Compatibility issues

Who: Doc and Oz
Where: phone lines
When: afternoon

He had the answers he was looking for, a neatly stacked piles of printed-off computer paper containing hospital records from five different places. Of course Marquette's was the largest part, both due to a larger hospital and, well, the massacre. But Doc was an old hand at digging for details, trying to catch the anomalies hidden inside line after line of mundane details, and compared to cases he'd worked in the past? This was light reading. It had paid off too, leaving him with a short list of names after a sleepless night and two pots of coffee.

Most of them were among the first crop of animal attacks, and Doc wouldn't be able to directly pin down who had died on Friday and who had survived, only to rampage again next month. But a few held more interest, and those were the ones Doc thought Oz might be interested in. Digging free a single page he'd condensed the relevant information onto, Doc grimaced at the remnants of a cup of coffee as he grabbed his phone, punching the number from Oz's flier in and listening.

Oz had kept the scratch-phone on him, and picked it up pretty much immediately upon hearing it ring. "Hello?" he asked, not sure what he expected. There were a ton of different possibilities, of course. Someone needing help. Some hunter trying to lure him in. Some hunter trying to find other targets. Doc. A prank caller. Who knew.

"Oz? Eric Martens, we talked the other day," Doc greeted as he slid his coffee away. Rare as it was, sometimes he just had enough for a while. "Think I've got a bit of information you might find useful, if you're still looking," he offered with a thoughtful grin. This was the sort of indirect involvement he liked; it was almost like working a hunt, minus the inevitable bloodshed. "Even saved you all the leg work and cross-referencing." Not that he'd had to do much, aside from sorting through all the files he'd been given.

"I'm still looking." Oz confirmed. It was kind of consuming his mind at the moment. But then again, Oz wasn't dealing very well. Not well at all. In fact, if one considered what he was doing dealing at all, that might be a bit of a stretch. "And...thanks." he added, being saved work was probably good. Oz wasn't necessarily known for his organizational skills. "What've you got?"

"Not a whole heap," Doc answered honestly, snagging his cigarettes and pulling two out. He was going to chain smoke through this, because really, trying to predict the severity of a werewolf outbreak was a serious affair. "But definitely some useful bits. I've got details on the people who were attacked all week leading up to Friday, not sure how many of them are still up and around, but it's worth checking into. Beyond that? Well, seems like almost everyone who suffered a bite on Friday got caught in the purging. Except for one... and I've got his records too. I'm pretty sure he's trying to hide."

"...hiding's probably a good bet around now." Oz muttered. Not that he was. He'd put up with too much shit in his time to decide to hide now of all times. Not that this overjoyed his family and pack, but whatever. "Who is it?" he asked.

He was silent for the moment it took to light up and suck in a lungful of smoke, blowing it out as he looked at the name that was printed out. "Gabriel Winters," Doc replied, "Age 17, senior at the high school. Friday night, he gets admitted to Ishpeming General Care Facilities for some severe lacerations that match up to a bite pattern, but the official cause of injury is a car accident. Problem is, nothing like that got reported anywhere on or around Friday. No police reports, no towing records, no nothing."

"So obviously, it's bullshit." Oz said. "Or just a really good coverup for a kid. Right." Kid. Cuz Oz was so much older than that. But he felt older. He looked down at his wedding ring and turned it slightly on his finger as he thougth things over. "Was he released yet?" he asked.

"Yeah," Doc confirmed, "He wasn't kept any longer than a quick tox-screening for infectious diseases. Record says he had his mother with him to sign off on care providing." Which made Doc curious, and he'd take some time later to do some digging on her as well. "Really, it's too good of a coverup for a kid that age," he agreed, "Hell, anyone who survives an attack like that isn't going to be clear enough to make an alibi. So someone could very well be covering for him. Or he's got prior experience dealing with the weirder side of life. I've got an address in town listed for him, at least."

"Got that and maybe a phone number?" Oz asked. He also considered calling Dean. Dean would know the kid, anyhow. Or might. Maybe not. Maybe if he called Thia...hm. He didn't want to stress Dean out any more than he already had. Could he sneak in some texts to the girl? Would Dean get incredibly pissed if he found out about it? ...teenagers. They were difficult.

"That I do," he answered, rattling off the address and phone number he'd confirmed with city records. If there was something sinister being hidden? It was in plain sight. Nothing had come up as a red flag during Doc's first study of the kid. "Look, Oz... I might have some people keeping an eye on this situation. I'm not going to expose you to them, but I want you to know ahead of time so you're not thinking you've got another problem to handle."

Oz was silent for a few moments, then sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he shut his eyes. "Want to explain that to me?" he asked. "And why you aren't 'exposing' me to them?" Because that was pretty specific damn wording wasn't it? Yeah, that sounded Not Good.

Doc hadn't expected him to like that, but it was better than chancing him noticing on his own. Things could go bad too fast in that scenario. "Right now, we know someone out there was at the center of the attacks. Without definitive proof, I can't rule this Winters kid out. Hell, maybe his injuries were caused by another shifter fighting back. As for my friends?" Doc needed to be careful here; Frank was a hunter, and there was no way to make that sound good. "They're only going to be making sure it's not him, that he's not trying to start the cycle over again. They're not executioners, if that's what you're thinking. And I figured the less details you had to give up about your stake in things, the better."

'Not Executioners' didn't exactly ease his mind. Lots of things weren't executioners. Psychotic mad dog killers weren't executioners either. They were just crazy and got taken down really fast. "But they're hunters." Oz supplied--not a question. "So, are these 'friends' of yours going to be checking things out?" he asked, tone light, but there was an edge behind his voice. Couldn't rule things out. Right. And sending in hunters and trusting them to be unbiased, that was an awesome plan. He didn't trust it. Not in the slightest.

"They're going to be observing from a distance, that's all. They know where the lines are, and they don't cross them." Which was hard to sell, given that Oz didn't know either of them and barely knew Doc, for that matter, but he had to try. "Oz, these aren't the types of guys who'd do what happened to those people in the hospital. They know the difference between wiping out everything and handling an immediate threat. And I know you don't have much reason to feel certain about that? But if you're willing to trust the intel I pulled, trust me here too. None of us is looking to get any killing done. Not me, not you, not them."

"How do you know?" Oz asked. It was a simple question, but immediate. A fast, knee-jerk reaction. Because it was what hunters did. It was their entire livelihood. They went out and took down people like him. Probably like this kid. It was part of why they'd been so hesitant to hire one or have anything to do with a hunter to deal with Thia's father. The only person who was 'normal' around him was his wife. That was it. Everyone else had something, some touch of Other to them. And there were hunters out there who just...didn't differentiate. Didn't care. They were killers with some internal form of license. Where if they deemed it the thing to do, they pulled the trigger on someone else. Just to be on the safe side. Because hunters who didn't wound up dead. He knew that, too.

Doc sighed, deciding that maybe he should've just kept his mouth shut. If Oz had noticed Kurt or Frank, neither man would be foolish enough to implicate their employer. But now that he was here, all he could do was see it through. "Well, I suppose I don't, not in your case," he answered, "As for theirs and mine? Both are going to be following my directives on this, and neither's the type to act out. Would it make you feel better if I offered to keep them out entirely? Because I can, and I will, so long as you keep me posted about whatever you find. It's a trade I'm willing to make, if it sounds good and goes a little way towards some good faith."

Oz wasn't sure. "Can I get back to you?" he asked. Because he just...didn't know. "I need time to consider on this. I know you've got good intentions and all, but a lot of people just died, and weren't even given a chance. I'm a little twitchy right now over anything to do with hunters. Period."

"Yeah, get back to me," Doc relented, figuring that was for the best. "I'll keep things clear until I hear from you, okay? So if you wanna do some looking, you won't run into anyone I'm working with. Just... lemme say it again. I'm not looking to kill anyone off here, I'm not going to let the people working under me do it either. Once you feel like things are okay enough? I'd like to get together again, I think I can explain a few things that'd help you trust what I'm saying." Not everything, of course; being a demon would probably only make Oz less likely to trust him. But he could drop a few details that might help.

"Alright, that's doable." Oz said. At least, it sounded reasonable enough. So, he'd go for it. "I'll talk to you soon." he added. "Thanks for the information and update and everything. I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can." Just as soon as he figured out a few things. Or a lot of things. This was going to be a mess regardless of his actions, or anyone else's.