hybriddick | (no subject)

(no subject)

Finding this guy was far from easy. Oliver gave up more than once, thinking it just the concocted fantasies of a junkie unable to cope with his friend's death. Try as he might, Oliver never seemed to catch the seemingly impossible broadcast. All of his research said nothing had ever been on that particular channel in the area, or even the region. Dead air between channels. But Cooke was always insistent about it, in that way that was always a little difficult to deny as truth, even from a junkie.

Then one night, Oliver heard it. He'd left the radio hissing in his office as he'd fallen into other work. And there it was. The fast-talking DJ with eclectic tastes. He was actually real. This gave him something to work with.

In the end it took multiple favors owed and cashed in to get something solid. And what he had seemed utterly ridiculous. A radio spirit. At least that's what it was referred to. Something that wasn't quite tangible. Unreachable. A friend of his was able to dig out and interpret some literature on it. To contact this guy required genuine magic. Even in a world of vampires, Oliver found that difficult to believe.

That was how he'd found himself in the middle of nowhere. Up in the hills where two roads intersected near the base of a radio tower. On the old, cracked pavement he'd used chalk to draw out the intricate pattern of symbols around the crude circle. From a bag at his side, he gingerly pulled out something sealed in plastic. A record more than eighty years old. This wasn't the first time he'd tried this little ritual, but this was the item he'd apparently been missing. The first time he'd tried an old iPod he'd picked up for cheap at a pawn shop, but it apparently didn't have the sentimental resonance required. The record certainly fit the bill.

The record had belonged to his father, Harvey, who'd died when Oliver was a kid. He'd barely played it since then, but it was something he knew well. He always knew he needed to do his best to cheer up his father when he heard the old, scratchy recording of the crooning voice. One of those voices that even under the poor recording quality, you could tell was rich and beautiful. It wasn't until he was an adult that he knew what it really meant. The man on the record was the one person his father truly loved. Completely and deeply with all of his heart. He still loved Oliver's mother, but in a different way. It was the 1930's. Times were different. Harvey and his love couldn't be together, but they did what they could. So the record was as sentimental as could be. It was a piece of his father.

Carefully, he removed the plastic disc and brittle paper sleeve from the plastic it had been stored in. "You'd better work," he muttered as he settled it in the center of the circle. He focused as best as he could, pushing doubt from his mind. He felt ridiculous, but at least he was alone. Taking a deep breath, he focused on what he wanted. He had nothing to visualize, but he could focus on the ideas and feelings involved.

As he uttered the necessary words, he drove a pin into the pad of his thumb. Activating the circle, it was apparently called. As he said the final words, he let a few drops fall onto the drawn symbols. And he braced himself for absolutely nothing to happen.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The room is white, and polished, and maybe it would have looked oddly sterile if Jairo hadn't been using it for such a long time.

He'd draped scarves all over the lamps, even the desk one, scarves of various ethnicity and age. Even the lights that were supposed to be fluorescent and glaring, Jairo had stood precariously up on his swivel chair and tacked up a series of scarves using thumb tacks and sheer willpower.

There's an entire wall with vinyl, an entire wall with casettes, and the same for CDs. He even has a laptop, bright and new and not quite resembling a MAC, plugged in and ready.

Jairo himself looks like he usually does--simple, dressed down. He's got sneakers worn and scuffed, jeans just as beaten up, and a simple black T-shirt. He's got his hair up in a messy bun, hidden behind a newsboy hat with a few pins in it declaring his love for NWA, Def Leppard, and, apparently, Mozart. It's eclectic, just like he is.

There's only one door. One door, no windows. Oliver hears music, old and antiqued, and the moment Oliver blinks he's whisked to the radio room with no real exit. The door, closed and locked from the outside, it appears. Not that it matters.

Jairo's actually never tried to open the door. It's not that he doesn't want to, it just never occurs to him. The same reason why it never occurs to him that the room changes, or that he always seems to know where something is.

At the moment, he has headphones over his hat, singing loudly but not exactly off-key as he messes with the sound mixer.

"I'm gonna hold my baby as tight as I can,
Tonight she'll know I'm a mighty-mighty man~"

He slides on his swivel chair to the laptop to press a few buttons, slides all the way over to what looks like a milk crate, and pulls something out. A vinyl record.

The same one Oliver had a second ago.

The song ends and as it does Jai swivels again on his chair, using the motion to propel himself absolutely everywhere he goes, and he flicks a switch near the microphone. An 'on air' sign chimes.

"Y-yo yo yo-yo yo yo, this is your usual quick talkin' faster thinkin' livin' legend--nah, it's yours truly, sorry to disappoint. First time listeners, buckle up, things are gonna get weird in your life. Keep happenin' it and keep relaxin' it and it'll all be okay." He examines the vinyl under the light of a lamp, briefly, and whistles.

"Alright alright keepin' up with the oldies but goodies theme we got a request from my main man Oliver. What up O?!" He laughs. "Yeah, thanks for joinin', hope you're listenin', keep chasing your dreams in a sea of possibilities. This one's for you."

Throughout the entire ramble, he's switched out the vinyl and has set it to play, finally turning around to face the door--

And promptly, eyes wide, dramatically putting a hand over his heart.

"You gotta warn a brother the next time you request in person!"

Edited 2016-03-05 08:12 (UTC)

Oliver stood in the room, utterly silent. There was simply too much to process for words to be a priority. The first and most obvious was that the magic had worked. The blasted magic had actually worked. Magic was real. How could no one in a world where vampires and special abilities ran rampant keep magic a secret? Digging up the spell had been a nightmare, and even those who understood it treated it like it was superstitions rather than actual, legitimate magic.

Once he got passed that little revelation, he started to take in the room. The once sterile, now eccentrically decorated room. Then there was the man himself. A voice he'd come to know well in his search. Oliver watched him, trying to get a read on him. Pushing his senses as far as he could. But under the buzz of the lights and the rapid speech, he couldn't tell if there was a heartbeat. His own was pounding too hard in his chest, anyway. And the room was full of all manner of new smells that he couldn't quite hone in on Jairo himself.

That particular became secondary when not only did Jairo start handling the record, but used Oliver's name. They'd never spoken. Never been in contact. And yet this man with the death list knew his name. He reached out a hand, wanting to tell him not to play the record. But he was too late and the needle touched the disk. For a heart-stopping moment, he feared the thing would be ruined. But instead he heard that beautiful, sweet voice that had given his father such joy.

That's when Jairo finally turned around, heartache plain on Oliver's face. After a moment, he was able to reign it in. He lifted his chin, regarding Jairo, trying to look like he belonged there.

"You're not exactly an easy man to reach, slick."

He sees it. He's not sure what it is, that strange expression, the oddly forlorn look, but it's something. Something Jairo decides he kind of likes to see. Not in a bad way, just in a human way. It's...

Refreshing. That's the word. Refreshing.

Play it cool, Jai, play it cool.

"Slick. Yeah, man, I like that. Sliiick. Pretty sick, hey." A brief wink and he tugs down his headphones, letting them rest on his neck, and peers at the other from under the newscap's visor.

"I don't get much visitors no' mo'. What's the momentous occasion? Funeral? Wedding? Bar Mitzvah? Quinceañera?" His fingers flex before resting on his chin, leaning half on his desk, and he uses his other hand to fiddle with the volume mixer. The music is turned down, but not completely.

"If it's good, I play it, you know how it is, O."

Usually Oliver had a plan. He'd chat with someone or research them or simply watch them until he could figure out an angle. It wasn't unlike cracking a safe or picking a lock. Be gentle, hit just the right points and it fell open for you. Find the right points to hit with people and they could tell you exactly what you needed, sometimes without realizing they're doing it. But Oliver had been so skeptical about this working, he'd not prepared. So he found himself flat footed, watching Jai go through his little speech.

"I've heard," he said, trying to find the right tone for this. "But what brings me here isn't on the list." Because homeless junkies didn't get much in the way of funerals. "I'm here about the names."

He left it there. Simple, straight forward. As he said it, an idea bobbed to the surface. Something that had been there for a while but he'd not dared consider. If this many knew who would die, what else could he know? He forced it down before he could look at it any closer. His own personal hopes had nothing to do with this. This was about Cooke.

He laughs. He laughs and it's almost a scoff, but more gritty and far less pretentious.

"Of what I play? You got Google machines and willy-pedia, my man, you didn't have to send in a request. Hella glad you did, this is on top."

He knows exactly what Oliver is talking about. He doesn't get many visitors--three that he can remember, vaguely--and they always asked. Always. He used to feel bad--used to. He's buried all of that away. There's a reason he's so talkative.

If he talks, he can't get lost in his own mind. Can't think about it too hard.

"Not that I'm complaing, I do like the view." He reaches with his foot underneath the desk to pull out a stool with wheels and kick it in the others direction as an invitation to sit and stay.

The numbers won't come to him if someone else is there. He's sure. Just like he was positive there was a wheeled stool underneath his desk the whole time despite never using it himself. He can't--or won't--tell Oliver about the list. Not right away. Hell, maybe not ever.

"So what's you're story behind this? Guy on the record sure seems nice."

Oliver lifted his foot, halting the stool as it rolled close to him. He didn't look impressed. He wasn't here to talk about music. But even as Jairo asked, he realized he didn't actually known the name of the singer. The label had been worn to illegibility by use and age by the time it came into his possession, and his mother claimed to not recall the name. No one famous and someone long dead, she was sure of it.

He nudged the stool to roll back over to the DJ, refusing to sit. He didn't like the way this guy talked. In some ways it was a lot like Cooke, a whole lot of words with very little substance. But it wasn't the babbling of an addled mind. It was more precise than that. He thought of magicians, the way they knew just how to distract the eye to make the magic happen. He needed trade trick for trick. Get Jairo distracted enough so Oliver would have a chance to see the strings.

If he could tell just what Jairo was it might be easier. He'd have a baseline to work with. But all he'd settled on was non-human. But that didn't mean much.

He decided to humor the DJ. Give him a story.

"It belonged to my father," he said, allowing some of that heartache to show itself in his voice. "The man singing is someone he loved very much, before he met my mother, or so I've been told. So I'd appreciate it if you'd be gentle with the record. It's quite old." If Oliver were human, that record would have had to have belonged to his grandfather, not his father. But he was going to let Jai connect those dots on his own.

"The bump in the night was bumpin' uglies." Jai sounds kind of impressed, connecting the dots fairly easily. He doesn't think he's ever met a human.

Jai himself breathes like a human despite no actual pulse, and from the way he slides the stool back behind and gives a wink like he knows Oliver's secret denotes something more. Jairo hasn't even thought about who he is or what he is. He just speaks.

"Everybody's got a love a good bisexual. They'll love you anyway, don't matter gender." He laughs at his own joke and, as the song ends, immediately types a few things on his laptop and presses the on air button.

"Yo yo, you beautiful dreamers! Look at you guys, letting stardust slip through your fingers. We're gonna kick it up a notch with somethin' a little more upbeat, but y'all gotta promise to give that special person in your life a call. Let them know you're thinking of them."

He smiles, soft, and for a brief moment he remembers someone. Can't remember the name or what they look like, but it's something. He switches the on air switch to off and swivels around again.

"No one brings me vinyl, man. It's all cheap iPods. I like me some storage but damn, why is U2 on everything?"

Oliver starts to say something, but Jairo is already back to talking into his microphone and Oliver is left silent. The words died on his lips, leaving him feeling a little hollow. There was something strange here, something strange with this man. Now that Oliver had calmed and grown more accustomed to the room, he could tell he was only hearing one heartbeat. His own. He should at least hear something, anything, from the DJ. Breath but no heartbeat. Yet he didn't smell or behave like a vampire.

"Corporate greed," he responded to the question with a faint smile.

There was something in what Jairo said to the listeners that left him still on the story about his father. That instinct that kept him employed. That little something that never quite had words, a tug in his chest saying 'follow that thing' that always led him to what he needed. Needed, not wanted. Two vastly different things.

"But...he wasn't bi," Oliver belated corrected. "My father, I mean. It was a very long time ago, and the world was very different. What he had with my mother was obligation, not love." He paused, but only long enough for a breath. Pushing on before the DJ's quick wit could step in. "What about your special someone?" Said in the same somber tone as his short tale.

"Fix AIDS or some shit, Bono! Daaaaaamn. Too much trouble and he's gotta suck coprorate greed's dingleberries to get on an iPod. That's just messed up."

He spins a second time in his chair, though there's no discernible reason why. It's a habit, like brushing his teeth and falling asleep,though when h thinks hard enough he can't ever remember doing those things either. Oliver has done a miracle, however, and got him to quiet down as he listens to the story about Oliver's father and his boyfriend. His lips part but he doesn't speak until the other asks the question.

His response is to spin in his chair, look at the other for a few moments, and weigh his options. In the end he settles on draping himself onto the sound mixer, hugging and embracing it like it was his first born child.

"This hot piece of ass," he explains. "Hands down. Hands absolutely down." The quick wit, it seems, is always a part of him. "You listen enough it'll whisper super kinky things to you. Like, 'oh, you've found my G plot.' and 'a little to the left now wiggle it.'" It's mean. It's almost condescending, but Jai doesn't mean it that way at all.

"Tell you what--what's your name, man? Not just 'Oliver.'"

Oliver wasn't buying it, and it showed. Something was seriously off here, he could feel it in his bones. Not just with the room or how he got here, but with Jai. It wasn't something easy to discern. Like the vague memory of a dream, or a sound just barely on the edge of hearing. It was there, he could feel it, but he didn't even know the shape of it. Just a something. Intangible. Indescribable. But there.

"Flynn," he said, with a heavy sigh. "Oliver Flynn." Then after a moment, he added, "My father was Harvey Flynn."

Usually, he didn't so freely hand out such information. It was a test. Would Jai recognize the name? Oliver hadn't made much of a name for himself, intentionally. But his father's name was incredibly well known among certain circles. Only history buffs, vampires, and the older hybrids really knew it. A reporter who had been at the center of the biggest events in the city for several decades. From the dock strikes in the 30's up until his untimely death in the 60's.

He wasn't sure what it would mean exactly if Jai recognized the name, but it was something to start with. The same if he didn't.

"Your pop-pop sounds like a business mogul," Jairo states plainly, and he slides his chair all the way over to Oliver, nearly crashing into him. He still doesn't get up from it but he does look up and actually extend a hand.

"Jairo. Well--Jairo Molina, but jai's fine. Since I'm Callin' you O."

He's cold because he has no pulse, but he's not icey like most ghosts. Hell, he's not even a ghost, really. Jai himself hasn't even thought about who he is and why he's here. Never has. If he keeps talking, keeps doing this, he'll never have to.

"Lemme axe, axe you somethin'. You don't, like, resent your dad for loving someone that ain't your mom? Tell me more."

A business mogul. So Jairo didn't know the name. But that could mean everything from being too young to simply having not been in the area at that time. Or any number of other factors. It would have meant more if Jairo actually knew the name. A narrower scope to work with and easy to narrow down further.

Without hesitation, he took the offered hand. And he squeezed it a little too long. Definitely no pulse, that much was clear. Cool to the touch but not cold enough to be a vampire. Well, an unfed one at least. But to not be cadaver cold, there would be at least the lingering smell of blood, which there most certainly wasn't. Even with the strange way he got here, the idea of a ghost didn't even cross his mind. Jairo was too solid to be a spirit. Besides. Ghosts didn't exist. Oliver would have seen one by now.

He also would have run across actual magic, wouldn't he?

The question threw him a little. It seemed a rather strange thing to ask. "No, I understood why he had to do it the way he did. I would have been in his exact position back then, and in some ways it's still a bit too similar." Another leap on gut instinct. "Why? Do you have experience in that realm, sport? The fatherly directed resentment, or any other part of it."

Oliver's too-long squeeze raised different questions in Jairo's fast-paced mind. Namely why, of course, because who the fukc wanted to shake someone's hand and get some sort of happiness out of it? That was a human thing that Jai, even though he was probably once human, never fucking understood.

"Go back to slick," he sais smply, "and skip the drama. I wanna hear about yours, homie, not have someone pick my brain. S'inane, man, if I wanted to, like, tel my lifestory? Woulda done it." A pause.

"You though? You ain't got that option. So if you wanna tell the tale, you go right on ahead. You can be my first ever talk-show host."

Of course this guy didn't want to open up. Not even a side-step, an outright block. That was going to be more difficult to get through, but it wasn't about getting Jairo to talk about his father or the person he loved or any of that. It never was with anyone. It was about the underlying things. The reactions, the emotions. The information people never realized they were giving.

"Alright, Tiger. How about a deal? We do the talk-show business, but then you've gotta tell me about you. Off the air and off the record. A trade. Sound fair?"

He doubted the man would even consider the deal. He'd met a few vampires who were old enough that they no longer remembered solid details about their human lives. But this didn't feel like that. Jai was hiding something. The big question was why. Did it have something to do with the strange magic to get here? With magic being a sudden possibility, Oliver was no longer sure what he could trust.

"NoooOOOOOOOOO," His voice started soft but grew in volume, and for a brief moment it's hard to tell if Jai was a toddler or an actual man. He leans back and straightens up, looking absolutely insulted.

"I said slick, stick with slick. Damn, don't be rude. I said please. I think I did." He should focus on more things--should focus on better things that aren't stupid nicknames, but it's weird when someone else doles them out and not him.

Focus, Jai.

His straightened self leans back, further, looking almost like he's going to tip the chair.

"You drive a hard bargain, man, I just want some juicy details so I can make a playlist for you, daaaaamn. But it sounds good." Yeah, he'll allow it. "Let me know when you're ready, son."

Oliver usually just tossed the little nicknames out on habit. Something he'd picked up from his father and never really lost. He knew it could sound condescending sometimes, so he could dial it back in the right situations. But here, it might prove useful. Jai was suspicious. Side-stepping everything, doling out the names of the soon to die, hiding in a very difficult to reach place. Oliver needed answers. And already he'd found a pressure point.

"We gotta do this the right way, chief." Despite the slight emphasis, he kept his face calm and collected, as if the strange toddler demand had never happened. "Talk show style. You gotta ask what you wanna know, I can't just start talking off the cuff. Then when we're done, we flip it. I get to ask you about you."

"Somebody pays you to be annoyin', don't they?" He doesn't really mean it, because even his words are back to light and crisp. Like he's plucking them out of the air somehow, sampling phrases from a platter only he can see. He's back to being relaxed--though he never left being relaxed and laid back, not truly--and he leans back in his swivel chair.

"Fine," He says after a moment, and reaches over to press a few buttons on the laptop. A simple continuation of the playlist. He figures if Oliver extends the courtesy to ask whatever it was off the air, he would, too. He's not a dick, just fast talking and quick thinking.

He just likes stories. The only reason people can get here is because they have some. He looks over at the vinyl, fondly, and runs a finger over the sticker near the punched hole.

"Your dad and this guy were lovers? Is that how they met? How'd they met, man. They gotta meet at like, a live club or something. You know that much?"

"I'm afraid I don't, sport," Oliver admitted with a small shrug. "That whole story's not been told to me." Most of what he knew came from inference spread between sparse comments from his mother and half-remembered things about his father. He was a teenager when the man died, but that was a long time ago.

"What I do know is that he was a journalist and his work took him to a lot of different places. And they must have been close for a very long time. I've been told that after my old man was m--" He cut himself off short. No reason to go into his theories unless he truly had this guy's ear. "After he died, the singer disappeared. That's why no one's heard of him these days."

More inference. He'd just been told the singer wasn't around anymore and to stop asking so many questions. Only once had it been mentioned that the singer vanished so close to his father's death. Something said out of irritation when he'd been badgering his mother as a teenager. A detail he'd never forgotten.

"I bet they did," Jai speaks and it's almost over top of Oliver. He's interested now: he's leaning forward, lips parted, not quite on the edge of his seat but he's hunched over.

He nods, snaps his fingers, and then points emphatically. "I've got it. I've got it. Your singer friend absolutely without a doubt got super jelly your parents met and killed your dad. 'If I can't have anyone I'll have you!' that sort of stuff. You hear about it all the time, man, all the freaking time--that's gotta be it."

He looks hopeful, almost, and incredibly proud. "It's more dramatic that way," He explains. "Dramatic deaths are the best ones. All that romanticism and shit packed into a li'l bullet or a sharp knife. Totally morbid, but completely true, don't you think?"

Oliver started to speak, but the words seem to evaporate before they reached his tongue. He just frowned for a moment. In all of his puzzling over the reasons for that detail he'd never once suspected he was the cause of his father's death. Far from it. He'd entertained all manner of fantasies about it, some romantic, some brutal. But it never entered his mind that the singer was the killer.

His theories ranged from the singer being murdered alongside his father to being too grief-stricken to sing anymore. The former was rooted in the bigotry and ideals of the era. Not only was his father gay, but he would have been seen as an adulterer. In a high profile position like a journalist, he was at great risk. The latter was entirely romantic fantasy and one he didn't entertain much anymore.

And here was the man who dealt out the names of the dead laying out such a theory. From anyone else, he would have brushed it aside, but did he know something that Oliver didn't? That no one else could know? So after a short, contemplative silence, he said "I never really considered that. Is that really what you think could've happened?" For once not calling Jai any sort of nickname.

And Jai, in turn, stills.

It's subtle, but he senses he's earned Oliver's full attention, disarmed him--it's only fair to treat the situation with civility. He curves his lips into a smile, devoid of all brightness and cheer, and his face falls again.

He hadn't even entertained the possibility, had he? He'd just assumed.

For someone who looks his age, Oliver is looking just more and more like a small kid searching for his dad. He looks at the vinyl, and then at a strange piece of fluff he'd suddenly found on his pants that were way, way more interesting.

"I think it's possible," He says finally, and his voice is quiet and not quite strained but gentle. It's not at all the boisterous, friendly chit-chat he's used to. It's far more similar to when the list comes.

"...And I think a lot of people have killed for a lot less."

Oliver came here expecting to have something cleared up. Any number of things. But instead it things were already getting more complicated. And a weight that was so minor he barely registered it started dragging at him in ways he'd never imagined. His father's death had never seemed right to him. The tales and stories he'd heard didn't quiet line up. Most of the time it was pure intuition that told him it wasn't right. It was why he became a detective, why he focused where he did. It influenced his life in so many ways but it never felt heavy.

Now it did.

It couldn't be that simple. Why wouldn't the stories reported that? He'd combed over every possible article about the man's death and the singer had never been mentioned. Some had come close, talking about Harvey being gay, about him having an affair, delving into every possible scandal they could find. And not a single one had mentioned the mysterious singer.

Even in this strange reverie, Jai's new tone was not lost on him. Something had shifted in the man. Was he responding to Oliver's mood or was it something else? "But there are other possibilities," he ventured. "Don't you think?"

"Sure," Jai states, and it's still soft. He licks his lips, still looking down at his jeans, and exhales loudly.

"Man, sounds like something from a dime store novel, you know? I just automatically go to the most dramatic, don't even listen to me, I'm talkin' dumb, okay?" It's obviously not sitting well with the other so Jai tries to brush it off, batting his hand and letting it flop uselessly onto his leg before he glances over at the vinyl.

"He's got a great voice. You know--I kinda gotta keep this," a motion to the milk carton where the vinyl had appeared after being dotted with Oliver's blood. "But hold up."

He crosses to one side of the wall--filled, of course, with vinyl, and nimble fingers begin running through impossible to read stacks.

"Bo, Bo, bo... Bi-bo-bo--here."

The record is brand new. Not torn, nor frayed, and it's only a few songs, but it's there. It's a Bo Campbell album, and Jai turns around.

"I'm trying to say I'm sorry I brought up this dude killing your pa, or some shit like that. I got excited and I feel kinda shitty--do you maybe wanna take this?"

The mood, and Jai, seemed to have shifted despite his best efforts. But Oliver knew to let things flow until he could see the shape of it. If he started trying to force things too hard they'd break or fly off into unexpected directions. Sometimes it could work, but not with forces like Jai. He would be lucky if he didn't end up crushed in the process even without trying to shift things himself.

He moved with the man, more or less, to the wall of vinyl. Even Oliver's incredibly eyesight had trouble discerning what the DJ could possibly be reading or looking for. He thought the sounds were nothing more than nonsense. Sounds he made to fill space, to keep him busy while he thought. But when the record was presented, he hesitated. Bo.

The name itself meant little to Oliver as he'd never known the identity of the singer. He assumed there was some connection of some sort, an era or style or sound. But there was no way this could be the same as the man on the record he'd given. Not even his mother knew the man's name. Curiosity seized him and he started to reach for the record. But he halted mere inches from the disc. Tales of fairies and Persephone slashing across his mind. Tale upon tale outlining the dangers of accepting gifts from those not of the living world. So he pulled his hand back without talking it.

"I don't understand," he admitted. "What's..." he gestured to the offered record. "...this?" He was still catching up to the fact that Jai had said he couldn't give the other one back. The record that had been one of the few pieces of his father that he had left.

"This right here," Jai's brows raise and he does his best 1920's announcer voice, "is a record, kid. And what it does is play some jaunty tunes for you to spend your dad whistlin' dixie until your little heart's content. Why it goes in this here thing called a record player and all you children go crazy for the next wave of that ol' hippity-hoppity music!"

And the accent is dropped, Jai flipping the record in his hands with flash and pompous style.

"It's that singer your dad loved so much," His voice is calmer this time. "I don't really get a chance to meet knew people so I shoot off at the mouth a little, but... truce?"

Typically, such an accent would have at least made Oliver crack a smile. But from Jai, it seemed almost unsettling. Oliver wanted to know just what was happening here, how he got here, what Jai was, what this radio station was. Instead he got jokes and funny voices. But even more unsettling was that Jai was offering him one of the many answers to a very complicated riddle like it was nothing. Not the answer he came here for, but something in the vague territory of it.

The offer a truce raised an eyebrow, though. Now, why would that suddenly be on the table? He'd agreed to answer the man's questions, hadn't he? He was in the man's territory, as it was. He was the one on the offensive, not Jai. And yet Jai was the one trying to extend an olive branch? It made Oliver more than skeptical.

"You just...knew his name," he said, his tone flat. "Just like that. No one I've talked to knew his name. They'd never even heard his music. But you..." he shook his head. "I don't understand."

Jai's brows raise even higher. "Have any of them been a radio DJ with literally every single piece of music you can possibly think of?" He asks, and it's almost a rhetorical question. He pulls the record away, spins the cover in his hands and shrugs.

"S'fine, you don't want it, I'll keep it, no big," He says dismissively, but he puts the record on the DJ desk as he sits down again and fiddles with his laptop. His headphones go on, but he's polite enough to only use one of them, the other nestled just above his ear. He's sure it looks ridiculous but he doesn't care, he's fine-tuning the music that's currently filling the room.

"I think you're dad's story's the bomb-diggity, though, cuddle pumpkin. You really gotta write a novel about it. That way you can make up your own ending, while you find the actual one. Right?"

"That's not how being a detective works," he said, a slight edge to his voice. He eyed the record on the desk. If he heard the voice, he'd know for sure, but until he did he had no way of knowing that was really the guy. The one he'd wanted to know so much about. For all he knew, Jai was messing with him and just offering up some other barely heard of singer.

"Look." The cautious path was getting him nowhere. It was time to be more direct. "I'm rather new to this whole ghost radio, magic circles, impossibly large music collection business. I'm more than a little out of my depth here and you're not exactly helpful." He let his frustration show in his face. A tactic he didn't use very often. Typically, if he let on he was frustrated, it blew the whole thing and he lost whatever advantage he'd had. But here, he had no advantage. The one thing he had to lose (the record) seemed already lost, so he might as well try whatever he could.

"Relax, ese. I'm an open book." He's not, and he knows he isn't, but he's trying to placate the other as he flops into his chair and starts spinning in it as he talks.

"You really gettin' mad at a whole made up story, or is that somethin' else?" He asks. Before the other can answer, though, he snaps his fingers. "Wait! This is your first time, like, ever? I popped your magic cherry? Oh my God, If I'd had known you were a gentle wilting flower in the breeze, man. Sheee-it, homie!"

He's immediately smiles and laughter once more, and with one final spin he reaches a hand out to stop himself.

"Quick question, though. Why'd you seek me out if you don't believe in that sorta stuff?"

Oliver's patience was deep and wide. Inexhaustible, some thought. He seemed to take nearly everything in stride, intentionally withholding it only in the face of close-minded bigotry. But even then, he drew on it to give him strength to handle it with a level head, even if his words are harsh. But Jairo was very quickly using up his reserves of patience. Then again, Oliver had used them up a fair bit himself on just getting here, so the DJ was at a disadvantage. Sort of.

Oliver took a long, slow breath before speaking. "Occam's razor." Two of them could play this game of giving nothing. "I am a detective, a friend of mine knew someone on your list." Let Jairo connect the dots on his own, even it was the most simple version of the story he could give.

It certainly didn't start with Cooke's friend over dosing. It started well before that with a junkie pounding on his office door in the middle of the night demanding if he had a radio. A real radio, not a phone radio. While they listened to nothing but static, he was able to get out of Cooke that he assumed Oliver would have one because he was so old and only old people had real radios. It was only later that a junkie was found in the bushes on the slope above I-405. But Jairo didn't need to know any of that.

"Oh." Jai's face sobers, but it's only for a flicker--a brief, brief flicker, but he's sure to hide it underneath another smile. His emotions didn't have anything to do with it, he told himself. He can just present the facts.

He can't tell if Oliver's just naturally quiet and slow talking or if Jai's just pissed him off, but he's willing to bet on the latter. He seemed to do that a lot to people that came in here, however rare that was.

"Sorry to hear that," he says, and it's sincere. He always hopes the names are people no one cares about, or old people that have already lived long, successful, fulfilling lives.

"Your friends' friend kicked the bucket?"

Oliver gave a slow nod. He was trying to sort through something that didn't sit well with him at all. He could see the emotions playing across Jairo's face, even the ones that were there for a single heartbeat. But he couldn't smell anything. In a room like this, with just the two of them, he shouldn't even have to try. He should be able to smell something. Sweat, the last food he ate, whether or not he preferred coffee or tea, his general emotional state. Even neutral emotions had a subtle scent. There should be the tang of his excitement, or the bitter scent of anxiety from a lie. But there was nothing. Even vampires smelled of these things. Why didn't Jairo?

He needed to push that sincerity. Sincerity could be faked, so could subtle expressions. "An overdose. She was nineteen." Even he'd been shocked to find out how young the girl had been, investigating after Cooke dragged him out at two in the morning. He'd never seen the kid so distressed. Knowing how poorly Cooke handled stress, he ended up with him sleeping on the couch of his office for a week. Which led to further obsessions with this radio station, and Oliver's finally hearing it.

"Shit," Jai says, voice soft and surprisingly normal. It's void of bounce or its usual peppiness, but he isn't upset in the least. Just sad.

He supposes he'd be more sad if he wasn't aware of those lists, what they did, and how if he thinks back, he can hear his own name.

That's foggy, though, and there's no point in remembering it if he has to concentrate on the now and also the fact that Oliver probably wants him to do something about it.

He winds up scratching at the side of his face, murmuring something in Spanish about resting in peace. That's the least he can do for the person--the girl. The 19 year old girl.

"Those are the answers you want, aren't they? About the girl. And the names."

He's finally deciding it's alright to talk about it.

He could see it all on Jai's face. Things that should have been so strong they'd make Oliver dizzy. But it was as if he'd lost the sense entirely. No, not entirely. It was more like when his ears popped and the outside world went away but he could still hear himself breathing. He could still smell himself. Those subtle things that were just barely on the edge of awareness because they were ever present. But they were still there. He could smell the ancient paper sleeves on records, reminding him of old books. But he couldn't smell the DJ.

He nodded again. This is why he'd come here. The list. But he found himself distracted by a notion that passed before him like a lazy moth. Not invasive, but difficult to ignore. It was something to do with the way Jairo seemed to fold into himself, the sudden quiet and lack of energy.

"Were you ever on that list?" Until he said it, he wasn't entirely sure of the picture he'd put together. But it made a weird sort of sense. There were few things that didn't carry some scent he could pick up on. Even the breeze itself was scented with flowers or smoke or dust. But there was a pervasive almost-scent that he'd been dismissing since he'd arrived. Assumed it to be part of the process or the room itself. That not-quite-scent of ozone, the prickle in his nostrils of energy.

It's a loaded question. It's fully loaded, and the words hit him like a freight train, even if he doesn't show much emotion beyond it.

Were you ever on that list? Oliver asks, and Jai's teeth scrape over his lower lip. It's rare he looks perplexed, looks like he doesn't have proper control over anything. There's no jovial tone, no bounce, no smile. It's not sadness, or anger, or any other emotions, either. Jai's face is quiet and impassive, like he'd just been listening to some sort of philosopher think and didn't want to ruin their process.

He can smell, vaguely, the smell of rotting corpses if he thinks about Oliver's words. He can hear someone very close to him, huddling and speaking Ukranian and fiddling with a radio. It slips out of his hands the moment he thinks he can hold onto it.

He exhales, sharply, and claps his hands together loudly.

"I don't think that matters, hombre," He speaks and it's with earnesty. "All that matters is I read 'em now."

That look held more meaning than either of them probably knew. It spoke volumes to Oliver, and he barely understood the introduction. He'd found himself in a world without context, where magic and ghosts were real. Well, maybe not ghosts, but spirits, apparitions, illusions. Something that wasn't alive in the same way electricity wasn't alive. Perhaps he'd been a person once upon a time, or he could have been conjured out of nothing. A construct created to run this place. A program of the aether. No matter what he was, he knew Jai wasn't living. Not in the sense that vampires were living, but beyond even that. Really, it came down to the question of whether or not he'd ever been alive.

He needed a better sense of him. Touch rarely did anything to enhance his senses, but there were hybrids out there who were said to have such abilities. A touch gave them glimpses of minds, or of emotions, or futures. Oliver might not have such things, but touch could still be powerful in it's own right. So with a look of the utmost sympathy, a creasing of his brown that told of a great weight he himself kept hidden, that he somehow knew what Jai was going through, he reached out to settle a hand on the DJ's shoulder.

"It does matter," he said, his tone soft and gravely serious. Urging Jai to talk without asking. "More than you know."

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