#or maybe connor’s freaking out and freezing everything he touches

[dat-fandom-losertown]

The Drift Between Us

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Chapter 10: Adjustment Period

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Hank Anderson x Connor and Gavin Reed x RK900 (Ritch)

Pacific Rim AU

Warnings: None!

Word Count: 9,149

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Previous <> Masterlist <> Next

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    Ritch awkwardly stands in front of Gavin’s door– and his too, at least for for now– with both of his duffle bags set on either side of him. Either Gavin isn’t letting him inside out of spite, which is completely plausible, or he’s not inside because he’s staying at lunch later than usual. Either way, he’s hoping Gavin opens the door before lunch officially ends. He’s not willing to leave his bags out in the hallway just to go get food and he’s getting pretty hungry after this morning’s fight and nerves.

    He looks down at the only watch he owns– a fancy one meant to be worn with suits during formal or semi-formal events– which is now on his wrist instead of put away like usual. There’s 20 minutes before lunch ends. Even if he left now, he’d have to eat faster than he’s used to if he wants to finish it before people are kicked out for cleaning purposes. Oh well, he’s missed more meals than he cares to count during his time with Amanda, and he’s definitely gone longer than this without food before. He’ll just eat dinner a bit earlier than usual to keep the hunger away.

    “Dick?”

    Ritch turns to Gavin and automatically corrects, “Ritchie, not Richard.”

    “Yea yea, whatever,” Gavin says, rolling his eyes and waving his hand in dismissal. “What the fuck are you doing just hanging around by my door like a stray cat or something?”

    “I was never given the code to the room.”

    “And you couldn’t’ve waited in your own room because...?” Gavin stops right in front of him, defiance in his eyes. Ritch is too mentally exhausted to deal with that right now.

    “Because technically starting this morning, this is my own room, unfortunately. Did you at least pick up any unmentionables?”

    Gavin barks out an unfriendly laugh and turns to the keypad. Ritch commits the code 4629 to memory, having a feeling that Gavin won’t actually give him the code just to make his life harder. Just because he’s able to break into bunkers doesn’t mean he wants to more than what’s absolutely necessary.

    “I told you I don’t keep that kind of shit in my room.” He opens the bunker door and lets them both inside before continuing. “Also, why the hell do you call it that?”

    “What do you mean?” Ritch asks as he finds a clear space on the floor to set his bags.

    “‘Unmentionables’. That makes it sound like you’re some kind of prude, or some good little boy who went to catholic school, I dunno. More likely a nun with that baby face and mean stare.”

    Ritch sighs and grumbles, “Where should I put my stuff.”

    He just wants to get out of here and head down to the training room to help out a few of the struggling students. He’s just too mentally exhausted after all that’s happened today to properly banter with Gavin right now, and he can tell that bantering is all that Gavin wants at the moment.

    Gavin’s face falls for a split second, but he’s back to his aggressive self before Ritch can even comprehend what it could mean.

    “Left side of everything– left side of the shelves, left drawers, left closet– and the bottom bunk.” Gavin glares at him with a challenge in his eyes. Ritch doesn’t fall for it because he has no need to argue. That’s the space he took up in his and Connor’s room, so there’s no issue.

    “Perfect.” he says sharply, “Thanks.”

    He sets his bags down in the middle of the room in preparation to unpack. He gets his studying books (will he even need these anymore?) and puts them on the empty side of the shelf above the metal desk, then pulls out his personal books to put on the shelf above the last.

    Most are mainly about the science of how jaegers can safely transfer memories from one person to another without messing either person up, but some are just basic psychology books. The way people think and handle things have fascinated him ever since he first realized how different he and Connor are despite having always spent almost every waking moment with each other, and thus being in the same situations.

    Part of him hopes that Connor will do well on his own for the foreseeable future, but another part worries that there will be some kind of issue that could have been prevented if Ritch was there to stop it. Yet another part secretly hopes Connor gets used to being alone quickly so he isn’t as dependent on other people. He has the skills and brains to make it on his own, he just needs to use them instead of panicking or shutting down all the time. Hand-holding and direct interfering has proven less than effective, so maybe a hands off approach will help Connor realize his potential.

    “Alright, ground rules,” Gavin suddenly snaps as Ritch finishes putting the last of his books up. “First off, do not keep me up at night or you’ll regret it the next morning. And don’t wake me up early unless it’s an emergency either! Secondly, I get the first shower because the hot water runs out quickly here for some reason and I will make your day hell if I have to take a fucking cold shower. Thirdly, don’t touch my stuff. I don’t fucking care if you’re an OCD freak or something and I’ve left a mess, do. Not. Touch them, or I will break your hand. Got it?”

    Ritch nods simply. “As long as you don’t touch my stuff either, then it’s understood. Also, you don’t have to worry about me taking any hot water. I take my showers in the evening, and I prefer them tepid rather than hot.”

    Ritch hears the strange offended and concerned sound Gavin makes and looks up from digging his two jaeger figurines out of his bags. He doesn’t say anything, opting to silently raise an eyebrow at the pilot when he doesn’t immediately start talking like he expected. It works.

    “Why the fuck do you take cold showers? Have you never felt the glory that is a steaming hot shower before? ‘Cause you told me you were kind of sheltered earlier, but that’s just sad.” Gavin finally asks with what Ritch would call a sarcastic frown.

    He looks back down to his bag in an attempt to hide the pained expression he’s undoubtedly making. He doesn’t like reminders of that unfortunate night– dream. Nightmare. Whatever his brain decides that particular event was at any given moment.

    “It’s not cold, just tepid. You have your reasons for hating cold water, I have my reasons for hating hot.”

    “What the fuck do you know?” Gavin abruptly snarls, sounding every bit like he’s willing to kill Ritch or someone else.

    The tone snaps Ritch to attention, but he catches himself and freezes when he take’s in Gavin’s stance. He’s tense in a way that’s more defensive rather than his usual offensive position, and his face reveals equal betrayal and pain as rage. It completely catches Ritch off guard, which explains why he says what he does without trying to hide anything for the first time in a very long while.

    “Why do you get to ask me why I hate hot showers when you want to bite my head off for just saying that you have random reasons for hating cold water. Why should I care why you like hot showers when I’m the outlier in this situation, not you?”

    Gavin doesn’t respond, he just keeps glaring at him as if that will make him confess knowing something he doesn’t.

    Does he have a particularly bad memory/dream/nightmare like Connor and I do? What am I thinking, of course he does. He’s an official jaeger pilot; he likely has plenty of bad memories and experiences to choose from, Ritch thinks, making a note to himself to not bring up cold water or temperatures around Gavin anymore.

    Gavin must have finally come to some kind of conclusion, because he takes a deep breath and refocuses on the jaeger model that’s still in Ritch’s hands.

    “I thought I told you to leave your robot porn back in your bunker?” he snaps. At least he sounds less like he’s actually going to murder Ritch any moment now.

    “Sorry to disappoint, but just because you undoubtedly have explicit content hiding somewhere in here doesn’t mean I have any. Why are you so obsessed on this topic, anyhow?” he says smoothly as he gets up and positions his little models on the shelf. Are the jaeger figurines actually bothering him and he’s using this to somewhat cover it up, or is this another layer of teasing? 

    People can be incredibly confusing. Especially if their name is Gavin Reed.

    “I’m not obsessed with this topic. I’m just noticing that you’re obsessed with jaegers.” Gavin somehow makes climbing onto the top bunk look as lazy as plopping down onto the bottom bunk would. “So I’m just making sure you aren’t gonna be doing anything weird when we’re gonna be forced to drift together later on. I ain’t partnering with a fuckin’ creep.”

    “Well, nor will I.” Ritch rolls his eyes as he turns to fully face Gavin. “Actually, because I want a topic change, here are my own ground rules.”

    “Uh-uh! You don’t get to–”

    “Rule one!” Ritch declares over him, “As I said before, you don’t get to touch my stuff either. I am very particular about where everything goes, and I am a very private person. Rule two, do not wake me up in the morning unless it is an emergency. I have alarms set on my phone– that I place under my pillow so only I can hear it.” he adds when Gavin opens his mouth to retort, “I will always be on time to wherever I or we need to be, so please do not mess with me while I’m sleeping.”

    Gavin, surprisingly, just shrugs and says, “Fair enough.” It gives Ritch enough confidence to continue.

    “Rule three–”

    “There’s fuckin’ more!?–”

    “–and the last one I can think of for now. I am very introverted. Sometimes I will want to be left alone just because I am not used to having to constantly entertain someone, so try to not pester me 24/7. Although, considering your first rule, I think we can come to an agreement there as well.”

    Gavin doesn’t say anything for a solid minute, just scowling at Ritch from the top bunk. Ritch doesn’t move or break eye contact either. He’s played this game many times with Amanda over the years; breaking now would only be admitting defeat and showing that he isn’t as tough and confident as he is. Breaking eye contact and/or relaxing his tall, solid stance is something Connor would do, and while that seems to work for his twin a lot of the time, Ritch is most definitely not that type of person. He gets his way through confidence and logic rather than constant encouragement and compromise.

    “Fine.” Gavin barks. “We have a fuckin’ deal. And apparently the first part of the damned ‘personal schedules’ we’re gonna have to make.”

    That throws Ritch off track. “Personal schedules?”

    Gavin snorts. “Yea. It’s all bullshit, but all new partners have to do it. I’ve had to do one, like, three or four times now. It’s boring and annoying as hell.” He flops back down on his bed, so Ritch grabs his bag of clothes and starts unpacking them while Gavin continues, “We’ll write down that before breakfast and anything past nine or so are solitary times for our sanity. God, fuck all of this. Seriously.”

    “Will therapy appointments and trainee assisting have to go on these personal schedules? And are we turning these in to someone, or are these for private use?” Ritch asks as he puts his small pile of shirts in the locker-closet.

    “Yes to your first question. And people use these schedules to make bonding time or scheduled training or some shit, so we gotta turn them in.” Ritch doesn’t need to turn to know he’s probably doing his ever-so-famous scowl and glare. This entire thing is already becoming exhausting and they haven’t even started yet.

    The next several minutes are thankfully spent in blissful silence. Ritch isn’t sure what Gavin is hiding up on his top bunk, but he never came down for paper or a writing utensil before presumably starting the schedule, so he must have things stashed up there like Connor stashes his own things. If he’s that serious about his own privacy, then he’ll hopefully take Ritch’s request for privacy more seriously than he originally thought.

    “Okay, so I got my part of this fuckery down. You just slap on your schedule on this blank paper, we’ll hand this over. They’ll do a personality thing within the next few days, and then we’ll be back on our own separate ways.”

    That makes Ritch perk up from shoving his bags under the bed.

    “Why would they separate us so quickly?” he asks as he watches Gavin gracefully jump off his top bunk, dropping two pieces of paper on the bottom bunk before striding to the door.

    “Because I’m Gavin mother-fuckin’ Reed, retch.” He opens the door and steps through, but he pauses long enough to grin smugly and add, “No one lasts long with me.”

    He shuts the door behind himself with a clang as if to emphasize his point. It leaves Ritch alone with the silence. He picks up the papers and sees that it’s much simpler than he thought. It’s just a normal chart that has 7 columns for each day of the week. Gavin wrote down his activities next to a rough time estimate of when the various things normally get done.

    Gavin’s schedule has several chunks of time dedicated to patrolling halls that are all listed as “duty” rather than “free time”. Ritch is surprised he wasn’t just roaming the halls with the sole purpose of finding a way to cause trouble, but it makes more sense how he always manages to randomly run into people and trouble and not get reported or something if that’s his job. He wonders if that would still be Gavin’s job if he became a full-time pilot rather than a back-up one that no one really likes.

    “No one lasts long with me” he said? Well, he hasn’t met Ritch when he’s determined to beat a challenge, and “Gavin mother-fuckin’ Reed” just issued one whether he meant to or not. Ritch smirks to himself as he fills out his own rather empty personal schedule, making a vow to himself to stick around the pilot like a stubborn mold just to spite him.

    Maybe this will be slightly more fun than he thought, after all. Only time will tell how exhausting it will be in the long run, though.

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    Ritch heads to the training room after finishing up his schedule and leaving it on the desk for Gavin to see. He would have dropped it off himself, but Gavin never said where it needed to go during his dramatic exit, so he’ll just let him do it. It’ll be step one in training Gavin; if he doesn’t tell Ritch all of the information, then he’ll have no help finishing what needs to be done. Ritch just hopes that this is a lesson that’s learned quickly and easily because he doesn’t actually like the thought of passing work on to Gavin just because of lack of communication and information.

    He’s in the middle of weighing the pros and cons of finding Tina Chen and asking what things he should look out for or work on with Gavin when he hears North arguing about something down the hall. He has no clue what’s being said, but she must be complaining to someone else since she occasionally pauses before starting back up again. He finally gets an idea once he gets close to the training room’s entrance.

    “How am I supposed to pilot a jaeger without–”

    “You find someone new, just like Ritch and Connor are trying to.” Markus says, his tone implying that that was far from the first time he’s said that.

    “Technically, Ritch was given another partner this morning.” Ritch forces himself into the conversation, “Now, what is this about?”

    He uses a second to take in their surroundings to make sure they aren’t causing a scene but has to do a double-take. It usually takes more than expected to get him confused and shocked, but finding the room half-empty, despite it being the middle of a training session, sure did the trick.

    His emotions must be apparent on his face for once because Simon explains, “The purge happened this morning.”

    Ritch focuses his attention on Simon and ignores North as she starts loudly complaining again. Honestly, does she not understand that throwing a hissy fit won’t change anything?

    “The purge?” he asks when neither Markus or Simon elaborate.

    “Yea,” Markus nods tiredly, “Luther and Chloe kept several people behind after we left for lunch today, and Josh told us it was so they could let them go in relative privacy.”

    “Ritchie!–”

    “Ritch.” he corrects North sternly, but she ignores him.

    “You’re like the teacher’s pet, right?” She continues before he can give his input, “You gotta convince Luther that he’s making a mistake–”

    “But he isn’t.” he cuts in. “Josh is too much of a pacifist to make it as a jaeger pilot. Connor and I saw that on the very first day of training. But I think he’d be a fairly good fit for the science department, don’t you think?” He adds when North starts going red with whatever petulant emotion she’s feeling right now.

    Simon sounds genuinely intrigued when asking, “Science department?”

    “Well, he loves learning about things, and he’s quite smart and quick to pick up on things if the rate he was learning at during the study time of the day is normally how he is.” Markus and Simon nod, North continues pouting. “And he made friends with several people in the science department already, unless those people who brought the alcohol for that party thing were being bribed somehow.”

    North harrumphs. “I still need a partner, and there isn’t anyone left I like.”

    “Sometimes partnering with someone means you don’t like them at first.” Ritch feels like he’s talking to a child. It certainly shows that she’s always been the youngest of the group. “You just have to adapt and find someone you’re compatible with.” Even as he says this, Ritch doubts she’d be compatible with anyone else in the room. She’s just a little too… herself.

    “You literally can’t be compatible with someone if you don’t like them.” North crosses her arms.

    “Not necessarily.”

    “Yes! Absolutely necessarily!–”

    “No,” Ritch scolds her like a child or a pet, “You don’t. If that were the case, I wouldn’t have been told to pair up with Gavin Reed after we got caught fighting in the hallway.”

    With how wide the trio’s eyes get, Ritch is almost worried their eyeballs will fall right out of their sockets.

    “You seriously got a new partner?!” North exclaims just as Markus asks “You with Gavin Reed?”

    The combination of the two end up turning people’s heads, and Simon is doing nothing to de-escalate things like he would normally try to– he seems too in shock to do much else beyond gaping at him– so Ritch tries his best to explain calmly and quietly. He knows it’s more likely to rile them up, but this group has surprised him many times before. He’s hoping they surprise him again because he really doesn’t want to be known as “the trainee stuck with Gavin Reed” by everyone, especially since Gavin is very obviously not the kind of person who like~ to have a lot of attention on him. He just seems like a chaotic mess and chaotic messes usually get attention, whether it’s wanted or not.

    “This morning, Gavin and I were doing something, but we ended up… disagreeing is a good way of putting it, and it escalated into an actual fight. Marshal Fowler apparently saw it on security cameras and personally came to pick us up and tell us that our punishment is becoming partners.”

    The three gape at him for a couple of seconds before Markus asks, “They can do that? They partnered you up with someone you hate?”

    Ritch scans the room again before answering, just to make sure no one is really eavesdropping anymore. Thankfully, people have mostly turned back to whatever they were doing or talking about before. Ritch nods to where the punching bags are and starts walking towards them so the four of them aren’t right in the entryway.

    “To be fair, we do have an unusual level of compatibility when it comes to combat, and I don’t actually hate him.” He sits down on the ground and watches North as she starts wrapping her hands. “I’d almost say that I don’t particularly dislike Gavin, since I tend to disregard any rumors I hear about him. So far only a couple have been true; his love for fighting and being annoying and his habit of roaming around. And there are a lot of people who do those same things.”

    Simon finally snaps out of his shocked silence. “Wait, what? Haven’t you complained about him picking on you at lunch a couple of times?” Markus nods in agreement.

    Ritch shakes his head, slightly curious and confused. “No, I wasn’t complaining, exactly. It was just different. I poke at him as much as he pokes at me– or as I think he’s called it before– I give as good as I get.”

    North sputters out a laugh that causes Simon and Markus to glare, but Ritch doesn’t understand.

    “Just ignore her,” Markus says before Ritch can ask, “She’s always got her mind in the gutter.”

    Ritch tilts his head curiously. “That’s an inappropriate phrase?”

    Simon looks at him kindly. He’s definitely been the one who helps him the most when it comes to not understanding things, and he appreciates it.

    “It can be for certain people in certain situations. There’s nothing wrong with the way you used it and it makes perfect sense. North is just being an idiot child right now without Josh to balance her out.”

    Ritch nods in acknowledgement and understanding, making a mental note of what he’s learned about the phrase like he normally does with new slang. Maybe Connor had the right idea after all; a journal could be good for remembering everything. The human mind can only do and hold so much, after all.

    “So,” Markus starts, “What does being partners with Gavin Reed entail, then?”

    “So far just alone time in the mornings and nighttime for our sanity. He said we’ll probably be assigned daily bonding or training exercises because we both have large chunks of the day where we don’t do much.”

    North pauses her punching long enough to ask, “So, what are some juicy details?”

    “What do you mean?” Ritch does not like where this is going.

    “Like, what does his room look like? What kind of things does he have for fun.”

    If this is what North is always like without Josh, she won’t last much longer than a week. He just shakes his head with a sigh.

    “That is private information, and I wouldn’t know anyway. Unlike some people,” he sends her a pointed glare, "I actually respect people’s privacy, and he’ll respect mine.”

    “Are you sure about that?” she insists. “You won’t even peek at his stuff when he looks through yours?”

    “If he does– and I don’t think he will,” he corrects irritably while getting up, “why would I look through his things when it’d be easier and less uncomfortable for me to just ask to be removed from the room on an account of purposeful neglection of privacy.” He turns and starts walking away.

    “Ohhh, you’re leaving? It’s just a coincidence that you’re leaving while on this topic? You sure you’re not going to go check right now?”

    Ritch spins to face her so she can get the full extent of his unimpressed glare. It usually works on Connor, and while it seems ineffective on North, she definitely isn’t immune. If she was, he doesn’t know what he’d do to actually get her attention and let her know that he is absolutely done with her for the time being. He almost hopes she gets sent home or told off by Luther as some kind of wake up call for being a complete child right now.

    “I’m leaving because you’re being a nosey, whiny asshole because the partner you were barely compatible with was saved from having his mental health take a huge decline from the violence that a jaeger pilot’s life is filled with.” He sharply turns back towards the entryway of the training room. “Not everything is about you, and not everyone has the same views or values as you. That is what you need to learn before you’re even close to ready for finding a new partner, because I promise you that the people in here won’t be nearly as accommodating as Josh was.”

    He hears no arguments as he walks out of the room, so he’ll take the liberty to assume that Simon and Markus are silently agreeing with him, and that North is going to check herself at least for today, if not for the next several days. He’s unfortunately not naive enough to think it will last to the end of the week, though.

    Just as he steps out of the room, he almost physically runs into Gavin, who’s standing right out of sight from the people inside. Instead of stopping there and revealing Gavin’s poor hiding place, he casually walks past and stops when he, too, is out of sight from the room of trainees. Gavin watches him silently as he does this, then surprises him by not saying anything when Ritch leans against the wall right next to him. That normally gets Gavin at least glaring at him to leave his space, like he did this morning.

    “You know,” he murmurs, not wanting the trainees to hear him, “you could at least let people know that your job is to patrol the area. Less people would think you’re just looking for trouble all the time.”

    Gavin’s face remains relatively blank as he deadpans, “Where’s the fun in that?”

    “Less fun, true, but also less reports on Gavin Reed trying to start trouble, which means less things added to your apparently huge disciplinary folder? Wouldn’t that be worth it?”

    Gavin scoffs, then goes quiet. Ritch starts worrying. So far, he’s learned that Gavin isn’t one to stay quiet for long, but Ritch is also the very last person who should do anything relating to emotions. He’s surprised when Gavin starts explaining himself– Gavin Reed from the countless rumors he hears doesn’t like explaining himself to anyone but the marshal.

    “The official patrolling thing is a brand new excuse for me wandering around all day, but Luther’s always told me when he’s gonna start telling the failed trainees to go home so I can hover around and control any potential fights between punks who are upset that their partners and friends had to leave.” He turns to Ritch with a contemplative look on his face. “You ever think of picking up patrolling after people finally wake up and realize that we’re not gonna work as a pair?”

    “No, because I’d work better with jaegers than with the people. You know I’m not good with people or their emotions, or did you forget that I’m two steps away from being a robot?” he teases. He turns to leave then, not knowing what’s wrong with Gavin right now, but not wanting to accidentally push buttons.

    He stops and turns, however, when the pilot makes some kind of choked noise.

    Gavin huffs and glares at the far wall. “So why didn’t you tell her what my room is like, Mr. ‘this is now technically my room too’? It’s not like there was anything weird in there.”

    “If you heard that, then you heard my reasoning. Besides, with how much you’ve stalked me over the past couple of weeks, you should know by now that I hate drama and gossip.”

    Ritch turns and walks away, not having a real plan of where he’s going. If he knew where to turn in their personal schedules, he’d probably go do that, but he’s already far enough away that he can’t just ask Gavin over his shoulder without alerting everyone inside, and he’s not willing to turn and walk back to him just to ask a question as simple as that. One of them will take care of it later.

    He suddenly remembers Josh, how he’s the one who was told he wasn’t fit for piloting a jaeger. Even though Josh has told him multiple times that he was only doing it for North, that he wanted to be a teacher or something in the learning or education field, it probably still hits that he’s been let go rather than quitting on his own like he was contemplating doing. Although, at least this way North’s petty anger will be aimed at people she can’t touch and not at someone she can seriously damage emotionally, if not physically.

    With those thoughts in mind, he heads to Josh’s bunker to talk to him about maybe joining the science department, even if it’s just as an apprentice or intern or something. He figures with the multiple friends he has there and his obvious interest in the subject that it should be obvious, but it’s been proven time and time again that human brains just aren’t reliable. Maybe North will be less irritated and Markus and Simon won’t be quite as forlorn if he’s still nearby. 

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    Gavin doesn’t know how to feel about Ritch anymore.

    At first, he was just some challenge, a robot he wanted to push and break until he showed some kind of reaction. Then the robot starts pushing and poking back, and they get into a surprisingly enjoyable rhythm. Then he’s suddenly perfectly fine with breaking the rules, even though that seems like it’d go against what Gavin knows of his personality. Then come to find out that he can fight damn well too. Then he’s only mother-fucking 23 years old and he honestly can’t tell if he was exaggerating about the “training everyday since 11 years old” thing or not. 

    Gavin’s used to a neglectful household, between his emotionally absent father and his mother who was so stressed she eventually just upped and left, then his step-mother who was more interested in the money and protection that his father’s job and location offered than the family. He grew up being the older brother who went to work right out of high school despite his father’s wealth because his parents seemed to forget that he and his brother even existed until they did something wrong.

    But training for something as serious and violent as jaeger piloting since 11? As much as Gavin would like to think that it was mostly play until tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum turned 18, Ritch’s level of skill and strength and just the way he carries himself can’t be learned and formed in just four or five years of adulthood. That, and Anderson wouldn’t voluntarily keep Connor around him if that twin was like the other trainees, so it’s not just Ritch.

    It also has come to his attention earlier that the reason why “Stern” sounded so familiar was because of the ever-so-famous Amanda Stern. Gavin doesn’t know much about her, but he does know that she’d probably be determined and crazy enough to adopt children in order to create perfect soldiers. She practically did it with Anderson from what he heard from the man before he became a low-life. Plucked him off the streets at the ripe age of 17, if he remembers correctly.

    Gavin isn’t going to get into that mess whatsoever, though. Ritch very obviously doesn’t see too many issues with how he was raised, and he certainly wasn’t sheltered to the point of living completely under a rock with how many references he’s able to make and understand without stuttering. So no, Gavin isn’t going to touch any of this with a ten foot pole, but he’s also curious of whether or not Ritch is just a really good actor, if he’s got some kind of stockholm syndrome, or if living with and being trained by Amanda fucking Stern instead of going to a public middle and high school wasn’t actually as bad as Gavin’s gut is trying to tell him it would be.

    The problem is, Gavin’s gut has rarely been wrong. Having good gut feelings and instincts is kind of a part of the job as a jaeger pilot. He hasn’t met a successful pilot that didn’t have a good instinct they listened to.

    He pushes himself off of the wall once it becomes obvious that none of the kids inside aren’t going to start a fight based on nothing but mutual anger for having partners and friends being let go. And isn’t that kind of weird, the fact he can easily call everyone in that room children when his partner is at least 3 years younger than the youngest person in there, but he also acts the least childish out of all of them. It almost makes Gavin curious of what kinds of things Ritch has seen and experienced to make him the way he is. What a fucking anamoly.

    When Gavin just turned 23, he was signing up to be a jaeger pilot for the first of two times after getting kicked out of his shitty apartment. He was starting to look for another construction job since they were plenty, but his history of violence wasn’t doing him favors.

    He still remembers the day he got a letter back saying they looked up surveillance videos of a few of the fights he’d picked once they got his second letter– probably because, as he now knows, people rarely try twice without sounding entitled and/or stupid– and decided that they’d take a chance on him, but to not get his hopes up. He remembers being overwhelmed in the best way possible when he and sweet, joyful Ty were finally added onto the “main pilots” list.

    He also remembers the first time he tried to enter the drift with someone after Ty. He remembers staring at himself in the mirror after washing his face with an expression almost identical to the one Ritch had while processing the fact they could be compatible. He remembers the day he found a way to keep his memories and experiences away from the drift.

    Gavin isn’t going to get nosey with this one, but it can’t hurt to stay observant. After all, he’s got a long history of winning fights against abusers of all sorts, and he doubts one old woman would be able to best him, even if it’s Amanda Stern. 

    He shakes his head to get rid of those types of thoughts and tries not to freak out about how protective they sounded even in his own head. He can’t exactly blame himself, though. Once a protective older brother, always a protective asshole who loves to start and finish other people’s fights. He’s done the same thing for Tina and her relatively new partner, so he’s not too terribly surprised to see that it’s starting to happen with the literal only other person he sees regularly. It doesn’t mean he has to like it, though.

    He raises a hand to knock on Tina’s door and freezes. He doesn’t remember actually coming here and he doesn’t know why he’d want Tina, anyway, She can be insufferable with certain topics and this would certainly be one of them. He can already imagine her teasing about how she knew Ritch would be his new “boy toy” and hear her start making innuendos when he really, really doesn’t want to hear any of it today. Ty is too fresh in his mind, the fact that he can think his name instead of his “past partner” or just “him” proves it.

    Besides, now that patrolling is his actual job around here, he probably shouldn’t start skipping out. He may be irresponsible sometimes, but he tries to not be a total jackass about it. Skipping patrol as soon as it becomes his actual job– as opposed to something that he did because he’s a nosey shit and it also kind of annoyed people– would be an absolute asshole thing to do. With that in mind, he backs away from the door and strolls away with the intention to roam around like he usually does. However, he only makes it 3 steps before he spots his own door, which somehow reminds him of the personal schedules he and Ritch have to come up with.

    Gavin idly wonders if Ritch already finished his before setting off to wherever he was obviously itching to go. He certainly seems like the type to get things done immediately rather than putting them off, but he’s also surprised Gavin before in the past. 

    Before he even realizes it, Gavin’s opening his door and stepping inside. Right on the desk are two papers, one that he immediately knows is his own schedule. He strolls over and picks them both up, and takes them with him when he sees the “Signature of Completion” bullshit at the bottom. It stands out compared to the relative emptiness of the rest of the page. There are chunks of time dedicated to meals, and Ritch apparently likes going to help the rest of the trainees with physical training every morning, and has a note at the bottom noting a reserved time for “possible therapy, frequencies and assigned time unknown”. He must be therapist-hopping right now.

    Gavin doesn’t feel bad at all snooping through the schedule. If the higher-ups around here are gonna try to force a partnership on them, then he’s gonna find this shit out anyway. Even if that weren’t the case, it’s not like he’d see anything here that he hasn’t experienced or witnessed before. Therapy is something that is mandated for quite a few people around here, and is voluntarily sought after by others. It’s not anything to be shy about, and Ritch obviously agrees considering one of the first things he asked about these damn schedules was whether or not he’d have to add the sessions in.

    It’s an easy trip of carefully not thinking about anything and letting his mind be distracted by Ritch while not letting it focus too hard on him either. Well, maybe easy isn’t quite the word he’s looking for. It’s a simple walk without any interruptions, but complicated and kind of difficult to keep his head in check. He doesn’t even notice he’s in the office to drop off the schedules until a woman tries to take them out of his hands.

    Noticing her nervous look, he just apologizes, hands her the papers, and walks away. He doesn’t even have the energy to try to come up with something he’d normally say and do. He just wants Ritch out of Ty’s space. He wants Ty out of his own mind. He wants Ty back, but knows that’s impossible.

    He’d probably be over his old partner if they weren’t in the drift together when he was ripped out of the jaeger. He wouldn’t have felt most of the things he did. He may have even been able to say that it was always a possibility for any of them to die, and it was unfortunately him out of everyone else. 

    God fucking damn it. He’s gonna need to set up an emergency therapy appointment, isn’t he? God fuck it, Marshal Fowler should have probably talked to his therapist and whoever the fuck else before doing this. Gavin was actually starting to do better, if he does say so himself.

    At least Ritch seems like the type of guy who will leave him the fuck alone and won’t mess with his shit. He even put the morning and nighttime alone-times on his own schedule even though Gavin was half joking. Not to mention Ritch is the first person since Tina who teases him back just as much as Gavin teases while still knowing when it’s time to cut that out and be serious.

    Mother fucking fuck. He’s done thinking about this. He needs a distraction. Now.

    Gavin heads to the gym, hoping to work out any nervous energy he suddenly has now that the melancholy seems to have passed. He’ll set up that appointment tomorrow after he’s had some sleep. Besides, he wants at least some information on what kind of roommate Ritch is before he goes off to start complaining to the girl who loves to gossip. Going in without a plan is exactly what’s going to get the two of them stuck together permanently. That is, if their “natural compatibility” doesn’t start fucking up any time soon instead.

    It’s almost fucked up how this entire situation simultaneously feels like purgatory for being an asshole forever and a potential second chance. Whatever, Gavin’s just going to roll with it like he always does and hope things go back to normal soon enough.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    Dinner finds Ritch sitting on the ground against the wall, feeling pitiful as he eats his very Americanized nachos.

  �� He tried sitting with his Markus, Simon, Josh, and North for all of a couple minutes before North drove Josh away while he was trying to explain the plan he and Ritch made to get him into the science department. Markus then told North off, who started snapping at Ritch for whatever damned reason. At that point it was either force himself to walk away calmly or cuff her upside the head, which would have led to her starting a fight he would have finished in seconds at the cost of disciplinary action against him.

    So he walked away, even if it took every ounce of his self-control to not grab her hand and sweep her feet out from under her when she tried to escalate things into a fight anyway.

    She’s turning into a new, whiny version of Alex and Ritch will not put up with any of it. If she doesn’t quit within the next couple of days, he’s going to have to bring this to Luther’s attention, because, according to Simon and Markus, she does not get nearly this bad during training. He just wishes he didn’t have to. He considered her a friend before, but now he’s not so sure he could handle any more unpredictability in his life. He has enough of it already with Gavin, and even then, he at least doesn’t antagonize for the sake of it. If he’s anything like Ritch, then he gets some kind of emotional release out of being a relatively unpredictable asshole.

    “What the hell are you doing here, vomit?”

    Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

    “I might ask the same question, book.”

    “Book?” Gavin asks with palpable confusion.

    “Vomit?” Ritch asks back almost mockingly. He figures Gavin’s most recent favorite nickname, Retch, went a little further and turned to vomit. “Look, if you want to sit, I’d suggest you do it. I’m not in the mood to play our usual games and, quite frankly, I’m hiding from someone.”

    Gavin’s eyes widen in visible surprise, but he takes a step forward and drops down to the floor. “You? Hiding someone? Why would the ‘top of the class’–” he makes air quotes “–need to avoid someone?”

    Ritch decides to be bluntfully honest. “To keep me from smacking them upside their whiny little head and getting me in trouble. Why would the man who’s known to love fights be hiding from someone?”

    “I never said I was playing coward, ass.” Gavin huffs irritably.

    “Then why aren’t you with Tina Chen like you always are?” he asks after finishing his bite of food.

    There’s a minute that passes where neither of them say anything to each other, but the ambient sounds of the food court keep things from going silent. Ritch hears Gavin muttering to himself, but he easily blocks that out because Connor does the exact same thing. He sometimes wonders if it helps people like them process and retain information or if it’s just a habit. Ritch certainly can’t force himself to speak when not necessary, and Amanda hadn’t ever said anything about him muttering like she had with Connor.

    “Tina Chen is a gossip at heart and loves making a big deal out of little things.”

    Ritch huffs. “I dislike people like that.”

    Ritch sees Gavin scowl and open his mouth to speak out of the corner of his eye. He never does say anything, though, he just closes his mouth and huffs in an irritable way.

    Neither one of them spend very long eating, and neither one of them say a single thing for the rest of their dinner. Ritch stands up to put his stuff away first, but he spots Gavin finishing and getting up as he walks out of the food court area.

    They say nothing to each other even though Gavin’s natural walking pace is a tad faster than Ritch’s, so they end up walking beside each other for a while. They don’t say anything while cooling down after dinner, and Ritch stays silent when Gavin calls his therapist on his radio thing and asks him for a “rant session” that evening. Gavin stays quiet and reads whatever book he has on his top bunk while Ritch gets himself together for his therapist trial.

    Gavin isn’t there when he returns, and Ritch is somewhat thankful for it. He actually likes this therapist, especially compared to the first one he visited, so he managed to gather the courage by the end of the session to mention keeping a journal to remember things. She said that keeping notes is a great way to keep track of things in a new environment and vent about anything he doesn’t feel comfortable telling other people. That, and more than plenty of people keep notes just for the sake of having reminders of events and other things, so they’re not just used for studying or therapy.

    Just a couple minutes after Ritch makes his charts on different people and a few lists of words and phrases and what they mean to most people, Gavin walks in. He immediately grabs some pajamas out of his locker with tense shoulders and jerky movements then goes inside the bathroom. Ritch decides to ignore as much as he can by reading a book that Josh recommended, since he may be leaving soon and will need it back. Gavin comes back out several minutes later, pauses to look around at who knows what, then settles his hands on his hips with a sharp sigh.

    Ritch tears his eyes away from the surprisingly good fiction novel in order to glance at Gavin. The pilot must take that as acknowledgement enough because he starts speaking.

    “So, my therapist had an idea I’d like to try, for once,” he declares.

    Ritch raises an eyebrow. “I’ve heard you’re supposed to listen to your therapist’s advice.”

    “Yeah, well, they’re not the fuckin’ know all be all of any of our lives, y’know?”

    Ritch emphatically does not know– he doesn’t quite understand what that phrase means– but he nods along anyway.

    “So anyway, I’m sure you’ve heard about how I used to have a partner.” Gavin sounds like he’s going to continue, but he doesn’t.

    Ritch hesitantly shakes his head. “I haven’t, but it makes sense since you’re in a two-person room rather than a single-person back-up room.”

    Ritch decides that he doesn’t need to know why said partner isn’t with him anymore. They either quit and left Gavin behind or they died, both of which are cases that need a lot more delicacy than Ritch has in order to handle and navigate without ruining what little truce they have right now.

    Gavin’s face scrunches up in confusion for what seems like less than a moment before he smiles sarcastically and claps his hands together.

    “Well then! Yes, I used to have a partner, and all of his stuff went where all of your shit is.” Gavin starts pacing. “And you see, I’ve always fucking hated all of my partners for valid fuckin’ reasons, right? And my therapist was always like, ‘you like who you like, and you can’t pilot with someone you hate’ yadda yadda yadda. So imagine my surprise when I come to him to complain about you, he stops me and tells me that I’m just afraid of replacing my old partner, right?” Gavin, once again, sounds like he’s just going to continue, but stops for whatever reason.

    Ritch nods slowly once more. “That’s an understandable feeling to have,” he says in a carefully neutral tone.

    “Yeah, sure, but it shook me up because that’s the first time he’s said something like this, right? So, turns out, my fucking therapist was on board with us pairing up and cleared it before we even knew it was our punishment. Like, what the fuck?”

    Ritch has no clue what’s happening, but he figures that if this is what’s going to keep Gavin from trying to fight him and their superiors every step of the way of whatever is happening anymore, then he’ll do what he does second best and sit silently. It’s not like Gavin ranting at him is going to do any damage as far as he can tell, even Ritch doesn’t understand why he would ever want to come to him with these types of issues.

    “So he’s goin’ on about his therapist thing that he’s paid to do, and he says that I’m gonna put up with your ass for a whole two weeks before we can request to split! All because he thinks our banter was a sign of some shit and our fighting styles are super compatible!”

    “They are,” Ritch interjects cautiously. “Compatible, I mean. I was taught to be able to tell in the event that something happened to Connor and I had to find someone else to pilot with.”

    Gavin blinks hard, then blinks a couple more times before shaking his head.

    “Your– You know what? I don’t have time to deal with your shit right now.” he replies combatively, tensing up as if preparing for a fight. Ritch holds back a sigh.

    “I… didn’t want to start anything? I was just listing facts. You mentioned that your therapist had an idea you wanted to try earlier? I assume it involves me– and I mean this in a kind way– or else you wouldn’t be venting to me, of all people.”

    Gavin goes blank and blinks once more, then snaps his fingers with a, “That’s right! Listen, we’re gonna switch our stuff around.”

    Ritch, as used to Connor’s random bullshit as he was, does not understand where the connection in any of this is. He just wants to read his book and get some good sleep before helping the angsty trainees tomorrow morning.

    Gavin huffs. “Look, He said it’s like I’m finding reasons to hate people because they’re replacing my old partner, right?”

    Oh. I think I understand now. I’m fairly sure I’ve read about this somewhere…

    “But I’m not replacing them. I’m someone else entirely, so you want to switch our stuff around so it’s not like I’m taking over his old space and replacing them further, but more like you’re keeping his old place and his memories safe, then I’ll be in your place where you aren’t as emotionally attached? Is that about the idea of it?”

    He meets Gavin’s wide eyes. This is probably the most genuine surprise and confusion he’s seen from him.

    “Uh, yeah. Kinda. How did you?”

    “I read psychology books in my spare time.” Ritch stands and looks away. If Gavin is going to offer something private information like that, then Ritch will return the favor. “People have always confused me, so I tried using psychology to learn about them more. Then I got more interested in how different kinds of people react in different ways when I realized how different Connor and I are from each other, despite being identical twins who grew up in the same conditions.”

    “But your eyes are blue.” Gavin blurts. Ritch is about to turn that question down when Gavin waves his hands dismissively. “Y’know what? I don’t actually care. I just want to move our stuff around so maybe my brain’ll stop fuckin’ me over. It’s been less than one god damned day and I’m already sick and tired of this shit. Two fucking weeks…” Gavin adds under his breath, but Ritch still catches it.

    Ritch nods in acknowledgement and moves to start taking things off the shelves. It may be a bit of an adjustment, getting used to his stuff being on the opposite side of where he’s used to reaching, but it shouldn’t be too bad.

    Gavin quietly follows after, sliding his stuff over to the other side of the shelf rather than actually picking things up and moving them. The silence continues after that. They don’t say a word to each other while moving things around, and really that may be a testimony to how compatible they are. Ritch moves some of his stuff when he notices Gavin preparing to move some of his own things in that spot, and Gavin follows him over to a new area of the room when he finishes a spot.

    Three mostly-silent hours later, the room has been readjusted and Ritch is clean and is climbing into bed to finally sleep. He’s out like a light just as he notices that Gavin is still on the top bunk even after everything else is switched. He’ll leave it alone; he really doesn’t want to have to climb up to the top bunk with injuries or during late nights, after all.

    Ritch wakes up the next morning to a note on his pillow and can’t help but smirk a little. “You won’t catch me dead on the bottom bunk. Have fun listening to creaking, whacking your head, and being closer to the bugs and shit down there.” It’s good to know they’ll agree to disagree on which bunk is best, at least.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

Previous <> Masterlist <> Next

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

A/N: Heyo! Sorry for the slow update, life irl got busy, and I’ve rewritten this chapter a couple of times. I don’t know why I feel like I can never get Gavin quite right? But hopefully that problem is solved once Ritch and Gavin get used to each other and fall into a groove I have planned for them Lol.

Thank you all for sticking around all this time, I really appreciate it! I don’t really have much else to say besides get ready for some Connor POV and a possible, short time skip next chapter. I hope you guys have a good day/night! 😄💕💖

[panticwritten]

Breaking Furnace - Solitary: Chapter four

Chapter 4: Loathing!

Table of contents!

All of my writing!

I went camping this week, so I ended up not getting this post pre-scheduled again. This shouldn’t happen again, next week it’ll be up 7pm sharp on Friday I swear!

(I’ve had to change quite a bit of formatting to post this on tumblr. If you want to read this chapter with its original formatting, you can do so HERE.)

Remember that this is a daydream taking place in the Escape From Furnace universe, so keep that in mind if you haven’t read EFF.

Word count: 3701

Content warnings for this chapter:

Brainwashing

Feel free to message me if I’m missing any.

Chapter five will be up on August 24th at 7pm PST.

If you like what I do here, maybe consider buying me a Ko-fi or checking out my Patreon! I love being able to put so much out for free, but this would be a great way to show support and also see cool new content!

~-S-~

“If I try shoving nectar in him right now, his body won’t be able to handle it,” I hiss, not looking up.

I know just enough about real biology to know that he’s lucky he survived this far. If Cross will leave me alone long enough to actually find where the problem is, I’ll be able to fix it. Nectar would heal him, but at what cost?

Healing was never my job.

“Who // then?”

“If you don’t, he will die.”

Cross continues piling the bags of nectar on the edge of the stretcher. I’m glad, because it keeps him from responding to my glare at the air over my left shoulder.

I back off. He takes over, hooking an IV to each arm and starting a drip. With a scowl, I watch the darkness flow through the tubes into the boy’s veins.

Immediately, the boy tenses, wrists taut against the leather bindings. His eyes open, wild, and he cries out. Then, he falls limp once again, as if he’d never moved. I flick a glance at Cross, surprised to find a pleased grin on his face. He knows that the most we’ll ever get out of this kid is an offering for Father.

Even so, it really isn’t my call. He’s the boss here, it’s his prison, if he wants to pull that kind of authority. I turn away to return to the infirmary. I should make sure the other two are set up before turning in for the night.

“Perry,” Cross calls.

I stop.

I turn, back straight, eyes on the warden. If he’s going to treat me like a subordinate, I may as well give him the full satisfaction. He doesn’t look at me, inspecting another bag of nectar.

“We have a change of plans. Focus on the inmates in solitary for now, other than your routine checks. I have the infirmary handled.”

“Why?”

I raise an eyebrow, but otherwise remain impassive. I almost turn away again, thinking myself dismissed. Before I can move, however, he continues.

“Seeing as you have a personal interest in the progress of 209, you will choose the group’s full punishment.” He finally looks up, triumph in his eyes. “I will give you your team tomorrow.”

“Good.”

It’s disarming to hear the voice agreeing with me, so I think the command over critically. A peace offering? A punishment? For what? I eye him suspiciously, and I notice a speculative gleam cross his eyes.

There’s more to this.

It really isn’t the time to be arguing with him, though. This is what I wanted, after all.

I nod and turn my back on him. “Thank you, Cross.”

“Be careful who you trust.” the voice whispers, barely audible over the clatter of my shoes on the hard floor. I keep my eyes on the doorway to the infirmary. I consider the punishment for the solitary inmates, but am distracted by the voice repeating itself, louder, more insistently.

“What, I shouldn’t trust my own blood?” I ask as I push into the infirmary, much louder than I intended.

A blacksuit standing in the middle of the room looks up quizzically. I pause, feeling caught, but put on a smooth face and keep walking. I catch him shrug in an ‘it’s-obviously-none-of-my-business’ sort of way. I glance into the cots, relieved to find Arnold and Donovan secure, asleep, and hooked up to their IVs.

I might as well check on my new charges before turning in.

I make my way back to Cross’s office to find the folders still spread across his desk. I flip them open, picking out the three remaining inmates. I turn to leave, but pause when the voice chimes in. Instead, I lean against the desk and wait.

“Zee Hatcher. Prisoner number 2013832. Your cell is D24, fourth level. Cellmate Carlton Jones.”

I glance to the left, curious at its wording. I flip through the file to find 210 penned onto the photo. All of the information is accurate, the same as I read earlier today. The voice continues, and I look away.

“Alexander Sawyer. Prisoner number 2013834. Cell number F11, sixth level. Cellmate Carl Donovan.”

Once again, the information is direct from the file. Number 208. I close the file and slide it behind the others, left with an unmarked manila folder. I frown at it. Maybe I shouldn’t open this one again.

“Connor Sawyer.”

A familiar rush of anger boils in my veins, but I wait, expecting more. It doesn’t say anything else. “Is that it?”

“Not yet.”

Whatever that means.

I open the file, and carefully avoid the boy’s name and the disciplinary information to see what else we have about him.

1009999. D2. Dominic Tchaikovsky.

My brows crease, but I shrug it off. It isn’t exactly strange to grab kids off the street. Nothing but a name to hide behind.

I snort and close the file, pushing off of the desk to leave the room.

By the time I reach the solitary cells and I haven’t heard anything more from the strange voice, I decide that it must have gone for now. I’m almost surprised that there isn’t a guard. They seem to be everywhere, but this corridor is empty.

Escape from the hole is impossible. I can’t think of a way one might break out of them from inside. I gaze at the steel hatches in the ground, a strange sense of deja vu tickling the back of my mind. With a shake of my head, I spin a lever with a thought and swing the hatch open.

I look in and rage immediately whisks my breath from my lungs.

Connor.

Sawyer.

♥️♥️♥️C♥️♥️♥️

I nearly lose my footing when I finally get to see Sawyer without the plastic slats of the infirmary between us. Without Cross here to confuse everything. They’re as healthy as any of the other soldiers in the compound.

Well rested.

Full of nectar.

They freeze when they see me in the hole, their eyes growing visibly darker as their gaze bores into me. Anger. Even with our connection cut off, I catch glimpses of orange and red rising from their shoulders.

They settle on a savage sneer. I don’t know if I should play along—try to reason with them—or not.  

“Connor Sawyer,” they say with some struggle. “Prisoner 1009999. You’re a real mystery.”

I ignore their words in favor of brushing the side of their mind.

They stop dead and pinpoint me with an out of character glare before pushing me out so hard I physically stumble back.

Shit.

Fuck.

“S—”

“Shut the hell up, inmate,” they hiss. “You survived here for two years. Now, instead of dying up above, you’ve chosen to hand yourself right over to the warden and I.”

Cross was so confident.

It looks like he has a good reason for it. He has them. With the kind of walls they have up, there’s no getting them back unless they want to.

Their smirk freezes and Virtuoso appears on their hands and knees peering down into my cell. They look harassed.

“I hate to interrupt.” They reach a hand into my cell. “But I have to shut everything down for a little bit.”

I hesitate to take their hand.

“Why?”

They huff, so I humor them. The second our hands touch, something changes. I don’t have to look around to know we’re in the In-Between.

I do, though, on habit. The emptiness is absolute, nothing as far as the eye can see backed by inky black. I look back when they release my hand to find them standing a short distance away and dusting off their knees.

I didn’t know I could come here when I’m awake.

“Follow me. My houseguest wanted to meet you.”

They spin on their heel and strike out into the darkness. With nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, I follow.

Cloying lines of color rise from the floor with every deadened footstep. I watch them lift and dissipate in the near silence. I wonder if I could find my way home from here.

“Oh, there you are.”

I jolt to a stop when an entire scene appears in front of me. A glowing apparition of Sawyer hovers on their back some distance in the air. Two lines, one green and one violet , split the In-Between in two. The violet line sits flat while the green one writhes in time to an indistinct murmur. A soft indigo fog emits from the line as it moves, something different than the usual way the In-Between reacts to sound.

“Get down here,” Virtuoso calls. “This is your one chance to meddle, so make it count.”

The golden figure appears at my side without warning.

“I thought giving me an inch was a slippery slope,” this Sawyer says, peering at me like a predator. They laugh and take a step back into the air. “Good to see you where you can actually hear me.”

I almost ask what they mean, but they flicker into a floating point of light before reappearing and leaning close again. They were the light Virtuoso was arguing with when I first met them. They’re the reason I can even be here right now.

“And it’s certainly causing a lot of trouble,” Virtuoso mutters. “Administrative clearance, my ass.”

“We’ve been stuck in this point in time for weeks,” the copy whispers conspiratorially.

“Why bring me here now?”

“I asked.” They shrug and incline their head toward Virtuoso. “And Virtue here’s kind of freaking out.”

“Don’t call me that,” Virtuoso says without turning around.

The splinter shrugs and drifts up to lay on their back around eye level. They watch me without a word. My skin prickles under their gaze so I hurry to follow Virtuoso turther into the lived in area of the In-Between.

They have several shining screens reminiscent of a sci-fi movie floating in front of them. Most of them carry maps and lines of text. One has a looping clip of Sawyer walking a hallway just next to a capture of them speaking to me in solitary.

“We’ve been lucky so far,” Virtuoso murmurs with their hand tracking an abstract line on a map I can’t make sense of. “I thought I would make the last time memorable.”

If they’re anything like Sawyer, if I don’t say anything they should go on. I watch them trace the map. They make a face after a minute.

They wave their hand and most of the screens disappear along with Sawyer’s voice when the line goes still once again. The one with the lines they were following remains up.

In fact, it balloons so I can see it clearly. It’s a probability map—a huge one.

“Every time that we’ve spoken,” they pause to tap four branches on the screen to make them glow, “has been a risk.”

All of the branches are fairly extensive with different possible paths, but these four make a broken window look linear. The paths branch out and quickly end. Unsustainable, dead.

“Each time I pause to make my changes, I have to make sure you don’t change anything,” they explain. “It wasn’t a problem before. Jess daydreamed half of the first book over the course of three days so I was too busy to do anything out of real-time.”

“But now they’re running out of steam.” I say with a flat voice. “Losing focus. Slowing down.”

They nod.

“I have the time, but now pausing things brings new problems.”

I lean close to the screen to read the different branches. The ones we’ve followed are all labelled ‘contact’ surrounded by several others with the same label. The others have some variation of ‘discovered’ and ‘undiscovered.’

I reach out, surprised when a touch to the first time we spoke outside of the In-Between zooms it in to that point in time. A few of the other paths reach pretty far, and I wonder how they chose between them. How they decided which path to take.

Hang on.

“You’ve been distracting me.” They have the grace to look distraught when I turn to them instead of the map. “So I wouldn’t go wandering off while everything’s paused!”

“It was the safest option. With how often I have to turn everything off to course correct—”

“You could just said, ‘hey, don’t move when everything pauses.’ I can follow directions, you know?” I manage not to raise my voice, but it’s a struggle. “That’s literally what I do.”

“The bad endings where I leave you alone are far worse than the ones I risked when I spoke to you,” they say between gritted teeth. “I’m fixing the mistake I made when I gave you clearance now, anyway.”

What?

“We came to an agreement.”

I spin around to find the splinter of Sawyer hovering in the air and smiling far too wide just a few inches from my face. I shuffle back, but have to stop when the screen tries to phase through my back. The splinter simply follows me, so I might as well not try.

“What kind of agreement?”

“It took both of us to change the settings and allow this to happen.” Virtuoso grabs the splinter by the scruff and tugs them back. The way they settle back to the floor with a huff tells me it’s not the first time this has happened. “They begged me to allow you in the In-Between, I gave permission.”

“Now they’re begging me to let them fix it.” The splinter shrugs. “But I’m so bored, stuck in here.”

“You agreed,” Virtuoso snaps.

“I agreed, that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.”

“I gave you every chance to change the terms.” Virtuoso turns to the splinter and scowls.

“You vetoed every idea I had!” The splinter lifts its hands in a lazy show of frustration. “I barely had any input by the time I said yes—”

“To what?” I cut in again. I wonder how long they’ve been having these circular arguments around here.

They both look at me as if they forgot I was here.

“You’ll come here whenever V pauses your world,” the splinter explains, lifting their feet into the air. Virtuoso shoves them off course at another shortening of their name. “Keep you from going anywhere and let me see you every once in a while.”

They smile and force me to remember that they really are just another piece of Sawyer.

“And you won’t remember anything once the setting goes into affect,” Virtuoso adds with a glare still pointed at the splinter. “Not until you leave the universe permanently.”

Until I die. Until I have to return to the Cube.

“To make fewer bad endings on the map?” I confirm.

They both nod. I sigh.

The safest option.

“Do you need my permission to change the rules, or whatever?”

“No.” Virtuoso purses their lips.

“We don’t need it,” the splinter says. They crowd close again, and this time I don’t shy away. It sounds like they haven’t actually talked to anyone but Virtuoso in a while. “But I wanted to ask for it first.”

How considerate.

I won’t be able to rely on them stopping things at an opportune moment. I can’t hope for them to tell me things. I’ll be on my own again, but isn’t that how I expected to do this from the beginning?

“Fine,” I say after a moment.

The splinter grins.

“Perfect.”

“Your history doesn’t matter.”

Light shocks my eyes when I reappear in the hole. I blink a few times, and I’m probably lucky that Sawyer isn’t actually looking at me. They look, instead, at a file in their hand.

Damn, I should have asked about them while I could still talk to Virtuoso.

Sawyer flips the file shut and turns away. “Stew in the hole for a month. You’ll welcome what comes next by then, if you still have a mind to see it with.”

The door to the cell falls closed and leaves me in darkness again before I’ve truly recovered from the transition back into normal time. I’m back in the universe, and I’m not leaving again until I have no choice but to leave.

At least, I won’t remember it.

~-S-~

“Is that it?”

I survey the suits assigned to me. Two soldiers, waiting outside of Cross’s office. They seem capable, and two will be more than enough to watch four inmates.

My brother stands beside them, eyes on me. I nod and turn back into the office. The suits remain in place, waiting. Cross follows me, simply oozing triumph. The situation upstairs is taken care of, and all of the escapees are either dead or secure.

“You’re troubled?”

I stop in the middle of the office and turn, watching him settle behind his desk. I don’t answer immediately, and I begin to feel fingers of nectar poking at my thoughts.

“Quit that,” I mutter, shaking my head. Cross shrugs, and I avert my eyes. “I think I know the inmates in solitary. All three of them.”

He doesn’t say anything. He watches me intently from behind steepled fingers. I force myself to look at him directly, even if I can’t quite meet his gaze head on.

“I don’t know how, but they’re all so familiar. They must have been...” I trail off. Cross inclines his head, waiting for me to continue. I shake my head again, and there’s a tangible sense of disappointment from the presence of the voice. “It doesn’t matter. The sooner they’re converted, the better.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear.”

It was a test.

I shouldn’t be surprised. Testing the bounds of loyalty has been his job since the prison opened. It would make me an idiot to believe he wouldn’t push me, too. Still, something about this seems strange.

“You’re right.”

“Is there anything else you aren’t telling me?”

I steel myself, force myself to look at him, and shake my head. Fingers of nectar once again push into my thoughts. I wait for him to find out about the voice, but a fog overtakes both my own thoughts and Cross’s search. Without meaning to, I shove them both out.

For a moment, I stand in shock, still staring at the floor. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I don’t look at him, but that doesn’t keep the ominous weight of the room from growing. It pushes in on me, and I can’t breathe. Something in the back of my mind tells me to run, but I bite it back.

Then it’s gone.

I look up, at the growing anger in his eyes. That really wasn’t supposed to happen. With a sharp inhale, I straighten up.

“There’s nothing that I can’t handle on my own,” I say, subdued. He raises his eyebrows. I have to rally myself before I continue, and I sound much more assured when I do. “Everything’s under control.”

“It is, isn’t it?” He gazes at me, his anger twisting into a surprising delight. Though I don’t expect his geniality, I nod. He chuckles. “Give your soldiers their orders and meet me in the training complex.”

It’s a dismissal, obviously, but I wait a moment before leaving. I watch him turn and walk back to his desk. He reaches for the phone, but pauses and glances at the door. I avert my eyes and head out.

The suits cut off their conversation and straighten up. I turn on my way to solitary, waving them along after me. I start relaying them the general schedule but I’m still distracted—I mean, what the hell just happened?

I shut Cross out when he asked me a direct question.

That should have sent me to a screening room, maybe even a hole of my own. Instead, he actually laughed about it and decided to train with me. It isn’t like him to give special treatment.

If anything, he used to be so much harsher on me than anyone else.

“You should be careful.”

Yes, thank you, please shut the fuck up.

I lose my train of thought and dismiss my soldiers to the hole. They’ll be fine, they’ve been here long enough to know how this works.

“Of course. We can talk about this later.”

Cheeky bastard, I think, almost surprised to find it responding to my thoughts.

I split from the suits at the infirmary, still considering it. I stop in the middle of the room and look up at a low groan from one of the cots. I peer through the curtain to see another of the escapees strapped to the bed, a bag of second-rate nectar feeding into his bloodstream.

“Kevin.”

I thought you were going to leave. I step closer, sliding the curtain closed behind me.

“Sorry.”

I start to sit and a chair appears under me. The boy’s eyes squint tighter shut, then they open. He struggles against the binding, but stops when he sees me. The nectar’s fog clears from his eyes and I can feel relief washing over him.

“Thank god. Get me the hell out of here, Perry.”

I blink at him. He isn’t looking at me anymore, focused on the leather straps around his wrists and ankles. I don’t know much about this particular inmate, other than the fights we’ve seen on the screens. I stand and slip out of the cubicle, returning in seconds with a syringe of Cross’s new nectar.

“Everything will be fine,” I murmur, stopping at the side of his bed.

“Whatchu doing?” I glance up to see him staring in shock. He pulls harder against the bindings, his voice now panicked. “S’no way you really went dark side.”

“We’re both where we belong,” I say with a smile. I inject a tiny amount of the blue nectar into his IV feed. “Haven’t you always wanted to be able to fight back? You’ll be able to, with our help.”

When I look back at him, the nectar has already knocked him out. He won’t remember this when he wakes up. I watch him, brow furrowed. An uneasy feeling tickles the back of my mind.

He thought I was going to let him go.

I shake my head and turn to leave, finding Cross watching me from the door to the deeper tunnels. I catch his grin as he turns away and pushes through the plastic slats. I drop the empty syringe on a tray and follow him.