Two.
There was a total of two people in the building (well, it seemed more like an underground bunker, but the thing was accessed by Jack punching in a code on a metal door on the side of a building that looked like it had been abandoned a few years ago (and that looked more than a little like a giant pirate ship) when they entered, looking up from what they were doing.
"Oh- h-hey, boss, uh-" A little reedy young man who looked like he couldn't have been much older than Jesse shuffled his feet and his papers upon spotting the group, adjusting glasses that looked too big for his face and made his red eyes seem even bigger than they probably were.
His skin was the shade of caramel and his neat black hair looked like it stood up on one end, minus the blue bandana tying some of it back. He was wearing a green army jacket over a black shirt and orange-red pants that looked a bit like it came from some kind of uniform. Jesse could see a vine-like tattoo creeping up his neck and maybe down his left arm.
They couldn't really see it, so it was anybody's guess as to whether or not it was actually there.
Jack chuckled and clapped the boy on the back so hard he almost knocked him over altogether. "Calm down there, Radar. This is Petra. And those are the October Children, and those are the lords of Hizelk, and this is Jesse."
He introduced them so quickly that Jesse almost didn't realize he'd said their name at the very end of it.
Radar looked slightly overwhelmed. "O- oh, Petra, and- and all of the October Children, and- oh, that's Mevia, Harper, and Isa- ohh, why are they here? Are we in trouble? Why do they have a human with them?"
Their disguise must not have been as good as they thought... or maybe Radar was just particularly observant.
Jesse blinked over at him- he didn't look a day over eighteen. Maybe even sixteen.
Now Jesse didn't look a day over twelve, but that was a different matter altogether.
Either way, he seemed like the type of person to notice a tiny detail from ten feet away like the fact that Jesse's eyes weren't red.
So probably the particularly observant guess was correct.
"No trouble. They just need a safe place to stay for the night." Jack shrugged and gestured with his head at the door they'd just come from. "You know how... uh, messy it gets at night."
The way he said messy was so loaded that Jesse didn't even want to begin dissecting it.
Jack nodded at the other person, who had been watching warily from where they were sitting at a table. The first thing Jesse noticed about the other man was his nose.
(And then they admonished themselves for immediately thinking 'that's a big nose'.)
It was a rather large nose, almost a little hawklike and large enough that it made his normal-sized red eyes seem dangerously small in his face. He wore a white shirt and a black hat with a red feather stuck in it and was watching from where they'd been sitting with a pen in his fingers, probably in the middle of drawing something.
"Guys, this is Nurm. My other half." Jack nodded at the other man, making Nurm smile with a nod of his own. "He's a genius with cartography."
Nurm raised his hand, folding his thumb in front of his palm, and placed it in front of his ear before extending it outward in a smooth motion- sign language for hello.
Jesse copied the sign and then added, in slightly clumsy sign language, "My name is Jesse."
Nurm's smile widened at seeing their signing. He turned to Jesse slightly and signed back. "I am Nurm. You know sign language?"
"I am new to it so I might be clumsy." Jesse wasn't sure if that was the right symbol, but Nurm seemed to understand so perhaps it was.
He shook his head and signed some more, fluid motions that made Jesse a tad bit embarrassed of their own attempts. "You are very good. Perhaps a bit rusty, but it's not bad."
"Fuck you."
Jesse paused as they considered what they'd just signed, then their eyes widened and they hastily flailed their hands and corrected it by, instead of doing the sign language for fuck you (fingers under the chin and somewhat flicking outward together), touched their fingers to their chin and simply extended their hand outward. "Thank you! Thank you thank you!
Nurm laughed at that, a slight wheezing sound that seemed to be more from the exhalation of air than anything else. He at least seemed more amused than offended by Jesse's accidentally cussing him out. Jack seemed more than a little amused as well. Harper looked like she might laugh while most everyone else looked bewildered.
"You know sign language?" Lukas asked Jesse after a moment, trying to take his attention off of Harper, who was shaking with little chuckles and shaking her head in amusement.
Jesse nodded sheepishly. "Yeah, we had someone teach us it once in school." And then they'd developed an interest in it and learned it as much as they could, but that part wasn't so important.
"Oh. So, uh... why are they laughing?" Lukas jerked his head at Harper and Jack.
"I think I remember from the one time Harper learned ASL or BSL or whatever sign language from a half-demon."
Mevia did the 'fuck you' gesture. "Jesse was probably trying to say thank you, which was this-"
She did the thank you gesture.
"- but they accidentally did the sign for 'fuck you'."
And she did the sign language for that again.
Harper burst out laughing, Jesse hiding their now-rather-pink face in embarrassment while the joke clicked for several others and they all chuckled quietly. Reuben sniggered and rubbed against their leg happily.
Gill considered this new knowledge.
Then he turned to Maya and signed "fuck you" at her.
Maya signed it back.
Aiden sighed when he saw them doing it repeatedly at one another. "Well, as long as they're not bickering at each other normally, I guess."
A/N: I am learning some sign language :D
I know the signs for wolf, fuck you, thank you, hello, and... that's it. xD I started two days ago.
as of right now I'm eating fries with a fork in college.
... i feel old. T^T
RQTC: What is your aesthetic?
Pink.
Pink everywhere.
I am a fry. Reviews are my ketchup-mustard-whatever-you-eat-fries-with. I am covered in it.
Responses to reviews!
Toni42: oh nooooo / Hehe, Jack's one of the older ones. / His is... harder to explain xD
TheAmberShadow: Nice, nice. / I dolphin (don't think) I have many more puns to make. Maybe we should change the topic of the puns so they're not as fishy and I don't have to explain so much. We'll sea, I guess. / Hehe xD / It's okay, don't worry 'bout it xD / Mm, that's good. / Him saying what? Sorry xD
Guest: Hehe, yeah. / Usually, yes xD / Thank you!
ThinMintE: Possibly! / Hehe, yeah. Draco's more temperamental than Fyre is (now), so it's kind of impressive in general. / Haha, nice. / Thank you! I'll do my best T^T
Darkbeast Dend: Nice, dude.
Northern Goshawk: No, that would be one I'm looking forward to xD It's, er... well, you'll see in a few chapters, I guess. / You are correct. / He's appeared now xD / I'm glad you like it! Welcome to the reviews! xD
That's all for now! See ya, so long, and g'bye!
x.X. A.L. X.x
