Author's notes: Yeah, finally updating. I'm sorry for the wait, and I thank
everybody who's still reading this thing for their patience. Another major
and sincere thank you to those who posted reviews; I do appreciate it. For
those of you who pointed out grammar/spelling errors in part 3, I'll be
sure to revise that; another thank you. ;)
Also, for those of you who asked about Worth and Obligation, I moved those
to fandomination.net due to my objection to recent ff.net policy changes.
They're also available off my website. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this
may cause anyone.
Again, thank you for your patience, support and corrections, and I'll try
to be less lax with part 5.
****
(Duke)
After 14 years, I've had a little too much time to get used to the whole labyrinth of rooms down here. I haven't even been in all of them. The maps were all made before I get here, and even they look like a honeycomb. They've had decades to grow out, and down. It's a city under a city, with probably a couple cities under that. I don't know, personally. I try to spend as little time as possible here. Spend too much time socializing and you can get caught up in the games too easily. Honor among thieves is a concept invented by people who never met any.
Not all the bodies in the river drowned. Some of them were plenty dead before they got there. I ought to know.
But. Anyway. Of all the time I've spent down here, at least a third of it was in Doc's office. He was the one who brought me down here when I first escaped from juvi, bound up the cuts and scrapes and broken bones, patched up my eye as best as he could. He's probably the only reason I lived this long. He's not exactly a father figure or a mentor, but he's about as close as I'm ever getting.
Which is probably I can see him writing his lecture as he paces around the office, digging through cardboard boxes of supplies that somebody or other pulled off the back of a truck for him, pausing every once in a while to look up and glare at me. I wink at him and grin, and he just growls.
Tossing me an ancient magazine off his counter, he says with utter disgust, "I'll take care of the kid first."
"Works for me." I try to give the kid the same grin, but he's a touch too busy looking around like he expects an ambush. At least the hyperventilation's eased up. While Doc's back is turned I steal, so to speak, a bottle of Advil and pop it open. Three should dull the pounding in my ribs, I think.
I'll give it to Doc; he might be neurotic, but he's professional. Gentle as can be with the kid as he works him over, checking his pupils, poking his ribs, asking him to breathe. Boring, really. I only make it to about the third 'breathe in' before I give up and turn to the magazine. National Geographic, doing another of those articles that most people only read when somebody's twisting their arms in knots. Something about a tribe in Borneo-
"Oh."
'Oh?' 'Oh' isn't good. Doc only said 'oh' once, when I was dragged in with my eye carved out. I'm not fond of 'oh'. I put the magazine down and glance up.
The kid's sitting on the table, shirt rolled up around his armpits, staring fiercely at the floor as Doc stares just as fiercely at his back. I can't see what Doc's seeing, but whatever it is made his face turn white.
"That's... hmm. That's very..." Doc reaches out and traces something with his fingertip, and the kid flinches. Doc pulls his hand back. "I'm sorry. They look completely healed. Does it still hurt?" When the kid just shakes his head, every muscle braced to run, Doc takes the hint and steps back. His tone is completely different as he says, too brightly, "All right. You're in perfect shape, young man. Barely even a bruise on you. There're magazines over in that far corner, just sit there and wait, there's a lad."
The far corner is the 'out of earshot' corner, normally reserved for when Doc's about to give the terminal sort of news. I wait for the kid to get there, then toss the magazine back on the counter. "What's up?"
Doc's jaw tenses, and he looks away. "Nothing. Come on, get on the table. You're favoring your ribs-"
"Nothing. Bullshit, nothing. You don't go drama queen over nothing. What's wrong?"
"That's between the patient and I." Prodding me a little too hard in the ribs, he asks, "Does this hurt?"
"Yeah, but it would even if nothing was broken. I'm not asking for a medical run-down here. First he was the pain in the ass, now he's the patient, and I'm curious why."
"Curiosity killed the cat."
"Yeah, but curiosity put the cat burglar through med school. As you know very well, Doc."
"Smartass." Doc pauses, then sighs. "Look. All I saying is that you were right, you needn't have bothered blindfolding him because he's not leaving here."
My heart gives an odd jump in my chest. I swallow the jolt down, then rub at the ache in my chest. Huh. "What is he, dying?"
Doc gives me a look over his glasses. "I'm sorry I missed making you my apprentice, with a bedside manner like that."
I shrug and give him my best 'but you love me anyway' smile. "Sorry."
"Liar." Pulling open a drawer, Doc reaches for a roll of medical tape and commands, "Arms up." When I do it, he says nonchalantly, "If you don't take him on as an apprentice, I will. But he's not going home."
My arms jerk down. "You'll what? I'm supposed to what?"
"I didn't know losing an eye impaired your hearing. Arms up." When I don't move, he sighs. "Look. I'm not sending that one back."
"I thought you were supposed to be the stickler for rules, not me." I put my arms up, but only so I can get this over with and glare at him properly. "What brought this on?"
"He's not dying, but if I send him back up there, he might."
"Yeah, well, so might any of us. If he stays down here a pipe might fall on his head or something. What's your point- ow! Are you trying to puncture a lung?"
Doc glares at me, then glances over his shoulder. Seeing that the kid's oblivious, paging through a stack of old newspapers, he leans close and says very softly, "He's got scars, Duke, scars like nothing I've ever seen. It looks like somebody went after him with a bullwhip, but they set it on fire first for good measure. And they're recent, within the last year or two. I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly thrilled about sending him back into that."
Fuck. Trust me to go out on a regular food run and bring back problems. I rub at the bridge of my nose. "Great. You go ahead and take him in, then. You're already having trouble getting time to sleep or eat, but what the hell? Why not narrow it down to a couple hours?"
Doc gives me another over-the-glasses-stare-of-death. "What else do you suggest I do?"
"Send him up there. Let him take care of himself. He looks old enough-"
"And when his body washes up down here a week later? What then?"
"Then put on the hair shirt and break out the ashes. I don't know." Touching the metal clip holding the bandages closed, I shrug at him. "What do you want me to say?"
Which was a stupid question to ask, because I already know the answer it takes him less than half a second to throw at me. "Say that you'll take him."
"Oh, come on." I slide off the table and turn my back on him to pull my shirt down, mess with my hair, and several other excuses not to look at him. Not a father figure, damn it. I don't need a walking conscience. "I'm still in training myself."
"You're a journeyman. You have been since the day Blade turned up dead on the beach."
"Well, there you go." Damn. Ran out of busywork. Better plaster on a smile before I turn around. "Journeymen can't take apprentices."
"Journeymen also can't go on high end heists by themselves, but that didn't exactly stop you, did it?"
Fuck. Thought I covered up my tracks on that one. Whoops. "Gee, think you could say that a little louder? I don't think the whole compound heard you."
Oh, well. That gives me options, anyway. Bright grin or dark glare? Decisions, decisions. All of which go away as Doc's hand closes warm on my shoulder. It's been years since anybody around here dared to touch me, but Doc never exactly followed trends.
"Duke." Low and gentle. Damn it, damn it. "He needs some place to go."
"That's not my problem."
"As you put it, he's just a kid."
"Yeah. Somebody else's kid. He's got a family, let him go bother them." Shrugging his hand away, I turn around to face him. "It's not my problem. Just because he's younger and in trouble isn't going to make it my problem. I've got enough."
Doc just keeps smiling, like he's got me. "Robin Hood needed his Will Scarlet, my boy."
"You ever read those stories all the way through and see how Robin died?"
"You ever wonder how much sooner he might have died if he'd tried to go it alone?"
It's an old argument between us, familiar enough that I can just sigh and recite by rote, "I'm not alone, I'm cautious."
"But are you happy?"
"Don't ask stupid questions. Of course I am." If I don't stop to think about it. If I spend every second of every day as far away from these tunnels as I can get. "Besides, even if I'm not, I'll get a fern or something, not him."
"Mmm-hmm. Whatever you say." Doc turns away, scribbling on a much-worn pad of paper that he keeps in the name of inventory and habit. "Your ribs are bruised, nothing more, but if the pain doesn't ease up in a few times drop in and see me. I'm sure you already helped yourself to something for the pain, and try not to wash it down with rotgut. You really don't want to see what bruised ribs think of you when you try to throw up." Tearing off a copy, he shoves it at me, like I can actually read what it says. "By the way, read that last story again. Robin's sister was the one who got him killed."
"Good to know." I slide off the table and hit Doc lightly on the arm. Since we're being all manly-touchy, I figure that I might as well. "Thanks."
Doc waves that off, as always. "Go fetch your boy."
I'd snarl that he's not my anything, thank you very much, but I know a moot point when I see one. So instead I narrow my eye at him before slinking off to the corner of silence, where the kid is curled up into a tight knot of limbs around a pile of old papers. If he knows that he's defying the bounds of anatomy, he doesn't show it. Hmph. Teenagers.
I tap him on the shoulder, and his head comes up. When I tilt my head to see what had his attention, he snaps the paper shut and narrows his eyes at me. Okay, then. "C'mon. He's done, and I could go for some food. You?"
He tips his head, just a little, a wary look on his face. But hey, my reasons are my own damned business. If he wants to get his hopes up, that's his problem. I'm not running around half the city with the cops prowling around and my stomach trying to digest itself. Food, and then the third degree.
Just because he saved my ass and Doc likes him doesn't mean I'll take it easy. Doesn't even mean that I won't dump him in front of child welfare services and run. It's not like I listen to anyone else's orders around here; why should I bother to listen to Doc?
Oh, yeah, I'm a badass. That's exactly why I foresee me doing nothing more than poking him a few times, and then looking around to see if anybody's in the market for an apprentice. Somebody reputable, mind. No use wasting him on somebody who won't use him.
Reputable. Ha. That leaves me and Doc, then.
I swat the kid's shoulder, lightly, and jerk my head up. "We'll discuss it later. C'mon, now."
The kid gets up and follows without even a heartbeat's hesitation, and that alone says everything I need to know about whether he ought to be here. You can't be that trusting in the underground, not unless you want to end up omega in a very big and nasty pack, turning throat all your very short life. So maybe I shove him a little harder than necessary through the door, just to teach him. Better a bruise than a scar.
Into the labyrinth we go again, through unused rooms and into empty hallways, tracing the veins to the tiny black heart of it all. Thankfully for both me and the kid, we get to stop just before there, ducking behind a converted generator into another twisting hallway that smells wretched and drips. Because it's mid-day and the day people are out bilking the tourists while the night people sleep like the dead, I don't have to cover my tracks too much or try to hide the kid. What few people shuffle past are more interested in their own affairs than mine. Pays to be antisocial.
As the kid stands eyeing the tangle of pipes just brushing the top of his head, I wedge the door open. There are no locks down here, if only because we all know that a) nobody really has anything worth swiping that couldn't be more easily taken aboveground, and b) there's nobody more hated in the brotherhood than somebody stupid enough to steal from another member. If they're not dead, they're as good as exiled and cut off from any information that may trickle down. A truck's stopping here, the managers switch the tills precisely at 4, the password as of last week was, yadda yadda. You never know when somebody'll decide to be generous. Of course, you never know when they'll decide to lie for the sheer hell of it, either.
Anyway. I pull the door open well as I can, since the wood's kind of swollen and it tends to jam in the frame, and gesture the kid through with the best bow I can fake. My ribs are starting to get a touch annoyed about this cracking thing. The kid ducks his head at me with a pale grin, then steps through. He's kind enough to hit the lights on his way through, though judging from his panic attack in the tunnels that's as much as for his benefit than for mine. Good thing I managed to get one of the old storage closets; they've actually got light.
The kid pauses just past the door, looking around again. He's curious, I'll give him that. I suppose it doesn't look like much, about enough to get in eight steps in any direction even before you wedge in the sleeping bag and the stacks of books, all of it cast in shadows by the single bald bulb. No carpet, no windows, a whole lot of concrete, but it's good enough for me, and he'll just have to manage.
"You gonna be all right while I grab food, kid?" Not that he has a choice, but hey, conversation's conversation. I can make fakey-nice, for all of twelve seconds.
The kid tactfully shrugs, though he's giving the walls this look like they're already starting to close in on him.
"Okay." I tug at my shirt, already plastered to my skin with sweat and garbage. It crackles as it pulls. "You mind if I change? Don't really care to attract too much attention."
Another shrug. He seems more interested in tilting his head to read the spines of the stack of books, making faces at strategic titles. I turn my back on him anyway. I wasn't raised in a barn, after all. That might've been an improvement.
When I turn back around, the kid's still looking around, curious but not particularly wary. Normal, in fact. Eerily fucking normal. With the scars Doc saw, he ought to be curled up in a fetal position in the corner, whimpering. Instead, he's a little claustrophobic, maybe selectively mute, definitely a walking mystery.
A mystery it's not my job to solve, thank you, Doc.
The kid starts a little when a bundle of clothes lands half on his lap, but then most would. He tips his head up and looks at me, waiting.
I nod at the clothes. "Change."
The look he gives me says 'duh', rather plainly. When I just look back at him, he sighs and waves me at the door, rather regally for a scruffy kid with absolutely no respect for his elders.
Okay, then. I turn to go, then pause in the door. "Don't let anyone else in. I'll knock four times, you open the door then. Got it?"
Yeah, that was definitely 'duh', flavored with scorn like only a teenager could heap out. He rolls his eyes, just for emphasis, and then turns his back. His eyes watch the bit of fractured mirror left on the wall, though, following my reflection until I've left. Smart kid. Smarter than he looks.
I'll give him this: anybody who decided to pry would have their hands full. Glad it won't be me. Too many steel traps and too much barbed wire can get tucked away behind a pretty face and haunted eyes. I've worked too hard to steer clear of that bullshit to get tangled up in it now. It probably isn't worth it, anyway.
Yeah, Duke. And would it have been "probably" a few hours ago? Yesterday? Or would it have been a ringing "fuck no" and one mystery wrapped up in an enigma wrapped up in scars sitting in juvi right now, and me on my merry way?
Even if he saved my life, even if he blocked the cops... yeah. Yeah, it would've been, and I don't know why it wasn't. I don't know why I feel vaguely guilty for even entertaining the thought. Probably hit my head on the way down off the roof.
That 'probably' again. Damn.
The mess, our altogether too generous term for the place where food tithes get stockpiled after the 'executive branch' picks it over and takes a generous share of the best of it, is mostly abandoned. Like I said, still too early or too late for the taste of most, which makes it exactly to my liking. I go for months without seeing one of my colleagues, if I can manage it. Most of them have forgotten that I exist, and so I get to slip through here like an urban legend without getting involved. Doc tells me that everybody down here, especially the newbies, like to claim that they knew the one-eyed guy who killed Blade, the vicious slavering sadistic brute. Who am I to fuck that up with reality, really?
Though maybe if I was a sadistic killer and/or cannibal and/or horribly mutated genetic experiment, I might get some decent food for once. Instead, it'll be cold ravioli from a dented can. Oh, the glamour. I take one can and palm the other, just in case somebody's keeping an eye out and happens to be stupid enough to ask questions.
Apparently I shouldn't be casting aspirations on anyone else's intelligence, though, as the second I get near the door the guard, a jocular fellow who pissed somebody or other off and who looks like he'd much rather be sleeping, spots the can. Thankfully, if only because he's not the usual guard, he doesn't start snarling questions, just leers sleepily. "Heyyy, the monk's got company tonight. She pretty?" With a little more interest, he adds, "You gonna share?"
Oh, yeah, that's just the way I ought to be looking at this. Because I need one more fucked up angle to this situation. Stray, mystery, victim, potential apprentice, sexpot. I need aspirin.
I give the guard one withering glare, and have to settle for that, because anything else might draw down exactly the attention I've been trying to avoid. The guard snorts and waves me past. Behind me, I can hear him mutter about how he didn't know Blade castrated me when he took my eye.
Yep. Murderous sadism might be really fun right about now.
Thankfully for everyone involved, the halls are empty and I get back to the room without further incident. Four knocks, and the kid opens the door. He's about an inch shorter than I am, and my pants pool around his ankles a bit, but it'll have to do. At least it improved the smell, and his mood. There's even a little bit of enthusiasm written on his face as he sees the food. If the close quarters bother him, it doesn't show. Maybe he's just scared of the dark.
Heh. Yeah, right.
Being able to shut the door on the idiocy outside is actually comforting, in a way, though it shouldn't be with him in here. I'll just pass that one off to the exhaustion, thanks. Either way, I manage a quick smile of my usual caliber, aka a bit cynical and a lot crooked. "Okay. I'm about to show you a L'Orange trade secret, and it will not leave this room."
The kid's eyes light up, a very wicked smile playing on his lips. It's a touch disturbing on that young and, frankly, angelic face, but it's... heartening, somehow. I can't really resist putting on a touch more flourish than usual as I turn to the mirror, flip it up with a screech of glass on cement, and pull out two plastic forks from the newly uncovered hole. The kid arches one eyebrow, skeptically, and I shake the fork at him. "Hey, these are valuable down here, I'll have you know. Respect the forks."
Raising his hands and wiggling his fingers in a distinctly "well, la de da" fashion, the kid shakes his head and sits down again. I make a point to mutter in disgust before sitting down myself, with much more grace, and pulling out an army knife from where it was tucked behind a stack of books. The can shrieks a bit in protest but eventually yields. I feel worse for the blade, but better it than the one I actually take on heists.
After a minute, the noise gets to me, and I glance up at the kid. "Okay. So. Dinner conversation: what's your name, where did you come from, and how did you get in that alley?"
The kid looks at me almost guiltily, like he thought he'd actually pulled one over on me and I had forgotten. Then, resigned, he holds out his palm and mimes scribbling on it.
"There's a pad and paper behind you."
He nods and, with one last hang-dog look to try to wheedle me, sighs and turns to get it. In a moment he's bent over the pad, scrawling fast and messily, stopping on occasion to look ruefully at an entire section of script before scratching it all out. It's fascinating, in a way, if only because his face is almost expressive enough that I don't need to read the paper. It's all there: nostalgia, remembered hurt and a rage so black it's startling, an echo of old fear and newer joy, a faint smile, a fierce triumph and a stark grief. I've seen it all before down here, but not all wedged together in a messy sort of way. But then, why not? Life is messy.
The scrawling goes on and on, long enough for me to finish the food and set it aside, and he doesn't pause until a wrist cramp forces him up for air. He winces, rubbing at the knot, and I take that opportunity to slide the tablet away. Eyes going wide, the kid makes a grab for it, and I wave him off. "Take a breather. I asked three questions, didn't expect a novel. Humor an old man's curiosity."
Instead of rolling his eyes again, the kid peers at me, his face solemn. He rubs his hand anxiously, watching my face so closely it's unnerving. I push the can at him just to make him stop. "Eat."
He takes the can, but doesn't stop staring. I can't shake the feeling that if he could brand whatever he's trying to urge on me in the middle of my forehead, that stare might do it. So, clearing my throat self-consciously, I settle in for a long mid-summer afternoon's read.
/My name's Nosedive Flashblade. I'm from a place called Puckworld./
***
****
(Duke)
After 14 years, I've had a little too much time to get used to the whole labyrinth of rooms down here. I haven't even been in all of them. The maps were all made before I get here, and even they look like a honeycomb. They've had decades to grow out, and down. It's a city under a city, with probably a couple cities under that. I don't know, personally. I try to spend as little time as possible here. Spend too much time socializing and you can get caught up in the games too easily. Honor among thieves is a concept invented by people who never met any.
Not all the bodies in the river drowned. Some of them were plenty dead before they got there. I ought to know.
But. Anyway. Of all the time I've spent down here, at least a third of it was in Doc's office. He was the one who brought me down here when I first escaped from juvi, bound up the cuts and scrapes and broken bones, patched up my eye as best as he could. He's probably the only reason I lived this long. He's not exactly a father figure or a mentor, but he's about as close as I'm ever getting.
Which is probably I can see him writing his lecture as he paces around the office, digging through cardboard boxes of supplies that somebody or other pulled off the back of a truck for him, pausing every once in a while to look up and glare at me. I wink at him and grin, and he just growls.
Tossing me an ancient magazine off his counter, he says with utter disgust, "I'll take care of the kid first."
"Works for me." I try to give the kid the same grin, but he's a touch too busy looking around like he expects an ambush. At least the hyperventilation's eased up. While Doc's back is turned I steal, so to speak, a bottle of Advil and pop it open. Three should dull the pounding in my ribs, I think.
I'll give it to Doc; he might be neurotic, but he's professional. Gentle as can be with the kid as he works him over, checking his pupils, poking his ribs, asking him to breathe. Boring, really. I only make it to about the third 'breathe in' before I give up and turn to the magazine. National Geographic, doing another of those articles that most people only read when somebody's twisting their arms in knots. Something about a tribe in Borneo-
"Oh."
'Oh?' 'Oh' isn't good. Doc only said 'oh' once, when I was dragged in with my eye carved out. I'm not fond of 'oh'. I put the magazine down and glance up.
The kid's sitting on the table, shirt rolled up around his armpits, staring fiercely at the floor as Doc stares just as fiercely at his back. I can't see what Doc's seeing, but whatever it is made his face turn white.
"That's... hmm. That's very..." Doc reaches out and traces something with his fingertip, and the kid flinches. Doc pulls his hand back. "I'm sorry. They look completely healed. Does it still hurt?" When the kid just shakes his head, every muscle braced to run, Doc takes the hint and steps back. His tone is completely different as he says, too brightly, "All right. You're in perfect shape, young man. Barely even a bruise on you. There're magazines over in that far corner, just sit there and wait, there's a lad."
The far corner is the 'out of earshot' corner, normally reserved for when Doc's about to give the terminal sort of news. I wait for the kid to get there, then toss the magazine back on the counter. "What's up?"
Doc's jaw tenses, and he looks away. "Nothing. Come on, get on the table. You're favoring your ribs-"
"Nothing. Bullshit, nothing. You don't go drama queen over nothing. What's wrong?"
"That's between the patient and I." Prodding me a little too hard in the ribs, he asks, "Does this hurt?"
"Yeah, but it would even if nothing was broken. I'm not asking for a medical run-down here. First he was the pain in the ass, now he's the patient, and I'm curious why."
"Curiosity killed the cat."
"Yeah, but curiosity put the cat burglar through med school. As you know very well, Doc."
"Smartass." Doc pauses, then sighs. "Look. All I saying is that you were right, you needn't have bothered blindfolding him because he's not leaving here."
My heart gives an odd jump in my chest. I swallow the jolt down, then rub at the ache in my chest. Huh. "What is he, dying?"
Doc gives me a look over his glasses. "I'm sorry I missed making you my apprentice, with a bedside manner like that."
I shrug and give him my best 'but you love me anyway' smile. "Sorry."
"Liar." Pulling open a drawer, Doc reaches for a roll of medical tape and commands, "Arms up." When I do it, he says nonchalantly, "If you don't take him on as an apprentice, I will. But he's not going home."
My arms jerk down. "You'll what? I'm supposed to what?"
"I didn't know losing an eye impaired your hearing. Arms up." When I don't move, he sighs. "Look. I'm not sending that one back."
"I thought you were supposed to be the stickler for rules, not me." I put my arms up, but only so I can get this over with and glare at him properly. "What brought this on?"
"He's not dying, but if I send him back up there, he might."
"Yeah, well, so might any of us. If he stays down here a pipe might fall on his head or something. What's your point- ow! Are you trying to puncture a lung?"
Doc glares at me, then glances over his shoulder. Seeing that the kid's oblivious, paging through a stack of old newspapers, he leans close and says very softly, "He's got scars, Duke, scars like nothing I've ever seen. It looks like somebody went after him with a bullwhip, but they set it on fire first for good measure. And they're recent, within the last year or two. I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly thrilled about sending him back into that."
Fuck. Trust me to go out on a regular food run and bring back problems. I rub at the bridge of my nose. "Great. You go ahead and take him in, then. You're already having trouble getting time to sleep or eat, but what the hell? Why not narrow it down to a couple hours?"
Doc gives me another over-the-glasses-stare-of-death. "What else do you suggest I do?"
"Send him up there. Let him take care of himself. He looks old enough-"
"And when his body washes up down here a week later? What then?"
"Then put on the hair shirt and break out the ashes. I don't know." Touching the metal clip holding the bandages closed, I shrug at him. "What do you want me to say?"
Which was a stupid question to ask, because I already know the answer it takes him less than half a second to throw at me. "Say that you'll take him."
"Oh, come on." I slide off the table and turn my back on him to pull my shirt down, mess with my hair, and several other excuses not to look at him. Not a father figure, damn it. I don't need a walking conscience. "I'm still in training myself."
"You're a journeyman. You have been since the day Blade turned up dead on the beach."
"Well, there you go." Damn. Ran out of busywork. Better plaster on a smile before I turn around. "Journeymen can't take apprentices."
"Journeymen also can't go on high end heists by themselves, but that didn't exactly stop you, did it?"
Fuck. Thought I covered up my tracks on that one. Whoops. "Gee, think you could say that a little louder? I don't think the whole compound heard you."
Oh, well. That gives me options, anyway. Bright grin or dark glare? Decisions, decisions. All of which go away as Doc's hand closes warm on my shoulder. It's been years since anybody around here dared to touch me, but Doc never exactly followed trends.
"Duke." Low and gentle. Damn it, damn it. "He needs some place to go."
"That's not my problem."
"As you put it, he's just a kid."
"Yeah. Somebody else's kid. He's got a family, let him go bother them." Shrugging his hand away, I turn around to face him. "It's not my problem. Just because he's younger and in trouble isn't going to make it my problem. I've got enough."
Doc just keeps smiling, like he's got me. "Robin Hood needed his Will Scarlet, my boy."
"You ever read those stories all the way through and see how Robin died?"
"You ever wonder how much sooner he might have died if he'd tried to go it alone?"
It's an old argument between us, familiar enough that I can just sigh and recite by rote, "I'm not alone, I'm cautious."
"But are you happy?"
"Don't ask stupid questions. Of course I am." If I don't stop to think about it. If I spend every second of every day as far away from these tunnels as I can get. "Besides, even if I'm not, I'll get a fern or something, not him."
"Mmm-hmm. Whatever you say." Doc turns away, scribbling on a much-worn pad of paper that he keeps in the name of inventory and habit. "Your ribs are bruised, nothing more, but if the pain doesn't ease up in a few times drop in and see me. I'm sure you already helped yourself to something for the pain, and try not to wash it down with rotgut. You really don't want to see what bruised ribs think of you when you try to throw up." Tearing off a copy, he shoves it at me, like I can actually read what it says. "By the way, read that last story again. Robin's sister was the one who got him killed."
"Good to know." I slide off the table and hit Doc lightly on the arm. Since we're being all manly-touchy, I figure that I might as well. "Thanks."
Doc waves that off, as always. "Go fetch your boy."
I'd snarl that he's not my anything, thank you very much, but I know a moot point when I see one. So instead I narrow my eye at him before slinking off to the corner of silence, where the kid is curled up into a tight knot of limbs around a pile of old papers. If he knows that he's defying the bounds of anatomy, he doesn't show it. Hmph. Teenagers.
I tap him on the shoulder, and his head comes up. When I tilt my head to see what had his attention, he snaps the paper shut and narrows his eyes at me. Okay, then. "C'mon. He's done, and I could go for some food. You?"
He tips his head, just a little, a wary look on his face. But hey, my reasons are my own damned business. If he wants to get his hopes up, that's his problem. I'm not running around half the city with the cops prowling around and my stomach trying to digest itself. Food, and then the third degree.
Just because he saved my ass and Doc likes him doesn't mean I'll take it easy. Doesn't even mean that I won't dump him in front of child welfare services and run. It's not like I listen to anyone else's orders around here; why should I bother to listen to Doc?
Oh, yeah, I'm a badass. That's exactly why I foresee me doing nothing more than poking him a few times, and then looking around to see if anybody's in the market for an apprentice. Somebody reputable, mind. No use wasting him on somebody who won't use him.
Reputable. Ha. That leaves me and Doc, then.
I swat the kid's shoulder, lightly, and jerk my head up. "We'll discuss it later. C'mon, now."
The kid gets up and follows without even a heartbeat's hesitation, and that alone says everything I need to know about whether he ought to be here. You can't be that trusting in the underground, not unless you want to end up omega in a very big and nasty pack, turning throat all your very short life. So maybe I shove him a little harder than necessary through the door, just to teach him. Better a bruise than a scar.
Into the labyrinth we go again, through unused rooms and into empty hallways, tracing the veins to the tiny black heart of it all. Thankfully for both me and the kid, we get to stop just before there, ducking behind a converted generator into another twisting hallway that smells wretched and drips. Because it's mid-day and the day people are out bilking the tourists while the night people sleep like the dead, I don't have to cover my tracks too much or try to hide the kid. What few people shuffle past are more interested in their own affairs than mine. Pays to be antisocial.
As the kid stands eyeing the tangle of pipes just brushing the top of his head, I wedge the door open. There are no locks down here, if only because we all know that a) nobody really has anything worth swiping that couldn't be more easily taken aboveground, and b) there's nobody more hated in the brotherhood than somebody stupid enough to steal from another member. If they're not dead, they're as good as exiled and cut off from any information that may trickle down. A truck's stopping here, the managers switch the tills precisely at 4, the password as of last week was, yadda yadda. You never know when somebody'll decide to be generous. Of course, you never know when they'll decide to lie for the sheer hell of it, either.
Anyway. I pull the door open well as I can, since the wood's kind of swollen and it tends to jam in the frame, and gesture the kid through with the best bow I can fake. My ribs are starting to get a touch annoyed about this cracking thing. The kid ducks his head at me with a pale grin, then steps through. He's kind enough to hit the lights on his way through, though judging from his panic attack in the tunnels that's as much as for his benefit than for mine. Good thing I managed to get one of the old storage closets; they've actually got light.
The kid pauses just past the door, looking around again. He's curious, I'll give him that. I suppose it doesn't look like much, about enough to get in eight steps in any direction even before you wedge in the sleeping bag and the stacks of books, all of it cast in shadows by the single bald bulb. No carpet, no windows, a whole lot of concrete, but it's good enough for me, and he'll just have to manage.
"You gonna be all right while I grab food, kid?" Not that he has a choice, but hey, conversation's conversation. I can make fakey-nice, for all of twelve seconds.
The kid tactfully shrugs, though he's giving the walls this look like they're already starting to close in on him.
"Okay." I tug at my shirt, already plastered to my skin with sweat and garbage. It crackles as it pulls. "You mind if I change? Don't really care to attract too much attention."
Another shrug. He seems more interested in tilting his head to read the spines of the stack of books, making faces at strategic titles. I turn my back on him anyway. I wasn't raised in a barn, after all. That might've been an improvement.
When I turn back around, the kid's still looking around, curious but not particularly wary. Normal, in fact. Eerily fucking normal. With the scars Doc saw, he ought to be curled up in a fetal position in the corner, whimpering. Instead, he's a little claustrophobic, maybe selectively mute, definitely a walking mystery.
A mystery it's not my job to solve, thank you, Doc.
The kid starts a little when a bundle of clothes lands half on his lap, but then most would. He tips his head up and looks at me, waiting.
I nod at the clothes. "Change."
The look he gives me says 'duh', rather plainly. When I just look back at him, he sighs and waves me at the door, rather regally for a scruffy kid with absolutely no respect for his elders.
Okay, then. I turn to go, then pause in the door. "Don't let anyone else in. I'll knock four times, you open the door then. Got it?"
Yeah, that was definitely 'duh', flavored with scorn like only a teenager could heap out. He rolls his eyes, just for emphasis, and then turns his back. His eyes watch the bit of fractured mirror left on the wall, though, following my reflection until I've left. Smart kid. Smarter than he looks.
I'll give him this: anybody who decided to pry would have their hands full. Glad it won't be me. Too many steel traps and too much barbed wire can get tucked away behind a pretty face and haunted eyes. I've worked too hard to steer clear of that bullshit to get tangled up in it now. It probably isn't worth it, anyway.
Yeah, Duke. And would it have been "probably" a few hours ago? Yesterday? Or would it have been a ringing "fuck no" and one mystery wrapped up in an enigma wrapped up in scars sitting in juvi right now, and me on my merry way?
Even if he saved my life, even if he blocked the cops... yeah. Yeah, it would've been, and I don't know why it wasn't. I don't know why I feel vaguely guilty for even entertaining the thought. Probably hit my head on the way down off the roof.
That 'probably' again. Damn.
The mess, our altogether too generous term for the place where food tithes get stockpiled after the 'executive branch' picks it over and takes a generous share of the best of it, is mostly abandoned. Like I said, still too early or too late for the taste of most, which makes it exactly to my liking. I go for months without seeing one of my colleagues, if I can manage it. Most of them have forgotten that I exist, and so I get to slip through here like an urban legend without getting involved. Doc tells me that everybody down here, especially the newbies, like to claim that they knew the one-eyed guy who killed Blade, the vicious slavering sadistic brute. Who am I to fuck that up with reality, really?
Though maybe if I was a sadistic killer and/or cannibal and/or horribly mutated genetic experiment, I might get some decent food for once. Instead, it'll be cold ravioli from a dented can. Oh, the glamour. I take one can and palm the other, just in case somebody's keeping an eye out and happens to be stupid enough to ask questions.
Apparently I shouldn't be casting aspirations on anyone else's intelligence, though, as the second I get near the door the guard, a jocular fellow who pissed somebody or other off and who looks like he'd much rather be sleeping, spots the can. Thankfully, if only because he's not the usual guard, he doesn't start snarling questions, just leers sleepily. "Heyyy, the monk's got company tonight. She pretty?" With a little more interest, he adds, "You gonna share?"
Oh, yeah, that's just the way I ought to be looking at this. Because I need one more fucked up angle to this situation. Stray, mystery, victim, potential apprentice, sexpot. I need aspirin.
I give the guard one withering glare, and have to settle for that, because anything else might draw down exactly the attention I've been trying to avoid. The guard snorts and waves me past. Behind me, I can hear him mutter about how he didn't know Blade castrated me when he took my eye.
Yep. Murderous sadism might be really fun right about now.
Thankfully for everyone involved, the halls are empty and I get back to the room without further incident. Four knocks, and the kid opens the door. He's about an inch shorter than I am, and my pants pool around his ankles a bit, but it'll have to do. At least it improved the smell, and his mood. There's even a little bit of enthusiasm written on his face as he sees the food. If the close quarters bother him, it doesn't show. Maybe he's just scared of the dark.
Heh. Yeah, right.
Being able to shut the door on the idiocy outside is actually comforting, in a way, though it shouldn't be with him in here. I'll just pass that one off to the exhaustion, thanks. Either way, I manage a quick smile of my usual caliber, aka a bit cynical and a lot crooked. "Okay. I'm about to show you a L'Orange trade secret, and it will not leave this room."
The kid's eyes light up, a very wicked smile playing on his lips. It's a touch disturbing on that young and, frankly, angelic face, but it's... heartening, somehow. I can't really resist putting on a touch more flourish than usual as I turn to the mirror, flip it up with a screech of glass on cement, and pull out two plastic forks from the newly uncovered hole. The kid arches one eyebrow, skeptically, and I shake the fork at him. "Hey, these are valuable down here, I'll have you know. Respect the forks."
Raising his hands and wiggling his fingers in a distinctly "well, la de da" fashion, the kid shakes his head and sits down again. I make a point to mutter in disgust before sitting down myself, with much more grace, and pulling out an army knife from where it was tucked behind a stack of books. The can shrieks a bit in protest but eventually yields. I feel worse for the blade, but better it than the one I actually take on heists.
After a minute, the noise gets to me, and I glance up at the kid. "Okay. So. Dinner conversation: what's your name, where did you come from, and how did you get in that alley?"
The kid looks at me almost guiltily, like he thought he'd actually pulled one over on me and I had forgotten. Then, resigned, he holds out his palm and mimes scribbling on it.
"There's a pad and paper behind you."
He nods and, with one last hang-dog look to try to wheedle me, sighs and turns to get it. In a moment he's bent over the pad, scrawling fast and messily, stopping on occasion to look ruefully at an entire section of script before scratching it all out. It's fascinating, in a way, if only because his face is almost expressive enough that I don't need to read the paper. It's all there: nostalgia, remembered hurt and a rage so black it's startling, an echo of old fear and newer joy, a faint smile, a fierce triumph and a stark grief. I've seen it all before down here, but not all wedged together in a messy sort of way. But then, why not? Life is messy.
The scrawling goes on and on, long enough for me to finish the food and set it aside, and he doesn't pause until a wrist cramp forces him up for air. He winces, rubbing at the knot, and I take that opportunity to slide the tablet away. Eyes going wide, the kid makes a grab for it, and I wave him off. "Take a breather. I asked three questions, didn't expect a novel. Humor an old man's curiosity."
Instead of rolling his eyes again, the kid peers at me, his face solemn. He rubs his hand anxiously, watching my face so closely it's unnerving. I push the can at him just to make him stop. "Eat."
He takes the can, but doesn't stop staring. I can't shake the feeling that if he could brand whatever he's trying to urge on me in the middle of my forehead, that stare might do it. So, clearing my throat self-consciously, I settle in for a long mid-summer afternoon's read.
/My name's Nosedive Flashblade. I'm from a place called Puckworld./
***