Casper's vision was mostly obscured by a dark shade of black, edging its way around the peripheral areas of his line of sight so that he could only just about make out the tussle transpiring right here on his first floor landing. Currently, he was too dazed to focus on any specific patch of floor, but he hoped to god that the two teenagers didn't get blood on his new woollen carpets. Soon though, the darkness and daze ebbed away enough for him to notice the boys' positions; Ash atop Joe, Joe effectively subdued.<i>Nice work, Ash.</i>Joe looked too worn out and breathless to attempt another attack, so Casper concluded that there wouldn't be a need for some vigorous scrubbing and a quick carpet clean-up after all.<br/><br/>"Fuck you," Joe was whimpering in lieu of a reply to Ash's yells. Casper, on the other hand, was glad that Ash seemed to view Joe as the meddlesome scoundrel that he was; it meant that Ash would be in favour of some more minor interrogation. Well, not so minor anymore, given the new circumstances that had arose. After all, Joe was most probably a murderer.<br/><br/>Casper focused on Ash when the latter asked him something, but Casper took a full three seconds to respond; his mouth seemed to go lax, unable to muster words, as his eyes bore into Ash's tense and sweaty, heaving chest. He immediately wished that the whole Joe ordeal could be brought to an abrupt halt so that he could continue what had started in the kitchen, under the blast of the air conditioning unit. But this was a dire situation, and required all of Casper's focus. Still sprawled on the floor, Casper moved to shift over to where the criminal lay. Adjusting himself so that he sat cross-legged beside Joe's head, Casper feigned composure and looked at Joe, eyes half-lidded with indifference.<br/><br/>"Hmm," he started, almost as if teasing the kid, pretending to be deliberating over his next course of action. He felt a strong urge to sock Joe right in that annoying little face, as retribution for the punch Joe had managed to land. But Casper didn't want to complicate things further, and when he turned Joe in, the police may think that Joe was violently coerced into taking blame for the murder if he showed up with fresh bruises. So it was best if Casper refrained from resorting to aggression for the time being - Ash seemed capable of ensuring Joe's compliance anyhow. And anyway, Casper rarely did indulge in the odd spurt of violence, but Joe was particularly agitating him. Casper also ignored his own injury, despite feeling the throb of the tender skin around his left eye, almost certain that it would soon swell up and darken and turn black. He'd ice it later. In fact, it may work in his favour if he showed up to the police station sporting a shiner. It may cause the officers to be more inclined to believe that Joe had a harmful nature.<br/><br/>"Hey hey, Ash, ease up on your grip," Casper said suddenly, noticing the boy's nails digging into Joe's wrists. "Geez, surprised you didn't draw blood there, Mr. Macho Man." He rolled his eyes at the boy, secretly pleased with this display of strength and dominance.<i>He sure does look good straddling someone</i>. Casper even chanced a (not so) slight brush against Ash's forearm, purposely trying to instigate some more first-hand contact between them. He felt stupidly giddy at the feel of Ash's skin, and used the excuse of loosening the latter's grip on Joe's wrist to keep his hand hovering there a little longer before drawing it back.<br/><br/>Joe had ceased his squirming and seemed to have abandoned resistance altogether; he now lay motionless underneath this half-naked teenager, on the brink of crying again, sniffling and breathing heavily.<br/><br/>"Please... I'm begging you..." Joe managed to say as the tears started falling. "I swear,<i>I SWEAR</i>, that I'll never do it again... I-I swear that was the only time I've ever done it... I was so,<i>so </i>drunk..."<br/><br/>The only feeling these pleas struck with Casper was slight confusion. Why was Joe trivialising his crime and making it out to be akin to a mere misconduct or act of misbehaviour? And obviously he'd never committed murder before, and obviously he'd never do it again - it wasn't like it was an urge or addiction that people normally had. It was, on most occasions, a result of violence, and occurred in the spur of the moment, and wasn't always intentional. And whatever the case, Joe was a killer. He didn't possible think that they'd let him go whilst they possessed this knowledge, did he? Casper intended to get the true perpetrator jailed, and get justice for the wrongly accused Brent Davis, who had taken the fall for the crime. At least, that's what Casper pretended his purpose was. In truth, he wanted to clear his consciousness and finally make sure that Miles wasn't in fact a murderer.<br/><br/>Casper needed to ensure that Joe made a solid statement though; a statement that cemented Casper's suspicions for sure, and something that he could potentially tell the police and perhaps claim to be Joe's admission of guilt.<br/><br/>"Alright Joe, confession time!" Casper drawled with a slight smile, resting his head in his right hand, peering down at the felon. "How did it happen? In fact, tell Ash here what you did, Mr Gibbs. I'm sure he's<i>dying</i>to know."<br/><br/>Joe's tears were accumulating in streams, and his words were garbled amidst his sobs. His psychological frailty was surfacing; he had given up trying to run from what he'd done. This whole time he'd been driven by the sheer fear of being incarcerated, and the prospect of his life being destroyed by all this. But now, the prospect of living in incessant fear, in a constant haze of paranoia, just as he'd been living in for the past week, far outweighed the fear of prison life.<br/><br/>"I'm-"<i>Sniffle. </i>"I'm-I didn't know what I was doing... I didn't<i>want </i>to... do what I did to her..."<br/><br/>Casper froze.<br/><i><br/>
'Her'?<br/>
</i><br/>As far as Casper was aware, Shane Richardson - the murder victim - was a solid male. So then...<br/><br/>"'<i>Her'?"</i>Casper asked briskly, narrowing his eyes. To Joe though, it sounded as if Casper was taunting him.<br/><br/>"Yeah..." Joe replied. "I guess Miles already told you who she is too..."<i>Sniffle. Sob. </i>"Lainey, Shane's sister."<br/><br/>...<br/><i><br/>
What the fuck?<br/>
<br/>
What's he talking about?<br/>
</i><br/>Casper felt a growing sense of despondency and dread as Joe continued to talk. He suddenly had a hunch that Joe wasn't the murderer at all - but had done something just as cruel.<br/><br/>"What, exactly, did you do, Joe Gibbs?" Casper asked, somewhat slowly, staring at Joe as realisation dawned on him.<br/><br/>Joe didn't register that Casper was only just realising what the teenager had actually done. He assumed that the Dark-Haired Man was only asking the question for Ash's benefit.<br/><br/>"I..." Joe said, almost choking on his own words. He breathed in deeply, and then, finally: "I r-raped Lainey Richardson."<br/><br/>~~<br/><br/>The silence being emitted from the first floor landing was almost deafening. Miles himself wondered what had caused the sudden dip in noise outside of his bedroom. He'd been tense as the sound of the scuffle had reached his ears, fearing for his father's safety. Unable to hear the words that were exchanged though, Miles remained immensely confused about the conversation his father and the stranger had had only a few minutes prior. Soon, Miles heard Ash's voice in the hallway, and instantly felt relieved. Surely both Ash and his father could take down that aggressive stranger. Maybe that was why it was quiet. Perhaps they'd knocked the stranger out or had thrown him down the stairs or something.<br/><br/>But no - sheer shock had caused Casper's vocal cords to be rendered useless. The only thing that sounded was Joe's bawls and whimpers.<br/><br/>"Tell me<i>exactly </i>what happened," Casper finally said, staring down at Joe, feeling a mixture of emotions at this new information that ranged from shock to disgust. "Tell me<i>what</i>, tell me<i>why</i>. Tell me<i>who, where and when</i>." He was on the verge of asking 'how' too but decided that they needn't go into graphic detail.<br/><br/>"The bar, Macey's," Joe immediately replied in a forlorn tone, apparently having given up entirely. It seemed as if he was getting the easy queries out of the way first. "It was... I don't know man..." He groaned at the stitch that had formed in his side from all that running. "About a week ago - you already know. On the night Shane was m-murdered.<br/><br/>"I was drinking with... my friends..." He sniffled wetly, saliva dribbling down his chin. "Some of them are part of the f-football team. They'd just won a game and were, you know... celebrating." He clenched his eyes shut, unable to believe that he was recounting the very memory he'd tried so hard not to recall. It was the most ghastly, disgusting act he'd ever partook in, and he just wanted to forget it. But here he was on a stranger's floor, pinned down by a half-naked Adonis, about to be turned in to the police and forced to divulge it in detail. Great.<br/><br/>"I drank<i>a lot. </i>Like, I can't stress that enough. I drank so f-fucking much. Anyway, we saw a kid - Miles, it was - come in, and he looked... so, like, lanky and dumb and weak. We laughed at him, you know? And we bet on how high his alcohol tolerance was - just for a laugh. We were just having fun. We," He squirmed at the discomfort of his current position on the floor. "invited him over and bought him loads of alcohol, to see when he'd get all drunk and who'd win the bet. We all got totally wasted, and then... I saw<i>her </i>at the bar." Here, he clenched his eyes shut again, his face burning with shame. Casper didn't talk, lest he interrupted Joe's flow of words. Joe was recounting everything Casper wanted to know, and the latter didn't want it to halt anytime soon.<br/><br/>"I was<i>so, so </i>drunk." Casper was growing weary of Joe's constant claims of being 'so drunk', but he still didn't say anything. "Just remember that." Joe continued. "Lainey's friend had gone to the bathroom, and Lainey was alone. So I bet with my friends how high<i>her</i>alcohol tolerance was.<br/><br/>"We invited her over. I don't think she had enough money for drinks, so she agreed to join us at our table. We gave her heaps of alcohol too, and then, I... suggested that we all go somewhere else." Casper looked on intently, his ears perking up at Joe's ominous tone of voice, despite already knowing what was coming. "So we pulled her to the back alley and I. Uh. Forced myself on her."<br/><br/>There it was. Joe had raped Lainey Richardson, the sister of the murdered Shane Richardson. Casper was rendered speechless, but he recovered quickly. Joe wasn't yet finished though.<br/><br/>"I swear to you that it was all the alcohol's fault," Joe cried out in a panic. He seemed adamant on justifying his grotesque actions, but Casper didn't care about that. He wanted to know more about what exactly happened, and how Miles fit into all this. Luckily, Joe still wasn't finished. "And I wasn't the only one! Brent pulled me off and did it too. There... was so much blood in her..." He made a strangled noise, not unlike that of a dying whale. "Right then, we heard people coming up through the alley, but by then... it was too late to run. The group of people had seen us, and one of them was Shane. Obviously... he went apeshit when he saw Lainey. He saw Brent with his dick in her and saw all the blood and all of us there and absolutely lost his shit. Him and his mates beat the living crap out of us all - and we weren't sober enough to fight back properly. And then Brent pulled out a knife and that's when I scrammed."<br/><br/>So Miles was most probably still Shane's perpetrator, but at least Joe had run off before he was able to witness it. Casper was aware of the familiar feeling of despair; Miles still wasn't innocent, and Casper's conscience still wasn't clear. The tendril of hope he'd seen arise from Joe was suddenly engulfed by darkness.<br/><br/>Casper didn't speak. He was simultaneously trying to process what he was hearing and form an idea of what his next course of action would be. He looked to Ash, wondering how the kid was coping. Immediately, he regretted not taking the reigns of this interrogation himself and not telling Ash to head home. Because Ash should not be involved in any of this. Casper had assumed that Ash kind of guessed that something relating to illegal matters was at play here, and that Joe was incredibly shady and suspect. But he never could've guessed that rape was in the mix. Hell, even Casper hadn't. He'd only allowed Ash to accompany him for this long because Casper needed the manpower, as he couldn't overpower Joe by himself, but now it was Casper's responsibility to ensure that the kid didn't entangle himself any further into this mess.<br/><br/>"Ash," Casper said, looking at the boy in question, trying to read his eyes and evaluate any potential signs of fear. "You've been a<i>massive </i>help, what with your effective hip straddling and the such."<i>Shame I won't be able to experience it first-hand. </i>He smiled wryly in an attempt to lighten the mood. "Definitely the most eye-catching assistance I've ever had," he added in a dry tone. "Majorly admirable pectorals." If Joe could hear the Dark-Haired Man over his sobs, he would've lain in immense confusion and wondered what exactly the nature of these two males' relationship was. "But, I mean, there's only so much I should let you be involved in. You can head off home now, and I can take this little shit to the station myself."<br/><br/>Casper stood, stretching out his limbs and taking one last glance at Ash's exposed upper body. This was probably the last visit Ash would be making to this house; after all, who in their right mind would return to a household as weird as this? A household in which the weirdest things had occurred in the span of an hour? Casper certainly didn't blame the kid if he never came back. It was for the best if they parted here too. Sure, it would've helped to have Ash alongside Casper as they traveled to the police station, as Ash could've served as good brawn to ensure that Joe didn't run off. And it would've helped if there was a second accuser to back up Casper's statement. But if Joe did run away, the police could easily visit his home and conduct a questioning there. And Casper knew that Lainey Richardson would most probably support his statement anyway. But perhaps Ash wanted to see justice served, and would like to personally escort Joe into the hands of law. Casper looked at Ash, waiting for him to make his move.