Chapter Text
-
When Aether is called to the central police station, he assumes Nahida found a lead to some other notorious crime the Fatui were committing or going to commit. He was expecting to be given another case that Sumeru’s police department could not investigate themselves due to already being in a bad position with the mafia. If Nahida or Cyno sent out their own officers to track them down, it would almost be a declaration of war, and with how fragile the city’s government and law enforcement were at the moment, there was little for the Archon or chief of police to do unless they wanted casualties.
Of course, Aether’s own head had a significant bounty on it, but he only had himself and Paimon to worry about. On the contrary, Nahida had a whole city.
After entering the matra’s central headquarters, the investigator is greeted by Cyno. The police chief dips his head respectfully to Aether, a small appreciative smile on his face. Aether offers his own bright smile back.
“How are you?” The investigator asks.
“As per usual,” Cyno states. “And you?”
Aether gives an affirming nod with his smile.
Cyno understands and turns away from the investigator. Over his shoulder he tells Aether, “follow me. Lesser Lord Kusanali instructed me to take you to her once you arrived.”
Cyno begins walking out of the main office and down a hallway stretching further into the building, towards the interrogation rooms. Aether follows at his heels, his eyes drifting to the concrete surroundings. Both his own dress shoes and Cyno’s clack against the floor, and the two of them fall into a comfortable silence. The general mahamatra leads him to the room at the very back even though most of the interrogation rooms were empty. Aether refrains from asking about the peculiar location Nahida chose and continues trailing silently after Cyno.
He stops in front of the reinforced door. “She’s waiting in here.”
“Thank you,” Aether says, nodding once.
Cyno opens his mouth to say something, then closes it. Aether tilts his head a bit to the side in a listening gesture. Cyno takes a breath, contemplating whether to speak or not because of Aether’s curiosity, and then he does. “I am not yet informed about what the Lesser Lord is planning but…I trust her judgment. I wish you luck. I’ll be taking my leave now.”
Cyno dips his head towards Aether and then marches away, back to the main office. The investigator feels an uncomfortable chill run up his spine then. There are no other officers in the gloomy hall, and a sense of foreboding stirs uncomfortably in his chest. Shaking his head to clear the anxiety that started fogging it up, Aether takes a breath. He adjusts the white and yellow scarf around his shoulders (that clashes horrendously with his formal attire, his brown suit and slacks) and pushes open the heavy door of the interrogation room.
Inside the concrete room is empty and small with a metal table in the middle and a chair on either side. Nahida sits in the one closest to the door, and in the other chair, Scaramouche, the Fatui Harbinger Aether had arrested nearly a month ago. Aether’s hand on the door tightens as long-forgotten anger rushes through him. It wasn’t a hot anger, more of an icy one. Diluted, but ice still burns the skin. He glares openly at the Balladeer as he fully steps into the room and lets go of the heavy door so it slams shut behind him. Scaramouche levels the investigator with his own scalding glare, and a smirk crawls its way across his face from witnessing Aether’s reaction to seeing him.
The Balladeer himself has looked better. There is a dark bruise under his eye that is healing, bandages wrapped around his head, his hands, and probably some more underneath his black and white-striped prison attire. His neck brace is gone, but his throat is still layered thickly in cloth for support. His left arm is in a sling with his fingers poking out from a heavy cast. The cuts that littered his face and his split lip are nearly gone, but they were still visible. The police had only managed to arrest him because his injuries hindered any kind of escape after falling from the building he and Aether fought on.
Scaramouche might’ve been able to save himself if he had tried, if he had grabbed the railing or reached out for anything to hold him up. Aether didn’t know, and quite frankly never had the opportunity to ask, why.
Why Scaramouche had simply given up once he had lost and let himself hit the pavement below.
It had been a gruesome arrest because of that, and Nahida did not allow anyone to place handcuffs on the Balladeer’s heavily broken body. Aether thought the same, though holding a bit of sympathy for an injured criminal did not mean their crimes were null and void. Seeing Scaramouche once again pulled at the tight skin of a scar in Aether, a phantom pain of anger.
Nahida turns around to watch the investigator enter the room and the expression she gives him is one of sympathy. Aether’s fists clench at his sides and he redirects his attention to the Archon.
“Nahida…?” He asks softly, swiftly trying to contain his contempt since he is not angry at her.
“Investigator,” Nahida acknowledges. “Thank you for coming as quickly as possible. I know you are confused but—”
“You look like you want to kill me,” Scaramouche cuts in, his arrogant smirk still gracing his features.
Aether shoots him a glare again, leans his weight back on his heels, and crosses his arms over his chest. He’s feigning relaxation, but his nails dig into the sleeves of his dress shirt and his hands grip his biceps far too tightly for him to fully act the part. “I do, actually.”
Scaramouche whistles lightly and raises his brows in mock surprise. “A strait-laced law enforcer wishes to break the very law for me. I’m flattered.”
He dryly deadpans the last sentence, and his face abruptly falls back into a scowl. Before Aether can bite back at him, Nahida tells them to stop it. She gives Scaramouche something akin to a glare, but it was too soft to be anything threatening. Then she looks to Aether.
“Investigator, I know you and the Balladeer have a complicated history,” she pauses, gauging Aether’s reaction for a second before deciding it safe enough to continue speaking, “but he is quite the sitting duck right now.”
Aether’s brows furrow deeper as he listens, waiting for the point Nahida was trying to make.
“He’s a Fatui Harbinger, one of the executives of the mafia. He holds many secrets of the organization that the Fatui do not want outsiders to get a hold of…” the Archon glances at Scaramouche’s scowling face and then back to Aether. “He’s asked for protection.”
Aether contemplates that, lifting a hand to hold his chin with his thumb and index finger. “Protection from what? The Fatui?”
Nahida sighs. “To put it frankly, the Fatui—specifically another executive, the Doctor—were not planning on inviting back a loser.”
“Sometimes it’s you using them, other times, it’s them using you. It’s the way of the world,” Scaramouche shrugs indifferently then winces from the strain of the movement on his injuries. “I’m in no position to complain about my circumstances. I’m just trying to save my own skin.”
“Finding your life sentence to be a rather cushy position?” Aether raised a brow, genuinely curious.
“Life sentence?” The Balladeer breathily laughs and winces again, which almost makes Aether feel sympathetic to his pain. That thought lasts only for a second because— “I’m getting nothing more than a slap on the wrist and a light scolding. After that, I’m basically a free man.”
Aether looks at Nahida, disbelieving and asking for clarification. The Archon has a resigned expression on her face as she explains: “in exchange for protection and for his charges to be dropped, the Balladeer has agreed to forfeit all knowledge he has of the mafia and provide investigative assistance to me.”
“Nahida…” Aether takes a step back, the calm composer he had melting away instantly. “He’s…he’s done irreversible things.”
“I know, Investigator,” Nahida tilts her head sadly. “But I find this to be quite the opportunity—”
Scaramouche scoffs at their conversation. “If you wish to kill me, get on with it already. If you were to do so right now, none would be the wiser. Nahida might try to stop you, but if you succeed, there is no threat to you, is there? Investigator ?”
Aether bites the inside of his cheek but doesn’t say anything. The Balladeer is just edging him on, but even without receiving a response, a malicious grin spreads across Scaramouche’s face and the ex-Harbinger leans back in the wooden chair he sits on, apparently satisfied anyway.
“Well…that was a rough start to this,” Nahida begins. “Please calm down, both of you. There are still things I have not explained yet.”
Aether takes a breath and softens his expression to show he was willing to hear her out. The Archon’s tense posture falls, making her look a bit relieved. She thanks the investigator. Scaramouche rolls his eyes, but he does not object. Aether is, by no means, a fan of this deal. It leaves a sour taste in his mouth knowing that the Balladeer’s crimes might go unpunished.
Nahida speaks in a serious tone as she addresses the investigator. “Firstly, I want to tell you that the Fatui have extensive knowledge that I do not have, nor do the records of Sumeru’s Irminsul—knowledge about your sister.”
Aether’s eyes widen and he glances from Nahida to the Balladeer. The latter leers at him. “Tempting now , isn’t it?”
Aether immediately shoots him a sidelong glare, though it isn’t very strong compared to earlier. Nahida quickly continues talking like she was trying to finish before either two boys started physically fighting each other.
“In exchange for that, and an offer to help investigate the Fatui in Sumeru, the charges placed on the Balladeer will be dismissed and he’ll be left with a lifelong probation period and a promise of protection. He will still be surveillanced and technically in police custody…but he won’t be locked up behind bars.”
The room falls silent as Aether takes a moment to digest all that the Archon put on the table. While mulling this over, Aether purses his lips and then speaks. “Okay…but how can we trust him? He’s probably lying, Nahida.”
“Where would lying get me?” Scaramouche asks curtly. “The Fatui have already dropped me from their organization. I’m a loose end for them to simply cut off. If this is the best chance I have at surviving and getting revenge on them for using me…then I’m willing to put up with all you oh-so- righteous law enforcement officers.”
“We’ve already had a discussion before you arrived,” Nahida attempts to dispel the tension calmly. “I’ve confirmed that the information he has is reliable. The Balladeer is very willing to cooperate with us for his own safety. I think we can trust that.”
It takes several beats of silence for Aether to reluctantly relent. He accepts, deciding to follow Nahida’s intuition since it has always done them favors in the past. He offers his trust to the reinstated Archon rather than the former Harbinger.
Nahida claps her hands together. “Great! And Investigator, I’m assigning you to be the Balladeer’s probation officer.”
Both Scaramouche and Aether’s eyes are blown wide while they stare at the small girl incredulously. The Balladeer then shrugs indifferently, as if the terms did not bother him, but he still glowers from his seat. Aether takes a moment to choose his words, but then he decides it isn’t worth it.
“With all due respect, Nahida, I’m a private investigator—not a babysitter .”
“Yes, I know that,” Nahida reaches out a hand to both boys, and then clasps them together with a hopeful smile on her face. “The two of you can work together to investigate the Fatui, the whereabouts of the Investigator’s sister, and in the meantime, protect the Balladeer from the Fatui.”
The small girl looks up at Aether pointedly. “You are still on my payroll too, Investigator.”
Any argument he thinks of falls flat. Aether can end their contract whenever he wants to. He was secretly hired by Nahida, who at the time, could barely scrape together enough money for Aether’s initial hiring fee. For most of his investigation in Sumeru, he was not being paid. He knows he does not have enough funds to move his personal investigations to Fontaine yet. He also knows Nahida won’t force him to do this. Aether can tell her he doesn’t want to, and she would nod and say she understands his feelings. Afterwards she would probably give him a different, easy case and continue to pay his salary that way.
Then the only reason that would make him accept is the promise of information regarding his sister. Nahida would find that out for him anyway if he chose to not be the Balladeer’s acting probation officer (because there is no way Aether would choose to be his permanent one), so there is nothing necessarily pushing Aether to accept. Yet, the investigator feels a pull instead, drawing him in. The promise of a piece of information he can obtain for himself, that he can slap on his investigation board’s tangled web of leads, conspiracies, and half-truths about what happened to his sister is very tempting.
He sighs, holding himself upright, and firmly nods once. “Leave it to me.”
-