Chapter Text
Enjin spent the rest of the day in his and Gris’s shared room, discussing what exactly happened as well as driving out groups of different people to assess the scene.
They confiscated the MP3 player from Rudo. The boy began playing it on loop. Tamsy was fascinated by how the boy was attempting to use the sounds of the device to try and map out what was happening. Of course, he was wrong on almost everything, but he supposes that for an amateur, it was all right.
"Rudo?" A sweet voice asks, the boy has been pacing around his room, and she knocks again, "Amo thinks you're upset."
His pacing falters, and he scrambles to get the door open, scratching at his neck with a glove-clad hand. "Hi, Amo." Goodness, she is so pretty. "Um, what's up? I'm fine, yeah."
He walks circles around himself with his words, and she tilts her head curiously.
"Amo would like to come into Rudo's nest. May she do that?" They had gotten into a formula with their conversations, or rather, they were attempting to have something healthy. Broken pieces of a puzzle trying to come together, it was something adorable for others to watch and nerve-racking for them.
"uh- yeah! Ignore the trash, god I should've cleaned, huh?" He backs up, allowing her into the room and fidgeting as he laughs. Zanka's impact on him becomes clearer each day with his newfound self-deprecating humor.
Amo smiles at him.
"Don't worry, Amo knows that Rudo loves trash!"
His heart pounds in his chest, and he attempts to sit on his bed; however, he ends up stumbling on a piece of scrap metal and falling backwards.
"Rudo is so clumsy!" Smiling, she offers him a hand, he grabs it as carefully as he can, and uses his other hand to push himself off the ground so she doesn't have to lift him.
"Heh, yeah-" he starts to talk, but Amo’s expression changes back to worry.
She shakes her head, internally chastising herself for getting so off topic! This was Rudo's feelings! He had a bad time with feelings, and it's mean of Amo to forget she was trying to help. Taking a breath, she looks up at him, eyes wide.
"Amo heard that something bad happened to Rudo. Amo could smell that Rudo was sad from her nest and wants to help!”
Rudo shakes his head, "I don't need help!-" then he looks up at Amo’s expression, she came here for him. He needs to not be emotionally constipated for once in his life. Amo is such a sweet girl; she shouldn't have to fight him on this or have to deal with him like this.
"I don't know how to be helped." Amo softens her eyes.
"Amo knows she likes hugs when she's upset, but sometimes touch burns for Amo, so then talking can help." She opens her arms and tilts her head at him, a gentle smile on her face, offering but not wanting to force him to do anything he doesn't want to.
He takes a step towards her.
"Are you like, sure?"
She nods her head, a smile sure. "Of course, Amo wants to help Rudo feel better!"
He takes a breath in and slots his arms under hers, carefully wrapping his arms around her torso, holding her rigid. Warm is the first thing he thinks, as she pulls him closer to her. They stand there for a moment, and Rudo lets out his breath. His face falls into the crook of her neck, and she smells almost sweet, vanilla and leather combining into something uniquely Amo's.
Cool hands begin to stroke his back, petting him, and she hums, Amo had seen something so similar in one of her picture books! "This makes Rudo feel better?" She asks after they stand there for a good moment, and he lets her go, backing away. She can't help the noise of slight disappointment at the loss.
"Yeah. Thanks."
The answer is so plain, Amo is almost worried she made him feel worse, if not for a smell, if not for a distinct smell of strawberries and cream filling the air around him, the scent of his affection.
“Does Rudo think talking would help him?”
He sits on his bed, staring into the distance. “She's dead, and I think-”
She shakes her head and walks up to him, “No, silly, Amo means what she was like when you knew her.”
“Oh, sorry.”
Walking closer, her thighs press against his knees softly, her hands stay a few centimeters away from his face, but hover there. He tilts his head, cold and slim fingers gently caressing his cheek, a motion of hers attempting to comfort him.
“She was sweet and kind. I don't know, she was just a girl.” Amo pushes on his chest, signaling for him to lie down, and he complies. She sits next to him.
“What color was she?”
His eyes open, and he looks up at her, eyebrows furrowed. “What?”
She takes a breath, “Mr. Gris is dark green, like, Ms. Zanka is light purple.” Her hand finds his hair and runs through it.
“I don’t really know, dude.”
Amo nods her head and scoots to the head of Rudo's bed, pulling his torso to lie over her lap, “It’s ok, Amo only knows one other person who understands what she means with the colors. Talk about her more, Ms. Chiwa?”
“Just Chiwa is fine. I think she'd prefer it like that.”
Amo scratches gently at his scalp, carefully and gently dislodging small bits of dirt. “Amo thinks that's a pretty name.”
Eugh, rotten strawberries. Amo’s nose twitches, and after a few moments, vanilla mixes with it, the berry scent strong, the scent of yearning.
“Amo won't be mad about whatever you say about her, Amo promises.”
“She was pretty. I liked her; she would bring me little treats, her family was better off than mine-” A pang of pain fills his chest as he stares at the ceiling, memories of Regto filling his mind. “He used to make fun of me for it. It-”
Amo tilts her head, “Who is he?”
“My dad. He was an asshole, but.. In the way that you could tell he cared, I guess. Like, I used to steal trash, and I found something I thought she'd like and fixed it up for her. He was brutal. Did not get off my ass about not wimping out until I gave it to her.” A soft, begrudging smile grows on Rudo’s face.
“Amo thinks Chiwa liked it?” She tilts her head.
He lets out a breath, looking up at her, and the rotten smell comes back. “That isn't important.” Turning, he lays his head on the mattress, and Amo watches his ribs expand with fascination before he talks again. “Chiwa was there when no one my age was, defended me.”
He stares down at the soft sheets. It always felt like barbed wire around his throat or like he had to force himself to talk anytime it was about mushy-mushy feelings. “Ms. Tomme says when someone we love leaves, it’s good that we remember good times with them, and feel glad that they were there when we had them.”
“Yeah.” Chiwa didn’t deserve any of this.
Chiwa deserved to grow up and find some guy, forget about Rudo entirely, and just live her life. She would have a kid, a little boy who looked just like her, and maybe she would have gone to get that rabbit. She didn’t leave him until he was accused of murder; she probably would have felt bad for leaving the innocent thing behind and grabbed it. He wishes that the interview had lasted longer. Wishes he got to see her again. They never would have been the same; that whole scene hurt, but something could have prospered, god knows he needs a good friend. He looks up at Amo and feels his breath catch in his chest. He is a boy; he isn't supposed to cry, but he feels really close to it over this whole death of his old friend thing, and he really wants it to stop.
“I gotta get up, I need to do something,” he murmurs, sitting up and, careful not to hurt Amo, gets off the bed.
“Amo knows Rudo isn't allowed to leave the base without an adult.”
He fights a groan, knowing that she can't read his mind, even if she smells rotten flowers and nicotine at the boy's feelings, “Like, training,”
She nods and stands, “Rudo feels heavy in his hands and needs to fix it.”
Narrowing his eyes, he nods slowly. The pent-up energy had been making him more twitchy than normal, but he didn't think she noticed that.
“Can Amo join Rudo?”
He nods his head, the motion a lot more choppy than he had wanted it to turn out, and a squeak is heard out of the girl behind him at his hesitation, and she begins to lead the way.
They get outside, and a while back, Zanka had shown him which storage closet held dummies used for training, so he pulls one of them out and sets it up. Amo stands a good distance away from him, not wanting to interfere but wanting to be there just in case he needed something. If she was enjoying how the place started smelling distinctly like Rudo, she thinks that it is her business. He goes through the motions of being embarrassed that she's watching him and unsure of what to do without being seen as cringy, but Amo quite literally cheers him on from the sidelines, and he lets himself put his emotions into the bag.
“Rudo.” It takes a few repeats of the voice wringing from his collar for him to snap out of the slight daze he had been in, sweat collecting along his pale skin, and he freezes once he recognizes it.
“Enjin,”
He hears a sigh come through his collar and backs up to the wall where Amo is standing, more out of breath than he remembers being.
“Semiu got back from the address. There isn't much left in there because we gained all the details we could and cleaned that mess up. Do you want to go?”
His feet move before his mind catches up. "Yes, on the way there now, front desk," Amo trails shortly behind him.
Her boots fall heavily against the hard floor of the cleaner base as she follows, and she hums.
"Is Rudo sure he wants to go?"
"Yes, Amo, I'm sure I want to go. wouldn't be" He snaps, and realises that his tone is harsher than he wanted it, so his speech drones on into a string of incoherent mumbling.
Amo makes a humming noise and tilts her head, making sure that she stays a decent distance, so she doesn't make him upset, but still close enough that when he rounds the corner, she doesn't lose sight of him for long.
When they get into the main room, it becomes apparent that the car will be Enjin, Tamsy, Rudo, and Amo. They all collect, and he is told again that the place is mostly cleaned up; he isn't going to find much there, but he will be allowed to ask questions and actually go inside.
“Rudo, you can have the passenger seat if you’d like it.” Tamsy offers with a warm smile, most of the time whoever is the oldest gets the passenger seat, but if he takes it, then that means he gets to one, be next to the girl, and reinforce negative thought processes and help to make the negative cycles he had been working on, as well as making them both feel more separated.
“No, I'm fine, I prefer the back.” They begin to walk over to the car, and Tamsy smiles, “Aw, such a knight in shining armor, staying next to Amo, well, I won't ask again.”
Tamsy slides into the passenger seat, Rudo behind him. Once they are all positioned, the engine roars to life, and they begin their trip to the building that had been engraved in the boy's eyelids.
This is an awfully interesting group, Tamsy figures. A man who, upon meeting a traumatized fifteen-year-old girl, took it upon himself to flirt with her, then insult her repeatedly, the man who then kidnapped that girl, her, as well as the boy of whom met her, then punched her in the face and rests in some odd working-things-out situation regarding their traumas. Enjin makes a particularly rough turn, although he had been driving slower than normal, which was a marvel that he thinks will never happen again after this very moment. The movement causes a yelp to come from the back of the vehicle, followed by a squeak. At some point during this car's probably too long for its own good life, it lost its seatbelts.
“Sorry, Amo!” Rudo practically shouts, and shuffling is heard as he shuffles over to his seat. Ah, he had most likely slid during the movement and crushed the poor girl.
He hears the girl giggle in a way that he knows made Rudo blush, “It’s all ok, Rudo!”
Eugh. Young love, how rotten tasting. It's fine, though, he supposes. It will all crumble in the end.
“We’re here,” Enjin's voice lacks his normal whimsy, for he has spent the past day driving here and back and having to recite what was in the building practically billions of times, which, when paired with forgetting to eat and hardly getting any sleep, even takes the wind out of his Umbreaker a little. The kids scramble to get out. Enjin starts again, “Tamsy, wait.”
The man stops his steps and turns around, his eyes attentive, and his head tilted slightly. “Yes, what do you need?” His voice is tinged with worry, but it seems like he's attempting to hide it with a calm demeanor.
Enjin sighs.
“I’ve had to deal with this shit for what feels like a few years, don't get too gory but answer the kids' questions, you know what I do.”
Oh, Tamsy internally laughs, he knows so much more than this man may assume or know himself, but externally, he nods. “My remark earlier was not ok, and I appreciate you trusting me with this.”
Enjin follows behind, and Tamsy opens the door to the building.
Instantly, Rudo and Amo enter, and he looks over to the older man. “So, do I finally get to fucking know what happened?”
Tamsy makes a sympathetic look, and shakes his head slightly, but walks over to where the body used to be, sitting a bit behind where it would have been, and sighs. “Her death was quick and relatively painless from what we saw, if that is all that you want to know. It ends rather simply, Rudo.”
Rudo walks further up, being followed closely by Amo, and he stands over his shoulder, looking down.
“Amo thought there would be like the little white outline, like from the shows Mr. Jabber shows her.” She tilts her head slightly, her voice slightly off.
“They only do that when the victim is still alive, when they have to take them to some medical facility before they finish the scene.”
A silence breaks over the group, and they, quite frankly, stand awkwardly there. Rudo glances up at Amo and notices tears beginning to well in her eyes.
“You good?” It's not eloquent, but Amo sniffles and looks at him.
“Chiwa was orange like Amo.” Her nose was being assaulted with scents of rot, of a horrible and painful demise that was making her heart feel weird in her chest. “Amo hates whoever did this! Amo would have liked Chiwa!” She feels overwhelmed, but each attempt to draw a calming breath only stabs the scents deeper into her heart.
“Yeah, I think Amo needs to go walking,” Enjin speaks up from where he was leaning against the wall, walking slightly up to her and whistling something he had trained all of the cleaners to know as come.
She looks up at Rudo, her reddened face silently asking him for permission, and he nods; she walks out of the room. Enjin follows along, and the door of the building closes with a heavy thud.
He stares at the ground, breathing in carefully. “Tell me more. What did that asshole do to her?”
“If what you showed up to the ground in was any show, she wasn't wearing the same thing she was when she had gotten here. There was a cut made through the flesh down her back, torn out, and some ribs were broken and moved to provide support to ‘wings’ that the murderer had made out of her back. As well as there were hooks in the ceiling that were connected to hooks to further support them. Her dress had an insignia from a relatively local seamstress; it was an awfully pretty white, too, such a shame it was destroyed as it was.”
Rudo's eyes widen as he speaks, and he nods his head. “I'm gonna find who did this and kill him with my bare hands. The pain in my hands will be nothing compared to what I'm going to put him through, holy shit!” He had been working on not having as many violent outbursts, which, of course, displeased Tamsy, but seeing him verbalize it was quite cute.
“Hm, is there anything else you want to know?”
Rudo growls, which may have sounded intimidating to him but sounded awfully like a small cat purring to Tamsy, and backs away, hands opening and closing.
“Were there any hints of who did it? You all scrubbed the fucking place clean, what did you find?”
Tamsy hums, “The killer was awfully efficient; unfortunately, there were no DNA traces.” He doesn't mention how, when he first went in here with Enjin, he let his hair fall, so that if they found something of that, it would be chalked up to that. “We may not have found anything, but there have been discussions of upping the security of the base, but other than that, it doesn't seem like there is much we can do.”
Tamsy can't help praising himself ever so slightly for this; he had made a beautiful display, Tomme had ended up writing her observations on a trip she made, had gone twice, first time alone, then with Semiu to discuss what they had both seen, and goodness, he wasn't disappointed. She had a proper page to submit and a private one. Tamsy had seen it when going through her things early this morning. She understood all of his symbols he had put into it, why he did everything he did, oh, he may not feel normal love; however, he is very fondly intrigued by the woman.
"I'm gonna figure it out." Rudo's voice ends up breaking him out of his thoughts, and he stands, dusting off his pants and beginning to open the door.
Oh, one day he will, but it will be a beautifully orchestrated moment by Tamsy himself rather than whatever gory fantasies the boy is having.
"Rudo, dear, I truly hope you do, but I think it may be a good idea to start heading out. We spent longer than expected here. I seemed to have allowed us to get lost in thought for too long; we should go check on the others."
Tamsy fights a slight frown at the fact that he didn't have the foresight to know Amo and the other man would be heading out and to set up some odd obstacles and trouble for them. Building bonds only to break them later is always fun, as they say, the gods of death allow cities to flourish, so when he comes, his bounty is greater.
"Yeah." Rudo walks over to the door, his movements rigid, and a slight look of surprise at just how much time had passed.
"Damn, thought y'all got lost or something!" Enjin laughs, they both sit leaning against the hood of the truck and move to get in at the sight of the others.
Augh. Tamsy can't believe that seducing Enjin was ever a backup plan to begin with.
"Ah, getting lost in a building!" Tamsy smiles and laughs, and the groups merge into the vehicle.
The sound of the trashy pop music that made up a surprising portion of Enjin's playlist plays softly and fills the air of the beat-up truck.
"Rudo?" The boy in question has been staring out into the darkening sky, purples and light blues mixing together like oil on a canvas, his eyebrows furrowing as he thinks, unaware of his name being called yet.
When Icarus fell, the world did not stop to mourn, and this was something the boy is having to learn as the world fails to mold to the feelings that swirl inside him with vigor. Tamsy finds it a bit funny that Rudo is sulking so hard while Chapel roan plays cheerfully, doing absolutely nothing to bring him up like the song was intended to.
"Rudo." Amo’s voice is a little harder as she tries to catch his attention again. She watches as the boy jumps.
She holds her hand out to him once his eyes turn to her, and he carefully puts his hand against hers. He couldn't really feel it through his gloves, which he would never admit to anyone, but it made him a little sad, but watches carefully as she intertwined their fingers.
"Amo thinks about putting her hand in Rudo's glove sometimes; they look big enough for it, and Amo's hands are always cold."
It's hard to hide your feelings from a girl who can quite literally smell them. He kisses his teeth and pretends he didn't think anything, and quickly a relative silence comes over the truck, them both looking out of their respective windows.
The time it takes to get back to HQ ends relatively quickly, and Rudo comes up with multitudes of horrible things he could do to the person who killed Chiwa. He takes a brief pitstop to wonder why HR assumed it was a man when most of the women he knows could kill him in a heartbeat.
"Amo wants to offer getting dinner and sleeping on the couch." She starts when they escape the car and begin walking back to the doors of HQ.
Rudo gawks and proceeds to try and fail to play it cool, a slight red on his cheeks giving him away. "Like, you and me?"
She nods and tilts her head as she opens the door for him.
Rudo bows his head on instinct when he enters, and they pass by Semiu’s desk. "I- I'm not hungry, but like-"
Amo nods, "Want sleep?"
Sweetness fills her nose as he nods his head, embarrassment evident. Grabbing his hand, she skips to the main room. Gris and Enjin hung out in here all the time, so there shouldn't be an issue. As well as, while Amo loves Rudo, she feels a little nervous to bring him into her nest. She doesn't think that he isn't going to like it or anything, it just feels a little too overwhelming for her, she felt the feelings of a little girl who got tortured and kept her cool for the five minutes she was around Rudo. She may have broken down as soon as she got outside and the door was closed, but Amo and Rudo have been strong enough for today!
"Does Rudo want talk then sleep or just sleep time?" She tilts her head slightly as she sits down on the couch, the legs already extended from where she assumes Gris was taking his grandpa nap earlier, Rudo sitting beside her awkwardly.
"The second." She almost giggles at how adorable he is, and she scootches herself down on the couch, and once she's fully lying, she turns to her side and opens her arms.
"Are you-"
She leans up and grabs his face with her hands, his cheeks squishing against the pressure, and she looks at him with deadly seriousness.
"Amo will not offer if Amo does not want to."
Rudo's face reddens, and she laughs, lying back down and looking up at him.
"Does Rudo want this?"
He looks down at her; she is too sweet for him. Begrudgingly and carefully, he lies down.
"Yeah."
A hum of contentedness comes out of the woman next to him, and he feels arms wrap around him and pull him closer. His face rests in the crook of her neck, and he panics on what to do with his hands, and she guides them around her torso, then moves her own to play with his hair.
"Amo thinks Rudo is adorable."
Normally, Rudo would hiss and fight at that, but his head feels fuzzy, and his lungs are full of a smell that is distinctly Amo, distinctly safe. So, he grumbles something unintelligible and burrows his head against her carefully. She giggles and lets out a tired but contented sigh, and they fall asleep together. Time ebbs by like honey, the viscous unknowable substance declares the start and end of all things, but the only things that are on the minds of the inhabitants of the living room are the soft moments gifted to them. They may not know how long they will have until something worse or just as bad comes, but they still have the time between to.. Love. To live and dream and sing and weep as they please. And that's all that matters in the end, isn't it?
Hours later, the young couple lies asleep, still wrapped in each other's arms, miles away in dreamland, soft snores filling the room. Tamsy’s silent footsteps are followed by a dull thud. A small white rabbit, in pristine condition other then the speckles of a red liquid dried on its legs, the small pink handkerchief hangs from its neck, an emblem (a carefully done embroidery of the mask that led to all of Rudo’s pain, the last thing he remembers from his fathers death scene.) that wasn't their prior sewn onto the inside, and as he leaves the brown eyes of the rabbit bore into the couple.
Surely a few extra clues would only make it more interesting. Tying the person who killed Regto to Chiwa's death, showing that after all this time, the girl had truly gone back for the small creature, and that it was there during her demise, were sure to provide interesting reactions.