Who: Bailey and Kane When: Evening, mid-April Where: Bailey’s apartment Status: complete
It had been an… interesting few months, to say the least. Kane’s leg had taken a while to heal, so he and Bailey had become roommates much longer than she had initially thought they would. Not to mention the rides to the hospital for his follow up appointments. But Bailey did them without complaining too loudly, though she was sure Kane was eager for his privacy again as much as Bailey was. Their mother was still holding on, which was something that genuinely surprised Bailey. She tried to see her mom at least every other day, but work kept her busy and there were plenty of evenings that she opted to go to the bar than to her childhood home.
But now that Kane was finally up and moving about on his own with minimal pain, Bailey was ready for him to get a place of his own. She was pretty sure he was as well. A part of her thought he would ditch town, but she knew he was waiting for their mother to die first. Maybe that was why the old woman was still breathing.
After her shift ended that day, Bailey stopped at the Porch for a few shots before picking up some fried chicken and heading home. As usual, Kane was there and she set the bag of fried chicken and sides on the coffee table before wandering to the kitchen to grab a beer. “Want one?” she asked him, in lieu of a proper greeting.
Kane’s body had healed slower than he would’ve liked, but at least it was on the way up. His mind was arguably a different story. There wasn’t a lot to do in Bailey’s apartment for the long hours she was working, and even when she was there, it wasn’t like they had sparkling conversational chemistry. They had been skirting around one another for months, Kane trying to stay out of her way and Bailey presumably just avoiding him. He didn’t blame her. He was in her space. She had kept the kitchen stocked for him and driven him around to his doctor’s appointments and made sure he had what he needed ... and in exchange he’d done all the chores he could manage around the house. He hadn’t been able to do much the first several weeks, but it had slowly improved as he’d healed, and now at least he could give her a clean place to come back to.
During the hours he wasn’t playing housebound maid, Kane had been researching. He’d gradually gotten more and more fixated on the man he’d killed-but-not-killed, and he’d kind of fallen down a mental rabbit hole with trying to figure out who or what that man was. Unfortunately, Kane didn’t have a lot of information to go on. The guy had looked human, but his eyes were reflective in the dark, he’d been eating a deer, he hadn’t seemed superhumanly fast or strong, Kane had been able to choke him to death ... but he’d come back. Was that a sign of immortality? Or just very fast healing? Would he have bled out if Kane had stabbed him back? He didn’t know, and none of the conflicting ideas he found on the internet and his dark web forums were great leads. Lately he’d taken to scrolling through as many pictures of Point Pleasant’s missing and dead as he could find, just hunting for a familiar face. For all he knew the guy could’ve stopped being human centuries ago, or when he’d been a kid. It was turning into an obsession, but what the fuck else was he going to do until he could work again?
Kane was deep in research when Bailey came home that evening, the sounds from her opening the door giving him a start and an uncomfortably pounding heart. He closed his laptop and set it aside, sitting up straighter when she approached with food. “Uh, yeah,” he answered. He did want a beer. Several, maybe. At least he had some good news for her today. Kane rubbed his hands over his face. “Good shift?” he asked as Bailey approached again.
"Well, no one disappeared or got brutally murdered, so yeah, it was a good shift." Honestly, things had been pretty quiet in Point Pleasant for the past few months. Just random, typical things like speeding tickets, domestic disturbances and the like. Nothing overly weird or unexplainable. It had given the department a much needed break, though Barrett was still trying to figure out the Witcham Road disappearances. Bailey carried two bottles of beer into the living room and handed one to Kane before plopping down on the chair and pulling the bag of food toward her. She nodded to his laptop. "What're you doing? Watching porn?" Grinning, Bailey handed Kane a foam container full of chicken, mac and cheese and a biscuit. Plenty of fat and starch, just what she needed.
No brutal murders was always a good thing, Kane supposed. He was out of the loop when it came to the goings-on in town, so he hadn’t had a chance to notice how quiet it had gotten. He wanted to get back to hunting as soon as he could, but he knew he wasn’t in any shape to do so yet. He could walk, but kind of slowly and with a limp, and that would only serve to give him a huge target on his back out there. Kane murmured a “thanks” as he took the beer and cracked it open, then accepted his box of food with a chuckle. “Nah, I always save the porn for when I’m in your room,” he quipped with a little smirk. It was just to get under his sister’s skin -- he’d been very good about not snooping in Bailey’s room or using her bed when she wasn’t home. He didn’t think there was much to find in there anyway. “I was just doin’ some research,” Kane continued, unwrapping his plastic utensils to start digging in. He was hungry.
Bailey wrinkled her nose at him, though she knew he had probably never set foot in her room since he had been staying there. He was right that there wasn't much to do in there anyway. She still didn't have a proper bed frame. Perhaps she was still clinging to the thought that this was all temporary. Opening her box of food, Bailey grabbed the fork wrapped in plastic and began to tug it open. "Research," she said, glancing at Kane before balling up the plastic wrap and tossing it onto the coffee table. "What kind of research?" Bailey wasn't really expecting Kane to tell her anything, or be truthful if he did, but it never hurt to ask. She couldn't help but think of those "kids" he had killed when she happened upon him months ago. That kind of research?
Kane had thought of his stay in Point Pleasant as equally temporary -- he hadn’t thought their mother would live out the month when he’d arrived. But she was still hanging on. Kane didn’t know if he was proud or aggravated or relieved about it. It changed by the moment. He could feel the town digging its claws into him though. He’d just signed the lease on a cheap month-to-month apartment for himself, for fuck’s sake. And now this new fixation. He could only hope he was able to break free when the time came to leave. Kane gave a faint chuckle at Bailey’s question and glanced up at her. They did this dance sometimes -- she asked, he deflected, she didn’t ask again -- but in his frustration Kane felt more weary of it than usual. “You really wanna know?” he asked, forking up some mac and cheese to put into his mouth.
Bailey really hadn't expected Kane to say much more than a snarky or joking retort so when he didn't, she raised a brow, her mouth full of mac and cheese. Only when she washed it down with some beer did she nod. "You know I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to know." He may not know her, but he had to know that much, at least by now. Maybe he was just baiting her for a bullshit answer, but that was a risk she was willing to take if there was a possibility he would actually tell her something interesting and truthful.
She said that, but Kane always felt like she didn’t know what she was asking to know. But maybe she did, now that she’d gotten a glimpse into his work. They hadn’t talked about it again since that night, he was positive she had questions. And hell, maybe she deserved to know, since she’d been there to pick up the pieces of an encounter gone bad. He waited until he’d washed down a bite of chicken before he looked over at her again. “I’m trying to find the man who stabbed me,” he said. “Who’s not actually a man, I’m pretty sure. Because I killed him first, and he came right back.” Kane knew the easy answer -- that he hadn’t actually finished the job -- but he also knew that was bullshit. He’d felt the crunching, had kept choking well after the man stopped moving. He’d been dead. And then not. It was maddening. “So I’m trying to figure out what he was and where I can find him again.”
Bailey chewed slowly, watching her brother as she tried to comprehend what he was telling her. She had seen what he did, and yes, she knew there were things in Point Pleasant that were... otherworldly. But she was more caught up on the fact that Kane killed someone... supposedly... and they came back. "So... you killed a man, and only when he came back to life, you knew he wasn't really a man?" Bailey was more caught up on that, at the moment. That he killed someone not knowing for sure if the man was like those black eyed kids. Or maybe he did know, maybe there was a history there that Kane wasn't mentioning. "He stabbed you. You could have died," Bailey added, reaching for her beer. "Why the fuck would you want to find him again?"
Kane was shaking his head to her first question, but he let her finish before he corrected her. “I knew he wasn’t a man when I caught him eatin’ a dead deer raw on the side of the road a couple weeks before that, and his eyes shined like an animal’s in my flashlight,” he told her. “He got away that time, and I didn’t see him again until that night. When I wasn’t exactly myself, so I ran into a confrontation unprepared.” He sounded regretful about that. Kane was fairly convinced that he wouldn’t have come out of that encounter on the losing end if his mind had been right. It hadn’t been, and he was sure Bailey remembered that he wasn’t the only one acting aggressively. “I won’t be unprepared next time.” He dodged the question about why, not really sure himself now if his motivations were monetary, strictly revenge, or something else. Kane felt some building pressure in himself whenever he thought about it, and he wasn’t sure yet what it meant.
Bailey took another drink of beer and sat back, quiet as she thought over what he had told her. Eating raw meat. Inhuman eyes. She supposed every person or "person" had the right to protect itself. For all Kane knew, the man, or whatever he was, was harmless. Humans ate animals too, they just had them slaughtered and prepared first. "Did he confront you, or did you confront him?" she asked, trying not to slip into "cop" mode with her questioning. Bailey figured Kane would clam up if he thought she was starting to interrogate him. She wasn't. She just wanted details before she decided on any theories, if there were any to be had. It was nice having her brain focused on something other than how quiet things had been in town for the past couple of months.
He had taken another couple of bites of food while Bailey considered it all, and Kane’s brow furrowed a bit as he lifted his beer to take a drink. He wasn’t sure where she was going with that question, but he decided to answer it anyway. Why the fuck not. His sister already didn’t like him, he was pretty sure her opinion couldn’t sink much lower. “I confronted him,” he said. Kane had noticed that he’d stopped referring to this particular monster as “it,” even in his own head. Maybe it made everything worse to do that, but Kane vividly remembered staring down into a very human-looking face as he choked the life out of it -- or thought he had, anyway. It was hard to think of him as an “it” after that.
Bailey rarely gave a lot of thought about whether or not she liked Kane. Her feelings for her brother were uncertain and confusing, complicated by a difficult childhood and feelings of being neglected by her parents and then abandoned by her brother. Her former therapist once told her there was "a lot to unpack there" but Bailey had always been more comfortable leaving her family issues zipped up tight and locked away in the closet. He was living with her now out of necessity and Bailey was certain if he had a friend in town he would have been there instead of here. "So you saw this man eat raw meat, decided he wasn't human and then when you saw him again, attacked him unprovoked and tried to kill him? Did you verify that he wasn't human? Or is this just based on what his eyes looked like in the dark when you shined your lights on them."
Kane gave her a hard look, his jaw clenching briefly. She didn’t get it, and he shouldn’t expect her to, he supposed. That was what he got for being honest. It was always a shit show. “It wasn’t like I spotted him munching on a raw steak from the grocery store, Bailey,” he said flatly. “How many regular human people do you know who go around eating the guts and viscera straight outta a deer carcass by the side of the road in the middle of the night, in fuckin’ January? You see that much on patrol around here? If so, this town’s more fucked than I thought.” He tipped his beer bottle up to drain the last of it. “And I wouldn’t have attacked him the second time, but everybody was actin’ all fucked up that night, in case you forgot. I wasn’t myself, like I said. I do verify, that’s why I’m lookin’ for him now. I wanna know what he is, if he’s dangerous. Because he ain’t fully human, I can tell you that much for sure.”
Bailey rolled her eyes and set her beer bottle back on the table before grabbing another piece of chicken to bite into. "You would be surprised at what I see when I'm on patrol, and when I'm not. Or... maybe you wouldn't be surprised at all." Given what he did for money he would probably believe everything she told him. She had already known about this damn town before she became a cop. Maybe that was why she was so good at her job now. She believed. "And you don't have to be so defensive, I'm only asking questions," Bailey added as she chewed her food. "You know about the thing that lives in Blackwater Woods, right? The thing that mutilates animals, that snatches joggers from the trails when it's getting cold out. You've had to hear the stories, right?" Bailey paused and arched a brow at Kane. "Though you didn't mention where you found him eating a deer, but I'm assuming you meant Blackwater." She supposed it could have been Seaview, since that's where she found Kane bleeding to death.
He was almost positive that he wouldn’t be surprised by any of Bailey’s stories. Kane had many of his own that would likely shock her, but he didn’t want to get into one-upping each other like that. Especially since most of his ended in the death of whatever had been unfortunate enough to meet him. Kane rolled his own eyes when she called him defensive, as if her questions hadn’t been pretty pointed. If she wanted to see him as some kind of maniac, that was fine, he knew he wasn’t. He was methodical, thorough. He made the world safer ... he just happened to support himself doing it too. This was his life’s work, and he stubbornly told himself that his last remaining family didn’t have to understand or approve of it. He nodded a bit to the rest of what she said. “Yeah, I considered that,” he said. “Because it was out by Blackwater. But I dunno ... some witness reports from that area make it sound more monstrous than just a dude-looking creature. I guess he could have some shapeshift ability though.” Kane sighed and tore off another piece of chicken to pop into his mouth. “If I can find where he’s holed up, I can figure it out. Just gotta get back on my feet again.”
Bailey fell silent again as she ate. It looked as though she was focused on her food, but her mind running over the details Kane had given her. The PPPD had so many files of unexplainable incidents and unsolved cases. In her downtime, she tried to read through them, just in case there was something interesting that she could latch onto and try to solve. They had so many reports about strange occurrences in Blackwater Woods...
Reaching for a napkin, Bailey wiped her fingers. "Maybe the dude-looking creature was someone who went missing in the woods. We have dozens of files of disappearances there. Maybe the creature who lives in those woods isn't the only one out there."
“Yeah, I was just lookin’ through what I could find of old news reports about missing people,” Kane said, nodding toward the laptop he’d moved aside when she’d arrived. “Kinda like lookin’ for a needle in a stack of needles in this fuckin’ town though. Especially since not everything gets reported.” He let out a little snort and shook his head, then gave her a keener sort of look. “That wasn’t an offer to look through file photos, was it?” There was an edge of amusement in his tone, because the idea of Bailey offering him that kind of access was somewhat laughable, but if she was then he was going to take her up on it. Kane still had no idea how far back to even look, gods knew how old that fucker really was, but Kane at least had the face burned into his memory now.
"No." Bailey popped a small piece of chicken into her mouth. No, she wouldn't give her brother access to police files, especially those of open or cold cases. But that didn't mean she couldn't look through them more closely. "I can take a look though," she said after washing down the food with a pull from her beer bottle. "See if anything or anyone in particular sticks out. What did the guy look like?" The guy he had tried to murder. Or had succeeded in murdering, if only temporarily. If she had a description she could look through the photos and eliminate cases more quickly.
He was unsurprised that Bailey wasn’t going to let him start going through the drawers at the police station, but her offer kind of caught him off guard. Kane definitely hadn’t thought she would want to help him out personally. And maybe she really wouldn’t and she was just bullshitting him. Kane didn’t know, but he wouldn’t turn it down. “A little shorter than me, so under six feet,” he said. “Light-skinned, dark hair and eyes, kinda round baby face, he looked pretty young ... here.” Kane leaned to the side to reach the pile of stuff he kept on the floor next to the couch, and he came up with a pad of paper and a pen. He wasn’t any professional sketch artist or anything, but he’d had enough practice to be decent enough at it, and it didn’t take him too long to draw out the guy’s face from that burned-in memory. Kane adjusted the lip shape a little, plush and soft-looking even as they’d turned blue, then tore off the paper and offered it to Bailey.
Bailey continued to eat even as she watched Kane's pen move across the paper. When he handed the paper to her, she studied it closely. There was nothing overly familiar about the face, but it would be a good start if she started looking through the files of missing people. "I'll see if I can match this to anyone," Bailey told him before folding the paper and setting it on the table. "What exactly do you plan to do to him if you find him and realize he's not actually dangerous?" Bailey figured she already knew Kane's plan if the opposite seemed to be true, although if he truly did succeed in killing the man only to have him come back from the dead, she wasn't exactly sure what he could do about it.
There were different ways of killing people and the things that pretended to be people, and if strangulation wasn’t effective, Kane would find another way if he had to. Really, he never would’ve tried to choke the man-thing to death if he’d been in his right mind, but the rage that day had just been inexplicably strong. Kane had run into things that he couldn’t personally kill, but most everything else had some weak point, he just had to find it. “If he’s not dangerous?” Kane echoed, then gave a shrug. “Then I leave him alone.” The real answer was a bit more complex -- it depended on what the guy was and how much he was worth. But Kane wasn’t going to tell Bailey that. After a pause, he added, “Thank you, by the way. For looking.”
Bailey wondered if he was telling her the truth. He had told her he killed things and sold their souls for profit. If this man wasn't really a man, did it really matter if he was dangerous or not? Would she stand by and let him do what he wanted to do to bring in a buck? Probably not. But she was getting ahead of herself. There was a part of her that wanted to find this guy too, just to see if he was Something Else. Finished with her dinner, Bailey acknowledged his thanks with a soft grunt before she picked up her cigarettes and settled back against her chair. "I can't promise anything." She wasn't even sure she could promise telling him she found the guy, if it happened The odds of that actually happening were pretty low. "How's your leg feeling today?" she asked, once she got a cigarette lit.
Kane definitely wasn’t giving up his own search, just in case he could find the guy faster than Bailey. Also just in case Bailey didn’t really want to help. It didn’t occur to him that she might approach the dead man first, or do some recon of her own, because that would be foolish to Kane. The picture in his mind of that bloody face looking up from a deer carcass was too crystalized. Anything that could do that was dangerous, whether they acted on it or not. Kane rolled with the subject change, glancing down at his bad leg while he finished up his own food. “Really fuckin’ itchy,” he answered. “But it’s better. Not a hundred percent, but getting there.” He paused, then added, “I’ll be outta your way by this weekend. I rented a place in Castle View. Ground floor, so I can, y’know, manage it.”
For some bizarre reason that took her by surprise. It probably showed on her face for a moment too, but Bailey smoothed out her expression into indifference. "This weekend, huh? That's fine." It didn't escape her that he rented a place in a completely different apartment complex. She hadn't even known he was looking for a place but it was probably well past time now that he started getting around on his own. He had a car and everything, after all. "It'll be nice to have my couch back," Bailey added with a smirk before taking a short drag from her cigarette. Privacy had been difficult to come by for the both of them, so a break would be nice. Though it would probably just shift back into how things had been before. Bailey would see Kane at their mom's every now and then until she passed away. And then... who really knew.
His decision to rent in Castle View instead of Haven Park had mostly been monetary -- it was a cheaper complex, and had one bedroom options where Haven Park didn’t. Plus, Kane did feel like it was best to give Bailey space now. He’d been in her territory for long enough already. He spotted her initial shock and felt like weird satisfaction about it. His sister was not easily surprised. Maybe she’d thought he would mooch off of her until she finally kicked him out, who knew. “Yeah I bet,” he muttered, giving a faint chuckle. “Meanwhile I upgrade to an air mattress.” He had no furniture and didn’t really plan to get any beyond the absolute minimum, and all of that would be second hand. Why waste the money and effort when he wasn’t going to stay long?
"Classy," Bailey said with a chuckle. She was about to ask if he was sure, if he would be all right on his own with his leg still healing, but Bailey swallowed down the words with another pull from her beer. Her brother was a grown ass man who had probably been through a lot of shit over the years. He could handle a first floor apartment. Besides, his leg was a hell of a lot better now than it had been a couple of months ago. "Just try not to get stabbed again," she added, her tone holding mild humor. "I couldn't get the blood stains out of my favorite t-shirt the last time."
Kane had been through a lot, survived plenty of injuries and nursed himself back to health more times than he cared to remember, but this wound had been one of the worst. The depth of it and how close he’d come to bleeding out had meant quite a bit of recovery time that he couldn’t have managed on his own. But now he was feeling more capable, still using a crutch but only one, and he wanted to give Bailey her space before they really started to hate each other. He gave a soft snort of amusement as he gathered their trash together. “I’ll do my best,” he assured her. “Not somethin’ I want to repeat, that’s for fuckin’ sure.” Kane reached for his crutch and got his feet under him, swallowing back the groan he only let out when Bailey wasn’t home. He picked up the bag with his free hand to take into the kitchen. “You want another round?”
"Sure." Bailey was nearly done with her beer and of course she'd take another before climbing into bed. She was observant enough to recognize that Kane was still experiencing some discomfort. She watched him on his crutch, feeling somewhat relieved that he seemed to be managing just fine. It was probably, definitely better that he move out rather than stick it out here for the next couple of months. Bailey had a feeling they were nearing their limit in sharing space. Still, she felt slightly agitated by... something. It was best not to delve too deeply into what. "I thought about having a quick smoke before bed. You want any?" She got to her feet. Bailey generally didn't share her pot, but fuck it, why not. He was leaving in a few days. They could think of it as a celebration.
He glanced around with a cocked eyebrow from the small kitchen, a little surprised. Kane was sure his sister didn’t mean cigarettes -- they both had their own supply of those. “Assuming you mean the greener kind of smoke?” he asked, though he felt like he knew the answer well enough. Unless Bailey was smoking something worse, but Kane doubted that. She was still a cop, after all. He fished two beers out of the fridge and made his way back to her with the necks between his knuckles, then offered them out for Bailey to take one. “Absolutely,” he answered with a faint smirk. “Didn’t know you had any vices but the liquid kind.” He knew weed wasn’t technically illegal in Maine, but it was still kind of funny for his cop baby sister to be a smoker. To him, at least. But hell, whatever got her through the day, he supposed.
Barking out a laugh, Bailey took the beer and carried it with her to her bedroom where she kept her stash. Yes, she knew she was a cop and was held to higher standards than most, but she didn't venture into anything dangerous. If she liked to smoke on occasion during her downtime, it was really nobody else's business. Grabbing the small wooden box from her closet, Bailey carried it back to the living room where Kane had returned to the couch. Bailey sat beside him but kept a comfortable distance for them both. "I have a lot of vices, dear brother." She set her beer down and opened the tiny box to start rolling a joint for the both of them. "Well, I guess not a lot. But a few. I'm sure you do too."
Kane settled back into his spot while Bailey was gone, cracking the beer open to take a swig from it. He liked taking drugs sometimes, but tended to save those cravings for binges when he’d arrived in a new place and decided not to work for a couple of weeks. Any other situation made him too paranoid to compromise himself that way. Too many things out there wanted him dead. He still drank though, because a man had to have something. He sipped his beer and watched with some amusement while Bailey rolled a joint. That wasn’t something he’d ever thought he would see. When really, he probably should’ve been the first one to teach her to do it, like a big brother duty. “Oh, I got a laundry list of ‘em,” he murmured with a little smirk. “One of which changed her number on me, I’m pretty sure.” He tsk’ed his tongue. Red’s phone number just didn’t work anymore, it was sad. Not that he’d been up for energetic sex lately, but still. A sympathy blowjob would’ve been nice. “I wanna ask you to name a few, but I bet you wouldn’t tell me, huh?”
Maybe Kane should have been the one to teach her about rolling a joint and drinking too much and all that. But he hadn't. Thankfully she'd had friends who were more than capable. Not to mention the shit Pierce got her into. She focused on the joint, but smirked as Kane spoke. "Probably not a bad thing that she changed her number, considering you've been holed up on my couch for the last few months." And Bailey really didn't want to think of Kane having some random woman in her apartment. Or a woman Bailey might actually know. Her tongue caught between her teeth in concentration, Bailey got the joint finished and offered it over to Kane with her lighter. "But nah, I don't think you really need to know my vices. It might taint your rosy perception of me."
Kane barked a laugh of his own as he accepted the weed from his sister. “Rosy perception, is that what it is?” he murmured, smirking as he tucked the joint between his lips. “God forbid we ruin that.” He lit the joint and took a deep hit off of it, holding it in his lungs as he offered it back to Bailey. It was her weed -- which he disappointingly hadn’t even known about the entire time he’d been staying with her, he figured she didn’t smoke it much -- and he didn’t want to hog it. “Speaking of tainting, your couch is still pure, by the way,” he added as he exhaled the acrid smoke. “If my vice had been available, I woulda taken it elsewhere. Just so you know.” Kane didn’t want her to think he would be fucking anyone in her apartment. It was hard enough to jerk off in the shower when she wasn’t home. Some fucked up shit turned him on sometimes, but being in his sister’s space wasn’t one of them. “C’mon though ... not even a little vice? I told you some stuff.”
"Well, thank god for that." Bailey snickered, though she was relieved to hear he hadn't had anyone over while she was out working. She took the joint back and took a drag off of us, sitting back against the back of the couch and bringing her feet up to press against the coffee table. She could just imagine some woman trying to help Kane into a car to go fuck somewhere. Then again, she didn't really want to think about sex and her brother. Ew. Shooting him an incredulous look, Bailey exhaled and offered him the joint again. "You told me some stuff? You told me about a nameless woman who ditched your ass. That's one thing, not some stuff. You know I smoke, and not just cigarettes. I drink, probably too much. I like sex, preferably with people I won't see again, though that's really fucking hard to do in this town. I don't have a person I call when I want to get laid. That way they can't change their number when they're bored with me." She flashed him a grin.
“I told you what I was up to earlier,” Kane defended himself quickly, taking the joint once more. “I didn’t even lie about it.” He took a hit and rolled his eyes at her jab, though his expression was good natured. It had been a while since he’d had any THC and he could feel it starting to seep in on the edges already. It always chilled him out. “Those are boring vices,” he told Bailey, returning her grin for a second. He puffed on the joint again and handed it back. “Especially in a small town, you gotta run through the eligible one-nighters pretty quick. And trust me, if she did ditch my ass, it wasn’t outta boredom. Maybe her husband caught on or somethin’, I dunno.” He shrugged one big shoulder, sending out the vague hope into the universe that Red was okay. She was a grown ass woman and her marriage wasn’t his business, but she’d been a lot of fun so he didn’t have any ill will toward her.
Bailey snorted. "Yeah, well, we can't all be killers, Kane." She didn't care if her vices were boring. They got her through a lot of shit and that's all she needed. Anything else might cost her her job and Bailey wasn't willing to risk that. She didn't really expect Kane to understand that either. Taking the joint, she took another hit off of it and then held onto it in case Kane wanted more. She was already starting to feel lazy and mellow so Bailey closed her eyes before another laugh caught in her throat. Her brother fucking a married woman. That didn't surprise her in the least. Bailey didn't think she had ever slept with a married man before, but she rarely asked when she brought someone home. "Yeah, maybe her husband caught on. Or she disappeared like everyone else. Or she was gobbled up by the things that go bump in the night. It couldn't possibly be because she found another dick she enjoyed better." She was amusing herself, but what else was new?
Kane snagged the joint from her once more, then tapped it out in the ashtray and left it there. He leaned back and resettled in a comfortable slouch, arms crossed loosely over his stomach. “We’re all killers in one way or another,” he murmured softly. Bailey likely wouldn’t agree with him on that, but Kane didn’t care. It was just a truth of the universe -- everything died, and most of those deaths were caused by another living creature. He didn’t have the brainspace to get into that kind of philosophical talk though, more concerned with Bailey’s conjectures about Red. Maybe she had disappeared or been killed. He hoped not, but he wasn’t sure he would ever know about it. He hadn’t seen her face plastered everywhere on Missing posters. “There is no better,” he said and grinned lazily. Kane left it at that, not wanting to get into the sordid details with his sister. He was sure she didn’t want that either. He rolled his head a little to look at her. “I can help you, you know. With those things that bump in the night. Some of ‘em. If you’ve got any leads that police work can’t really solve. We could make a good team.”
Bailey didn't bother commenting on his thoughts about killing. That was too deep for her right now and it didn't escape her that she and her brother were on opposite ends of that particular spectrum. She didn't respond to his belief that his dick was better than whatever his lady friend had gotten because again, ew. However, despite their damaged relationship, it occurred to Bailey that they had quite a few things in common. It made her slightly uncomfortable to think about, so she decided not to. But his next words prompted Bailey to open her eyes as she looked over at him. "You mean I give you cold cases with a hint of the supernatural and you go out and find and kill whatever was responsible? Suck their souls into those tiny glass bottles and make a ton of money?"
He smiled and gave another little shrug. That sounded pretty ideal to him, if he was being honest. It would save him some initial legwork and they could solve problems together. “Why not? I would cut you in,” Kane told her. “Call it a finder’s fee. And you could close some cases in your mind at least, if not on paper.” It was difficult to shut a case with a note about a demon or black eyed kids or werewolf problem being solved. But maybe having her mind set at ease on some cases would appeal to Bailey. They had a strained, odd relationship as siblings, but perhaps they could work together as partners and find a different rhythm, something to connect over that wasn’t just their mother or their shared blood. It was worth offering, anyway. Kane was going to keep hunting in Point Pleasant, he may as well put it to good use.
A finder's fee. Bailey meant to roll her eyes but she was feeling too chill. Those vices that could get her fired? What Kane was suggesting was one of them. Sharing open cases with a civilian was a major no-no. But the thought of possibly solving some of them, at least off the record? That was tempting. There were so many files that had "unexplainable" written all over them. Even some files that were technically closed, like Sadie Gaines. An animal attack? Maybe, but that sure as shit wasn't a rabid dog. "You're fucking crazy," Bailey muttered, folding her arms across her chest. "But I'll think about it. If I say yes, if, then my finder's fee is going to be a hefty one. Just so you're aware."
Kane knew Bailey couldn’t be making much as a cop in this podunk-ass town, so he was hoping that the monetary offer would be some incentive. He made a lot on the black market, he just kept it squirreled away and safe. His lifestyle didn’t really make much room for lavish displays of wealth, but if Kane wanted to quit right then and retire to an island somewhere, he could. Which meant he didn’t mind paying his sister for her help, even in a hefty manner. Bailey calling him crazy made him grin. “Duly noted,” he murmured. “You just let me know.” A fun almost cartoonish little vision played in his head of the two of them as a supernatural crime fighting team flashed through his stoned brain, solving mysteries both above and under the table. Kane knew it probably wouldn’t work out that way, but if he could help clean up Point Pleasant a little bit before he ventured off again, then that could only be a good thing, right? Kane chuckled and added, “I’ll be your favorite partner.”
"Not likely," Bailey retorted. During her years on the force, Bailey had a few partners she worked well with, but she couldn't really say she'd ever had a favorite. And working closely with her brother seemed like a bad idea. He had been living in her apartment for a few months now and things had been okay, but Bailey suspected that was because she was working a lot. But partnering up for something like this didn't mean constant proximity. This wouldn't be a full time gig for her. A side project. One that might bring in some extra cash, not only for her, but for their mom, who was still clinging to life. Having home care for her wasn't cheap. "I'll think about it," she said again. "You can't ask me things when I'm high, that's... cheating, or something. If I say yes now, I'll probably regret it in the morning. So... ask again when I can think clearly enough."
He snickered a little at her immediate rejection of being Bailey’s fave, not surprised at all. Kane didn’t know his sister well, of course, but going by their limited interactions, he wasn’t sure that she actually liked anyone at all. He didn’t even know if she had any friends. No one ever stopped by. Maybe she was just as isolated as he was. That was a sad thought, but it wouldn’t shock him. “Kinda sounds like this is the perfect time to ask you stuff, then,” he said, giving a lazy grin. Kane didn’t really have anything else to ask though, his stoned mind blanking out. “So is THC like a truth serum to you?” he asked instead, looking amused as he gazed at her. “Or are you just more agreeable when you’re high?”
"No and no," Bailey shot back. Then she paused thoughtfully. "Well, maybe a bit more agreeable. Maybe a bit more honest. I usually smoke alone so I'm not really sure. But it's not like I'm about to spill my deepest, darkest secrets to you. Maybe I'm getting you high so I can get all the information out of you that I want." That wasn't it at all, but Bailey was good at deflecting and she would much rather have the spotlight shining on him and all his bullshit than her own. She had few friends and the ones she did have were more casual than anything. No one she brought her troubles to. That was what alcohol and smoking was for. She held up the joint and grinned lazily. "You want any more?"
Kane was feeling good, both in his brain and body, and that was nice for a change. Everything was wrapped in fluffy cotton and his leg didn’t hurt in the slightest. He snickered a little at the look on Bailey’s face, reaching for the joint even if he technically didn’t need it. Why not, right? Maybe it would help him sleep for a solid eight hours later on. “I am an open book,” he declared as he tucked the joint between his lips and grabbed the lighter again. Kane re-lit it and took a drag, holding it for a moment before he exhaled toward the ceiling. “Anything you wanna know, just ask.” He knew that was bullshit, that there were parts of his life he didn’t want to speak about, least of all to his sister, but whatever. They were both bullshitting. He hit the joint again then offered it back with a cocked eyebrow.
"You have never been an open book," Bailey said. She took the joint back before leaning forward to put it out gently in the ashtray. She'd had enough and after that, he probably didn’t need anymore either. "But if you're letting me read your pages now, why don't you tell me how you... get those souls. How you're able to do that kind of stuff. Because what I saw that night was not normal." Despite the questions, she was feeling so lazy and mellow that she wasn't entirely sure she would care if he told her to fuck off. But it also felt like she could ask him, so she was going to. Maybe he would tell her the truth for once.
He should’ve known she wouldn’t ask him anything about his personal life, but straight to the jugular on his abilities. What a cop move. Kane let out a soft chuckle, but there wasn’t much humor in it, mostly just resignation. He’d kept his secrets from her for decades now, but Kane didn’t feel that door inside of him slam shut to resist answering the question. “The short answer is magic, but that ain’t all of it,” he murmured, letting his head fall back against the couch. Kane tilted his head from side to side to stretch his neck and then shut his eyes. It was easier to talk about if he couldn’t see her reaction, if he couldn’t tell if Bailey thought he was batshit crazy or not. “Ever since I was a teenager, somethin’ started happening to me. At random ass times, especially when I was asleep, I would leave my body and be pulled somewhere else. There was always somebody there who was dying. Old people, people in car crashes, sick kids ... a minute or two before they passed, I was there. And then I’d see their spirit leave their body and float up outta them and toward me ... and I’d walk with them somewhere else. Or my astral projection or soul or whatever-the-fuck would walk. Sometimes just a few feet, sometimes for miles. Then when it felt right, just like an instinct, I’d stop and they’d stop and then this ... light would happen. It was just a bright flash with all kinda colors in it, and the spirit would be gone. Then I’d come to, back in my body, wherever I’d left it. I thought I was fuckin’ crazy for the longest time, Bails. So long. But when I was overseas, I learned there were other people who did it too, and one of ‘em taught me to control it a little, to not take that walk.”
He might have closed his eyes but she didn't. Instead Bailey rested her own head back against the couch again, but she watched him, occasionally glancing down to his mouth and back. Not out of anything sexual, but just from the fascination that he was actually telling her something this personal. It did sound crazy and she couldn't help but think, at least for a brief moment or two, that he was just high and fucking around with her. But... she had seen what he did to those black eyed kids. She knew weird, unbelievable shit existed. Had seen it with her own two eyes. She had run away from home after high school to escape it, naively thinking it didn't exist anywhere in the world but for Point Pleasant. It blew her mind that this had been happening since he was a teenager and she never knew. But, of course she never knew. They had never shared with each other. It was still a difficult thing to process with such a clouded mind, but Bailey found she believed him. "So... you were... guiding them? To what... heaven? Some other plane of existence?"
Kane hadn’t told a soul about what he could do until he was in the middle of war and couldn’t avoid providing some explanation for his blank times. He’d gotten lucky that his reaper mentor had been in his unit and recognized the signs. Kane still had no idea how many of them were out in the world, but he’d found a surprising number in the military. Like they were all drawn to the death without realizing it. At least Bailey hadn’t laughed him off her couch. “I don’t even know,” he admitted with a soft huff and a wan smile. “Something like that. I didn’t understand it, I just ... did what felt necessary, like a compulsion. The first other guy I met called it being a reaper, so that’s how I started thinkin’ about it. Seeing folks across the veil, I dunno. But he introduced me to some people who knew a lot about it -- not why, just how it worked -- and they started teaching me to control it. Then after the Army kicked me out, I met even more, shadier people, who started teachin’ me how to catch them, contain them, what they’re worth. Most of the tattoos are part of the magic. They keep me grounded and kind of ... I dunno, bridge the gap between spirit and physical for me.” He paused, realizing he’d gone off track from what she had asked him. “But yeah, I dunno what happens to them after the flash. Maybe they go somewhere else, maybe they stop existing. Guess we’ll find out someday.”
It was so much information and her brain was so wonderfully foggy that it took Bailey awhile to sort it all out in a way that made sense to her. How was it that her brother, of all people, was chosen - or whatever - to herd people across the veil? So to speak. And knowing he knew how to catch and contain... souls? Selling them? It was really a lot to process. So she sat quietly for awhile, her bare feet pressed against her coffee table again, her arms curled around her body. "So... if you catch and contain souls, and you sell them, maybe they don't go anywhere. Maybe they don't get to go... somewhere else and find peace, or whatever might be waiting. You don't do that to good people? Only monsters?" She thought of her mother, laying frail and barely clinging to life. She knew Kane would never do such a thing to her, but to think he might have done it to someone else's mother... it put a strange, uncomfortable feeling in her gut.
He knew that the spirits he captured, interrupting whatever natural process he was supposed to facilitate, didn’t go anywhere. Except into the hands of people who had a use for them. Kane was sure that anyone who was paying top dollar for souls likely didn’t have a well-intentioned use, but he’d long ago decided not to think about that much. He did his part and made his money, and the rest wasn’t his business. Maybe that made him a terrible person, but Kane had plenty of those traits. He was a terrible person, so why not profit off of it? “Not like I can tell who’s good and who’s bad when I get there,” he told Bailey. Human morality was a tangled, complicated mess, she ought to know that. “But I haven’t collected a human soul in ... shit, a decade or more? I got a lot of regrets about the ones I did, early on. Monsters are better. And worth more. Selling ‘em, I mean. Not like, intrinsic value.”
For Bailey, not knowing wasn't really an excuse. At least not to her. She had done some morally gray things in the past, but this was different. Still, she wasn't Kane and she couldn't tell him what to do, or tell him how to feel about what he did do. She certainly would have told him to fuck off if he'd tried to do the same to her. Knowing he hadn't taken a human soul in a while seemed to soften the abhorrence of it, though she did think there were probably "monsters" out there who weren't really monsters in the purest definition of the word. "What'd you consider a monster?" she asked lazily, closing her eyes again. "Anything not purely human?"
While Kane felt like he was doing a net good for the world, he had no illusions about being some hero. He wasn’t a Van Helsing running around killing monsters for the benefit of humanity, or even one of those pretty-boy Supernatural fucks on TV. No creature had killed his lover and he vowed revenge or anything. The truth was, he liked the money and he liked to kill. He’d been trained to be a warrior and outside of the military there wasn’t much use for those skills. Being a vigilante against the darker elements of the world just made more sense to him than killing human monsters. There were plenty of other people to do that. “Anything inhuman that harms humans,” Kane said. “Whether that’s actions I see or just the nature of what they are ... depends on the situation. Not sayin’ I wouldn’t step in if I like, saw some human fucker gun down a kid or something, but that’s not what I go looking for.”
Bailey supposed that made her feel a tiny bit better. She would rather Kane have some kind of conscience where it came to killing. And she wondered just what it was he had killed in the past. What things he had seen. She wondered if he ever saw something similar to the demon she spotted in the street when she was a kid. If he knew those things were real. Bailey felt the urge to ask but she bit her tongue, not wanting to start delving into past traumas while they were both high. Kane didn't need to know about those particulars. "You didn't see that guy hurting anyone but a deer and you killed him," Bailey pointed out simply, no trace of aggression in her voice. "You don't even know what he is. So there's gotta be some kind of assumption on your part about those things."
Her tone was mild and calm, but the observation was still pointed to Kane. He laughed a little and rubbed his face with his hands and gave a low groan. “Bailey,” he said against his palms. “Did you miss the parts where I said I wasn’t myself that night, or do you just not believe me?” Kane dropped his arms and gave her a bemused sort of look. “I had a bead on him the first time, I could’ve plugged the fucker right between the eyes, but I didn’t because like you said, I didn’t know what he was. Then he got away. Believe me, jumping outta my car to start a physical confrontation with an unknown supernatural creature in the middle of the goddamn street is not how I usually operate. I wouldn’t have killed him in my right mind, not so soon and not like that. Okay? Of course there’s always an assumption, I can’t spend weeks stalking a thing and let it murder a few people before I’m sure, you know? Some things can’t help what they are and what they do, others I need more proof.”
She hummed deep in her throat to acknowledge him, her lips twitching. Yes, yes, he wasn't himself that night. But she didn't know him well enough to know if he was telling her the truth. Maybe that night just lowered inhibitions and intensified their true selves. Or something. She was too high to really think too profoundly on it. Instead, Bailey raised her hand and waved it dismissively. "Fine, fine. You weren't yourself, blah, blah. That's fine. Glad to hear you've got some standards though, otherwise I'd have to worry about you. I'm just giving you shit. Mostly. Just try really hard not to get stabbed again. Did I say that already?"
From her answer, Kane was pretty sure she didn’t believe him, or she was trying to get under his skin. And maybe she was, a little. Normally Kane didn’t give two fucks what anyone thought of him, everybody he met could think he was an evil psychotic bastard and he didn’t give a shit, but Bailey was different. It was so stupid and childish, but he wanted his sister to like him. Or at least not actively hate him. As it was, he had no idea how she really felt and that was somehow worse than a solid answer. She’d always been inscrutable to him, smart and sharp but quiet about her own opinions. In this context he didn’t even know what ‘I’d have to worry about you’ really meant. Concern worry or view-him-as-a-threat worry? It occurred to Kane that the weed might be making him a little paranoid, and he tried to push it back. “Yeah you did, and I will,” he murmured. Kane closed his eyes and let his head fall back again for a couple of slower, deeper breaths.
Bailey had no idea how she felt about her brother. Her emotions shifted on a daily basis, or at least that's what it felt like lately. Being in close proximity to him after years of not even talking had created a complicated disaster in her mind. That was probably why she was working as much as she was. She tended to think the only thing they had in common was their blood, and being blood didn't mean they had to care about each other. But... she did care about him. Did she like him? Bailey honestly didn't know. "Doing okay?" Bailey asked, once she opened her eyes and glanced at him. Her body felt nice and light, her head a bit cotton-y, but in a good way. She somehow managed to find the energy to sit up and start collecting the trash from their dinner. "How's your leg feeling?" It was probably time for her to go to bed or something, before their conversation devolved into bickering.
Kane lifted his lids briefly to see what she was doing, then closed them again. He did pick up after himself when she wasn’t home, but at the moment his limbs felt heavy and lazy and if she wanted to do it, Kane wasn’t going to get in her way. He moved his injured leg a bit, flexing and twisting it in the ways that often hurt the most, then grunted a vague ‘so-so’ noise. “Feels better’n usual right now,” he said, giving a soft huff. Marijuana wasn’t something he indulged in very often, but now he felt like he should’ve been smoking it for pain this whole time. “How ‘bout you, feeling okay?” Kane opened one eye again to look at her.
Bailey stood, holding empty food containers. It took her a moment to get her balance, so she stood still until she was sure she could walk without tripping over something. Looking down at Kane, she smirked. What a question that was. He would absolutely regret ever asking if she decided to sit down and be honest with him. "I'm always feeling okay. And now I feel better than usual. I'm going to throw these out, take a shower and go to bed. Do you need anything?" He could move around much better now, and he had the remote and all that within reach, so Bailey doubted he would ask her to do anything... it still felt like she ought to ask though, just in case.
Always feeling okay. Kane may not have known her well, but he knew that much was bullshit. He was feeling too mellow to call her out on it though. Maybe they’d done enough sharing for the night. He would see if sleeping on it all convinced Bailey that he was really a monster. “Nah, I’m good,” he answered with a faint smile. “Thanks though.” Kane almost added a thanks for the conversation, but he felt that might be too sincere. They weren’t very good at that. “‘Night, Bailey.'' Now that it was all said and done, he felt kind of good that he’d told her everything. She might not ever fully grasp it, but at least now the only family he had left knew the secret he’d been hanging onto for most of his life. Maybe he was just stoned, but Kane felt a little lighter.
He looked pretty relaxed, which was no doubt because of the pot. Maybe a little bit of it had to do with the conversation they'd had, but Bailey wasn't sure. She couldn't imagine it was relaxing to talk about what he did for a living. It felt like they were both employed by higher pressure jobs and maybe they had more in common than she initially thought. Tomorrow she might have more questions, but for now, she was content with what he had told her. "Night, Kane." She left him on the couch, dropped their garbage in the trash bin and headed for her room to start getting ready for bed. She needed some time alone now, though Bailey had a feeling it might be a while before she actually fell asleep.