#flint hmu..

Luca grimaces, instantly fixing his posture,

“It wasn’t exactly my favourite, general, guess it was a bitta protein though…”

“Good attitude, Cadet. Keep that up and you’ll be fine.” Flint says and marches towards the door with his confident stride. “Oh, also. You have ten minutes left for breakfast. Better move, cadet.”

“Left??? how was I supposed to know when to be up??” As flint walks away, Luca puts his uniform on his bed and quickly grabs the general by the arm,

“Hold on- this isn’t fair!”

Flint goes still. His muscles shift under Luca’s hand.

He doesn’t turn.

“You should have asked when breakfast was, Cadet.”

Hate hate hate, confirmed comfirmed confirmed.

Flint glances at his watch. “Ah. Nine— oh, no. Eight minutes to go. Better dress.” He shrugs Luca’s hand off him. “I am not your babysitter like that lieutenant who’s fond of you, Cadet. You think you’re better than other cadets?Prove it.”

As Flint walks out, Luca can hear him call from the hall. “Seven minutes.”

Luca scoffs, eyes not leaving the direction in which the general walked off in. Uneblievable.

"Eat shit…" he grumbles before quickly getting dressed, ruffling his hair until it looked okay-enough.

One sock, second sock- where are my shoes- fuck...

He hops on one foot, butting on his second boot before lacing them and rushing out the door, slamming the door behind him with a sigh.

He follows the trail he saw Flint leave in and was met with a corridor, one door reading 'Mess hall' on the outside, he barged in, a bored expression on his face as his eyes roam around the room, taking it all in...

There was nobody there.

The room was empty.

No other soul was awake.

There’s a clock above the kitchen area, that reads 2.00.

Flint smiles as he comes in with a cup of black steaming coffee. “Oh. You didn’t ask, either, Cadet.” He says with a satisfied smile. “Newbies make breakfast for the team. Everything you need is in the kitchen. Make sure to impress them. They’re a harsh crowd.”

Flint pats Luca’s shoulder as he walks past him But Luca quickly shoves at the man's hand- only earning him a harsh fist wrapping around Luca's wrist, making him yelp in pain;

“You are a glutton for punishment it seems, Fletcher. Didn’t your parents ever teach you manners?"

Luca's mouth opens to protest but Flint's grip only tightens,

“You must control your anger, Cadet. It will get you in trouble. I will not turn violent unless I neeed to. Now…” Flint’s boot darts down on Luca’s ribs. “My soldiers get angry when they're hungry, it's not a pretty sight. Chop chop!”

Then he leaves.

Luca watches as Flint leaves for a long moment before shoving down his anger- stay on task.

He saw the oats and milk layed out followed by eggs and sausages. Pretty standard- what they were fed in the other base but also pretty much what Luca only knew how to make.

By 04, Luca was sat at a table, etching drawings into the wood with a knife from the kitchen while he tried to pass time, breakfast all set up to be served, piping hot.

The first to enter is a raven haired girl with a shoulder length v-shaped haircut. She looks to be older than Jet, around 22-23.

“Oh. He did it to you, huh? When did he wake you?” She asks bluntly, her voice naturally lower. She moves with efficient grace, plating eggs and sausages and bacon onto her plate and grabbing the teapot and a teacup without any flourish. Almost brutal in her movements. “You look like shit.”

Luca just huffs a laugh, eyes not leaving the table as his knife moves with precise precision. He could only guess the state he looked after losing his best friend yesterday, the bruises from his previous encounter with the dickhead cadets and the utter lack of sleep.

There weren’t many girls on his cadet squad- one or two maybe but that was it. The early wake up call and betrayal of the bastard Flint had him in a bad mood and didn't exactly make Luca the most charming to meet at the moment.

“Didn’t know they’ve let girls on this godamn team. You make us sandwiches when we’re done training?”

The corner of his mouth quirks up as he wipes away the loose wood that’s  been  carved away.

In an instant therre’s a flash of movement and a hand wrapped around Luca’s throat, pushing the chair back to the ground, a knee on his chest, digging into his ribs and a knife above his eye, the tip almost touching it, making his eyes water. All of this before he had a chance to blink.

“I really hope I didn’t hear what I thought I heard,” she says with a blank expression, not letting any emotion slip, as if she was bored.

Luca groans, back arching with pain from the sudden impact of the ground. She was strong- stronger than some of the guys on the cadet team.. he would never let that on though.

“Fuck.. well maybe you misheard me,” Luca growls, craning his neck up so he’s almost face to face with the girl, bringing himself ever so slightly closer to the blade as a challenge,

“I said get your ass back to the kitchen because-“

In one quick motion, Luca expertly knocks the knife from the girl’s hand, grabbing her wrists and quickly rolling her over- their positions swapped,

“You’re fucking weak. Girls have no place in the military.”

The girl doesn’t grunt. Instead, she moves her feet in close to her hips, and launches her hips up while yanking her wrists down. Luca jolts forwards, catching himself on his hands, but the girl grabs his elbow with both hands and wrenches it back to her chest before wrapping her foot around the outside of his calf. With another shift of her hips they’re rolled again and this time she doesn’t stop at just pinning him.

A blow to the throat has Luca gasping, and she punches him hard in the face, her knuckles cracking off his cheek, his jaw, slams her fist down on the bridge of his nose.

She doesn’t stop. Every punch seems to hit something vital, her knuckles seeming to go through his ribs to punch the air from his lungs, down to his kidneys and distantly, beyond the pain, he knew it would hurt long after the initial blow.

When he tries to recover she punches him in the throat again and blood spurts from Luca’s nose across her knuckles. An elbow to the breast bone and the girl gets to her feet with the same brutal grace as before. Then, for good measure, she stomps on his crotch and turns, leaving him writhing on the ground as she takes a napkin and wipes the blood away.

Luca lays still on the floor, breath rasping in his throat as he gasps for breath, "F-ff'ck..." He groans, hands grasping between his legs as he despertaley tries to tough out the overwhelming pain.

When he looks up through the curls that fell over his eyes, he sees Veda, powl in hand and walking towards a table to have her breakfast.

Luca's face twists in anger, shakily getting to his feet before wiping down his uniform, Shit- blood had gotten on the fabric, he prayed Flint wouldnt care- maybe he wouldnt even notice.

"Fuckin' asshole.." Luca grumbles, wiping blood from his face before sitting back in his spot he was previosuly sitting at, fixing the chair back on it's four legs. He slumps in the chair, leg bouncing as he seethes with anger. Dumb bitch got my uniform bloody..

The doors open again a few minutes later and a short blonde woman and a giant hulk of a man with a buzz cut walk through together, smiles on their faces at the smell of food.

When Luca looks up, their smiles drop. The blonde- Poppy- tilts her head at him, as if taking in every detail. The man, Ryker, on the other hand looks fit to devour him.

“Thought Flint said that was the last of us…” he grumbles, eyes not leaving Luca but he was clearly not talking to the boy.

“I don’t like him..” Ryker growls before brushing past him, beginning to plate up the food, Poppy quietly folllowing after him, eyes still studying Luca.

“I’m in the room, asshole, act like it.”

Ryker looks at Luca for a moment, laughing as he bites into his toast, “Got a damn mouth on him too….”

“What happened to his face?” Poppy asks, her voice soft and airy,  feminine. Her words anything but. She reaches a hand out as if to touch Luca’s nose, but retracts it as Luca's eyes harden on her.

“He ran his mouth,” Veda says simply before shoveling a spoonful of food into her mouth.

“He’s young,” Poppy replies, blinking with big doe like eyes. She wore makeup and was a slim build, and short, maybe 4’, her hair distractingly blonde and bright as she looked at Luca with big blue eyes. “You’re young,” she tells him.

Lucas face softens slightly, finally being spoken to instead of being spoken at.

“I’m twentey,” he speaks plainly, eyes occasionally drifting to Ryker, making sure he was still in his view.

He finally forces himself to step forward, “and I belong on this team just as much as any of you guys do.”

Ryker just laughed dryly before taking a seat by Veda.

He can feel Poppy's eyes on him but he was sort of used to that, girls always seemed to match themselves onto him in some desperate plea for attention. That’s why Veda confused him- slightly intriguing him.

Luca just rolls his eyes at Ryker's arrogance, sitting down at the very end of the bench, leg bouncing up and down as his eyes dart around the room, trying to take in everything and everyone.

His eyes meet the desk that he had carved into but he doesn’t care, it was too minimalistic for Flint to notice anyways… hopefully.

He shrugs as the conversation dies down, “I was seventeen when I joined the cadetes… unofficially… then.. well they found out I lied about my age but they kept me on…”

“Three years and you’re still a cadet?” Ryker guffaws. “And you’re somehow on this team now? My god, Flint’s lost it.”

Lucas face burns red with anger, his hand tightening on the side of the table,

“Wasn’t exactly because of my skills…” he growls.

“More of the lack of them, was it boy?” Ryker asks with the same confident smirk, happy to be riling Luca up.

It was enough to make Luca snap. His hand goes straight for the blade in his pocket but Poppy's hand catches his wrist gently.

She doesn’t look at Luca, doesn’t make any gestures. They’re both quiet as the rest of the team laugh, breaking off into other conversation while eating their breakfast.

Luca takes his hand back, away from Poppy's touch as he sits quietly at the table, leg bouncing wildly.

The doors open and Flint, accompanied by a man by his side, enter.

Flint nods as he is greeted with a series of “Morning, General,” noticeably quiet from Luca, but Flint doesn’t comment on it.

The man walking beside Flint is tall and slim with a charming smile, his chocolate brown eyes lock on Luca immediately and he nods his head in greeting.

“Morning, fresh meat,” he says, but in a way that doesn’t irritate Luca, as if he was joking with him instead of teasing him like the other people on the team, as if he knew exactly how much Luca was teased this morning.

“Mmm, this food smells great. Thank you.” And he plates up some food while Flint inspects the place where his coffee cup was broken that was now cleaned. He walks with his hands behind his back towards Luca, and stares down at him with an unreadable expression.

“I thought I told you to clean up, Cadet,” he murmurs.

Lucas eyes don’t leave Harry for a while, taking him in. The way his brown curls sit perfect over his chocolate eyes. He had banter in him but not to hurt Luca. He liked that.

His eyes finally moved to flint with a sigh,

“I did…” he argued back, eyes glaring at the general

Flint’s hand snaps out and grabs Luca by the chin, tilting his head up and inspecting his face and nose.

“There is still blood here,” Flint says coldly, his eyes scanning Luca. “And on your uniform. Do you think it is acceptable to present yourself like this cadet, while in uniform?”

Ryker smirks at Luca from behind Flint, but Luca can only feel his eyes on him, not see them. Flint’s iron grip on his chin was too strong to move. In fact the whole room seemed to go silent as Flint reprimanded Luca. Poppy was quiet beside Luca on the table.

fuck, he didn’t mean clean up the mess hall, he thinks- he didn’t clean up the blood from this morning.

Luca winces, something growls in his throat as the pain only increases, Flint clearly demanding an answer;

“Fuck- oh- oh yeah I forgot… sorry I’ll uh.. I’ll do it next time I guess…”

For the first time since sitting down for breakfast, Veda lifts her head from her plate to look at Luca curiously, as though he was suddenly interesting.

But everyone else’s reaction was different; Ryker’s smile was wiped from his face and Poppy stiffened beside him.

And slowly Luca realised he fucked up somehow, as all air seemed to be vacuumed from the room.

Flint’s expression darkened.

His stomach drops but he can feel everyone’s eyes on him. Every one of these team mates didn’t know him, didn’t know what he was capable on and they looked down on him. He had to prove himself after this morning.

He forces a cocky smile- making himself seem confident as he braces himself for what’s to come…

“Oh yeahh… how could I forget!! Your majesty..”

Luca didn’t get to finish his words before Flint yanked him to a standing by the throat and turned him towards the door. As Luca throws an arm back, Flint catches him on his upper arm and shifts his grip from his chin to the back of his neck and continues to march Luca forward, never breaking his stride out of the mess hall doors and through the building, taking a different route down a hall Luca didn’t see yesterday.

“How lucky,” Flint hums, voice clipped. “You get the tour sooner than expected. I hope you ate before this.”

-

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