#titles are for chumps. i should have made a drabble tag though

[ru5t]

  Tech rolls in with the night close on her heels. The steady chug of her little motorbike's engine cuts and a chorus of creepy crawlies replaces it, dusk bug chattering about the day. She opens her bag to let her cat loose from his riding spot to go prowl around for a few of them to crunch on before they all have to hide away from the cold and the crawling shadows that lived in the void dark nights of the desert's edge. A bit of stretching shakes the miles crossed from her bones.

  She could have gone halfsies, crashed at the Wind Stop for a night, but the business at the wall and then in two had turned her journey out into more of a longing sprint all the way out.

  Here. She wanted to be here. And now here she is.

  Jack meets her at the door of course, having spotted her arrival from the upstairs window. She's barely in the door before hes fussing at a scrape on her cheek, and checking her over for more. There's some more mild gouging on her arm, and she just knows her knee is going to bruise, but she just shrugs at the look he gives her for all of it.

  “A little bit of fuss on the way out,” she dismisses, “unscheduled patrol in a weird place. They were pouncin' on some beamless ass aiming for the wall, though, so we scraped by.”

  Jack sighs. Still, he drops the scowl and draws her in. Tech loops her arms around his neck and giggles when this somehow prompts him to lift her off the floor altogether by straightening to his full height, his arms only barely around her ribs for fear of hidden damage.

  “It hasn't been that long.”

  “Hey munchkin,” he hums anyway, “s'good to see you.”

  She lets him hang onto her for a few steps longer, dangling from his collar like the worlds dustiest, elbow-iest, and most floppy-tired necktie in the whole world as he pulls her in, in, to the Haven's echoey halls. She notices three things straight off: the lights are dim, for it to be this early into the night (which meant the solar had to be fritzing again), nobody else even so much as appears to wave hello, and her darling dearest big brother has oh-so conveniently swept her right past the office. She waits until he's about to try and climb the stairs with her still latched on before she tilts her head back and gives him a look. Do you think I'm stupid?

  He sighs. Worth a shot.

  “What's up?”

  “Got a hunch I know what caused your 'fuss'.”

  “Yeah?”

  Rather than answer, he sets her feet on the steel stairs and gestures up. Come in. Land first. Nothing to do about it tonight.

  “And this... seemed like a good idea to you?” Tech questions once she's caught up to the right page, with this interesting little footnote of their latest chapter. They're lounging on the old futon that serves as Jack's bed, shoulder to shoulder, Colton passed out clinging to Tech's ribs with koala bear arms. She had her cheek pressed against the top of his head.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “When is anything?”

  Tech snorts at that. When is anything they do a good idea? They've just made do for a long time, now. “Who is she?” she presses, “You said 'following', which means office-”

  “Not office.”

  “Then campaign, but like. Which one?”

  “Didn't ask.”

  Jack's son spares him from a sharp punch to the shoulder; Tech doesn't want to risk jostling him around just to do it, so she glares daggers instead.

  “You-?!”

  “-For the sake of sanity, no. It's not like it'd mean anything, a name.”

  “You might recognize it.”

  “If I was going to, I'd know her face.”

  “And you don't.”

  “...”

  “Jack.”

  “Not like that. S'just.... deja vu. If she was-”

  “N- yeah. I know. ...Sorry.” He'd been too busy cataloguing the important things for awhile there. Memorizing all those windows and timings and weak points and faces and names and patrols and keypads and overseers. Boots and boots and boots in the hall. If this woman was center-city then, and at all linked to S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W, Jack would know it now. So whatever he thought he was seeing, it wasn't that. So she had to be new. Or somewhat harmless. Or both. By his measure, anyway, harmless enough when it came to a one-night kind of thing. Tech takes her turn at sighing.

  “Yeah,” Jack agrees.

  “Don't like it,” she goes for saying it anyway.

  “Honestly? Thought you'd hate it more.”

  “More?”

  “Mm.”

  “How 'more'?”

  He has to think on it, bouncing his foot idly. “Maybe... introduction day?”

  “Oh- ulgch. I hated that bitch.” She does not say: she reminded me of mom.

  “Me too.”

  Tech hesitates, twirling a loose string from Colton's sleeve around her finger. “...And this one?”

  “Nothing there to hate,” he provides: an overview from a day spent scooping her up out of the sand and a chilly silent drive and a conversation he thinks was trying to be honest. Most of it. “Nothing of hers, at least. Too much mask to say for sure.”

  Tech scrunches up her nose.

  They lapse into silence awhile. Someone on the ground floor rolls the garage-style door to their unit closed, generating a soft rattle that echoes through the warehouse like strange bird call. Tech finds herself rubbing her cheek lightly over Colton's head, marveling at his silky, sandy hair. It never ceases to amaze her how the three of them are blood but so so different. She veers for thoughts of Dusty, and then Jack kicks back in with-

  “Could you?”

  Tech goes still. She has to work at it for a moment, shuffling away from thoughts of her nephew to think which direction Jack's gone in. Hm- she makes a noncommittal noise, shuffling her shoulders in an almost-shrug.

  “Maybe, f'she didn't make trouble and I didn't bump into someone else tryin' to use the same...lane.” That's what he's asking: could Tech cross city boundaries with human cargo, so to speak? Not would she, or will she, just the curiosity: could she? “Sure as hell wouldn't try it for the first time now. Angrier than a hornets nest. They'll dust anybody they catch with her for sure.”

  “...Hm.” Unless, of course, the desert side of things -that crew who'd wanted her in the first place- didn't beat the 'crows to it.

  Maybe dumping her off in three to figure things out is the best plan anyone had going. Second to not paying it any mind to begin with, of course, which it is well past too late for. But Jack imagines Diana's face. And she so rarely asked for anything; still didn't quite seem to have gotten used to the ability. She's spent enough time under the sun now to put some color to her, but not quite enough to shake whatever silence she'd grown so accustomed to inhabiting.

  And Diana has a point. BL/ind wouldn't chase this woman down, not really. And even if they did it didn't promise that it'd be for rescue. If she wanted to go back, that was her choice. A shit choice, maybe, but better than not having one.

  He almost asks his sister another question. Something makes him look over first, and he sees that Tech's breathing has slowed, and her sharp eyes are shut. She's not quite asleep (he can tell, though he can't say why) but it's near enough and rare enough he doesn't want to upend it just for more back and forth. What's done is done. And it'll be done tomorrow, one way or the other. And they haven't locked their guest into the office, but he knows there are eyes on that door and safe places where the crew have tucked themselves in. One night. Better sleep while he can. Jack sinks back into the lumpy old cushion, listening to Maddy and Colton just breathing free and easy – the latter snoring lightly, which makes him smile.