Oh, oh, oh it's magic (Xie and Kevin)

[xie_er]

Zhao Jing used to be a nobody, born into influence and wealth but always in the shadow of those around him. In magical circles he was even worse, a barely-remembered witch that didn't have enough power for any familiar to even consider looking twice at him.

Somehow, though, after many years (and a few suspicious deaths), he's managed to climb his way to the CEO of Five Lakes, his power - of both kinds - growing exponentially.

The previous CEO was surrounded by some unfortunate rumorus before his death, so Zhao Jing has been focused on repairing the reputation of he company and solidifying his support, mundane and magical, which means it is far too delicate a moment for Xie to be in the spotlight, even if he was promised he'd be allowed to stop hiding when the position was in Zhao Jing's hands.

He just has to wait a little longer, that's all, and it's not like it's difficult to only appear in his animal form whenever Zhao Jing is in public, just uncomfortable, and the last thing they need is for somebody to recognise Xie for any of the things he's done to help his witch get where he is today, when his position is still so precarious...

He tells himself all the excuses he's heard from Yifu, repeats them in his head like a mantra as he sits through all the meetings and negotiations, a little black cat and Zhao Jing's feet, watching the men and women he's speaking to for anything Yifu can use. He hangs around when Zhao Jing steps out the room, listens to what they say behind his back - that's his job with normal people, to be a pair of ears they don't realise are there. Even paranoid types who scan for bugs would miss him, which he finds funny, privately, because he is a bug of a sort.

Not that he's allowed to take his original animal form - a scorpion would be out of place if anybody caught sight of him, and Yifu doesn't like the idea of him hiding in pockets or anything like that. He says it's dangerous, that something could happen to him, but Xie privately thinks he just finds the form creepy. Even around other magical people, the cat is preferred - his job with them is to be a reminder that Zhao Jing has a familiar, and a relatively powerful one at that.

It's hard for familiars to change the form they can take, but he did it, for Yifu.

He tells people the cat is called Scorpion, and that somebody else named him - which is technically true, Xie does mean scorpion, and his parents named him - and that he's vaguely embarrassed to have such a fiercely named cat.

(He doesn't tell magical people anything at all, they know Xie isn't a pet so they're less likely to ask, at most they will wonder why his familiar always stays in animal form. Zhao Jing just tells them he's shy. He isn't, he doesn't care about people seeing him, but it's easier to do the things Yifu wants him to do when nobody knows what he looks like)

Xie hadn't always known he was powerful - when Yifu had taken him in he'd been told he wasn't much, but that maybe he could be useful. Later, when some witch had made an offhand comment about it, the story had become that Yifu recognised his power and took him in before anybody else could steal him away, that he just wanted to protect Xie from the people who would use him for his power. Xie was already so far gone by that point that he accepted it, that he told himself he was lucky he had Yifu to protect him, to guide him.

It's funny how easy it is to lie to yourself.

When the meetings are over for the day he finally shifts back to human form, spending a few minutes stretching out the kinks that come from forcing himself into a form that isn't quite his, especially with how much he's had to do it over the last few weeks, and then going in search of something to eat. He could probably just head back to his own apartment since he doesn't think Yifu needs anything else from him, not today, but the outsiders have all left and everybody in Yifu's manor at least knows Xie, even if they don't know that Xie and Scorpion are one and the same, so it's safe to be around them.

He likes to spend as much time here as he can get away with, likes to remind Yifu he can be useful in other ways... and maybe he likes to keep an eye on this new apprentice Yifu has taken on. He doesn't understand why he needs anybody else when he has Xie, but the last time he'd questioned somebody new in the house Yifu hadn't spoken to him for a week, so he doesn't voice that thought out loud - he just watches the guy suspiciously every chance he gets, and wonders how easy he would be to get rid of.

He's halfway to the kitchen when something makes him stop. A tug of power, the vague echo of chanting, there's a ritual happening and something about it is drawing him close. He frowns, confused, and follows the pull...

Comments

[weird_cop]

Kevin puts his arm around Xie as he sits, curling it around his hips companionably.

"That's the kicker, that is," says Tony. "The two sets of vics. The usual serial killer fare of the footballers..."

"...and others," Lisa adds for accuracy.

"...and others, which she killed by magic means. And the sacrifices she made to perform those murders. The kids."

[xie_er]

"Wait," Xie frowns for a moment "she was... sacrificing people, children, to get the power to kill other people?"

He takes a second to process this and then just shakes his head in disgust.

"What's the point. If you're going to kill someone just kill the person you want to."

Who needs magic for murder?

(The fact that it was children is, obviously, also deeply wrong, but he's thinking about this from a professional perspective more than anything)

[weird_cop]

"Psycho," says Tony, but Kevin is shaking his head.

"Because the kids were easy, relatively. She'd pose as the social worker, scout them out, then do a relatively minor memory trick to abduct them. Not actually minor, but for her, it didn't take much power. And because it's kids, well they gave her more power.

"Then she'd use that to have her the force to go after fully grown, healthy men. Sportsmen, well guarded gang leaders. She didn't have the physical strength to take them on, without the magic from the sacrifice. The kids were just a means to an end."

[xie_er]

Physical strength? That's what poison was for.

He doesn't say that, though - he knows that they know his past and kind of still accept him for it, or at least recognise that it's his past, but he also knows he should stop himself from going too far in case they start to doubt that it's past.

"And Jessica was one of the kids?" He guesses, since that's the obvious route to her involvement, the 'wicked witch' she'd been saved from really was a wicked witch, right out of a storybook.

[weird_cop]

They nod, collectively.

"Took her almost immediately she met us. Reached into Jimmy and Sarah's heads and ripped their memories of her right out. They didn't even remember they had a kid until she was killed and the spell broken."

Kevin is leaning his head against Xie's arm as he speaks, focusing on the details of the magic rather than the general horror.

[xie_er]

That's a little horrifying, honestly. To completely forget you even had a child?

He wonders if it's worse to remember her after she died, or if it would be worse to never even know...

"Wait, she was killed?"

She definitely hadn't looked dead this afternoon.

[weird_cop]

"No," Kevin says quickly. "Mora kept her in a cage for weeks though, waiting for the time to throw her in the pot. No one looked for her, because no one realised she was missing.

"It was Losley who had to die to break the spell."

[xie_er]

"Oh, I see."

Okay, that makes a lot more sense.

That poor little girl, though, stuck in a cage for weeks waiting for a rescue that wasn't coming, would never have come if they weren't already on her trail.

And the guilt they must have felt, when the memories came back...

"You'd never realise she'd been through something like that." He says after a moment.

[weird_cop]

"You wouldn't," Lisa agrees. "She's a bit clingier than most kids, but it's remarkable."

Not that any of them is a child psycjologust. But it's her parents who carry the burden.

"She loves Lise, though," Tony adds. "After she saved her life in a dramatic rescue."

"Losley's was the place we got the sight," Kevin adds now, following up a different chain from earlier. "She had piles of soil she used to store magic, and when Jimmy touched one it activated the spell, changed the way we saw the world."

[xie_er]

He had wondered, but also Kevin had said they'd dealt with more than one serial killer so he wasn't sure it was this one.

It was nice to get answers, though, a little more understanding of what they've been through together.

No wonder they're all so close.

"Was that your first case all together?"

[weird_cop]

"Kind of," says Tony. "Operation Toto was an offshoot of Operation Goodfellow."

"My Uncle Rob," Lisa explains. "Head of the Toshack gang. I was conducting analysis, and these two were first and second UC, so we didn't actually meet until Rob was murdered in police custody and we had to work out how."

[xie_er]

Xie nods in understanding, connecting the pieces to what he'd been told before about their past.

Murdering someone in police custody is difficult, even for someone as skilled as him, so he supposes he can understand why someone would turn to magical means.

(He could do it though. Has done it)

"Did any of you know about magic before that?"

[weird_cop]

Tony is clearly ready to say no, but Lisa interrupts him with:

"I did, sort of. Losley broke my nose."

[xie_er]

"She broke your nose?" Xie repeats, looking faintly bemused - and expectant, hoping to encourage her to continue the story.

It's nice, to get more information about all of them and how they got involved in this. He'd return the favour with stories of his own except, well, they've all read the report, and any stories about his past that aren't on the report aren't exactly pleasant.

Not that these stories are pleasant, but at least they have a happy ending.

[weird_cop]

Tony squeezes his arm around Lisa's shoulder, as if trying to say she doesn't have to. But she shakes her head and carries on:

"Rob murdered my father. Bashed his head in. Stabbed him. Hanged him. Sent him to Hell in exchange for Losley's services and to take over the family business. I tried to save him, but couldn't cut him down in time."

"Fifteen," Kevin provides.

"Everyone said it was suicide, but I knew it wasn't, and I couldn't figure out why everyone - even my mum - believed it. But I knew.

"He sent Losley. She appeared in my room, did a spell to make it that I couldn't move. Threatened my life, told me to be a good girl. Smashed my face in. It had nearly healed in the morning. Everyone assumed I did it to myself.

"I had trouble remembering, couldn't quite rationalise it, until I released what she was much later."

She shrugs at the end of it, worried its not as impressive a story as it feels. But Tony's fingers on her shoulder squeeze again.

[xie_er]

Xie listens to the story quietly, taking it in.

He wasn't that much older than her the first time he killed someone, but by that time he'd already been hardened, already learned to be a survivor - and already knew about magic. It must have been a lot, he thinks, for her to go through all of that.

"And then you stopped her." He says softly, clear respect in his voice.

[weird_cop]

"We did," Lisa says, twirling a finger to include the others.

"Stopped her, saved my Dad from Hell. Not at the same time."

Tony pulls her to him, kisses her temple.

"Saved a lot of people from Hell."

[xie_er]

That, he thinks, must have helped. She couldn't stop what happened to him, couldn't get him down in time - but she could save him from hell.

"You've done a lot of good. All of you." He says quietly. He isn't really used to being around people like them, people who've dedicated their lives to saving others, to protecting people.

Then moments like this come along and remind him how good they are, how good Kevin is.

How different they are to him.

[weird_cop]

"love you," Kevin reminds him, quietly. He's picked up some of those vibes, figures that Xie could do with the reminder.

"Done a lot of not good things, too," Tony says, thinking of a lot of things, but looking at Lisa.

"Like nearly blowing the whole operation by going crooked..."

"But you didn't..." Kevin starts.

"No, clam it, Kev. You know Rob Toshack was like a dad to me. You know I'd have gone with him that night if he'd asked me."

He hasn't actually said this aloud, and Lisa's face hardens, but she's also not surprised.

But Tony's been thinking of Rob a lot recently and it's coming to the surface, so she lets it.

[xie_er]

Xie leans into him a little more, some of the tension easing.

"Love you too."

He glances between them at the exchange, a little taken aback but also a little intrigued. More than a little, really, but he takes a moment to wonder if he should pry.

"Loyalty is a hard thing to break." He observes eventually - because honestly, he understands it. People are compelling, you form connections despite yourself, and those connections can drive you to do things you wouldn't normally do.

In a lot of ways it's exactly what's happening to him right now, it's just that Kevin is a good influence rather than a bad one.

[weird_cop]

Kevin pulls a face because he doesn't actually believe it, but he thinks Tony now, is telling himself stories about what he would have done, because he's been casting himself as the bad guy recently.

And he knows why, he thinks.

"Rob Toshack wanted to sacrifice us to Losley," he tells Xie, out loud. "He was going to betray all of the soldiers who worked for him, including Tony."

Tony flashes him a look which is somehow annoyed and also grateful, for saying it out loud.

"I was a fucking idiot," he says mildly, finally glancing at Xie to nod. He understands about loyalty.

[xie_er]

Oh.

Tony's frustration with his continued defence of Yifu suddenly makes perfect sense. Tony thinks he was an idiot, and seeing Xie supposedly make the same stupid choice made him angry - at Xie, maybe, but mostly at himself.

Xie thinks he ought to be a bit more generous with himself. With both of them. Because it's not that fucking simple.

"It's only stupid in hindsight." He says "The signs are never... they're not there from the beginning, and when they are there they start small, it's easy to ignore them, explain them away. Especially when it's someone you care about, someone you think cares about you. It's obvious now, might even have been obvious from the outside... but I bet it wasn't obvious to you at the time. You can't be angry at yourself for not knowing what you didn't know."

[weird_cop]

"Always so clear in hindsight," Tony agrees. And he feels like that's an apology, and and acceptance of one. Maybe.

He glances at Kevin, who did a lot of covering up for his ungrateful ass back then, and Kevin shrugs.

"It doesn't matter what you were like," he says.

[xie_er]

Xie nods slightly, feeling a little more understanding between them. He's still a bit of a dick, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Xie won't start to like him.

Du Pusa is a total bitch and he likes her.

Kevin's comment catches his attention, though, and he glances over with a faint smile.

"No," he agrees softly "you really don't judge people based on their past, do you?"

[weird_cop]

Kevin drops his gaze a little, slightly embarrassed.

"No," he says. "Guess I never saw the point in that."

"Ray of sunshine, mate," Tony says. "Still say you should have been on kids' TV."