Chapter Text
Finding the second floor isn’t as bloodcurdling in the daytime as it had been last night, and Sebastian eventually makes his way there by using the same means he did then.
Now ascending inside the old-fashioned elevator again, trench coat back on his being, he reaches up and pinches at the skin between his tired eyes. Today’s turning out to be more than he’s bargained for, dragging on slowly like the gears of the aged transportation and grinding on his nerves like the rusty sound of chain-work within the walls, and when the doors shortly open with a winery clack it’s almost a relief. Especially when the cage even does one of those harsh stops, platform groaning under his feet, and after jumping out of it like he’s afraid it’s going to fall, by some twist of fate he finds himself revisiting the room where the bloody message of ‘MINE’ was left less than twelve hours prior.
Naturally, however, a line of caution tape prevents him from entering, leaving him standing in the entryway and looking in as a result, but when thinking about it he could also, and with ease, slip under it to do a little more investigating if the thought pleased him. Although, honestly, any evidence would long past be collected and now be in the process of being washed away, so why bother with an unnecessary act?
Exactly, Sebastian decides, and in due course he resumes his undertaking of continuing his search for the study, feeling like a rat corralled in a maze looking for a block of cheese all the while because not once does he come across coherent directions. ER, sluice, ICU, solitary confinement, dispensary, general wards. Some of the names labeled on the walls don’t even line up with the arrows or register as familiar in his head, but then again he is only a detective. Asking him to understand them would be like expecting a professor of history to be erudite about physics. There are areas of expertise within society for a reason, certain knowledge that one is more knowledgeable about than others. The job pool is wide, competition vast, but fortunately no one really needs a degree to appreciate the arts.
Music is expressionistic as preference is preferential.
Sebastian himself isn’t really a listener of any specific genre, but when he starts to hear the faint sound of a piano being played somewhere up ahead he’s intrigued enough to follow the tune as if it’s the spirit of the Pied Piper of Hamelin leading him on. He turns the first corner he comes across, pauses to listen again to make sure he’s going the right way, then continues towards the end of the hall. There, one of the ceiling lights flickers above a doorway like an indicator, and as Sebastian approaches the room he passes a sign that miraculously reads STUDY. This is his destination then. Finally, he thinks, and as to not interrupt the player he enters the room like he’s arriving late to a recital, hovering around the door. Only, by then it seems his presence is already known. Ode to joy.
“I don’t bite.”
An entrenched voice speaks out from within the room, deep and rooted, and when Sebastian proceeds to step deeper inside he sees a man in a white shirt and black pants sitting at the bench in front of a grand piano. Sebastian can’t define the man’s face just yet, but judging by the man’s overall appearance he’s bandaged, wounded, like he has a head injury. It looks rather severe to be honest, but still the man’s body movement reflects motion. He moves like he’s one with the music he’s playing, notes now rhythmically slower than before at Sebastian’s attendance, and Sebastian soon stalls at the edge of the coffee-colored Persian rug overtaking the floor.
He wouldn’t have suspected the hospital to still have use for such a room like this, but here it is – design untouched by remodeling and sticking true to the Victorian age and the overall structure of the old building. Admittedly, it’s a pleasant change for once, feels more attributing than just stark white walls and glassy floors too, like it takes pride in that touch of Gothic heart, particularly in light of the antique kettle prearranged on the nearby coffee table, tea cups alongside it.
And now that Sebastian’s looking harder, never has he seen such a grand piano as well-polished and kept before as the one here. The java stain of the wood stands out like it’s been refined over and under, weekly or daily, and from where he’s standing he can unmistakably see his reflection peering back at him. The man’s likeness is also cast upon the glossy surface, more noticeably the man’s eyes, which are now making direct contact with his, using their reflections like a mirror.
Sebastian clears his throat. “Mr. Victoriano?” He can only presume. “I’m—”
“Ruvik, please…” The man pauses, hands splayed over the black and white keys of the piano in a melancholic kind of passion before giving them one final push in the C minor chord. “That name reminds me too much of my father.”
At the mention, Sebastian glances the huge portrait on the wall, one made of oil and wood, as the inscription on the silver plate underneath the frame details. “Ernesto Victoriano.” Sebastian quotes attentively. “Founder of Beacon Mental Hospital.”
“Father was a stern man… put his faith more so in God than science.” Ruvik replies candidly as he keeps his back to Sebastian but currents an arm towards the coffee table with a brief gesture. “Tea?”
“No.” Sebastian tilts his head to some extent when catching what looks like a glimpse of irritated tissue on the back of Ruvik’s retracting hand.
“Suit yourself.” Ruvik slowly rises from the bench, stepping away from it shortly after. His back is still to Sebastian however, which has Sebastian moving closer to be noticed.
“Right then. Mr. Victoriano.” Sebastian uses the name deliberately and watches how the man’s back goes straighter in response. “I’m with the Krimson City Police, mind if I take a moment of your time?”
Singlehandedly, Sebastian fishes out his pack of cigarettes as to let Ruvik ponder the question and shuffles a stick up. He regrets how much of a chain smoker he is and how the thought is always at the forefront of his mind, but he’s already quit drinking. Trying to get himself to stop smoking just wouldn’t be fair because there will always come a situation – just like this one – when he’s bored and wants something to chew on, to distract himself with, and better it be a cigarette than gum. Nicotine is much easier to handle than blown bubbles, above all that, though, it’s more tolerable on the ears, which he’s using right now. After all, getting statements are important.
“What is this about, officer…?” Ruvik’s head angles towards him obscurely.
“Detective; Castellanos.” Sebastian mumbles past the cigarette now between his teeth as he trawls through his pockets for a loose match. “It’s just a regular routine.”
“Castellanos?” Ruvik’s voice ascends slightly from its standard, monotonous quality, interest in there somewhere. “Sebastian Castellanos? The police officer in charge of that serial case a couple years ago?”
“More like a decade.” Sebastian corrects as he slows his search, suddenly feeling awkward now that two people in one day have asked him about his name.
“How time flies.” Ruvik muses.
“You a fan or something?” Sebastian asks, arrogant with his question but witty at the same time as he succeeds in lighting his smoke, sharply flicking his wrist to snuff the flame dancing on the match.
Joseph is always telling him that no one gets his sense of humor, as dry as it may be, but Ruvik’s shrug doesn’t look all that affronted to him in the least. The man actually seems more acceptant than anything, and this surprises Sebastian.
“You could say that…” Ruvik says as he finally turns fully around, and Sebastian is unable to help eyes from cringing.
Fuck, those burns. Even under the bandages, Sebastian can see that they cover half of the man’s face like a rash. They’re no doubt old wounds, inured to curious eyes, and he’s still staring when Ruvik points at him – to be more specific, at the cigarette.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to put that out.”
There’s a mild chuckle from Ruvik as Sebastian hurriedly snaps back to attention and looks away from the man’s disfigurement, also the scarred finger now directing his awareness to a NO SMOKING sign, a renowned signage communicating the very message Sebastian is breaking. Sebastian saw identical ones earlier throughout the first floor of the hospital, but there’s no besting the influence of addiction… or ignorance, and as Ruvik stops pointing Sebastian milks one last drag on his cigarette.
Ruvik doesn’t seemed fazed in the least at Sebastian’s need to get the most out of his newborn cig and as Sebastian exhales his intake, Ruvik paces nearer with his arms tucked behind his back, glancing at the other portraits and landscapes hanging around the study like he’s in a gallery until noticing Sebastian staring at his bandages again.
“Do they scare you?” Ruvik nods at his body through one of his glances. “My scars?”
Sebastian lets his eyes remain on Ruvik’s burns this time, not feeling as rude as earlier, and proceeds to slowly move them around Ruvik’s face. In the process, he becomes more aware of how Ruvik’s skin looks much pastier than a normal complexion, like it’s hiding under ten layers of cosmetics. Surely that’s understandable, though. The severity of the wounds alone would keep anyone wanting to steer from the sun at all costs, playing on self-esteem and sensitivity. Damn. Ruvik has had it rough. Sebastian commends the man for having the courage to continue living, but as for feeling fear when looking at such defacement?
“Not really.” Sebastian responds after a minute before licking his fingers and snuffing out his cigarette like a dare for a candle on a birthday cake, soon to shove the wasted stick into his pocket. “Mind me asking how you got them?”
“I do.” Ruvik hums something thoughtful. “As you would.”
“You know nothing about me.”
“Your face tells me enough.” Ruvik says as he purposely walks Sebastian by, right under his nose. Sebastian can literally smell the ash on his skin and feel the heat trapped under the man’s burns like the residue on a log after a fire. “You’re haunted… Trust issues. Stressed. You need to get out more.”
“What are you?” Sebastian scoffs. “Some kinda shrink?”
“I prefer to call myself a scientist of the mind.”
“Same thing, right?”
“Depends if your views are that shallow.” A smile reaches Ruvik’s lips when hearing Sebastian make an audible ‘tsking’ sound, and as if proud of the small hurt he’s just applied to Sebastian’s pride – a form of payback, in a sense – Ruvik stops pacing and conclusively gives the detective his attention. “Now, you had a few questions for me?”
“Marcelo Jimenez.” Sebastian gruffs, his query coming off as a full stop while he brings out his notebook like he’s actually going to cite what he’s gathered so far on paper… which is absolutely nothing.
More often than not, he leaves all the writing to Joseph when it’s just the two of them out in the field, and since he’s never really heard his partner bellyache about being the brains among their team of two to his face before, he’ll continue to take Joseph’s acuity for granted until such a day comes. It’s a conceited attitude to have, waiting on others, but in their profession being able to outfox people is territory, as is being patient. Sebastian has a long reputation in using both techniques throughout the job, including assumptions, which is what he’s doing now – presuming that Ruvik can’t see his notes as he keeps his pad angled towards his chest, glancing up for a reaction.
Except like the blank pages of Sebastian’s notepad Ruvik’s face reflects the same emptiness, giving Sebastian absolutely nothing to go on. He can’t read Ruvik at all.
“Marcelo Jimenez …” Sebastian repeats, wrist snapping sharply and bringing his notepad to a close.
“What about him?” Ruvik asks tediously.
“He’s a doctor here.” Sebastian states.
“He is.”
“He says you can vouch for his alibi.” Sebastian pockets his notepad with a grunt. “Can you?”
“What do you think?”
“Should I take that as a yes?”
“You already know the answer to that question; if not all of them, why try to manipulate me just so you can boost your ego?”
Hold on. Sebastian feels his brows knitting deeply. That hasn’t been his motivation at all, or at least not consciously. Damn it. Why the hell can’t he filet this fish and get a straight fucking answer?
“Are you done?” Ruvik asks in notice of Sebastian’s bruised expression.
“No—”
“Well, I am. As much as I would love to continue this little chat, I have rounds to make.”
“I’m sure…” Sebastian grumbles, knowing a brush off when he hears one, but digs around in his pants and pulls out his wallet to take out his calling card from one of the sleeves regardless. “Here. I’ll be in touch if I have any other questions.”
“Do think them through next time.” Ruvik heckles as he accepts the offered card, behavior apathetic in emotion before noticing the shake in Sebastian’s withdrawing hand. There’s a smirk then. “You might want to take care of that before it worsens.”
“Working on it.” Sebastian says as composedly as he can as he clenches his fist and pockets it, the embarrassment in the motion clear. “Sorry to waste your time.”
“No. Not at all.” is the lowly said and lasting response Sebastian hears from Ruvik as they both part ways inside the study, and the message behind it is demeaning by degrees.
Somehow, by good grace and a fast pace, Sebastian manages to put it behind him by the time he’s standing in front of the elevator and pressing the down arrow to call it, but as he waits for the damn doors to open, checks his watch and waits some more, the more he finds himself wishing that he got the last word in, not the other way around. Moderately, his vibrating cell phone helps as a distraction – to some extent, at least – and as he digs for it in his trench coat he equally gets fed up with waiting and takes the nearest door leading to a stairwell, descending towards the first floor. Because of the lank of his legs, it takes him less than ten seconds to conquer sixteen steps, then an extra eight, and as he disappears out the hospital’s side door he finally answers the call.
“Hello?”
The sun whites Sebastian’s vision once he’s outside, and after a couple hard squints he realizes that he’s exiting from the right wing of Beacon, the wing facing the parking lot. Perfect. There’s the car.
“Whoa, hey. Slow down, Leslie.” He laughs as he hears his son’s voice tumbling over incoherent words and ingredients. When the kid’s excited he may think he’s forming sentences as fast as his brain creates them, but all Sebastian hears are a few phrases and he picks up on them like clues. “I said I was gonna call you for— Grilled Pepper Steak, huh? Sounds great, but do you really expect me to remember all that?” He barks another laugh at the answer. “I’m getting too old for this, kid.”
One foot onto cement, Sebastian immediately shies behind Beacon’s wall when he spots lingering reporters barricaded and being held beyond the hospital gates by the local police.
“Shit. What? No, not you…” He cups the receiver of the phone and turns his back to the far-off crowd. “Tell you what, I’ll call you when I’m at the store, and then you can tell me what I need to get, alright? Love you.”
Sebastian can hear Leslie stuttering over a reply, but in the end Leslie hangs up from embarrassment without muttering anything back. Sebastian scoffs lightheartedly as he puts his phone away and heads straight for the car with his head tucked and trench collar up where he shortly finds Joseph leaning against the hood, which’s when Sebastian suddenly remembers that he’s the one who had the keys. Feeling them in his pocket now is like a cruel reminder.
“Whoops.” Sebastian shrugs.
“Don’t.” Joseph, arms crossed, peels himself off the car. “We need to talk, Seb—”
“Excuse me!”
Both Sebastian and Joseph turn to see a meaty man, more so in the face, approaching them from the other side of the parking lot.
“Shit, it’s that freelance journalist…” Sebastian mumbles as he tries to feign deafness. Too bad he’s already made brief eye contact.
“Ivan Diaz.” The man introduces once close enough. “Maybe you’ve heard of me?” He hands Joseph his card. “I’m with the Krimson Post—”
“Yeah, we know who you are.”
The card immediately hops hands – though that’s because Sebastian snatches it from Joseph like a bodyguard – and a smile soon breaks out over Ivan’s face, who seems well-trained in his hunting ground and familiar with the looks of aversion.
“Great, then I suppose you won’t mind if I asked you a few questions about the case you’re working on?” Ivan is looking more at Joseph when he clicks the record button on his handheld camera, and Sebastian immediately cuts in yet again, this time with his arm, and tries to ferry his partner to get in the car with a look of we’ll talk later as he hands Joseph the keys. That plan fails miserably, though. Damn Joseph and his stubbornness.
“Get that shit outta my face. And actually, we would.” Sebastian is captured on camera as he steals the keys back from Joseph and opens the passenger door himself, hitting Ivan in the chest. “So fuck off.”
Again, Ivan doesn’t seem the least bit perturbed. “Is it him? The Elk River Killer?”
Sebastian, now on his way around to the driver’s side, stops dead in his tracks in front of the hood, breath hitched and calling card now crunched within a curled fist. “How the hell do you know that?” He turns around passionately. “That wasn’t released to the press—”
Joseph, who still hasn't gotten in the car yet, closes his eyes at Sebastian’s slip-up, a moment caught too late… Well, shit.
“So it’s true, then? Huh, I thought so…” Ivan mutters, quite pleased at Sebastian’s oversight. “Then that would also mean that this case is related to Leslie Withers, the sole survivor of the Elk River killings ten years ago. He’s your son, isn’t he? Yes, I remember. You adopted the albino out of guilt… The white demon.” He quotes, what he probably thinks as poetically. “All because you couldn’t save his family—”
If Ivan had been stretching and holding a rubber band against Sebastian’s arm for the last few minutes, his grip just slipped and the band just snapped.
Upper lip now curled, Sebastian throws a hand out. He’s close enough to hook Ivan by the collar of his shirt and slam Ivan’s back against the body of the car. “Wait a sec.” It almost makes sense now. “You’re the slimy bastard who wrote that article?”
It was a title Sebastian could never forget. It had been written by a man using the pen name COVERMAN69 at the time, who leaked word to the press after Leslie’s incident and caused the whole of Krimson Post to camp out outside of Sebastian’s house for a full week. It was like a seven day bloodbath with how every newspaper was competing and trying to get Leslie’s personal statement about what happened, a statement which was still locked away inside the boy today. Even Sebastian doesn’t know the whole story.
“Oh, you read it? I’m flattered—”
“Who the hell preys on a fifteen-year-old’s trauma for a fucking paycheck and lives with himself? Do you even feel a goddamn thing?” Sebastian rams Ivan against the car again as if to prove a point. The calling card is now on the pavement by their feet.
“Seb…” Joseph warns when catching Sebastian’s grip tightening in a choke, elbow digging right up against Ivan’s throat like a knife.
“Pit bull off a leash?” Ivan says with a laugh while giving Joseph a sideways glance, maybe for a little help, but Sebastian pulls back to slam Ivan a third time with trembling knuckles cloth deep in the man’s collar.
“What the fuck is your angle, Ivan?” Sebastian snaps, and Ivan has the gall to smile despite Sebastian’s rising temper.
“Were you aware that at least half of the cases related to the Elk River Killer came back to your little Leslie Withers?”
“What do you mean?” Joseph asks, unable to see Sebastian’s furious eyes flicker his way.
“Trails of bodies would follow him wherever he and his family would go. Tourist hotspots, local attractions… like a plague they would drop like flies. Don’t you find that strange?” Ivan’s voice lowers to almost a whisper in Sebastian’s face, like it’s a stratagem meant to provoke him. “Do you have anything you wish to add, Detective Castellanos?”
Ivan lifts his camera higher on cue for another angle of Sebastian’s expression, and Sebastian can practically hear the tape turning away inside the deck like a contracting noose.
“You want a comment?” Sebastian asks after a few seconds of hard staring. “Fine. Listen closely.”
Twisting to the side, Sebastian roughly throws Ivan off balance and to the ground in one swift motion. The journalist lands with a loud ‘oof’ against the cement, and the plastic shell of the camera recorder shatters next to him on contact, into a hundred pieces. Joseph stands still through it all, too smart to interfere, and while Ivan grovels on the bolster Sebastian snatches up the crumpled card earlier forgotten by their feet and waves it long enough for Ivan to glimpse.
“If I see you anywhere near my son… I’ll fucking kill you.” Sebastian threatens before he flicks the calling card down onto Ivan’s body like he would a used cigarette and finally gets in the car. “Put that in your next article.”