regards

Characters: K, Connie

Content warnings: Discussion of death/death wishes, discussion of human experimentation/kidnapping, heavy grief/mourning, fairly explicit description of a panic attack

Summary: Connie flags K down while they’re on patrol, expecting a meetup with his friend Caleb (the original one), and wondering why they blew him off the other night. K does their best to play it cool, but breaks character fairly quickly, admitting that Vantage abducted Caleb, and that this is the first time they’ve met anyone in El Asilo who actually knew Caleb before he moved there. Connie takes the news badly, and tells K that Caleb is better off dead than captured by Vantage. They fight.

K has a panic attack on the way home, after parting ways with Connie. Connie, going the same way, helps them calm down, but refuses their request to talk about their shared grief for Caleb. They part ways again, on even more uncertain terms.

Characters: K and Connie

Content warnings: none

Summary: Connie tries to contact his old gaming friend, Caleb. K panics.

Characters: K and Slipstream

Content warnings: none trigger left log

Summary: While on patrol, K is drawn into a conversation with Slipstream, mostly to find out what she’s doing floating over a main road. They realize quickly that she’s a hero fangirl, and seize the chance to talk up the Anti-Vantage Alliance for some good PR. Slipstream interviews them, and the two part on surprisingly amiable terms.

this one’s canon actually

1. k is...uncomfortable at best, knowing denver has seen everything. they contact denver the day after they un-fuse, ignoring the hollow feeling in their chest, telling denver flat-out that no one can know the things he’s seen. their real identity - their real name. denver has forgotten most of it already, but he doesn’t tell k that. he just agrees.

2. logically, that should be that, but k has seen everything of denver, too, and they can’t just pretend he’s a stranger. they know about his accident, his memory problems, the anger he keeps bottled up inside. the notebooks he keeps full of facts about his friends, in case he forgets them. how alone he feels in the apartment during the day, when fratelli isn’t home.

3. k starts contacting denver more. at first it’s idle chatter, but then k realizes that if denver already knows all there is to know about them, he’s a perfect confidante. they talk to him about their past, the parts of their life they hide from everyone else. about caleb. denver has forgotten almost all of this already, but he pretends he hasn’t, asking roundabout questions to refresh himself without making k feel awkward.

4. denver buys a fresh journal, the kind with a lock on the front, and fills it with everything he learns about k, from their coffee order to their real name. sometimes sketches of their face, that get better, more detailed, as they spend more time together and denver remembers k more and more. fratelli knows what it is, has seen him scribbling in it in front of his laptop, but doesn’t comment. they make an unspoken pact not to tell janice.

5. k gets off work at vantage around the time fratelli leaves for his night job. sometimes denver will turn around in the living room and find k standing there, takeout in hand, the window by the fire escape gaping open. if it were anyone else, it would probably agitate denver, have him reaching for the baseball bat leaning by the door, but k has told him over and over (enough that it sticks in his brain) that they can’t help how quiet they are. it’s in their nature. denver finds it almost endearing.

6. ‘you can use my name, if you want,’ k says one night, on the couch, sitting at least half a foot away from denver. there’s a movie on that neither of them are paying attention to, and they’re watching over his shoulder as he draws. ‘my real name, i mean.’

1. the admiral is building an army, and she needs soldiers. strong ones. peacekeeper is strong, and just as driven as she is, so it’s a natural fit. neither of them realize they already know each other from school, and they’re uptight in their interactions, regimented, almost formal.

2. peacekeeper thinks the admiral is soft. she’s never fired the gun she carries on her back, so what’s the point of it?

3. peacekeeper calls her ‘admiral’ and ‘ma’am’ like it keeps her at arm’s length. ‘you call me ingrid,’ the admiral says, one night, while they’re patrolling the board walk. ‘i don’t mind.’

4. hey, peacekeeper thinks. she knows an ingrid.

1. dallas flirts with all his patients - it’s just a fact. he takes a particular fancy to flirting with jude, mostly because she doesn’t notice unless he’s glaringly obvious about it. finn rolls his eyes, whenever he’s there to see it, but then he starts to wonder if maybe dallas isn’t joking.

2. finn corners dallas in the kitchen after jude’s left, and asks him what his intentions are. dallas laughs it off, tells finn he sounds like a father, but he can’t put the thought out of mind. what are his intentions with jude? he doesn’t know.

3. jude invites him to dinner at her house, and it’s funny, seeing dallas among all the chaos, a dog thrusting its head into his lap. dallas is perfectly charming, but he can’t hide the fact that he’s not used to being around a real family.

4. dallas doesn’t understand the way he feels about jude, but it makes him want to buy her flowers, so he does. he can’t remember the last time he bought flowers for anyone. maybe never.

1. rhys hasn’t been in the city long enough to recognize the name gunner, or know much of anything about the starlight six massacre. there’s a flood of questions in her when ingrid finally tells her about it, but she reins them in, letting them out slowly, over weeks and weeks.

2. she and ingrid strike a deal - for each question about ingrid’s past, ingrid asks something about rhys. rhys expects hard questions, heavy ones as a retaliation for asking about ingrid’s dead friends. but they’re all largely mundane. rhys keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it never does.

3. rhys teaches ingrid to smile more, almost by accident. her smile - her laugh - are so infectious that ingrid can’t help but reciprocate.

4. ingrid’s mysterious benefactor teases her in his letters about the new vigilante she’s partnered up with. how she has less time to patrol with him. ingrid retorts that it’s adventegious, that she’s just making allies, and he says, knowingly, ‘sure you are.’

1. it takes a long time before k actually talks to connie one on one, rather than talking about him, or using sundance as a buffer. they don’t know if they like it. connie has a frustrating way of talking around a subject, of teasing them when they get short with him, of coming up with nicknames. it’s unprofessional. and familiar.

2. they meet by chance on patrol, and k finds that talking to connie - sorry, robyn hood - in person makes them feel less like tearing their hair out. 

3. this comes with a trade-off, of course, in that connie is more tactile than anyone k has ever met. he touches their shoulders, he holds their hand, he cups their cheeks to study their helmet, looking into it like he can see through the screen and into their eyes. k can’t feel any of it, not really, not through the suit, and for once they’re not sure how they feel about that.

4. connie’s eye becomes a point of contention. k doesn’t see why he won’t just replace it - they draw up schematics for a new one, show him how it will work with his mask, how it can do everything a real eye might, and more. connie doesn’t understand why they take it so personally that he wants to keep a damaged part of him. someone wiser might tell k they’re projecting, but connie talks around the issue instead, giving k other things to worry about. the way his flirting makes their head spin, for one.

1. cedric interviews orianthe ‘please, dear, call me or’ bathory, wealthy socialite, for a fluff piece on an art auction they’re hosting. it’s some other reporter’s story, cedric’s just filling in for them while they’re out sick, but or is more than understanding. they pour him expensive coffee and offer him tea cakes and are more naturally hospitable than anyone cedric has ever met in his life, probably. he’s so taken aback by it that he nearly forgets to tape the interview.

2. cedric thinks or is pretty, but or thinks cedric is just gorgeous. they tell him to come the art auction as their plus one, and he says he’ll consider it, sure they’re just flirting until he gets the invitation in the mail the next day.

3. or insists on buying cedric an outfit to wear to the auction, of course. he dresses well, but none of his clothes will do for an art auction. one outfit turns into four outfits turns into dinner, and then or invites cedric home with them for coffee. cedric has a very hard time saying no, so he doesn’t say it.

4. or flounces in with breakfast in bed nearly as soon as cedric is awake. ‘i didn’t know what you like, so i had my staff make a little of everything,’ they say, as if it’s nothing, while cedric tries not to cry into his french toast.

1. albatross is on a constant search for things in el asilo that do not bore them, and toad is in the rare minority of people who have managed to surprise them on more than one occasion.

2. they keep tabs on toad after he leaves vantage, of course. it would be silly not to. they want to see what he’ll do next - if he’ll surprise them again. it’s possible they’re letting themself get a little personally involved, but if anyone else brings it up to them (preston), that’s just asking for a headache or a nosebleed.

3. albatross finds themself daydreaming about ways to mess with toad, while doing their mindless internship work. should they pop up in his room when he’s least expecting it? no, no, what if they “accidentally” bump into him at his new job?

4. they don’t want to admit that they miss seeing toad around the vantage building, so when they finally do pop back up again in his life, they offer him a deal, of course.

1. they end up in a poetry class consisting of only them and six other people. olivia can’t stand the others, and ingrid is too shy, so she sticks to what she knows - the girl from the study group chat. they’ve never met in person, but ingrid recognizes her name, her way of speaking.

2. she doesn’t want to bother olivia, but it turns out they both have an hour between classes that they spend eating lunch, so why not spend it together? they don’t have to talk - olivia can just do homework, if she wants, ingrid doesn’t mind. but not sitting alone in the dining hall for once is nice.

3. they buy each other gifts, under the guise of book recommendations. french literature, from olivia to ingrid. poetry collections in braile, from ingrid to olivia. then they start simply reading too each other from their own book collections. it’s easier than buying every book twice.

4. ingrid’s not a very good teacher, but she tries to teach olivia music theory, piecemeal, mostly pointing out different aspects of the music olivia already listens to and enjoys.

1. finn knows that reuben Got Out of vantage. finn also wants to Get Out of vantage. he takes jon working for reuben and arty as an opportunity to pester reuben for advice.

2. reuben bristles at how naturally friendly finn is, but he feels bad once he hears that finn’s last assignment is to assassinate a friend. he tries to put it out of his mind, but it won’t go away.

3. so he does it for finn. any friend of finn’s is apt to be a perfect stranger to him. nothing more than a target. he still does it quickly and painlessly, though, so he’ll be telling finn the truth when he says that’s how it was done.

4. ‘you can quit now,’ he says, and that’s all. a simplification of something finn was overcomplicating for himself. cutting a gordian knot. reuben doesn’t think of it as a grand gesture, just a favor for a friend, though he’s not sure when he started thinking of finn as a friend.

RUBS MY GAY LITTLE HANDS TOGETHER

1. do they bond over mutual hatred of milo? you bet they do.

2. aurora doesn’t trust dakota at first on account of, hello, he was a serial killer too, once. but dakota tells her about how he’s trying to turn over a new leaf, and it takes him a hot minute to sell her on it, but once she realizes he’s for real she’s like ‘huh, okay.’ she holds him to it, though, and calls him on his bullshit when she sees it. dakota thinks it’s funny that she’s not afraid of him.

3. dakota keeps aurora a secret from silvain, and she does the same for dakota with all her friends. neither of them is sure why they feel the need. they like messaging each other. dakota likes having a pen pal again. aurora likes having someone to talk about stupid, mundane aggravations with, not life-or-death problems.

4. dakota sends aurora pictures of himself, but always the ones from when he was alive. after a while, she has trouble picturing him any other way, though she knows that’s not the body he has anymore.