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chowyunnafat · 2 years ago

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le grand bleu (part 4) 💙

alt. title: everyday is like friday

•••

When PunPun barged into Jannine’s dorm room and threw something at her, Jannine could only look up in surprise. “What the hell?”

“You are a bad person,” PunPun said. “You made me come here in the middle of the night to make sure you were okay. But then I see that you weren’t even here. Don’t ever say I never tried to help you.”

Jannine stopped messing with the dress-form and gave her friend a look that said, “You’re not serious.”

“I’m being serious!” PunPun said. “Where were you?!”

Jannine stuck a needle in the dress form, and turned around to fully face her friend. “I was at the medical bay.”

“So, you were hurt!”

Jannine sighed. “No. I did not get hurt. Wait. Now my ankle is slightly sprained. I jumped from the balcony.”

“Cring herx (Really)?”

“Chai,” Jannine replied. “But I’m okay.” She turned back around to focus on the dress she was making, but stopped when she remembered something. “Oh yeah! And Milli tried to get her girls to jump me. And she was going to chop my hair off in the process?”

“You’re kidding!”

“I wish.”

PunPun sat down on Jannine’s bed, and grabbed her sketchbook, she looked at the sketch it was turned to. “Did you draw this?” She asked. “You’re going to recreate this?”

Jannine shrugged, still trying to prep the dress. “I’m not sure. I mean, it’s definitely going to be a dress I can’t model.”

“Well, I think it’s pretty,” PunPun said. “And this dress does fit your style.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious,” PunPun said. “Costume Design is more fun than Communication Arts.”

Jannine rolled her eyes and nudged her. “I didn’t know when public speaking became this thing everybody and anyone could do…”

“Khun,” She whined. “When did drawing and sewing become so too?”

Jannine couldn’t say anything in response to that, simply because she didn’t have one. She glared at her friend before focusing on the dress form. PunPun looked through Jannine’s sketchbook.

“You seem to have an affinity for blue,” PunPun commented. “Is it your favorite color?”

Jannine smiled. “Yeah. Something like that.”

“It’s gotta be,” PunPun said. “Your hair is blue.”

“Not by choice.”

PunPun opened her mouth, ready to question Jannine. But stopped short when she saw her friend’s face. It said it all.

“Did you hear about Saint’s party?” PunPun then asked.

“What party?”

“The costume party?”

“Mai?”

“The theme is: fairytale.”

“Fairytale?”

PunPun nodded. “I might not go.”

“Luh?”

“I don’t have a costume,” PunPun said. “My parents already gave me my monthly allowance that I immediately spent. And I don’t get paid from my other job until next week.”

Jannine nudged her friend. “Hey,” She said sitting beside her on the bed. “I’ll make our costumes.”

PunPun sighed. “You don’t have to.”

Jannine rolled her eyes. “I’m a fashion designer. I need to build my resume.”

Her friend bit her lip and looked thoughtful. Jannine smiled knowingly.

“Okay…” Her friend relented after awhile. “Thank you.”

Jannine nodded. She looked down and noticed the item PunPun threw at her. She picked it up. It was a tiny decorated baggy. “Khun.”

“Yeah?”

She opened the baggy. “What is this?”

“Oh,” PunPun said airily. “It’s a cleansing mask. I found it outside your door. It must be a gift.”

“Oh,” Jannine said. “I’ve been needing to change my make up routine.”

She closed the baggy and set it on her nightstand.

She then looked at her friend. “I’ll be busy for the next couple of days,” She told her. “I’ll be making our costumes, after all.”

PunPun bowed her head in thanks.

•••

It was the day of Saint’s fairytale-themed party. Everyone had been talking about it. Some spoke highly of a mixer Saint threw when he was in high school and was anticipating the university follow-up of it.

Jannine had finished her school assignments (barely) on time due to all her focus being on the costumes. Despite her professors giving her unimpressed looks, and BamBam noting that she was rushing when they were cleaning up the mess hall (doing the 1-scrub-there-and-1-scrub-here method), she put all of her focus on color swatches, marked down fabric prices, poking her fingers (“Shit!”) countless times while sticking the needle into the dress form, making coffee that contained almond milk (to keep her from passing out), and making sure her measurements were correct.

Basically, she hadn’t had a life for the whole week and a half.

“So, you’re a fish princess?” PunPun said looking at Jannine’s costume. “Then what the hell am I?”

“I’m a blue goby,” Jannine corrected, handing her friend a nude colored face mask. “And you’re the princess who never smiled, hence the face mask.”

“No one’s going to know who we are.”

Jannine patted both of PunPun’s cheeks. “Who cares? It’s not like we don’t look fairy tale enough.”

PunPun rolled her eyes.

As they exited the dorms, they bumped into the girls in dorm D58.

“Zom?” PunPun said in surprise. “Zom Marie?”

The girl looked surprised. But she recovered quickly, and bowed. “Sawadee. Chuu Som. You can just call me Som.”

“You still go here?” PunPun asked. “I thought you graduated–“

“No,” Som said. “I’m just part of the dorm staff.”

“Oh…”

“I also help out with the clubs.”

PunPun looked at Jannine. “She’s one of the coolest people here,” She said. “She speaks French, and won a scholarship to go overseas.”

Som waved away PunPun’s words. “Hello,” She said to Jannine. “Please ignore PunPun.”

Jannine laughed good heartedly. “You do seem like a really cool person, ka.” Jannine bowed. “I’m Jannine.”

“Jannine?” Som said, before her brows furrowed in sorrow. “You’re the girl that almost got jumped, weren’t you?”

Jannine blushed. She looked down at the ground. Dammit. Word spreads that fast, Huh? She thought.

PunPun sighed, and spoke. “Khun Som, it’s not really her fault.”

The dorm aid nodded. “No. I- I know that–“

The girl who stood beside Som spoke up. “Jannine,” She said. “Just be careful.”

The girl bowed with a nod as she touched her chest with her hands pressed together. “I’m Ploy Sornarin.”

Jannine’s eyes widened. “I- I’ll be careful.”

She bowed. “Khob khun.”

Som smiled and stepped back. She motioned towards their outfits. “Y’all’s outfits are fire!”

Ploy nodded in agreement. “Where’d you get them?”

Jannine blushed. PunPun nudged her in the side and readily replied with, “Jannine made them!”

Som clapped her hands. “Goals,” she said. “I’m just a girl version of Merlin.”

“I’m Tinkerbell from Peter Pan,” Ploy said.

“You both look spot-on,” Jannine said. “Where’d you find the costumes?”

“I DIY’d it from Pinterest,” Som replied with a shrug.

“Drama department,” Ploy said embarrassedly. “It’s from like two years ago.”

Jannine gave them both a thumbs up. “They’re fire.”

All 4 girls then proceeded to walk to where the party was taking place. The party was in the de-facto event hall, apparently Saint’s parents had connections; that’s why the headmaster was going easy on him. Yet, afterwards, an after-party would be taking place in the boy’s dorm. But the headmaster didn’t know that…

•••

As all 4 girls walked into the establishment all of those who’d already arrived stopped what they were doing, and gawked at them.

Jannine blushed.

That was when Saint approached them. He donned an Arabian Prince costume; as though he were trying to channel the protagonist of Aladdin.

“Y’all look cool,” he said with a smirk. “There’s actually a contest for best costume. And you all are good contenders.”

All the girls bowed in thanks but PunPun. Her eyes were staring daggers at Saint who simply stared back with his same smirk.

Jannine looked between the MC and her friend. Was she missing something?

“Thanks for the invite,” PunPun said to the economics major. “But I’m not sure this fixes everything.”

Saint nodded wordlessly with a straight face. “Krup.”

He then looked at Jannine and the rest of the entourage and gave a smile. “Enjoy the party. Thanks for coming.”

Jannine looked at PunPun. “Are you okay?”

Her friend nodded. “Yeah.”

“Then let’s party!” Ploy jumped in with, grabbing PunPun’s hand.

All 4 girls ran to the dance floor.

•••

Pooped, Jannine picked up a fruity drink from the bar and Minhyuk was the “bartender” once more and donning cat ears. She smiled at him.

“Hey,” She said. “You’re serving drinks again?”

He nodded with a smile. “Yeah.”

She smiled even wider. “What’s your major?”

“Music,” He replied. “But I might switch it to Business.”

Jannine nodded. “I see.”

He then asked, “What’s yours?”

“Fashion design. Concentration: costume design.”

He nodded. “Cool.”

She was about to ask him where he was from (she guessed South Korea) but she was interrupted when the music suddenly stopped playing. She then noticed 6 guys walk in and she recognized three out of the group of 6.

“BamBam?” She said to herself.

Minhyuk chimed in, “Ah, the cool 6”

“The Cool 6?” Jannine echoed. “Did I miss something, or….?”

Minhyuk laughed. “They’re like the king pranksters of the campus.”

Jannine raised an eyebrow as she got a better look of what BamBam’s costume was. Predictably, he was a prince.

But his prince look was a lot more fashionable and unique compared to the other “princes” on the dance floor. His colors were muted but electric tones: a gradient blue dress-top with 8 iridescent clasps adorning the front horizontally, black chino pants with a iridescent stripe running down the side of each leg, and finishing it off with a pair of custom made black Martin Valen low top sneakers. The crown he wore was a purple iridescent metal with little crystals shining off of them. He finished off the look with a pair of black Ray ban aviator sunglasses.

The rest of his friends were as follows: King Arthur, Robin Hood, a frog, The Gingerbread Man, and a duck. And admittedly, they didn’t look too bad either.

BamBam smiled and shouted out to everyone, “We’re gonna party like it’s 1999!” His 6 friends hooted and hollered behind him.

Everyone cheered and the music started up again. She then saw Saint greet them with bows and handshakes.

Jannine took her drink sitting on the island and took a big sip. She looked back out at the dance floor and she could no longer spot her friends. I wonder where they went off to, she thought.

She walked away from the bar and got back on the dance floor. Despite not being as talented as a certain someone when it came to moves on the dance floor she was pretty decent; she could attempt moves further than a normal fist pump.

“Jannine!” An individual donning a blue dress and white sleeves yelled as she ran over to the blue goby. “I finally found you!”

Jannine’s eyes widened in surprise as she finally picked up on who the person was before her. “Lisa?”

Her friend nodded happily. “I’m the heroine from Fairy Tail. Minerva Orlando.”

Lisa’s hair was as usual, but she had a small knot on each side of her head. Her dress was long, and the top of it tubed. Rather it being sleazy or voluptuous, it fit Lisa’s small frame nicely. It was more classy and cute on her than anything. Instead of ornate stilettos, Lisa had settled for ballet flats.

Jannine smiled. “I’m jealous!”

Lisa blushed. “Thank you!”

“Let’s dance!”

But before either girl could start busting a move, a guy stepped up to them. He was handsome in a way that almost reminded her of a certain prince.

“Hey ladies,” He said. “You both look awesome.”

Lisa and Jannine exchanged smiles before saying their thanks.

“You’re–“

“The Pied Piper,” He replied.

“Is that a real flute?” Lisa asked.

He held it up and looked at it. “Hell yeah, it is.”

Jannine laughed and Lisa looked impressed.

The Pied Piper met Jannine’s eye, and Jannine put her head down to hide her blush. Lisa must’ve seen the exchange because she immediately made herself scarce. “I see another friend,” She said. “I’ll be over by refreshments.”

Lisa gone, it was just her and Pied Piper.

“What’s your major?” He asked. “Mine’s Fire Science.”

“Fire Science?” Jannine said in wonder. “Mine’s fashion design, but it’s really costume design.”

He smiled. “Hence your amazing costume.”

She laughed nervously.

“Where are you from?“ He then asked. “I know that everyone who goes here isn’t always a local.”

“I’ve lived in all parts of Thailand since I was 10,” Jannine replied. “I was in Chiang Mai for the summer.”

“That’s cool,” He said. “I was in Hong Kong.”

“Hong Kong, ka?” Jannine said in surprise. “That’s cool.”

He laughed. “I’m glad you think so.”

She laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” She said. “I’m just kinda tipsy.”

He shrugged. “Who says I’m not tipsy right now either?”

She smiled at him and he smiled back.

“Hey, would you like to—“ Pied Piper was cut off when he was bumped into from behind. He ended up toppling to the ground along with Jannine.

Her face turned warm at the close proximity. Pied Piper was hot. His eyes were big, and his smile was infectious. His lips were inviting too–

“Blue hair!” A familiar voice said. “If y’all want to do the devil’s tango, do it somewhere else, krup!”

Laughter followed, from both the speaker and a bit of the crowd. Jannine scrambled off of the guy she’d been admiring and looked up. It was none other than the Campus Prince. He looked smug, staring down at her like she was the piece of gum stuck on the bottom of his shoe.

She blinked back tears.

“You’re such a dick,” Pied Piper said to BamBam.

The crowd grew silent.

BamBam hardly look fazed. Or seemingly so.

A smirk still adorned his lips.

With a shrug he said, “Oh, really?”

Pied Piper didn’t bat an eye. “Everyone knows you fucking had to grovel to attend Hnung.”

Everyone witnessing the scene didn’t say anything. Some looked confused while others just ducked their heads down in second-hand embarrassment.

A couple members in BamBam’s entourage stepped forward as though they were gonna…do something. But, BamBam put his hand up, as though he were stopping them.

Even though everyone in the room missed it, Jannine could’ve sworn she’d seen the flicker of hurt and anger in BamBam’s eyes. It was a minuscule flicker, barely there. But she saw it.

Maybe her eyes were just playing tricks on her.

Nonetheless, she stepped in front of Pied Piper and said to the prince, “BamBam, I don’t want to do this.”

She said it firmly, but it wasn’t as aggressive as Pied Piper’s tone.

Jannine put her hand on her hip to not make it so obvious that both of her hands were shaking out of nervousness.

Even though the music was still playing, blasting out of the speakers loudly, and the ambience of the party strengthening as more people started to ease into mingling, BamBam and her were making a scene.

The campus prince donned a smile, but he took a step back. “Whatever, Ploychompoo. Desperate is what desperate does.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but she saw each of his friends give her a facial expression as though they were disappointed in her. Like she was the one at fault. But Jinyoung gave her a small smile.

She felt a hand on her shoulder.

Jannine nearly jumped out of her skin, but when she turned around, she saw it was Pied Piper again.

She smiled brightly. “Uhm, I’m sorry for his behavior,” She said to him. “I don’t know why he acts like that.”

Pied Piper laughed. “You don’t need to apologize.”

She nodded. “Ka.”

Pied Piper nudged her playfully. “You wanna go to the snack bar?”

“Sure.”

Jannine was on her fifth cookie when she heard Saint’s voice boom through the mic.

Pied Piper had to cut his story short. He’d been in the midst of telling her a story about when he was in China. He’d been made to participate in a survival game at a summer camp his parents had shipped him off to. The summer camp was located in China, near the Hong Kong border.

“Winners for best costume are Jannine Weigel! And…BamBam!” Clapping followed.

She looked at Pied Piper, who smiled at her. “Congratulations,” He said.

Jannine then turned her head to gawk at Saint in disbelief. “Are you…sure?” She and Pied Piper had actually been near the stage when the announcement was made.

Saint gave her his signature smirk that was as unsettling as smug. He nodded. “Chai. You and–“

“BamBam,” She finished. “We tied?”

Despite being confident of her design, she couldn’t say her costume character stood out in anyway. Ironically, if it weren’t for her blue hair she would’ve went as someone else.

“Someone told me you actually sewed your dress,” Saint said. “And your hair is fire. No joke.”

Jannine smiled. “Thank you, ka.”

Saint smiled back. “So, come up to the stage.”

Her eyes widened in alarm. “Saint, you can’t make me go up there.”

She then looked up at the platform where BamBam stood. He looked just as unimpressed to be up there.

She glared at him. He glared back.

Saint then grabbed her hand. “C’mon. You get a prize.”

“A prize?”

“Chai, krup,” He replied. “Just participate a bit, and you got it.”

Jannine hesitated. But finally relented with a nod.

When she walked onto the stage and got in position next to BamBam she heard him mutter, “I don’t want to do this either, weirdo.”

“Clown,” She shot back.

Looking out into the crowd, Jannine saw the squad she came with. PunPun held her drink up as though to say “You look great!”, Som gave her a heart, and Ploy gave her two big thumbs up.

“Sawatdee!” Saint said to the crowd. “You have the winners of the costume contest. Jannine and BamBam!”

Everyone roared with excitement and genuine admiration.

“Don’t their outfits look fire, krup?” Saint said. “They even match. Like a couple!” The crowd roared again. Whistles and affirmations were heard as well.

Jannine looked at BamBam who gave her a confused look.

She sighed. C’mon Saint, she thought annoyedly. Keep it short and sweet.

“What about a slow dance?” Saint said. “I know we have a lot of couples in the room tonight, and…I’m unconventional like that. So, grab a partner of any sex, and slow dance.”

When the MC turned around, Jannine shook her head. “Saint!” She said in a harsh whisper. “You said I’d only be up here to receive a prize and nothing else.”

Saint wiggled his eyebrows mischievously. “Jannine, relax.”

Before she could slap him, her hand was grabbed and she was being dragged to the center of the floor. “BamBam!” She whisper-yelled. “Let me go!”

Once they stopped, BamBam turned around and put his hands around her waist. “Okay, mai?”

She jumped almost at his touch. “What the hell?“ She said. “We don’t have to do this.”

“You still want your prize, luh?” He said.

She kept her mouth shut and wrapped her arms around his neck. She couldn’t look at him because she could feel his breath, and the proximity was awkward.

But when she stopped paying attention to that she found that the song playing was nice. And despite the bullshit that always followed her, her past self would’ve never bet on winning a costume contest and ending up slow dancing with a decent looking (jerkface). Maybe Past Self would have been happy.

Jannine let out a small snort thinking about her past dorky self.

“What’s so funny, krup?” BamBam asked with an eye roll. “You’ve almost stepped on my foot, y’know?”

“Mai?” She said with a raised eyebrow. “I did not almost step on your foot.”

“Yeah, krup.”

“Mai chai, ka.”

“You almost did, twice.”

She didn’t bother to respond anymore. She decided to simply imagine that it was Kunpimook who she was dancing with.

“ยังอยู่ (Still)” by Mirr continued to surround the room as every pair in the room slow danced.

•••

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dragonnarrative-writes · 30 days ago

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Data Breach

Read on AO3

Word count: 12.8k

Alternatively titled "Lockdown."

CW: Public partial-nudity, references to sex work, Kidnapping, implied trafficking, threats of violence, anxiety/panic, body horror, brief mentions of medical trauma, character being hunted, brief mention of cannibalism, guns, knives

Notes: Naya "Bambi" Walker and Veronica "Bricks" Mason are my characters. Morgan "Sparrow" Voss belongs to @sentientcave.

I'm very excited because this is my first "complete" fic. And I wrote it within my first year of posting fanfiction! Thanks to everyone who has been here with me through it all!

The genetic and cybernetic enhancements that the public took for granted were a drop in the bucket. No one protested the same-day medical procedures for aesthetics and practicality and security. What harm is a microchip to automate one’s home, modified musculature that needed less exercise to maintain? Who was ever going to protest genetically coded locking mechanisms?

Soldier modifications are a violation of human rights. The deployment of those soldiers isn’t, unless they use their enhanced abilities to commit a war crime. But the process of modification, experimental and unregulated, driven by greed, desperation, a cold war that bled and screamed…

In the early days of accelerated genetics, on the heels of the prosthetic revolution, things had been hellish. Rejected limb grafts. Explosively contagious viral infections previously rare in humans. Incompatible bones and organs and structures drowning experimental groups in their own fluids. Hunting and prey drives that only became apparent on the battlefield.

The deployment of modified soldiers isn’t a violation of human rights. But if even a single civilian is caught in the crossfire, it’s a war crime.

What the governments of the world did to the men and women who served them - and the populations they were supposed to serve - was a flood of destruction that led to international court-martial and proposed executions.

Only proposed though.

Naya, green around the gills from her latest information dive, wonders if maybe those proposals had more merit than she’d initially thought.

The files she found about the modified joint task forces, the Ghost Team JTFs, are more horrifying than anything she’s ever seen. Bone and dental removal, replacement, and additions. Brain implants, deeper and more invasive than most civilian interface units, which go just under the skin. Increased metabolism, shortening of the digestive tract, automatic injectors with stim packs that keep soldiers awake and lucid through unimaginable horrors.

Her hands shake, spilling tea leaves on the counter as she disconnects from her VPN network. She’d stumbled upon the initial files surrounding what had been Task Force 141 days ago, had quickly skimmed and duplicated their contents to read and review on her own time. Those had been bad enough. Reading about a Scottish soldier, shot in the head and brought back only to have his body altered. Another sergeant suspended in a tank as his genetically altered body attempted and failed to process all of the poisons they wanted him resistant to. A lieutenant who’s frontal lobe was hacked through to make room for a larger processor. The Captain captured and tortured and changed for investigating what was happening to his unit…

And that was before the videos.

Finding more information on Ghost Teams is virtually impossible. Official reports, even the ones she breaks into, list the 141 as defunct. Her fellow archivists don’t have any other information, and aren’t willing to help her dive again.

>>>Flower: even if the GTs are still alive >>>Flower: it’s too dangerous >>>Flower: too many powers want them to stay buried >>>Flower: we’ll lose everything if we go digging >>>Bambi: you don’t have any contacts i could ask? >>>Flower: i‘m sorry bambi

There’s more security, when she returns to the original server, too much for her to feel comfortable to try to force her way in. Her bots identify a couple of devices on the network that might be exploitable - a printer, two coffee machines - but she leaves them alone, for now.

Instead, she trawls conspiracy theory forums for any mention of experimental modifications, missing soldiers, and questionable medical equipment shipments. Experience means her bots filter through everything, which saves her more than a few headaches, but also means that she waits hours before a possible hit. And that hit is a dead end.

The hours turn to days before she’s able to find an abandoned, locked forum with deleted answers to heavily coded questions. The last post is seven years old, ostensibly informing community members of upcoming changes to the forum. The veil over the warning of government surveillance is thinner than tissue paper.

It’s the closest thing she has to a lead, so she makes a new post and sets her bots to monitor it.

>>18|\/|48(Guest): GTJTFs producing new 141 units? Leaked production reports, new specs?

She doesn’t expect a response, but maybe an auto-responder will give her a clue of where to look next. So it’s jarring when she gets an encrypted email with a reply from “[email protected],” an hour later.

new units? have info on old units if you need references. let me know.

—

The middle city isn’t the safest, for all that the well-to-dos topside like to pretend that the truly unsavory elements aren’t that close to their picturesque lawns. Naya’s lived here her whole life, though she’s worked above a time or two. Even so, she’s never ventured this close to the freight shafts down to the docks.

The bar she steps into is loud and smells like liquor and motor fluid. It’s dim, and smoky, and she feels eyes on her as she makes her way to the bar. Her interface lights up with pings and an attempted ID and bank chip skim. All they get for their trouble is her least informative ID tag - Bambi.

The bartender, a large bodied person with the simple tag of Engine, operates behind the bar with four cybernetic arms. There’s no digital queue for her to log in to, or even a service request button on the seemingly organic wood bar. So she stands, hands folded on top of the bar for them to finish pouring drinks and notice her standing there.

Just as the barkeep’s attention slides her way, a warm body presses up behind hers. She stiffens as a the person jostles her to lean heavily on the bar. “Eng! Another for me. And whatever my cute new friend wants.”

A refusal is on the tip of her tongue, but when she looks up into slitted yellow eyes haloed by curled black and purple freeform locs, she gets an encrypted message.

>>>Bricks: Hello Bambi. >>>Bricks: Order a drink and come with me.

—

"They shouldn't be locked up. They're people, not mindless killing machines."

Across the table, under the dim lights, the woman called Bricks cocks her head. She’s a true cyborg, someone who’s modifications are probably keeping them alive. The cybernetics of her left arm extending well into her ribcage. She doesn’t hide it. Under dark overclothes, a slouching shirt exposes the metal of her collarbones, the servos that whir as she breathes. She swirls her glass of Jack and Coke with an amused look on her face as a barely muffled moan pierces through loud music.

Naya takes a deep breath to keep from fidgeting. It took three months to arrange even this meeting with the elusive American arms dealer, in the back of this dingy bar on a busy Friday. She wasn't about to lose the lead just because she could hear lewd comments and barely muffled squeals of pleasure from the nearby hall to the washrooms. The more concerning noise was coming from behind her, anyhow, the thump of knives into a dart board, distressed beeping from the unlucky mini-droid bound to the target.

"You want me to set up a meeting with the Watcher," Bricks drawls, sitting back in her chair. Her pointed cybernetic nails drum against the table. She doesn’t bother to whisper, but both of them have been disrupting any listening devices in range. "So you can make sure that Price's monsters are being treated humanely?"

"They're not monsters," Naya hisses.

"You've never seen them." It's not a question.

"I don't need to see them to know they shouldn't be kept locked in cages."

Bricks freezes with her glass halfway to her lips. Her eyes narrow. “Cages?”

“That’s what I saw.” Gritting her teeth, Naya hisses. “Look. You know what it means to be augmented, what extensive modifications are like. But without anesthesia? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even my worst enemy.”

“You’d be surprised what I would wish on my worst enemy, sweetheart.” Bricks chuckles and throws back the last dregs of her drink. "But you know what? Fine."

"Fine?"

"Fine. You want in so bad? I'll set up a meeting with the Watcher, and Price."

Well. That was easier than expected. "What'll it cost me?"

"Oh, your whole life, probably. Your whole world view, certainly," Bricks chuckles. She gives Naya an obvious once over, gaze lingering on her breasts. "But you don't owe me any more than a quick flash of your tits."

That does make Naya’s confidence falter. "W-what?"

"You heard me. C'mon, give me a little peek, and I'll send a message right now. You can have Price's monsters off their leashes by the end of the week." Bricks grins, slit pupils pulsing wide with interest. "We don't even have to go anywhere, just pull down your shirt a little bit."

"I'm not..." Naya looks around, furtively. "This isn't exactly priv-" She flinches as she's interrupted by a loud moan, followed by a cheer from the rest of the bar.

"You're asking me to let your hands get real dirty, sweetheart." Bricks stands and circles the table to crowd Naya against the wall. She dips down to breathe into her ear. "And unless you want word to spread of a cute, clean cut, little topsider digging into illegal soldier mods, you're gonna pull your tits out and take the money I give you, after, Bambi."

There’s something behind the predatory look in the taller woman’s eyes. A challenge. She’s called Naya’s bluff, hasn’t she? When she refuses, Bricks will send her off with a laugh and a pat on her ass. And she’ll be back at square one, unable to face the danger of diving deeper again.

But Naya’s never been accused of knowing when to back down.

It’s the work of a moment to have the various video feeds in the room start a ten second loop. Her bots use movement patterns to make the video seem natural to anyone not looking closely. Bricks makes an interested noise when the video feed from her cybernetic eye continues showing Naya’s darting eyes and regular breaths. Her organic eye takes in the way Naya’s hands come up to unclasp the front of her shirt.

She takes a deep breath before hooking her fingers into the neck of her undershirt. She looks down as she inches it down to reveal the scalloped edge of her bra, instead of looking to see if Bricks is aroused or amused or some other, worse thing.

Before she can truly expose herself, a warm hand touches her wrist. “So eager. Not even gonna give me a little tease?”

>>>Bricks: Nice trick with the cameras, but you’re going to call attention.

Naya tips her chin up and immediately regrets it when Bricks leans down to meet her. Her breath shivers between their lips. When a metal arm comes up to block her view of the rest of the room, she turns her face away.

>>>Bambi: It’d be more suspicious if I let everyone have a clip for distribution.

“Smart girl,” Bricks whispers against her temple. “Take the credits.”

The fund transfer Bricks initiates has a public comment attached. ‘Classy. Could almost be the real thing.’ Naya glares up at Brick’s smirking face as she accepts the transaction. Two hundred. It feels like too little and too much money at the same time. Almost immediately, she gets inquiry pings from six other patrons the bar.

“And that’s your alibi,” Bricks chuckles, stepping back so quickly that she barely has time to put herself to rights. “Let’s go, sweetheart.”

—

Naya tries not to fidget in the freight elevator, down, down, down, into The Throat. Bricks's arm is a possessive weight on her shoulder. On the other side of the lift, a startlingly tall man stares at them through the holes in a cloth sack. When she meets his eyes, something writhes where his mouth should be.

"Eyes to yourself," Bricks growls when he takes a half step in their direction. Her cybernetic arm crackles warningly.

The man visibly considers his options before making a guttural sound. A thick appendage, tongue or tentacle, Naya can’t really tell, pokes out from under the hood. He mutters something she doesn’t understand in under-tongue. Bricks hisses something back, pushing Naya behind her as she takes a threatening step forward. The man flinches, then crowds himself into his corner. He doesn’t even look in their direction for the rest of the descent.

When the doors open, Bricks holds her back until the man leaves, then steers her out into the street. Naya's been under-city before, but not in this bloc. The air is just as stale and hazy as she remembers, but this shaft doesn't see as much vertical commuter traffic as some of the others, so the street is dark instead of lit with neon. The faintest bit of light filters down from straight above.

Groping for something to say, she asks, "Did you know that guy?"

Bricks snorts, keeping an arm around her's waist as she steers her along. "Yeah."

“What did he want?”

She gets an uninterested shrug. “The same thing any bottom dwelling opportunist wants.”

It’s not hard to imagine what she means. When she doesn't say anything else, Naya searches for another topic. She swallows her pride and forces herself to say, "Thank you for setting up this meeting."

"Don't thank me yet, sweetheart. You're gonna hate me soon enough."

"I know it's dangerous for you," she insists as Bricks draws her down a side street. Dangerous is an understatement, if the Ghost Teams are so far gone that they’re experimenting on human beings. "Even if things are hard, moving forward, I appreciate your help."

Bricks doesn't answer. Instead, she knocks on a barred door. It opens a crack, and she and the other person hiss low words at each other. A shining green eye looks Naya up and down, the door shuts, and Bricks draws her away.

They stride, briskly, back to the main street. Bricks asks, "Do you have a respirator?"

"Yes."

"Put it on, don't speak."

Wordlessly, Naya unfolds the mask from her pocket and covers her mouth and nose. Bricks pulls a dark scarf from her shoulders and wraps it around Naya’s head and neck, and then drops a poncho over her head. Somehow, the mercinary looks bigger in just her thin shirt, the muscles and metal in her shoulders more pronounced.

Ten minutes into their silent walk, a man melts from the shadows and starts walking on Naya's other side. Though she can’t see much under his baggy clothes, his gait speaks to digitigrade modifications. When she glances up, he has a faceplate under his own hood. His voice, when he speaks, is robotic. "Bricks."

"Roach."

“You’re looking smug and determined.”

“I’m on a very… interesting job.” An encrypted message gets passed between the two of them, and Naya frowns behind her mask. She shouldn’t be able to tell that a message was sent, though, so she bites her tongue. Bricks smirks down at her, then turns her eyes forward. “What’s on your mind?”

"Shadows are hunting you. Seven thousand credits."

"That's insulting," Bricks dismisses. "Mace take the job?"

"That's insulting," Roach parrots back. Somehow, his metered and inflectionless voice sounds amused. A flurry of encrypted messages flows between them. Once those have finished, he says, "Come see us when your business with the Watcher is done." And then he fades away into the shadows again.

"Good job," Bricks whispers. "Stay silent. Keep taking deep breaths. Walk straight ahead. Don't run." And then she ducks down a side street, leaving Naya alone in the dark.

Fuck.

She keeps putting one foot in front of the other. Measured. Brisk, but unhurried. A couple of people pass on the other side of the street, then a man passes on her side. Under her poncho, she palms her pocket knife, but no one spares her a second glance.

After a full minute, Bricks slides out of the next alley and falls into step with her, a cigarette that smells like real tobacco between her lips. In her cybernetic hand, she has a twitching, bleeding length of what looks like an octopus tentacle the size of Naya’s forearm.

"You can talk now,” she says. “But you don't want to ask about this."

—

The respirator makes a lot more sense when Naya is led to a shaft to the Belly.

She’s never been to the middle level of the true undercity. Technically, no one should live in this industrial level, so there’s very little in the way of individual commerce and amenities. There is an abundance of dead “topsider tourists” every year, mangled and hacked to drain all of their resources before anyone can realize that they haven’t come home.

This lift is much smaller, just big enough for her to stand behind Bricks as the woman primes her arm. The edge of a plasma knife glows blue from within the mechanics of her bicep. When Naya activates the plasma in her own knife, Bricks looks over her shoulder at the near silent hum.

“You ever use that before?”

“Once.”

That earns an interested noise as the other woman faces forward again. “On a person?”

“…No.”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything,” is all she says about that as the elevator shudders to a stop. “Stay behind my right arm. If I tell you to drop, you fall to the ground and don’t move until I tell you.”

When the door opens, it’s into a pitch black alley. The only light is the obscured gleam from with Brick’s left shoulder. Something in the darkness hisses. Bricks strides forward, and Naya has no choice but to follow after.

They walk for a few minutes without incident before Bricks knocks on a nondescript door. Next to it, a biometric scanner creaks open and scans one of her eyes, then one of her metal fingers. Naya flinches at the noise of a series of locks grinding open.

A stern faced blonde woman is on the other side of the door when Bricks gestures Naya inside. She’s not wearing a respirator, but then, neither is Bricks. The woman doesn’t say anything, so Naya doesn’t either. She just waits for Bricks to finish securing the door, then returns to her spot just behind her.

“Watcher,” Bricks greets with clear good humor. “I brought you a little something.”

Naya huffs a surprised breath from her nose, but stays silent. The Watcher. The overseer of at least one of five active Modified Task Forces. She looks so… normal. A woman in her mid forties, maybe, face lined with stress but open. Naya feels a little thrown off. When the lights flicker, however, she catches the red shine of a cybernetic eye. Whatever mods she has, they’re hidden so well that Naya can’t even sense them.

The Watcher’s eyes scan her for a moment before she’s looking back to Bricks. Naya only has a moment to wonder why she hasn’t been pinged before she asks, “Alive?”

“You always pay more when they’re alive.”

What? Naya stumbles backwards until she hits the door. “What?”

Bricks throws a grin over her shoulder. “I told you not to thank me.” Turning back to the Watcher, she says, “Thirty thousand credits. Had a run in with the King on the way here.”

“No one told you to bring her alive. Fifteen, and we void the Shadows bounty on you.”

“Twenty five. You want her alive, trust me. And I can handle the Shadows on my own.”

Naya gapes at the two of them. A quick glance over her shoulder and query to the door confirms that the locks won’t open again without a lot more force than she could manage, even if she wouldn’t have to fight Bricks to get out. And the Watcher… isn’t motivated to let her live. Fuck. The little knife in her hands feels less than useless.

“She wanted to meet you,” Bricks continues, crossing her arms. “And Price.”

That makes the Watcher pause and look over Naya again. “Oh?”

“She used his name,” Bricks confirms. “Real skilled code-breaker.”

“Hm.” The Watcher frowns, then says. “Thirty thousand is a low ball offer, then.”

“She thinks you’re keeping the task force in cages,” Bricks chuckles. “I want to watch when she sees them for the first time.”

That gets a huff of amusement. “Thirty thousand and a show… Deal. Bring her.”

When the Watcher turns away, Bricks looks back at Naya with a surprisingly gentle smile. “Good job. Now comes the hard part. Let’s go.”

“What’s going to happen to me?” she doesn’t want to walk forward, but there’s not much else to do. She tries to stand away from Bricks, but it’s hard in the narrow hallway.

“Nothing, now,” Bricks laughs. “Got you through the door alive, and Watcher can always use a code breaker.”

It’s hard not to feel stupid. Naya struggles to keep her voice even. “So this was just… a bounty for you?”

“Better me than König.” Bricks wiggles the tentacle that she’s still holding in metal fingers. “And better now than when an actual bounty was on your head. Diving into secure government information brings out the worst kind of trouble. The Shadows would have killed you in your bed. Kortac would have chipped you, if they decided keeping you was worth it. This way, everyone gets what they want.”

“Except me,” Naya points out.

“You’re still alive, for now,” the Watcher points out from a few steps ahead, without looking back. “Considering the problems you’ve caused me, it’s tempting to kill you myself. But Bricks is right. I can always use a Breaker.”

“I don’t do that professionally,” Naya protests weakly.

The Watcher doesn’t break stride. “You do, now.”

They get into another elevator, big enough for eight people. There aren’t any floor indicators, but as soon as the doors close, it starts to descend. Wrapping her arms around herself, Naya shivers. At this rate, she realizes, she may never see the sky again. She’ll be locked in a cage next to the 141, underground, let out to circumvent code for… what? To support more killing? More human experimentation? If she doesn’t cooperate, will they experiment on her? Put a processor in her brain to erase everything about her except for her skill?

Tears gather in the corners of her eyes, and she can’t help a sniffle.

“None of that,” comes the surprisingly gentle voice of the Watcher. When she approaches, she puts a gentle hand on Naya’s shoulder. “You’re here now. There’s no going back. But we take care of our own.”

Bricks snorts. “For given values of taking care of. You are keeping the boys in cages after all.”

“That’s not helpful,” the Watcher says, producing a tissue from her pocket and dabbing at Naya’s eyes. She pushes the makeshift hood back and gently removes her respirator, scanning her face with hard blue eyes. Eventually, she asks, “Why did you come here, Bambi?”

Shoulders coming up around her ears, Naya gets the feeling that because I’m an idiot isn’t the answer she’s looking for. She looks down at her sensible shoes, bracketed by the Watcher’s own worn work boots, and confesses, “Bricks said I could meet with you, and Price. And… I thought I could… encourage you to treat the modified soldiers more like people than animals.”

“And I suppose this encouragement was going to come with a threat to leak records to the public?” The Watcher’s mouth twitches into a sardonic smile when Naya looks up at her again. “Bold.”

Bricks chuckles. “Naive.”

“Hopeful. And some of the best plans are the simplest,” the Watcher dismisses.

Naya wouldn’t call her plan to connect to the building’s intranet and threatening to disrupt all of the life support systems “naive.” Now that she’s locked in, it feels like a distinctly hopeless course of action. She’ll have to think of something else, fast.

The Watcher steps away as the elevator comes to a stop. The doors open into a large control room, huge observation windows giving a 360 degree view out into dimly lit halls. Bricks ushers Naya out, heavy hands on her shoulders, until she pushes her into a chair facing a window to the left side of the room.

“Did we miss feeding time?” Bricks grins and pulls a puzzle ball from her bag. Her cybernetic hand twitches and whirs as it clicks through combinations.

“Luckily for Bambi, yes.��

Before Naya can ask what feeding time entails, something drops from the ceiling on the other side of the glass, startling a yelp from her. It’s a man, tall and lean, slitted eyes shining a red orange as he stares at her face through the glass. He’s half dressed, only in loose pants. Thick, dark streaks of something wet cover his chest and splatter down his legs. The grin that splits his pretty face puts three pairs of sharp canines on display, stained red.

The Watcher pushes a button, an intercom. “Gaz.”

“Who’s this cute little thing, Laswell?” Naya shivers as Kyle “Gaz” Garrick looks her up and down. He looks just like his personnel file, except for a wildness around his eyes that changes his face from welcoming to something dangerous. “Could practically smell her from the street.”

“Back away from the glass, you’re filthy. What the hell did you roll in?”

The man ignores the Watcher, face going soft as he leans down to get on a level with Naya. “Hello, honey. Such a pretty girl, what are you doing down here? You a friend of Bricks?”

Something about his crooning voice makes Naya’s hair stand on end. At the same time, she finds that she can’t look away from the man’s eyes as he tilts his head. They’re such an interesting color, and he keeps shifting ever so slightly in ways that draw her eyes to follow. He jerks quickly to one side when her eyes dip down to the red and brown splashed down his chest, then smiles when she looks back at his face. His teeth - even the extra ones - are perfect and red. Naya’s heart beats a little faster.

A loud pop and sudden flash makes Naya jump as Gaz reels back with a snarl.

“I told you not to touch the glass,” the Watcher grumbles. “Clean up. Make yourself presentable. And remind the others to put their masks on.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” he hisses. With one last, sweet smile to Naya, he turns and strides away before leaping up to grab an exposed beam and hoist himself into the shadows above the observation room. He disappears in the space of a moment. No matter how Naya squints, she can’t tell where he’s gone.

“Don’t look any of them in the eye,” Bricks whispers from close behind, chuckling at the way Naya jumps. “They’re predators, sweetheart, and you’re the sweetest bite of prey they’ve had in a long while.”

“Bricks,” the Watcher (Laswell?) chides. “Get her keyed in. Bambi, you’re not to be alone in here. We’ll get you interfaced with security so you know how to do a lockdown sequence before you’re introduced to the Task Force.”

When she’s handed an interface chip, Naya blanches. “I can’t, I don’t have a hard disk reader. Why do I need to know the facility’s lockdown sequences?”

“There’s no where in this facility that they can’t get,” Bricks replies, distracted as she opens a floor panel to extract a series of wires, and what looks like a very robust integration cable. “And if you’re going to work here, you’re going to need to be able to keep them from dragging you off and eating you.”

“Bricks.” Laswell snaps. To Naya she explains, “Everyone who works here needs to know how to lock down in case of emergency.”

Naya gapes. “Emergencies? They can - They’re not -! They have full access to the facility?”

“Of course. They can get out of the facility, too,” Bricks snickers. “Who’s going to stop them?”

“Bricks!”

“All of the records say that they’re severely restricted.” The tight squeak in Naya’s voice is undeniable. “What do you mean they could eat me?”

“Old records,” Laswell answers without looking. A terminal lights up under her fingertips. “The only way the SAS would let us keep the facilities without bomb chips. Let me know when you’re ready for input.”

“The part about eating me?” Naya flinches as Bricks circles behind and pushes her hair up to expose the port beneath her left ear.

“If you’re as good as I think you are, you don’t have to worry about that,” Bricks says, shoving the cable into place. “Go.”

“What-”

Laswell launches the integration before she can get the question out. Naya’s whole body jolts, brain flooded with sudden input. She doesn’t dive into the data so much as she’s dragged under the tidal wave of the facility.

The whole structure unfolds around her, five floors, twelve stories down, three shafts up, two elevators, one stair. She’s in the observation tower, which descends three more floors. Heat, cooling, air filtration, power, food storage, office of Watcher One Kate Laswell, office of Bravo One John Price, research labs east and south, conference rooms, break rooms, sleeping quarters, inventory, directory of personnel.

Access Denied.

It’s nothing to shuffle the alert away. Asset Records. Veronica “Bricks” Mason, Gary “Roach” Sanderson, Mason “Mace” Ward, [Redacted] Nikto, Morgan “Sparrow” Voss. The list goes on. Task Force 141. Kyle “Gaz” Garrick, John “Soap” MacTavish, John “Bravo One” Price, Simon “Ghost” Riley. Vital statistics steady, duplicate identification signals, three dead copies, one living set. Security, kill switch overrides. These doors won’t close, but they’ll tell the observation tower that they have. Interesting.

Diving a layer deeper, she observes three separate security records. One is distressingly familiar, the records she’d found before, that spurred her to find Bricks, full of echoes of old code, now that she can see it. Then the one with logs going to Watcher One Kate Laswell, current and accurate. Except that the third log indicates security discrepancies and pings to KGKLJMJPSR. She logs the discrepancy on her own, internal system, a reminder to see if she can piggyback on someone else’s clearance.

Now that she’s thinking about it, she scans for what her clearance is supposed to have access to. It’s the second level, the one that doesn’t actually close the security doors surrounding the servers, sleeping quarters, and the observation tower. Well, that won’t do. She makes a digital copy of KL’s access and patches it into her own.

Just as she finishes, four ID tags simply labeled “Ghost” enter the lowest observation tower floor. That’s a glaring red security alert, and it only doubles in urgency as he accesses the hatch to the system port cable.

“Oh, that’s bad,” she hears herself say aloud as she gropes, blindly for the cable in her neck. “Ghost is accessing, I need to disconnect before he-“

Three more security alerts come up as the ID tags for Bravo One, Gaz, and Soap appear around the top floor of the observation tower, their floor. Naya quickly circumvents the overrides on the blast doors, and half observes rolling shutters covering the windows as Laswell makes a startled noise. Unfortunately, Ghost finds her while she’s distracted.

And he is a ghost, sliding between the layers of Naya’s own security code like a cold breeze. He rifles through her ID cards before she can even try to lock down. When she tries to lock him out of her interface, he slams through so fast it sends her reeling. Unfortunately for him, and for her, he trips over her Brain Blast in the process. The packet of musical theater data explodes to override everything she’s connected to, knocking her out of her connection to the facility and blaring Ohmigod You Guys through the speaker systems of the facility.

“What the fuck,” Veronica Bricks Mason shouts, covering her ears.

“Sorry, sorry,” Naya yelps. She manually reopens her access to the facility and cuts the sound. Her head spins with new information that she doesn’t have time to let her organic brain process. Ghost is nowhere to be found, but she doesn’t wait around to see where he pops up again before locking herself down and physically removing the cable from her neck. “Ghost tripped my security protocol.”

“You shouldn’t be able to influence any part of the facility,” Watcher One Kate Laswell observes. “Which means you’re every bit as good as Bricks says you are. Why did you lock down the tower?”

“Just this floor,” she answers absently, looking around as her interface flashes and labels new data points about her surroundings. It takes a moment for her to filter through everything enough to focus. “Bravo One, Gaz, and Soap were approaching as Ghost tapped in on the bottom floor.”

“I should have charged more,” Asset:Mason chuckles.

“Maybe you should have, Veronica,” Naya replies without thinking.

The woman just laughs. “Oh ho ho, you’re even better than I thought.

Watcher One Laswell drums her fingers on the table. “You don’t have a hard disk reader. Can you still access the facility without a hard line?”

Naya has to shake her head before she runs a quick system check. A ping to the 141 Facility gets a happy little ping back. “Yeah. My, um… my interface is a bit more robust than standard.”

Watcher Laswell nods. “Noted. Reset the security settings.”

Naya almost does it on autopilot, but stops herself. Running a quick check, she shivers. “They’re still out there. Three of them.” When Laswell only nods, she nudges the blast doors and security shutters to open. It takes a moment, but eventually they start to rumble to life.

Worryingly, when she can see through the windows again, Bravo One, Gaz, and Soap are no where to be found. The only active vitals in the facility say they’re right across the glass from where Naya is sitting. It sends a chill down her spine. Diving through the facility systems, she had felt untouchable. But she’s been outmaneuvered again. Unless…

She stands and leans closer to the glass, looking up into the shadows above.

Three pairs of eyes shine down at her from the darkness.

“They’re up there,” Naya whispers. When Laswell simply answers in the affirmative, she activates the intercom with a gulp. “Um. I’m sorry about the noise.”

“That’s quite alright, sweetheart,” a deep voice answers. “Ghost has a way of startling pretty girls. And I quite like a bit of theater.”

Well it’s not Gaz, and there’s no hint of a Scottish accent. “Are you… Bravo One? John Price?”

“You are a clever one.” One of the pairs of eyes squints and tilts. Another shuts, and doesn’t open again. Soap’s tags move a short ways away as Price continues. “Bricks says you asked to meet me.”

“Yes, sir,” Naya says, and then remembers too late that Bricks said not to meet their eyes. She tears her eyes away and jumps at the sight of John “Soap” MacTavish standing a few feet down the hall in front of her.

He looks good, surprisingly so. His hair is long, braided mohawk shining. A gleaming scar is the only indication of the wound that almost killed him. He’s healthy, big and bulky and dressed casually in black joggers and a tight black tshirt. Bright blue eyes with crossed pupils scan her face with interest. When he grins at her, his sharp teeth flash with titanium augments.

“Gaz wisna exaggeratin,’ ye smell quite nice, Bambi,” Soap purrs.

“What part of ‘masks on’ don’t you all understand?” Laswell grumbles.

“They’ve already got her scent,” Bricks snickers. “Did Ghost get your tags Bambi?”

“He did,” Price confirms from above. “Naya Walker, also known as Bambi. Computer scientist, you’ve sold a couple of database systems. Quite impressive.”

A pit opens in her stomach. Ghost had access to her system for less than three seconds. Her throat is tight when she says, “Thank you, sir.”

“So polite,” Gaz chuckles from above. “Come say hello, doll.”

Naya chances a glance back at Kate, then looks back at Soap, then up at the single pair of shining eyes above as Price’s ID winks away from your awareness. “I’m not sure I have clearance for that.”

“You didn’t have clearance to know about this facility,” Gaz points out. “And yet, here you are. Pretty as a picture.”

“Jesus,” Bricks mutters as Laswell makes a startled sound. “We really should put a bell on you.”

And then a huge hand presses against the glass next to Naya’s face. She startles backwards and runs into a huge, solid body, and yelps as a strong arm catches her about the waist.

“Caught ya,” a fourth, deeper voice rumbles above her. His other hand catches both of her wrists and immobilizes her as she stares at dark brown stains up to his wrists. “Been teasin’ us f’ months, dippin’ in an’ out ‘f m’code. So careful, li’l fawn. But not careful enough.”

“Ghost,” Laswell says. The whine of a plasma weapon being primed pierces through the otherwise silent room. Naya squeezes her eyes closed.“Hands off. That’s my Breaker.”

“’S’at so?” Ghost bends down, so far down, it seems, to drag the tip of his nose along Naya’s temple. “Seems she moight be mine, since I invited ‘er.”

“Speaking of,” Bricks interjects. “I’ll take my finder’s fee, now.”

“Bricks.” Laswell hisses.

“Transfer’s cleared, Bricks,” John Price says with a chuckle. “Pleasure doing business, as always.”

Like Gaz and Soap, Captain Price is bigger than his file made him seem. They’d shaved him, when they had replaced some of his bones with metal, but now his facial hair is as full and vital as the rest of him. This close, Naya can see the mechanics whirling within his eyes.

Leaning against his free side, Gaz licks his lips with a tongue that seems too long. But she only sees them for a moment before she’s being turned around, still wrapped in Ghost’s arms.

On the left side of the room Bricks lounges in a chair, tossing and catching and cycling through the combinations on her ball. She’s grinning like she’s gotten away with murder. Maybe she has - she’s been paid three times today for possibly the easiest bounty of her career. Across from her, Laswell holds a glowing knife in a loose grip by her side, shooting an annoyed glare at the other woman.

“What the hell is this?” Laswell hisses.

“You told us to stop hunting your techs,” Price chuckles.

“Bambi is mine,” Kate reiterates, glaring out the glass.

“Just a wee taste, Watcher,” Soap burrs from somewhere. “Ghost is code breaker enough, ye dinnae need another.”

Naya feels her entire body go cold. She takes a deep breath, reconnects with the facility, and runs Flash_Bang.exe.

—

The underground building has a straightforward layout, but that’s dangerous. Naya flicks away the alert when Ghost manages to patch his way back into the facility and silence the music - fuck, it only took him twenty eight seconds? - and ducks under a desk in the office she broke into, one floor down.

It’s hard to stay one step ahead of him, but her spiders and bots repair the five second camera feed loops as soon as he forces the cameras back online. He only wastes time breaking a third of the bot codes before he seems to realize that they’re replicating and switches to tagging, leaving them to run their processes.

It takes two agonizing seconds for her to open the audio relay from the observation tower without revealing her location to Ghost’s sweeping pings.

“-vilian running wild and scared through a secure facility, John.” Kate snaps.

“I thought she was your new breaker,” Gaz snickers. “Not really a civilian.”

“Nae,” Soap interjects. Naya is glad she doesn’t have video to see the nasty smile she can hear in his voice. “Watcher’s right. We cannae let her get too far.”

“She’s fucked the cameras,” Ghost chuckles. “Could get them back online, but it’d take some time.”

Price hums. “Location?”

“West labs’re pingin’,” Ghost answers. He sounds pleased. “Don’t mean much. She’s got bots spoofin’ her IDs.”

“Smells like she’s gone to the east wing,” Gaz purrs. “Lots of classified documents that way, Laswell. Hate to think of what she might come across if she makes it down to the third floor.”

There’s a tense silence before something slams. Eventually, Laswell hisses, “Fine. Bring her back. Alive and unharmed.”

“No promises,” Soap laughs.

Naya scrambles from her hiding spot as she confirms that the cameras in this south wing hall are looped. She needs to get back to the north side of the facility to get to the stairs that might take her up and out. But first she needs to get them off her trail… Somehow.

There’s a janitor closet two doors down, and she spoofs the signal to unlock the door just long enough to slip through it. She looks for bleach and prays it will be enough to mask her scent, then curses to herself when she realizes the bleach will be an obvious mark of her presence. She can’t just erase herself in the physical world the way she can, digitally.

An encrypted message alert calls her attention.

>>>Bricks: Soap will run at you directly. Gaz likes to ambush. Good Luck!

“I c’n see that, Bricks,” Ghost rumbles.

“She’s already at a disadvantage,” the mercenary chuckles. “Poor little thing, you’re going to eat her alive.”

“Oh, she’s not as harmless as all that,” Price laughs. “Took over the whole facility, gave Ghost the slip-“

“I let her go,” Ghost interrupts.

“Set up the meeting so there’d be no one here but us. Got her hands on the codes she thought would let her take control of us, the mindless killing machines.” John continues. He chuckles. “She’s a smart little thing.”

“She got the deadswitches?” Bricks sounds genuinely surprised.

“Command codes. The first ones,” Ghost confirms. “Duds, since we don’t have the chips, but she don’t know that.”

Well, she does now. Naya grabs three bottles of bleach and puts her respirator back on as her mind races. Part of what made soldier modifications so disgusting were the control processors. The irony of finding out that the 141 had somehow removed theirs was not lost on her. They’re already as free as she’d hoped to help them be, and they’re using that freedom to hunt her like animals.

The IDs for Soap and Gaz are still a floor above, moving slowly, following her trail. Ghost and Bravo One are still in the observation tower. She opens one bottle and rolls it back down the hall she came down, then jogs the other way, splashing the bleach as she goes. The observation tower in the center of the floor has mirrored glass, spiking her heart rate every time she catches sight of herself out of the corner of her eye. It’s so jarring that she almost doesn’t realize Gaz and Soap are coming out of the nearest elevator.

She ducks into an office just as the bell dings around the corner.

“Ach, that’s nae very nice, Bambi,” Soap calls. When he speaks next, it’s muffled, likely by his own respirator. “Ghost, she’s scent bombed the whole steamin’ floor. Where is she?”

“Don’t be lazy, Johnny,” Ghost chuckles. “’Ardly a hunt if there’s no challenge.”

“She’ll want the stairwell,” Gaz says. “Lock it down.”

“Already done,” Ghost says. “But locks aren’t exactly a deterrent, if you ‘aven’t noticed.”

“Bottle rolled down this hall,” Gaz says. “So she probably took the other.”

“Aye, that’s what she wants us to think,” Soap chuckles. “I’ll clear this side.”

Naya holds her breath as heavy footsteps start toward her hiding spot, then go so light she almost can’t hear them. She watches the light under the door and resists the urge to flinch at the appearance of a shadow. The man - Soap’s ID sits like a brand so close to her own in her interface - lingers by the door for a long moment then moves on. He’s so quiet that she keeps the map of the floor up to watch his progress. He’s listening for her, she realizes, stopping at each door. She’s lucky that the air circulation vents are above the door, or he might have heard her heart racing.

When Soap and Gaz each turn corners to start investigating the south wing, Naya finally lets herself take more than the shortest breath. She eases the lock open with a flinch at the mechanical click, but neither Soap nor Gaz change their trajectory. When she opens the door and peeks out, the hall is empty. So she eases her way out, crouches low, and shuffles as fast as she can to the stairwell.

She gives the locks three scans before coding them to unlock. The light turns green without incident. She waits for a moment. Soap and Gaz move just a bit farther away. Naya breathes a silent sigh and eases the door open.

“Got her,” Ghost says. “She’s in the stairwell.”

Above her, a door slams open. Naya yelps and starts jogging down the stairs before she can hear what Captain Price yells down at her. She brute forces her way through the lock codes for the third floor and pulls the door open, throwing her bottle of bleach at the wall before slamming it shut. She trips every proximity alarm she can, leading west through the third floor as she throws herself down the next flight. At the fourth floor door, she creates a signal loop, mindful of the door sensor she’d overlooked before. She hears Gaz and Soap slam through the second floor door open just as the door to the fourth closes behind her.

Too late, she realizes that she can’t hear into the tower anymore, and the map of this floor is all static in her interface. The schematics she had before are corrupted - Ghost’s doing, most likely. She can still see the locks on the doors, the terminals connected to the intranet in the various offices. It will have to be enough.

She darts into the eastern wing of the floor and realizes that no, it won’t be enough. The layout is different than the upper floors. The observation tower has no windows in this direction to speak of, for one. And the cameras are few and far between. The doors are also farther apart, and low pile carpet gives way to hard linoleum.

When she turns the corner, she gasps and ducks. Not that it would have helped any. She’s faced with a gymnasium, weight machines and benches and treadmills like a normal gym, except with weights so large it’s almost comical. There’s no one here, but the open space feels like a threat all the same. She turns tail and jogs back toward the observation tower.

As she turns south, she realizes that the tower has no windows on this floor. It’s not a relief, not really. Even if no one can see her, she’s trapped. Gaz and Soap are still looking for her, one floor up. How long will that last? The bleach trick can only work for so long, probably. And Ghost is good, it’s only a matter of time before he breaks into the camera bot code and finds her. How is she going to get up, past the first floor, let alone the next twelve flights of stairs to the streets of the Belly.

God, how is she going to make it home?

Her vision blurs with tears before she can finish taking her next breath.

“No, no, no, no, no,” she whimpers before a hiccup jolts through her. Her breath shudders from her throat as she swipes at her eyes. “No, no, keep it together, it’s gonna be okay. I can figure this out, I can. I can, it’s okay.”

“Bambi? Talk to me,” Brick’s serious voice comes through, suddenly, fuzzy but definitely there. “Those sound like tears, sweetheart.”

Naya sobs, she can’t help it. It’s a few seconds before she can force more words out. “Why did you do this to me?”

“You asked me to bring you,” Bricks reminds her with a soft chuckle. “Didn’t know you were gonna try to take over the whole facility, or I might have set something else up. But if you come out now -“

A hand touches Naya from behind and she screams, throwing a HardReset packet into the space before she can even wonder if that would have any impact on Soap or Gaz. When she whirls around, though, a man she doesn’t recognize is slumped against the wall, barely keeping the weight of a bricked cybernetic leg from dragging him to the floor. Her interface has a moment to tell her this is “Mace,” before she’s darting around him and running again.

“Fuck!” the man shouts. “Watcher what the fuck- No, I’m on the fucking training floor, why the hell-“

“Bambi,” Bricks shouts, “Do not go into the w-“

She slams the connection shut and tries, unsuccessfully, to wipe her tears away. The distraction is probably why she doesn’t realize she’s heading north, but she knows her mistake as soon as she hears the stairwell door open.

She screams again, right in Gaz’s face, can’t help it now that she’s finally made noise. She dodges his reaching hand and bolts, knowing she can’t outrun him, but what else can she do?

“Shite. Ghost!” Soap calls. “Lock it doon!”

Naya dives through a blast door as it slides shut, ignoring the myriad of voices that shout at her. Through the panic, she terminates all of her bots and slams all of her processing power into separating Ghost from the security access from the floor. He puts up a fight, but another BrainBlast and FlashBang gives her the two seconds she needs to take control.

An alert flashes.

<<Message from: WatcherOneKL. Accept?>>

Sitting on the floor, panting and sniffling, she gulps a deep breath. Someone pounds on the door, but it’s solid, and Ghost can’t get past her bots to regain control. She’s safe.

—

In the observation tower, Price frowns at the data pad in his hands. “Ghost, Bricks. Where did you say you found Ms. Walker?”

“Found us, really,” Ghost mutters, focused on the 3D hologram of the facility. Bambi’s ID markers dance all over the place. He’s running algorithms to try to find a pattern, but she’s three steps ahead, it seems. “Set out a lure and she tore through it like tissue paper. An’ then she made a forum post lookin’ f’r information on soldier mods.”

“Scrubbed everything clean,” Bricks adds. “We couldn’t find her for days after she blew through everything. I got lucky that I found the forum post, it didn’t even trigger Ghost’s spiders.”

Price hums. “And… did either of you confirm which hacker group she’s a part of?”

“Didn’t really have time,” Bricks answers with a shrug. “As soon as I confirmed who I was, she demanded to meet Laswell, and you.”

“Interesting. Any of you ever hear of a group called the Archivist Collective?”

Laswell frowns. “Collective for Anarchy?”

“No.” Price shakes his head. “Archivist Collective. It’s the only thing coming up with her background check. And she’s not a known member of any of the major hacking groups.”

Bricks shrugs. “Obviously, she’d use another alias.”

“No,�� Price says again, walking over to show Laswell and Bricks the data pad. “None of her aliases are connected with anything but this Archivist Collective. And their only mission is to ‘Counter censorship through the collection, preservation, and dissemination of contested and classified texts.’”

Ghost makes an interested noise and leaves the hologram to start another terminal whirring. “Let’s see what they’ve got then -… oh.”

Bricks sits up from her sprawl. “Oh?”

“They’ve got an archive. Barely any security at all. Hosted on the GaiaPet: Craft servers.”

“GaiaPet?” Kate frowns. “Isn’t that a… virtual pet game? Where people make things with voxels? Procedurally generated…. They’re definitely robust enough servers for cyberattacks-“

“It’s jus’ a fuckin’ library,” Ghost grunts, navigating through. “Huge text files, embedded images. Some of it’s definitely classified. But tha’s oll… Oh, shite. Jus’ found our records.”

Bricks looks from the terminal in Price’s hand, to Ghost, and back. “Wait. John, you said she sold a couple of database systems. She’s got to be working with some data brokers, at least.”

“This says she developed and sold literal systems,” John says, horror dawning on his face. “A spreadsheet editor and a UI designed to organize complex data sets. As far as I can tell, she doesn’t sell information. Everything she’s got, besides those systems, is open source.”

“Oh, fuck,” Ghost breathes.

Kate strides up to look at his screen. “What?”

“She’s got an active account on GaiaPet. A pet frog named Señor fuckin’ Snuggly. Her last login was today, and her chat with the AI said ‘Wish me luck, if we can’t get those soldiers released, we can at least get the information out there.’”

The silence in the room is palpable. And then Bricks says, “Bambi? Talk to me. Those sound like tears, sweetheart.”

—

Naya keeps her arms wrapped around her knees until she stops shivering. In that time, two more message request alerts pop up, from BravoOneJP and GhostSR. All of them are marked maximum priority, and she has no desire to touch them. She can see the signal burst of Bricks trying to talk to her, but she’s muted the feed so that she can just have… a single second to breathe.

Her interface pushes everything away to prioritize an SOS signal, then automatically begins transcribing the subsequent Morse code message.

SOH. West wing dangerous stop. Battle androids stop. 15 active 20 inactive stop. GSR give code for control stop. Confirm stop. SOH. West wing dangerous stop. Battle androids stop. 15 active 20 inactive stop. GSR give-

She minimizes the message and sucks in the deepest breath she can, holds it, and forces herself to focus on her body. If she thinks about fifteen battle droids on this side of the door while modified soldiers hunt her on the other, she’ll start screaming and never stop. A part of her wants to lay down and just… give up. A big part. The whole part.

She opens the message from Laswell.

Bambi: You’re in a hazardous section of the facility. Ghost is standing down, for your safety. You will have to establish connection with the control tower to gain codes for control of battle -

Naya deletes the message and opens the one from Price. It’s more of the same, a demand that she open communication, a warning that the west wing of the floor is dangerous. She almost doesn’t open the message from Ghost, but… she doesn’t have much to lose.

She jumps when the message contains an audio file.

“Bambi, fuck, we didn’t know you was a literal archivist. Bricks an’ I fucked up. This is a truce, a suspension of hostilities. SOH. The training floor you’re on is fuckin’ dangerous, Bambi. Too dangerous for me to try t’ take it from you. You gotta take control of the droids. I can’t fuck wit’ ‘em while you’re in control of the space. I managed to confirm shut down of 20, but there’s 15 more. I c’n try to send the control codes this way, but the codes expire every 2 seconds. Better if you open comms. If you can’t, Morse confirmation, I’ll send the codes. Once you grab one, the rest will come for you. You’re fuckin’ fast, I know you can do it, but if you have an issue, open the door an’ Soap and Gaz’ll support.”

She’d rather be shot full of holes by military grade turrets than open the door. Her map of the facility is complete again, and she can see four IDs on the other side of the barrier. Soap, Gaz, Mace, and the redacted asset, Nikto, mill around, pacing between the blast doors and the central tower. But no one is pounding on the door or trying to open it, physically or otherwise. When she checks, her bots are idly cycling through access code randomization, but there’s no attempts at a breach.

Maybe Ghost is telling the truth?

She sends a Morse message.

Received stop. Hold for confirmation stop.

The answer is immediate.

Received stop. Holding for confirmation stop.

Does she want to open the comms? What if it’s a trap? Without knowing how long the code chains are, she’s at a disadvantage without a direct link to the tower. But if she opens connection to the tower, how can she guarantee that Ghost won’t command the androids to terminate her? On the other hand, if he is telling the truth, and the codes expire that fast, there’s no way she can locate and override that many machines that are actively trying to keep her out in time. And they are definitely trying to keep her out - her spiders have been able to confirm twenty units on standby, and fifteen empty holding stations, but there’s no sign of the other droids.

With a shaking breath, Naya opens the comms.

Brick's voice is the one she hears first. "Oh, thank fuck, she's back. Bambi? Can you hear me? Sweetheart, I need you to keep the blast doors static. If they cycle, they might start a lockdown sequence, and that will get the droids moving.” It takes two tries to get the words past her tight throat. "I don't want to die." "I'm so sorry, dove," Captain Price croons. "We’re gonna get you out of there.” "I won't tell anyone, I promise," Naya babbles though gasps. "I just want to go home." "You're gonna be okay, Bambi," Ghosts voice is surprisingly gentle. “Cleverest breaker above and below the city, yeah? Gave Soap an’ Gaz a proper chase an’ knocked Mace on ‘is arse. Coupl’a droids don’t stand a chance.”

“I’m not - I don’t know how to fight,” she whimpers.

“Who said anythin’ about fightin’? Pretty girl like you don’ have t’ lift a finger. Laswell?”

“Working on it,” the woman mutters. “Bambi, I need you to try to give us cameras without initiating any other processes. That’ll help- oh. You are fast. Give me a few seconds to find the nearest droids and we can give you the serial numbers.”

“She’s so small,” Price notes, somewhere in the background. “Possible the droids won’t even register her as a target.”

“I think we’ve fucked up enough today that we don’t need to risk it,” is Brick’s bone dry reply. “Sparrow is going to beat all of our asses.”

“Well, we’re about to give Bambi control of thirty-five full combat units,” the Captain points out. “Might not be much left of us to kick.”

Laswell breaks in. “Ghost-”

“Got em,” Ghost answers. “Bambi, ‘ve got a bead on the nearest units. ‘ow do you want to do this?”

Naya takes a couple of deep breaths and tries to hype herself up. It’s just code work. There are other variables, but at the core of it all, it’s just code. Yes, many of the variables have potentially painful and fatal consequences… But in the end, she can either do the code or not. And if there’s one thing she can do, it’s code.

“H-how,” she clears her throat and blinks back tears. “How many bits, per unit? For the key, I mean.”

“Forty ninety-six.”

Oh, just the highest security rating in the world, she thinks to herself, a little hysterical. She nods to herself and talks through the urge to giggle with nerves. “Okay. That’s seven hundredths of a second per unit, with the key. That’s… not so bad. I can probably handle them in batches of 5. Can I have the first hardware address? Morse, please.”

It takes a second, but the information comes through. It only takes a moment for a spider to highlight the machine in the network. Very quickly, her bots are able to identify and tag seven other units on her map. She shoots a summary data packet back to Ghost.

“Are these all droids?”

“Yeah, that’s half of ‘em. Laswell, she was able to identify all of the A-27 units, do you have eyes on any of the E-243s?”

In the background, Price mutters, “Kate hasn’t even laid eyes on all of the 27s.”

Another data packet comes through, and Naya is able to tag seven more dots on her map. Fifteen battle androids, and two of them just down the hall and around the corner on either side.

Naya takes another hiccuping breath. “How fast can they move?”

“A-27s are closest to you, they’re about a meter per second. The 243s move at about 4 per second.”

“Okay,” she says, holding her breath through another hiccup. She has two of her bots run movement simulations, and decides she’ll focus on the closest two A-27s, then the closest four E-243s. She has the processing power to do it, between her own interface and the facility. But… “I’m going to need these six keys first, but I have to let the doors cycle. How long is the lockdown sequence?”

Bricks makes a concerned noise before answering, “Fifteen seconds before you can open the door.”

So, if she messes this up, she’ll be dead for about 11 seconds before they’d be able to retrieve her body. Wonderful. “Ghost, I need all of the codes at once, in two packets, with the keys in this order. And then the next set of keys as soon as you have them. There’s a half second delay, so I need them as soon as they’re generated.”

Laswell sounds genuinely concerned when she asks, “Is that going to give you enough time?”

Naya runs the numbers again, and realizes that she’s fallen into a very peculiar state of calm. “I should have one point three seconds plus a little wiggle room per key. That’s plenty, for the first part. And if the first part doesn’t work… I don’t really have to worry about the rest of it.”

Captain Price’s voice is stern as he gives commands. “Gaz, tell Nikto to power up the cutter, in case we need to get you through the door. Bambi’s going to override the droids.” He’s quiet a moment, then, “Ghost says she can do it, and from what I’m seeing up here, I’m inclined to believe him. But the resets she did mean the door is going to lock down before she can open it again.”

Ghost says, “Ready to send the next round of codes on your mark, Bambi.”

Naya squeezes her eyes shut and sets her bots to be ready to receive and engage the keys. She takes one long, deep breath. Another. Lets all the air out in a huff. “Mark.”

As soon as the packet comes through, her interface is a flurry of executables and intrusion alerts. Her bots are fast, but the activation of the keys isn’t instantaneous. Just as she was warned, as soon as the first set of keys starts running, all of the droids set themselves to Active:Seeking, Objective:Eliminate. But almost as fast, they’re all placed back into Standby:HoldPosition in a wave that flows through the entire wing.

"That's all of em," Ghost sighs, four seconds later. Something creaks, probably the chair he's sunk himself into. "Fuckin' 'ell, she got all of em. Don' think she even needed me to provide the third set of keys. If she don't run screamin', I want her runnin' the damn-" Naya's heart spikes as an alert pings her interface. Her voice squeaks when she calls, "Ghost? There's two units coming online. They’re not listening to me, I can't stop them. What do I do?" Before she can hear his response, the power to the hall cuts out. Naya holds in a scream as everything goes dark and then red with emergency lighting. Captain Price's voice is overtaken by static, and then she loses the tower completely. Somewhere, in the darkness, she can just barely hear the whine of attack units Riley and Merlin priming their weapons.

—

“Goddamn it,” Kate snarls. “It’s the 9s. They’re jamming the signal.”

Bricks jumps up from her chair. “Bambi’s in there without access to the system?”

Ghost makes a disagreeing noise. “They’re active because she’s not an authorized user. They’re jamming anything that isn’t local to the wing, I should be able to patch- Johnny!”

“We cuttin, LT?”

“Forward these packets to Bambi, nothing else.”

“Aye - fuck!”

—

A message request from SoapJM flashes on Naya’s screen just as she finds out that these new droids can move at thirteen meters per second. When she opens it, she gets an immediate key packet. Every bot she has gets set to receive, but the keys are expired, so she has to wait an agonizing three-quarters of a second before the next ones come through.

Just as a next packet arrives, a blue beam of light slices across the end of the hall, then a second from the opposite side. She barely has time to match the keys to the hardware addresses before two furry muzzles round the corner, guns glowing from their shoulders. Naya has only a moment to recognize the controversial K-9 battle units before they both take a step in her direction. And freeze.

It’s an harrowing second of silence, two, three. She doesn’t even breathe.

With a whir, mounted turrets power down and withdraw back behind artificial fur. The K-9s change their status to Standby:AcceptNewObjective with identical head tilts. The one tagged Riley wags its tail and trots forward, tongue lolling like the average bio-dog. Merlin approaches with a little more hesitant body language, though Naya can see the way it’s integrating her tags into the authorized user list in its software.

She flinches away from the door at the high pitched whine of a plasma cutter on metal. Hastily, she sends an ‘All Clear’ message back to Soap, just as the lights come back on.

Captain Price’s voice resolves with renewed connection to the control tower. “-both of your necks. What were you thinking?”

“Oh, suddenly we’re all about vetting assets?” Bricks laughs. “You recruited me with a bag over my head.”

“You were an establlished CIA asset,” Laswell grits out.

Bricks scoffs. “And Sparrow and Nikto?”

“We wasn’t wrong,” Ghost interjects. “Bad intel aside-”

“No intel!” Captain Price half-shouts.

“-she took the facility from me twice and disarmed 15 droids in less than 4 seconds without any formal training. She’s good.”

“None of that matters if she’s dead,” Laswell snaps.

Naya clears her throat. “I’m not dead.”

“Bambi!” Bricks sound downright cheerful. “Doors are almost done cycling, you’re almost out. Hold tight.”

Petting a hand over the soft fur of Riley’s head, Naya feels for the lumps of it’s internal machinery. Of course, she can’t find it - K-9s were built for stealth and surveillance, to blend in with any other dog. These ones are modified for combat, but they’re still adorable.

It’s almost hard to believe that they were going to shoot her, less than ten seconds ago.

The blast door’s status changes to ready, an almost cheerful ping in her interface. She barely gives it a thought before initiating another lockdown sequence, then queuing two more behind it.

Ghost notices. “Bambi?”

“I need a minute, please,” she answers, then cuts the camera feeds.

Merlin eventually comes and sits just out of reach, tail thumping once against the ground. Naya pulls up it’s configuration settings and examines the personality controls. Calm, but friendly, alert, reserved, breaks “arbitrary dog rules” at a rate of 6%. Riley: open and playful, eager to please, breaks rules 17% of the time. Both locked to 141 facility 4th floor, west wing training center.

Do Not Remove.

—

When the blast doors open, Naya is standning a few feet back. Riley and Merlin lay on either side of her feet, solidly in a sleep cycle. Her fingers dig into the opposite sleeves of her cardigan as Soap and Gaz come into view, along with a fully functional Mace, and a fully helmeted cyborg she can only assume is Nikto.

“Steamin’ Jesus, bon,” Soap says taking a step forward. “Ye gave us a wee fright!”

“If you get within three feet of me,” Bambi says, pausing for a deep breath. “I’ll shoot you.”

Three set of eyebrows shoot up. Nikto’s faceplate remains unchanged. Gaz looks at the others before answering, “We’re sorry we frightened you, love. We didn’t know Bricks hadn’t-”

Naya interrupts him. “I would like to leave now.”

“Well…” Soap says with a shrug. “We can take ye back t’ Laswell?”

“That’s fine. Riley, Merlin, up.”

When the dogs “wake” and stand, Mace says, “They can’t pass that door.”

She takes a step forward, flanked by the dogs. “I think you’ll find that they can.”

“Nae, Bambi,” Soap says gently. “They’re hard coded-”

Riley’s turret activates as soon as Soap takes a step toward her. Naya takes another deep breath, and repeats, “If you get within three feet of me, I will shoot you.”

“Well you certainly won’t be doing that with the dogs,” Gaz scoffs. “We won’t touch you, but you really should come with… us.”

The dogs cross the threshold of the door with her, and the plasma cannon in Merlin primes with a dangerous, high pitched sound. When the stunned soldiers don’t step back, the dog’s chest panel opens with a blue glow.

“Three feet,” Mace says, taking two big steps back, hands in the air near his head. “You got it.”

“Yes, sir,” Gaz says aloud, taking his own step backwards. “The doors are open and we have eyes on her. She’s got the 9s with her. Well sir, it seems she’s taken a liking to them.” He pauses. “Soap did tell her that, but apparently she doesn’t really care.”

Naya rolls her eyes and enables the cameras in the hall. “So you’re all allergic to just saying things outright?” The muted audio feed is a flurry of activity, but she just gestures down the hall. “After you.”

—

In the end, everyone ends up in a second floor conference room. Naya stands by the far wall, Riley and Merlin a deadly guard panting in front of her feet. The other eight sit and stand at the other end, fidgeting and clearly searching for a way to break the silence.

Bricks tries first, “Sweetheart-”

“Give me a reason not to overload the filtration systems,” Naya interrupts.

That makes everyone flinch. Laswell clears her throat. “What-”

“Because,” Naya nearly shouts, “I could shoot at least two of you, but then you really would kill me this time. But if I backflow and spark the air, that would kill all of you.”

“Kill ye, as well,” Soap points out.

“I thought I was going to die about five times in the last hour,” Naya says, much calmer than she feels. “Mention me dying again and I’ll fry your interface.”

“Ghost just aboot did tha’ already,” Soap mutters.

“Need a hacker for an op. Thought you was a professional,” Ghost finally admits after a moment of tense fidgeting. “Way you ate through the files I laid out, blew through a 256 like tissue paper. Couldn’t find you after… Figured you knew what you was doin’. And y’do.”

Naya’s eye twitches. “And you couldn’t send me an email? Set up an interview?”

“I did try,” Bricks points out. “But you said all the keywords that tend to get a person fast tracked to a very classified meeting.”

“A very classified meeting where you sell me, twice and then hunt me for sport?”

“Everything sounds bad when you say it like that,” the other woman chuckles.

The air circulator over the door falls silent. In the ensuing silence, Naya can hear the servos whir in Bricks’s arm.

“Clearly, we made mistakes,” Laswell admits. “So. What do you want?”

“I want to not have been sold and hunted for sport. Barring that, I would like a time machine. I’d love to know what you consider an equitable offer, Watcher One.”

“What the fuck did you do?” Mace hisses at Captain Price.

“Apparently we made a tactical error,” the man grumbles. “And then a series of compounding tactical errors.”

“You did not ask Nikolai,” Nikto says, matter of fact. It’s the first Naya’s heard his voice, human and heavily accented. “Or Sparrow. She will not be pleased, I think.”

“None of Nik’s contacts c’n do what Bambi c’n do,” Ghost counters.

“Bambi can kill every person in this room,” Naya says, voice flat, emphasized by the glow of two plasma cannons. “Bambi can turn this whole facility into a goddamn crater. Bambi can post videos of the human experimentation to the holonet.”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Gaz says. “What human experimentation? No one’s experimenting on anybody.”

“I saw the videos!” Naya yells. “People in cages, people on operating tables, awake, screaming, crying. I saw people eating raw meat, off of leg bones, eating people!”

“Oh fuck,” Ghost says, voice wavering. His face is stricken when she looks at him. “Bambi, that weren’t for you to see, fuck, ‘ow deep did you fuckin’ go? I didn’t even-”

“That’s the job,” Bricks cuts in. “That’s why we needed a hacker, because we’re trying to stop that from happening, and we can’t get through their walls or exploit their vulnerabilities.”

“Oh, that’s just the “bad guys”?” Naya scoffs. “Okay. Why was Gaz covered in blood when I arrived?”

“Blood!” Soap yelps. “That was hydraulic fluid an’ oil! One of the bikes is actin’ up, and our mechanic isnae aroond!”

“It was in his teeth!”

“He’s bonnier than he is graceful!”

“Oh, fuck you, Tav!”

“You said you couldn’t promise to bring me back alive! Ghost called it a hunt!”

“Ah was jokin’!” Soap runs and hand over his mohawk. “We’re a right frightful lot, and sometimes we sneak aboot, but mostly people just cannae always hear us coming! Ye’d think we could catch one wee little civilian withoot incident!”

“You’re the one who was running through a secure facility,” Captain Price points out.

A plasma cannon discharges into the wall above his head. The whole room freezes for a beat before Naya hisses. “If you ever even think of implying-”

“Any information you find about Makarov and his dealings, you can make public,” Bricks interrupts. “Who, what, when, where, how. All of it can go into your archive.”

Laswell scowls. “Now hold on-”

Bricks talks over her. “We don’t have anything you want that you can’t just outright take, Bambi. That’s what you came here for. Information, and to get people out of cages.”

Nikto looks at Bricks and snorts before muttering something under his breath in Russian. Mace crosses his arms, leaning back in his seat and doing a much better job of keeping his thoughts off of his face than Soap and Gaz. The sergeants look horrified. Ghost looks about ready to throw up. Captain Price and Laswell share a sour, resigned look.

“You’ll have our backing,” Laswell sighs. “You’ll need something a bit more secure than the GaiaPet servers, or you’ll be tracked. But yes. You can disseminate the information.”

There’s a long moment of silence. Naya considers her options, arms around herself. The air circulator kicks back on. Eventually, she says, “I want an advance. Thirty thousand credits, plus however much Price paid.”

“Done,” Bricks answers.

“And… I want seventy five credits an hour.”

“…Fine,” Laswell agrees.

“And I keep the dogs.”

Captain Price makes a disagreeing noise. “Those are government property.”

“Either I keep them, or I set them to self destruct and detonate every android on the fourth floor.”

Nikto says, “You are a bloodthirsty hind.”

“I’m really not,” Naya says. “But I’ve had a very long day. Do we have a deal?”

“Don’t think we have much of a choice,” Captain Price concedes.

Just then, the door to the conference room opens, and a brunette peeks her head in. Morgan Voss, “Sparrow,” as her ID tags her, nods at Laswell. “Just got in, didn’t know there was a meeting scheduled. What did I miss?” Her eyes drift up. “What the hell happened to the wall?”

#dragonnarrativewrites fanfiction #all 141 of them #cyberpunk au #cod fanfic #merry crisis have some horror #if you see any formatting issues: no you don't #this was so much fun to write and rewrite #and an absolute B!&@% to format on ao3 and tumblr #my first long one-shot!#thank you to everyone who has commented on and shared my work #thank you to everyone who read it and left me a like or a kudos #thank you to everyone who's ever sent me an ask or DM #thank you to all of my friends in the discord #this is possible because of all of you - my friends #started the year with slasher handler and ended with this #feels good dot jay pee gee

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spacequokka · 2 months ago

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Beautiful Thing | 08

Pairing: Yugyeom x Reader, Future GOT7 x Reader Genre: Fluff, Angst, Soulmate AU, Poly AU, Enemies to Lovers AU Rating: T (explicit language) Summary: Yugyeom finds himself at odds with BamBam when he tries to be kind and friendly to you. Word Count: 4.0k Warnings: None?

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Yugyeom felt like he was going to vomit. The butterflies in his stomach wouldn't settle down. His skin had been buzzing since he hugged you at the hotel. He'd tried to tell himself that he was just excited because the situation was new, something he'd never experienced before. However, in the back of his mind, he knew the truth. It was all about you. You were the anomaly.

The group filed onto the smaller private airplane, a courtesy given by the SeoulMate company given the unique situation. It was nicer than he'd expected and a bit more luxurious than the ones he'd traveled in before. Perfect for your first flight with them. With him. You brought up the rear, dragging your small carry-on bag behind you like a dead body. Your lips were curved in the cutest pout he'd ever seen and discontent rolled off you in waves. He slowed his pace until he got to your side.

"Would you like to sit beside me?" He gave you a shy smile. "I'm pretty sure Jackson's gonna sit with us."

BamBam overheard the question and turned around. "What? You usually sit with me."

'Oh...' Yugyeom's eyes widened, and he shrugged a shoulder. "If you can convince Jackson to sit elsewhere...It's her first flight and I wanna keep her company. It's just one time, bro." BamBam's eyes darted to you and narrowed before he turned back around, increasing his pace to disappear among the staff.

"Oh, great. The drama queen's mad at me, too." You sighed loudly and rolled your eyes. When you looked up at Yugyeom, the butterflies went nuts. "You don't have to sacrifice your bromance for me. I'll be just fine. It isn't like I didn't agree with this."

He patted the top of your head with a smile. "He'll get over it. I think a three-hour plane flight is a great time to get to know you. After all, you're a person, not an inconvenience."

Your breath caught for a second, and your mood visibly brightened at his words. "Thank you. It's nice to hear that after all the glares Jinyoung's throwing at me."

"No one's glaring," Jinyoung muttered as he squeezed by and settled into a window seat.

Yugyeom directed you to a window seat on the opposite side of the plane, but you shook your head. "No thanks. I don't need a visual reminder of the impossible physics of this death box."

"Can you please not call it that while I'm in it? Thanks." Mark interjected without looking up from his phone.

"What else should I call it?" You fired back.

"How about 'majestic vessel of life' or something? Anything but that."

"Oh okay. This 'fanciful fucking unicorn' then."

"Language!" Jaebeom called out from somewhere. Yugyeom couldn't help but notice how comfortable you were with bickering with them. Did you even notice it? Though he wished it interactions weren't negative, you fit right in.

"Oh, fuck off." You mumbled under your breath and dropped into the middle seat.

Yugyeom spotting Jackson making his way down the aisle, eyes set on you. He smiled and stood up. You whined as he practically smothered you as he pushed his way to the vacant window seat, crushing you into the seat before letting up. He couldn't help but smile as you blinked owlishly at Jackson as he busied himself with digging around in his bag. "I brought extra stuff in case you need anything." He dropped a water bottle into your hands and put a travel pillow around your neck.

"Jackson, wait—"

Yugyeom filled the seat next to you, looking around to see if the group had all found a seat with his hand out to Jackson. Without being asked, Jackson gave him a water bottle, too.

As usual, Jackson turned into a mother hen with his attention devoted solely to you. It was a refreshing change from being on the receiving end. "The bathroom's in the back, but I'll walk with you if you're uncomfortable walking on your own."

"I know I said this was my first flight, but really, you don't have to go through this much trouble."

He paused and looked you in the eyes. "It isn't any trouble. If anything, it's a pleasure." His face lit up with a wide grin. "I'm doing something useful for you, right? You don't mind, do you?"

Your shoulders drooped in defeat and Yugyeom bit back a chuckle. No one was immune to Jackson's charm. "Yes, this is fine. Thank you, Jackson." You smiled at him. "It means a lot that you care."

A Christmas tree would fail to compare to the light he gave off upon hearing your words. He meant well. Everyone knew that. It'd take patience and reassurance to break him out of his habit of seeking validation. Though they as a group had become accustomed to it, Yugyeom found himself hoping you'd stick around long enough to help them out.

It wasn't long before the pilot came on with his greeting and itinerary with the stewards and stewardesses shooing away electronics and making sure everyone was buckled in properly. Jackson gently took your hand and held it while they explained the standard emergency procedures. You didn't realize you were manhandling the armrest and gritting your teeth.

"It'll be okay. I promise," he whispered, raising your hand to his lips and pressing a soft kiss to your knuckles. Why hadn't Yugyeom thought to do that? "I won't let anything happen to you."

"You can't possibly keep a promise like that." You said flatly. Yugyeom's fingertips grazed your knee a few times before you realized he was itching to hold your other hand. Without thinking, you grabbed his hand and squeezed it when the plane shook and began edging forward down the runway.

"I can!" Jackson said indignantly. "I can swim—"

"We're not going over water." You and Yugyeom said in unison. A tingle sparked between your palms but you didn't show any signs of having felt it too.

"I've been skydiving—"

"You're afraid of heights." You and Yugyeom answered together. Yugyeom glanced at you but your eyes were on Jackson. Did you even hear him?

"Okay, but I'd die to protect you!"

"Jackson," you put your hand on his knee, "It's okay. You don't have to try so hard for me."

"But I want to." He spoke softly with a slight pout.

"Honestly, that you even want to is more than enough for me." It was just enough to cheer him up again. Yugyeom noticed Jaebeom watching, eyebrows creased with concern. When you continued to speak, Yugyeom turned back to you. "But make sure you care about yourself just as much, okay? I mean it."

Jackson nodded, cheeks flushing with color as he looked down at your clasped hands. "Okay."

Soon enough, the plane was in the air and Dallas became a cluster of dots on the ground. You visibly relaxed into your seat as Jackson rubbed the back of your hand with his thumb. Yugyeom wanted to do something like that, but he wasn't sure you'd allow it. You hadn't known him as long or as well as you did Jackson. The monitor in the seat in front of him flickered between advertisements and a thought struck him.

"Hey, we can watch a movie to pass the time." He nudged your shoulder with his. "What kind of movies do you like?"

You looked at him before your eyes went upward. "I'm not too picky, really. Though maybe we could save the scary stuff for later?" When your gaze returned to his, another tingle blossomed over his skin.

"I can work with that." He smiled before touching the screen. A few swipes later and logo music began to play.

The flight was relatively smooth, with only a few patches of turbulence along the way. You leaned against him the entire time, still holding Jackson's hand, eyes glued on the screen. At some point a stewardess came along with food and he found himself sharing popcorn with you. He thought of Jackson's time alone with you and realized that despite you both being surrounded by others, you were still in your own little bubble. Not quite as intimate as sharing a full meal, but basically a movie date. He'd told himself he'd just be friendly, make you feel as welcome as he could. Yet, he couldn't deny the sparks whenever your skin brushed against his. Couldn't stop his thoughts from embracing the idea of you being his soulmate. By the end of the movie, you were dozing off, using Yugyeom's shoulder as a makeshift pillow. He didn't mind one bit.

He entertained himself with sending memes to BamBam, ignoring the fact that he was left on read. He could understand his closest friend's annoyance but he had to admit he was having the time of his life. He'd beg for forgiveness later if needed. Right now, he wanted to enjoy the moment and commit it to memory. When you woke up from your nap, the plane was beginning its descent. You looked out the window and saw the glittering buildings below, signaling your arrival at your destination.

As the plane touched down and taxied to the gate, you and Jackson clasped hands tightly, your eyes closed as if that would make the descent any smoother. Yugyeom found himself humming a song and seized the moment to hold your other hand, mirroring Jackson's calming caress with his thumb. He was more than pleased with himself when you seemingly melted against his arm again, eyes still shut.

"Oh, god tell me when its over." You muttered and he liked that you sought him out for comfort.

As soon as the seatbelt sign turned off, everyone began standing up to gather their belongings from the overhead bins.

"See? We made it!" Jackson exclaimed with a triumphant grin as he unbuckled his seatbelt. You let out a sigh of relief and opened your eyes, returning his smile. "Yeah, we did. This time, at least."

Yugyeom leaned in and caught your gaze. "Are you okay?"

You nodded, feeling shaky but trying to hide it. "Yeah, I'm fine." You attempted to stand up and grab your bag from the overhead compartment but stumbled when the plane jerked suddenly.

"Whoa there," Jackson caught you before you could fall. "Maybe we should wait for everyone else to get off first."

You nodded gratefully and sat back down. BamBam shuffled off the plane with the others, pointedly ignoring Yugyeom. When the plane was finally empty, you stood up again and grabbed your bag without any problems this time.

Yugyeom nodded in agreement before looking at his phone. "Our luggage should be at baggage claim already."

"That's quick," you said as you followed them out of the plane and towards baggage claim. Soon enough, all three of you were standing in front of a carousel waiting for your luggage to come around.

When you spotted your suitcase and stepped away to grab it, Jackson leaned in and whispered, "Are you and Bam gonna be okay? I don't think I've ever seen him this pissed at you of all people."

Yugyeom shrugged. "He can't be mad forever. And I guess it's new for him. He's never had to share my attention with anyone like this before."

"Yeah, he can be pretty childish sometimes." Jackson nodded.

Yugyeom chuckled as you struggled to free your luggage from the moving belt. They both took a step forward to help you but Jaebeom made it to your side first. "He'll be okay. Just needs time to calm down. In the meantime," he tilted his head to the side, eyes still on you, "we can make sure she's having fun."

"Here, let me get that." Jaebeom reached over your shoulder, startling you in the process. As you moved aside for him, he caught a whiff of your perfume, something light and sweet. He grabbed the handle of your suitcase and yanked it off the belt.

"Thank you..." You frowned and it took him a second to realize why.

"Just call me Jay." He set the luggage down and pulled up the handle. The frown went away instantly. "I don't mind."

You fiddled with the suitcase, unable to look at him. "You sure? I don't want to disrespect you or anything in front of the others."

He shrugged and fought a smile as he slipped his hands in his pockets. "Its not like those brats care."

You smirked. "I know, I just...It's not the same is it? I'm not one of them. That and I don't wanna add to your stress if I can help it."

He found himself smiling, touched that you cared about his wellbeing. "As long as you're traveling with us, I'll treat you no differently from them." He gently bumped you with his elbow. "Just say no to Yugyeom and his stupid pranks."

"They're not stupid! As long as you have a sense of humor, they're fun!" Yugyeom pulled you away. "Don't listen to him. He's old and boring."

With a strike like lightning, Jaebeom grabbed the back of Yugyeom's neck and squeezed. "Say that again."

Soon enough everyone's baggage was found and loaded onto the shuttles going to the hotel. Due to the size of the group, they had to split up. Once again, Yugyeom and Jackson insisted on riding with you. Jaebeom caught the nasty look BamBam gave you and he was grateful that Jackson didn't see it. He didn't feel like mediating another argument so soon after the one between him and Jinyoung. The animosity was understandable to a degree. You were an outsider to most of them, and trust was a hard thing to earn in their world. However, since he'd shaken your hand he was beginning to see that Jackson had a point. People with bad intentions give off bad vibes. Ones that, as far as he could tell, you didn't have.

He told himself he'd reserve judgment until later when enough time had passed, but that handshake seemed to change something in him. Cool static had rippled throughout his body when your warm, dainty hand filled his. It'd taken every ounce of control he had to force himself to let go. Holding your hand felt right, as natural as breathing or singing.

And he could see he wasn't the only one affected. Even now you were sandwiched between Jackson and Yugyeom, discussing the things to do in Las Vegas with Jackson holding your hand and Yugyeom's arm around your shoulders. One would never guess you hadn't known them longer than a few days.

He was a romantic at heart. It was hard to say which side he took in this as he'd always imagined having a soulmate of his own. Someone meant just for him, one he didn't have to share with the others like he did everything else in his life. Was that selfish?

Thoughts like that wouldn't help him here and now. When the vans stopped outside their hotel, he remembered the brief phone call he'd had with JYP. Taejoon had predictably snitched on him, stressing that the decision to bring you along was Jaebeom's doing. As a result, any expenses that you occurred were coming out of Jaebeom's pocket. He was lucky he made a decent amount of money from royalties otherwise he'd have trouble booking and paying for your room. The need to keep it a secret from the guys wasn't entirely unfounded. He could see Jinyoung throwing a hissy fit and possibly making you feel like you needed to pitch in. For the sake of peace, it'd be his little secret.

"Here you go," he smiled handing you the key cards to your suite. "It's on the floor below us. Hopefully we won't bother you."

"Thanks—" Your fingers touched his and that soothing ripple of calmness washed over him again. "Don't worry. I've dealt with way worse than this chaos. It's almost like a mini vacation at this point."

Jackson materialized at your side, peering over your shoulder. "Is it a double? Can I room with you if it's a double?"

Jaebeom pushed him away with a hand covering his face. "Don't be eager or weird. She gets a room to herself. She'll be able to sleep in and go down to breakfast."

Jackson pushed his hand away. "But what if she gets lonely? We can't leave her here by herself."

You rubbed his arm with a look of concern Jaebeom was sure couldn't be copied by even the best actresses in the world. "I don't mind. I can't begin to imagine how busy you guys will be. I'd only slow you down and I don't wanna hear Jinyoung's mouth."

Jinyoung scoffed as he pushed by, heading for the elevators. "Wouldn't have to worry about it if you weren't here."

Three things happened simultaneously. Jackson opened his mouth to fire back as Jaebeom turned to tell Jinyoung to be nice. Yet, you beat them both to the punch by speaking up with a forced smile. "Jackson, would you like to see what my room looks like? You can walk me through the hotel room check you were telling me about on the plane."

Your sweet smile and gentle pull on Jackson's arm sucked the tension away in an instant. Jackson turned his attention back to you, eyes alight with his eagerness. "Of course!"

It was weird to have someone else be the voice of peace. The two of you started toward the elevators and Yugyeom joined, pointing at a brochure he'd picked up. BamBam and Mark joined Jinyoung leaving you three to wait for another one to come back down. Jaebeom adjusted his backpack and joined the queue. He hated that what was supposed to be a simple promotion with fanmeets was slowly dividing the group in two. Hopefully, once it was all said and done, their personal relationships would still be intact.

After an intense game of rock-paper-scissors, Jaebeom and Jackson ended up sharing a room for the duration of their stay. It was the first time since they landed in America that they'd had this much time together. Jackson wanted to sneak down to your room to stay up and talk but Jaebeom wasn't having it.

"Absolutely not."

Jackson flopped down on his bed with a disappointed frown. "Come on, Jaebeom. It's just a little fun. Besides, it's not like I'm asking to sneak out of the hotel."

Jaebeom sat on the edge of his bed, phone in hand as he scrolled through the schedule for the next few days. He sighed without looking up. "It's not about having fun, Jackson. We need to be careful about how we handle things with her here."

"But she isn't like other people we've met. She's different," Jackson insisted, his voice laced with a sincerity that made Jaebeom pause. There was something different about you, something that made everyone act a bit out of character.

"Different or not," Jaebeom finally said, locking his phone and meeting Jackson's gaze. "We have to maintain some professionalism. We can't set precedents that we might regret later."

Jackson rolled onto his side, propping his head up with his hand. "You like her, don't you?"

The question was abrupt, and Jaebeom felt a defensive wall go up instinctively. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Everything," Jackson shot back softly. "Because if you have feelings for her—even purely platonic ones—then it makes sense why you're being extra cautious. You care."

Jaebeom rubbed his temples, feeling the onset of a headache. "I just met her, Jackson."

"Love at first sight is a thing, y'know. There's nothing wrong with trusting your gut and just going with it."

He sighed deeply, hating that he had to be the one to burst Jackson's bubble. "You say that a lot don't you? Throw yourself all in for anyone who catches your eye and shows you the tiniest bit of attention and care just for, what, it all to fall apart? Love at first sight seems to leave you alone and heartbroken too often, doesn't it?"

Jackson went silent, the easy smile fading from his face as Jaebeom's words settled over him like a heavy blanket. For a moment, the room was thick with unspoken thoughts and regrets, punctuated only by the distant hum of Las Vegas beyond their window.

Finally, Jackson let out a deep breath and sat up, swinging his legs off the bed to face Jaebeom more directly. "Maybe you're right," he admitted quietly, "but every time it feels real, feels like it could be the thing that changes everything. Isn't it worth the risk?"

Jaebeom didn't answer immediately. He knew Jackson's heart was in the right place. It always was. But as their leader, it was his job to think about the consequences, to protect not just his own heart but also those of his bandmates—and now, seemingly, yours.

"Perhaps," he finally conceded, "but remember we have our responsibilities. We're here for work first." He glanced up at Jackson, noting the genuine confusion in his eyes. "Let's try to keep things simple and not complicate matters further."

Jackson nodded slowly, though his disappointment was palpable. He lay back down, staring at the ceiling. "Alright, Jaebeom. I'll keep my distance. For now."

Jaebeom felt a twinge of guilt watching Jackson's enthusiasm dim—a brightness that was rare in the often grueling routine of their industry—but he knew boundaries were essential, especially with so much at stake professionally.

Was it bad that Yugyeom wasn’t as bothered by the tears as he used to be? Now that they’d been given dummy devices to wear to keep up the ruse of “searching” he thought he’d feel even worse about lying to their fans. They truly believed they had a chance with pairing with a member of the group. It was wrong, immoral.

Yet when he filed backstage with the others, he couldn’t help but smiling when he saw you tucked away in a corner with a notebook in your lap. As everyone began to change and found a stylist, he found himself wandering over to you.

“Hey there.” He plopped down in the chair next to you and you jumped.

“Oh, jeez!” You put the hand holding the pen over your heart. After a quick glance around the room your gaze found his. “It’s over already?”

Was it bad that Yugyeom wasn't as bothered by the tears as he used to be? Now that they'd been given dummy devices to wear to keep up the ruse of "searching" he thought he'd feel even worse about lying to their fans. They truly believed they had a chance to pair with a member of the group. It was wrong, immoral.

Yet when he filed backstage with the others, he couldn't help but smile when he saw you tucked away in a corner with a notebook in your lap. As everyone began to change and found a stylist, he found himself wandering over to you.

"Hey there." He plopped down in the chair next to you and you jumped.

"Oh, jeez!" You put the hand holding the pen over your heart. After a quick glance around the room, your gaze found his. "It's over already?"

"It's been two hours. Have you been writing this entire time?" He leaned closer to see your notepad but you quickly hid it against your chest. "Oh, come on. It can't be that bad. May I see, please?"

You hesitated, biting your lip as you considered his request, then slowly lowered the notebook. "Only because it's you," you said with a half-smile, handing it over. "Tell no one that I let you do this."

Yugyeom's eyes lit up as he gently took the notebook from your hands. His gaze flicked across your neatly scribbled words, a mixture of excitement and curious respect etching across his features. As he read, his expression softened, and occasionally, a chuckle escaped him.

"Is this about my dandelion tattoo?"

You shrugged shyly. "I noticed it when we were on the plane. I couldn't stop thinking about it so...I put it in words."

"This is really pretty." Yugyeom said sincerely, looking up at you with admiration. "The way you describe it makes me even happier that I got it. And this part," he pointed to a line in the middle of the page, "where you talk about how music can be a person's dandelion—it's beautiful."

Flattered by his compliments, he watched as your cheeks deepened in color as you fought the smile. "Thank you, Yugyeom. That means a lot coming from you."

He nodded and handed back the notebook. "You should keep writing. Who knows? Maybe one day you'll write a song for us."

The idea made you laugh softly, the sound mingling with the constant buzz of activity around you. "Oh sure. Maybe I will," you agreed playfully.

Yugyeom stood up just as one of the staff members called him over. Before he left, he turned to face you again. "Don't forget us when you become a famous writer," he joked with a wink.

"I won't," you promised, watching him walk away before turning back to your poetry.

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shiraishi--kanade · 6 months ago

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Another thing I need pjsk fandom to realize:

1) there are literal 10 years old (and younger) children in this fandom;

2) the percentage of these children in the fandom is MUCH, MUCH higher than every single one of you here on tumbrl think it is.

"why do people write so much for popular characters?" "why do people write for kudos only?" aside from the fact that the "write for yourself" is a self-perpetuating issue in every fandom and the fact that every writer deserves engagement with their works, it's because there are kids here. Who want to fit in and get praised for their creativity. Which they can only achieve by writing for popular stuff. So maybe take that into account.

#jay rambles.txt #I've met so many kids who have no business knowing that pjsk is considering the Themes it deals with know what pjsk is #and if you want to argue this game is a) a scummy gacha game b) too grim for a lot of them - sure. did that stop YOU for being in #fandoms you shouldn't have been in when you were 12?#yeah I didn't think so. this is very normal and will continue being normal #seeing as the spaces for young kids on the internet have all but been destroyed by every factor imaginable #of course they're not interested in nuance and detailed characterisation as well. they are kids. were you media literate at 10 when you've #just discovered fandoms? like actually? at like 10? cmon now. give them some grace #sometimes when you see another run of the mill poor grammar and no formatting cliche yaoi fic of your otp I need you to stop and think #'wait a minute. is there a non-zero probability this is written by a 10 year old who just found out what fanfic is?' before you get mad #and then just close the tab and move on with your life. as god intended #'why is this misconception so popular!!' because 80% of the 'rui is a cannibal' people are edgy 13 years old who just Do This Shit. peace.#jay with the unpopular takes again hoo boy

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squarebracketsmileyface · 11 days ago

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Omegaverse fic is gonna be... Fairly dead dove whoops 💀 I just... Alex who can regenerate any and all injuries... And his true mate Jay who realises he doesn't ever have to buy meat again...

Also Alex has somehow turned into a misogynist (or whatever the equivalent is in the omegaverse, someone who thinks omegas are beneath them) who doesn't think he's a misogynist. He thinks he's god's gift to omegas, going around protecting them from alphas. Like buddy, you're just as bad as the alphas. He has such a superiority complex I don't know why (I do, it's cos he's special and one of a kind cos he's an enigma rather than an alpha beta or omega, and he let that go to his head)

Anyway snippet

He's such a dick. Like bitch that's your MATE what do you mean he's not pretty. Alex is so used to sleeping with all the hottest people ever since he's a successful film director, so he sees a normal looking guy who's had no plastic surgery and he's like "eh"

Figuring out how fictional I want my omegaverse to be is so fun, like, do they have tails? Are they just normal humans with heats and ruts? How does mating work? How powerful do I wanna make alphas ability to command omegas? (As you can see from above, pretty powerful to completely force Jay not to use a gun if he has one, tho that could be because of Alex being a step above an alpha, I haven't decided yet)

#omegaverse #a/b/o dynamics #writing snippet #marble hornets fanfic #marble hornets #jay merrick #alex kralie #jaylex #fic/series rated e on ao3 #in case anyone would prefer not to read that

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eureka-its-zico · 2 years ago

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Winterfall

Synopsis: When you thought of your life, Glenview Psychiatric Hospital was the last place you thought you’d end up. What could be weirder than calling a place like this home? Finding people who remind you that, sometimes, the messiest parts of who we are can be the best parts of us too.

Pairings: Christian Yu x Reader x Jay B x Reader (It’s a love triangle, y’all)

Series: ongoing

Word Count: 5186

Warnings: mentions of self-harm, mental health issues, mental disorders, slight violence, sexual themes

A/N: This is a hard one to post. I’ve had this in my WIPs for over seven years. I’ve rewritten it multiple times. Consider if this was a series, I was willing to share. As someone who suffers from BPD II and PTSD, it felt strange to dive into mental health. In a way, I felt like I needed a safe place to get it out. To share. This fic isn’t meant to be sad. It’s meant to be about growth. The journey of mental health can be a messy one, but it doesn’t have to hinder our own growth. Our sadness does not define us. If I ever miss anything in the warnings for chapters, please let me know and I’ll fix it ASAP! This fic is loosely based off of one of my favorite films, Girl, Interrupted. And remember, if you you ever need to talk: Im here.

Shout out to my bestie @deadneverlander for always being the better half in our clownery. I wouldn't be able to do half of this without you.

There was something about the bleakness of winter that seemed to make countless people’s bones ache for the warmth of summer. Their loneliness is somehow made more apparent by rain clouds and negative degrees, turning thoughts into reminiscent scenes of a doomsday film.

You’d always claimed that fall was your favorite season because the vast spectrum of your sadness didn't match the heat of summer. Sure, you loved the possibilities of hot cocoa, warm fires, ridiculous horror, Christmas films, and the first sight of snow. Somewhere along the way, however, came the anxiety of holiday dinners. Where the comfort you’d found in overcast skies turned sinister with repeated looks that reminded you that you were the black sheep; the odd man out with another year of nothing to show.

Fall no longer meant binges on shows and breaks from the endless routine that was work and school. It meant laying in the snow until your body heat forced it to melt underneath you, seeping into the fabric of your clothes to leave your nerves numb and transparent like ice. Your mind silently hoped it would be enough to extinguish the agony that blossomed in your chest.

Jackets were no longer marked for warmth, but strictly to hide your struggle to feel anything past the chasm that’d grown in the past couple of months: to bleed out the parts of you that didn't belong. It wasn't a surprise it's what landed you a one-way ticket to the cozy room inside a psychiatric hospital. Maybe that's just what happens when you're found unresponsive with a belly housing a fifth of rum. The marks on your skin lay like a map to follow on how you got there; only being found like a frantic afterthought.

Glenview Psychiatric Hospital, or GSH that was strategically labeled in bright crimson above the pocket of your prison-inspired sweatshirt, had been home for three months now. It was meant to be a place of healing, among the basic mood stabilizing and therapy sessions everyone held in a day. You felt further away from that concept with every group activity the doctors forced you to take part in. Your social anxiety becoming apparent each time it lands on you to speak, either to close the circle, or to be a part of the ridiculous game activities. The last time you played volleyball your face saw more action with the pleather ball than your arms ever did.

It was currently 12:47 p.m. The clock giving you a false sense of hope that the time wouldn’t just creep by to leave you stranded the last thirteen minutes until you’d earned your freedom. There was, however, the off chance if Dr. Thompson wasn't hearing what he wanted; the hour-long group activity would be extended.

You scanned the other six faces that made up your group: the huddled mess of piled sweaters and huddled blanket of Soomi a fleeting moment of comfort. It only took your eyes adjusting on her figure to know she didn’t have one. Her tiny body composed of thick layers of clothes to portray a false sense of shape. Her anorexia becoming so severe her family had no other option but to put her here, or watch her die. Jason’s endless finger taps on every surface he could touch the only giveaway to his OCD until he removed himself from his chair. Sejun with his alcoholism and Yuna with her acidic imagination that the wind whispered her deepest secrets out into the world.

All this ending with your gaze narrowed on the statuesque figure of Jaebum who comically sat opposite of your current position. The two suicidal inmates that shared in the anxiousness of sadness but little else, and the usual reason why your group never seemed to end on time.

You couldn't say it was a shame to be stuck sitting dead center of someone so attractive; as shallow of an observation as it was there was no denying how ungodly true that statement was. He held a silent attractiveness that resonated in the solitude he kept around himself, and Jaebum was indeed a solitary creature.

He preferred books over people. Usually moving away from anyone who got close to his latest reading perch without ever glancing up from his current book. Jaebum’s favorite place he’d reserved to get lost inside his fiction the seal of the window that looked out the expanse of the institute’s backyard. The entire estate currently covered in the dead burgundy and gold of a forest of oak tree leaves.

It wasn't like you were laying avid amounts of your attention on him or anything. You didn't pay attention to how broad his shoulders looked in his old man sweaters that you could've bet money smells like mothballs. How his features seemed sharpened to match the fierceness that lived inside his eyes. The only thing that exposed his softness was the speck of a mole that dusted itself on his left eyelid.

Jaebum just held a presence that demanded to be noticed. Whether he himself liked it or not.

“Jaebum: do you have anything you’d like to add to the session?”

Dr. Thompson’s question made the both of you jolt in your seats. Youwere too busy staring down at your nails while you plucked away at the cuticles. Jaebum's head turned, unbeknownst to you, from looking at you to the good doctor. It was enough to make your cheeks flush hot.

His crossed arms gave a soft shrug, and you hated how your eyes stayed captivated by the movement. You were willing to blame it on the charcoal-worn cable knit sweater he favored. It really did smell like moth balls and age making you willing to bet it wasn't his to begin with.

“We talked about this guys. Shrugging is not an adequate substitute for an answer.”

His tone showing his frustration more than anger at his need to repeatedly inform the group. Dr. Thompson looked at each of you individually until he stopped on Jaebum, who didn’t seem the least bit moved.

“I have nothing to say.”

A sigh escaped from Dr. Thompson’s lips as his head shook softly. His eyes averted down to the tin clipboard momentarily before they resumed their previous position.

“And what is it exactly you would like me to add, huh?” You felt your body tense against the chair. Your hands grasping at its edges like it would be the only thing to keep you stable against the oncoming rage that was Jaebum’s agitation. “We do these pointless sessions over and over: again and again. For what? Do you think it “saves” anyone?”

Your eyes diverted from the safety of your knees; counting every frayed piece of cloth on your jeans that hung loose from torn holes. No part of you needed to acknowledge that he was standing. The room did that well enough with the tension his power caused. The room itself swelling with anxiety that made fidgety Sera begin to rock violently against the back of her chair. Her head shaking hair into her face, like a curtain to hide what she feared was coming her way like the abusive hands of her father.

The orderlies were already beginning to circle his chair, but Dr. Thompson held up a hand of warding. He reminded you too much of an irresponsible ring handler at a circus. Unwilling to recognize his own tiger was about to maim him.

“No, no that’s fair enough. I see you have an issue with the way we try and help our patients.”

“Help?!” Jaebum snarled. “Is that what you call it? Like you helped Simon remember all the things he wanted to forget! Is that what you call endless therapies until he killed himself! You consider being helpful with the way you handled Ian?”

Dr. Thompson regarded Jaebum quietly, but his eyes were focused and searching the young man’s face. You watched in helpless awe as one stood like a calm in a blazing storm, while the other raged so furiously you thought the walls would come down. No longer was his voice a strong current, but now thunderous words that hurled like lightning bolts were being directed at the man before him.

Jaebum was right. Sometimes, the doctors picked and picked a part at you until you were left bare and raw. And if their words didn’t do it their physical methods picked up where they lacked. His anger was justified, because deep down so were you. But you didn’t have the towering strength like he did to stand up to anyone. Your fear of the seclusion rooms kept you prisoner: locked in your chair as a simple flick of Dr. Thompson’s hand sent the orderlies rushing to Jaebum’s side.

“I think that’s enough for today’s session.”

In the back of your mind you knew that Jaebum was right. In part. Who were counselors and psychologists to tell the broken mirrors of people how to put their pieces back together? Only to end up with more blood on their hands from struggling to put sharp pieces in place. They studied people like you, Jaebum...people like Ian who were features in their college books. They themselves barely ever one to experience it themselves.

Healing, even if unconventional, was still healing in the end. There was no right or wrong way to get there, but here, with people like Dr. Thompson, their textbook solutions were the only solutions. Maybe that’s why it backfired so terribly with Ian.

So for once, you wanted to stand up with Jaebum. To call out the injustices of treatments forced on patients, like Ian. Treatments they’d placed on patients that only wanted to forget, because no one wants to remember traumas and everything that makes them feel like failures.

You knew, however, if you took that chance to be brave for once you would end up like Jaebum. Uselessly struggling against orderlies who came prepared with syringes to make you complacent and an endless day being locked for god knew how long inside seclusion.

It was cowardice that kept your mouth shut. All of you stayed quiet as an orderly you aptly nicknamed, “The Bull,” grabbed at the neck of Jaebum’s sweater. That was all it took for him to react violently. Jaebum’s elbow flew back with such force it dislodged The Bull’s grip, which only seemed to make it worse.

“Jaebum, please do not struggle.” Dr. Thompson’s voice didn’t sound as soothing as he probably imagined. Obvious agitation outlined every word; the struggle forcing all of you up from your chairs and away from the fighting. “Everyone out. Now.”

A part of you hated listening. For not firmly digging your feet in to stand for something you agreed wasn’t right. It was an odd thought. Since Ian was the usual instigator of the chaos of how these ended. Never Jaebum. Maybe he just felt like in Ian’s absence he needed to take over for him.

“You play god with everyone’s emotions and leave them to drown alone in the aftermath. You are the reason Christian keeps escaping and Hyujin is gone! It’s you! It’s all of you!”

Jaebum’s rage became more apparent with each sentence and broke as his throat formed the words of his former friend. Former because he’d found himself as one of Dr. Thompson’s experimental new treatments. A treatment that brought back too much Hyujin couldn’t cope with - was forced to confront - before he was ready.

The ward still felt hollow - missing in the sound of Hyujin’s laugh.

You would’ve been impressed with the way Jaebum was laying into the doctor. He was holding his own against the orderly at his arms until the Bull snuck behind him and brought him falling down to the cold concrete floor.

That was the last you saw of Jaebum as you were ushered outside the doors. You faced them for a long time. No one questioned why you stood at the entrance as Jaebum’s yelling dulled to nothing. It was too late for you to run back and play the role of knight in shining armor and standing in front of the door would only make the staff assume you were waiting to cause a scene.

Turning on your heel you headed towards the living area. Your mind racing heavily with indecision and not paying attention to the overcrowded chairs and couches. You bypassed them all to head to your favorite window seat. It was opposite to the one everyone knew as Jaebum’s; reading a new book every week during free time. It was so engrained to the fabric of the facility that no one tried to take it from him. Not even Ian.

You folded into yourself as soon as you sat down on the window seat. Your chin pressed into your shoulder so you could get a better look outside. The vibrant colors of changing leaves reminding you that fall was coming. Maybe they would let you work outside if you were good? You were tired of doing bathroom and kitchen duties, but because of Ian’s latest stunt no one was allowed outside. Not until the fences were made higher with wire curled along the top.

If thoughts could be breathed into existence, you were positive you alone would be deemed responsible for Ian walking, right then and there, through the facility's double doors. Of course, Ian could never simply enter a room quietly.

Christian entered every room like a force. Wild and unpredictable. Mother Nature couldn’t compete with his massive hurricane personality. No one could come close, because underneath all that unhinged nature was a magmatism that far outreached just good looks.

Was Christian good looking? Devilishly so. It was his way with words, however, that left many people reeling. Not just fellow patients, but staff as well. He was painfully charming and, if you weren’t prepared for his wide-set smile directed in your direction, you were going to find yourself in trouble. Deep, deep Christian-flavored trouble. The staff had even labeled him with a warning of “verbal jujitsu” - you had to stay miles ahead of the conversation or you’d find yourself like the recently fired psych tech who’d handed over the ward keys without a second thought.

Seriously. That’s how Christian escaped this time. All the other times, well, the man could be considered the second coming of Houdini.

“How have you been, Bob? Are your feet still giving you grief, Margo?”

It was impressive how he acted like it wasn’t a big deal he’d magically reappeared. The guard and orderlies awkwardly keep watch over the double doors he’d come through like he’d disappear back into thin air.

You hated how happy you became hearing the richness of his voice. The way his accent reminded you of the battle of wills on what was the proper way to say, “water,” and the teasing you gave him about constantly saying, “Naurr”.

“It’s Margaret, jackass,” the older psych tech mumbled in reply. She didn’t even bother to look up from putting a new bandage on Bob’s hands.

“Missed you too, babe.”

You watched his reflection in the safety of the glass of the window. You didn’t want to show how eager you were to see him - or to find out that every time he left the ward became almost too much to bear alone.

In the safety of the window, you could pretend the call to freedom was what kept your eyes hypnotized. Not the sleeveless tee he’d tucked inside the waist of skinny jeans that hugged to the muscles like paint or the layers of tattoos that covered honey skin. He wasn’t tan when he’d left. Where had Ian’s adventures taken him this time?

You would get the chance to ask him yourself.

When his eyes caught sight of your huddled frame curled in the window seat his trajectory changed completely. He didn’t think you’d noticed him yet, but it didn’t stop his infamous megawatt smile from brightening up his features and the butterflies he’d left trapped in your gut instantly springing back to life.

The only downside? You were more than positive Ian saw you only as a sister. If he’d thought of you in the past as anything else you would’ve definitely known by now. As much as Ian was known for his charisma and whirlwind energy, he was also known for slipping into the janitor’s closet with more than a few now-fired staff members.

In a matter of seconds, he left the mirage of the window to become real beside you. The smell of cigarettes and his preferred cologne enveloped you, instantly turning the space intimate. You tried your best to ignore him. Ian would receive nothing but the side eye from you after the latest shit he’d pulled.

He let out a heavy sigh as a finger playfully poked into your side. He wiggled the digit in a weak attempt to tickle you thinking it would be enough for you to finally look at him. Fat chance. Using your elbow, you pushed down with just enough force to dislodge him from your side. The act forced a heavy sigh to flare his nostrils as he leaned back against the window.

“Come on, ‘Roo. You can’t be that mad at me?”

Of course, he would use your nickname. The nickname you earned one night when he’d tried to tickle you until you couldn’t breathe. To be honest, he thinks you’d kicked him accidentally in the chest because you might wet yourself. The truth? Ian had gotten dangerously close. A few times it felt like his lips were just a few sharp breaths away from landing on yours, and that night you’d felt hollow. So hollow. All you wanted was to burn and Ian…he was so full of fire and life and for once you wanted to know what it felt like to be filled with something other than emptiness.

You wanted to catch fire too.

So you’d kicked out at him in panic. Hence how you became his Kangaroo. His ‘Roo.

“Actually,” you began, biting out the world with each syllable. “I can be upset with you and I most definitely am.”

“Don’t be like that, ‘Roo. I know you missed me.”

“No, I didn’t. It was rather peaceful while you were off on whatever antics you decided to get into.”

A tsk sent his bottom lip into a pout as he crossed his arms. His shoulders lean further down the window and slightly into your view.

God, why did he have to be so heartbreakingly handsome?

You refused to make eye contact with him. Don’t do it. It’s a trick. You knew it was a trick. A sneaky ploy and yet…you looked. One look was all it took and Ian knew he had you.

“I missed you.” His voice caressed your skin like velvet causing it to erupt in goosebumps. “So, I know if I missed you that can only mean that you missed me.”

A snort of disbelief left you as you finally gave him what he’d been asking: your full and undivided attention.

“Is that how it works, Ian?”

“Ah!” He beamed. “She finally looks at me.”

You couldn’t keep your eyes from rolling as you tried to face away from him, but Ian wasn’t having it.

“I shouldn’t even do that.”

“Where is all this hostility coming from?” He pouted. “Did you experience another one of Dr. Thompson’s riveting group circles?”

“It’s not funny, Ian. You always leave.” You hated how your voice betrayed you. The way it cracked before you could glue it back together. “You go and leave me here, without you, all the time. One of these days you may not come back.”

All the playfulness slowly drained from his features. The sly smile wilted to a grimace as deep brown eyes scanned over your face. Calculating your words with the body language of guarded arms and saddened eyes. His hands gently grabbed at your elbows to loosen your arms before turning you to him. His head dipped down just a bit to make sure he had you at eye level.

“Hey, ‘Roo. I’m sorry. I come back for you, you know that right?” You knew he was lying, but try telling that to the butterflies fluttering around like crazy in your gut. “These assholes could never catch me if I didn’t turn myself in, and I only turned myself in to get back to you.”

You didn’t know what you would’ve said at that moment. Maybe something he wanted to hear or maybe - finally - you’d have the guts to call him out on his bullshit. Luckily for you, the muffled sound of Jaebum’s screaming slowly grew louder until his struggling body was brought through the double doors from therapy.

“Let me go, you assholes!”

You’d never seen Jaebum fight so fiercely before. The way he flailed his arms to find a way to get them released along with his legs kicking out like a madman. They practically dragged him down the hall towards seclusion. For a split second, in his struggle, his eyes landed on you. His gaze held yours for what felt like a lifetime until the spell was broken. It felt like slow motion as his face turned to see Ian on your right and all the fight drained from his body.

Did he think he was fighting for Ian? Himself? Jaebum was never much for acting out. That was usually Ian who created trouble. Maybe that was why he looked so shocked seeing Jaebum being dragged down to seclusion.

“Oi! What the fuck is this?”

Ian was up off the window seat in seconds. A couple of orderlies were already coming out from behind the nursing station to meet him halfway. Whatever they were saying, you weren’t all too sure. Ian was doing his usual of screaming and shoving causing the orderlies to prepare for a fight. The patients closest to all the commotion desperately trying to get out of the way.

It was all chaos. All classic Ian. The only non-classic thing was Jaebum looking at you in a way you’d never noticed before. It created a row of questions that sat heavily on your tongue and ones you weren’t sure he would ever be willing to answer.

It wasn’t until everything had settled down again that you snuck inside the room that held group therapy. Your eyes instantly homing in on Jaebum’s chair and underneath it one of his grandfather’s books.

Before you dared to push all the way through into the room you gave one last cautious glance to the recreation room and slipped inside. You made sure to hold the door so it didn’t click into place. There was no denying if you were caught sneaking in somewhere you weren’t meant to be you’d be joining Jaebum in your own seclusion room.

The sterile room with its egg-white walls was most definitely not your favorite. The only way to add your own source of color to its walls was to display your thoughts - projecting them out like a fucked up home movie that you’d rather forget.

You made sure to cut across the room silently. Your legs bending at the knee to swoop down to grab the worn-down cover and secure it to your chest.

You couldn’t explain why as you made your way out of the room towards the upper floor that held the seclusion rooms what made you want to do this for him. It’s not like he would thank you, but you weren’t looking for that.

It wasn’t hard to notice the way Jaebum cared for his late grandfather's things. From the sweater he wore daily that was meticulously cleaned and laundered to the few books Jaebum was able to keep from his collection. He coveted them the way others valued trophies but it wasn’t praise that Jaebum found secluded inside their pages: it was peace.

You didn’t know much about him. Jaebum wasn’t much of a sharer. He was reserved. The only way to know him was by the pages you held close to your chest. So, you weren’t terribly sure why you were doing this for him except for the fact you believed no one should go without something that they loved.

Just as you were about to round the last corner to the hallway that held seclusion rooms 1 through 3, you caught a flash of an orderly speaking to a nurse. From the brief moment you’d caught before you found the safety of the opposite wall, they were more than likely flirting.

Ted. That was the name written on his uniform. He’d called Ian a “Psycho,” a handful of times. You wondered if Ted knew the nurse he worshiped spent the same handful of nights sneaking inside Ian’s dorm.

“Do you maybe want to go get breakfast in the morning?”

Breakfast?! You mouthed to yourself before you snuck another peek around the corner.

“Oh, I don’t know, Ted. I might have plans later.”

If your eyes could roll back any harder you would’ve seen brain cells. You knew exactly what her supposed plans were. You could already hear the moans that echoed down the halls like a haunting. The only thing haunted here would be you.

You didn’t have to see Ted’s expression to know he was defeated. He was probably wondering how someone could refuse breakfast or maybe he was finally growing tired of being told no. The mystery of the unknown in this love triangle would sadly (not really) remain a mystery. You didn’t really care if they had breakfast together or hunted Easter eggs. You just wanted them to finish their awkward conversation and leave the damn hallway.

A few more strangled pieces of conversation later and you could hear the shuffling of feet. Quickly, you moved inside a linen closet and quietly shut the door. Your ears straining - waiting - to hear a pair of feet move past your location so you could finish what you came to do.

Every second you were out here and not inside your own dorm waiting for the nurses to come in and check you were there was one second too many in a chance at punishment. After a few more minutes went by and the coast sounded relatively clear, you creeped out from the linen closet and dashed towards the seclusion rooms.

“Jaebum!?” You half whispered half yelled. “Jay!”

“What the hell are you doing over here?”

Ah, there was that condescending voice you’d grown accustomed to. Following the sound of his voice, and with the help of his fingers hanging out of the small seclusion window, you darted towards the back of the hall. Your arms still securely held onto his grandfather’s book and only began to loosen as you got closer to the door.

“I wanted to bring you something before they placed it in lost and found.”

With another cautious glance down the hall, your fingers wrapped around the edges of the book's spine. You offered it up to him and gently started to push it through the small window. Jaebum hadn’t spoken since he noticed what you held in your hands. His fingers overlapped yours as he took it from you. His arms immediately brought it inside with him with the sound of pages flipping while he made sure each page was still accounted for.

“How did you-“ he began, but his words quickly died out.

“Can you believe it ladies and gentlemen? For once, he was too stunned to speak,” you teased.

Jaebum’s eyes narrowed in on your face. His hands wagged the book as if he was going to hit you over the head with it. Who knows, he might have if there wasn’t a 30-pound door stationed between you.

“I’m serious. You came all this way to give me this?”

You shrugged his words off like what you’d done wasn’t a big deal. Both of you knew it was. So many factors that could lead you to where he was, or worse, if they believed you were trying to steal someone else’s property. Which, they one hundred percent would even though kleptomania wasn’t part of your conga line list of disorders.

“I remember how much his things matter to you. I didn’t want Bull or Kojak The Great Dick to get a hold of it. I know they wouldn’t have respected it after today.”

You’d expected a lot of things to come out of this exchange. The main one? At least a thank you. All you were getting now felt like the cold shoulder that featured a very unnerving stare. With every second you were feeling more self-conscious and it took everything in you not to shout, “Boo!” in an attempt to get him to blink.

You couldn’t take the awkwardness of the exchange any longer. Your feet were already backpedaling as your arms swung, thumb extended out, to indicate your exit before you spoke.

“Great well, this was a fun chat-“

“He lies to you, you know.”

Jaebum’s words took you by surprise. You were sure that was the point. His face was set in deep lines of determination as if what he needed to say was something you needed to adhere to like the gospel from the Bible.

“Okay, Jay I’ll bite: who is he?”

“You know who I’m talking about. Ian. It’s who he is. He doesn’t know how to tell the truth, and you always set yourself up for failure with him.”

Maybe Jaebum thought he was being helpful - calling to light all things you were aware of but couldn’t bring yourself to say out loud. You must have seemed too weak - gullible - in his eyes for him to believe he needed to say these things.

You eyed him coolly through the window. Your tongue rolled around inside your cheek trying to decide what exactly you should say at this moment. Did he want recognition that you knew you were an idiot? What did it matter to him if you knew Ian didn’t give two fucks about you.

So, the only thing you could settle on was the beginning of a long sigh before you spoke: “I know I might look like a love-sick puppy to you, Jay, but I know my place.”

He tried saying your name to stop you. You just ignored him as you shook your head and allowed yourself to begin to move back down the hall towards the safety of your own dorm.

“It’s alright, Jay I get it. Take care of your grandfather’s things better, okay?”

You didn’t wait to finish your sentence before you were already turning to head down the hallway. The bottom of your feet itching for you to sprint in the opposite direction. Your mind raced over Jaebum’s words and matched them with the growing chasm in your chest.

So lost in your head, you barely caught the sound of his parting, “Thank you,” as you bolted around the corner.

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