CSI: Amestris holding place
Since the kinkmeme proved a very fertile writing environment (and er, this computer remains highly unstable), I thought I might try something new :) Ch 2 will be posted in installments as comments to this post, if anyone is interested in seeing the raw sewage product, feel free to pushpin along XD
"Greed were right," Hughes's tinny voice echoed up from the receiver dangling down next to the bed. "What was left of our mystery meat special was doped so hard it's a miracle he didn't OD first. We're talking chemical soup. Just about everything you've ever heard of, this poor guy was on it."
"'Guy'," Roy said muzzily as he reached for the receiver with his non-throbbing hand. "They ID'd it then?"
"Unfortunately no. Definitely a John Doe though. Genitalia was intact beneath the excised tattoo."
Roy rubbed at his face, trying to piece together anything other than how bright it was. His apartment faced the south side of the building, and no matter what kind of curtains he experimented with, somehow the sun always seemed to find a way in.
"Strange, considering the rest of it," he managed. "A sex thing, maybe?"
"Yeah, I thought so too, but the coroner says no trace of sexual activity. Doe was clean as a whistle."
Roy shook his head before he remembered, Hughes couldn't see him. Damn, but the light hurt. The half-empty bottle of whiskey, miraculously still perched on the edge of the filing cabinet, reflected it back in a concentrated glint. Mocking him.
"That doesn't necessarily mean anything," he rasped, into the right end of the phone this time. "The Chopper didn't have sex with any of the girls he took."
"That's because he was making them into sausages," Hughes said. "Cannibalism's not a kink. At least, dear God, I hope it's not."
"He did keep their clothes to jack off in. And their scalps."
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Silly Hughes. If it exists, someone's getting off on itXD
This fic is awesome, amusing and morbid and dark. I like the whole homunculus=drug family mafia or somethingXD. glad it was Sloth who bit it, he's the least interesting. I wonder, if Roy is half-xingian here, does that mean Izumi is too? (since, you know, they look alike)
The detail and world building here was impressive. Roy is coming across as very multilayered too, and I can't feel sorry enough for Ed. How come he ended up like that? But god, he's also hot
Greed is AWESOME, I know we'll be seeing more of him, he's probably a renegade of our bad guys. It can't come soon enough, his next appearance. And Lyra! Good mix of verses ;-)
Now I wonder if you'll have the first anime homunculus appear too...specially first anime!Sloth aka Mommy Elric (and crazy Kid Wrath); it would certainly make things even more interestingXD
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"...okay, sex killer's not out," Hughes admitted a few seconds later. "What about the tattoo, though? That still screams 'gang' to me."
"Or something else organized." Roy slid off the edge of the bed carefully, testing to see if his legs would hold him, then bent down to open the top drawer of his filing-night stand. He pulled out a thick dossier labeled in Xingian, his private stack of information related to the eastern families.
"Our little friend tells me there's a new player in town. Prince of the Yao clan, has that same snake tattooed on his hand. You got anything on him? Something we could make a positive ident with?"
"I'll check," Hughes said. "We don't have a clear picture of ethnicity yet - that's how bad that mess really is - but if it's the hand, I don't think he's likely to be our DB. Coroner's office says the tattoo was carved out of the guy's back. Right shoulderblade, if you can believe it. Mr. Doe had Armstrong-caliber muscles, that's why it was such a chunk."
It was indeed sounding less and less likely that Edward's mafia pal was the mince meat from the alley, but for the sake of thoroughness, Roy felt compelled to stick with the lead until it was definitively disproved.
"The prince could have had multiple tattoos. Fullmetal didn't get as in-depth a report as he usually does. He only saw the hand."
"...right."
His voice seemed distant suddenly, as though he were preoccupied, or perhaps it was merely a glitch in the wire. Roy ground his ear harder against the speaker, hoping it wasn't his shit-for-wires connection dropping out again.
"Hughes?"
"I'm here, sorry. I'll look into the situation with the coroner again, ask if there were any other signs of ink."
There was the brief sound of papers rustling; probably Hughes adding the task to one of his famous to-do lists. Roy took the opportunity to flip through his mafia family tree, looking for the detailed entry for the Yao. Since transferring back to Central, he'd had less cause to use his Xingian, and it took him a second to remember that Xingian was alphabetized by vowels first, then consonants. Right, there it was - "Yao", with a name character that meant "handsome, elegant gentleman". Somehow, Roy suspected the Prince Yao who Fullmetal had 'partied' with was neither elegant nor a gentleman.
"We should contact East City, too," Roy said as he scanned down the entry. "I've got a few things in my creep crib here, but East PD's got a lot more dirt on the Xingian families."
He paused to trap the phone against his shoulder so he could pick the sheet up and stare at the tiny characters more closely.
"Looks like the name we're looking for is 'Ling'. Written as 'clever'."
"'Clever'," Hughes murmured back, in the vacant way of a man taking dictation. "We'll see about that. Anything else?"
"Not much. Mother's an unknown, Yao Jie...wait no, this is interesting..."
Roy squinted harder at the page, tracing over the tiny lines again and again, but the characters remained exactly the same. He let out a low whistle.
"Looks like our little prince really is royalty," he said. "His daddy is the current head of the Ku family."
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"And assuming I'm a rube who doesn't know anything about the incredibly fascinating lives of inbred Xingian gangsters...?"
Not that Hughes was anything of the sort. He was probably irritated that Roy had information ahead of him. Normally, Hughes was the go-to man for facts, figures, records. Roy allowed himself a small smile against the phone. In a way it was nice to be able to one up him.
"They're the family, Hughes. The Ku practically own the Celestial City; their leader might as well run the place."
"Would that be better or worse than the Party?"
Roy snorted at the tired joke in spite of himself. Xing's fledgling socialist "government" was an endlessly acceptable target in Amestris; whether or not Amestris's own bumbling parliament could agree on something for more than two seconds, at least it had never suggested such consistently embarrassing social projects as industry quotas for products no one wanted in the first place. The infamous mountain "stair to nowhere", a hundred kilometer road connecting one treacherous, uninhabited region to another still rated at least one weekly jeer on Amestris morning radio programs. No matter how bad things were at home, the Party always made for a great downward comparison.
"Laugh all you want, the Ku have been around since before there was a Party. Their leader holds an incredible amount of social clout - they refer to him as 'Emperor'. Whether or not this guy turns out to be connected to our case, we can't ignore him. This prince needs to be on a fast train out of town yesterday."
"I'll alert Organized Crime," Hughes said. "I can get Lt. Archer on it."
Roy didn't think it was possible for Hughes to hear the face he was making over the phone, but his best friends' senses were nigh on uncanny.
"Before you say anything," Hughes warned. "I know you hate his guts, but he does do good work."
Roy sighed, twisting the phone cord hard around one finger, trying not to give into the urge to bite it in half.
"He's a self-righteous prick, is what he is. I've worked with him before, absolutely no flexibility. Very I'm-right-and-you're-wrong, once he gets set on something, he goes at it like a bulldog."
"Which gets results, unfortunately. As much as I don't like it either, he's free right now. Would you rather our prince set up shop while we mess around waiting for someone else to be reassigned?"
"He wants my job, I know he does," Roy complained. "Oily bastard keeps dropping hints about how surprising it is they transferred me, when so many qualified and deserving candidates were right here in Central."
Hughes seemed unmoved by his whining, however.
"Then we'll just have to prove the Chief made the right decision, by solving this one quick," his friend said in that same irritatingly optimistic voice. "So we have one potential angle to look into. What about the drug connection? For the corpse to be that loaded, either our Doe or the killer had to have a heavy dealer. Or was a heavy dealer."
"Fullmetal might have some names. Get me a copy of the toxicity report and I'll run it by him."
A flash of Fullmetal's desperate, desperately pretty little face went through his head again, highlighted beneath a sad little lantern, and his fingers tightened involuntarily around the phone cord.
"If there's one thing the little shit knows, it's how to use drugs and trash lives."
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This time he was sure he wasn't imagining the reticence in his friend's voice, though he could certainly guess at the reason. If Hughes were here in person, Roy had no doubt he would be giving him that one disapproving look over the top of his glasses -- for more than just Edward, probably, but that was beside the point.
"Hughes," he said, annoyed. "Out with it."
The resulting sigh hissed harshly through the earpiece; for a moment Roy had to pull his head away.
"You know my feelings, already," his friend sighed. "Roy, he needs to be in a home."
"Which he would just run away from. Again," Roy bit back. "Unless you want to keep him under watch at your house? I'm sure he'd be such a good role model for Elysia."
A bit harsh, but it was the truth. They both knew that for all that he was concerned, Hughes wasn't in a position to take care of a teenage addict, and damn it, the last thing they needed right now was to be On About Edward. Roy wondered cynically if he should be on the lookout for a truckload of new photos; Hughes's Daddy Guilt only seemed to kick in whenever Elysia had hit some new developmental milestone.
As if Roy had never wondered where Edward's proper parents were. They had both tried to dig up anything they could on the theoretical "Elric" family; even Central's archives had yielded nothing. For all they knew, Elric was another street name, just like Fullmetal, maybe the kid hadn't started as an Ed, either. Identity was unreliable in the fickle world of the underground.
"We could at least try," Hughes continued on doggedly. "Another rehab, something, it just seems like such a waste. He's so bright..."
"Sharp enough to cut himself, you mean," Roy snapped. "Hughes, can we do this later? Please?"
The pounding in his head had increased until it was nearly unbearable, it was a miracle he could think at all.
There was a long moment of static and hiss, and then Hughes's voice was back again, professional as always, if slightly less cheerful.
"All right. Meet you at the station in thirty, to go over paperwork?"
"Depends. Will there be coffee?"
"Pot's on right now. Cretan dark roast."
"Be there with bells on," Roy said, and hung up to begin the complicated process of locating his uniform pants from the chaos on his bedroom floor.
He tried not to look at the half-empty whiskey bottle, or imagine what it would be like to drain it completely.
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The rest of the work day slipped by in a predictable blur of bloodsplatter analysis, toxicology workups, and usual-suspects sheets, none of which provided any more insight to the identity of the human refuse in the alley, much less who had left it there. As a young officer, Roy had once envisioned Detective as the highest of callings. A glamorous life of the three b's, bourbon, babes and bullets, just the way the pictures showed it. The truth, he thought sardonically, was closer to the three d's - dossiers, documentation, and dullness. Assuming they ever narrowed their search for the suspect--the pool for which currently encompassed the majority of Central's four million residents--they would first have to build an exhaustive paper trail to get a judge to even consider a warrant. In an area of bureaucracy and litigation, "hot pursuit" was defined as a cup of coffee with a dossier for a coaster.
"Hey boss, we due for a break yet?"
Roy looked up from page twenty of the fifty-seven page coroner's office report (conclusion: yes, the DB died from having his skull bashed in) and blinked until Havoc came fully into focus.
"Depends," he said, squinting at the time on the wall clock. Maybe Hughes was right, he really ought to consider reading glasses.
"Does the lovely Lieutenant Hawkeye approve?"
"The 'lovely Lieutenant' would approve of you finding some new adjectives when you attempt to flatter me," Riza Hawkeye said as she dropped another book of mug shots down over Havoc's shoulder, giving everyone on that side of the conference table a start. "Your lack of creativity is getting rather tired, sir."
"I thought the alliteration was a nice touch."
"Not when you've used it six days in a row. Excepting Wednesday, which if I recall correctly, there was an attempt to make 'her ladyship' happen. Given the choice, I suppose I do prefer alliteration."
Typical Hawkeye; her eagle-eye missed no detail, inside the office or out. One of the few female lieutenants in an often very macho and competitive department, Riza Hawkeye had gotten to where she was by simply being beyond reproach. Her paperwork was always in on time, her marksmanship damn near legendary. She, along with Havoc and Breda and Fuery and Falman, were part of a core contingent of officers he trusted absolutely, both to do their jobs competently and to perform them uncompromised.
"You are due for your second fifteen, though," Hawkeye informed Havoc. "And you probably need to take it, otherwise you won't have a chance."
It was a lot closer to five than he had previously thought possible, Roy conceded with another bleary glance at the clock. Not that the traditional work day mattered much to him and Hughes. As full detectives, they did not have to log exactly forty hours from nine to five every week, on the condition that when a tough case came up, they were willing to sacrifice their nights and weekends to stand around looking at smashed heads. Hughes used this advantage to take his daughter to and from playdates and recorder practices. Roy mostly tried to sleep in.
Havoc pushed away from the conference table, made a show of pulling out his smokes. His piercing blue eyes locked with Roy's, hot with some urgent message.
"Mind if I bum a light from you, boss?"
"Sure, I should have a lighter in my--" Roy paused when he saw Havoc's eyebrows hitch up. "--pocket," he concluded, and rose as well. Lieutenant Hawkeye watched them both closely, but said nothing, for which he was eternally grateful.
"Be back in ten," Havoc waved amicably to his fellow data miners, and beckoned for Roy to follow him down to the alley out back.
The patrolman wanted him alone then, fine. Roy was willing to accommodate. He'd been on the force too long, worked with these people too much, to risk ignoring what any of them had to say.
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