Case Closed: Case of the Shrinking Detectives

[Fading_Cards]

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ABagOVicodin​

Twenty people around a dead body with virtually no signs of the murder taking place, while 6 people out of the twenty are the potential suspects. Another day on the job. Anthony ran his hand through his hair as he looked at the many people before him, before kneeling down to look at the body. There seemed to be no sign of death on the body, which made Anthony even the more excited. Excited in his mind of course, he wasn't going to disrespect the victim by making this a game. He was going to make this a mystery that was going to be solved. His eyes scanned from the left, and then to the right. They were in a train station, one that was extremely small at this time, being that it was midnight when the murder occurred. And now that the police were here, no one was going to leave. Anthony's brown eyes looked at the suspects, and he narrowed them.

A woman under the name of Melanie, who was the girlfriend of the victim. She was wearing a jacket along with blue jeans, being that it was cold out tonight. She had a pearl necklace and pearl earrings. She was crying her eyes out because of her dead boyfriend.

A man who was wearing a name brand jacket, who looked to be in his twenties, just like the victim. He was under the name of Joshua. He was wearing a fisherman's hat and seemed to be annoyed that there was a dead body right in front of him. "I am supposed to be fishing." He said, tapping his foot. "Can't I leave?"

Two men who had a suitcase and was looking from the left and to the right, trying to get out of this investigation as soon as possible. They were wearing a full black trenchcoat, with sunglasses and refused to give their names.

A woman under the name of Melissa, who was the best friend of the victim. She was wearing a short sleeve shirt and a skirt, being that she had cheerleading practice and didn't know that it was going to be so cold tonight. She looked depressed that her best friend was dead, but looked emotionally strong enough to not cry.

Another man who was the victim's best friend, and was extremely pissed that anyone would dare kill his best friend. He kept looking from the left to the right with an angry face, and he cracked his knuckles. He was wearing a varsity jacket with blue jeans.

Anthony looked back at the body and he ran his hand through his hair, getting a headache. He sighed and looked at the inspector, before thinking. "Don't let anyone leave." He said. He put his hands onto the body, making sure to have gloves on beforehand. "Marks on her arm, and yet he died from suffocation." He said, smirking. However the inspector said that those marks were just because of rigor mortis. He sighed... This was going to be a long night.

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Fading_Cards​

The inspector grumbled a bit under his breath. Sometime about ‘no, I was perhaps going to invite them in for tea…’ before going to the edges of the audience and using his form of presence and voice to push them back and separate the witnesses more clearly to make sure no one tried to sneak away.

A left shoe made a squeaking noise as another young man walked up to stop to the crouched Anthony’s left. The sketchers were old, battered blue things, the right sole starting to separate from the sole to cause the noise. The older teenager had other shoes, but he didn’t mind if, as he put it, ‘Unmentionable fluids of the once living variety’ ended up on them.

Elijah O’Doherty, or simply Eli or ‘E’, did not entirely appreciate being hauled out of bed at an early hour, but he’d dealt with worse. At least he had no plans for the day that would be breaking on the horizon in a few hours. He could take a nap later.

The brunettes hair, perhaps a bit to long past his chin, was in a scruffy sort of state from sleep and not having it properly trimmed in awhile. He rubbed at one sleepdust affected eye and grimaced at the sight of the dead man. “So… I’m guessing by the look on your face this isn’t going to be one of those easy ‘it was Professor Plum, in the dining room, with the rope’ murders.” The fact he’d seen enough murders by now to start classifying them by difficulty rating wasn’t mentioned. It was just something that happened when you were the younger brother to Inspector J. Jorden O’Doherty… and friend of one Youth Prodigy Detective.

“I was able to catch the janitor on the phone like you asked. He’d finished mopping and picking up all the garbage here an hour before… well… before this,” he gestured to the body, not really wanting to make up a quip about it. “Said he’d done a thorough job of it, was kinda upset about somebody ending up dead. It does mean though that any garbage lying around is from the past hour before this guy… er… took the last train. It at least narrows down the time frame for forensic evidence.” Eli bit his lower lip as he looked over at his brother, the Inspector, get in to an argument with Jock #1 having another hissy fit. It was nothing though. Maybe. “Gave him the number to the … uh.. special clean up crew for once the body and the police have cleared out. Otherwise he just certified the trains come in as noted on the schedules, though yesterday they did have a backup issue this time because of some pranksters. Don’t know if that info is of any use but… eh.” He bounced on the back of his heals a bit as he watched Anthony’s face more then study the body. Eli ran more on instinct then fact… well no, if fact was there, it was there… but he wasn’t like Anthony. Eli listened to his gut, could tell when people lied… most of the time. People lied a LOT. But if you put a piece of crumpled blank paper and a blood stain on a wall in front of him he’d have no idea what to do with himself. Anthony seemed to just… it all just CAME to him. What to look for, who to question, what to say, what it MEANT… it was amazing to listen to him and watch him at work as it was dizzying.

Inspector O’Doherty simply said the young detective gave him headaches. Splitting ones. That made him… annoyed. Which is why Eli was here, as a buffer between the two. He didn’t mind.

“Should I start asking the basic questions again and compare them to what the police took when they first arrived here?” The slightly shorter 18 year old asked, taking out his note book from his hoodies front pocket. On them he had written down a copy of what each witness had stated to the basic questions. The battered notebook didn’t look anything like an officials notebook, which complete the ‘I’m just a dorky curious kid’ look. People acted differently and changed what the said when they didn’t think they were talking to someone with cuffs on their belt. Sure, he didn’t HAVE to, but Eli hated standing around being useless. Anthony could probably read the body like a large print kindergarten book. To Eli it was more like a contracts small text.

“… or you can tell me what you’ve found so far.” Which was both a good and bad thing. Anthony seemed to make conjectures with evidence when he spoke… cogs of his mind visibly spinning at rapid speed… which for his friend was amazing to watch and listen. On the other hand, it drove the Inspector right up the wall. /”Likes to hear the sound of his own god damn voice, that brat does!”/

Eli would always have to almost swallow his own tongue about his brothers own ranting, just to prevent more of it in the form of a lecture burning HIS ears.

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ABagOVicodin​

"The mere fact that this is a crime that has to deal with teenagers is sad at first..." Anthony said, putting his hand underneath his chin and then moving it to his hair. "One thing that I don't understand, is how this man managed to be strangled, without a mark on his neck." He continued to think, standing up and he then looked at the suspects. "Those two men in black are..." He lost his train of thought when one of them looked at him, straight in the eyes. He felt a sort of out of body experience, and a crippling fear to run within him. That man has seen death before, and he looked away, looking back at the body. "It could have been... him... But I don't see a reason for two men in a black suit to kill a man like this, unless he was in some really shady deals." He said. "I can't... think right now. I dont..." His mind had opened up when his detective friend, had finally arrived.

Anthony smiled as Eli finally came onto the scene, and he stood up to greet the man with a handshake. "I am glad that you are here. I wanted to have someone intelligent to talk to." He said, looking at Eli's brother before looking back at the body. "He was strangled to death, and the only marks are on his arms." Anthony then put his gloved hands onto the man's neck, and he smirked as he felt a different sensation, the sensation that none of the other cops had recognized yet. No wonder, none of the idiots had looked at the body. He looked to Eli and he said, "Find the time of death, if you can manage to do that, then I can tell you who the killer is." He said. He had that smirk on his face, the kind that he had whenever he outsmarted Eli's brother and showed the real killer.

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Fading_Cards​

Eli let one eyebrow perk up a bit. Really? Well it looked like he might get back to bed sooner then he thought. The ‘talk it out’ trick had worked once again.

“Alright. Let’s seeee….” Everyone had stated and shown tickets purchased for the train around the same time, by what he could see from his notes. But you could buy tickets for specific times at any time during the day, so that meant nothing. Eli, thinking hard with his pencil pressed against his lips spun around on one heel to talk to his brother for ideas… only for the Inspector to be busy talking consolingly to the crying girlfriend. That was normal procedure of course, she seemed pretty broken up. But Jordan was only starting to push past the early 30’s and dressed and behaved like he was still in his young 20’s when not on the job…. and sometimes when he was working. There was just that miiinor degree of ‘I’m a big manly man guy, lean on me, here’s my number, call whenever you want, we could go out for coffee on this day later to see how your doing and I’ll convince you for a date or two if your not guilty’ schmooze. Not that anyone just meeting him would know that setting, but Eli, and sometimes Anthony, had seen that behaviour enough times to pin it right down. He’d get barked at if he interrupted the older blond man right now and whined at later, so no help there.

Breathing out a frustrated sigh his eyes bounced around to the witnesses as he tried to think. They could wait until the coroner arrived in a half hour, but the cold weather would mess with the estimate, and it would still be a broad amount of time. So that was out. No one had seen the body from the trains… eyes showed the enclave where the dead man lay was hidden off to the side where passengers could easily see out the windows in to the station, so witnesses there were out of the question….

Then… then something caught his eye. This was a smaller station, so it didn’t have all of the camera updates some of the larger, often used ones did. Had to cut corners somewhere. They DID have one in the entry area above the tills though. Gotta protect your money and prosecute those cheating you out of a dime first and foremost after all.

It might be something, it might be nothing. Either way… he walked over to one of the till attendants at the front of the building. They didn’t move from their places during shift, so they had no idea there had been a dead body in the station until the police arrived. They hadn’t been able to say yes or no on who had and had not passed through… to many people, wasn’t really important. Still, they had the most recent feed from the cameras over there area. They only needed the past few hours… and HE knew who to look for.

“I’ll be riiiight back. Got an idea.” And he was off.

Ten minutes and he was bounding back, a mischievous smile on his face, a plain looking CD in hand.

“So… they don’t have cameras in here, which would have helped us a HELL of a lot, but I guess they gotta cut spending somewhere.. but they do have them out front. So I got the records for the past few hours… was easy, they’re not picked up until the morning to go to the main company for storage. Back tracked through the frames until I found our… er… misfortunate traveler.” Eyes paused momentarily on the man that wouldn’t be going home tonight, or ever again. “… yeah.. Anyway, the camera only shows one till, the other one is broken and hasn’t been replaced yet. I didn’t see any of the other witnesses at the till that was recorded except our black suited dudes of doom over there,” his head absently nodded to the pair, acknowledging, ‘yes, they kinda creep me out to’. “They arrived shortly before the body was discovered and called in to police,” a shrug to mean ‘what can you do?’ “ But! Our victim was here just before ten o-clock at the recorded till. I was able to get the tellers to bring up their records and he bought a ticket for a train leaving at ten on the dot, which did arrive and leave as scheduled. Obviously he didn’t get on, so his death was ten to or five to ten o-clock.”

Something spun in his head and he frowned at the thought. “Wait… if that’s true, then the janitor was lying. He was here around 11, which would have been an hour AFTER…. Fuck. I hate it when people lie over the phone. I can’t TELL as well as face to face,” he groused aloud. Still… “buuut lie or no, my gut tells me it probably wasn’t him. I mean, why spontaneously kill some young guy where you work and leave the body there? That’s just stupid.” He concluded, though crazier stuff had come up during his time as ‘sidekick’ to Anthony.

“So, what is your verdict then? You said you pretty much knew… wait… INSPECTOR J.JORDAN! Yeah you! Let Lt. Bradley take down the poor ladies information and give her a blanket for the shock. Anthony thinks he has something!” he hollered over at his brother. He could tell by the intensity of the mans grimace how much he wanted to simply throttle his baby brothers neck, but had to behave for the public. Either way he came over, body language practical vibrating how much he thought this was a prank, and he was going to be very happy to throw BOTH of them in the back of the police car for wasting the blues time. Just like every time. Just like it never was. He kept hoping though that he could get rid of the Prodigy Youth Detective, but his boss thought the kid shat gold... and he liked the solved case numbers he produced. He wouldn’t be getting his wish any time soon.

“Alright, wonder boy. What do you have?” the Inspector groused, giving his younger brother a wicked glare. Eli just grinned brightly up at him in retaliation.

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ABagOVicodin​

Anthony let every single bit of Eli's information sink into him, as he discussed his theory and any holes that were in it. He could tell that if he got the wrong person convicted, not only would Eli's brother throw them into the back of a police car, but he would feel horrible. Anthony had to get the right one in this one try, or his conscience and his reputation would go up in flames. He ran his hand through his hair as he stood up, ready. "The murderer... Is you!" He yelled, pointing across the room at the fisherman. The fisherman's eyes widened and he shook his head. "You have got to be kidding me. I wasn't even on the train at the time of the murder!" The fisherman said.

Anthony shook his head. "Unfortunately for you, that is not true." He said, looking towards the inspector then the body. "Before you ask any questions Inspector, take a look at the body. If you will notice, the arm on his left side is completely normal while the one on his right side has lines around the joints and the centers of each of the bones. This is simple because the explanation is that this man, killed himself, and the culprit is him." Anthony said, and he pointed at the fisherman with a smile. "Let us demonstrate. Eli, will you take some fishing line, around 5 meters, and wrap 1 meter around your elbow, and then stretch it to wrap around your wrist, and then stretch it to wrap around your shoulder. Then you can use the other 2 meters left to move the line around." He said. He smirked as he got behind Eli and grabbed the line, and pulled it backwards so that Eli's arm would move around his neck. "Just like this, and with the right force, you can break anyone's neck."

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[Fading_Cards]

Eli, ever trusting from experiencing Anthony’s display examples before and knowing he’d be safe, did as he was told. Stayed calm even as his friend stepped behind him and began pulling at the line.

He did hiss as the surprisingly sharp bite of the fishing twine gently cut at his neck. Of course the detective didn’t pull enough to actually hurt him, but it as a very graphic example as the ‘victim’ at how the dead man before them suffered. He’d seen worse ways to go of course…. But it was never pleasant knowing the person KNEW they were dying and had probably been fighting it the whole way. The throat would have gone first, broken and choking, drowning on dry land. Barely a mark left behind if not for a very attentive eye…

It was rather scary actually.

One thing though from living with his brother, then riding around to scenes with Anthony, even before when he’d still been living with his parents, he knew people could and did do some pretty messed up things. Most of the time though there was a reason…

“Okay, point made,” he smiled and looked over what he could in the corners of his eyes. “As much as a love you man, I don’t think our relationship is far along enough to get in to the kinky stuff,” he ribbed, trying to make light of the situation and cover up his slight nerves at being in a precarious position. They were partners, friends, and they were indeed still teenagers, so a good lewd crack here and there was all in stride.

“Alright,” the Inspector didn’t look all that pleased, but the proof was literally right there. So with a small growl he put his hand in to one of his jacket pockets and pulled out a pir of cuffs, stalking squarely at the slowly retreating fisherman. The man suddenly turned and tried to run, but J.Jonas, while perhaps not a genius, did help his precinct win at the police academy games every year. The lettered jacket was shoved up against a wall and cuffs were snapping shut. Though just as the Inspector was beginning to ramble the mans rights…

“But why?”

Despite the bit of raised chaos Eli’s voice rung rather clear.

“I mean, there’s gotta be a why. I mean… he doesn’t SEEM like a guy who just walks up and strangles someone else who just so happens to go to the same college and in the same age group. So… we know how. What’s the why Anthony?” That, the redhead would always admit, was what interested him the most in cases. Just the human condition that drove people to the brink… as simple as a neighbours dog just wouldn’t stop barking, a cuckolded partner, all the way to blackmail or the spider web ideals of a madman. He knew Anthony preferred the facts… but as they both knew his sidekick was the more emotionally invested… which is why they worked strangely well together. You would not normally think that… but they did.

 

[ABagOVicodin]

A chill ran down Anthony's spine when he had put the rope around Eli's wrist, to show the terrible way that the victim had died. Terrible didn't seem like the right word... a better word would be clever. Anthony was always up for a good challenge, but unfortunately he had not gotten a challenge lately. It was just one murder case after another, one that he always managed to solve. Anthony thought that the chill came from Eli's joke, since there was some feelings that hid deep down in Anthony, that he refused to admit. But he was unaware that these were different feelings. It was the feelings of being watched, the feelings of cold eyes staring into the back of his skull. His heart nearly stopped, and he continued the example. As the Inspector was bringing out cuffs, the question that Anthony knew would be asked was asked.

Anthony looked down at the ground, Eli's question burning deep into him. He felt exhausted... He felt like his body was aching... which was weird since he didn't feel sick, and he woke up a few hours ago to check this case. He saw a soda can that was on the ground and he picked it up, before throwing it at the fisherman's hat and the hat flew off of the fisherman's head. The fisherman quickly yelled, "No!" As the hat fell to the ground. Inside of the hat was two stacks of hundred dollar bills, about a few thousand meshed together with rubber bands, and a few bags of white powder. "Narcotics." He simply said. The fisherman wrestled out of the Inspector's grasp and lunged for the boy, attempting to pin him down, beat him up, do something. But Anthony was too quick, and his knee crashed into the fisherman's body, before putting his hand onto the man's forehead, and pushing him backwards softly to the ground. His knee was so powerful that the fisherman was out of breath with one kick. Anthony then sighed. "You killed him because he probably was your partner. You would hand him the ice cooler that was back in the train, which had fish inside of it. The fish would be filled with ounce bags of cocaine, which he would then sell. I'm guessing that he took too much of his own cut, and you decided to eliminate the middle man. There is some white powder on your cooler, and your pupils are dilated, which means you are high right now." He said, smirking. "A murder over narcotics. If you went to school, you wouldn't be in jail."

That feeling hit him again and he felt his chest throb. Out of his sight but in Eli's sight, one of the men in black had loaded something within what looked like a prototype gun into the gun. Since everyone had their focus on Anthony, they didn't see the translucent dart hit Eli right between the eyes, before disappearing into Eli's body. Eli would soon feel what Anthony was feeling, pain. Pain beyond anything he would imagine. Anthony was slowly feeling it, since he was already used to painkillers, and had a few of them into his system. "Take him away..." Anthony said, feeling like throwing up. "Excuse me... I have to go to the bathroom." He said as he ran, running into the stall and closing the door. He ripped at his dress shirt, letting out a yell in pain as he fell onto the ground, not caring about the sanitary conditions of the bathroom as the pain flooded through him. Both of the men in black were told that they could leave now, and they did, smirking at the boy that almost ruined the drug part of their operation. Anthony let out another yell of pain as he passed out.

 

[Fading_Cards]

No one stopped Anthony from running off. The Inspector was busy finishing up the fishermans rights, the other officers on the scene were taking care of the tipped narcotics and bagging new evidence, and Eli was untangling himself from the wire. As for what he didn’t know… he’d felt a small prick, like a tiny rock or a bug hitting him in the forehead, but when he rubbed it to see if he had a bite, there was nothing. He didn’t worry about it.

Eli did raise an eyebrow in question as his friend fled though. Getting sick at a crime scene? Really? This wasn’t even a gory one and the taller teenage genius held his guts better then even some of the coroners Eli had met. It was a point of pride for him by what the brunette could gauge, and part of why they were friends. The third time they’d met over a murder had been… messy. The corpse had been there for several days and had bloated. The smell had made Eli gag, but a handkerchief with lemon cured that. Otherwise he’d been able to hold his lunch down. Not as effortlessly as Anthony seemed to be able to, but still… apparently his fortitude impressed his soon to be friend. Apparently a stomach of steel was a rare thing when dealing with peoples bodies. Eli didn’t understand WHY…. It was just… there. Meat and matter and atoms that used to be someone, but they were gone and the body was just… there.

He’d expected something more primal to rise up inside him at the sight of a dead body, but he found that he was actually… rather disappointed with the effect.

Still…. Anthony normally didn’t get sick… and he looked pretty ashen all of a sudden when he ran out of the area…. Maybe he should check on hi~

A shadow fell over him.

“Hey J.J,” he greeted over his shoulder to the inspector. The Inspectors eye twitched, but really, they were brothers. The younger man wasn’t going to call the other by his status if he could avoid it. His brother didn’t need any more ego stroking then he already got.

“So did you ask him? About staying at his place,” J.Jonas asked absently. The perp was in the car, everything was closing up. Now it was time to start thinking about other things. Like his fiance returning from her study trip in Europe.

Eli sighed and rolled his eyes. He’d completely forgotten the ‘siren’ as he called her would be visiting for at least a week or two while she looked for her own apartment. He didn’t call her that for nice reasons. The walls were rice paper thin and he really didn’t need to hear the both of them doing THAT every damn night. The brothers had argued for a while over it, but Jonas stood strong that it was his damn house and he could have banshee screaming loud sex and keep his younger brother up all night if he wanted to. If he wanted sleep, he could couch surf his friends for awhile. This apparently included asking if he could surf on Anthony’s couch, though it had not been Eli’s idea. Still, his older brother had been correct when he’d surmised who better to ask to stay with, the guy had his own damn house almost all to himself.

“You know he might say ‘no’,” Eli pointed out, short temper from little sleep coming back now that the edge from going on a case was wearing off. He could feel the edges of a headache rumbling in to. Great.

“Pfff, yeah right. He lives there practically alone. I’m sure he’ll be jumping with joy that someone wants to give his weird uppity ass company. Especially someone he’s seen to ‘bless’ with his attention,” J. Jonas did get to become an inspector in his own merit along with luck and kissing the right hands, so even he could notice how choosy the genius teenager was of those he let closer around him. It still baffled him why his little brother Eli of all people had made his way in there, but then the brunette always seemed to attract the weirdest kinds of people for friends. Or dates. Or seating partners. Or anyone actually.

Honestly if you wanted to find the weirdest person in the room, just stick Eli in the center and see who decided to get friendly first.

That thought in mind completely explained his friendship with Anthony though. Well, at least to the Inspector.

Eli had a lot of other thoughts about it, but in depth conversations between the two siblings wasn’t a strong point, so they would never hash that out. Instead the young man frowned at the blond Inspector and bit back a rude reply. “Fine, I’ll go ask, but don’t just assume things man. Anthony probably has lots of stuff to do and might not want to play host as much as you think he would,” was the testy answer as he began to walk away towards the bathrooms.

Bleh, why was he starting to feel dizzy? Damn, he should go back to sleep soon, his insomnia the past few nights must be catching up with him. Oh god. That headache was showing signs of being the beginning of a nice bitchy migraine. The lights in the station were starting to drill in to his eyes.

“he doesn’t I’ll be here for another fifteen minutes.” J. Jonas called after him, though he already expected to be going home alone.

He had no idea this would be the last time he’d see his baby brother for a long while, or how much danger he was in.

Eli on the other hand pushed his way in to the men’s bathroom, feeling a welling in his chest that made him worried he was getting heart burn on top of it all. Fuck. Maybe Anthony had some gaviscon or Tylenol or somethi~

“Anthony?” He didn’t hear or see anyone at first. Then he spotted the cuff of the other teens jacket on the floor, peaking out of a stall. That was… that was weird. “Anthony? You alright man? You looked like you were about to pu~…ugghh.. ow…” Oh yes, his head was starting to spin beautiful violent circles in his head. Crap… was there a contaminant in the station? He didn’t think he’d been close enough to get a whiff of anything from the container at least. If he was feeling this bad, then how was his friend feeling? Shit.

Eli was thankful that the stall door wasn’t locked as he pushed it in, banging it off the stall wall with his panic.

There was a pooling of clothes, easily recognizable as what his friend had been wearing, but the person in them… some much younger teenage punk. Shorter, slighter of frame but… sort of… kind of recognizable.

“What..?”

Confusion only lasted a second. A single heart beat, and the next felt like it burst. A screaming pain filled explosion in his chest. The last thing Eli got out was a strangled whisper for help before everything became kaleidoscope and went black.

No one heard anything.

Instead there were just two still, unconscious bodies lying on the bathroom floor.

No one would be coming in for several hours. Hopefully they would be able to wake up on their own. If not…..

 

[ABagOVicodin]

6:02 AM, the next morning. Anthony's eyes slowly opened up, his memory of the last night starting off with a blank slate, a Tabula Rasa if you will. Anthony's body was sore... it felt like every single cell of his body was burning, as he slowly got up off of the cold bathroom floor. It was at least 30 degrees outside... and the temperature of the floor was starting to show. He felt himself start to shiver, as a draft from the above bathroom window had breezed past him, chilling him to the bone. He looked up at the window and then felt something odd go off in his head. He was usually able to look out of the window, with most of the bathroom stalls being the same in this city. However now he had to look up at it. He was going to walk out of the stall, before seeing another body on the ground next to him, a body that looked... familiar. The brunette hair, his stature, those shoes that deserved to be scrapped. It was Eli...

Anthony walked over to Eli, and he picked up the boy, putting him over his shoulder (with great difficulty) before walking over to the sink. He looked into the mirror, before yelling out, loud enough to possibly wake up Eli, since the boy was right nearby him. "Holy shit!" He yelled out, as he took a few steps backward. He didn't have a migraine and pass out? He wasn't dreaming? He was... younger. He looked to be... 15, 14? He looked down at Eli, his friend that was slightly younger then him. Did he get reduced to the same age? Anthony ran his hands through his hair, growling. "Fuck, fuck fuck, fuck, Fuck!" He yelled out, pausing after every fuck. He hated being a teenager. He was always the kid that never fit in, since he wasn't the kind to commit crimes, like today's idiotic youth. Now he had to deal with another 3 or 4 years of growing up, again! Who did this to him... was it the people in black, the ones from the previous murder case? He turned to Eli, who was probably awake right now, and he said, "We have got to get out here..." But where do they go...

 

[Fading_Cards]

Eli woke to loud cursing, aches in his joints, and a horribly disorienting feeling like he was ass over tea kettle half out of bed and about to go crashing in the night table.

“GUHH!!”

Arms pin wheeled to catch himself and body twitched, trying to figure out exactly what the hell was going on and why the hell the floor was above his head. The flailing had the opposite effect his instincts had started it all for. Instead of catching himself and dragging his groggy ass back on to the bed/couch/counter/ouchy thing in his gut he went toppling over, slipping off whatever it was holding him up and giving his side a painful greeting to the tiles.

“Ooooowww….” Ugh, he didn’t sound right. Didn’t feel right. Dammit, why where his pants falling half off his ass….? Who the hell was swearing? They sounded familiar and oh… legs…. Person… person in to big droopy dress clothes and a somewhat recognizable hair cut.

“An…Anthony?” He didn’t look right. Eli felt like shit and he was sure he must be on something because he didn’t remember last night all that clearly, he was in some public bathroom, and his best friend looked…

“What the hell? Wh… Why are you… younger?” was the only explanation he could give himself… because he knew, or at least thought he knew, that Anthony didn’t have any siblings. Especially younger siblings that could get the drop on him, apparently drug him, and take him to a public washroom for no apparent reason but to swear in the mirror. So… a younger Anthony it was!

His voice STILL didn’t sound right. Not high, but not as deep as it normally was either. More like when his brothers would let him get drunk and he’d get all light headed and start talking all airy like. He didn’t feel drunk though. Just felt like shit. No hung-over shit though. Actually, it kinda sounded like…

Two brain cells finally were able to struggle enough to rub together and a synapses flashed.

“Shit!”

Hands scrabbled to reach up to the counter, hauling himself up to his own two, weavey feet.

A much smaller, younger Eli looked back at him. The Eli he had gladly left behind with a ‘good riddance and Fuckin’ A!’ at sixteen when his late blooming self finally decided to try and catch up with all the other boys. The brunette was sure he woke up just a few hours ago to go to a case at a comfortable five foot ten, size ten men’s shoes to fit his size ten feet, fully squares sharp jaw line and far broader shoulders then hips.

The boy looking back at him in the mirror looked the spitting image of his diminutive fourteen year old self. Five foot and maaaybe a bit more then two inches in height, slightly rounder cheeks from remaining baby fat, with shoulders and hips matching in width with a thinner middle, rabid metabolism making it near impossible for him to gain much weight. He could tell his shoes fit his smaller feet like boats, pants barely hanging on for dear life and his hoodie bagging over him like he’d stolen it from his fathers closet or something. Not that his father would have worn anything as so awesome as Eli did, but still.

He was tiny even next to the other shrunk teen and all Eli remembered about fourteen other then family clusterfucks was hating needing a damn stool to get anything off shelves… and occasionally being mistaken for a tomboyish girl.

AKWARD.

“What…. The… fuck.”

Shocked dumb struck eyes shot over to stare at Anthony’s own glare in the mirror. Panicked raised eyebrows made it clear he needed an explanation from his genius friend, and NOW.

 

[ABagOVicodin]

Anthony stared into the mirror, seeming to ignore the many outbursts that were coming from his friend. His mind was at work, trying to put together the pieces of what happened to them. His head felt like it was splitting open, a headache... Just what he needed when he wanted to be thinking clearly. "Medical term that is interchangeable with a shrinking body." He thought, his mind moving at around ten times the speed that it usually did when he was on cases. This was a true mystery, and he had to figure it out. "Sclerosis... No... A... It was A something... A..." He looked away from the sink, not caring that his pants were sagging down to his ankles, but he did care that his underwear was sagging down as well. He growled at his distraction called his underwear, before he sat down against the bathroom walls, preventing any of his sagging clothes to show any more of his teenage body, the body that he hated.

Anthony put his hands to his head, before looking over at Eli, who looked pissed and wanted an explanation. Anthony sighed before he started to throw around possibilities in his head. "Astrotoxin... No... A... Astredial? No.. Ap... Apoptosis..." He smirked, showing that he figured out the riddle. "Apoptosis." He simply said, standing up and using his left hand to pick up his sagging pants. "Obviously whatever happened to us, was the formation of apoptosis, which is the body's reaction to a certain type of cell, one that it considers lethal. What the body does is destroy the cell, through the use of white blood cells and antibodies. Unfortunately, this drug made our bodies think that our own body was the diseased cell. So every part of our body... Except our mind... was affected." He sighed, looking down at his cell phone that was in his pocket, before he opened it. All the numbers that he had were useless people, people who wouldn't understand what they were going through. He then put his phone back into his pocket. "We need to get back to my house... And none of the police officers can see us this way... If they do... Then they might ask. And if they ask, they will know. No one must know... Not even your brother. Where are we... Let's walk home from here, lead the way."

 

[Fading_Cards]

Eli didn’t think it would do any good to point out they didn’t really need to sneak around. Yes, their clothes were almost comically to big for each of them, but they, by the looks of it, were almost pre-teens. No one would care enough to harass them or ask them any questions. Adults would only stare at them disapprovingly and other teens would just keep to themselves. It was all a very secular kind of society, though Eli kind of realized Anthony had probably not noticed that while growing up. He was a mind on to himself… again, it was Eli who was more obsessed with studying the human condition and peoples behaviours around them. Anthony on the other hand was more interested in more physically definable aspects… which is what made him so damn good at what he did.

Again though, not the time to bring up social points.

They were … younger… somehow, lost in the outskirts of the city just before dawn, and by the rocket fast anxiety coming out of his older (WAS he older now? Or simply just taller?) friends mouth. So he did as he was told and lead the way through the tendrils of morning.

If he was holding fiercely on to the other boys hand the whole way to Anthony’s house, he’d say it was to keep track of the taller boy in the pre-dawn fog. He did have the tendency to wander off when something grabbed his attention with out saying anything. Not that Eli suspected he would do that NOW… but that is what he was going to stand by.

If it was really because the warm hand in his kept him grounded from full blown panicking… no one was going to ever know.

The house actually looked kind of eerie this time of day, no lights on and deathly quite. Anthony did his thing though with the security pad and lock though and once they were inside things felt a little bit more alright with the lights on and the warm heated air inside the rooms. Now standing barefoot in the bottom floor living room, one hand fisted in his jeans to keep them up, the other lax by his side as he looked around seeming almost lost.

Damn it, it was weird being short again. Everything was just… bigger… heavier… more awkward to handle. He guessed though, as he looked at himself in a decorative mirror, fluffing his now shoulder length wavy hair out of his face, that it could have been worse.

“Well… I guess at least were weren’t shrunk in to first graders or something?” he joked, thin and weak, but it was the best he could do at the moment. “Shit… this is so going to just fuck everything up,” sighing, frustrated, the shorter of the newly minted fourteen year olds flopped boneless down on to the couch. “So… well… my brother wanted me to stay with you for a few days anyway… so … we have some time to figure this out. So WHAT was it that you were babbling about in the bathroom? This… this shit is crazy…”

 

[ABagOVicodin]

One of the few things that Anthony was worried about was the fact that Eli was holding his hand. Sure, he could pretend to be under the impression that he was extremely annoyed and that he didn't want Eli to be gripping his hand, but he didn't care. Eli was the more emotional one of the two of them, so it would make sense for Eli to want to be more closer to the man (boy?) that had gone through the same thing with him, together. Anthony wasn't assuming that his hand is what gave Eli his sanity, he just thought it was a possibility. When the both of them walked into his house, he felt at home, but also felt as if he was inside of a new murder scene. He ran his hands through his head, sitting down at the dining room table so that he could think. The dining room chairs were so comfortable, so he liked to think in that spot, a lot. He looked back to Eli, as he started to think over. "Apoptosis... is a disease that can occur in humans. It is a disease that forces the immune system to fight off cells that are considered lethal, when they are actually beneficial to your survival." He said. "I don't want to get into the details... because I might say something wrong, or confuse you." He said. "But... I don't know what happened... but we had been injected with an apoptosis virus." He then put his hand underneath his chin. "But that doesn't make any sense. If we were injected with the virus, we would have died." He was starting to get a headache. "I don't... I don't know!" He yelled out, getting off of his chair and then sitting down on the living room couch. He put the hand from his chin, to his head, and he let out a small, "Ow..." His headache was getting worse. And now with more stress added, he was bound to get worse.

 

[Fading_Cards]

Eli listened and tried to make sense of it himself, but found it all going in endless circles that led nowhere just like his friend. The only truly clear thing to him was:

“So your saying, more then likely, whether it was this Apoptosis stuff or something mutated or similar, whoever did this to us probably wasn’t expecting…this,” he gestured to his far shorter legs then what he had yesterday. “You’re pretty much implying they actually wanted us dead,” he clarified, if only just to hear it all straightened out and obvious in the air for himself.

“Well fuck. That’s just…” he couldn’t quite seem to find the best heavy, vitriolic swear work to fit the description. Eli shoved one hand in his hair, nervously combing it out of his face as he sighed. “Damn. I’m… this is really big. Really messed up. Coffee. Tea. Something.” He trailed off in to the kitchen, muttering aloud. There was puttering about and clanking as the coffee pot was set to make black magic, kettle on for tea for himself, and he rustled through the junk drawer for something. He came back out to the living room with things were steeping and dropped a paper pad and some pens and pencils in front of Anthony and placed several pills of Tylenol on the table in two little piles.

“Here… just… write whatever you can think of down on that paper. I know you haven’t really had a challenge for that mind of yours in awhile because you haven’t whipped out a pad in awhile. Straighten whatever you’ve got in there out on this to at least stop your head from spinning,” his expression was understanding, if strained from his own frustration at the situation. “It will at least tell us what it ISN’T…. and probably look at it from an angle that they were trying to off us, and they got whatever this is in to us without us noticing. That’s what has me really concerned.”

They had nearly been assassinated in broad daylight, and no one would have known until their bodies were found. That… that was incredibly chilling. That kind of weapon in the wrong hands….

Already in the wrong hands.

A worrisome groan as fingers rubbed insistently at the bridge of his nose. This was… this was a lot to process all at once. “Hopefully our chemistry isn’t to screwed up though, because I don’t know about you but my head is ringing from a whole lot more then just confusion and I’d really like these painkillers to work,” he gestured to the pills.

Disappeared in to the kitchen again to give his colleague and fellow apparent death survivor by chemical mutagenic fluke some space and time to let his head flow on to paper. Came back a few minutes later with coffee the way he knew the other boy liked it and his tea, plain saltine crackers in a dish. His stomach felt raw and it would be a bad idea to take the Tylenol with nothing padding in there first.

“So… what have you got?” he eyed the scribbled mass and crumpled sheets piling off to the side. Looked like a lot of bupkiss.

After a few crackers, sips of tea, and little white pills going down his throat, he looked down at himself again. The dining room chairs were deep enough that if he sat all the way back in them his feet didn’t touch the ground. Anthony’s did.

“Dammit I hated being this short,” he just sounded… tired.

“… We… we REALLY can’t actually go to anyone with this, can we,” it wasn’t a question. Just a statement finally really truly settling in as the initial dizzying surprise of the situation started solidifying in place.

"Well... my brother wanted me to stay with you for a few days, so that gives of SOME time to figure this out, right?" the smile was wane. Somehow this didn't feel like much of a few days kind of thing.

Shorter legs began to kick back and forth in a distracted habit he hadn’t done in years.

 

[ABagOVicodin]

The two men obviously did not want them to solve that case, or remember something that was specific within the case last night. Anthony took note of this as he wrote down many words on a piece of paper. It looked like the brainstorm that 6th graders did when they were instructed to write their first essay, which was an ironic comparison to what they were now. They were freshman age. His pencil scratched all over the paper as he put words and hypotheses onto the paper, followed by notes nearby every hypothesis. Then followed the eraser. Some hypotheses that he considered to be illogical were erased, and he continued to work and write. Despite his headache, that was slowly exploding into a migraine, he was continuing. However he stopped at one point, where he felt his head throbbing more painfully then anything else, his fists clenched and he reached into the sagging pocket of his jeans, pulling out a prescription bottle, the orange bottle shaking a small amount as Anthony opened it, and popped a white pill into his mouth. He swallowed, without any kind of liquid or food, and then started to write again. "What it looks like, is this virus was probably spread to our bodies from a microscopic wound. A bullet wound or something. Maybe they shot us with the virus. I don't know..." He said, sighing and he put his hands over his head. "I just... I don't know. I don't know whether to use my imagination to try and think this out, or pure logic... Just the thought that they actually shrunk our ages... puts nearly every possibility on the table. We can't tell anyone... I need... I need to rest..." He laid back on the couch, closing his eyes as he felt the painkiller start to take effect. It usually was supposed to take ten minutes, when it took barely any time at all. "We can talk more about this after I nap..."

 

[Fading_Cards]

“Woah hey, no no, you get back up from that couch,” Eli scrambled after his friend and started pulling up on his arms. “You always complain that thing gives your neck and spine a crick when you fall asleep on it. By the look on your face you do not need to sleep off your migraine on that on top of it all.” He began trying to pull and shove the now larger boy off the couch and towards the steps. “To your bed you go.”

Eli himself wasn’t feeling the best, but the pounding in his skull had receded mostly. The Tylenol helped with the vague worn sensation of his muscles, and his mild meditation he’d been doing while absently watching Anthony at work helped more. While those pills the other teen had taken would probably get rid of the now softer playing drum in his head, the brunette liked to stay away from pills if he could help it. Especially the stronger kind. Anthony liked to poke at him occasionally for using more homeopathic methods, but prescription drugs were part of the reason why he ended up in his older brothers custody instead of his mothers. Or really the abuse of them. The boy simply didn’t want to tempt fate to end up anything near the mess the woman he used to know ended up in before he was finally taken in to custody away from her. He didn’t lecture Anthony on his own use though. So far by what he’d seen the guy had a handle on things. He hoped.

Still… bed, or at least resting for their poor, overwhelmed heads, sounded like a good idea. He’d never been inside of Anthony’s room, just knew generally where it was on the second floor, but he figured it would have a bed. There was probably a guest room or two around here somewhere for him too. Hopefully.

“You take some time out and give that big brain a rest, man,” he said softly in a way he knew occasionally broke through the dark haired teens stubbornness. “The dudes in black think we’re dead, so I think we have some time to adjust for a moment. Don’t break yourself just yet. Who knows, maybe your dreams will tell you something?” Eli himself was now more concerned about taking care of the teen… or were they now pre-teen?.. No.. teen… bodies didn’t account for years lived… because he was probably their best hope for figuring out what the hell had happened to the both of them.

"Just... go rest. The paper will still be there later," he gave the other boy one last shove towards the door he guessed his bedroom was behind. Then he went back downstairs, joints feeling a little brittle, to get a glass of water. Hydration would be good for Anthony to help battle the war going on in his skull when he woke up.

As Eli passed the dining table he paused, looking at the seemingly chaotic staging of events on the pages of paper.

"Damn...." that was... a lot of stuff. He didn't understand most of it because it was in chemicals and scientific jargon. One thing became clear while looking at it all though. He ripped off a peice of paper from the back of the notebook as to not disturb the geniouses notes on top. With a pen he quickly scrawled:

"Men in Black Involved with Change"
"Men involved with illegal drugs? Check for new product or suppliers on the streets. Somehow. Would have seen or heard of them before if they were already set up in town. Perhaps deal in mostly higher end stuff. Maybe the cache we found were simply additive supplies to something stronger/new/designer?"
"Men obviously have money to develop the kind of tech to do whatever this is to us."
"Need to find men in black to figure out what happened, or at least find their trail. Not enough evidence at hand."
"Description of the individuals:"

... and he began tying to list off what he could remember of the two at the scene, but he couldn't seem to see anything clearly about them. Just grey and black shadows in his memory. Maybe it would come back in time? Anthony perhaps remembered more... Eli honestly hadn't been focused on them other then getting the wiggins. Maybe he could ask his brother for the... no.. wait... he couldn't talk to J.J. Not like this. Fuck. Maybe there was another way to get a copy of the police report on witnesses?

He tossed the pen down in fustration, now at a dead end. Anthony had been tied up simply looking at what was at hand to figure out what had been done to them, but they, for once, were rather lacking in clues and comparisons. They would have to, unfortunately, look at things from a more basic sluething angle, thus his own notes. His head was hurting again. Maybe it was time for himi to go lie down again to.

Hopefully when he got up the stairs he'd see Anthony had made it to his bed. Eli didn't know if his old, younger, smaller body had the strength to pull the others larger form off the floor.