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eliaskahtri · 10 months

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Unraveling Part 1 || Elias & Regan

TIMING: July 9th, right after the events of A Death on the Dancefloor LOCATION: Mushroom Circle PARTIES: Regan (@kadavernagh) and Elias SUMMARY: After the murder at Murshroom Circle, Elias begins to get too close to the truth of the fae while investigating the scene with Regan. CONTENT WARNINGS: Dead body

Regan’s gut plunged to her feet when she read Elias’s message. A homicide was standard faire. But one at The Mushroom Circle was a disaster. There was no cutting Elias out of things, not when it was his place of employment, and she had a gnawing feeling that the decedent in question either wasn’t human, or fell victim to someone who wasn’t. Either way, there was going to be a lot of explaining things away. It was an approach that ran counter to Regan’s preference for honesty and staunch desire to not omit anything from her reports, and every day Elias seemed closer and closer to boiling over with frustration.

She swallowed back the buzz against her skin as she pushed through the door. “Elias?” She called out, looking around at the flurry of activity. A couple of her death investigators were already at work, along with a gaggle of cops; as she walked by, she heard them talking about costumes and “nerds”. The door to a back area of the bar was wide open with investigators rushing in and out, and Regan knew that was where the secrets would lie. That was warning enough: this was going to be a difficult death to obfuscate. As forensics collected evidence and examined the scene, her investigators cordoned off the cadaver by the bar, leaving it to her and Elias. The victim – and Regan felt secure in calling them that – looked to be an ordinary woman from the waist up. But below that, goat-like legs were sprawled across the ground. The woman’s long dress had gone askew in her death and revealed all, but she was none the wiser, her face peaceful and still. Upon closer examination, her ears were long and floppy, like those of a goat. So jarring were the legs that it was almost easy to miss the deep red pool of blood she was lying on, and the clear wound in her chest it sprung from. Regan’s stomach felt full of lead. This was going to get dangerous very quickly unless –

Elias. Oh no. She bent down and swiftly adjusted the decedent’s dress so it concealed her legs, but she knew the damage had already been done. At least the police seemed to think she was some nerd in a costume. But autopsies always revealed the truth. Regan turned to her technician and tried to stuff away the fear that was capturing her mind. The worst case scenarios. Elias knowing everything. Everyone knowing everything. Bad. This was bad, and she needed to salvage it somehow. Regan took a deep breath but failed to fully bridle the panic. Her voice was strained and stilted. “Did – did you already speak to the police about what you saw? Did you see it? The death? Are you fit to work right now?” Her eyes drifted to the decedent’s dress, and what she knew was under it. And there were still her ungainly ears peeking out from her mop of curly hair. “I want to get her out of here immediately.”

It had all happened so fast. One second there was yelling and people clearing the area from the fighting, then there was a woman laying on the ground with a blade sticking out of her chest. Elias had been but inches away, and he had heard the awful sound it made as the knife entered the woman’s flesh. He had been stunned into stillness as the assailant quickly ran from the building, pushing past him so hard that he nearly fell over. He didn’t know what to do. While people flooded over to the victim to try and stop the bleeding, to resuscitate her, but to no avail. He did the only thing he could, he reached out to the one medical examiner he knew. It felt like a lifetime and no time at all since he had reached out to Regan.

He was still stock still as he looked down at the body. He had tried to intervene, but he hadn’t gotten there in time. He could have stopped it, he could have done something. The security guard was busy talking to the police that had arrived on scene, and he found himself in the middle of the dancefloor that now played no music, hugging his arms around himself. He blinked, and Regan was there. He watched as she pulled down the victim’s skirt, and took a deep breath. He had work to do. He couldn’t let himself act like this, not now. Shaking his head a few times, he then walked over to the doctor and pressed his lips together. “I’m in shock, but I’ll… I’ll be fine.” He insisted, nodding his head as he bit down on his lower lip.

“No time to learn than the present.” He spoke aloud, realizing that this was the first time he would be working with her. He wasn’t on solid ground mentally at the moment, but he knew the last thing he should do would be to do nothing at all. They would just question him and then send him home after, and then what would he do? Stare at a wall in his room and try to will it away? No, he wanted to work. He had seen what had happened, he could help. He wanted to help, to at least try to assist in getting justice for the poor woman. “Let’s get to work.”

Elias was blanching, clearly in shock like he’d said, and Regan had no patience for it. Fortunately, she didn’t need to communicate that. Despite the fright Elias had just been through, witnessing what had transpired here and potentially feeling guilt over the ordeal, his work ethic was showing through and Regan felt assured in her new hire. “Yes, you will be fine. You couldn’t have done anything. What you can do now is seek justice and provide closure.”

She moved over to give Elias adequate room and gave him a clear, calm look, hoping her composure would rub off on him. Inside, though, worry seeped through her. He was too close to too many secrets, quite literally, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to handle having him at the autopsy. Or how she was going to handle the autopsy at all, for that matter. “This isn’t ideal for your first case, given that you actually witnessed the death, but the silver lining is that most everything will be easier from here.” More words of encouragement than she’d probably ever given before.

She reached for her kit and opened the latches, then handed Elias a clipboard and pen. “I’m going to do a brief external examination of the body, and I’d like for you to record findings. Eventually, you will learn how to do this yourself.” Please don’t be weird, she thought, as she slowly rolled the woman’s shirt up. Its folds were thick with congealing blood, and a stab wound was plainly visible and surrounded by bubbling, blistering tissue. Iron, she knew immediately.

Regan stared at the burn for a moment, wondering again how she was going to explain this, then collected her scalpel from the kit. The answer was not right now. “I’m making a small incision in the upper right abdomen.” She announced, assuming Elias was listening but not turning back to confirm. “Normally I would take temperature rectally, but –” The woman’s legs. She wasn’t about to let anyone get a better look at them. “We will use another, more precise method today. The most accurate way to determine body temperature is by probing the liver.” With the incision made, she inserted the thermometer and waited. “96.6 degrees.” Regan said. She hated that she was surprised it was an expected finding. “Livor mortis cools the body at the rate of about 1.5 degrees per hour after death. But we need ambient temperature, too. Can you take that?” She looked over to Elias now, wondering if he was in any state to be processing information, but this was as good a test as any for him. “There’s another thermometer in the kit. While you’re at it, I want you to grab tweezers and baggies and comb through her clothes for any fibers. ” He would like that, she thought. He needed something to do, some way to apply his silly human emotions.

His brain was buzzing as Regan spoke to him. He heard her, but he was having a hard time focusing. Focus, Elias. She was right. He was going to get this woman justice, and it couldn’t get much worse than this. At least, he certainly hoped not. Taking the clipboard and pen, clicking the pen and putting the pen to the paper. He watched as Regan began to work, and began to write. Stab wound in the abdomen, and… what almost looked like burning. He wrote that down, too. “That’s… odd.” He murmured aloud, brows knitting together as he thought of what was on that blade that could have possibly caused such a reaction. Was there some kind of poison on it? Could an allergic reaction react in such a way? There were so many unknowns that didn’t make sense in his mind.

Then, Regan was going through what she would do next. Elias was still trying to understand what the burning around the wound could mean. He wanted to speak, but he didn’t want to ask the wrong thing and make a wrong impression, so he kept all running thoughts to himself. He recorded the temperature as she announced it and the method she had used to get the temperature. He hoped he was doing this right. His racing thoughts were interrupted the moment Regan had asked him to grab something. He perked up from his furious note taking and nodded his head, putting the clipboard to the side and picking up what she had instructed from him.

Thermometer in hand, he took the temperature of the room. “75.4 degrees.” Elias spoke, then wrote it down on his notepad. Then after putting on a pair of gloves, he took his tweezers and bag and began to meticulously look over her clothes. A lot of short hairs began to become apparent to him as he worked. The cosplay legs? He thought for a moment, remembering that the woman had a pair of very well-crafted animal legs. He frowned, thinking of how horrible it would to be to die so suddenly in the prime of his life. Dancing with friends only to be stabbed. Boom. Life cut short just like that. He blinked a few times, trying to not think in such a way. Not right now. He’d deal with it later. He had to deal with it later. He was working.

“Animal hairs,” he muttered aloud, looking over to Regan with a raised brow. “Her legs…” Elias began to say, thinking about it. They were costume legs, surely they’d have to remove it when they got to the morgue, right? And her horns, they hadn’t been knocked off in the fight. That was curious too. “This is coming from her legs,” he finished.

Her instincts were right – the more Elias had to do, the more he seemed capable of moving past what he’d just experienced. That was good, and Regan could keep him busy. Maybe the same would apply during the autopsy, and he’d be too preoccupied with his tasks to question the bigger picture. Let him be so lost in the trees he does not see the forest.

“Yes, her legs. I’m not surprised they shed. Just… try and collect the stray hairs you can.” Her stomach already lurched the lies she was about to tell, and she had a feeling it was only the beginning. “I’ve heard that some people use real animal hair when making these types of… props. That may be why they’re so convincing. Some farm could have supplied them.” She swallowed down the burning sensation in her gut and thought of Conor, who was worth protecting.

When she was satisfied they’d documented and procured all they could from the decedent, she flagged down a couple of investigators and told them the cadaver was ready for transport. “Don’t jostle her around much. A quick in and out.” She watched as the body was lifted into the bag, a flash of the decedent’s legs and hooves showing as she was carefully placed within. The investigators did not comment on it, and Regan allowed herself to untense a little. She gave Elias a careful look. What was he thinking? He worked side by side with people like that faun, and hadn’t figured it out yet. One body wouldn’t tip the scales, right? But she suspected there was a lot going on in his skull right now, and it filled her with foreboding.

Regan clipped the kit shut and picked it up, but something occurred to her. They couldn’t leave just yet. They weren’t done. Elias had said this part of the bar was where all of the “cosplayers” were, and that meant it could be brimming with secrets, things that should never fall into human hands. “This place… what else is here?” What was hidden from the police? What should be hidden? “We might be missing something.” She hesitated. Normally she would insist on doing this herself, but Elias worked there anyway. He wasn’t going to suddenly understand how deep the water around him was… right? Regan looked over her shoulder at her death investigators leaving, and the remaining police conversing. “Is there anything here that you’ve always found strange? Books, jewelry, things like that. ”

Something wasn’t sitting right with Elias as he plucked off the hairs. Real animal fur? No, that couldn’t be. And if it was, that was some serious dedication to the craft. Even he didn’t want to go that far, and he’d been at the hobby for years. The closer he looked the more he began to realize it didn’t seem like they were fake. How could they look that real? And she wasn’t even going to a convention or anything, she was just existing during a night out. Something wasn’t adding up.

He tried to squash the thoughts as he kept picking up hairs, but he was rapidly running out. Stray clothing threads, more of the hairs… why did it seem so real? Elias’s thoughts were interrupted by Regan asking him questions. “What do you mean strange?” He asked, frowning. “You mean besides the dude that lights himself up?” He asked, raising a brow. “When everything in here is designed to be strange, nothing really sticks out.” He confessed, shrugging his shoulders.

He tried to think if anything had stuck out to him. After such a shock to the system with everyone dressing so intricately, nothing stuck out to him. He frowned, turning to Regan. “I’m sorry, but nothing comes to mind.” He admitted with a shrug. He wasn’t sure what she was getting at, why would it matter if there were strange objects in the bar? “What does that have to do with anything?” He suddenly asked, brows furrowed in confusion at her line of questioning.

“Someone who lights themselves up?” Regan’s brow wrinkled, but she decided that was probably the least strange thing that occurred behind those doors. It was remarkable that Elias was able to pass all of it off as cosplay and parlor tricks, and Regan harbored a seed of jealousy that she occasionally found was nurtured by his naivety. “That’s fine. I simply wanted to ask so we didn’t miss anything. You’re familiar with this place, which is something no one else here can say.” That thought lingered on her lips after she’d spoken it. As the decedent and MDIs disappeared through the doors, the air of death growing thinner, solitude wafted in to take its place. The buzz of activity had died down and only a couple of police lingered along with the two of them.

“I’m going to take a quick look around, if you don’t mind.”

Regan circled around the bar and wandered to one of the tables. What was it like being in here when it was full of people – of monsters? They liked the feel of each other against their skin and in their chest. To Regan, being surrounded by fae was like being followed by a cloud of biting gnats; nothing like the comforting embrace the others described. Did fae find this enjoyable? Did they find peace and kinship here? She traced one of the wooden whorls on the table top and let her eyes settle on the adjacent wall. It was full of celtic symbols, scenic paintings of forests and quaint towns, and entirely devoid of photos of people.

She scanned the floor. The other walls. There was nothing. Of course the patrons here knew how to hide their secrets. The only thing they couldn’t manage to do was keep their dead away from human hands – or maybe they were banking on later intervention. She blinked slowly at the thought. Would they find her? Would they find Elias? Regan looked over at him and sighed. This mess was only just beginning, wasn’t it? It was at least time to abandon this place… and in Regan’s case, she didn’t intend to return.

“You’re right. There is nothing there that matters.”

Regan turned away to hide the discomfort swimming across her face, a response to her stomach tying itself in a knot. That wasn’t a lie, damn it. She clenched her fist, letting her nails bite into her skin. “Are you ready?” She asked Elias, completely uncertain that she herself was prepared for what was awaiting them at the morgue.

#Unraveling Part 1 #threads #kadavernagh #t;kadavernagh

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