The Supernatural Bureau (Peregrine x neptune)

[Peregrine]

It was currently noon, and several officers of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department had gathered together into a loose circle for a lunch and smoke break. They clung close to the wall, hiding as much as they could from the heat of the midday sun in the short shadow cast by the building. However, the scrap of shade did little to mitigate the heat that had fully saturated the air. If it wasn't for the fact that there was no smoking allowed inside the building, it was doubtful that anything could have dragged them away from the comfort of the precinct's air conditioned interior.

As the group bantered back and forth, smoke loosely floating around them, their eyes occasionally drifted towards the only other person braving Nevada's midday heat. It was obvious from the tilt of their shoulders and the rapid shifts of their eyes that the entire group was desperately afraid of being caught staring, but also couldn't help but watch, like a group of teenagers peeping on a girl. After all, everyone in the precinct knew that the plainly dressed young man before them was a member of the Supernatural Bureau. With a combination of the news reports that spread across the world whenever the SB agents had to step out to deal with a situation, and the wild rumors that spread like wildfire after every Event, even the most hardened of officers couldn't help but look at that apparently young man with a mixture of both respect and fear, let alone this group of off-duty patrol officers.

However, the stares of the officers seemed to have as little impact on the man as the rays of the sun. He calmly lounged on the picnic table as though he wasn't sitting directly under the sun in almost 110 degree weather, peeling the saran wrap off a sandwich with quick movements of his delicate fingers. One foot tapped slowly on the ground, following a beat no one else could hear.

Of course, Raphe could feel their eyes on him every time they glanced over, like small shivers running across his skin. Figuring out when you were being looked at, even if it didn't seem like anything was there, was an essential quality for any SB agent who wanted to keep his guts inside his body where they belonged. But, with such a blatant source of observation, Raphe didn't let their glances bother him in the least. Instead, he ate his sandwich with slow relish, eyes half closed as though he was enjoying some exotic delicacy.

Of course, the very fact that he was able to sit down and slowly enjoy his lunch could be considered 'exotic' for Raphe. As one of the most senior agents of the Supernatural Bureau, whenever Raphe was called in for a case it meant that no one was going to be getting any sleep, let alone the time to slowly sit down and enjoy a meal. He'd just come from Phoenix, Arizona, where something had crawled down into the city's plumbing, causing the city's entire water reserves to simply disappear. The city's population had been plunged into an immediate and deadly water crisis, and the SB had brought its finest hands on deck to resolve the matter as quickly as possible, lest whatever was gobbling up the water spread beyond the confines of the city.

And resolved quickly it was, due in no small part to Raphe's ability to track the mana fluctuations that covered the city back to their source. However, rather than staying behind to help with detoxing the city from the mana, or letting himself get dragged to SB headquarters in New Mexico, Raphe had immediately snagged the closest Potential Supernatural Event report to Phoenix, and shipped himself off to Las Vegas for a well-earned "vacation".

The PSE had been submitted by the Las Vegas police only because the missing person's case originated from a hotel that had seen an Event twenty-five years ago. It was obvious to everyone involved, including the local police force, that the chances that the missing child having anything to do with a new Event was basically none. But they'd followed standard protocol and sent in a report anyways, only to be left flabbergasted when Raphe showed up on their metaphorical doorstep. Raphe had done his due diligence as well, visiting the hotel where the kid had vanished without a trace in order to search for any mana fluctuations. Unsurprisingly, he'd found exactly none. Satisfied with his efforts, Raphe then settled himself in at the local precinct, politely ignoring the requests of various case officers that he return to headquarters to help out with securing and containing the crystal beetle they'd found in the depths of Phoenix's sewers. Raphe knew full well that they could handle it themselves, and were simply looking for someone they could push the work onto.

And so, given a wide berth by the various officers at the precinct, Raphe settled in to enjoy his "vacation" until he was called in to deal with something he knew others actually couldn't handle.

However, his attitude changed quite suddenly when he felt a shiver run up his spine, very different from the sensation of the officer's eyes on his back. Raphe knew the feeling far too well. It was his inherent reaction whenever he ran into the subtle traces of mana fluctuation, so faint that even the SB's most precise measurement tools couldn't get a reading on it. Raphe's head snapped around automatically, causing the smoking officers to freeze in mid-conversation. Abandoning his half-eaten sandwich on the table, Raphe stood up and strode back into the building, his eyes quickly flicking around the lobby. A second later, and his eyes skated over a dark haired man wearing sunglasses and a floral Hawaiian shirt, and another shiver ran up his back.

Far more covert than the group of officers who had been standing outside, Raphe calmly walked across the lobby while keeping the man's colorful shirt in the corner of his eye. A moment later, and he settled in front of a stack of paperwork on a nearby counter, quickly and comfortably picking them up and beginning to sort through them. With his head bent and eyes forward, it seemed impossible for him to be watching anything other than the papers in front of him. However, his attention never left the man in the floral shirt, and despite his apparent calm he remained tense and ready to act at any moment. Mana fluctuations never indicated anything good, and if the man made any wrong move, Raphe was prepared to lock him down in an instant.

Still sorting through the papers, Raphe, watched, listened, and waited.

 

[neptune]

A long hallway. Dingy yellow light. Peeling paint. A girl with her head down. The flash of a gun. Muffled voices. Fear. Another hallway. The cicada-like hum of an empty vending machine. Rope around thin wrists. The brick façade outside. The door. Frustration. More fear. The slam of a phone. Muffled voices. Faceless men. Blonde hair. Begging. Pleading. Tension. Resentment. Crying.

A cold sweat.

The threadbare sheets clung to Dallas Ryan's clammy skin and pooled around his waist as he sat upright, chest heaving as the near-midday sun spilled through the gaps in the shitty, plastic blinds. A ray of light hit him right in the eye and he squinted against it, pressing his hands over his slick face in an effort to calm down. It was the third night in a row that he'd had that dream, saw the same girl in the same eerily familiar place. The feeling was a little more chaotic, a little more desperate each night and he was starting to think it meant something.

Surely, he'd just had too much to drink the night before, and his often-polluted brain was just struggling to make sense of the day, right? It wasn't as though he was really seeing things. Not again, at least, that hadn't happened in a while.

Breathing a forceful exhale after finally dropping his hands away from his face, Dallas peeled the sheets away from his body before getting up to seize what little was left of the morning. His steps were inelegant, still shaking off the idleness of sleep as he crossed the small studio apartment's space and snagged an open bottle of vodka from the kitchenette's counter on his way to the bathroom. He swished his mouth with the alcohol, feeling it burn at his gums and tongue before swallowing it down with little more than a grimace.

Avoiding the mirror—because no one wanted to look themselves in the eye after a bender—he went straight for the shower instead. The hot water at the apartment complex was unreliable at best, but Dallas didn't even bother to turn the knob in that direction, preferring to be blasted in the face with a temperature that would leave a normal person shaking. After washing up and foregoing a towel, just dripping on the cracked linoleum floor like some kind of animal, Dallas shirked the mirror a second time as he brushed his teeth. For the kind of life he'd lived so far, it was almost impressive that he still had all thirty-two.

Without the window unit running, the apartment was already soaring to uncomfortable temperatures, but that was Vegas and the heat just couldn't be avoided. Dallas took another swig from the bottle before pulling on a pair of jeans and grabbing (what he hoped was) a clean shirt from the back of a chair. The Hawaiian motif, a sunset pink with similarly toned flowers and blue-green palm leaves, made him look a little more put together and not so…

What was the word?

Sketchy. Real fucking sketchy.

One knock-off Rolex later and Dallas was finally on his way, sliding a pair of plastic sunglasses onto his face he stepped out of his front door and into the world. It was oppressively hot already and Dallas didn't have to look further than the heat lines gleaming up from the asphalt parking lot below to know that the walk he was about to take wasn't going to be pleasant. Cursing under his breath, he started toward the sidewalk; today was going to be the day he finally got his car out of impound.

"Hey!"

Shit. Dallas glanced over his shoulder, barely out from the shadows of the second floor walkway when a sweaty, pale-skinned man hurriedly waddled his way out of the office at the center of the complex. It was like Mister Purcell just sat there with the door open and waited for him to come down so that he could start yelling. It was always the same thing, "your rent is past due! Two weeks in a row!"

For a place that rented in seven day chunks and wouldn't accept checks, Dallas wasn't exactly moved. "I know, I'm getting the money," he promised lightly, not slowing down as Purcell lagged a few steps behind.

"When? That's all I ever hear from you."

"When I get my car out of the impound lot. There's money in the glovebox and you'll get it today if you'd let me go catch my bus!" Thirty-something and still riding public transportation. What a glamorous life. The sun proved to be more relentless than the landlord as it shifted into its noon position, high in the sky, and Purcell, now glistening like a greased pig, shrunk back.

The DMV was just a few blocks beyond the police station, but of course, the bus didn't actually stop at that corner. It was a short ride, thankfully, and Dallas only had to endure about fifteen minutes of being breathed on before he was back on his way, ready to hand over what was left of his latest loan to the greedy state of Nevada. Didn't they make enough from the casinos? They had to jack up fees for being a tiny bit illegally parked for twenty-seven hours too?

The nerve.

The police station looked more like a defunct shopping mall rather than anything professional and Dallas eyed a group of cops who were doing their best to squish into a thin shadow near the building's edge. Smoke billowed from the group and Dallas took a deep breath, without his own cigarettes for the last two days now. He was trying to quit, a promise he'd made to himself under the guise of saving money, but it wasn't easy. He tore his eyes (and nose) away from them and continued walking, though something else caught his attention as passed the police station's large front door. There was a bulletin board there, slapped with posters, missing pets, community events, a charity fun-run, and the smiling face of the girl from his dream.

Pausing, Dallas walked over, getting up close and personal with the missing person flyer. Katelyn Anderson was thirteen years old, white, slim build with blonde hair and blue eyes; she was last seen a week ago at the Tropicana with her parents. He squinted at the poster, at the girl's delighted eyes, and tried to picture what she might look like when she was terrified, crying. It made his stomach ache and he swallowed hard, trying to convince himself that he was wrong. He must have seen her on the news and forgot, that was all. It had happened before. Taking a few steps back, Dallas' eyes finally fell to the large, bolded text at the bottom of the flyer.

REWARD: $30,000​

He was wrong. Probably. Right? There was no way. But. He occasionally predicted fight winners and he was spot on for the Superbowl almost every year. There was also that time, forever ago back in Idaho when he was still a kid, that he'd found the neighbor lady's cat a month after it went missing. So what if he saw this girl in a dream somewhere? The worst that could happen was that he was wrong; he was wrong and there would be no money.

This wasn't immoral, it was helpful.

The central air just beyond the door should have been a relief, but like all petty criminals, cops just made him nervous. He kept his sunglasses on, trying not to make eye contact with any of the boys in blue as he approached the desk sergeant that sat like a guard in front of the detectives who were hard at work. She was an older woman, her greying hair done up in a bun, and unfortunately, she was no stranger.

"No," Sergeant Williamson said, not even bothering with a canned greeting after taking one look at him. She got back to her work, a small stack of papers in front of her and a pen in her dominant hand.

"Come on," Dallas scoffed, his dark brows furrowed behind his sunglasses. He ran a hand through his equally dark hair, finally starting to cool off after being in the sun. "You don't even know what I'm here for."

"Your civil rights were not infringed upon just because your car was towed. I told you last week, you have to go down the block to the DMV; talk to them."

Dallas waved her off and ignored the longsuffering sigh that followed. "I'm on my way there anyway," he informed her. "I just came by to pick up my reward."

"For what?"

The same poster that hung outside was also sitting there on the desk, in a neat little stack and Dallas tapped it with the side of his fist after finally removing his sunglasses. "For Katelyn."

The concern that reached Williamson's eyes said that she was touched by the case, personally invested thanks to her granddaughter and memories of when her son was that age. She softened considerably, but that hard edge was back a moment later. "You don't know anything about that."

"I do too."

"You don't."

"I do!" Dallas insisted, unaware that he was being watched like a hawk. "I do and how are you going to feel when you send me out of here and she's never found? I'm psychic with this shit, okay? I know what I'm talking about and I know what I saw. That's her," he tapped the girl's photo again. "You're just lucky I passed by this dump."

The department had been embarrassed in the past and were working hard to regain the community's trust. Dallas knew that he didn't look like a reliable source, a serious person, but he had cooperated in a sting the last time he was busted for check fraud. "Watch it," Williamson said. "Tell me what you know."

Dallas shook off the warning, "I want to talk to a detective."

Williamson looked like she wanted to kill him, her jaw set as she got up from behind the desk and went to go find the detective in charge of the Anderson case. Dallas watched her go before turning around, bracing his back and elbows against the desk as he faced the shiny doors he'd just strolled through. His five-foot-nine inch reflection was distorted in the mirrored glass, much like the thoughts in his mind as he took a tally of how square he'd be with thirty grand.

Maybe his luck was turning around.

 

[Peregrine]

As Raphe continued to eavesdrop on the floral-shirted man, it didn't take long for him to come to the conclusion that the man was a familiar face at the precinct, if not a particularly welcome one. However, the information didn't do much to reassure or relax Raphe. The fact that he was able to walk in and out of the police station without getting locked up meant he wasn't a known danger. That didn't change the fact that Raphe could still feel faint traces of mana radiating off the man.

As he continued to listen to the conversation between the man and the sergeant, one word in particular caught his attention

Psychic.

Several centuries ago that word might not have meant much, and there were still people who used the word with its old meaning, when it was nothing more than the domain of charlatans and fake science. But that wasn't the case anymore. Now the word had another, far more dangerous, possibility.

Raphe would have cursed his ill luck at stumbling across what appeared to be a possible Event while on 'vacation', if it wasn't for the fact that this kind of thing happened to him all the time.

Raphe finished "sorting the papers" the moment Detective Diego Rojas walked into the lobby, his gaze immediately turning towards Sergeant, before he spotted the other man and frowned. All the same, he approached the two as Raphe passed by him, down the hallway they'd come from. It didn't take long before Rojas escorted the man down the same hallway he'd just come from, and into a small room.

His attention still on the mana fluctuations, waiting for any sign that they were changing or increasing, Raphe settled into the hallway, leaning against the wall across from the door with his arms folded across his chest. With the floral-shirted man 'safely' locked away behind the door, the crawling sensation across his back had all but disappeared.

The seconds passed by, until the door opened once more, releasing the detective.

"What did he say?"

Detective Rojas flinched at the sound of Raphe's voice, staring somewhat warily at the thin man who was leaning casually against the wall opposite the door. For a couple of seconds the two engaged in a staring contest, a faint smile tugging at the corner of Raphe's lips. Rojas yielded first.

"Agent Raphe," he said, still sounding wary.

"What did he say?" Raphe repeated, clearly entirely disinterested in engaging in pleasantries.

Rojas snorted, the disrespect obviously directed towards the man who was still waiting in the interview room. "Dallas? Spouting more of his usual bullshit," Rojas cursed, before seeming to remember who he was talking to. His lips narrowed for a second, before he continued to speak, this time slightly more informative. "Says he's found Katelyn Anderson, you know, the kid..."

"I know," Raphe cut him off. Katelyn's case was the one that had led to the PSE report, so he was at least familiar with the basics of the case. "He gave you a location?"

Rojas nodded reluctantly, but his words hardly seemed like agreement. "The man's a conman, a petty thief. I'm sure he just saw the Ansersons' reward money and decided to roll the dice, like this kid's life is some casino game. I don't know where he got the balls. Waste of our goddamn time."

Raphe thought back to Dallas' confidence, but also to the trace of mana Raphe had felt crawling across his back, and that word.

Psychic.

"...You should listen to him." Raphe finally said. "And you shouldn't let him out of that room."

Detective Rojas' eyes went wide. "You're saying..."

"I'm saying, exactly what I've said." Raphe cut him off again, before jerking his head down the hallway. Rojas took the hint, and scurried away.

Raphe turned to stare at the door, his eyes narrowing slightly. A part of him was tempted to just leave the man in the room. Anything that emitted mana was dangerous, and Raphe's word was more than good enough to get Dallas tested as a PSE. That was even more so if his testimony could solve a kidnapping case with no solid leads. However, a 'confession' would make things even more convenient.

Apparently coming to a decision, Raphe turned sharply, walking down the hallway, only to return a minute later with a cup of cold water. Cup in one hand, he opened the door to the room with the other, a small but professional smile carefully plastered across his face. He glanced into the room around the door, smiling further at Dallas even as he felt the faint traces of mana crawl across his skin.

"Would you like some water while you wait?" he asked, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him.

 

[neptune]

It wasn't that Dallas expected to know everyone who worked at the Las Vegas police department, but he had been hauled in enough times to spot some regular faces, and he had never seen Detective Rojas before. The man, who was handsome like some kind of exhausted telenovela star, didn't seem eager to speak with him about Katelyn Anderson and vaguely, Dallas wondered how many open cases he had sitting on his desk. "I—" he started and then stopped, instructed not to say a word as the detective lead him down a long hallway. He had been questioned before, so this walk wasn't new to him either.

The interview room hadn't changed from the last time he had been caught writing bad checks; the boring walls were the same blue-grey, the steel table in the center remained bolted to the floor and the shiny, two-way mirror probably had the same smudges on it too. Dallas took a seat when instructed and let his forearms rest against the cool metal, looking expectantly at Rojas.

"I'm humoring you, just know that before we begin," Rojas informed, the legs of his own chair scraping the concrete floor as he pulled it away from the table to sit down. "Tell me what you know."

The exasperated look in the other man's dark eyes didn't bode well for him, but Dallas didn't care as long as he walked away with thirty grand. "That girl's at the Extra Space storage," he said confidently, "right off the two-fifteen." The information didn't get more than a twitch of the detective's nose, no sign that he was close to cracking the case. Dallas patted his hands against the top of the table and wagged his fingers, "sooo, you know. Jot that down, maybe?"

"How do you know this?" Rojas asked. "You were there? You were involved?"

Dallas quickly shook his head, palms raised as if to say that there was no need for the hostility. "I was there last year. I'd know those ugly orange doors anywhere since my head was slammed into one about a dozen times," he scoffed at the memory of the shakedown, still annoyed that the police hadn't done anything for him. "I'd never kidnap a kid—I don't even like them. What the fuck do I want with one?"

"Extortion. Katelyn's parents are very well off."

Again, Dallas scoffed, "can't be that loaded if they're staying at the Tropicana." It was clear that his hot take wasn't appreciated, and he continued on. "I didn't have anything to do with it, okay? I didn't take her, I don't know the guys who did either, I just know she's at the storage lockers and she's running out of time." And to answer that question from before, "I saw it in a dream. Been having the same one for three nights now."

"Jesus Christ." Rojas wasn't convinced, but police procedure or maybe just the desire to prove him wrong was necessary. They went back and forth for another minute or two before the detective excused himself, leaving Dallas alone with his greedy desires and the steady tick of time. Every extra second he spent at the police station was just a second less he had to get his car back.

The whole 'doing a good deed' business sure was inconvenient.

With no clock on the wall, Dallas was left to drum his fingers for what felt like twenty minutes before the door opened again, though it wasn't Rojas blustering through with a bag of money or a pointed request to get out and get gone. No, the man who entered the room was much younger, nicely dressed and sporting a smile that would have made a younger version of himself swoon.

Okay, he swooned a little bit. Beauty was beauty and it was something to be appreciated.

"Are you here to give my money?" he asked, grinning as he propped his chin into his hand. Apparently not, and the man—who looked more like a boy fresh out of the academy—offered him a glass of water instead. "That's a nice suit for an intern," he said, "they make you dress up just to give criminals water?"

What a joke. But it wasn't like he was going to turn down a free refreshment, "I'll take a soda if you're offering. Nothing diet."

 

[Peregrine]

"Just water for now," Raphe replied, a trace of amusement flashing in his eyes. This wasn't the first time someone had mistaken him for a novice, and the misunderstanding never failed to amuse the man. Somewhere in his many years of field work, he'd found it was much easier to get information out of people if they underestimated him. And the look on their face when they finally realized their mistake was always worth its weight in gold.

Of course, the faint, appreciative look the man had cast across Raphe's face and body hadn't escaped his notice, either.

"Detective Rojas is gathering together a team right now. It'll probably take a couple hours before they can, hmm, verify your lead." Raphe ran his eyes over Dallas in turn, the interested smile spreading easily over his lips, despite the constant tingle of mana over his skin like so many microscopic bugs crawling under his flesh. "I'll see if I can sneak a soda from the staff lounge in a bit, to make the wait a bit easier?"

 

[neptune]

At the very least, this man didn't look annoyed with him the way Rojas did. Dallas was used to that sort of thing, the exasperated look that came over people about five minutes after getting to know him. Self-aware, he was a lot to deal with on a good day: eccentric, full of baggage and never one to take things too seriously unless he was forced in that direction. Even now, just sitting there in the police station's interview room, he didn't feel any kind of pressure to be anything but upfront about his wants and needs. They were simple, too—which was something that he should have gotten credit for—there were more demanding criminals in the world.

The denial of a soda was neither surprising or important and Dallas shrugged in response, raising one hand as it to say that was the way cookie occasionally crumbled. He was more interested in Detective Rojas' whereabouts anyway, dark eyebrows perked up as the younger man explained that a team was being cobbled together, though his distaste for the time frame was written all over his face. "A few hours?" he asked, leaning away from the table to slump back slightly in his chair. "A couple of hours?"

Dramatic as he was, his self-inflicted chaos wasn't this kid's problem. Sighing, Dallas slumped forward back into his previous position, elbows on the table once more as he was half-promised a soda from the break room. A cold refreshment was now the least of his worries, "I don't have all day to fuck around with this, alright? I have to go down the block to get my Camaro out of the impound lot and pay my rent before five or I'm sleeping on the street." An exaggeration; Mr. Purcell wasn't quite so vindictive.

In an attempt to wipe the frown off of his face, Dallas looked up at the present company, his eyes moving over that nice suit in search of a name tag, a badge, something that might lead to his wait time being cut short. Naturally, there was nothing, like this intern was just some kind of pretty ghost with the authority to fetch snacks. "Can't I leave my name with you or something? We'll exchange numbers," he flashed a cheeky grin, "and I'll come right back."

 

[Peregrine]

Raphe couldn't help but make a noise somewhere between a snort and a laugh at Dallas' words. The man's cheek was cute at best and embarrassing at worst. Frankly, Raphe had no problems with the idea of just letting him stew for a bit. After all, he'd have plenty of time left for sitting around once Rojas came back from confirming his tip. But, Raphe still had the mana and the man's confession to deal with. Very soon, Dallas would have much bigger problems to worry about than his rent and his car. It was just that he had yet to realize it.

"What," Raphe said, walking forward and setting the water down on the table in front of Dallas. He leaned forward slightly, offering another disarming smile. "You're telling me that thirty thousand dollars isn't worth a couple hours of your time? Really?" Raphe' couldn't help but laugh. There was no way a guy worrying about his impounded car and rent had money to spare.

A second later, and realization seemed to cross Raphe's face. "Unless, of course, you're not convinced about your tip. Afraid of getting arrested for intentionally providing false information to a police officer? Rojas seems to hate you enough that I bet he'd find a prosecutor to sentence you for the full six months in jail. At least you wouldn't have to worry about your rent for that time."

 

[neptune]

Perhaps Dallas was a bit rusty when it came to flirting—too old and damaged to let his 'good' looks cover up the gaps in his personality—but the intern didn't look moved. It wasn't like he was actually trying to pick the guy up, just wiggle his way out of the station so that he could complete what he'd set out to do that morning. He supposed that a responsible adult wouldn't understand the time crunch that was involved in an envelope full of cash sitting unattended in a glovebox. If he was really going to be stuck here for a few hours, he might just have to explain it to the guy.

Reaching for the water that he insisted he didn't want, Dallas squeezed the rim of the paper cup as the other man attempted to bait him. "It's worth it if I actually get the money," he insisted. Shit, with thirty grand, he could buy a new car, skip town and never have to bother with Purcell and the dump he called a home ever again. That would have been the life.

Dallas took a noisy sip of water, just trying to be obnoxious as the younger man went on, openly doubting the legitimacy of his tip. "You can get arrested for that?" he asked; it was a wonder he hadn't known considering the amount of times he'd been arrested. Who knew that cops didn't appreciate wasting their time on fabrications? "Anyway," he took another, less slurping drink from the cup and set it back down, "that's not what's happening here. I know what I saw. You and Rojas can believe me or not but you're both going to look pretty stupid when I'm right and you have to hand over that check." Did he need to say it again? Psychic powers one-upped detective skills any day.

Not that he thought he had actual powers or anything. Not like some D-list member of the X-men.

"Is that how you do it?" he asked, unable to quell his chatty nature. "A check, or is it a bag of cash like in the movies?"

 

[Peregrine]

Raphe snorted slightly, shaking his head. "We're not the mafia. Of course it's not going to be a bag of cash."

At least Raphe's refusal to let him leave didn't seem to have caused Dallas to have any inclination of clamming up. He seemed to enjoy chatting, or he was simply doing his best to waste Raphe's time just like Raphe was "wasting" his. Either way, it was good news for the agent. Now that they'd established something like a rapport, it was time for Raphe to really start the interrogation. Hopefully it'd be as easy as the rest of the conversation had been.

"You'll definitely get the money," Raphe began, before his head jerked slightly to the side, hand momentarily spread wide. "So long as the tip's genuine, of course. And there's no evidence that you were a collaborator in the kidnapping. So, what? You're really psychic? Visions of the future? Clairvoyant? Maybe a ghost told you?"

 

[neptune]

So no big bag of money, "got it." What a shame. Collecting a sack of cash and driving off into the sunset had only been his dream since seeing that poster, but Dallas felt like he was allowed to be disappointed. He didn't vocalize it, of course—not that much of a whiner—but he at least hoped for a comically sized check when Rojas returned.

Propping his chin back on his hand, the petty criminal breathed a short sigh when the intern started yammering a him again, going on like his tip wasn't the break the pigs at LVPD had been waiting for. He didn't perk up until the validity of the tip turned into a question of his own abilities and the mention of getting his information by way of Casper The Friendly Ghost had him chuckling. "You don't believe in ghosts?" he asked. There was always some weirdo shit going on with the supernatural world—that was what that equally weird letter agency was for, after all.

Taking another sip of water, Dallas waved his hand, as if to assure the other man that he was the real deal and not some run of the mill slimeball in a Hawaiian shirt trying to cash in on tragedy. "I don't know if I'm psychic for real, but check this out," he began, as if he had something up his sleeve that would turn any skeptic into a true believer. "Every year I make bank on the Super Bowl—scores, teams, everything—well," he paused, eyebrows furrowing in annoyance, "I didn't believe the Eagles were going to beat the Pats that one time, but come on."

After a scoff, he was back on track, "I always find lost stuff. My keys, extra money in my pockets," he ticked them off on his fingers as he talked, "that time I got robbed and relocated all my shit at three different pawn shops. I have like a sixth sense or something. And now I found your missing kid."

His smile was more proud than smug, but many people had made that mistake before. "I saw her in a dream just like I saw that cat when I was a kid." It couldn't just be a weird, nearly life-long coincidence.

 

[Peregrine]

Raphe's prodding seemed to have exactly the effect he'd been hoping for. Without a trace of hesitation he began to ramble, and as Dallas spoke Raphe could feel the mana coming off him suddenly surge slightly. Raphe tensed unconsciously, ready for him to finally take some kind of action, driven by whatever supernatural thing had crawled its way into his system. But nothing happened, and the man simply continued to ramble. Raphe forced himself to pay attention to his words instead of to the feel of mana on his skin. It seemed that his memories of these events in the past were enough to cause the spike.

But Dallas' words certainly didn't calm Raphe. However small his 'psychic' ability might have been, the fact that it had been happening since he was a child meant he'd been exposed to some sort of supernatural phenomenon for far longer than the agent would have guessed. There was no telling exactly how deep the mana had sunk into his system.

The only thing that kept him calm was the knowledge that Dallas had been under its effect for years, apparently, and still hadn't suffered enough of an attack to ever register on the PSE list. That at least gave credence to the guess that he was stable, for the moment.

It also meant Raphe would definitely have to take him in. All that was left was for Rojas to return with the child.

"I see," Raphe replied, voice suddenly rather flat. "Thanks for confirming."

He had no interest in continuing to gab with the other man, no matter how pleasant his voice might be. Instead, he headed towards the door. "I'm sure it won't take long."

The moment Raphe exited the room, he locked the door behind him. A couple of seconds later, and he grabbed a patrol officer, dragging him over towards the room. "The man in there," he said, voice tight. "Does not leave that room. You hear?"

The police officer looked uncomfortable. "I've gotta go on pat-"

"I don't care," Raphe replied immediately, and without any room for argument. "Keep. Him. In. There. I'll be back with an SB escort within the hour."

"Oh, shit," the officer muttered unconsciously, before immediately saluting. "Don't worry, I'll keep the door closed."

Raphe nodded, before clapping the officer on the shoulder. "If anything out of the ordinary happens, send someone to come find me immediately."

"Yes, sir," the patrol officer replied, some combination of nervous and excited. "I will."

"Good," Raphe replied, before immediately heading away from the room. He had a call to make.

 

[neptune]

While Dallas didn't think of himself as the most interesting guy in the world, he liked to think that he was pretty good at conversation. Despite his propensity for getting into trouble, he was slick, and talking his way out of a jam was as much of a talent as his fabled sixth sense. Apparently, the intern didn't see it that way; the other man's voice dropped, flat and matter-of-fact in the span of about ten seconds and Dallas—for the first time in years—was visibly offended. He sank back into the uncomfortable chair, hands on the table and eyebrows high on his forehead.

"Yeah," he scoffed at the thanks, forgetting that he was talking to a cop and not some kid at a bar. Leave it to him to forget such a thing.

The next moment gave him even more whiplash, as the other man effectively neutered their conversation by heading straight for the door with some kind of urgency. "What won't take long?" he asked the man's back. "My free soda or my check?" In the back of his mind, something told Dallas that he wasn't going to be getting his car that day, and that all of his stuff in that shitty little apartment was going to be chucked out onto the street.

Alone once more, the wiry man breathed a deep sigh in an attempt to decompress. He scrubbed a hand down his face and leaned back in the chair. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered a few times, the bulbs giving off a droll and constant hum. He patted the metal table again, the gold ring he wore on his pinky finger creating a tinny rattle that barely helped to take the edge off. When did it get so quiet?

Again, the minutes felt like hours and as someone who was awful at time management, Dallas had no idea how long he'd been sitting there before the door opened again. At some point, he'd gotten up from the table and moved over to the two-way glass. A somewhat distorted reflection appeared over his shoulder, and Dallas turned from the black window, no longer so interested in picking at his teeth when he had someone to scold. "Finally," he gestured, "jeez. I'd leave you zero stars if I could."

If you can't cope, make a joke.

 

[Peregrine]

The moment Raphe was away from the officers, his work phone was in his hand. Despite the fact that he'd come to Vegas for something like a vacation, he still hadn't turned the phone off. However, there were very few people in the Supernatural Bureau who had his direct number.

It seemed to be almost the exact opposite for Raphe, however. As he swiped the phone open, a massive list of contacts, local and international numbers, appeared across the screen. He quickly tapped the 'S', and then began to rapidly scroll through the contact list. As though the gesture was extremely familiar to him, he accurately stopped on one name. Silvestre, Francisco T.

The phone only rang twice before the other end was answered. There was a clear background hum of vaguely indignant muttering through the line, but the voice on the other end didn't really seem to care.

"Raphe? What's going on."

"The PSE paid off, Frank," Raphe replied promptly, also not really caring that he'd likely interrupted the other agent in the middle of a meeting. Raphe had never been particularly obedient to the chain of command, and none of the higher ups had ever been willing to fight him over the matter. He was far too useful for them to care about something of as little importance as "calling the wrong person". He'd never made a call without good reason, after all. "Although not in the way I'd expected. I've got a confessed Bonded user in holding at the LVMPD Headquarters, and he confirmed he's felt the effects since childhood. The mana's practically crawling off this guy."

"Shit, Raphe," Frank replied, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. "Why does this always happen to you?" This wasn't the first time Raphe had gone off on a PSE "vacation" only to come back with a new artifact or user. To those who knew him well enough, it was almost a running gag.

Raphe didn't even bother to acknowledge the ribbing. It was no surprise to him. As far as Raphe was aware, there was no one else in the world who was able to sense the fluctuations of mana like he could.

"I'll need an escort team here ASAP. He's compliant now, but I have no guarantee of how long that's going to last."

"Of course," Frank replied, and Raphe could easily picture his dark hair bobbing as he nodded his head. "I'll make the call, and get the closest team heading in your direction."

"Good," Raphe replied. "I'll be accompanying him back to headquarters. See you this evening." Without waiting for any further confirmation, Raphe hung up the call.

Despite the amount of preparation it took to set up a proper Supernatural Escort Team, considering how essential it was that they could keep the mana from the artifact or user properly contained during transportation, they were an incredibly rapid response unit. They had to be, when every minute a dangerous artifact was exposed to the earth could worsen an already dangerous situation. Exactly 42 minutes after Raphe hung up from the call with Agent Silvestre, a pure black armored car pulled to a stop in front of the LVMPD office.

At a glimpse, it seemed to resemble those armored transport vans that many companies would use to move money or jewelry, except for the fact that it was completely unlabeled. Two agents hopped out from inside the car, wearing the distinctive exoskeleton style fullbody suit that was designed to resist against mana contamination. They quickly began to walk towards the entrance of the police department, before going rigid when they spotted Raphe leaning casually against a wall next to the double glass doors.

"A-agent Raphe?" one of them stuttered, before he immediately snapped into a salute. His colleague quickly followed suit. "I w... We weren't informed you were our point of contact."

Raphe returned the salute lazily, barely hitting the required point of 'hand to forehead' before his arm dropped back down to his side. "The Bonded is inside. We have to wait a bit, though. I've got more than enough to detain him, but the last piece of evidence to confirm an occurrence of an SE hasn't come in yet. You'll be guarding his room until then."

"Yes, Sir," both agents replied, before falling into step behind Raphe's back as they strode into the office. The eyes of everyone in the lobby went wide at the sight of the fully suited SB Agents, the entire station rapidly falling silent. Raphe didn't slow, leading them down the hallway to the room where the unfortunate patrol officer was still standing guard.

He straightened as soon as he saw Raphe, his eyes unconsciously snapping back and forth between the man and the suited agents behind him. "He's still in there," the officer said, gulping slightly.

Raphe nodded, patting the man on the shoulder once. "Good. You can go. We'll take it from here."

The officer nodded, glancing at the agents one last time before he all but ran out of the hallway. Raphe gestured towards the locked door. "He's in there. It doesn't seem like he's going to become uncooperative, but if he tries to leave, you are cleared to use any non-lethal force required to continue his detainment. We'll go get him as soon as my last piece of evidence arrives."

"Sir, there's a suit for you in the back of the transport car," the second agent called after Raphe, as the man turned and started to walk away.

Raphe waved him off without even bothering to turn around. "Haven't you heard the rumors? I don't use that kind of shit."

As he rounded the corner, out of sight of the two guarding agents, he heard a faintly murmured "holy shit" coming from behind him.

---

The last piece of "evidence" Raphe was waiting for was, naturally, Detective Rojas and Katelyn Anderson. Just as Raphe had told the two agents, Dallas' confession was more than enough for Raphe or any SB agent to take the man away. However, he wanted to make sure that Dallas' tip saw the girl safely home first. It would be the last nail in Dallas' coffin, but he also wanted to make sure the child was safe because it would help Dallas' case. Supernatural users were locked up because the government, and everyone else in the world, feared the kind of chaos they could create. Having the man captured for helping a little girl would go a long ways towards improving the kind of treatment he received once he was brought to bureau headquarters.

It took Rojas another hour to return to the police station, making Dallas' total length of confinement in the interrogation room just shy of two hours. Raphe let out a sigh as he saw the pale, scared little girl burrowed into the detective's large arms. Rojas' eyes immediately landed on the black armored car that was still parked squarely outside the front of the station, but brought the girl inside, murmuring calming words into her ear.
"You found her," Raphe said, by way of greeting.

Rojas nodded. "Found her. Her parents should be here in a few minutes, and she'll get to go home, safe and sound." Rojas paused, glancing back towards the other side of the building, in Dallas' direction. "And Ryan? What are you doing with him."

"He'll be coming with me," Raphe replied flatly. "I'll need you to submit a report about today's events before the end of the day."

"Yes, sir," Rojas replied, the term of respect coming out almost unconsciously. With the presence of the SB agents and a user in the precinct, it added a great deal of weight to Raphe's presence, something that the unobtrusive "young" man certainly hadn't carried earlier that morning.

Nodding, Raphe turned away, rapidly striding towards Dallas' room. He gestured towards the two waiting agents, before unlocking the door. "Follow me," he said flatly, before striding into the room.

"Dallas Ryan," Raphe began, the moment the other man turned around. The words rolled off his tongue in a familiar manner. "You will be detained by the Supernatural Bureau for the use of supernatural artifacts, or the creation of a supernatural event. This detainment shall last indefinitely, until such time as you are confirmed to no longer be in the possession of the artifact or its created mana, or otherwise cleared by the Bureau to be freed from detainment. Any attempt to resist detainment will be taken as an act of treason against the United States of America, and will clear all agents and officers of the law in the use of lethal force against your person."

They were the equivalent of the "miranda rights" of the SB. A far less friendly version, of course. All they served was to let their target know exactly how fucked they were.

Raphe offered something resembling a smile to the other man. "I recommend you kneel down and place your hands on your head immediately."

 

[neptune]

The intern was back, but there was something different about him. Again. When the slender young man had walked into the interrogation room the first time, he seemed like just another lackey, a bored kid who was waiting around for something to do. Dallas had felt comfortable ordering him around and cracking a joke or two until the abrupt departure. He returned like he was on a mission, his shoulders square in his suit jacket and the cadence of his voice reflected the authority of a seasoned veteran of the force. It caught Dallas off guard and for a moment or two, unable to process what he was hearing, all he could do was stare.

Mention of the Supernatural Bureau—of all fucking things—snapped him out of the momentary trance. "What?" he asked, but the agent kept speaking, reading him his rights. This wasn't a joke, not some weird prank by the LVPD that just so happened to be a precursor to getting his check and walking out of the building. "What?" he asked again, a mixture of urgency and anxiety creeping into his voice when it came to things like the illegal possession of artifacts and being detained indefinitely. "I don't have anything. I don't even know what that shit is. Mana? I—I just came in here to help find that kid, I—"

Despite being detained for the last two hours, when Dallas backed up, he realized that he had nowhere to go. His pulse raced, his fancy shirt was starting to stick to the sweat that had broken out on his chest and he breathed a stunned laugh when the agent mentioned a thing a ludicrous as treason. "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about!" he stressed again. "You can't just do that! You can't detain people forever; this is America!"

Ironic.

Perhaps the ugliest of Americans, the reading of his rights had, unfortunately, come to an end. With just seconds of partial freedom left, Dallas thought that he might pass out. Once, he had faked a medical emergency to avoid being taken directly to jail after being caught with a wallet full of stolen credit cards, but something told him that an asthma attack—however convincing—wasn't going to cut it this time. The walls were closing in, and worse, the smug agent blocking the door looked amused by the whole thing.

The suggestion to kneel and make himself a model prisoner ruffled his feathers like no other. "I recommend you suck my ass," he spat, his aversion to authority so deeply ingrained that it couldn't even be controlled in times of crisis.

Some of the rumors about Dallas were true—he wasn't half bad in the sack, he made a mean margarita and yes, he was quite slippery—but none of the chatter had ever claimed he was smart. He made a squirrely break for the door, likely committing treason by daring to shove the agent out of his way. He nearly made it into the hallway before another got a hold of him, shocking him with a heavy-duty version of a taser. Those first few volts knocked him out cold and he hit the shiny floor like a sack of potatoes, his cheap sunglasses from the gas station cracked in half in the pocket of his shirt.

"Oof," the agent who fired remarked, looking from his partner to Raphe like this display was more embarrassing than anything on the wide scale of the shitshows they'd seen over the years. "You okay, sir?" All that was left to do was collect the subject and transport him back to HQ. The armored van outside was waiting, and the two agents got to work.

 

[Peregrine]

Raphe watched Dallas' raving and flailing with apathetic eyes. He'd given the advice for him to surrender peacefully out of some measure of goodwill, but it wasn't as though he'd really expected the man to just let himself be captured. Instead, he side-stepped casually as Dallas charged past him, knowing that the two agents behind him were already prepared to deal with the situation, however messy it got.

Raphe looked down at Dallas as he twitched on the floor for an instant before falling unconscious, his head shaking from side to side. "I'm fine," he replied casually. Compared to some of the cases Raphe had dealt with before, Dallas had actually been captured incredibly peacefully. Many Bonded users would start spitting mana the instant they realized they were cornered, perhaps feeling some instinctual need to create as much chaos as they possibly could before their reign of freedom came to an end. By those standards, Dallas' reaction was downright plain.

"Load him up, we're heading back to HQ."

Less than five minutes later, the black armored vehicle that had been parked out of the police station drove off, quickly disappearing from sight. It was as though it had never been, and with its departure, Dallas and Raphe disappeared from Las Vegas as well.

---

It was not a long drive from Las Vegas to the headquarters of the Supernatural Bureau, just over two hours from start to finish. The base was buried in the depths of the Yucca Mountain Range, hidden deep under the earth in an attempt to keep any potential mana leakage from spreading. The lack of anything resembling civilization in the nearby area was another precaution, one that meant the last 45 minutes of the drive were spent with the van traveling down an unnaturally twisted road, after passing through several carefully concealed security checks.

The drive itself had been pleasant enough. All Rapid Response Teams were trained in long distance transportation, to ensure that a supernatural artifact could be delivered to headquarters without any delay or interruption from anywhere in the country. Of course, such precautions were a lot less necessary for a short drive like this. Dallas, for instance, had been safely contained in the back of the truck, which had been lined with several different metals that were known to disrupt or interfere with the natural flow of mana. He'd been strapped into a bed that resembled a gurney, with a mask placed over his face delivering a mixture of air and a potent knock out drug to ensure he wouldn't wake up halfway through transportation.

This was far from the first Bonded transport Raphe had been in, and he'd long since grown used to the heavy silences that would fill the vehicle at the start of the journey. Many people knew Raphe by nothing but the countless rumors that surrounded him, and his reputation as a core senior agent rarely helped put his drivers or teammates at ease. That was especially the case with branch agents, who were the ones that made up most response teams.

Raphe had maintained the silence just until the van passed the city limits of Las Vegas, before carefully and artfully starting up a conversation with the two suited agents. It didn't take long before he'd transitioned the conversation into a retelling of one of the numerous stories of his past jobs, and the minutes quickly slipped by for all of them.

---

Very few people in the US knew Yucca Mountain by name, and even fewer knew that it was adjacent to the site of one of the SE's with the most catastrophic potential in US history. What had begun as an apparent meteor shower one day in the early 1940's had suddenly transformed into a disaster, as the "rocks" that had fallen from the sky began to warp and devour space and time itself.

Although the world had seen examples of the devastation Supernatural Events could cause during the start of WWII, America had been spared many of these disasters. However, with what amounted to micro black holes scattered over a portion of the countryside, the US was suddenly given a fierce reminder of the dangers of supernatural artifacts. If the stones had fallen into a more densely populated region of the country, the amount of destruction the US would have had to face would be incalculable.

This was the first major disaster that the still fledgling SB had to deal with, and the internal disunity of the Bureau, which had been made up of numerous different organizations and branches until recently, did not aid matters. It was a many month process for the SB to clean up the mess, and the number of agents lost trying to find a way to contain and dispose of objects that could devour everything that approached it was no small number.

There were two good things that came out of the event, if it could be described as that. The first, the pressure that the young bureau had been put under to resolve this issue had forged the disparate divisions and organizations into a single, cohesive unit. The second was the Headquarters itself, the foundation of what would develop into a massive containment and disposal system for everything related to the supernatural. Although the SB now had offices all around the country to ensure rapid response to any PSE, the facility constructed in Yucca Mountain quickly became the national hub for mana containment and decontamination.

Even now, almost 80 years after the incident, its effects could still be seen on the desert. Twisted masses of rock and soil, warped into unrecognizable figures, littered the land around Yucca Mountain, and the road leading to the HQ entrance was equally twisted, zigzagging through the maze of disaster. Several attempts had been made to clean up the field, but ultimately the refuse had been left behind, a terrifying reminder of what the SB was trying to protect America from.

Compared to the destruction of the land around it, the doors into Headquarters were much more carefully maintained. The giant metal sliding doors that barred the entrance to the facility were over a foot thick, a wonder of modern engineering designed to keep out any unwelcome entrants. The entire world seemed to rumble as the doors slid open, before the armored van drove forward, and was swallowed up by the depths of the earth.

---

There was already a group of people waiting when the van came to a halt in the garage. Raphe hopped out of the car the instant it came to a full stop, raising one hand and vaguely waving towards the gathered people, who scampered forward as well. Most of them moved towards the van, flowing around its exterior like water breaking around a rock. They swung open the back of the van, before lowering down the gurney Dallas was tied into with a familiar ease.

One man, however, approached Raphe. He looked middle-aged, dressed in a grey uniform that looked like someone had blended a drysuit with a lab coat. His head was covered in short-cropped, sand colored hair, and his ears stuck out just slightly too far from the side of his head.

"Farren," Raphe greeted as the man approached.

Matt Farren nodded slightly in reply, before jumping right in, clearly disinterested in anything resembling small talk. "Give me the rundown," he said, a tablet seeming to appear in his hands, as if by magic.

Raphe nodded and quickly relaid the "confession" Dallas had given him, everything from his descriptions of his "psychic powers", the girl, his dreams, even his statement that he'd noticed similar effects since he was a kid. Farren took notes the whole time Raphe spoke, his eyes never wavering from the tablet screen in front of him until it was clear that Raphe was done speaking.

"No sign of the artifact?" he asked, glancing off in the direction where the gurney carrying Dallas was quickly disappearing.

Raphe shook his head. "In truth, I might have choked it all up to pure coincidence if it wasn't for the fact that I can feel the mana leaking out of him, slow and persistent, like a leak in a faucet. He's practically a walking biohazard, and I have no idea how he's gone so long without triggering a recorded PSE if he's really been hosting the thing since childhood."

Matt seemed to have half stopped listening. "We'll run some tests," he said, distracted, before racing off down the corridor after his new subject, completely disregarding Raphe's one fingered wave of farewell, and the rueful smile that was plastered across his face.