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wackybuddiemewbs · 1 year

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More WIPpeting because why not? It's Wednesday, after all!

Title has it. It's WIP Wednesday again, and this fic that's not a fic is eating away all of my remaining brain cells. We are at 470k something words and -470% percent of my sanity. Assuming I ever had it. Anyway. Here's to more shenanigan! You can find the moodboard here, and the last two installments for that arc are here and here.

The Worm in the Man III

“So the guy seriously tore down a door?” Chimney gapes.

They all gathered in Chimney’s office to go over the latest findings. And after Buck recounted some of what they found at the gym, Hen is left wondering just what kinds of odd people end up in their city. And how many of them end up in freak accidents that may land them here for identification.

“One swing, and it was out of its hinges,” Buck confirms.

“The wonders of the capacity of the human body,” Chim hums, his eyes drifting off as he surely paints a very pretty picture of that inside his head. And Hen can only hope that he won’t listen to the impulse to draw a comic about that, no matter how beautifully drawn it may be.

It’s rude, and we have to set an example, right?

“More like what steroids can make you do,” Hen huffs, making her disdain no secret. That is no wonder, it’s a damn shame. And it shouldn’t be happening anymore, but God knows it does.

“It was kind of impressive, I’ll have to admit,” Buck ponders, shrugging his shoulders.

“And you didn’t film it for us to enjoy,” Chimney pouts.

Buck holds up his hands. “Sorry, next time he does it, I sure will.”

“That’d be greatly appreciated.”

“So, did you have any luck on the flesh yet?” Buck asks, looking at Hen.

“The bones are cleaned and ready for you to reassemble,” she answers. “The tests confirm what you pointed out after testing the tapeworms: That guy took a mad mix of anabolic steroids. And just so we’re clear on the range: That cocktail he’s been taking would’ve killed medium-sized mammals on the spot.”

How that man managed to stay alive under that regimen is something that Hen can’t determine from the tissue. So she can only assume one thing: It was his sheer will to keep going.

“You’re saying he was shredded.” Chimney flexes his arm muscles for emphasis, which makes Hen’s eyes go for another round the clock motion. She loves Chimney, there is no denying that, but sometimes he tempts her in wanting to tear down a door, too.

“I’m saying he lived a very unhealthy life, just to look like he was healthy,” Hen lets him know. “Or shredded.”

She has seen plenty of those people. Old school friends, girls who glowered at anything that might have contained any kind of fat or carb that couldn’t be accounted for. Hen also saw her fair share of classmates who were so busy working out that they didn’t even realize that this was hardly normal anymore. And it infuriates her to know that there is a whole industry out there that profits off of making people feel miserable and at war with their own bodies. Being healthy suddenly evolved into a status symbol – and, towards that end, into something to make unhealthy or sick people feel bad about for lacking.

“Yeah no, that’s not healthy at all,” Buck confirms. “Essentially, he was underweight.”

“But he still weighed 220 pounds, which is more or less average, right?” Eddie questions.

“Yes, but at one percent body fat and very little hydration levels. His body didn’t get the time to properly regenerate from all those massive changes. Normal is to lose one to two pounds per week if you seek to lose weight and do a moderate to high workout. Jimmy doubled that, at least. The guy hardly ate, and what he ate doesn’t really count as a healthy diet. He was severely malnutritioned and dehydrated by the time he died,” Hen sighs, pushing her glasses further up her nose. “And all of that to fit a certain body image.”

All of that to fit in, to be seen, and not to be regarded as some headless, lazy lump everyone has every right to stomp on for the sole sake of being a certain way. Tell you what, Hen looked inside a great many people throughout her career.

And in the end, safe for some genetic abnormalities, we all look the same underneath the skin. Imagine that!

“And to get his picture hung up on the wall of fame, let’s not forget,” Chim huffs.

“How could we possibly forget about that?” Buck joins in, gesturing with his hands.

“Well, at least we now have a name. James ‘Jimmy’ Granger was a software engineer. He worked for a small company, though he mostly worked from home. Most of his colleagues don’t even know that guy’s face,” Eddie lets them know, reading off of the report he got sent. “Which may also explain why he wasn’t reported missing very fast.”

“The wonders of working remote,” Chimney points out. “That guy probably just never switched on the camera during his transition. Or even before that.”

“The neighbors said that he didn’t go out much,” Eddie continues. “Things shifted about five to six months ago.”

“So when he started frequenting the gym,” Hen concludes.

“Yup,” Eddie confirms. “He never brought someone back with him, that the neighbors know of, at least. They describe him as very kind and helpful. Jimmy set up most of the software and hardware for the people living in the house, as they are mostly elderly.”

“So who’d murder a sweet software engineer like that?” Hen asks, which, she knows, is always the question they have to ask around here.

But it never ceases to make her mad. There are so many good and kind people who are ripped out of their lives. For nothing, really. To inherit that house, to get that money, to settle this quarrel, or pay off that debt. While she has seen enough of that to know this to be fact, it baffles her just how little it takes for some people to take another human being’s life. Though perhaps it’s better not to know, past a certain point.

“Well, maybe someone at the gym was pretty pissed off that he got the prize instead of them,” Eddie ponders.

Hen gapes at him. “There’s seriously a prize for that?”

She knows she shouldn’t be surprised, but Hen still finds herself greatly irritated already.

“Annually.” Buck nods. “They get 10,000 dollars and get to be poster boys and girls for the gym’s very own protein powder.”

“People like that piss me off,” Hen grunts, leaning back in her seat. “They make people like Jimmy feel inadequate, only to get them to buy their products, book the courses, and completely overexert themselves. To the point that Jimmy here must have been in constant pain. I found traces of pain medicine added to the mix.”

That young, sweet software engineer was suffering, he was aching, and he still pushed on. He was being helpful and kind. And all he got was more pain and things that made him sick. And now he is dead. All just to reflect the body standards that are around these days. Because He knows those images are constantly shifting. Because the goal of those body ideals is that they remain unachievable. That’s the point – and perhaps the only truth in it all. The perfect body doesn’t exist.

Because, as our Buckaroo would like to remind us, that’s all just arbitrary bullshit without any scientific backup.

“Small wonder he was in pain,” Buck agrees, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Judging by his knees and feet, he ran way too much and without being properly educated as to how to run without causing injury. Also, bad footwear. Those people at the gym are extremely careless when it comes to their customers, is all I can say.”

“Yeah, look at that!” Chim says, showing some ads on the big screen. “Maximum Leg Press, if your legs don’t burn, you’re not doing it right. X Fit, for those who think CrossFit is too easy. ColLateral Damage, the lateral muscle exercise to get your neck strong and your chest even stronger…”

Hen leans her head back. “This whole thing makes me mad, but the bad advertising makes it impossibly worse.”

At least they could bother to be creative, damn it.

“All of those exercises are risky, even more so when they are executed by people who are not properly educated in carrying them out,” Buck points out, gesturing at the screen. “To me, it’s a miracle that there haven’t been more injuries at that gym.”

“None that we know of yet, though I think the gym has a vested interest not to have that info become public,” Eddie argues.

Buck shrugs. “True again.”

“Video footage confirms that Jimmy was last at the gym when he won the competition, which was two weeks ago,” Eddie continues. “Makes me wonder whether one of the other athletes wanted to be the cover boy and wanted Jimmy gone.”

“Well, I’ll have my fun sorting through the colorful parade Buck promised me,” Hen grunts, making her displeasure absolutely no secret. “Which is to say: I’m not looking forward to that at all.”

“You’re doing the Lord’s work,” Chim teases.

Buck puckers his lips. “I thought the Christian boss man didn’t approve of condoms?”

“The Christian boss man?” Eddie gawks, clearly upset at that choice of words.

Hen chuckles softly, then tells Buck, “That’s the Catholic Church, and those guys should have no say on the down below business of anyone ever.”

“Well, historically, controlling sexuality and sexual practices was a way of exerting power, particularly over women, social outcasts, deviants. And with the institution of the church having a vested interest to maintain their power…,” explains, but she cuts him short, “As I was saying, they have no business in the down below business. God said so. So no, Lord’s work certainly does not lie in that colorful latex parade.”

“He works in mysterious ways,” Chim continues anyway.

“And sometimes they smell of fake cherry,” Buck laughs.

Chimney picks up one of the bags with the condoms and opens it for a quick inhale. “That’s supposed to be cherry? I shall be damned.”

“Stop sniffing them!” Hen cries out.

Which certainly confirms one truth she’s known since she was a young girl: Men are disgusting.

“Well, I’m gonna leave you guys to that. I’ll be talking to the parents. They live in Florida and only arrived today,” Eddie sighs.

Buck opens his mouth to say something, but Eddie carries on before he can, “Buck, you don’t have to come with. I think it’s more important that we get that skull reassembled, see what may have killed him.”

“… Okay,” Buck answers slowly. “On it.”

Hen tilts her head. She can tell that there is something up in that exchange. While Buck’s emotions work in mysterious ways, too, he is terribly bad at keeping his emotions off his face. And there is something underneath that confusion that leaves her wondering what that may be about.

“Okay, great, catch you later,” Eddie says hurriedly. “Call me if you find anything.”

“Sure, bye.”

“Bye.”

With that, he flies out the door.

Hen gets up to settle down next to Buck. “Everything alright? You have that frowny face going on.”

And Buck frowning means Buck thinking. And Buck thinking means he usually goes places. And Buck going places can lead down roads you don’t want to travel, ever.

“Yeah, sure, it’s just… I don’t know… I guess I should be focusing on this, is all,” Buck mutters, still looking at the spot where Eddie just stood.

“You two had a disagreement?” she asks.

“None that I know of. I just… doesn’t matter,” Buck mumbles, lost in thought.” The skull needs reassembly, that’s correct. So let’s focus on that.”

Hen makes a mental note to touch up on that later, but she also knows there is hardly any getting through to Buck when his eyes are set on a target. And that target is now putting that skull back together.

“How did the conference go, by the way?” Chimney asks.

Right, there was something else she was more than pissed about. But everything in time.

“Apparently, Denny has a teacher who’s a complete moron,” she pouts, exasperated. “No way our son is no good in biology. One of his mothers is a pathologist. That man does not know what he’s talking about. And I let him know that.”

“Wait, did you get expelled from parent conference day?” Chimney teases.

“No. You can’t get expelled from parent conference day,” she retorts.

“Oh, so you did,” he laughs.

“I did not.”

“Did, too.”

Hen glowers at him.

“Well, maybe they are covering something in biology right now that’s not human anatomy, which is the subject Denny would have an advantage in, with one of his mothers being one of the country’s best pathologist,” Buck points out.

“Damn, I sure hope I won’t slip on the slime you’re oozing there, Buckaroo,” Chimney laughs, gesturing at the floor.

“What? For pointing out the facts?” Hen narrows her eyes at him.

Chimney bows his head, scratches the back of his head, acting innocently.

“Well, back on topic here: That is why we got those subjects covered with his lovely babysitter who’s all into bugs and slime and flora and fauna,” Hen continues.

Buck grins at her. “It’s me. I’m the lovely guy.”

“Cute,” Chim teases, patting his head. Buck swats his hand away, prompting him to ruffle up his hair even more. Buck makes a shrieking sound as he fends Chimney off, but then breaks out laughing. Hen shakes her head with a soft smile.

Yes, men might be a disgusting, but moments like that let her have a little faith in anyone beside her most wonderful son. Buck and Chimney came a long way. And knowing both their histories at least to a certain degree, Hen will always find it a beautiful thing that the two found a “brother from another mother” in each other, as they will tell anyone who asks.

“I know I’m cute,” Buck grins, trying to ease his messed-up hair back. He then turns to Hen with a mild look. “Well, it’s still possible the guy has to base his teachings on books from twenty years ago. That may explain some discrepancy? Just bouncing some ideas.”

“My son does not deserve a C in biology, period,” she declares. That teacher is clearly out of his mind. Denny has always been an excellent student. Biology was never an issue. So to her, it seems more likely that there is something wrong with the person who just started teaching him when Denny didn’t have any issues before.

“Of course he doesn’t,” Chim huffs. Hen chooses to ignore the sarcastic undertone.

“Which is why I have to figure out how to make that man understand the wrongs of his ways,” Hen lets them know. She made up her mind in the parking lot of the school already – she won’t let that stand.

“If someone can do it, it’s surely you who will unhinge the board of education,” Chimney laughs.

“I don’t need to overthrow the damn empire, I just know that my son is better than what the teacher is giving him, and I won’t stand for that,” she points out.

Buck tilts his head. “Did the teacher say anything about how he acts in class?”

“My son is an angel.”

“Right.”

“And there were no complaints in any other classes,” Hen adds.

What is he trying to get at, hm?

“Maybe he likes that teacher about as much as one of his mothers does,” Chimney snorts.

“You’re saying I’m a bad influence for my son?” Hen glowers at him.

Chimney takes a step back, holding up his hands in surrender. “I never would.”

Hen crosses her arms over her chest. “Good, I better never hear that coming out of your mouth again. And now I’m going to do what scientists do… and wade through used condoms.”

“Hallelujah!”

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

“I see it’s coming all together?”

“You really think that the hundredth time is going to make this joke funny?” Buck huffs as Chimney makes his way inside the bone room where Buck is lining up the skull fragments laid out on the table with the rest of the bones.

“It’s a classic.”

“Starting to feel your true age, I take?”

Chimney chuckles as he punches him in the arm slightly, rounding the table.

“Well, reassembling the skull won’t be that hard. It wasn’t completely broken apart. My trouble is with the remaining bones. A lot got chewed on by the animals, which will make it harder to determine what damage was done antemortem and postmortem. Also, the bones are not in great shape, generally speaking,” Buck ponders, gesturing at the table.

“Well, after they were dog chew, small wonder.”

“That’s not it. I’ve had victims like that before, but the bones took a lot of damage for that only small critter fed on the victim. He landed on rather soft ground, too…”

Chimney tilts his head to the side. “You have that thinky face on again. Do share with the class, otherwise I feel left out.”

“It’s just…,” Buck mutters, picking up one of the bones, testing it with his gloved hands. “They shouldn’t have the amount of damage. The scratches are deeper than they should be. Daisy’s teeth sunk in much deeper than they would for a dog her size. I could only determine the kind based on the jaw outline.”

“Maybe she just got really strong jaws,” Chimney jokes, clicking his teeth.

“No, that’s not really it. Something is up with those bones. They are too prone to damage to…,” Buck says, then stops. “Hold on a sec.”

Chimney watches as Buck walks straight over to the shelves containing human remains behind them. He checks the labels, then pulls out one of the plastic boxes.

“Ugh, Buckaroo. We are working on that lad here, c’mon, focus,” Chimney argues, gesturing at the table. Because he has seen Buck completely lose track of the original task and go on with something else just because his mind commanded him to.

“I just need to confirm something,” the younger man answers. He takes out a femur from the box and then picks up the victim’s femur with the other.

“Weird flex for a workout, even for our lot,” Chimney comments.

“The victim’s bones are lighter than they should be,” Buck says.

Chim frowns. “What now?”

“I took out a bone that comes from someone about Jimmy’s physique. Jimmy’s bone is much lighter,” Buck replies. “Look.”

While Chimney is not the bone guy – pun totally intended – he will have to see for himself. So he grabs some gloves and puts them on with a snap. Buck hands the bones over, his mind already rushing a thousand miles ahead by the second. Chimney tests the weight and indeed they are indeed different.

“What the hell?” he mutters under his breath.

Buck picks up another set of bones for comparison. “Same thing here. This is not just some anomaly on the femur. This is a recurring pattern.”

“How would his bones be lighter, though?” Chimney asks, handing the bones back over to Buck. He watches as his friend places them both back on the table and the box with utmost care.

“They are not as dense as they should be,” Buck ponders, still lost in thought.

“The frowny face is intensifying.”

Buck puts the bones back down. And if the saying was true that the brain was all about gears, people could hear them turn inside the man’s head a mile away. Maybe even more.

A few moments later, Buck’s head shoots up. “Wait, I think I know why.”

“That was fast,” Chimney huffs. Though he has since grown accustomed to the fact that Buck is someone whose brain makes three turns in the time it takes normal brains to make one. Sometimes, it means he’s too many steps ahead. But at the very least, it gets you up to speed fast. That much is for sure.

“Jimmy had osteoporosis,” Buck states.

Chimney blinks. “Why would a kid his age have osteoporosis?”

Last time he checked, that was more of an old-people-disease, right?

“There’s many causes, but steroids can greatly contribute to it, so that might be a possible explanation,” Buck tells him pensively. “Though the timeline is still somewhat off. Hen said that he likely only started about five months ago, with the steroids. But for osteoporosis at this level, it would have to be much longer than that.”

“That poor kid. He just wanted to lose some weight, and now he’s been food for the critters for days without anyone noticing him gone,” Chimney sighs, looking back at the bones laid out on the table.

Much like Buck, he sees faces when he looks at a skull. Part of the job, after all. Now Chimney has also seen pictures, of the few there are from before Jimmy’s transition. And they all confirm that this guy had a nice and kind face matching his personality. And such a nice, kind face was then eaten off by the critters after someone left him there to die and rot. It is their daily business to deal with that, surely, but Chimney won’t ever get accustomed to that. He doesn’t want to either. Because that would mean acceptance, and this not acceptable by any means.

“Yeah, because the people at the gym do such a great job caring about their clients,” Buck huffs, gritting his teeth.

“You’re also pissed off, huh?”

“Jimmy could’ve done with a few pounds less and a bit of exercise, to take pressure off his bones and strengthen his muscles, more so if he had some genetic predisposition for osteoporosis. But he was in good health before he started to get jacked-up. He was a regular kid. And from what Eddie told us, quite brilliant at his job. And now that young man is dead. Just because people decided that his body didn’t fit in with the rest. Yes, that pisses me off, a lot.”

Buck moves back to the shelf to return the bones he compared to Jimmy’s, his facial expression hardening with every step. He and Chimney always shared in that notion. In fact, everyone at the lab does. But Chim saw since the early beginnings of Buck working for the Jeffersonian that this guy refuses to get used to people disregarding human life, whatever shape or form it has.

Because to Buck, that’s all just window dressing. For Chimney, it’s the other way around. For him, the bones are the way to get a face. And the face is not just something on top of a bone. For him, truth lies in a person’s face. For Buck, truth always lies underneath it.

Chimney has worked with forensic anthropologists before, duh, but working with Buck has changed his way of working entirely. Not just because the guy is a big oddball. But because Buck has a view on what is around him that Chim never saw with anyone else he worked alongside with.

And sure, no two people look at the world the exact same way, he knows that much. But Buck’s view on the world has always been a peculiar one. Chimney can still remember the earlier times of Buck working for the Jeffersonian. He thought the guy was a goner within a week, which he was correct about, until Bobby brought him back. Though truth was that he was disappointed when he heard Buck had been fired.

Most of the time, when the science folks hear of what Chim does, they roll their eyes at him, at best. Once they understand what he can actually do, once he’s proven it, Chimney is sure to have their attention and respect, but it’s always a process of getting there.

That wasn’t so with Buck. On his first day, Buck came to his office and gushed about that online gallery walk Chimney had done to present his digital art. He wanted to know all about it. How he does it, what his method is. Chimney never would’ve called it a method but a technique. Though he understood that for Buck, his art was science, a way of sense-making. To him, it was real science without the label on it.

And then Buck kept asking questions for about an hour, nonstop. He wanted to know if that type of reconstruction was something he could do, if there was a program of his design to analyze bones under these circumstances and those other circumstances. He didn’t just ask what Chimney could currently do, but Buck instantly started scratching at what else he might do with his method.

Chimney didn’t need Buck’s approval or praise. That’s not it. He’d since learned his value to the Jeffersonian, all the more thanks to Bobby and Hen. But it really is as Buck said before, about the bones from Tibet. How it makes a difference how you approach an object. How it changes through your perception, through the knowledge you have of where it comes from. Because it creates pictures in your head, ready or not. And Buck came without any pictures, any filters, it’d seem, safe for his sheer excitement for Chim’s work, his method, and the possibilities ahead, some of which still need another three laps before they can be realized.

So he was genuinely relieved when Buck returned and has remained with the Jeffersonian since. Because also thanks to Buck, Chimney found new ways of looking at that which is before him, of learning new techniques, creating entirely new methods. By learning to see things like Buck, he finds new ways to look at the world around him, look at the victims, and see something that’s underneath the skin, right down to the bone.

And while he knows Buck and he will always look at the world differently, Chimney always has the feeling that when it comes to looking at human remains, they get each other on a level most others don’t. And he wouldn’t ever want to miss that, even less so since that same guy grew to be such a close friend of his.

But he is also a giant pain in the ass. So it’s always a give and take in the end.

“People are brutal when it comes to body images,” Chimney ponders, looking back at the bones, looking back at the remains of Jimmy Granger, of a guy with a kind face, and even kinder face, whose life ended way too fast and not at all on the high note it was supposed to.

He’s seen plenty of that during his art studies. Searching for the perfect body type for portraits, for photo projects. A fellow student did a wonderful project on different body types that he helped create the website for. Though those are very often the exception. Instead, they get a weird high from watching obese people on TV getting beaten down for having the audacity to have a different body type, or maybe even lead a lifestyle that’s not 100% healthy.

Most people can’t look beyond what’s programmed into their brains to consider as beautiful – both by nature and nurture. Because sure, we find particular beauty in symmetry. That’s coded into our DNA, as Buck loves to remind whoever dares to ask. But we are also taught what’s beautiful, what’s ugly, what’s norm, what isn’t.

And Chimney always found that when a subject likens itself to be the free arts, the place for free spirits to thrive, it seems awfully delimiting to only focus on what’s the norm.

“Those people at the gym keep pressuring perfectly healthy people to bust their body fat to come close to ideals set out by magazines and websites making it seem like this is healthy. It’s not. Women don’t need thigh gaps,” Buck grumbles. “Men don’t need a six pack. The strongest men on the planet don’t look like Jay, trust me.”

“Well, he still tore down that door,” Chimney jokes.

“That, he did,” Buck sighs. He picks up the skull for inspection again.

“Jimmy was helpful and polite. And he went to those people for support. But in the end, all they cared about was to boost their stupid business. Jimmy deserved better than to have his picture on a wall to tell him that only with one percent body fat he’s of value to anyone else,” Buck continues, his grimace tightening. “People don’t need to optimize their bodies to be… valuable.”

He puts the skull back down and moves along the table. It always looks like a chase when Buck is in that mood. Like he is closing in on the target.

“Yeah, there’s a whole industry profiting off of making people feel miserable, only to present them with some magic powder that can make them look like what they are told is the only way to look,” Chim snorts.

Buck stops in his tracks, the motions closer. “Huh.”

“What? Said something that got you thinking?”

“Not really,” Buck replies bluntly. “I just noticed a scaphoid fracture.”

Chimney grins at him, choosing to ignore the underlying criticism out of goodwill. “Let’s pretend I didn’t know which bone that is.”

“It’s part of the base of the wrist,” Buck says, picking said bone up to show it to him. “Here.”

“What’s odd about it? If he fell down before he died, that may explain it, right?” Chim argues. He’s run countless scenarios of just that kind before.

“That injury is older, though. It already started to heal. See, there’s traces of remodeling on the bone. I’d say he sustained the injury a month prior to his death,” Buck explains, gesturing at the bone. “He didn’t have it treated, though. It wasn’t immobilized as it should’ve been. So he went on training without a splint or brace regardless.”

Chim furrows his eyebrows at that. “Doesn’t that… hurt?”

“It does. But judging by the gym’s teachings, it just shows you that the workout works, so he may have thought it’s all part of the process. Or just ignored it to run that extra mile.”

“Those guys should run an extra mile into a lake.”

“I agree,” Buck huffs. “He didn’t sustain any more injuries to his hands when he died. He fell down face-first.”

“Ouch.”

“He definitely broke his nose in the process,” Buck mutters. “Though Jimmy may have been unconscious or dead by the time already. It’s hard to tell. But it would explain why he wouldn’t shield his face before impact.”

Buck looks back at the screen for any more signs on the bones he missed. Because there is always more to learn, as he keeps reminding everyone, till the day he dies, surely.

“What strikes me is how stiff he was when he fell,” Buck continues. “If he had a heart attack or something to that effect, he’d normally go down slower, maybe even go to his knees first, and then collapse forward.”

“You’re not wrong there,” Chimney agrees. “That’s not the usual pattern for a fall. I can run some scenarios, if that helps.”

Buck nods his head. “That’d be great. I’d say it’s best to focus on scenarios of him having been shoved or him receiving a hit to anywhere but the head. Since I find no markings on the skull, the impact would’ve had to be on some of the bones the animals already took. And of course scenarios of him simply collapsing, for comparison.”

“Alright, will do,” Chimney agrees. “I’ll see what kind of body type or possible weapons that’d give us, if someone else was indeed involved.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, hi there,” Eddie’s voice rings out as he peeks his head inside the bone room.

“Hi,” Buck replies, eyes set on the bones.

“I’ll see you later, then,” Chimney says, tapping him on the shoulder, but Eddie is moving into his path. “Maybe you could hang on a bit longer. I might have something for you to take a look at.”

“Oh, sure. I wasn’t in a hurry as Buck has not yet unleashed the tapeworms again.”

“How are the parents?” Buck questions.

“They are devastated, of course. That’s not what you want to hear about your son. He really was a good kid. He paid for them to fulfill their dream of having a small shop down in Florida. They never had much, but they still paid for his tuition and all, so he could get proper education. Jimmy made for a decent living as a software engineer, but he gave most of it to them. He only took enough to pay for the rent and food and such. The rest went all to fulfilling his parents’ dreams.”

“Which makes it all the more infuriating that their son is dead, and it may very well be thanks to the changes he wanted to surprise them with – and the people who didn’t teach him how to do that properly,” Buck grumbles, still not bothering to look at anyone other than Jimmy, really.

Because that’s Buck’s focus – always.

“The parents said they noticed that he was rather distant the past couple of months. He didn’t wanna video chat, only called,” Eddie continues. “Looks like he wanted to surprise them with his transformation.”

“I don’t yet know what exactly killed him. There’s no obvious injury that’d serve as the final blow – at least on the bones that we have here,” Buck tells him. “I can tell you Jimmy fell pretty hard two weeks before he died.”

“Which he left untreated,” Chim adds.

“Yeah, he didn’t see his doc at all. I called the practice earlier. Obviously, they can’t tell us much. But I was told he hasn’t checked in for about half a year,” Eddie replies.

“Which would match the time of him starting the training,” Chimney ponders. “Seems like he knew his doc wouldn’t be pleased with that.”

“Chim will run scenarios for us to determine possible ways in which Jimmy may have fallen,” Buck informs him. “That may give us a clue about how he actually died.”

Chimney grins at Eddie. “Because I’m amazing like that.”

“So you think it’s possible it wasn’t murder at all?” Eddie asks.

“It’s possible that Jimmy simply died from the side effects of his massive workout routine. But it’s also possible that something happened prior to the event that brought him to the point. Or that he was killed – and we just don’t know because those bones were carried away by the animals. It’s hard to tell,” Buck answers.

“Hm. I’ve checked in with Jimmy’s boss as well. There didn’t seem to be any beef with anyone. Since he mostly worked remote, hardly anyone knew him.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you went to the office,” Buck says, his eyes still firmly planted on the bone, but Chimney can tell that he’d like to look Eddie in the eye right now. Hen noted it earlier already, and Chim can long since see it. Something is at odds here.

“It was basically on the way from the FBI to here, you know, after talking to the parents,” Eddie answers.

Chim tilts his head. He can’t say he is particularly good at reading people. He’ll gladly leave that to the agent. But there is something on his face that he can’t miss – because that’s his perspective. There is a curl on his lip that makes his features look tight, like they are closing in on themselves.

“Okay, sure.” Buck purses his lips. “So what’s the next move, investigation-wise?”

Chimney can tell that the wheels are turning inside the young man’s head, which is not always a good thing, especially if he tries to make sense of a situation. Buck is ridiculously smart, but he is not people-smart, by his own admission. And his method is always to get to the bottom of it. Though some people don’t appreciate that one bit.

“I wanna check out the gym some more,” Eddie explains. “If someone envied Jimmy for winning the big prize, someone may have overheard him arguing with someone. Or we find the one who did.”

“I still find it hard to believe that someone would kill someone for a few grand,” Chim sighs. It gets him every time, reading the reports. How often it’s petty things like money, jealousy, or just because a guy thought he deserved to have power over a woman because he has a dick and most certainly doesn’t know how to use it correctly.

“Sadly, for many people, morality ends where the money begins,” Eddie exhales.

Buck twists the skull he took back into his hand, not looking up for even just a second. “And for Jimmy, that’s where his life ended.”

“You said you had something for me, too?” Chimney asks Eddie, frowning. Because this sounded more like something he’d only need Buck for. Not that he minds, but he does have better to do than just hang around – at least when he is not himself choosing when to hang around.

“Oh yeah, that’s right. The parents gave us a permit to search Jimmy’s private laptop. I thought that maybe you could have a look. As far as we can tell, he was pretty high on the security standards,” Eddie explains.

Chimney nods with a grin, pleased. “Nice. That should keep me preoccupied for a while.”

“Okay, that means we’re all set here,” Eddie says, clapping his hands together. There is determination now, Chimney can tell as much. But the moment his eyes dart towards Buck, the determination shifts to something else he can’t quite place.

“So you want me to come with,” Buck says, asks, really, but he seemingly doesn’t want to sound surprised.

“Maybe someone shoved Jimmy prior to his death for the wrist injury. You might be able to figure out who’d fit the profile, right?”

Buck shrugs. “It depends.”

“Then yeah, you should come along,” Eddie says, nodding his head.

Buck licks his lips, looks at him for a long moment, then looks down again. “Alright, then.”

Chimney keeps studying his friend as he takes off the gloves. His brows are furrowed, his lips pursed, there is a crease that normally only reveals itself when he is thinking too hard. Chim can tell that much because to him, the face is the way to what lies underneath, but right now, he is not exactly sure what he is looking at.

Though knowing Buck, it’s only a matter of time till they will find out. Because where Buck likes to only look at the facts, only just the bones, his friends look at the world from their own angles, and from their angle, Buck is always there, sometimes at the center, sometimes at the periphery. But he is always there. Because they changed each other’s way of looking at the world. And that means he is part of their perception as much as they are part of his.

We keep an eye on each other, simple as that.

“See you later, Chim,” Buck says, grabbing his jacket.

“See ya.”

We always make sure of it, don’t we?

#buddie #buck x eddie #eddie x buck #evan buckley #evan buck buckley #eddie diaz #evan buckley x eddie diza #eddie diaz x evan buckley #fanfic #in smol #buddie fanfic #buddie au #wip wednesday

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cloveroctobers · 1 year

Text

black mascara — EZ REYES

A|N: in honor of the season 5 trailer, I had to write a little something. This one will actually be small since I don’t have too much to go off of in writing this but I can’t lie and say I’m not a little fired up! So get comfy.

GIF BELONGS to: @dailymayans

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“See that crave for power…that’s seeping through your pores is exactly what’s gonna get you killed, Ezekiel.”

“…if that happens to be the case, I hope they know their prayers well because I’ll still be here from beyond the grave.”

She did not know this person that she sat face to face with. She didn’t even know what that statement means. Majority of the time Hadiza kept out of The Mayans business, despite the fact that her older brother Franky interacted with them from time to time. She knew Ezekiel way before he decided to join the club and although she’s seen the Mayans around town, she didn’t have much of a opinion when the man first brought the idea to the table a week before his release.

Now she wished she would have.

Back then she trusted that Ez knew what he was doing.

This Ezekiel was not the man she used to know.

Hadiza had a feeling this would happen, that as soon as Ezekiel got into the president’s chair, a whole new level of danger would be unleashed. She saw the shift in Ezekiel throughout his time in the charter happen gradually, that her worries started to keep her up at night. The lack of sleep even proposed her to talk to Felipe about it, who simply listened and still had faith in his baby boy until Gabby came around.

Which was kinda foul the longer she thought about it. Was her word really not good enough when she’s been around? She’ll have to take that up with Felipe at a later time, respectfully.

She’s known Ezekiel since high school…it’s been years since they stepped into their adulthood. However a good portion of Ezekiel’s youth was ripped away from him the night his mother died.

Yes people change…but not like this.

Hadiza was beginning to think that a piece of Ezekiel died with his mother that day but what could she say about him now? So much has happened since then and He wasn’t the same—sure it was foolish to think that he would be completely healed from that tragedy but the light in his pretty honey eyes, did not reflect what was beyond them or what was on the outside.

“So that’s it then,” she raised her shoulders, “you’re gonna waste your life away for reckless shit? You’re better than this Ezekiel.”

“What do you exactly expect me to do? This is the duty that I’ve strived for. And you’re looking at me as if we didn’t know it would always end up being this way. I know you didn’t think this shit was rainbows and daisies, you’re much smarter than gabby in that sense.” Ezekiel bit, yanking a cigarette from his pocket.

Hadiza shook her head, “speaking ill of the dead…somebody that you killed and claimed to love like she was just nothing to you. I’m not feeling this. Or you.”

“There’s the door, fucking use it,” Ezekiel flared his nostrils as he pointed at the exit, “you’re the one who came here trying to preach to me what I’ve already heard. And what I’ve told myself before back when I was weak. What? you thought shit was gonna change because it’s coming from you? I’ve got to be smarter than that, especially when it comes to the club and nothing you can say to me right now…matters.”

“Then what does, motherfucker?!” She was on her feet now, “greed? Selfishness? No wait. I got it, your ego.”

The man lifted his shoulders, not needing to say anything more or seemed to be the least bit phased by the irritation that was showing in his long-time friend’s frame.

“Going after the sons—

“I don’t want to hear it.” Ez glared, “I’ve seen enough wars to not fear a damn thing. Don’t you ever question: Where does fear get you, diza? Look in the mirror. Everybody pays a price with the cards they’ve been dealt.”

The woman chewed down on her bottom lip in annoyance, “and just how much are you willing to lose?”

“That’s something I’ve got to reflect on in my own time…but you’re here.” Ezekiel kept his eyes trained on the woman, puffing on his cigarette.

Before Hadiza could lose the courage she said, “Fuck your subliminal and fuck you.”

“We’ve already done that, remember? With Sofia watching in the background. I think the message then was very clear and something you should thank me for.”

That was so low and disrespectful, considering that Hadiza had a moment and went to someone who she thought cared about her well-being. At that time she just received the news that her fiancé wanted to break off the engagement after cheating on her with a co-worker and the first person she went to was Ezekiel. He was the first person she thought about and felt complete with—a mistake on her end, sure but she wasn’t expecting him to have company other than Sally.

The smirk that was on his lips was smacked right off by her hand. However that did not stop Ez from yanking on her wrist and getting into her face.

Anyone was fair game at this point.

This she knew deep down.

He could end it all, right here in this trailer.

What made her any different?

Did he even love her anymore? Or was she just another ploy in the way Ezekiel floated around life now? Hadiza was not part of the club so why was she becoming collateral damage?

“You don’t get to come here and think our friendship and reminiscing about the old times, or guilt trip me about Gabby, would stop me or save me from myself. That’s not your job, never was amor. Sorry I couldn’t live in your fantasy of being a good ol’ friend to you anymore. But that’s life, so either continue standing by and keep your mouth shut or take a walk and don’t look back.” Ezekiel gritted into her face and that hurt more than him squeezing her wrist.

The black ink dripped down her brown cheeks as she hissed, “you’re done to me.”

And this she hoped she meant. She couldn’t stick around and she knew Ezekiel was pushing her to do so but ultimately it was her choice. Her eyes stung from the makeup as she clenched them closed, fighting away the memories of their teenage years: watching Ezekiel love Emily, having intense debates over literature in class and outside of, him being there for her first heartbreak and attempting to get angel to drive him to the asshole who broke her heart house to egg it and piss on their front doorstep, to Marisol Reyes encouraging her to keep loving her son the best way that she knew how…

“Good,” Ezekiel breathed into her face, shoving her fist back down her by her sides.

He broke eye contact after awhile since she no longer had any words for him. He placed the cigarette back to his lips as he slouched back on the couch. Hadiza swiped the mascara from the bags underneath her eyes, deeply inhaling and battled with herself on what to do or say.

The words fell empty just like the relationship she once had with the man she called her best friend.

She sniffed as she snatched up her bag, making sure she had her keys before she took her exit. The door to the trailer opened on her way, revealing Sofia who easily picked up on the tension in the home. Her dark eyes shifted between the pair but Hadiza patiently waited for the wavy haired woman to get out of her way.

Ez pressed his elbows into his knees as he grunted, “What is it, Sofia?”

If Hadiza continued to be foolish she would have tried to believe that the tone of his voice was telling her something, besides him being an asshole. That perhaps he didn’t truly want their friendship to end but that’s the difference between the two, she didn’t have to be selfish.

“Um, you’ve some company. Bishop and Tranq are outside.” Sofia informed as she stepped into the trailer with Sally.

Ez quickly got to his feet, putting his cigarette out in a nearby ashtray and brushed his shoulder by Hadiza as he left the trailer. Sofia easily picked up on the woman taking a sharp breath at his actions but didn’t speak on it.

It didn’t take the most intelligent person to understand that something transpired between the two. Their relationship didn’t threaten what she had with EZ and in a way, Sofia actually thought it was beautiful. How their relationship didn’t appear to be transactional or circumstantial. How simply being next to each other was enough for them. Or it used to be. Yet Sofia wasn’t naïve to think that it would last with the new propositions EZ took on.

Sometimes that’s just the way life worked out and the sooner Hadiza figured that out…maybe she could protect her heart a bit better.

It was a little awkward as Hadiza had to collect herself, hand on the trailer’s door before she went outside. Sofia wasn’t one for words and she wasn’t sure anything she could say would provide comfort for Hadiza either. After what happened right here in this trailer, weeks ago, it’s not like the two had the chance to really talk about it.

They didn’t have to but it seemed like Hadiza always had a lot on her mind.

Thankfully for Sofia, Hadiza pushed the door open, not sparing her a glance, either placing herself on autopilot or trying her best to ignore her presence—it didn’t bother Sofia one way or another as Hadiza left the home.

“See you around then,” Sofia muttered, taking a seat on the couch, after the door clicked shut behind Hadiza.

Her long legs kicked up the dirt as she passed by the group of men on the side. She couldn’t get away from the place fast enough, feeling her heart being squeezed with each step she took.

“Hey,” Tranq started to call out to the woman but it was almost as if she heard nothing while she shoved herself into her car.

Bishop’s eyes were back on EZ as his eyes briefly burned into Hadiza’s retreating form. He just knew the Reyes brother fucked that up and it’s a shame because he was fond of the girl, despite her having a connection to a pig. Of course he never fully trusted her (by no fault of her own) but she was kind enough whenever she rarely showed up to club.

He kept it silent but he knew his body language did enough talking for him as EZ focused back on him.

“Tonight is the night, round everybody up.” Ez ordered, stalking off and daring a glance at Hadiza’s car and over his shoulder as he stood on the steps of his trailer, while she backed off the lot and sped away, eyes solely on what was in front of her and not what was left behind in the rear view.

Ez swallows down the small lump that wants to form in his throat but that wasn’t important right now. He had other things to tend to and Hadiza was no longer one of them.

Instead of running back, she ran to her mother’s arms who was less than thrilled to see her baby this upset over a man who she trusted to be good to her child.

Later Hadiza found herself in her mother’s hands again when she received the devastating but expected news from Angel Reyes on her door step. She broke down in the doorway right in front of him and she knew the eldest brother couldn’t handle that amount of heartache that he also shared, despite him placing a kiss to the top of her head and leaving her with one of EZ’s dog tags, he left her with the woman who gave her life to deal with the weight of the lost on his own.

Hadiza then sent a letter to Felipe a couple of days before she decided to take her life elsewhere, away from all that Santo Padre showed her. She wasn’t sure if there would even be a funeral or memorial but she had to get out while she can still stand.

Antigua was always a place Hadiza wanted to visit and now she can say that she lives here comfortably.

She left her mother on the front deck to get them a refill of her famous rum punch that was leftover from her mother’s house party yesterday night. Hadiza was humming to herself in solitude until she heard her mother screaming out to her from outside.

The woman did not hesitate to race around the house with a bat, ready to fight off any Osprey’s that decided to invade their property again. Hadiza held her breath as she yanked open the door, eyes wild as she searched for her mother on the deck.

“What is it, ma?” Hadiza exhaled, seeing her mother sitting up on one of the wicker chairs.

Her mother nudged her chin towards the front and Hadiza cautiously took a step towards the railing. A few of her fingertips rested on the banister as she leaned over a bit, looking over at the new found community they both settled into. It was quiet as usual, air warm, seaweed scented, and fresh.

She wasn’t sure what had spooked her mother until her eyes settled down by the cars parked along the curb. Her eyes moved to the left a bit and she had to rub at one of them to make sure her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her. It tended to do that the first couple of weeks she settled in the country. Lately she’s been okay. A figure stood by a identical golf cart (that they had in their driveway) that was parked right behind Hadiza’s car, fitted cap on their head as their hands held onto a mobile device.

Her throat went dry before she could even muster up and ask if she could help the person locate who they were searching for…because she knew it was him before those honey eyes looked up at her.

“Ezekiel.” She shuddered, feeling her mother get to her feet behind her, like the DJ Khalid meme, almost like she wasn’t still healing from the last Osprey attack two weeks ago.

Her mother also gripped onto the banister, “Oh hell no. I rebuke this demonic spirit, get away from here!”

And tossed the freshly watered plant at Ezekiel who side-stepped the assault.

“Hey, Mrs—it’s just me!”

“I know! Aren’t you supposed to be dead, you bastard?!” She yelled back.

Hadiza whispered at the woman, “Ma, please.”

The woman humphed, folding her arms as she waddled back to the chair, already aware how this would go.

Hadiza pointed the bat at Ezekiel, “wait right there.”

“Not if you’re gonna beat my ass.”

“I’ll think about it by time I get downstairs.”

Hadiza’s mother cackled at that, knowing she raised her baby with some sort of sense.

Hadiza couldn’t tell you how she felt but the brain fog was kicking in. She weeped over this man too many times just for him to be here in the flesh, like they all didn’t experience the hell he indulged in back in Santo Padre.

Her mother was right to think a demon was standing in front of their home. The anger Hadiza directed at EZ after receiving the news of his death was like no other emotion Hadiza’s had before but she found peace in Antigua.

She halted at the front door, noticing EZ fumbling with his fingers after the phone disappeared from his hold. Hadiza took her time going down the few front steps, crossing through the grass and down the slope to the gravel.

The man looked up at her approach, carefully reaching up to lift the cap from his head to mess around with the brim of the hat as Hadiza moved closer but almost not close enough.

His eyes immediately went to her head, noticing that the mountain of coarse hair that she had was long gone into a buzzed style now.

He smiled, “you finally did it huh? I know you’ve been eating ‘em up more than ever out here.”

And she couldn’t stand it, her eyes scanning the old yellowing of bruises and cuts on his face, puffing out a laugh at his compliment as she almost collapsed into his arms, bringing his body so tight to hers that he thought he would break her rib cage but he followed through with the same actions.

Her chin buried into his shoulder, one of his hands around the small of her back, and the other cradling the back of her head, he heard her sob against him and he couldn’t be more apologetic.

When they pulled apart, she held onto his face analyzing the marks on his skin before she inflicted her own attack on his lower half.

“Hey! Ow!” A good whack to the top of his head, made Ezekiel stop taking the hits as he gripped her wrists again.

Except this time was different, his touch was much more softer.

“I’m sorry okay. I’m sorry for filling your head up with doubts and making you believe that I didn’t give a shit about our friendship. When quite frankly—no pun intended, you’re the best got damn thing that’s been in my life.” His hands slipped into holding her hands into his own large ones.

And the way he was staring at Hadiza, let her know that this was the old Ezekiel she had missed. It was the spark in his eyes that made her feel safe, given what he got himself involved in.

He could see her mind spinning with questions, the corners of her eyes damp with tears.

“What did I say to you when we first became friends?”

“…’jalapeños on these nachos are missing and I make better ones than these whack ass ones you’re eating.’” Hadiza actually thought about this.

Which made a goofy grin appear on Ez’s face and he shook his head with a sigh, “yeah I think I did say that but after that? I said you’re stuck with me if you choose me. It would always be Kiel and Diza for life, remember?”

It was ironic that he wanted to think back when he basically was rude as hell to her about this in his trailer months ago. The bitterness was still in the pit of her stomach but the higher road wanted her to be happy that this man, her best friend, Ezekiel Lorenzo Reyes was very much still alive.

Hadiza wasn’t sure how the fuck he did it but here he was, wiping away her black mascara before holding her hands in his again.

A small smile appeared on her lips as she peered down at their hands, lifting their conjoined hands up to place her lips right on the back of his hands. Ezekiel let out a breath he wasn’t aware that he was holding.

“For life.” She repeated, staring at him underneath her eyelashes.

He nodded his head, not breaking eye contact as she pulled the necklace from around her and placed it back on Ezekiel where it belonged. He glanced down at it, a new wave of emotions hitting him as he realized a piece of him was always with the one woman he deeply cared for.

“Let’s get inside.” Hadiza told him, as he leaned over to place a kiss to her full cheek.

She turned, her hand still resting in one of his hands as he reached for the fallen bat with the other, “think I might need this if I try to give your mom a hug.”

Hadiza laughed, “Baby steps, Kiel.”

“That’s fair.” He answers from behind her, letting her lead the way to her new home.

Perhaps now here in the Caribbean, they had the chance to create a better life, a better friendship together with no more black ink or blood spills blinding the way.

·˚ ༘☄. *. ⋆ ·˚ ༘☄. *. ⋆ ·˚ ༘☄. *. ⋆ ·˚ ༘☄. *. ⋆ ·˚ ༘☄. *. ⋆·

Continue along with my anthology works that were written during the spring season here.

#Spotify #mayans mc #mayans fx #mayans mc x reader #ez reyes x reader #ez reyes x black!reader #ezekiel reyes #ez reyes #Mayans mc s5 #spring prompts #queued #Angel Reyes #felipe reyes #bishop losa #tranq loza #hank loza #mayans mc season 5 #jd pardo

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