hybriddick | (no subject)

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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.

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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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