[closed]

[doublesmall]

WHO: Chuuya Nakahara and Grell Sutcliffe
WHERE: The coroner's office
WHEN: January 2
WHAT: Doing some detective work to find out about Chuuya's death.
WARNINGS: none right now!



[It's been long enough, Chuuya figures. He's waited to see if memories come, and some have, but that alone doesn't bring him any closer to understanding what happened to him. He can't remember dying at all, much less figure out how he'd ever come back from it.

So he's taken matters into his own hands. There have to be records or something somewhere, and he knows just the person to help him dig them up-- Grell's the obvious choice for anything to do with death.

That's led them to where they are now; if any office has what they're looking for, it has to be the coroner's, right?]

So... you're not going to turn me in or anything if I go picking cabinet locks, right?

[Half-teasing, half-serious. If that's what it takes, he doesn't mind going for it.]

Comments

[erythristic]

I won't if you teach me how to do it when you're done. Could be a handy skill to have.

[it's easy enough to explain her presence in here, if they're found. Chuuya would be harder, but it's not totally suspicious if she's seen, seemingly doing work. of course, she wonders how much Retrospec's eyes are seeing at this point in time, but if they want the information hidden, they'll have to get good at hiding it.

experimentally, she tries some drawers to see what's locked and what's not. there's some unlocked ones, but after scanning over them...]

Useless. As expected. Nothing good was ever unlocked.

[doublesmall]

Yeah, I'll show you. Lockpicking's always handy.

[so of course he'd learned, even back before he first started getting memories of being shady... having questionable friends gets you questionable skills.

when the unlocked drawers turn up nothing, he'll get to work-- he can probably pop open any with a basic lock, but that's really all he knows, and he wouldn't have the tools for something complex anyway.]

Here, I'll take care of these... I don't guess you know the computer password here?

[erythristic]

[not like she judges whatsoever. there are a few questionable skills she has from her line of work, and writing iffy medical letters to help people get by with conditions is one.]

I can see if I'm an accepted user, given how close the branches are.

[bending over the keyboard, she begins to type, inserting her own information and frowning when it turns up nothing. she's going to try her coworkers' information as well, as much as she knows and can guess.]

[doublesmall]

Let me know if anything comes up, yeah?

[and he'll skim through folders... but when nothing comes up, he turns from the last one with a sigh, moving to look around the rest of the office out of restlessness. excuse him while he steps onto the ceiling to look down at everything, hoping a change in perspective might help.]

This shit has to be somewhere. There's no way they didn't document it when I first came in, if nothing else.

[erythristic]

I know, and that's the part that infuriates me. There's no way the record just vanished, I wrote my own, and I know what protocol dictates.

[looking up to him, she sighs.]

And there's no way they can just make a body vanish. Do you know how creepy that was? I thought for a moment you were risen like a zombie.

[doublesmall]

Maybe I am some kind of zombie, who knows. I'm pretty sure if I was going to have to eat people it would've come up by now, though...

[he shakes his head, glancing down to the ceiling beneath his feet just as he steps on a tile that's a bit off.]

Wh-

[definitely time to inspect that tile, now. he kneels, pushing at it and moving it out of the way-- he pokes his head in to have a look at the crawlspace before leaning back out.]

--creepy secret area in the ceiling. That's great. You want a hand up, or you want me to check it out first?

[erythristic]

What?

[poorly hacking the coroner's computer can wait, and she's already reaching for him.]

I'm not letting you go into a creepy ceiling area alone. That sounds like a definite way to end up in the middle of one of Retrospec's weird tests. Never knew this place had an attic, though...

[doublesmall]

Let's go, then. This might feel a little weird, so hold on--

[chuuya reaches down to her, taking her hand, and activates his ability to pull her up-- he'll deactivate it once they're both inside, but he enters the crawlspace first, letting out a low whistle when it opens up into a small attic.

the computer is the only thing in it, so he doesn't hesitate in reaching for the mouse; it's the database that pops up that gives him pause as he reads through the list of people and their status. both he and ryoji are listed as 'restored'.]

This- must be it.

[despite that, he hesitates another moment, not clicking on his own name just yet.]

[erythristic]

[seeing the computer made her...less shocked than she would be if she hadn't seen some of the things Retrospec got up to. but seeing the names, she was concerned, remembering what had happened with both. a secret space in the office - hell, she'll need to comb through her office now and make sure there's nothing hiding in there.

though they're already close in the attic, she reaches to put her hand on his shoulder reassuringly, taking a deep breath.]

Do you want whatever truths this is going to give you, Chuuya?

[if he says no, she'll respect that.]

[doublesmall]

...I came this far looking for them, right? Guess there's no point turning back now.

[he needs to know what's going on, whether it's good news or bad-- and he quickly navigates to his own file before he changes his mind.

sure enough, the coroner's report does still exist in here; chuuya scrolls through it before he opens the next report, though a majority of the items listed are obscured. the ones he can see, though... they include his gravity manipulation, and the things he's remembered.]

This is-- this is what's come back.

[he skims faster, frowning at the parts that aren't legible-- but he stops short not long after, staring at a particular figure showing what's been restored of what he used to have.]

I- fuck, this is only about thirty percent?!

[it is assuming i can do the math right, anyway!!]

There's that much of me still missing?...

[erythristic]

[quickly, Grell reads through the coroner's information, cross checking it mentally with the report she had written and still had saved personally - the facts added up, down to the injuries. the second report, though...]

The things you don't remember. The things that others remember you doing or talking about, that aren't there - it's not missing, I think, but somehow not active. They can't take away what's already been there before them, if we agree on this past life situation.

[because he'd remembered his gravity powers. he remembered other things. she looked between him and the report, holding her breath for a second before keeping on.]

...There's one more file, Chuuya.

[doublesmall]

I- yeah. Yeah. You're probably right.

[this is exactly why he needed her here, why he couldn't do this alone even beyond getting access to this office. he needed someone here to remind him of things like that, to keep him grounded.]

I remember knowing those things before, so- it fits. Not wiped, just... dormant, I guess.

[he shakes his head to clear it, hovering over the last file before he finally manages to open it up.

still, he's not quite looking at it yet.]

...what's it say?