Chapter Text
Yuri Briar watches the state coroner pull the heart from his brother-in-law's chest while whistling Beethoven's fifth symphony. They couldn't get away without an autopsy, but he didn't expect it to be so gruesome. The purplish, still organ in the man's hand, set on a silver table. That's the thing that raced in the chest of Loid Forger as he was interrogated these last eleven days after concrete evidence and a well-connected tip came in that he was a spy from the West, complete with photographic evidence.
It checked out. The man claimed to be Ostanian with inconsistent records, a misspelled identification card on his person, and several meetings with one Sylvia Sherwood.
Loid's naked chest is a gruesome sight even without the long incision to pluck out his various organs. The interrogations had not been friendly. Yuri, alongside his coworkers, of course, had perhaps gone harder than needed, but the thought of the humiliation and pain his sister would face at the hands of this traitor was all the fuel he needed.
Still, he never meant to kill him.
The coroner elbows open the door to the observation room, shaking off his freshly washed hands. The heart remains on the table. "Blunt force stopped his heart and the head injury finished him off," he declares casually, as though placing an order at a cafe.
Yuri curses under his breath. On the table, the blood has drained from Loid's face. The gash on his temple loses its ferocity.
"You've got quite some cleaning up to do," the coroner continues. "We'll send it down to the crematory tonight."
"Send… what?" Yuri snaps back to attention.
"The body," the man replies. "What do you want to do with the ashes, when they come back?"
Already, a man dead for not even a day, has been reduced to an 'it'. Three miles from here, his sister waits at home for news — not of an 'it', but for her arrested husband's release. She came by Yuri's apartment the other night — when Loid was alive — and begged to know how she could get to Loid; if not to visit, then at least to inquire after his health. She was sleep deprived, he could see, and she'd worn down her fingernails with excessive biting. Yuri said he didn't know; he'd ask around at work. And she hugged him tight, taking all the strength in the world to fight back her tears, and asked that he please call her in the morning, as soon as he knew something.
But Loid was dead in the morning, and now he's dead on this table in this cold and dark morgue, and Yor still does not know.
And won't know, he staunchly reminds himself, shifting his gaze to the other man in the room, seated with a notepad by another window and viciously taking notes.
"Take enough notes yet?" He calls out. The man slows his writing, a small smile stretching across his lips.
"You'd better not fail." Yuri continues. "If she finds out—"
"What, you'll kill another one of her husbands?" The man replies. The chains around his cuffs rattle as he rises to his feet. "Don't let your guilt cloud your judgment. I don't fail."
"Then how'd you wind up with that life sentence?"
Twilight nods at the dead man on the table. "Relying on others to clean up your messes never ends well."
After two years in a cell broken up only by brutal 'interrogations', much like his friend Dr. Forger here, Twilight's ready to get out. And if the SSS is this willing to cover up the murder of an innocent civilian, his escape window just keeps getting wider.
He won't leave quickly, though. He has to get their guard down first, and to do so means assuming the life of Dr. Loid Forger. Thirty two years old, widowed young and remarried right after. His first wife and only biological child died three years ago due to childbirth complications. Naturally, he adopted his wife's daughter, Anya, and apparently, he met his current wife and now widow not long after. They were married within the year.
Twilight studies the man's heartless body when finally permitted into the examination room. He did not have an easy time, even before his arrest. It's clear he was thinner than he should be, and based on the intake photos, his eyes already carried dark bags beneath them.
What else plagued his mind to this degree, if not espionage?
It looks like he led a good life recently. Twilight plucks a photo from Loid's file, examining his new identity. There Loid sits on a beach chair, his little girl smiling big in his lap. At his side, his wife, and looking at her, it's hard not to question how anything plagued Loid's mind at all. She is absolutely gorgeous, and, more importantly, within a day, Twilight will have to convince her he's the man in this photo.
So he digs deeper.
Loid was a diligent man. His personal diary of events kept record of everything: appointments, school events, dry cleaning pickups, and both his and Yor's days off work.
On occasion, there'd be a flicker of personality — a note written later, following up on an event. After a New Years Gala last year, for example, he'd annotated "What a Night!" in a bright blue pen. After his daughter's spring pageant, he wrote: "research singing lessons?"
Two weeks ago, just before his arrest, he'd written a reminder to call an obstetrician. That appointment is scheduled for September 4th.
By all accounts, Yor Forger is not and never has been pregnant.
However, judging by the X's every twenty six days on the calendar, followed by a circled date every twelve days after, it was something they were working towards. Hardly out of the ordinary for a marriage of two years, but it creates another problem for Twilight should his new wife ever bring it up.
With any luck, Loid was the one pushing for a baby, and Yor will let the subject drop. Temporarily raising a six year old girl will be challenge enough.
It's a grim thing, reading the future plans of the dead man beside you. Twilight turns to Loid. "You had it good," he mutters.
Loid stares back through half lidded eyes, seemingly unsure.
The next step is studying his mannerisms, vocal patterns, and gait. The interrogation recordings aren't the best thing to go off of, considering the agitation of the man, so Yuri is tasked with stealing a roll of old tapes from Loid's bedroom closet. There's no sound, but the footage becomes Twilight's bible.
He stands by the projector and watches his life in footage, along with photographs dating back to his teen years just after the war. Twilight wonders if they'd ever shot at each other, two underage boys blindly following corrupt government orders.
There isn't much footage before his marriage to Yor. After that, it seems like she had taken an interest in film. There's a lot of the little girl — Anya. Her birthday, her first day of school at Eden College. And travel, and Christmas and parties. He watches the way Loid stands, the expressions he makes while not aware anyone is watching. The way he holds a wine glass, a coffee mug. The way he laughs. Not the happiest man in the world, to be sure, but full of life.
It's a stark contrast to the man on the table.
They take the body away after midnight while Twilight perfects his new handwriting, an eerie match to the late doctor's. The interrogation had been awful to hear, and it'll likely get destroyed after today. No matter what threats or violence was inflicted on him, Dr. Forger maintained his innocence.
Twilight listened to him weaken, though. In the early days, he'd tried reasoning with the SSS officers. After that came a more argumentative nature. Yesterday, he was weak, aloof in his answers, but they never varied. "I am innocent. Please don't hurt them."
He's not one hundred percent certain, but those may have been Loid's last words, too.
Yuri Briar is the one to take the tapes away. If he's trying to look unfazed by the whole ordeal, he's doing a poor job. Granted, he's a rookie, likely not over the age of 20, and this may well be his first murder. Most officers get away with minimal guilt, but Yuri Briar knew the man on a personal level.
Hopefully, his guilt makes him a sloppier officer moving forward. Hopefully, he'll keep making mistakes, and it'll be all the easier for Twilight to slip out of Ostania within a few weeks.
"Tomorrow," Yuri finally speaks, his eyes focusing on the cement walls surrounding them, "we'll have the dental molds in. The barber will be there right after. You'll be transported to the hospital in the evening."
Twilight shuts his now-filled notebook. When he stands up, he assumes Loid's usual posture, tests out his voice, his vocabulary. "To be honest, it's a little surprising Chairman Desmond would vouch for a man of such low status like me."
Yuri's eyes widen before he has the chance to narrow them. He folds his arms. "Mrs. Desmond was a patient of Dr. Forger's and a friend of my sister's, and their son is in the same class as his daughter. It was likely their influence. You should be grateful."
"I'm truly grateful to death." Twilight says, hands together. "Thank you so much for this opportunity, Yuri. I look forward to working together."
It's hard not to smile, watching the younger man clench a fist, his expression pinching as he mutters, "You're a sick man, Twilight."
"Somehow," Twilight's real voice emerges, "researching Dr. Forger's life makes it all the more important for this arrangement to cause you as much misery as possible."
"It was an accident," Yuri bristles. "He slipped."
"Could you honestly look your sister in the eye and say that?"
The crisp slap that follows is expected so much so that Twilight doesn't even blink.
"Careful," Twlight says softly, back in Loid's voice. "My wife will notice any excessive injuries."
Calling Yor from a phone booth is easier than doing so at home. Out here, Yuri's still in uniform, still on the clock. He can't make this call looking at her photo in his living room.
"Yuri?"
He'd forgotten she'd already answered, his attention lost in an older woman walking under a streetlamp. He clutches the phone tighter. "Hey. I just heard from the station that your husband's getting released tomorrow."
He closes his eyes as Yor expresses her relief, at the sound of the tears in her voice. Worse, her gratitude. "But listen…" It's in his throat, begging to be pushed up. He's dead he's dead he's dead— because Loid is in an incinerator somewhere, and she'll never see him again, and— "He's in the hospital. Apparently, he slipped someplace and hit his head. It's just a concussion, but don't be surprised if he acts a little different, you know?"
For the first time, he hates the sound of his sister's laugh.
"That's our Loid."
Outside, the streetlight flickers.