Who: Killian and Kitiara What: Kitara needs Killian to locate someone for her. When: Recently Where: Killian's houseboat Rating/Warning: Low/none Status: Complete
Kitiara had given up on ever finding her father years ago. There had been a time when she had actively sought him, travelling the country chasing rumours. But that’s all they had ever been: rumours. Eventually she stopped looking, had stopped asking. If a piece of information happened to fall into her lap and it wasn’t too far out of her way, she might follow up. But eventually she had to come to the conclusion that if he had wanted to be found, she would have found him years ago. So either he didn’t want to be found, or he was dead. Kitiara had decided that one way or another, she no longer cared.
Except in these damn dreams she was consumed with the need to find him. She was only thirteen, but she had joined with a group of cutthroats because one of them had said that he had heard of Gregor Uth Matar and was cagey about the details. She asked any wandering knight if they had heard any news of the man, despite the fact that she knew Gregor had been cast from the knighthood. All in all it reminded her far too much of, well, her.
She was in her thirties now, far too old to be chasing around an image of a man she hadn’t seen for twenty-six years. But this irritating nagging feeling that she just needed to know wouldn’t leave her. The man was probably dead, but it would be nice to know for sure.
Which is how she found herself standing on the docks in the middle of the afternoon. She checked the piece of paper where she’d written down the location, and then placed it back into her pocket. She had to admit, the houseboat was a nice touch. She adjusted her gait naturally to accommodate for the gentle rock of the boat, and rapped the door sharply with her knuckles.
Life on a houseboat wasn’t necessarily cheaper than living on land, it was just a lot different. Killian didn’t pay a mortgage, he paid slip rent. He didn’t mow the lawn on weekends, he instead scrubbed the deck. There was no convenient garage to pull into when you had bags of groceries - rather, he walked along the dock to his car, went to the store, bought whatever he could carry inside and his small kitchen could hold and then likely forgot a few things because, well, that was just his luck. But overall he wouldn’t trade anything - always with the sea in his blood, he couldn’t imagine at least living near a body of water even if he wasn’t always going to reside right on it.
Shuffling to the door when he heard the knock, he was surprised to see a face he hadn’t laid glittering, azure eyes on in awhile - since returning from the Underworld, he’d been keeping up with the network here and there but hadn’t bothered to scroll back to read everything the month he was gone. So it might have registered that Kitiara was in town but having her right in front of him was a different matter entirely.
“Well, look who we have here,” he bared those shark’s teeth in a happy grin. “Please, do come inside, make yourself at home.” What was the purpose of this visit? He could only imagine.
“Killian,” Kitiara said seriously for a moment, before she allowed the corner of her mouth to quirk up into her crooked smile. Her almond eyes eyes sized up Killian, head to toe and then back up again. She stepped into the houseboat, and took in the small place. A little too quaint for her tastes. Kitiara liked having a lot of space, and a lot of expensive decoration. “You’re certainly looking good,” she said, turning her face back to Killian. “Though unfortunately, I’m here on business today.”
He snorted a laugh, since that was sweet of her to say - considering Killian was now missing a hand, and wore a prosthetic where the left one should be. It looked very sci-fi, almost robotic, and certainly not very human. There was no bothering with a fake, flesh-and-blood looking contraption - because he didn’t care about aesthetics, he cared about functionality. And he’d learned to do many tasks with this prosthetic, even if it had taken him some time to master the more intricate ones.
“You’re too kind,” he winked, showing his guest to the living room - it really was quaint in here, and very nautical. The lamps, the desk, the antique rum bottles and the maps he had as wall-hangings, those were all part of a similar sort of theme. “And not looking too bad yourself, mind you. But now, what’s all this about business? Tell me what I can do for you. And tell me what you’d like to drink, if anything.” The Captain was already headed to the bar - he was nothing if not a proper host.
Kitiara never let things like missing limbs deter her. She knew plenty of bikers who’d had lost their legs in motorcycle accidents. Most of the time it was simply a sign that someone knew how to live. In the same vein, she didn’t need to ask him how he had lost it. She didn’t like people nosing into her business, and she tended to extend the same courtesy.
“Rum, if you have it,” Kitiara said, sitting down. She crossed her legs at the knees, leaning back in a posture that suggested she owned the place. “I’m hoping you’ll be able to locate a man for me. A Gregor Uth Matar.”
Did he have rum - oh, the lady was a lady after his own heart. Of the heart of any pirate, really. But Kit seemed to have some pirate qualities of her own - she’d have made a fantastic one, come to think of it. “Aye, rum it is,” Killian nodded, and poured them both a measure of the good stuff - after adding one ice cube, and only one, to really mellow out the flavour. The sugarcane in this rum was grown in a rich volcanic soil - so everything about it was toasty, with a hint of vanilla and kind of a delightfully salty finish. Really took him back to the rock and sway of the Roger at sea.
He handed Kit her glass, lifting an eyebrow. “Related to you?” he guessed, and as it turned out, finding family was one of his favourite things. “Your...father, perhaps?”
Not much about her past was known, to him, but he had a feeling this would stir up some dusty memories and shed some light on things.
“Thank you,” Kitiara said, taking the glass of rum. She took a small sip before she answered Killian, taking a moment to savour the drink. “You guessed it,” Kitiara said. She and Gregor had the same last name, so it wasn’t as though Kitiara was hoping that she’d managed to slip something like that passed Killian, but it was still kind of embarrassing that she was acting like some airheaded girl searching desperately for the father that abandoned her. “I haven’t seen him since ‘89 and I suspect he’s dead. I thought I’d get the best PI I know of to look into it first though.”
The best PI, eh? Well, Killian didn’t mean to toot his own horn, but he was pretty good. He’d had a lot of practise, a lot of cases worked, and as he evolved in his career choice he’d discovered he had a natural affinity for what he did - perhaps it was all those pirate skills. Helped that, before, he hadn’t a need to turn any dirty work down - whatever a client wanted done, was done. Now, with a proper licence on the way, he had to be choosier for his own sake and the sake of his family - but for a friend, for Kit, he’d certainly do what it took to find her father.
He doubted the fellow ran in squeaky clean circles anyway.
“I can find out for you, for certain,” he nodded, settling on the sofa. Just consider the living room his ‘consultation’ space. “I’ve never not been able to find anyone - with the right skills, and the right connections, I’m a Rembrandt of my craft, love. Where’d you see him last?”
“The last place I saw him was at [home town],” when he had tucked her in, gave her a kiss on his forehead, and gave a goodbye that Kitiara hadn’t really understood until her father hadn’t come home. “He used to work with the police. Lieutenant. Though, I’m sure he worked closely with the mafia at the time.” After all, his father had disguised her as a boy sometimes and brought her with him to some of the illegal gambling rings he played in. “I have some more information in here,” he said, pulling a small leather bound notebook from her back pocket. She hadn’t added more than one or two new notes in the last several years, though the book was half full of the whispers and rumours she had once chased.”
Cripes, that was a long time ago too. Killian took the notebook, flipping through it, his brow furrowed. “Funnily enough, I do have mafia connections,” he noted, and not just with the Irish mob either - there was that whole shady underground circuit he’d once been a part of, because he’d done work for some ‘famous’ individuals in the ranks. No job too big or too small, no job too dirty for the likes of him.
He also had connections to root out corrupt cops - because no offence, but Kit’s father likely wasn’t on some undercover job the whole time. “Might require some traveling on my end, but I’ll be sure to keep you updated. I suppose one of the other big questions is, what would you like me to do once I find him?” Sometimes clients just wanted the information, other times they wanted to be there to do something - and if they just wanted the info, it was up to her to decide how much.
Kitiara was under no illusions that her father had been doing legitimate police work when he’d been rubbing elbows with crime lords. She’d known he was a crook since she was a child, and, in fact, if she found out he’d actually been a good cop all this time she would have been a little disappointed. “I can cover any travelling expenses,” Kitiara said. She made plenty of money with her ever expanding business. “Just send me the bill.” The second part of his question made Kitiara pause. What was she hoping to happen if Killian found her father?
“Like I said, he’s probably dead,” she said after a moment. “Just let me know what you find, and I’ll decide what to do with the information when I get it.”
“Fair enough.” Killian reached for a notebook of his own - he preferred those as opposed to a fancy laptop, and luckily he hadn’t lost his dominant writing hand. A few notes were jotted down, keywords for him, and some observations from the information Kit had. It was just something to begin to organise his thoughts, and also so he’d be able to do exactly what she had asked for. “I’ll get right on this. And if I’ve got to travel, I’m certainly not used to anything fancy.”
Really, he’d done jobs where he’d slept in his car - sometimes, as a Private Investigator, you just had to do those sorts of things. Taking another sip from his glass, he set it down and then picked up the pen to tap it against the edge of his notebook. “Anything else, love? That you think I should know. Or what you’re expecting.”
Kit was tempted to tell Killian that if he discovered her father had a new family, not to bother telling her. But that would make her sound weak. Besides, there was a bigger part of her that wanted to know why her father had abandoned her. Her mother, she could absolutely understand. Kitiara had left her the first chance she got, and there was no doubt in Kitiara’s mind that the woman had chased her father away somehow. But why couldn’t he have taken her with him?
“No, there’s nothing further,” Kitiara said. “Just make sure that this stays between you and me.” Killian wouldn’t be as good at what he did if he didn’t have a good sense of discretion, but it was better to cover her bases.
Killian was certainly discrete - he was meant to skulk in the shadows, to do what needed to be done. Pirates had to be stealthy regardless, to break in through locked forecastle storage, to raid ships and take what they wanted without being seen. “Consider it done, my lady,” he flashed Kitiara a reassuring smile. “I’ve got to say, I’m glad you’re around - and glad to be working together again.”
He clinked his glass against hers to solidify that, and he meant the sentiment - he hadn’t expected to move across the pond and encounter so many ghosts from the past, but he found he enjoyed their presences; it was comforting, as they all went through the bullshit that came with living here.
“You and me both,” Kitiara said. Business concluded for now, Kitiara relaxed slightly in her chair. “It’s very nice to see so many familiar faces now that I’m here. I was sure the only people I would know would be my little brother and his friend.”
“That’s the funny thing about Orange County, innit?” Killian let out a chuff of air, a throaty chuckle at his own rather clueless expense - because on his end, he’d expected to come to this extremely bizarre melting pot, give Regina her report, collect his pay, and then perhaps linger a little while longer just to line up a few more cases. But no, he ended up staying, reconnecting with his long lost sister, and falling in love with his very first client here.
He also lost a hand and died, but that wasn’t worth mentioning at the moment.
“If you ever need anything else though, work-related or otherwise? Just give me a shout, love. We shadowy sorts have got to stick together.”
“Oh, of course sweetheart,” Kitiara said with a wink. “And you know I’ll be there if you ever need a favour as well.”
Well, that was rather sweet of her, wasn’t it? Killian felt all warm and fuzzy inside. Perhaps that could be due to the drink he was indulging in (he did it so rarely these days, having cut back quite a bit and really only drank socially now, if at all) but he doubted it. No, it was the glow of friendship and all that nonsense - and he’d get started with this new assignment as soon as possible. Not only did he enjoy his job, but it meant helping to bring closure for people he actually liked. A win-win, in that scenario.