Chapter Text
Despite how completely insane it may make one Nicodemus Silver, Alex never deletes a number from her phone. Even if the number changes, or the people sort of fall out of her life it helps Alex to be able to place a name with whatever number that happened to go along with it. In many ways it’s a filing system, even if it’s one that’s imperfect and imprecise or something that only makes sense to her. The strangeness of her system is something that she’s glad for when her phone goes off and Tannis Braun’s name and number just shine up at her. Blinking, Alex briefly considers letting it just go to voicemail. Honestly it’s what she does with most calls now, but by the third ring, her gut is kicking in and it’s too intriguing to wait. So, Alex just picks the phone up slowly, and asks softly: “Tannis?”
Immediately on the other end, Tannis’ voice is warm and inviting as it always is when he just says “hello Alex. Have you been working on tapping your potential? Should I make a place at the psychic table for you as well?”
Feeling instantly more at ease, Alex just laughs softly as she sits back in her chair, working the knot in her neck that seems preverbal now rather than occasional. Too much time at her desk and she knows it, but that doesn’t mean that Alex’s going to stop. Matching Tannis’ light tone she just replies, “only if we’re leaving a place for modern technology I suppose.”
“Well. It is one of the wonders of humankind. Caller ID is a fantastic thing. Though I am surprised that you’ve kept my number in your phone for this long. I haven’t exactly been…” There’s discomfort in Tannis’ tone that’s almost palpable and Alex finds herself leaning forward a bit in anticipation. “I’m sorry I haven’t returned any of your calls. I didn’t think that I had anything pertinent to add to your investigation after we last spoke.”
“Well, you know me. I’m an eternal optimist. Figured you might decide to answer them someday.” Of course it had been almost a year since she’d last called Tannis, hoping that maybe he’d be some help with either being able to find Strand or that he would be able to tell her that she hadn’t caused the end of the world. Five calls had been sent before she’d given up and Strand had finally returned from Italy. Honestly it was the later that was the reason she’d stopped calling—it was easier to think that she’d not ended the world when Richard was telling her that nothing was going to happen.
“But it does beg the question,” Alex adds after a moment. “Why are you calling me now. Especially after so long.”
Silence stretches between them, taunt and long enough that Alex feels the need to add: “Tannis?”
“Sorry,” the reply is immediate. “I’m here. And I’m in Seattle. I was wondering if you would be willing to meet me for coffee? I’m at the place by Pike’s Place that you enjoy.”
As much as Alex wishes that she could have chalked that up to Tannis being psychic, it’s not as if that information is hard to come by. It was even in the last episode of the show when Simon had asked him to go there so he could call her. Looking down at the piles of paper in front of her (and honestly Alex doesn’t know which she fears more at this point: demons, the apocalypse or freaking Pythagorean math proofs) she just inwardly groans. There’s a lot of work here, and it’s not even work she can pass off on the interns or Strand in order to focus on something else considering she already tried with Strand and he’d just looked at her flatly and said ‘no’ and the interns were busy.
“You mean right now?” There’s a tone of curious dismay in her voice because what. If he’s actually psychic…
“I realize that you’re a very busy woman, Alex.” Tannis’ voice is immediate and earnest. “But this is very important and I believe you’re the only one who can help me.”
“Me? Why?” God the last thing that she needs is another mystery when Alex is so mired in this one it’s coming out of her eyeballs.
“Please Alex. I’ll explain everything when you get here.”
Tannis knows that she’s not going to say no. More than that Alex knows so too, so she just sighs. “Give me fifteen minutes. And order me…”
“A white chocolate latte with almond milk and a shot of pumpkin spice syrup. It’ll be ready when you get here.”
“...okay. Sure.” Alex doesn’t want to think about how he knows what her fall afternoon coffee drink is (which is definitely different than her morning and evening coffee drinks are) so instead she just says. “Twenty minutes.”
The relief is evident even over the phone. Tannis’ voice is just as expressive as Alex’s is. “Thank you, Alex. I’ll see you then.”
It takes Alex more like thirty-five minutes than twenty by the time that she’s gotten out of the studio. Leaving in the middle of the work day means that in her pocket there’s a list of coffees that are probably going to make both her bank account and the poor barista cry, but sometimes that was the price for Alex’s curiosity. When she arrives at the coffee house, Tannis doesn’t look at all surprised by her lateness and while she’s expecting the coffee to be in the final stages of lukewarm, Alex is pleasantly surprised to find that the coffee is just cool enough to drink without burning her lip on. Though she doesn’t ask the question aloud, it’s there in the raise of her brows. Tannis doesn’t answer either, instead he just casually shrugs. It’s an expression that Alex decides either means ‘well, I am a psychic’ or ‘I have met you, Alex’ and she can’t decide if she wants to know the actual answer or not. Instead she just asks the question. “So what’s so urgent you had to come to my neck of the woods , Tannis?” The unheard question is ‘and to me’ and for a moment Tannis just takes a sip of his equally large coffee.
After a second, Tannis just looks around quickly and Alex decides that he is terrible at looking covert. Maybe it comes from the fact that he doesn’t try to hide things, or maybe it’s just who he is, but honestly the look makes Alex herself feel like a professional spy at this point—she’d never make so rookie of a mistake. When he leans in close to whisper, Alex just sighs. “You’re drawing attention, Tannis. The best way to avoid it is to look like you don’t have anything to hide.” It’s a lesson that Alex had learned well before Strand, but three years of their interconnected life had only honed that particular skill set of hers. “Talk normally. If someone’s listening then they’re going to stop if they think we’re just having a normal conversation.”
It’s somewhat gratifying to see the normally unflappably calm Tannis Braun look both surprised and a little embarrassed but considering how he’d booked out of the cabin where Sebastian Torres had been held, it’s not actually a new way for Alex to view him. That said, she’s glad when he just asks her normally. “It’s nice to see you, Alex. I’m pleased that you could meet me.”
“Of course. I could hardly keep myself away,” the words come with an easy laugh that isn’t a front. Mostly anyway. “You know how curious I am.”
When Tannis laughs softly, he seems more of himself, and Alex is glad. “Well, I’m sure there’s some sort of saying about that involving a cat, Alex.”
“And it’s one that people only get half right. They tend to forget about the whole ‘satisfaction bringing it back’ thing.” Part of being a reporter is knowing when to wait for a subject, and even if she doesn’t have her recorder out (yet anyway, she is Alex Reagan after all) she can’t help but to view Tannis as an unsure subject as he hems and haws mentally.
“This is off the record, Alex.” She doesn’t bother to keep the surprise off of her face, even though Alex can definitely hear Richard’s long put upon sigh in her head along with ‘he has met you, Alex.’ But still.
“Okay… is it about the show? Or Strand? Or Coralee?”
“No. It’s nothing about that. I still don’t have any fresh information there. Our friend Richard has got all of that locked down, as it were.” Without giving Alex time to reply to that he adds: “have you ever heard of a man named Davis Danvers?”
“The YouTube guy? Famous skeptic and all around kind of an asshole? The one who went into Akoshira with the intention of disproving that it’s haunted and instead ended up showing video of people’s bodies before the Japanese authorities could get to them?”
“Yes. Him. Apparently his latest effort is coming in the form of attempting to embarrass any members of the psychic community that he can get information on. By any means necessary. You’ve heard about what’s happened to Dirk Abruzzi and Emily Dumond, yes?”
“I heard that Demonhunters was canceled a few months ago. But that was low ratings, wasn’t it? And Emily Dumond took early retirement for health reasons.” Something that Strand had crowed about until Alex had given him a look. Oh, she’s not stupid enough to think that it caused him to actually stop being pleased and petty about it, but at least he wasn’t going it where she could hear him anymore.
“Officially those are the reasons for that. And on the surface they look reasonable. However if you power deeper into the stories, they don’t hold up. Dirk has been entirely silent since the cancellation both on his professional and personal social media. If asked he simply avoids the question. Don’t you think it’s odd that someone who courts fame as much as he does hasn’t done something else? A web series or a podcast or something? But there’s nothing. And Emily would hardly be the first academic to go on an extended sabbatical while dealing with a health crisis. But she didn’t. Instead she retired outright and Emily isn’t that old. More than that, once the contract for her next book is fulfilled, she’s neglected the offer from her publisher for more.”
That doesn’t sit right with Alex, none of it does, and she just shifts in her disquiet. “So what does Davis Danvers have to do with this? And with you?”
“Danvers is…” from the look on Tannis’ face Alex can see that he’s trying to come up with a polite way to frame it. But he fails entirely. “Danvers is a fucking bastard.” The words come with a venom that takes Alex back. It’s not because she doesn’t think that Danvers is a fucking bastard (she absolutely does) but because it’s Tannis Braun who’s saying them and Tannis didn’t even insult Richard to his face when he could have.
“The investigations into both Dirk and Emily were thorough and they were personal. In the case of Dirk, Danvers had several people infiltrate both his production team and his personal life. Everyone, everyone knows that Dirk fakes things for his show. It’s part of the entertainment value of it. But when Danvers couldn’t get enough information to destroy him that way, he sent someone to Dirk’s inner circle. What he discovered there will destroy Dirk when he finally releases it: Dirk is a paranoid schizophrenic. He’s medicated and has been for years but the person that Dirk hired to be his new personal assistant switched his medication, causing him to have a psychotic break. Unfortunately he had it while they were shooting an episode. Dirk is better now and back on his medication, but Danvers has the video. He’s planning on making it public.”
“Oh my god.” The words are gasped and Alex can feel her eyes just go wide. “He’s terrible.” And while that is true, it also brings about more questions for her. The first one is less invasive, so Alex just starts there. “What does he have on Emily?”
Tannis looks grateful in a way that Alex doesn’t expect, and she knows that her inclination is correct. But he starts with Emily. “Late last year, Emily began an intense affair with a person whom she’d thought was a graduate student. From everything I can tell he truly set about seducing her. It wasn’t good judgment by any means and is definitely ethically wrong for her to do so. The power imbalances alone…” Tannis just sighs and rubs his face with his hands. “To make matters worse, he wasn’t a graduate student. He’s twenty-one and was a junior who was taking graduate classes. Danvers is going to release it at some point.”
“Why do you think that he’s waiting? These stories are time bombs. Waiting on them just doesn’t make sense to me as a journalist. Especially when it doesn’t seem to be that he’s looking for more evidence to substantiate the claims that he’s making.”
Tannis just sighs. “He has several current investigations that he’s involved with. I believe he’s waiting to release them all at once. He wants the fallout to be as large as possible.”
That makes Alex frown, but it does lead to other non-Tannis questions so she asks: “how is he funding this? I know people can make a lot of money with YouTube but there’s no way he can afford this. Even paying one of those people for this needs to be a huge expense. Never mind more than one.”
“I believe, though I have no actual evidence of this but… his funding is coming from an outside source. Someone I believe we’re both affiliated with.”
“Warren’s doing this? Why? To seed doubt?” Alex’s voice is a frown and her fingers fidget with the cup protector on the cup of coffee. She already knows the answer.
“Yes. I believe that he’s seeking to attack anyone involved with proving the paranormal.” He sighs then, and Alex can see the shadows on his face. It’s unsettling considering how sunny Tannis normally is and Alex needs to find the urge to put a reassuring hand on his arm. “He’s been investigating me for some time I believe. While I’m not concerned for any of my own skeletons in my closet. But he’s coming after my son.”
“Your son? I investigated you pretty thoroughly for my show and I never found any mention of a son.”
“I have a son. His name is Mark and he lives with my former partner. He doesn’t have my last name because she was concerned about my work and the sort of people and publicity that surround me. She wanted him to have a normal childhood. Even when he began to manifest gifts of his own.”
“Your son has gifts? How old is he?”
“He’s sixteen now. And his gifts far exceed my own. While our custody arrangement is sealed—at Megan’s wishes and not my own I may add—one of the things that she fought for is sole custody. It’s what Mark wanted so I didn’t fight it.” He just sighs, a heavy and hurting sound and Alex does place her hand on his arm now for support. “I wish I had. I knew that it was a mistake when I’d done it, but Mark had told me that’s what needed to be done. I trusted in his own gifts to my folly.”
“What’s happened?”
“Unfortunately with the onset of puberty his gifts became larger, less controllable. At first it was small things: talking to things that weren’t there, disappearing at all hours, waking up in places without realizing how he’d gotten there. I’m not an idiot, Alex. I know that these gifts have often—are often—perceived to be a mental illness rather than what they are. I don’t believe that to be the case here. But Megan has had him institutionalized and the doctors are refusing access to him both to me and to the doctors who my legal team have hired. I want what’s best for my son and I’ve been working on putting a case together to challenge Megan for sole custody. I believe that Danvers has infiltrated my staff and is currently gathering this information to release on me.”
“So he’s trying to make the case that you are mentally ill based on your son? Have you ever had experiences with being diagnosed with mental illness yourself?”
“Fortunately not. But I have been on record with my gifts and it’s not going to take much for a skeptic with a platform, someone like say our friend Richard to use that information against me.”
“Is that why you think I can help? You want me to stop Strand from speaking out against you? I mean I can try but you know how little influence I have on him with things like this.” Alex’s frowning and her hands are wrapped around her coffee cup as she just sits back.
“I think you do yourself and your influence on Richard a disservice, Alex,” he just looks at her evenly before he adds, “but that’s not why I’m asking for your help and not what I’m asking for your help with.”
“Okay…” Alex lets the sentence trail off for a moment before she adds, “then what do you need me to do?”
“I’m hoping that you’ll agree to put your considerable investigative skills on it. Because this is something that is important to both of us. In fact I know it’s of the utmost importance to you as well. Yes, including what you’re working on with Richard.”
“Why is it important to me? I don’t understand.”
“Because Alex the final person that Davis Danvers is investigating isn’t Richard. It’s not the show or your studio. It’s you.”