TLV: IC Inbox

[statementfuckingends]

You've reached Timothy Stoker, leave a message at the tone and I'll get back to you.

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[immurality]

[No one should be too close, but for good measure, the next blow is comes slightly more from the side, smashing Tim's jaw.]

[statementfuckingends]

[There's another sick crunch as Tim's voice cuts abruptly off, and in short order after that his body goes limp against the floor. Not quite unconscious, just barely, but the pain threshold too high to stay aware for it.]

[immurality]

[When Tim clearly isn't capable of fighting anymore, Tik-Tok puts the rock down, out of sight with but with a soft click against the spa's easy-to-clean floor. Misty had her knife taken away - a knife, anyway - but if Tik-Tok could snag enough scrap metal to make a shiv or two, surely she could as well. And it has the advantage of being small. He probes Tim's jaw with gentle fingers for a moment, checking to be sure that it's damaged enough to prevent Tim biting down with enough strength to tell the difference between metal and bone under his synthetic skin. He's not worried about the taste - the differences are subtle enough for blood to drown them out thoroughly.

It's a bit of an awkward angle, but he gets the little blade into Tim's mouth and starts to cut, his other hand on Tim's jaw, ready to stabilize or punish, or both.]

[statementfuckingends]

[Tim's eyes are half open but fully out of focus when Tik Tok shifts his head, and apart from a fluttering blink when he gets fingers pressed along that unmistakably broken jaw, a quiet noise that could be an exhale or a wince, he doesn't react.

He can't bring himself to do much of anything right now - he's hanging onto consciousness by the thinnest of threads, floating in a dull red haze of pain. Every move, every probing touch sends a crackle of white-hot pain lancing through him, threatening that tenuous connection. He can't even identify what parts of him hurt anymore - his good hand twitches, though, when Tik Tok forces his jaw open, wider than he can tolerate without another quiet whimper - but when that blade enters his tongue, it's all reflex.

His entire body tenses and his jaw tries closing, tries as weakly as it's able, and his hand lurches up, grabbing whatever part of Tik Tok it can find like a prayer.]

[immurality]

[He squeezes Tim's jaw right on the the fracture, and drags the little knife harder. It's going to be a hacksaw job, but that's alright; the brutality is the point. Misty so desperately wants to be taken seriously. Tik-Tok can almost understand. But he doesn't let it make him stupid.

He's never really done something quite like this before, he muses as Tim struggles. His personal murders have always been over quicker, one sharp jab with a blade or a bullet in the eye, or Keith's neck cracking at the bottom of the stairs. Even strangling the chess man was quicker - or it felt that way, anyway. Perhaps just because he was more personally invested.

He puts a little more weight on the soft back of Tim's skull, already hot and tight and swollen under the blood.]

[statementfuckingends]

[The squeeze on his jaw gets a louder noise, but it's entirely impotent, and Tim's groping hand goes slack immediately. When he tries to inhale, breathe through the blackness encroaching on his tunnel vision, there's a wet gurgling and his chest hitches abruptly as he coughs, splattering the tiles with a viscid mess of blood and saliva. The next breath is worse, a wet, gurgling rattle that can't find air around the hot, metallic pain clogging up his throat and dripping miserably from his mouth.

But it's the weight on the back of his head, pushing hard on something exposed and cracked that sends such a vicious band of uttery agony across his mind that that final thread finally, quietly, snaps; Tim's eyes roll back in his head and he goes completely limp. ven his weak wheezing fades out, as the mucous mix of his own blood and spit dribbles pathetically out of his mouth.]

[immurality]

[Alone at last. Tik-Tok resists the urge to whistle. He rolls Tim over to finish taking the tongue, neat and quick. The tongue goes into a small jar of tea tree oil to preserve it. He borrows the rag Tim was using and finishes wiping down the counter before cleaning his shank, hands, and face, then changes his clothes and shoes, wrapping everything up in a dropcloth from his studio. He doesn't bother moving the body. If reports of the Death Toll are accurate, Tim won't stay dead long enough for any kerfuffle about being missing.

The bundle of bloodied evidence goes over the side. He considers holding back the crocs, washing them imperfectly, and mixing them in with Misty's, but he's not sure about the size, and besides, she seems too fond murder mysteries to do something that sloppy. Even if she expected, wanted him to know, she'd clean anything she kept with bleach just for the pageantry of it, he imagines. Aside from her trophy, of course.

He waits in the empty room next door, in 806, until he hears Misty leave in the morning; when she's out of the hall and in the stairwell he goes to work gingerly on her lock, leaving the tongue deep at the back of her underwear drawer.

Then it's time for him to get to his own work shift.]

[skitter]

It's morning when Taylor comes to check in at the spa - she's not planning on staying today, just seeing if anything needs done before she gets back to the greenhouse. Tuning her attention to the few bugs she keeps in the light fixtures as she approaches, she wrinkles her nose at the taste of bleach. Someone went strong.

When she meets Misty outside the door, she tilts her head in hello. "Were you cleaning yesterday?" she asks, opening it. Unlocked, so Tim must-

Blood. Taylor's head comes up in sync with Jaw's at the scent of blood and worse, lips pulling back from her teeth as his keener senses flood hers. She puts her arm across the door to stop Misty. "Stop. Wait."

[citizendetective]

Oh boy, the scent of blood that's that pungent? Absolutely can't be anything good. She stops at Taylor's request, but puts a hand on her shoulder, making sure that she stays back, too.

"I haven't been in here since yesterday," she says. "And I don't have a key to leave it unlocked... listen, stay out here. Let me take a look first."

[skitter]

"No, stay back." Her tone is firm, and she pushes Misty's hand off her shoulder, walking into the spa lobby, down the corridor. Following Jaw's senses. She pulls in a swarm as well, just in case, tens of thousands of stinging insects streaming in above Misty's head, to cluster on the ceiling above Taylor.

Strong as it is, there's no question which door the scent's from, and she opens the door a crack, staying clear in case something leaps through it, and sends enough wasps inside to see what's going on in their fractured, scintillating vision.

[citizendetective]

"Taylor, no; that smells like blood, which means you could be contaminating a crime scene, or you could see something you really don't want t--"
Misty hustles after her, half-looking for clues as she goes but mostly focusing on Taylor.

"Can they tell you what's in there?"

[skitter]

The breath goes out of Taylor with a hurt sound, like she's taken a blow to the sternum, and she spreads her hand on the door for a second, before she can bring herself to push it farther open.

[citizendetective]

Well, that's some kind of answer.

"Taylor, whatever it is, don't look. Let me do this. Go back to the hallway and call Kiryu, okay?"

CW dead body deets

[statementfuckingends]

The sight in the room is... unpleasant, and as telling as it is completely, morbidly confusing.

It's definitely Tim. But it's a Tim lying rigid on the floor, fingers curled stiffly and one elbow bent at an angle that can only be broken. His pale green shirt is too bright against his greying skin, but dark, dark brown where blood has stained it: an ugly bib on his chest, smeared over one shoulder and still pooled beneath his head and shoulders, rank and metallic in the humid air.

(His pants, as well, lending a putrid, ammonia burn to the already noxious swell.)

But the actual damage seems, besides his right arm, to be contained to his face. With his head on its side, eyes locked open and staring into the space beyond the far wall, the dent of his broken jaw is rendered in detail by his sallowed skin, a vicious impact that left rough scratches unhealed with stale blood pooled in the gape, but his mouth is still locked shut by death. The back of his head too, just shy of where skull meets spine, a deep, rounded wound and a gash, pulled wide enough by rigor mortis to expose the fractal-fragmented bone beneath, and the first, most obvious cause of the blood pooled beneath his head; but the blood around his mouth, still trailing from his lips in a well-finished ooze, is too thick, still slimy, droplets flicked a short distance away that looks like more of a spatter than a spill.

[skitter]

Taylor shakes her head, rubbing her hand across her mouth. "I'm okay, Misty," she says, despite having gone pale. She checks the floor first, but there is no network of fine cracks that are nos such thing. Not this time.

Avoiding the blood, she walks in, crouching in arm's reach of Tim and reaching to touch the side of his neck with the back of her fingers. Cool. Both unnaturally soft and too stiff.

"Call the infirmary. We need to get him out of here, before he- before he revives." But shouldn't that have happened already? Wardens don't wait, and it's plainly been too long.

[citizendetective]

"We need to cordon this off. Taylor, please, come out of there?"

Misty places a brief call first to Kiryu, then to Dracula, and then she edges her way into the room, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket and starting to take pictures.

[skitter]

"If you take a picture of him like this, I'm going to break your phone," she says without having to look at Misty. She takes her own device, sitting back on her heels, but then pauses. "Get me some towels. He shouldn't wake up like this."

[citizendetective]

"Taylor, we need to find whoever did this as quickly as possible before they kill again. I have to document this; there are probably clues on the body. I'm going to need to dust for fingerprints too--"

She lets out a soft breath.

"Try not to touch anything. I'll get you a towel to clean him up with, but you need to let me examine him first."

[skitter]

Taylor turns, looking sharply at Misty. "No one fucking asked for Agatha Christie. Get me some towels or get out."

[citizendetective]

"Taylor--" she says, some frustration leaking into her tone, "this is important. We don't know if this was personal, or just a crime of opportunity; someone could be working up to a spree right now. I'm trying to help prevent that."

[skitter]

"No, what is *important* is the human right here. *Everything* else waits until he's safe. So help me."

The swarm, growing in agitation as Taylor grows more still, sinks a little lower from the ceiling in amorphous buzzing shapes.

[citizendetective]

"We can't think like that. What if it's Kiryu next? Or Pagan, or Iris, or Sweeney--"

She picks up a towel and clutches it in her hands, but doesn't hand it over.

"Let me work, Taylor. You can do your thing, but this is my thing."

[skitter]

Taylor's on her feet in a second, the insects descending in columns around her. "Do you think detectives get in the way of EMTs and snivel about their crime scene!? Get the hell out of here until I've taken care of him, and then you can play cop all you want!"

She doesn't give Misty a chance to argue further, giving her a hard shove towards the door, a dense, almost-human shape of insects sweeping in to encourage her to keep moving that way.

[citizendetective]

"He's dead, Taylor!" Misty yells. "And he hasn't revived yet! That means he's eviden--"

The rest of what she'd been going to say is cut off by coughing and spluttering as she fights against the tide of insects shoving her through the doorway and back out into the main spa area.

[skitter]

The moment they have Misty past the doorway, the insects spread out to fill it, a nearly-opaque wall of silver wings and angry humming.

Touching that wall will be met with a sharp, warning sting, though Taylor's not so furious that she lets the wasp express any venom.

Turning back to what she was doing, Taylor sets to cleaning Tim up. She leaves as much of the blood on the floor as she can, but she will not let Tim wake up like this.

She isn't ever going to tell him that beetles do a faster, more thorough job than water and cloth.