Chapter Text
❉❅❉❅❉❅❉❅
Despite having seniority, the young Russian had a certain fixation for taking in the afternoon or late night shifts usually reserved for the still bright-eyed rookies. This often lead to his fellow dispatchers asking him if he was alright in the head and keeping up with his medication in varying degrees.
Viktor would always laugh and shrug off their less than humourous questions.
Maybe it was the adrenaline of the chase, maybe it was the euphoria that came after successfully helping someone, or maybe it was the gnawing anticipation that at any second he could receive a momentous call from some unfortunate soul that kept him denying his boss's offers for a shift transfer time after time.
'Or maybe,' his mind drawled, 'it's because it gives you something to do instead of staying home alone with Makkachin.'
Mottled blues rolled in exasperation, the rim of an off-white paper cup pressed lightly over parted lips. Dealing with the job had given him a sort of inner conscience to argue against; or, as one of the new trainees described it as to her ragtag gaggle of friends, a personal asshole that helped them 'oldies' in coping with the stress.
It was silly, he knew, having taken the gruelling medical classes demanded by the state, to consider it a separate person to talk to when he distinctly knew what the little voice was: a byproduct of a traumatised mind trying to heal itself.
"Comes with the job, I guess," Viktor chuckled ruefully under his breath, sipping at his black coffee and shooting a glance at the watch wrapped securely around his thin wrist.
9:37 P.M.
The silver haired man hummed. He still had time to lounge around until the afternoon shift left at 10 o'clock sharp, yet he would prefer to reach his station early and have everything ready to go rather than twiddling his thumbs alone in the operators' designated 'Recovery Room.' It never hurt to be extra prepared for a long and unpredictable night, after all.
Besides, Viktor could do with avoiding the avid fanfare he had developed amongst the rookies.
❅❉❅
Fifteen minutes left until his shift started.
Sipping the last dregs of the lukewarm coffee, Viktor was about to stand to toss away the cup when he saw a wildly blinking notice on one of the neighbouring consoles besides his.
"Huh?"
His head tilted in confusion, but nonetheless he approached the vacant terminal. Deft fingers picked up the resting headset, slipped it on with a grace that came from endless practice, and sat lightly on the rolling chair. A few clicks from his nails tapping the hard plastic of the keyboard's keys patched the call through to him.
"911, what's your emergency?" He asked, voice a leveled monotone as he repeated the customary mantra.
"Yes, hello," crackled a man through the line, "is this Miss Rosa Green? This is Grenher Police Station."
Viktor's eyebrows raised in slight surprise. Pulling his poised fingers back from hovering over the keys, the Russian leaned back on the chair and shook his head despite the caller not being able to actually see him do so.
"No, sir, Miss Green has already left for the day," he informed, tone now pleasant and airy. "If I may ask, though," he continued, reaching over to pluck a pack of post-it notes and a pen from a nearby mesh basket, "what can I help you with?"
The officer remained quiet for a few moments, seemingly debating if he should confide whatever it was he needed to another Dispatcher. However, before Viktor could suggest writing a message down for Rosa to see next morning, he spoke up once again.
"Do you have the recordings of a call that took place Wednesday, last week?"
The operator paused, torn between laughing fondly or shaking his head at the idiots that left a new face to the police force in charge of collecting telecommunication evidence. Eventually he settled for the latter and set to work.
Slim fingers clacked rhythmically as he did a quick search of the database. Sure enough, the list of recorded calls from last week's Wednesday were pulled up on one of the five monitors.
"Yes, sir, I do," he nodded, waiting for further instructions.
"Oh, um..." The young trainee hesitated.
"Sir?"
"I-is there one regarding a Mister... Tachioka?"
Icy blue eyes skimmed the records with a critical glint, stopping once they found the given last name. "Yes, sir, we do," he relayed, already opening the file and briefly pouring over the supplied details.
'White Japanese male, 25, lives alone, and victim of a gunshot wound to the stomach. Unknown assailant dressed in black broke into his home, visibly didn't take anything, and left soon after shooting.'
"Great! Could you, um, send them over for a case report, please?"
Viktor almost cooed at the officer's inexperience, but he caught himself in time. Clearing his throat, he lilted, "I will have to receive confirmation from the director first, sir, but once the procedures have been taken care of, you will receive the recordings."
The young man on the line had audibly choked when he mentioned the director's confirmation, but quickly composed himself enough to give his thanks and hang up on the Dispatcher.
A sigh peeled from weary lips, closely followed by creaks of protest from the rolling chair as he shifted his weight on the old thing. Speaking to newbies was always a task in and of itself, he mused.
A fleeting glance to his watch reminded him he only had a few minutes left to return to his own station, so with a hastily written email sent to Director Yakov, Viktor made sure to power off the terminal and remove Rosa's line from standby.
He knew at the back of his mind that the recordings would not be released at the request of a trainee -- usually only if a superior with a damn good reason requested the transfer themselves would it work, but Viktor had decided to humour the young man; if only to take off some stress from the poor kid's shoulders, he reasoned with himself.
He absentmindedly tossed the forgotten paper cup into the trash at the entrance of the control room and was on his way back to his station when the analogue clocks struck ten at night. The mixed groans and sighs of relief from the afternoon shift were an almost pleasant background hum to the impending silence the graveyard shift brought with itself.
Sooner than what he expected, Viktor was already sitting on the familiar spinning chair and slipping on his headset in one fluid motion. A few clicks of a mouse and a couple of taps on his keyboard later left him ready to tackle the arduous shift.
❅❉❅
In total, there had only been around ten emergency-level calls so far into the shift, excluding the twenty or so miscellaneous calls from people filing in noise complaints against their neighbours or alleged suspicious behaviour in a house that usually ended up being the caller's own dog running amok.
All-in-all, Viktor considered this a slow night so far. He had only answered around five non-emergency calls himself, so he had only just begun to let his mind wander when a high pitched click echoed forth from his headset, his open line having automatically connected to an incoming call.
"911, what's your emergency?" He recited, hands poised over the hard plastic keys and ready to rain down upon them with lightning speed.
. . .
Silence.
Nothing but the muted buzz of a far-off air conditioning unit filtered through his headset. 'Odd...?' Viktor thought, eyes squinting in slight bewilderment.
Nonetheless, he pressed forward.
"Hello? Is anyone there?"
Finally, a loud crackle burst through, almost jarring the operator hard enough to flinch back from the too loud sound.
"Yes, yes, um, I-I am here," a male's voice answered, Eastern (if Viktor had to guess) accent thickened with noticeable fear.
"Hello, sir," he said again, finger muscles already twitching with restraint. "What's your emergency?"
"T-there is a, uh, a-a man standing outside my house."
Click clack, click clack, click clack.
"Understood, sir. What's your name, sir?"
"M-my name? Oh! It's Hikaru Nakamura."
Click clack, click clack, click clack.
"What is your address, Mister Nakamura?"
"6752 Magnolia Lane, in Giera Pass."
Whilst Viktor typed the given address and began to throw quick glances at his emergency vehicle monitor, the man on the line continued.
"He's just... standing there, n-not moving."
"Do you know how long he has been there, sir? I am sending a police car your way, but it may be delayed due to the storm."
"Īe. I-I mean, no, I don't. I woke up after my dog started b-barking, and I thought she was barking at the thunder, you know? But then she kept staring at the front door a-and wouldn't move, so I peeked out the window and--"
. . .
"Mister Nakamura? Are you there?"
Hitched gasps. A muffled, distant growl of a dog.
"Sir? Is everything alright?"
"H-he's closer now," came the feeble whisper, so tiny and shaky that Viktor had to strain to hear it.
An uneasy feeling settled in Viktor's gut, but he kept a levelled head and prowled on. Briefly switching lines to the open police channel, the Dispatcher swiftly barked for the nearest squad car to report to the man's home. Aside from the original vehicle, another officer duo reported being close to the area as well and radioed back in that they were now en route.
They would be around twenty minutes off, however.
Viktor dutifully made the man aware of the fact once he switched back to his line.
"The police are on their way, sir," he soothed, the man's laboured and near hysterical breath bringing his training to the forefront of his mind. "Are you and your dog alone in your house, sir?"
Half stuttered and rapid Japanese crackled through. The operator pursed his lips and slowly said, "I'm going to need you to speak English for me, okay, sir?"
"H-hai-- f-fuck, I mean yes, yes, of course. A-and yes, it's just m-me and my dog."
"Understood, sir, stay on the phone with me, please."
Click clack, click clack, click clack.
"Can you confirm for me that all of your windows and doors are locked, sir?"
The man's breathe ceased the second a dog's loud and vicious warning bark crackled in.
"He's standing closer now, b-but he's not moving anymore," the man whimpered, tone nasal and sounding as if he were about to start crying then and there.
'Deep breathes, Vitya,' came the pest in his head, strangely comforting at the moment. 'Deep breathes.'
"Easy, sir, just stay on the line and everything will be alright," the silver haired man reassured, typing furiously away at his two keyboards and jerking the dual mice here and there.
"Can you confirm that all access points are locked, sir? Can you do that for me?"
"...Y-yeah. I-I'll go check right now."
The soft thud of something being placed down left Viktor mouthing inaudible curse words.
Fuck. It was a corded phone.
He distantly heard the sounds of slow shuffling, a dog's anxious whining and grunting, and faraway footsteps getting closer again to the receiver.
"T-they're all closed and locked."
"Understood. Do you know who that man is, sir?"
"No! No, I only woke up to my dog complaining, s-so I looked outside and saw him fucking standing there like a creepy bas -- why won't you fucking move?!"
Viktor tensed at the hysterical shift the man's voice took at the end. "Sir," he started, one hand rising to press against the shelled ear pad of his headset, "I need you to calm down, please. Do you have a wireless phone, sir?"
"A wireless -- what's a wireless got to do with this?! Get the police here, now, please!"
"They're on their way, sir, I promise, but I need you to focus. Do you have a wireless phone?"
"Y-y-yeah... yes, yes I do."
"Alright, I need you to go pick up that phone, but do not hang this one up until I tell you to do so."
Once again, he heard the phone thump against a hard surface and far-off movement, followed soon after by a loud click and a strange double echo.
"D-done, done. I've got the wireless phone n-now, do I hang up the other one...?"
"Yes, sir."
The double echo ceased in an instant.
"What is the man doing now, sir?"
A pause. "He's... He's," the caller gulped, whispering, "he's still standing there... B-But I think he's gotten closer."
"How far is he from the door, sir? Can you measure the distance?"
"A-about some ten or fifteen feet away from my do -- what are you doing?! No, stop!"
A loud crash and frantic screaming made static pop and filter through the headset, making Viktor wince. He turned to the emergency vehicle monitor, watching the way two distinct moving dots closed in on the marked house, yet still were a few ways away from actually getting to the property. Curse these rural area residences.
"Sir, what's going on?" He barked, tone wavering when his only response was a bloodcurdling scream and deafening, violent barks.
"He's here! He's here! He's inside my house, oh gods!" The man finally wailed into the phone, frantic scrabbling suggesting he was running away from the intruder. A rapid series of thuds informed Viktor that he was allegedly climbing stairs into a second floor.
"Sir, I need you to listen to me closely, okay? Can you do that?"
"Yes, yes! Just, please, get here already!"
"The police are on their way, sir," the Russian echoed, a rising feeling of helplessness threatening to consume him whole whilst his fingers all but became pale blurs over the keyboard.
'The intruder is inside the house.' He typed, sending the signal to both squad cars.
"I need you to get inside a room with a lock, sir. Do you have a room with a lock on the door?"
"My bathroom and my room!"
"Get inside your room and lock the door, sir. No matter what happens, do not open the door at all once you close it."
The loud slam of a door and agonized yelps from a dog came through the line.
"W-we're inside the room n--"
A soft pop.
Blue eyes widened in horror before the dispatcher all but threw himself over the keyboard. He switched lines into the police channel in a blink and barked into the small microphone of his headset.
"The suspect is armed. I repeat, the suspect is armed!"
"Understood, dispatch."
A few clicks and he was back to his frantic caller.
"Sir, I need you to hide inside a closet or under a bed. Can you do that?" He asked, tone still eerily pleasant despite his high strung nerves.
"!"
"Sir, could you repeat that? I didn't quite catch that."
Instead of getting a response, Viktor was once again horrified to hear the tell-tale thudding of a door being broken down, half garbled screaming and animalistic growling, two distinct soft pops, and then an eerie silence after the wireless phone landed with a muffled thump against what he assumed was carpeted flooring.
All in a span of ten seconds, maximum.
Body momentarily frozen from either shock or terror, Viktor shook himself and feebly whispered, "Sir? Are you there?
. . .
Nothing.
He was about to switch lines to the police dispatcher channel when distorted shifting caught his attention.
"Sir?" He called, voice tinged hopeful despite knowing in the back of his mind what had just transpired was useless to hope against.
Nothing but raspy breathing.
"Sir? Are you alright? What happened?"
"... Knock, knock."
. . .
What the actual fuck.
"W-what? Who is this?"
The new voice became aggressive and forceful, completely different from the humourous lilt it had had before.
"Knock, knock."
Viktor swallowed the lump in his throat. The other dispatchers were throwing looks his way, worried and noticeably tense given his own unease and steady descent into a breakdown. He offered a shaky smile, but it turned out to be more of a grimace than the comforting expression it was meant to be.
"W-who's there?" He stuttered, unable to hang up on the caller and knowing it was useless to try and get information out of what must be the murderer. He fleetingly noticed the squad cars turning into the victim's neighborhood through his monitors.
Maybe if he kept the man on the phone...
"Two roses."
"Two roses... two roses who?"
"Two roses for you, lovely."
A hand on his shoulder had him jumping in his seat. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed Georgi standing there.
"Everything alright?" He mouthed, eyebrow raised and lips set in a grim line.
Viktor shrugged helplessly and handed him another headset connected to his station. The raven slipped it on and tuned into the strange conversation.
"Roses for who, sir?" Viktor asked, doing his best to sound impassive once again even when the distant wails of police sirens crept closer.
"FOR YOU."
Both Russians jerked back at the sudden, deep throated growl.
"Sir, I need you to calm down, please," bone white hands clacked away at the computer, imputing that this new voice was the intruder that had allegedly murdered an innocent man and his dog.
"I'll be seeing you soon," the man strangely purred, his disturbing shift in mood yet again sending a chill down the operator's spine.
Click.
The line went dead.
❅❉❅
The soothing crescendo of the singing violins poured from the earphones, the occasional stanza of pearly piano keys weaving into their melody lulling the dispatcher into a fitful rest.
"Don't feel so bad," Georgi weakly laughed, clearly not believing his own words. "There's good calls..."
"And then there's bad calls," Viktor finished, pulling his arm away from over his eyes and staring up at the ceiling, feet dangling over the armrest of the loveseat.
The pair were currently cooped up inside the soundproof Recovery Room, sent there by their night shift superior after the disastrous call Viktor had answered.
After he had heard a man be mercilessly murdered by a gunman. He had never felt so helpless and utterly useless in the face of tragedy as he did now.
"You'd think we'd be used to it by now," he sighed.
Georgi sympathetically shook his head.
"This has been the fourth time already."
"Fourth time...?"
"Fourth time a man's been murdered in the middle of a call."
Viktor sat up, startled. "This week?" He gasped.
The other Russian nodded solemnly.
"Same man?"
"Judging from the voice, I'd say yes."
Viktor suddenly thought about the rookie policeman call he had received earlier that night. Could the events possibly be related?
It would be too much of a coincidence if they were not.
He plucked the buds from his ears and swung his legs over the loveseat's edge.
"I got a call earlier -- or, well, Rosa did, but I answered it -- and the Grenher Police Station requested a recording from last Wednesday. It was from a Japanese man, shot in the stomach by the assailant."
The raven nodded slowly, a pensive expression settling over his features as he mulled over the information. "Do you think," he started, finger pressed to his chin in thought, "that the calls may be related?"
"It would be too much a coincidence if they weren't... Wouldn't this constitute as a serial killer?"
"Well, whatever it is," Georgi sighed, rising from his seat across from the other man and offering him his hand, "we better get back to the lines. Those rookies are probably killing each other by now."
A pleasantly startled bark of laughter from a still shaken Viktor left Georgi's lips quirking in amusement.
❅❉❅
The clock's hour hand had just struck three in the morning when a new call connected into Viktor's open line.
"911, what's your emergency?" He asked, once again calm and collected.
"Y-yes, um... There's this-- this man outside our dorm building," came an unnerved whisper through the headset. He distinctly heard the soft whispers of curtains being pulled aside and swayed, either by the caller themselves or someone else standing very close by. "He's walking around in circles, I think...?"
A pause.
"Cou...Could you repeat that for me, sir?"
"The man he's... he's walking around a-and staring up at our window. It probably sounds weird, I know."
"Could you describe him for me, sir?"
"I can't see a face, but it looks like he's dressed in all black. Around 6'0 to 6'5 tall, too, I think," the caller relayed, sounding much more at ease than he originally was when the call began.
"Do you know this person, sir?"
"No, we don't recognize him at all."
"We? Is someone else there with you, sir?"
"Oh! Um, yeah, I'm here with my roommate. We were sleeping with the window open when we heard weird noises coming from the ground level dorms. I thought it was another student at first, b-but then Yuuri looked out the window and saw the guy. He said that he didn't recognize him and we noticed he kept staring at us..." He then trailed off, voice lowering into a hushed whisper before finally falling silent.
"Sir? Is everything alright?" Viktor prodded, rhythmic taps slowing down the slightest bit.
"He's... He's," a shuddering breath, "the man's right under our window now."
Viktor's shoulders steadily grew tense. "Stay with me, okay, sir? Everything will be alright; I've sent a squad car your way and alerted campus security about this, yes?
"Y-yeah, th-thanks."
"May I have your name, sir? You and your roommate's?"
"S-sure, uh... m-mine is Phichit Chulanont and my roommate is Yuuri Katsuki."