cast a long sidewards glance at Elijah, unsure of how to tread. (A pang of embarrassment rang with the memory of failed conversation starters and attempts at being a friendly coworker. It wasn't a surprise, but it irked under her skin, a reminder of not belonging, a reminder she had almost made it to the big dogs, and now here she was.)

The conference room needed a good dusting. Twisting open the blinds and rolling a transparent whiteboard to the very center, at the very least Fiona was an organized agent. Work had always came with this inherent sense to prove herself - with time, such worries ebbed away, but her latest flavor of bitter mistakes left Fiona stumbling in the dark, doubting her own abilities. She'd rather not deal with a new scrutiny from who seemed like quite the seasoned agent. It took minutes of reshuffling papers and spreading out case files for her to find a voice.

"Well... I think we've got our work cut out for us."

Fiona said lamely. In her bustling to get their cases organized and bringing her own desk supplies as well, she had remembered to pop a coffee pod into the conference room coffee maker. There was also the hanging knowledge that they were about to embark on a journey, travelling for hours on the road together. She'd at least try to get along.

And from that, extended a cautious olive branch.

"Coffee?"

She hadn't waited for a response, busying her hands with pouring two steady hot mugs of coffee. The shiny black mugs reflected the FBI logo across their fronts.

It was evident Fiona felt more comfortable speaking without direct eye contact, happy to look away if only to speak her mind for a moment.

"So, um. You mentioned earlier you've seen something like this before."

She continued to arrange her own mug of coffee, dark and wicked sweet.

"May I ask what the case was?"

the linguist

fiona.

• aaaaaaaaa
• aaaaaaaaa

• filler tab!
• 
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  mood

  
  
  
  

  nauseated, motivated

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  outfit

  
  
  
  

  v-neck sweater, slacks, boots.

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

Zheng understood the office politics that had gotten him saddled with Fiona. He always had been keenly aware of where he had sat on the hierarchy— the determined, overworking agent that had not quite shed his baby fat yet, guarding something behind an eerily blank face. Over the years, it had been worn down into the vague listlessness that hung around him like a worn out coat, a slight shift that had not gotten him more than a glance or two. Their work shredded the human psyche, exposing the darkest, stickiest corners of the human condition to those that had once upon a time believed themselves able to venture into the pit of human depravity and emerge— whole and alive.

It ate them all alive.

He hadn’t been the same, not since he had packed his daughter into the backseat one summer and taken them both down the coast to Washington DC alongside a few of her friends, graciously volunteering to drive the squabbling set to the summer camp. It had shattered them, left a nasty, raw scar that healed but never quite went away on his daughter’s cheek, turning them from a tight knit group of friends to a rabid pack of dogs, willing to shred skin and chew through to the bone if it meant that their wounds were not the only ones festering. He should have done more— the other parents had had to come down and pick up their children as they were released, one by one, from the hospital.

Juliet had been the last to leave, the burn turning pink and then into marred flesh, a constant, glaring reminder that neither of them could quite shirk.

After that, it all went to hell.

Slowly, though— the highway to hell actually turned out to be a slow descent, the incline subtle enough that it wasn’t until Lian sat before him with the divorce papers that he realized things had gone well and truly wrong. From there, it escalated, and he was soon shoving his tongue down the throat of one of his colleagues while his daughter slept in the room next door. The glare that had greeted him the next morning implied that she may have been awake doing homework.

All to say, he had been labeled as a loose canon for the time being, someone who was enduring some personal upheaval that was clouding his judgment. Whether or not he had cobbled it back together enough to handle a case remained to be seen, and wrangling the newcomer into something resembling fighting shape would be a way to prove he had not been the wrong choice.

There was minimal room for error.

Once they were in the room, he gravitated towards the nearest box, popping it open and pulling out the files from the local police station that had found one of the bodies. The files for each of the cases ranged in thickness and so he began with the thinnest, laying down the corresponding folder and pulling out the photographs in their gorey nature, lining them up so that there may be some sort of pattern to be discerned, some sort of parallel. Perhaps a gender, a demographic, a method of murder. The picture that was being painted, with viscera dried on asphalt, staining the steel barriers of the highway, soaking the ground and caked into hair, was that of someone being absolutely brutal to whoever came their way. Chunks of flesh stripped from abdomens, burns seared into cheeks (his daughter’s cheek), arms and legs snapped and tied in awkward positions. Vaguely, it registered that the victims were young. The oldest victim was a teacher, barely approaching thirty.

The youngest was a pre-teen. Twelve.

I just did this.

He ignored her question for coffee— if she knew him any better, she would take no offense. He was a visual person, someone who needed to see before he could begin to speak, and so was laying out the map to the conclusions of who had done this shit.

Then— the next question.

“Six years ago,”

he said, flat and nearly disinterested as he continued to shuffle the photographs around, layering different ones on top of one another to cobble together the scene of the crime as it had been witnessed by the poor schmucks that had been called out,

“there was a mass murder at a summer camp near DC. You may have heard of it— made national news. Camp Silverlake. Near total annihilation— campers slaughter apparently where they stood, the counselors not faring much better. The janitorial staff came by and found the few survivors. There were similar wounds on the victims—”

he pointed at one photograph, of a teenage boy with his abdomen flayed open, his entrails seemingly pulled out into a pile next to him,

“— and the demographic age of these victims fits in with those killed at the camp, too. Counselors were all late-twenties, early-thirties, campers were pre-teens, with some older teenagers there for their summer job.”

He recited these facts with a detached tone, as if only barely paying attention to what he was saying aloud.

”We never found out who did it,”

he concluded and here, his voice dipped slightly, bellying the frustration and rage and grief that had nearly swallowed him whole when the trail went cold and the news cycle found another horror to follow.

“I’ll submit a request to get those files pulled out of the archive. Might be something good in there for us to look at.”

He finally bothered to look up at Fiona, glancing at her and then the coffee machine.

“I make my own coffee,”

he said flatly.

“Don’t like the pods here.”

the father

zheng.

• aaaaaaaaa
• aaaaaaaaa

• filler tab!
• 
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  mood

  
  
  
  

  focused, rude

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  outfit

  
  
  
  

  collared shirt, blazer, trousers, dress shoes (and socks from the ex wife)

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[birth of venus]

The second cup of coffee was left atop a counter, forgotten. He was right about one thing - the office coffee was terrible. Fiona did not take offense to much, and she would not force socialization if it was not reciprocated. Fiona had borne witness to what their job did to human decency - she had worked with the best of the best, once. Even the celebrities of the FBI were human; they sweated, cursed, swore, cried, vomited, they had gazed into the void of existence and still arrived at work with meticulously starched shirts and straight ties. She would not cry over spilled milk (or, rejected coffee) when there was so much to be done.

Though she did not interrupt as he began to explain, it was a miracle her ears did not visibly perk with interest. Borderline excitement shaken into a cocktail of nosiness, over ice. Oh. Oh, oh, oh, I remember this.

Of course Fiona remembered — how could she forget? The woman blinked hard, back turned as Elijah explained. An inhale, and she remembered the tight fabric of white satin taut against her torso, the uncomfortable process of pins and hemming. It had been her final bridal fitting; the headlines flashed red across the boutique's television screen. She had been getting married.

An exhale, and Fiona marked another location with a small round magnet, stomach nauseous with caffeinated energy. She fell into natural rhythm that occurred when working - though Fiona would worry over social norms and acting capable, as one would worry a sore tooth, her hands did the work as her mind reeled in new information. As Elijah began to spread out the case files and methodically organize, details of the horrors he had seen, the brunette took the time to spread a map of the east coast across one side of the board. Small magnets labelled each crime scene, pulling together a geographical profile.

"That's..."

Fiona paused, choosing her words carefully. A flash of a bitter tone in his words was not missed. The anger of a job failed, the burning shame. She knew it well, she could taste it in the burned office coffee, feel it in the ache behind eyelids that missed proper sleep.

"There's no words for that, how horrible it is. I've read some of the reports...my old bosses worked it as well."

The map was fully marked now, typewriter-neat marker board writing next to it listing each city, each town, with victim's names and details and dates. Chronological order, marked for distance and rate of travel. Fiona's eyes were wide behind her reading glasses, turning between the board and the opened files. A mask slipped over her face, a borderline disassociation. Removed from distractions of disgust and shock in an attempt to put puzzle pieces together, to recall the Camp Silverlake case in such explicit detail she could have recited the formal report her own office filed. Fiona refrained, of course. She leveled a look at Elijah over her glasses, the table covered in photos of red. Red, red, red.

"We need to start from the very beginning,"

Fiona opined,

"The first victim always, always reveals the most. This level of violence isn't just a typical spree killer, this is someone... repressed. Like a ticking time bomb. You don't just wake up one day and tear a person apart, this is just- just viscera, and nonstop. It makes sense that there were so many days between the first two, compared to the rest. They started and cannot stop, and I don't think we will get the full picture until we look from the very first."

A sip of coffee, a steadying breath. Fiona disliked eye contact, instead measuring Elijah from office window reflections and refractions across her own glasses lenses. There was a dizzying feeling when tackling a case such as this head on. They stood on a precipice, staggering atop a terrifying edge of a cliff, ready to tumble headfirst into Tartarus if they weren't careful. They needed steady footing to start. She made a mental note to venture down to the archives herself - she was no stranger to archival work, and held a love for the familiarity of thorough federal filing systems. She wanted to research on her own terms.

"I'm ready to travel whenever, and if you truly think these cases are connected, then we'll need to sort those as well. See if they were able to discern the first death from the Silverlake case, look for connecting threads."

the linguist

fiona.

• aaaaaaaaa
• aaaaaaaaa

• filler tab!
• 
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  mood

  
  
  
  

  nauseated, motivated

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  outfit

  
  
  
  

  v-neck sweater, slacks, boots.

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

Zheng offered no acknowledgement to Fiona’s acknowledgement— there were no words. Plenty of his coworkers had offered paltry condolences, mumbled, “I’m sorry”s and “Hope she pulls through,” words that plunged him headfirst into unpleasant memories from a lifetime ago, when he had been too young to be a father (still too young to be a father, truly) and was watching a baby, an infant die in a hospital bed. This time, she was taller, larger, yet the tubes and the patches and the needles they injected in her still seemed too much. Pale and sweaty, with eyes artificially induced to close to avoid any more strain, Zheng had kept tireless vigil by her bedside. He had slept upright and consumed whatever some poor nurse who now had to keep the both of them alive provided for two days in a row before he had remembered to plug in his phone and call Lian to let her know what had happened.

He had not expected the scream on the other end.

She had come down, inexplicably, packed a bag and booked a ticket and hailed a taxi and burst into the hospital room a wild mess all on her own. She had sat on the other side of their daughter, brushed her hair and cut her nails and changed the dressings once the nurse had shown how to. For a brief flickering moment, they had been united over their child, taking turns sleeping on the cot in the room, him with his feet hanging off and her curled up so tight in the center.

And then—

The doctors had said they could wake her up.

He exhaled heavily, the breath and the memory and the acidic hatred flushing from his lungs into the air before him. He parsed through the papers and the photographs and the files and found the first, or at least the one that had been noticed finally— who knew how many came before.

He voiced this thought;

“The first that we know of. Hudson Townsend, sent by his wealthy parents to boarding school for ‘behavior problems’,”

though Zheng had to assume the name Hudson probably led to those behavior problems. Who named their child after a river?

“Frequently slipped away from the campus to wander the local towns, caused a ‘ruckus’ at school as they say. They sent teachers out to look for him when he didn’t show up to class on Monday after the weekend, and they realized he was missing shortly after that. Took a few more hours to find his body by the local highway, mangled up.”

Zheng frowned, looking down at the boy, at the tale that had been woven into the report that had been provided to them.

“There’s a possibility kids that are less accounted for had been killed elsewhere and no one had taken notice.”

He looked up at Fiona,

“It would probably be best to go to the boarding school and speak with the teachers and administration there, see if there was anyone Hudson was in communication with, or if there are any links to Camp Silverlake. I know there were many who became… obsessed with it,”

knocking on his door, Juliet’s peers pestering her with questions, the scar angry and unforgettable.

the father

zheng.

• aaaaaaaaa
• aaaaaaaaa

• filler tab!
• 
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  mood

  
  
  
  

  nostalgic, businesslike

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  outfit

  
  
  
  

  collared shirt, blazer, trousers, dress shoes (and socks from the ex wife)

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[birth of venus]

A long sigh exhaled from her lungs, measured breaths as Fiona read over the open files that now spread across the table. Fingertips skimmed over printer paper copies, horrors condensed into a neat serif typeface, the facts of the case listed plainly - it was easier to digest this way, easier for the average deskwarmer to skim and file away instead of facing the reality of it all. Photos could be tucked away to the back of the file, tragedies alphabetically sorted and listed within a system. It took Fiona far too long to connect words to faces in her career. Desensitized wasn't the right word - she was so, so used to archival work and translation services, Fiona has organized her life into structures that reflected language and kept her head on straight. But like language, it was amorphous and predestined for change. She had to learn to look beyond pages and words, and put words into use in the field. Tried she had, and succeeded she had not.

Brown eyes stayed fixated downwards, only meeting Zheng's glance for a split second above the brow of her glasses before snapping back to the page. Unease settled in her chest as Fiona followed along his train of thought. There was a frightening ease in which homicide could go unnoticed. The statistics rang off in her head, one by one, and she ground her teeth to keep her mouth shut. One in thirty of youths ages 13 to 17 experience homelessness each year. In the United States, an estimated 460,000 children are reported missing every year. One child goes missing every forty seconds. Who is supposed to know when they go missing? Her stomach churned at the thought. It was already nearly fact in her mind - she did not believe this could be the first, and it seemed Zheng didn't either. Maybe they were beginning to reach a common ground.

She turned then back to the board with the beginnings of their map, red threads of connections. With a red marker, she marked on the makeshift map of the east coast with Townsend's address, and a large circle around the area. Hudson Townsend, a name more fit for a rural town with a population in the hundreds, not for a boy. Americans have the oddest of names, Fiona thought vaguely, before the thought took the shape of a memory, of lips curled in distaste and breath soured from beer. You're an American now, so act like it. The harshest of reminders, of having to revoke her Colombian citizenship in order to enter the FBI, and her ex-husband's insistence at the idea. Nausea curled around the coffee in her stomach, pushing away the stray thought.

"I agree,"

she nodded, lips set straight. Before the day ended Fiona knew she would be elbow deep into the archives. There was so much to grasp, and at one point in her career she would've argued they needed a team for such an undertaking, but now she would not allow herself to shy away from the work. There was a strike of pride there, to prove that she could do this, and do her job correctly.

"If Hudson truly was the first, at least it will give us more insight into his life, who he surrounded himself with, friends or acquaintances outside of school that would not show up in official files. And if we could get an analyst, I would want to search for more homicides in the area, at least a few miles within this range. Considering the area, whoever is responsible for this likely has a comfort zone, I'd want to narrow down the search to unidentified minors found dead before the date of Hudson's death, at least three years back... this is too much of a devolution to be a first kill, I'd say. At the very least, we can get a picture of whatever was happening in his life before he passed."

Of course, this was all easier said than done. And with her demotion, Fiona knew her resources were far more limited. She was already considering calling in an old favor, though, as her eyes roamed over the bare bones of a meeting room they had been so graciously provided.

Good god, she doubted the Bureau would even bother paying for their plane tickets.

"I'm ready to get a jump on this whenever you are."

the linguist

fiona.

• aaaaaaaaa
• aaaaaaaaa

• filler tab!
• 
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  mood

  
  
  
  

  nauseated, motivated

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  outfit

  
  
  
  

  v-neck sweater, slacks, boots.

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

As it seemed was the case with bureaucracy everywhere, traveling as an FBI agent, even for time-sensitive work, required more paperwork than seemed absolutely necessary. The pair of them spent the remainder of their day listing out their intent for this first trip— to go up to the boarding school where the first named and found victim had resided before he met his untimely death to question those that had worked there and perhaps knew him. They had dropped it on Luis’ desk before the end of the day and had been told to pack for the week, the chief intent on giving them the green light to get ready before the powers-that-be decided to put pen to paper.

Indeed, when Zheng appeared the next morning, he was provided a set of keys to use. He wasn’t sure if he was grateful that things were moving along, but took them nonetheless, loading his suitcases and duffle bags into the trunk, shifting the emergency first-aid kit to the side so that Fiona would have room to add in whatever bags she had. A flicker of a thought passed by his head— Wonder if she packs sensibly.

When he had shipped off Juliet to school, they had packed up a singular suitcase of outfits and then descended on the nearby Target to buy virtually everything else, joining in the throngs of parents and children rushing about and yelling at one another for the last mirror, toothbrush, pillow, or tchotchke. It had felt strange, wading through the crowds in dead silence with his daughter, barely any words spoken between the two of them. It was supposed to be a happy occasion, and yet the awkward half-hug they had given one another once she was settled in (nevermind the plastic bags that were still unpacked, the bed that was not made) and raised eyebrow from the stranger that was her new roommate cemented the fact that joy was as limited as it had always been between the two of them.

Shaking off the memory of his daughter (and grimly coming to terms with the fact that even if she had responded with the date of her concert, it was likely that he would not have been able to go anyways), he waited patiently in the parking lot for Fiona to arrive.

the father

zheng.

• aaaaaaaaa
• aaaaaaaaa

• filler tab!
• 
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  mood

  
  
  
  

  nostalgic, businesslike

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  outfit

  
  
  
  

  fbi jacket, white shirt, slacks, shined shoes

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[birth of venus]

Plane tickets had been a ridiculous hope from the start. They were no such luxuries anymore - they were to drive hours up the east coast, in pursuit of answers from the apparent "open and shut" investigation of their first victim. The paperwork had been submitted and pushed through without issue, and Fiona was chewing a hole through the inside of her lip at the idea of sitting passenger for what would likely be hours of awkward silence. Surely her turn driving wouldn't be as bad - it'd give her something to focus on, whatever traffic they'd encounter on the road. At the least, if they did not talk, Fiona would busy herself reading the case files, as it seemed a sin to waste time when in pursuit of such a beastly case.

The case. It bloomed, watercolor ink over stained paper, through her mind and bled into her thoughts as the day slipped into evening. Dinner was a futile thought - she had stared at a supermarket pack of red meat, stomach turning with acid and frozen amid her late night shopping, before opting to eat two croissants and call it a night. A vague memory echoed in her mind as she tore the flaky pastries apart over her kitchen counter later on, living room television flickering an old telenovela - when she'd get like this, lost in thought over every cog and stone of a case, her husband would grow irritable, frustrated. "I hate when you get like this. I could slap you in the face, and you wouldn't even notice." But he could rot, for all she cared. He was rotting, good riddance. She had a job to do, and she would perform to the best of her ability, doubts be damned.

Despite the chaos of public transport, Fiona was bright and early to work, equipped with a suitcase and small duffel. A week on the road felt like a crossroads, a strange gaping chasm that was also a small leap to cross. It had been months since she her reevaluation for field work was approved, and she couldn't help but be tired of staring at her living room ceiling when she couldn't sleep. Maine was six hours away with good traffic - they'd arrive on time for dinner.

"Morning,"

was her quiet greeting to Zheng, hair braided back and out of her face, Bureau-issued jacket thrown over an ironed button up and trousers. Only her glasses were askew, yet she loaded her luggage without complaint, shutting the trunk and patting it twice for good measure.

As she settled into the passenger seat, cradling a small hot coffee in a paper cup, the woman stared out the window as they began to move and silently, wordlessly repeated a prayer to San Miguel for safe travels. It wasn't much an expression of faith as it was a comfort for Fiona's nerves, a prayer her mother would repeat any time they travelled far from home, unsure of when exactly they'd return. With that, Fiona sat back in her seat, switching between observing Zheng from behind her lenses and people watching other morning commuters in their cars, as they ambled towards the highway on ramp in the early morning traffic. A leather messenger bag was by her feet, and from it, Fiona extracted a brown paper bag that smelled of baked goods. Almond croissants, freshly made that same morning.

"Brought something for breakfast, just in case."

It was becoming clear that Fiona understood his standoffish nature, and so it was placed in the center console for him to grab if he wanted, and if not, no harm no foul. Fiona was already straightening her glasses, a manilla folder already in hand, as if it held the answers that would fill in the gaps - long trenches of void that stretched between Camp Silverlake, a tragedy that had affected so many, it appeared like a pulsing white pulpit in her mind with long, spindly red tendrils, connecting the map to each victim and victim's family. There was so much missing to piece together the puzzle. She hoped their endeavor would provide some kind of clarity, some type of understanding that could help one digest the red viscera trails left behind.

the linguist

fiona.

• aaaaaaaaa
• aaaaaaaaa

• filler tab!
• 
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  mood

  
  
  
  

  contemplative, ready

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  outfit

  
  
  
  

  fbi jacket, button up, slacks, and boots.

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

Zheng glanced over at the pastry bag that was dropped between the two of them, but provided no other reaction. It was a gesture of some sort— perhaps a bland acknowledgement of the long road ahead, driven by some societal expectation that she ought to bring food as the newer of the duo. Whatever it was, it sat there untouched by him as he drove, eyes focused on the road, dead silence hanging between them.

He supposed that they ought to turn on the radio, put on some music, anything to fill in the dead air between them, but he was already starting to slide into that space where nothing seemed to happen whenever he had to take long drives in the past few years. The edges of objects seemed to blur together, colors flickering in and out of sharpness, sounds melding into one static chant that he couldn’t be bothered to decipher. When Juliet had been younger and still needed a chauffeur to get her from place to place, he had been careful, hyper-aware of everything around them to ensure that she would arrive safely. The car would be as quiet as it was now, though, the words always lost in the ever present hollow absences.

The first couple of hours of their trip were at least buoyed by the sounds of New York City traffic right outside their own car, the honking and yelling and drilling of a place where far too many were crammed in together, all seeking out something that they believed someone else had. The chaos was a dull roar to Zheng, not even a nuisance to be acknowledged as he inched them out of the congestion and skyscrapers to burst out onto the interstate, and here he did permit himself to inhale, as if the pressure of the city had been compressed right up against his chest.

He reached over for his phone and flicked it to the maps app, already pre-filled with the hotel they would be staying at, a whopping seven hours away still. There would need to be rest for lunch and to swap drivers at some point, and his face almost developed a scowl— why couldn’t they have just flown? What sort of miserable politicking game was forcing agents who had never worked together into a confined space for the equivalent of a standard workday supposed to achieve?

Still, the robotic voice of the navigator started to fill in the dead air, and Zheng drove them along in continued silence for a few more hours, until a rest stop that offered something other than fast food advertised itself on the side of the road.

“We should stop for lunch,”

he finally said, and without waiting for much response, pulled onto the shoulder.

the father

zheng.

• aaaaaaaaa
• aaaaaaaaa

• filler tab!
• 
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  mood

  
  
  
  

  dissociating

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  outfit

  
  
  
  

  fbi jacket, white shirt, slacks, shined shoes

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

♡coded by uxie♡