Author's Notes: In which the sunny side of STRQ cause problems on purpose. (One more Touchstones chapter after this one)

Music Choices: Drunken Sailor by Blaggards

Eclipse

Chapter 39

Touchstones Part II

Taiyang drummed a slow beat with his fingers on the cool metal of the table in front of him. They'd stuffed him in this room five hours ago and hadn't come to check on him yet. Which at this rate wasn't honestly all that surprising.

See, Taiyang knew a bit about police procedure, because of his older cousins; and he knew that to make 'suspects' crack, they had a little bag of tricks they liked to play from. Now, his cousins played by the rules, they were generally cool guys; but not everyone did, and he knew the King's Service was probably not going to, either, considering that they had not done so so far.

So far, they were being denied representation.

Which was i-l-l-e-g-a-l.

No lawyers, no older staff members present, no reading of rights - even Ozpin wasn't allowed in the rooms with them. They were all alone, and would likely stay alone in legal limbo for the next twenty four hours.

Which meant: no talking!

Admit to nothing!

Don't even acknowledge the bastards.

Tai knew that this was going to be rather difficult, because he wanted to pull Verdant's spine out of his nose, and beat him with it like an anorexic piñata. He was, unfortunately, not allowed to do that.

Yet.

But, there was no rule that he could not still annoy the absolute devil out of Verdant and his shit gremlins.

Another noise in the room next to him.

Taiyang perked up. Qrow was in the next room over, while the girls were across the hall. He couldn't hear anything going on in Raven, Summer's or even Professor Arc's cells. But he could hear people in Qrow's room, because of the little air vent that connected the spaces.

And he was worried about his partner.

Qrow had only just pulled himself out of his funk the other day, and Tai was honestly scared for him at this rate. Verdant knew how to get under Qrow's skin, apparently; and he had been trying for the past thirty minutes to get Qrow to crack, while his snobby Lieutenant worked on someone else.

Taiyang paused, an idea forming. He was a man with a very particular set of skills; and it was time to put those skills to work.

It was time to be fucking irritating for as long as possible.

Taiyang reached into his cargo pockets and fished for something he had stowed in there on a whim - as he often did - and pulled out drumsticks.

Why did he have drumsticks if he wasn't a drummer? Well they were Evan's, and Evan had gifted them to him with the instruction to drum on literally everything. Taiyang had thought that was silly, but Evan had said it was actually good practice for dexterity and hand-speed, and demonstrated such with surprising skill; it had also annoyed the devil out of Jimothy, which Taiyang thought was a net positive. So, he'd kept the drumsticks for special occasions.

And now, in the spirit of Evan the Eternal Punch King of Beacon, he was going to beat the ever loving the shit out of everything within range.

Starting with this table.

The voice in the room next to him was low, menacing and was trying to convince Qrow that he already knew everything, that this was just a formality, that the others had already talked to him (which, HA, yea right!) and was basically doing his best to get in Qrow's head. The guy was a real class A creep, and Taiyang could not wait to dog-walk him a second time. But today was not that day.

So without further ado, Taiyang started drumming on the table. At first, he was just making a racket, but after a few moments he fell into a familiar rhythm and started singing a song he had learned from his time partying with the Red Flags.

"What shall we do with a drunken sailor? What shall we do with a drunken sailor? What shall we do with a drunken sailor? Ehrly in the MORNIN!"

He kicked away from the table, and started drumming on the wall next to Qrow's room.

"Hey ho, and up she rises! Hey ho, and up she rises! Hey ho and up she rises, EARLY IN THE MORNING!" Taiyang continued to yell cheerfully.

There was an irritated pause in the low growly voice in the other room, before suddenly Taiyang heard his partner 'singing' back at him.

"What shall we do with a drunken sailor? What shall we do with a drunken sailor? What shall we do with a drunken sailor? EHrly in the Marnin!?"

Taiyang hooted, and pushed the table next to wall, hopping up on it so he could stomp and drum at the same time.

"Throw him in the hull with the captain's daughter!"

"Throw him in the hull with the captain's daughter?!"

"Throw him in the hull with captain's daughter-" "- EARLY IN THE MARRRNIN! "

The door to his room slammed open and one of the orbital service members ran inside, yelling something at him. Taiyang ignored them, still stomping and beating the wall as he hollered the sea shanty his pirate 'cousins' had taught him.

The thing was, though, they were not under arrest. He had also not been read his rights. They could not touch him without picking a legal fight, especially since Ozpin's drones were quietly hovering in the rooms, recording everything taking place. So there was nothing the King's Service could physically do to him as he yelled his brains out, to drown out the malicious voice in the other room.

"Hey ho and up she rises!"

"Hey ho and up she rises!"

"Hey ho and up she rises early in the morning!" "Hey ho and up she rises early in the morning!"

By this point he was shaking his butt and dancing, stomping on the metal table so hard he was leaving dents. Qrow was also singing at the top of his lungs, and gods bless him, his voice was raspier than a chain-smoking great aunt with influenza. Tai could hear his partner's amusement, though, which meant this was working. Humor was currently the only real defense his partner potentially had against Verdant's poison.

"What shall we do with the drunken sailor early in the morning?!"

"Hey! Get your monkey butt off of that and quit screaming!" one of the King's Service yelled at him.

Taiyang ignored them. He couldn't stop here, they were getting to the best part. He started stomping even harder. They would have to tranquilize or shoot him to get his monkey butt off of any table, and if they did, Arc would promptly turn them into meat confetti.

"WOOOO! Shave his balls with a rusty razor!" Taiyang hollered.

"Shave his balls with a rusty razor?!"

"Shave his balls with a rusty razor!"

Another, feminine voice yelling at the top of her lungs as she pitched in from across the hallway.

"ERLIIIE IN THE MAAAARNIN!"

Taiyang laughed merrily as Summer joined them. Qrow was also beating on the walls and floor now, with what was potentially his chair's legs.

"Hey ho and up she rises!" "Hey ho and up she rises!" "Hey ho and up she rises early in the morning!"

From a crash in the room besides him, it sounded like Qrow had thrown a piece of his chair. Taiyang changed the song to the next one he knew, leading the ruckus as he bounced around on the table until its legs folded. He used said table legs to beat on the floor, while Qrow drummed the wall and Summer intermittently pitched in from across the hall.

This continued until Taiyang had yelled himself hoarse. The trio did not collectively stop singing sea shanties or throwing furniture in chaotic concert for several hours.

Summer continued to draw with the pen she'd borrowed from the woman who had been trying to interrogate her for the last hour. At first, said woman had thought she was signing a confession for some silly reason, and eagerly forked the pen over.

She was, obviously, doing nothing of the sort. Summer just liked drawing landscapes when she was bored. This was now her pen, and Regalia was never getting it back.

They'd finished hollering shanties a few hours earlier, having nearly driven the stressed out King's Service up the wall with their combined rambunctiousness. Ever since then, however, Regalia had sought Summer out repeatedly. Summer had deduced that it was because Regalia did not see Summer as a threat like she saw Raven and to a lesser extent the boys; and would circle back to talk to Summer to calm herself down after threatening and insulting Summer's girlfriend down the hall.

All of which Summer could hear, by the way. Every nasty little word. Not that Regalia was taking any of that into account, or at least not taking very seriously.

Most of this, Summer deduced most scientifically, was due to racism. The really squicky, 'paternalistic' flavor of racism where a human thought faunus were all infantile, gullible animals and just generally not very clever; let alone capable of helping lead a raid on a top secret government facility. This brand was at times worse than some of the others in her opinion, because it tried to masquerade as being sympathetic in some way.

It was not.

It was totally obnoxious and genuinely made her blood boil. However, Summer knew she could still use it to mess with her.

"Did you know that we can identify a person not only by their facial features? We can calculate nearly everything - your body weight, height, injuries and aura levels - with just a few seconds of footage," Regalia leaned on her forearms, speaking in a calm, yet still superior, tone. "Party masks and long sleeves just don't do the trick these days."

Summer nodded thoughtfully as she added a happy little mountain top in her drawing.

"We also have a large collection of dna-"

If they did, they needed a warrant to collect their dna. And if they tried to collect by force without a warrant, it would be inadmissible.

"-and blood samples that places all of you at various scenes. Care to comment on that, yet?"

Which was another lie. The only blood they could have collected was Raven's, and Summer's dad had circled back to destroy it all with oxygen-bleach before the Service could rally people to go collect samples.

Also, Regalia had a very obvious tell whenever she fibbed. One that humans always took for granted.

"Well. We're honestly just waiting on the warrants at this point," Regalia insisted, trying to get Summer to look at her. "And once we have them, then this formality is all over. You could help yourself though, Summer, by cooperating. We really just want the ring leaders-"

Mhm, and that couldn't be me, could it? Wow. You are a real piece of work, lady.

"-and not only could you get a lighter sentence, you could honestly save lives here. But you need to work with us first."

Why do you need me to work with you if you have warrants on the way? You really think I'm a big dummy, huh? Amazing.

Summer inhaled lightly, her ears flicking as she listened to Regalia's heartbeat. She finished shading the mountain and glanced up, meeting Regalia's stare.

And smiled.

"You want to know something?" Summer offered sweetly.

Dangerously.

Regalia hesitated momentarily, picking up on the threat in Summer's voice. She narrowed her eyes cautiously.

"Yes?"

"Whenever you lie?" Summer went back to drawing momentarily, adding in a tree. "Your heart rate increases."

Regalia's eyebrows rose haughtily.

"Are you quoting fun facts now or are you claiming that I am lying?"

"Oh, sorry," Summer glanced up again, still smiling. "You ARE lying, absolutely. You've lied at least fifty times in the last thirty minutes. That's more than two lies a minute! Impressive!"

Regalia's expression shifted from 'sympathetic' and patronizing to coldly imperious in a snap.

"What? Surprised I can count that high? It's ok, I can teach you if you want."

A little wrinkle on Regalia's forehead twitched in anger. Summer beamed.

"You know whose heart rate doesn't change very much when he lies, though?" Summer cocked her head playfully. "Verdant's. It stays almost the exact same, no matter what he says. He could say probably anything , and make you think he believes it. Except ...when he talks about the twins."

A slight twitch, indicating she'd caught her attention with that. Regalia had apparently noticed Verdant's behavior regarding Raven and Qrow. An incisor caught on Summer's lip as she grinned at the Lieutenant, and winked at her.

Summer proceeded to then cheerfully add a little black bird in her tree.

"Maybe you should ask him why that is?"

Regalia did not come back to question her on her own again; and any questions she did have took on a much more threatening tone than previously.

No more fake coddling or talking to Summer like she was a naughty five year old.

Yup. Never underestimate me again, bitch.