Work Text:
I feel like I should just start with Hookline, and see where that gets me. I first met Hookline in Limbo, near to the beginning when we were all still reeling from the shock. Falling into Limbo itself affects one's psyche greatly, not to mention time stopping or the uncanny locations. It made Cassie start banging her head on walls spontaneously, and Kody would laugh way too much for way too long at nothing. Even when he is alone. I can treat Cassie's bruises, but there is only so much I can do as a doctor. I'm no psychologist. Despite this, from what I've seen of Hookline before we began talking, he can only be described as "a man on a mission." He seemed to shrug off easily what had ailed the rest of us. He stared into the corruption dead in its eyes as we all cowered from it. That made me notice him, and wonder about him as we all went about our lives, getting used to Limbo and helping each other. He always had an air of cool reserve around him, though with an aftertaste of hypervigilance. I found it impossible to observe him, because somehow, he has this uncanny ability to just know when people are looking at him, no matter from what angle or distance, and he would always seek my eyes out and stare back. It scared me. It also made me worried he thought I was a creep, but I just like people watching!!
I later learnt from Judge that he worked for the RBI, or at least "used to", he noted in a slight tone of bitter disdain. "But he was expelled." This said to me more than I had previously thought.
After a week of very unnerving and accidental eye contact, he approached me on an off day as I was helping to move things to our new camp. I remember him wearing the same suit he always did, shifting this huge folder to his other arm, so he could put his sunglasses up and ask, "If I'm not intruding on anything--- which medical school did you graduate from?"
This isn't how I really imagined the first conversation to go--- But how can a man like Hookline possibly be predicted? I gave him an answer non disclosable in this account (for future reference... i dont want anyone knowing my educational history). "Right," he had said, sifting through this huge folder. "Top fifth? I can't imagine how hard it was to graduate."
I agreed with him, haunted by my past for a second. He came off as very, very cordial. He then went on to ask, "Doctor, if I carried on bothering you for a few more seconds, would you have me?"
I was holding a boxful of suture kits and I had places to be, so I invited him to walk with me, and that was that. I was mildly curious about him and where he would take me, oblivious to the coming friendship that started on that very day. All I know is that it started with curiosity.
He pulled out some photos from this folder, of a gruesome crime scene. A body, black blood, signs of struggle, an oppressive background of shadows and hazard tape. The sight of gore always wakes me up. Utterly unfazed, the detective went on to say, "So let's say that someone has been stabbed with a knife, about three to four times, under the breastbone. Artery was not severed. How long would it take for her to die?"
I found him incredibly blunt. For reference, the breastbone is the middle of your ribs, at the front. Well, it depends. I asked him how big the knife was. "Oh, just a kitchen knife, I bet." Then, how much did this person weigh? He kept digging in this folder, overflowing with post it notes, dog ears, receipts used as bookmarks. I guessed it was something he was investigating. Work never stops for some of us. "Fourty kilograms." He looked at me. "That's about ninety pounds."
At the time, I wondered how he knew I was American. So, I estimated for him a good fourty minutes with no medical intervention, for someone so small. "Interesting," he said, still looking at the photo. I couldn't--- it makes me feel a little guilty to stare. "And if someone had found her before her fourty minutes were up? Someone competent?" Well, that changes things. If this person had basic medical training, bless her soul, she wouldn't have died at all. A wound like that is not necessarily impossible to treat, I'm sorry to say. "Don't be sorry," he said, writing something down with a pen. "You've been a great help. These types of things, they're just unfortunate. They always are."
He struck me as the bureaucratic type of weathered, sensitive to emotion and yet resigned to it. Anyone in the business of saving real, human lives is. I asked him, even in a place like this, you're still committed to your investigation? Without hesitating, he said to me, "I have my suspicions about the people in this place. Death waits for nothing. Wherever I can go and whatever I can do to prevent it--- I will. I think you might agree, Doctor."
I nodded and told him, it's what I went to med school for, if you ever need me again. Hearing this, he smiled at me and offered his hand. Whilst taking it, I thought he would introduce himself as Classified (i dont know why. if he ever reads this he might kill me for it), and then I found that his grip is very, very strong.
"My name is Sterling," he said warmly, in the same searing way you'd say, 'i think we're going to be great friends. Whether you want it or not.' His smile, like everything else about him, was sharp, all too knowing and confident, bright like a light that made your eyes ache. My hand hurt. I replied, "Just call me Mick." And despite saying this, he's called me 'Doctor' for most of our friendship, and now everyone is calling me that. My name is Mick!
"Final question," he said, closing the folder and snapping the straps shut. "When are you free?"
From that moment on, it was over for me.