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mrsjellymunson · 7 months

Text

Hello, Stranger

Pairing: Eddie Munson x gn!reader, Eddie Munson x you, Eddie Munson x reader

For @lesservillain’s excellent Strange and Spooky Stories Halloween writing event for the prompt: ‘Stranger’

Summary: A stranger comes in to buy weird stuff at odd times, and as the cashier at the local hardware store you’re not quite sure what to make of it…

CW: 18+ (MDNI), fluff, maybe SFW though caution for mature and dark themes and allusions to crime and violence. Flirting, li’l bit of awkwardness, some swearing. Both Eddie and reader are in their 20s. Reader’s gender and appearance are not described, they can be whatever you want. No use of y/n. Time period is not mentioned, and any inaccuracies/inconsistencies about history, equipment, American schooling (I’m not from around these parts) or science are deliberate and artistic oh yes they are. No smut, I thought I’d better assess whether I could string a semi-coherent story together before attempting to add that 😆

WC: ~6.2k

A/N: I love gore, revenge movies, murder shows, true crime, science/biology/forensics and DIY (sort of), so this prompt seemed like a perfect fit. There are tiny Easter eggs from The Equalizer, Breaking Bad, 80s crime TV, The Blacklist and John Wick in here - let me know if you spot any! This is the first ‘proper’ fic I’ve posted so I’d love to know what you think. Comments, reblogs and feedback are hugely appreciated and very welcome!

(Also this is my first attempt at dividers too, I hope they worked, I literally have no idea what I’m doing!)

Yep, you were ‘that’ weird kid. Your friends in Middle School had called you a freak because you brought squirrel tails and chicken feet to show’n’tell.

“But look! If you pull this tendon it makes the claw close! Isn’t that cool?!”

No, apparently that was not cool. Especially when demonstrated against your teacher’s finger...

You’d visit a friend whose father was a doctor, begging to read his medical and pathology text books, and preferring to look at pictures of dissected and diseased organs and spontaneous human combustion over braiding your friend’s hair or talking about boys.

And, apparently, scoring a class-topping 9.5/10 for your rat dissection also wasn’t the social merit badge you thought it might be, even amongst your science-abreast academic peers.

So what if you had a strong constitution. And a love of anatomy and pathology. And then compounded it with a love of true crime, particularly serial killers and forensic methods. Surely there were worse things to be interested in?

By the time you’d finished High School you’d learned to mask your enthusiasm, covering your (apparently, socially unacceptable) fascination for all things ‘gross’ and ‘murderous’ (your friends’ words) by choosing science majors like human anatomy and pathology, criminal behaviour and forensics.

People just thought you were clever, nerdy, a scientist. You never let on that you were itching to actually experience some of these things for yourself, in real time, with your own hands…

You work the evening shift at the sprawling out-of-town homewares store on the road running out of Indianapolis towards a tiny town you’ve never been to (Hawksville? Hawking?). You work a few evenings a week plus alternate Sundays, currently in the gardening, kitchen and hardware department. It wouldn’t be your chosen section of the store (in the short time you’ve been there you’ve had to amass a lot of knowledge about tools. Also, how to politely deflect the regulars’ offers to share details of their new projects, lest you get drawn in to a half-hour discussion about u-bends or rawl plugs), but the hours suit you and fit around your college classes, and the employee discount comes in handy when things in your shitty apartment break down or your roommate carelessly breaks something, again.

The final few hours of your shifts were usually pretty quiet, barring the occasional domestic plumbing emergency, or a bored Hawkins housewife coming in looking for batteries.

You don’t mind spending your evenings amongst the tools and machinery, it gives you a chance to flick through the latest copy of forensic magazine or True Crime, or work on your college assignments.

One thing that does make the slow evenings more entertaining is the unusual clientele. A nerdy-looking guy with a moustache needing releasable cable ties, cooking oil and a large plastic sheet at 9.30pm must have an interesting backstory, right?

You find yourself concocting fantastical vignettes about the oddballs that pass through, giving them the most amusing or disturbing story you can think of as they glide by in the night.

The guy with the cable ties? Too easy. Clearly he’s got a ‘special friend’ and an interesting evening planned. TBH, that’s probably not even fictional. You call him Salacious Scott.

The friendly, rotund lady who regularly comes in for for buckets and sawdust? You know it’s Mrs Henderson, who is trying to go self-sufficient and has recently installed a composting toilet, but you prefer to imagine she’s actually a madam with a ‘specialist interest’ playroom, who you brand Madame Urolagnia.

The paranoid guy with a beard and thick glasses who won’t tell you his name, buys a lot of vodka from the liquor store nearby and comes in for plastic pipe, cladding and those slot-together foam mats for kids? He tells you he’s into martial arts and these make safe weapon facsimiles for training, but you reckon he’s actually some kind of government agent. Your imaginary name for him is Mysterious Murray.

One oddball in particular has caught your attention, and not just because he’s easily the handsomest customer you’ve had in a while.

Wait, no, you didn’t just admit that; you just find him interesting, that’s all.

It was his speed and demeanour that had struck you first, rushing in, hand atop the bandana on his head, gangly legs in ripped jeans looking like they were trying to run in two different directions at once, large, dark eyes wide as he’d frantically looked around the store.

“Uh, rope, I need rope, where’d you keep the rope?”

You’d blurted some instructions and he’d headed off, not looking in your direction.

His leather jacket and swinging chains certainly commanded attention amongst the flannel and blue denim that was usually in your line of sight, and you’d found your eyes following him, catching sight of him moving between the aisles from your position behind the counter.

He’d moved towards you with a sturdy knife, a shovel and 3 rolls of duct tape that he’d collected on his way to the checkout, arms full (he didn’t pick up a basket), when you’d ventured,

“I’d recommend the next brand up, if you want something stronger with better sticking power? It costs a little more, but it’s better quality, so overall you’ll use less”, (silently thanking Mr Wheeler’s recent diatribe on the merits and pitfalls of various brands of adhesive tape, remembering the detail because he’d gone so far as to demonstrate by sticking small pieces of it to your skin. It was a weird interaction for sure, but also oddly informative).

He’d lifted his head to look at you and your eyes had connected for the first time. Your eyes widened, and you think you spotted a slight twitch of a smile at one side of his mouth.

Oh, he’s actually really cute.

“Uh, okay, if you think that’s best”.

He dropped his eyes from yours and, after unceremoniously dumping everything else onto your counter, he’d exchanged the rolls and returned.

You’d both paused, you don’t know for how long, and you’d wondered how someone buying rope could be so captivating. But the spell was broken as you’d both spoke simultaneously:

“Did you find everything you need?”

“I’m kinda in a rush, so…”

You’d both chuckled nervously, and you’d set about ringing up his purchases, noticing that a small smile definitely now graced those previously harried features.

He’d paid with a handful of old, crumpled bills pulled from his jacket, politely declining your offer of a bag, and then he was gone as quick as he came, hurrying out into the night with the swish of the automatic doors and a breeze of parking lot-scented night air.

You didn’t know why anyone would need rope and a shovel at that time on a weeknight, but with this particular guy, who you dubbed The Stranger, you found yourself thinking that you wouldn’t mind finding out.

You’d unintentionally spent the rest of that evening coming up with fantasies about that particular customer, although, unusually for you, quite a few of them hadn’t actually involved what was on his receipt…

When The Stranger next comes in he’s after heavyweight garbage bags, more tape and a saw, but seems in slightly less of a rush.

He pauses at your counter for a few moments, making polite conversation, asking how long you’d been working here, whether you were working late tonight.

Is he trying to… flirt? Surely not…

“Thanks for the tape recommendation by the way, it was a real lifesaver. That stuff’s really good, I definitely have a new favourite!”, gracing you with a broad grin (oh fuck, that was a sight) before he was on his way again.

Another time he bought shears, tarp and a large quantity of painting coveralls.

The next trip involved wire cutters, buckets and a wet’n’dry vacuum.

You begin to enjoy The Stranger coming in buying random shit at odd hours. You can’t quite make him out. He buys a lot of gardening and decorating-type equipment (plus he’s almost single-handedly keeping the cleaning product aisle in business), but he dresses like neither - always in tight, ripped jeans, shredded band tees and his signature leather jacket. You’ve never seen him covered in leaves or dirt, and his clothes have zero paint on them. Those coveralls must do a really good job…

You build up a rapport of sorts with him. There’s always a polite, verging on friendly greeting between you, and you let him know when there’s special offers on tarp and garbage bags, and what days there are deliveries of latex gloves and those painting coveralls he seems to like so much. (Sometimes you’ll even stash a few of the latter for him under the counter if there’s a holiday weekend coming up, knowing Hawkins’ husbands will be out in force and not wanting him to miss out.)

But the ‘fantasy vignette’ and forensically-inclined parts of your brain begin to overlap, and start to tickle your imagination. It’s almost as if each selection of items he buys could be used to either dispatch someone, or dispose of a body. But that’s crazy, right? He seems way too nice to be a serial killer. And mob activity in this part of Indiana? Nah. That wouldn’t happen around here.

Would it?

It’s a quiet Friday night when you next see The Stranger. He’s picked up bolt cutters, pliers, some metal trays, a sledgehammer, a mop, and, most bizarrely of all because you’ve noticed he’s not usually one for personal safety equipment, ear defenders.

Again, he’s basket-less, barely able to contain the items piled up in his arms. They topple as he arrives at your counter, and some end up partially covering your open magazine.

“Shit, I’m really sorry about that.”

“Oh, no problem, honestly. I probably shouldn’t be reading on the clock anyway”, you say, slightly bashful, as you move the crumpled magazine out from underneath his items, smoothing it down. The Stranger’s eyes are locked on your hands, and as they move across the page they reveal a headline about a recently apprehended serial murderer and some photographs of a variety of grisly-looking, bloody weapons.

“That looks… interesting, watcha reading there?”, he remarks, leaning in.

“Oh, this? It’s about a new guy they’ve just caught over in Europe. He’s fascinating, he used such a variety of tools and methods that at first the police didn’t even think to link the crimes. Ingenious, really, when you think about it. So creative!”

You look up, and The Stranger is regarding you with an unreadable expression. Does he think you’re weird, babbling on about this murderer like you admire him? Or is he actually impressed with your enthusiasm?

“Sorry, I’m a true crime buff, it’s a bit of a pet topic of mine. And I’m studying forensics at college, so it’s kind of like schoolwork too.” You chuckle nervously, arms moving in front of your body and shoulders subtly curling in on yourself in embarrassment.

The Stranger seems to sense your discomfort, and shakes his head, making his curls bounce, smiling and chuckling along with you.

“No, yeah, uh, me too with the crime thing, actually. Well, not so much the reading, I’m more of a hear-it-through-the grapevine, hands on kinda guy.”

‘Hands on’? WTF does that mean?

“Oh, cool, coolcoolcool”. Smooth…

As you scan his items your fantasy vignette tickles your brain again.

No, don’t be silly…

You bag everything up this time, insisting it’ll be easier to carry, handing them to him and taking his crumpled bills.

Your curiosity is more than piqued and you can’t hold it in any longer. Feeling bold, you ask, “So, what’s all this for?”

“Huh?”

“The- the stuff. What’re you doin’ with it?”

The Stranger looks at you through his lashes, not speaking.

Shit, you’ve overstepped, he’s gonna leave, find a different store and you’ll never see him again.

“Uh, well, some people I know out near the big city are, er, planning a, uh, party, with a few of their, um, associates, and I think it’s gonna get pretty loud, hence the earphones. I, uh, don’t usually get involved in stuff until later in the evening, y’know, after all the main fun’s over.”

You look a little quizzical.

He thinks for a moment.

“I tidy up, but I sorta make it a bit more fun for everyone. Bring a bit of pizazz to a usually mundane part of the evening. Kinda thing.”

You process for a few moments. The ‘Mob Cleaner’ vignette you’d fantasised about screams loud and long into your cerebrum.

Nerves give way to curiosity, and you brashly ask, “So, what exactly is it that you do?”

“I’m kind of a cleaner, I guess? If someone has a problem that they’ve had dealt with and they wanna make the cleanup more, um, interesting, I’m the guy they call.”

Probing further, you clarify, “So you don’t make the, uh, mess, you just clean it up. Creatively?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

He explains he’s still quite new to the job, and kinda fell into it. His boss and his mentor are both encouraging, saying his USP is truly original (Unique Selling Point, he explains when you look confused), and that he definitely ‘has potential’. He’s learning a lot as he goes, but his enthusiasm seems to be appreciated and he wants to do well.

“All you really need is a strong stomach, imagination and a flair for the dramatic!”

He illustrates his last point by making jazz hands by the sides of his head, offering you a generous smile. Yeah, you can see how that particular part of the job comes easy to him.

“Oh, well, it sounds like fun. I hope you have a very successful evening!”

“Okay, well, thanks again! I’ll see you.”

You watch him leave, noticing in particular how well his jeans fit tonight.

What’s that saying again - I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave…?

You shake your head to rid yourself of the lewd - and crazy, yeah, totally crazy - thoughts you’re having about The Stranger and encourage yourself back into work mode.

As you busy yourself and tidy your counter you notice something small and white on the floor in front, about the size of a credit card. It must’ve fallen out of his jacket as he fumbled for cash.

Cash. Always cash. Never credit card, never cheque, never — anything traceable…

You round the counter and pick it up, thinking you’d save it and return it to him the next time he comes in. It’s a business card. The text is unfussy and clear, but glossy, bold and slightly gothic. It’s a company name above some text and a pager number, but it may well be the most intriguing piece of writing that you’ve ever come across:

E.M. Creative Disposal Services, Apprentice to Mr Kaplan & Associates, For dinner reservations call: (555)-666-6969

It’s another quiet night, but there’s already a couple of people at the counter when The Stranger arrives. Mr Sinclair needs a pipe wrench and a plunger (you don’t envy him his evening), and Mrs Wheeler has come in to buy double-As for the second time this month (although this time she also added gardening gloves and secateurs to pad out her basket. Not that you’d judge either way).

You spot The Stranger’s curls before anything else, bobbing in the fluorescent lights as he comes through the entrance doors. He spots the queue and immediately joins it, glancing towards the counter and visibly brightening when he sees you behind it. He’s carrying the sledgehammer he bought last time. As you start to ring up Mrs Wheeler’s batteries you see him examining the head of the hammer. Frowning slightly, he moistens his thumb with his tongue and rubs at one corner, then polishes the same spot on the front of his jeans.

He reaches the counter, receipt retrieved from a bundle pulled from inside his jacket.

You greet each other with a quiet ‘hey’. He continues, “I, uh, wanted to return this. Can I do that?”

“Yeah, sure, lemme ring it through the till. Can I ask why? Company policy,” you shrug, almost apologetically.

“Sure, uh, well you know that phase ‘using a sledgehammer to crack a nut‘? Turns out a sledgehammer does indeed obliterate the, uh, nuts… Let’s just say it wasn’t really suitable for the project I had in mind. I think I need something…”

Lighter? Easier to aim?

“With a little more finesse?” You venture, eyebrows raised, hoping you haven’t completely misread things.

“Yeah, finesse! I like that”. He beams widely at you tilting his head slightly, revealing the most gorgeous dimples you’ve ever seen, and it’s all you can do to hold on to the edge of the counter while your knees gently fail beneath you.

“Umm, you want some help choosing?”

He readily agrees and you direct him to the hammer section, both of you discussing the merits and disadvantages of various models as you choose ones from the display and encourage him to feel their weight and balance. He seems impressed, clearly not expecting you to be so well-versed in the finer aspects of hardware.

“Y’know, you really know your tools!”

You squeak out a bashful, “Thanks.”

You slip into self-deprecating mode and brush off his compliment, saying, “It comes with the territory I guess. I’ve picked up a lot working here. Plus I just sometimes browse the shelves, thinking of nefarious uses for random household objects.” Hurriedly adding, “For school, of course!”

You cringe a bit, thinking this must make you look like some kind of weirdo, but The Stranger takes it easily in his stride, commenting, “You know, you’d be surprised to learn just how much of a marketable skill that can be.”

You chat some more and he eventually chooses a smaller, less unwieldy hammer, and after he pays you part ways again.

You still desperately want to ask him exactly what he used that other hammer for, what ‘Creative Disposal Services’ actually means, and what the hell have dinner reservations got to do with any of this?

The next night you see The Stranger he saunters in at about 8:30. He has a different energy about him this evening, seeming both more relaxed but also somewhat on edge. He’s not in his usual ratty band tee tonight, you notice, and no leather jacket either. Instead he’s wearing a what looks to be a clean, maybe even pressed, electric blue raglan shirt with black half length sleeves. You spot a crimson guitar pick necklace that you’ve not seen before dangling from a twinkling silver ball chain, resting against his sternum and resplendent against the blue.

Observing his forearms for the first time you notice how attractive - and (oh!) tattooed - they are. Toned and veined, their shape and his mix of tattoos are shown off to perfection by that sleeve length, and a leather and chain bracelet that adorns one powerful-looking wrist. The glint of his chunky silver rings accentuates his large hands that peek out of his jeans pockets as he wanders over to you. He’s still in tight black jeans, but they seem a little… neater than usual. And he’s not in a rush. It’s almost like he’s not working, maybe even making an effort.

You feel a frisson of excitement - could it be that he’s come in just to see you?

Exhibit A, m’lud: Scrubbing up well.

He heads straight for your counter, and you greet each other with your characteristic friendliness.

He spies the hefty text books you’ve spread before you, and leans onto the counter to get a closer look.

“Watcha workin’ on tonight, Doctor Quincy?”

You swallow at the cute nickname, voice cracking slightly as you start to tell him about the assignment you’ve got. It’s about evidential tool marks, and how pathologists can identify what’s been used as a weapon or tool of dismemberment.

The Stranger tries to play down his interest, but his demeanour betrays him as he presses for more details, even asking if he could maybe read the finished piece.

That’s weird, right? People don’t read other people’s science essays for fun. Do they?

But you agree, promising to bring him a copy when it’s done.

The conversation lulls, and The Stranger twists the pad of one of his thumbs against the counter, seemingly a little nervous, though you can’t imagine what about.

To break the silence you slip into work mode, but for some reason drop your voice a couple of octaves and murmur,

“So anyway, what is it that can I help you with, sir?”

Wait, is he blushing?

“Um, oh, uh, I actually don’t have a shopping list today, I was, uh, just gonna browse, I guess.”

He backs away from your counter, giving it a few rhythmic slaps with his fingertips before turning away from you and ambling off into the store. He returns a few moments later with a small hatchet and mid-range fold-out knife, plus two rolls of his now-favourite tape.

“You can never have too many of these, amirite?”

He gives you that dimpled smile again, and you feel your stomach do a full (though anatomically impossible) 360° flip.

Observing his lack of focus and comparatively small selection of items, you wonder if he really needs those things, or whether he’s just picking them up as an excuse to come in to the store. Your chest heats up a little at the thought.

Exhibit B: Small, possibly unnecessary purchase. The evidence is mounting up.

Seeing the hatchet, your eyes light up with enthusiasm as you remember something.

“Hey, we just got some new stock in that I think you might like, y’know, if I’m not overstepping or anything.” You finish with a nervous chuckle.

You smile at him nervously through your lashes, skin heating even more in case this is suddenly all a bit too familiar.

He grins, responding, “Sure, go ahead!”

Your smile broadens and relaxes as you turn away from him and walk to the back shelves, crouching down and retrieving something in your arms.

Standing quickly and turning, you notice his eyes widen and immediately flick up to yours, a slightly alarmed expression on his face.

Exhibit C: Was he checking you out when he thought you wouldn’t notice? (Also, is it getting hot in here?)

With a loud thunk you lay two (frankly, terrifying-looking) multi-tools out on the counter in front of him. One looks like an oversized, overspec-ed Swiss Army knife, and the other could easily pass as a prop from an exorcism-themed horror movie. You over-excitedly explain the features of each, saying, “This one has a hammer and an axe, plus screwdrivers, pliers, a saw, wire cutters, a magnesium rod”, you look up at him quickly and ask, “do you ever need to start fires? Plus, it has…”, you wave your hand dramatically over your favourite part of the item, like you were showing it off on a shopping channel, and stretch out the syllables of the final two words for emphasis, “…a bottle opener…”. You raise your eyebrows and grin widely, like this must surely be the deal breaker.

The Stranger laughs, throwing his head back with deep-throated barks from the centre of his chest, and then he chuckles a little, bringing a strand of hair over his cheek and a curled finger to his lips. You’re slightly distracted by that glimpse of his extended neck (god, you want to gnaw at it), and that laugh? You wish you could’ve recorded it somehow.

You quickly compose yourself and continue, switching to the ’horror prop’ product, “And this one has fewer features, but I like it for its simplicity, robustness and practical charm. It’s an axe, hammer, nail puller and pry bar. And it even has a rubber coated handle, so you can still use it safely even if your hands are wet. For, y’know, whatever reason…” you finish, slightly abashed.

“Aw, Pumpkin, this is the kindest thing anyone’s done for me in a while, thank you.”

Pumpkin. PumpkinPumpkinPumpkin. Exhibit D: A term of endearment!

He takes some time to examine both articles, testing out their various features, hefting them in his (large, strong) hands (stop it!).

“I love them. Y’know what, I can’t decide. I’ll take both. What’s the damage?”

You visibly brighten, a squeak of delight that you hope he didn’t hear inadvertently leaving you as you puff up with both his term of endearment and your ever-growing customer service confidence.

You check whether he’d still like the other items he’d brought to the counter, and apart from the duct tape (“You really can’t have too much of this stuff!”), he allows you to reshelve the rest.

He watches, enthralled, as you wrap his new tools in the store-issue brown paper reverently and carefully, as though you were wrapping an expensive gift in a fancy department store, the pair of you sharing bashful looks and half smiles as you work.

As he hands over the now-unsurprising crumpled bills and takes his change his hand drifts closer to yours, glancing his fingers over your palm and lingering for just a moment. There’s a little hitch in your inhale, and you think you see his ears redden a little.

He gathers up his purchases in his arms carefully and gently, and he backs away from your counter slowly.

“I guess I’ll head out then. Uh, I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, I guess you will, uhh-”

“Eddie. My name’s Eddie.”

“Okay, I guess so, Eddie.” You say his name slowly, like you’re testing out the syllables in your mouth.

You continue speaking, offering your name in reciprocation.

“Yeah, yeah I know your name, it’s kinda on your little badge there.” A tiny nod indicates the plastic rectangle pinned on your apron strap near your left shoulder.

Your cheeks heat again. “Right, of course. Ha!” You inwardly cringe. Well, that could’ve gone better.

He’s still backing away, getting dangerously close to an intricately balanced display of colourful children’s watering cans. You’re about to say something, but he turns just in time, ambling towards the illuminated exit with a mumbled, “Okay, bye then. Thanks again for these…” lifting the packages in his arms, and turning to look over his shoulder a couple more times before he finally reaches the door and disappears into the parking lot.

“Hey, d’you know anything about wood chippers?”

It’s been a week since you’ve seen The Stranger Eddie, and you turn abruptly to find him walking towards your counter.

His question throws you out of your stocktaking zone (you’d been focussing on ordering enough plastic pumpkin-shaped buckets for all of Hawkins’ kids this Halloween), but you quickly slip into customer service mode and ask for more details.

Eddie explains, using mostly his arms, that he needs one that, “throws everything everywhere”. You finally work out that he means the type where you feed stuff into a hopper on one side and the shredded debris is forced out of a raised chute on the other (as opposed to the more gravity-based ones where stuff is fed into the top and simply falls out the bottom).

He’s passing it off as being involved in some avant garde student art project, a performance piece involving feeding a load of wood and, uh, paint, yeah, paint into a wood chipper and having it spray out the other side. He blusters that the students are trying to make a point about climate change, or maybe it’s deforestation, he can’t seem to decide.

He explains that the piece is to be performed indoors, that there’ll be quite a few people present, and that he also needs a large quantity of tarp and coveralls because it was likely to make a huge mess.

This is the clincher. You’re absolutely convinced there is no art project, and what’s go through that chipper is more likely to be a human body. Or, given the amount of effort being gone to, and Eddie’s flair for theatrics, probably more than one.

“What size branches?”

He looks at you, confused. “Huh?”

“The, uh, limbs. What size will you be shredding? Some of the smaller models won’t cope with thick trunks.”

He swallows. His eyes meet yours, and he licks his lips. You can’t help but stare at those full, pink… Look away! Just look away!!

He subtly smirks, slowly moves his hands across the counter, and, gently taking hold of one of your hands in his, loops his other finger and thumb around your wrist.

“Um, definitely thicker than this…” - he extends your arm towards him, and moves his other hand slowly up your skin until he gets to your upper arm - “…and maybe a little thicker than this, too.”

You hope he can’t feel the burning sensation that’s erupted up your arm. You know he can’t possibly hear your racing heartbeat or detect the adrenaline that’s coursing through your veins, but you’re acutely aware of both just the same. You briefly ponder whether you’ll need to get a fire extinguisher from aisle 7.

“Umm, how about I show you what we’ve got?”

Composing yourself, barely, you take him to the large garden implements section, explaining that for larger trunks and limbs he may need something towable.

Under the guise of working out whether various models would be suitable, you take the opportunity to dig a little and find out what kind of vehicle he drives. It’s a van, so roomy, practical for carrying a lot of equipment that needs to be kept out of sight. Well, this all tracks.

Also, your brain helpfully suggests, it could potentially be romantic, a private little hideaway where you and he could… No! Stay on topic, you’re at work for god’s sake!

As you debate the various choices you find you’re occasionally leaning into each other, shoulders and elbows lightly bumping, you stealing glances at his chiselled jawline when you think he isn’t looking.

Eddie eventually decides on a mid-size towable model, and as you arrange for it to be delivered to the collection bay he bids you goodnight and disappears out to his van.

‘Art project’, huh? I don’t think so…

You don’t see Eddie for a couple of weeks after that, and you begin to wonder whether he doesn’t like you. Maybe you went too far, did you bore him? Did you frighten him off? Did he feel pressured into buying those gadgets or the expensive wood chipper?

Maybe he’s finally realised you’re a weirdo, like everyone at school eventually did?

Trying to get out of your funk you steel yourself and ask your department manager, Keith, whether he’d seen an odd, metal-looking guy in the store at all.

“Nah, not recently, but someone like that did come in a few weeks back, asking about when you’d be working. Something about your product knowledge helping him with a job, or whatever. I told him your schedule, I hope that’s ok.”

So you haven’t missed him, and maybe he’s not avoiding you. Good, that’s good. Exhibit E: He’s been asking about you?? Oh fu-

You’re startled out of your reverie by the sound of someone slapping two plastic packets down onto the counter.

“Oh, hi Mrs Wheeler, let me ring those up for you…”

On his next visit it’s clear Eddie is restocking his cleaning supplies, and he’s even deigned to use a small trolley this time to transport the heavy and bulky items.

As well as multi-surface cleaner, mops, cloths and some heavy duty gloves, you notice his trolley also contains numerous bottles of chlorine bleach.

“Big clean-up job tonight, huh?”

“What? Oh, yeah, I guess so. I need to leave the place without any trace of the, uh, performance this time.”

“Depends what you need to clean up, I guess. Y’know, chlorine bleach doesn’t necessarily get rid of everything.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, it’s fascinating, common misconception by the way. Chlorine bleach gets rid of visible stains, so that’s great if your main concern is aesthetics. But you can still detect haemoglobin, if you have access to the right tools and solutions.”

Eddie looks bath engaged and confused.

“A-heema-whatnow?”

You snicker.

“Haemo-, y’know what, never mind. Blood, basically. So actually, oxygen bleach is your best bet if your biggest concern removing all traces of, let’s say, blood and DNA. Whilst it doesn’t necessarily remove all the marks, it does degrade everything biological to the point where it’s undetectable. At least, with the tests we currently have.”

Eddie leans his elbows on the counter, giving you his full attention, resting his cheeks on his knuckles and pushing his dimpled grin up even further. Emboldened, you talk at length about haemoglobin, DNA degradation, specialist chemical solutions and alternative light sources.

He stays there, rapt, until you come to a natural stop. Just before he straightens up he quietly mumbles, still smiling, “Fucking incredible”.

With a deep breath he returns to the aisles to procure both types of bleach, pays and heads out into the night with a cheery, “Wish me luck!”

The cleanup must’ve gone well, because Eddie’s back a few days later and is making conversation.

“Hey, um, I remember reading once about some guy in England, years ago, who, like, melted people. You ever heard of that?”

You contemplate for a moment.

“Oh, d’you mean the Acid Bath Murderer, John Haigh?”

“Acid bath? Yeah, that sounds familiar.”

“Y’know, that’s actually one of my favourite case studies! It was one of the stories that first got me interested in true crime. 1940s England, dude thought he could get away with it if there was no body. Nope, sorry! When I first heard about it I thought it was really inventive, though he actually took the idea from a French guy who’d already done similar. Makes you wonder how many undiscovered dissolved bodies there might’ve been before and since, huh?”

You wax lyrical for a little while on the relative merits and disadvantages of the dissolving of human bodies in acid, even relating an anecdote about how your lab partner once chose the wrong combination of acid and beaker type, finishing with, “Hoo-boy, that was a mess!”

You become a little awkward, aware of how long you’ve been talking and the possibly-disturbingly-creepy level of detail you’ve gone into, though Eddie doesn’t seem to mind and presents somewhat like he’s paying attention in a chem class. Regardless, you decide to change the subject.

“I meant to ask last time, how did that wood chipping project go?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, really good, thanks. Y’know that advice you gave me about the chipper came in real handy. It was quite the show!” He looks gleefully at you, flashing that brilliant smile. A few small fireworks quietly explode in your innards.

“I’m so glad! Did the client like it?”

“Oh yeah, baby, they were thrilled!”

Baby. That’s new. You like it, and you add it to your growing mental filing system labelled ‘Evidence that Eddie might like me’. You can’t even remember what letter you’re up to now, you’re just enjoying stuffing it fuller every time he graces you with another morsel.

“They even gave me a nice bonus, for my ‘theatricality’.” He begins to lift his arms, but stops himself, resisting doing the jazz hands things again, reasoning there’s only so many times he can do an impersonation of a court jester before it puts someone off. “Said they’re gonna recommend me to their buddies too.”

More softly, and a little bashful, looking through his lashes he adds, “Kinda wish you could’ve been there, actually.”

Oh my, is he blushing again?

“Yeah, me too. I’d love to see you work sometime…”

“You would?”

Okay, he’s definitely blushing.

He leans in over your counter, close, so he can say in a low voice,

“Uh, just so we’re on the same page, you know what I do has nothing to do with art projects, right?”

Holding his gaze, and with your voice surprisingly steady, you swallow before confirming, “Yes, Eddie. I know.”

He huffs out a stuttering breath, and the air between you seems to heat.

He lifts one hand and rubs the back of his neck nervously.

“Hey listen, uh, I dunno if this is a little too forward, or weird, or y’know, whatever,” He’s rambling now. It’s adorable.

“I was kinda gonna ask you if you wanted to get milkshakes sometime, but, uh, maybe you’d actually wanna come out on a job with me? I’ve got one coming up on Sunday that I could really use an extra pair of hands on. I could pay you of course, y’know, for your time.”

You want to blurt out that, for him, you’d willingly burn the world and everyone in it for free. Instead, you smile wide, and settle for,

“Well, my tutors are always encouraging us to get real world experience…”

“Great, so I’ll pick you up at the end of your shift?”

“Sure, Eddie. I’ll look forward to it.”

You’re both grinning, stuttering messes.

“Great! Great. Uh, okay then, I guess I’ll see you Sunday?”

As he turns to leave, you stop him with one final question.

“Just one more thing Eddie. Should I bring my own coveralls..?”

If you got this far, thanks so much for reading!!

Comments and reblogs make my world spin, do let me know what you think.

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daily-hanamura · 8 months

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#p4 #p4g #persona 4 #persona 4 golden #hanamura yosuke #yosuke hanamura #i was always surprised when I saw fics featuring yosuke as a forensic scientist but i guess thats on me for not having seen this exchange #i always thought yosuke's grades were all generally in the gutter because of his comment during yu's study session with him #now i just feel like hes underachieving because hes just not good at studying #i think its really cute that hes good at subjects that demand rote memorisation though #i guess that means yosuke has a good memory? it really fits in with his personality overthinking #yaboy probably lies in bed at night thinking about an embarrassing comment he made 10 years ago #also i think its adorable that any of yu's answers are fine BUT he really likes it when yu and him are alike #I wanna pinch his cheeks gdi

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p-taryn-dactyl · 10 months

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way down we go (i)

a/n: this was not requested but I couldn't for the life of me get the idea out of my head. this can be considered a dark!fic bc of the events and plot points so please read the warnings before reading! I hope y'all enjoy! also, I already have part 2 written so this is one series you don't have to wait weeks for an update, only a day 💜

word count: 1.4k

warning(s): graphic depictions of crime scene/dead body - murder - blood and gore - this isn't really a happy fic - I'm not the fondest of writing things that show serial killers in a romanticized way so this...isn't going to end well - people die in this guys - if you do not like blood or anything to do with death do not read this - even though I absolutely love forensics I am in no way an expert and all my info comes from my singular forensic class and all the forensic files I watch - this is fiction plz don't come for my inaccuracies - (reader also does profiles bc why not)

pairing(s): forensic scientist!reader x serial killer!Agatha

prompt: your relationship was picture perfect. you're happy and in love but one crime scene brings your love crashing down around you. (I'm not good at descriptions)

You knew you would never escape this feeling.

The chills that ran down your spine as you walked through the scene, the only sounds being camera shutters and shuffling footsteps of your team, the way the air was suspended around you, imitating the way you held your breath. You forced your emotions into a box and shoved it to the back of your mind, your eyes turning from sympathetic to analytical, necessary for your job. The only one who noticed the change was your Crime Scene Photographer, Darcy. She pursed her lips at you, tilting her head towards the bedroom, acknowledging your shift into your role of head CSI.

This scene was different than the others, you immediately noticed as you crossed the bedroom threshold. Blood took over the wallpaper, staining the costly vintage pattern. The body lay face down on the bed, stab marks on the back, mostly shallow and jagged, indicating a struggle had occurred. Your thoughts were proven as your eyes scanned over the blood spatter. This victim fought back, causing a fight your killer hadn't anticipated.

She was the tenth one this month, the bodies being found more and more frequently, the killer getting more confident.

"Y/N."

Your name sounded behind you, making you turn around. Lead Detective Jimmy Woo stood with a grimace on his face, eyes expectant. You nodded as you brought him over to the side of the bed, where you could see the wounds better.

"This one is different, Jim. The scene is a mess, the body mutilated and uncharacteristically stabbed, not to mention the lack of sophistication."

You turned from the bed and walked over to a pile of cleaning supplies, crouching down and cocking your head to the side. Your eyes widened when you noticed what had caught your eye. Pulling out your tweezers from your toolkit hanging by your side, you called out to Jimmy, asking for an evidence bag. As he handed it to you, he asked an important question.

"Then how can we be sure it's the same killer."

Without hesitating you answered.

"The victim fits the profile. A woman in her early to mid 50s, lives alone, estranged from family," you nodded your head to the dusty photographs on the dresser, now decorated by dried drops of blood, "and the cleaning supplies, the same ones we know for a fact were used at the other scenes."

As you bagged the strand of hair, your mind thought back to the other crime scenes. The bodies of the victims lying in bed, dead for days or weeks at the longest, the rooms cleaned meticulously, the only mess being the crusty blood stains from the single slit mark on the women's neck. You thought that those scenes were the worst, but now as you looked around, you knew you hadn't seen the worst of humanity yet.

Handing Jimmy the evidence bag, which he passed on to the officers on the scene, you stood up.

"Forensics is done here, all pictures taken, swabs done, and now all evidence is bagged. Help me roll the body over."

Your plastic gloves were already soaked with blood as you and Jimmy rolled the victim onto her back. Jimmy choked on what he saw. You merely sighed. The slit on the victims neck was jagged but shallow. The scene played out in your head. The killer did the normal business of coming from behind with the knife, but this one struggled, making the cut not deep enough to kill. The killer pushed the woman onto the bed, trying to suffocate her with the pillow but she kept struggling. Finally, the killer resorted to stabbing the woman until the act was finished, even some post-mortem. Then, instead of having time to clean the scene and position the body, something unexpected happened. Someone visited the victim, the young next door neighbor who felt sorry for the elderly woman who never saw her family. The killer had to rush out the back, leaving countless pieces of evidence behind and ruining weeks of planning.

"Let's get her in a bag, make sure to contact the family and ask for her will and wishes upon her death."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the drive back to the station and your team's lab, you allowed yourself a moment to text your wife.

You: Hey hon, I don't think I'll make it for dinner. I might stay the night.

You let yourself slip information, a breach of protocol but you trusted Agatha.

We finally have enough to catch this bastard.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sounds of reporters never stopped as the hours passed, your team logging and entering every piece of evidence from this scene and past. You ran every single strand of DNA evidence you had through every database you had legal access to. Monica Rambeau, your secret weapon when it came to, well, weapons, made multiple 3D replicas of the suspects height and body weight, using the angles of the blood spatter and the stab wounds. You and your team had discovered a separate blood profile in the mix, a break that had you desperate for a culprit. Now you sat in front of the equipment in your lab, the rest of your team resting while evidence was being processed and while the detective went over profiles and case reports, looking for details they might've missed.

You kept yourself from drifting into sleep by scrolling on your phone. When you opened your messages, your brow scrunched together. Agatha hadn't responded to your text, leaving it delivered. Frowning, you started typing but realizing the time, you thought she would be sleeping. Maybe you missing dinner tonight had struck a nerve with your wife. Sighing, you slumped in your chair, practicing your apology in your head. You knew it wasn't common of you to miss dinner, so maybe she had something special planned for tonight, even if it was nowhere near one of your birthdays or an anniversary. But that didn't mean anything, maybe it was a surprise date night. You were so lost in your worry, you almost didn't hear the ping from your computer indicating a match. You read the results, a hint of surprise at the determined sex of the killer. You started to type some notes in an email for Jimmy when your computer indicated it had found an 94% DNA match in a database. You paused, your hands still hovering over your keyboard as the killer's picture came up on your screen.

Time suspended around you, suffocating you as your vision tunneled. The buzzing of your phone broke you out of your stupor and with shaking hands you opened the message from your wife.

aggie❤️: no worries about dinner love, how's the case going?

Your eyes flickered from the text to the picture on your screen, your wife's cold blue eyes staring into your soul. You hesitated before you answered.

You: not well. everything came up a dead end, ig it's back to square one.

You put your phone face down on your desk, quickly exiting out of the page, your wife's picture replaced with your background. Which did nothing to sooth your rapidly panicking state, as it was your wedding photo. You slammed the power button, relief flooding your body at the black screen. With shaky hands, you cradled your head.

This can not be happening. You thought, pinching your arms, desperate to wake up from this vivid nightmare.

This

Can

Not

Happening.

Your phone buzzed with your wife's reply and you read it through blurry vision.

aggie❤️: im sorry to hear that hon. text me when you're on your way home <3

Normally, the heart as the end of the text would send butterflies ablaze in your stomach but now all it did was sending waves of nausea coursing through you. Were there signs you missed? Something you overlooked through the haze of being in love?

Were all these women dead because you were too blind to see what was in front of you the whole time?

You stood up suddenly, your chair crashing behind you. Darcy rushed in, concern lacing her actions.

"Y/N, are you-"

"I have a migraine. Staring at a screen for too long and all that." You cut her off, even giving a slight chuckle at the end to play it off. Darcy still looked concerned but let you gather your things and walk out of the lab.

"If anything comes up, I'll call you!" she called out, not knowing her words caused your stomach to hardened.

As you went to walk out of the station, you noticed Jimmy had recklessly left his gun and holster on his desk.

You walked out of the station, pulling your jacket tight against your body as you got into your car.

No one had noticed Jimmy's gun was no longer on his desk.

a/n: ok I really hope y'all enjoyed this bc ive been waiting to write it for forever!! part 2 will 100% be out tomorrow bc ive already written it lol. I like writing true crime/mystery fics or fics with the same vibe so hopefully I did it well!! thank you for reading and I love all of y'all so much <3 sorry I haven't been writing that much

#agatha harkness #agatha harkness x reader #agatha x reader #serial killer!agatha #forensic scientist!reader #dark!fic #my writing #agatha harkness fanfic #agatha harkness fanfiction #agatha harkness x you #agatha harkness x y/n #agatha harkness x female reader #agatha harkness imagine #agatha harkness x fem!reader

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95-6qrsk2rx9uq42069nnnnnjthewolf · 1 year

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Afflicting tim with Gender and In Your Twenties because, well. (+ jaytim) (idea 1)

Tim is in her early twenties and fresh out of an identity crisis that she has a feeling she’s been putting off for almost a decade at this point. It’s a good feeling, but its also new and solely hers. She doesn’t feel like sharing. She wants to get acquainted with herself. (A few people know. Tam’s actually the first person she told. She helped pick out a cocktail dress and they went out to a fancy bar and had a few drinks and just hung out. Tam held her hand and didn’t say anything when Tim cried on the taxi ride home. Kon, Bart, and Cassie know. Their hugs are as tight and reassuring as ever.)

Therese Dho has a modest, comfortable apartment the bats don’t know about, full of posters and comfortable furniture, strewn with piles of clothes and disassembled tech. It feels homey, like she can breathe, in a way that the nest didn’t and it's jarring to realize how contained she’d been keeping herself even in her own space. She’s about two months into her new job as a forensics technician at the GCPD, and thanks to her terminally untied converse and habit of tripping into cops wandering into the forensics labs, evidence tampering is on the decline. She’s sarcastic and blunt the way she couldn’t be at WE, letting her results speak for themselves rather than waste energy soothing egos that don’t deserve it. It’s not like she’s the only colorful character there, and she is happily absorbed into the department (not so)lovingly referred to as the lab rats, despite her relentless attempts to afflict her own organizational methods on the other techs. (It’s almost like you want samples to wander off she says, looking directly at the tech she knows is on Two-face’s payroll. He is sweating. Therese’s supervisor, who adores her new grumpy tech and does not want her new favorite to get shot, is also sweating.)

The day she’s called into the commissioner’s office, she contemplates exiting out the window and making for the roofs right there in broad daylight. Closing the door to his office feels like the sinking pit in her stomach when a mission’s gone south and she’s failed to consider a crucial contingency. Between the lab coat, reading glasses and her hair being grown out long enough for the loose fraying braid its in, Therese is telling herself there’s no way Gordon recognizes her, but he’s also giving her a long hard look she doesn’t know how to interpret. And then he’s telling her that her supervisor is singing her praises and he has high hopes for her. And to maybe stop being quite so brazen about calling out her coworkers and just let Gordon know instead. There may or may not be a comforting hand on her shoulder, she’s slightly too lightheaded to tell. By the end of the meeting she still can’t tell if he knows who she is or not, but he’s not demanding she pack up her desk and get out so Therese will take it. On her way back to the lab, the detective who occasionally brings her coffee and lets her ramble about the fallibility of bloodstain pattern analysis winks at her as she passes, and Therese feels herself blush. He’s tall and broad, more vanity muscles than somebody really putting their body to use all day, but not dirty according to what digging she’s done, and if he’s just flirting with her in the hopes of expediting his cases, at least he’s smooth about it. Her being attracted to men didn’t blindside her quite as badly as the whole gender thing did; less something she buried deep deep down and more so something she’d simply let herself glance past, though she would also like to be done Realizing things about herself. Not that she’d ever start anything with him anyways, for multiple reasons.

She’s making a life she thinks she can live with, though. The lab goes out for drinks and trivia night. She’s making time for friends and hobbies. Helping teach coding and computer literacy at her local library branch. Red Robin is still mostly a solo act; the person she’s shared patrols with most frequently in the past year, of all people, has been Red Hood. So long as she responds to requests for assistance, either in the field or behind the scenes (mostly remote), the bats seem content to leave her be. She doesn’t poke too hard at the question of whether her Major Life Changes have been noted or if, so long as she’s still providing support without a fuss, anybody has even noticed. She’s clear headed enough these days to know it's a two-way street and she’d been pulling back for years. She’ll probably always be involved with vigilantism in some way, but the network she’d put so much time into reinforcing around Batman and Gotham was always meant to keep on growing without her. She’s not hiding, literally underneath their noses every time one of them responds to the bat signal. If anyone really wanted to find her, they could. She’ll help whenever they ask for it, but the rest is for her now. She’s earned that.

And then one day on a coffee excursion she watches Jason Todd get hauled into the station, cursing up a storm, cuffed and incandescently angry between two nervous cops. She hears the grating voice of one of the more unpleasant cops in the station gloating that they caught this creep dealing to kids and he should be grateful that its the cops that got him and not the red hood, didn’t you hear that psycho kills people over shit like this? Therese deserves a medal for not bursting out laughing right then and there, though it gets less funny when Jason snarls that they know damn well they’d been the ones harassing the kids, and planted the bags on Jason when he got in between and told them to fuck off. She’s gotten behind the cop and plucked a little baggie from his back pocket very clearly not labeled as evidence by the time they’ve tried to slam Jason chest-down onto a desk. The whole bullpen is watching when Therese asks if this was the cop’s personal stash or that he’d decided to keep this guy’s product for himself. Jason is also watching, and possibly falling in love, when he sees this girl not even flinch as the cop tries to lunge at her before getting hauled back himself. It’s a big flurry then but he finds himself loitering awkwardly until he can talk to her, and asks if he can buy her a coffee as a thank you. He notices the styrofoam cup in her hand after the sentence is out and manfully doesn’t wince.

Therese is too focused on the high pitched ringing in her ear to figure out if Jason has already clocked her and is using coffee as an excuse to grill her on what the fuck she’s doing. She rolls her eyes and tells Jason he should check up on those kids. Excuses herself since her labs are almost done and she needs to dodge her supervisor because she refuses to fill out another incident report, leaving jason mildly heartbroken at the front desk and the secretary giving him a sympathetic look, saying ‘you know how those science types can be. Therese may not have even realized you were asking her out.’ And, well, maybe he can try one more time tomorrow. At least check in and make sure she’s not facing any retaliation from other cops.

So he shows up the next day at what he assumes is a reasonable time for a lunch break with a coffee and a few pastries in hand, receiving a thumbs up from the same secretary for his troubles. Except when Therese comes out to see why she was called to the front desk there’s such a clear flash of panic on her face at seeing him that Jason is already apologizing and turning for the door. He makes it out and is shortly followed by the sound of the door opening and closing again. Therese is there, wearing a very familiar steely expression, stomping past him with the curt order to follow her in a lower register that he’s heard before. She guides him to an alley and he’s pretty sure he knows where this is going but also what if he is actually about to get shanked?

“Jason” is the stern response to his hesitation, and oh yes, jason knows that tone.

“Look,” he says, joining her in the shade of the building, “if you’ve got an undercover thing going on in there, I swear I didn’t know. That trip to the station yesterday really wasn’t intentional.”

“I’ll read you in if you swear to not tell the others until I give the okay,” is the response and her expression is giving Jason absolutely nothing. He actually can’t remember the last time Tim was this blank with him and its unsettling.

“Come on, baby bird, you're the only one of 'em I even talk to. How many times have you kept my shit off their radar? Of course I won’t go blabbing” Their rapport had only been getting better with each collaboration over the last couple years, built off of Red Robin’s stone cold professionalism that Hood could trust to see them through city wide crises in a way that he couldn’t working closely with Bruce or Dick. From there they’d gained a real respect for each other, Tim always willing to hear him out if Jason also promised to listen in turn. They’ve got similar mean streaks and senses of humor, with open invitations to any respective safe houses and first aid kits. Red Robin had given Jason a tenable source of backup in Gotham, in a way he hasn’t felt like he’s had since coming back. Jason had just been thinking last week that he hadn’t heard from Red in awhile, and that they were due for a check in. Tim shouldn’t have to ask Jason whether whatever this is will stay between them; it should be a given. He doesn’t hold onto those feelings of offense or fear for long as Therese starts explaining, though. This isn’t a case, it's her life. Of course this happens on her terms. Of course he’ll follow her lead and he says as such.

“I do have one question, though, and if now isn’t the time you got full permission to dump this coffee on my head.” (I would not need permission but thank you, she mutters. Jason gamely plows on) “I didn’t recognize you yesterday. I just saw this little spitfire stand up to a cop almost twice her size on his turf to keep me out of trouble and not flinch. I came by today to ask if she wanted to go out for a coffee,” Jason is briefly reminded of the secretary’s previous comment as Therese stares at him. “I’m asking you out on a date, T.” And there’s the blush he’s managed to pull out of her once in a while, from previous light flirtations that were only mostly jokes she’d never seemed to reciprocate. But she is now, agreeing shyly to try it out.

And it just, settles. Vigilantism is in their blood at this point, and they’re each other's backup. But they help each other be people too. There’s routine, bringing Therese her lunch at work, farmer’s markets and trivia nights and local theater productions. Kids at the skatepark who hassle Therese to teach them tricks. Jason comes home gushing about how well the kids he tutors are improving. They support each other through the bad days. An up and coming drug dealer gets it into his head that all the other entities in Gotham have someone on the payroll, a pet geek on the inside of the GCPD should be easy enough to bribe or intimidate. T kicks his enforcers’ faces in and while they’re trying to breathe through the blood pouring out their noses, Red Hood comes up behind them with a choice. Either they can deal with him, or he’ll drop them off at the police station, where they’ll spill everything their boss is up to. They can even say Hood did it and not a 5’6” nerd in a star trek hoodie. Once they’re among the other failed henches, they make sure everyone knows that this one is Hood’s insider and anybody who tries anything will not be living to regret it.

They go home and Jason motherhens over Therese recovering from top surgery. T draws up new plans to reinforce Hood’s helmet. It’s all one and the same. They look out for each other.

#jaytim #tim drake #jason todd #dcu #transfem!tim drake #dead end ideas #obligatory forensics is still subject to bias and is still a tool cops use to reinforce the status quo i dont think T would stay for long #she just needed something familiar but still removed from the shadow of the family #i think she'd get even more disillusioned from the inside and make way too many enemies as a whistleblower for it to be tenable longterm #theres a different version of this ramble thats case fic with less gender and more fake relationship but it just fell flat #even only as an outline #i acknowledge this is nothing and nothing happens but a guy can pine for stability through something loosely associated #with the 2009 red robin comic run

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