He picked up his pace, doing an awkward half-run across the road and jumping onto the sidewalk to avoid a large puddle, hood of his jacket pulled over his head and mask covering the lower half of his face to shield himself from the sickening combination of acid rain and low-hanging smog. It wasn’t unusual for that time of the year; but Vitali’d grown up with slightly better air quality in Wellsprings and Velvet Harbor, and needless to say he needed some time to adjust.

He reached the underpass of the main highway snaking through the subdistrict, the continuous sound of cars passing over up high above his head. The road was broad enough to provide some shelter from the rain; but Vitali kept his hood up anyway as he passed by a group of Valentinos parked up beside Al’s Chops, several of the gang members eyeing him as he beelined for the main entrance.

The shop was old. Decades by then, easily. Yellowed tiled walls and a concrete floor with blinds covering the windows– no fabrics, to keep the smell of raw meat out of them– with a large fridge display separating the waiting area and counter, showcasing all the meat cuts Alvaro had in at the time.

One of the last authentic butchers in town. The entire west coast with that, as far as Vitali was concerned.

He slowly removed the mask and hood from his head, revealing long, uncombed bleached hair and a pale face deprived of sleep. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, light and patchy facial hair covering his chin and jaw and above his upper lip. Definitely not his greatest look; but he hadn’t bothered making himself look presentable before rushing out, since he’d already been an hour late upon setting off.

‘Buen día, en qué le puedo ayudar– Vito?’

The man behind the counter was at least a head taller than Vitali, slender and graceful in build though scrawny in mannerisms and appearance. His voice faltered rather quickly upon spotting the only customer in the shop– and a wide, crooked grin spread across his narrow face instead.

‘Long time no see, guapo.’

Oh, here we go.

‘Hatchet.’ A forced greeting which sounded more like a statement than anything else. Vitali walked a little closer, leaning over the display to rest his arms on the counter and tap a finger on the little bell next to the cash register. ‘Vik and Jackie in?’

He had no interest in small talk. Wrong place, wrong time; he had better things to do than indulge Hatchet after effectively ghosting him for over half a month– in hopes time would sort things out on its own. A trick that never seemed to work, really. He wasn’t sure why he still bothered.

‘Of course, in the back,’ Hatchet replied, catching Vitali’s hand before he could tap the bell again and pushing it flat on the counter, under his own. ‘¿Qué onda? Can’t just show up after three weeks of radio silence and expect me to let you walk.’

Vitali glared at him, dragging his hand out from underneath Hatchet’s while tapping the bell with his other hand instead. ‘What’s it to you?’

A scoff. ‘Really?’

Hatchet crossed his arms in front of his chest, tucking his hands in while leaning over the counter until his face was right up into Vitali’s, voice hushed as to make sure no one else would catch it. ‘You gon’ make me say it?’

He wasn’t the worst. A little boisterous, rough around the edges– Vitali’s usual type, the most common kind of man to be found in his bed. But it didn’t take a genius to know they were wildly incompatible, and besides, Vitali already had another headache to worry about right back at home– if he hadn’t let himself out yet.

‘You’re a paying customer, Hatch,’ Vitali quietly affirmed, repeating a sentence he’d uttered at least a hundred times before at that point. ‘Please don’t make this any more difficult than it has to be.’

The betrayed look on Hatchet’s face already gave him his answer.

‘Wow.’

There it is.

‘Wow.’

‘Hatch–’

‘Seriously?’

Hatchet stepped back, gesturing between himself and Vitali, smiling in disbelief. ‘After all that–? That’s, that’s all I am to you?’

No matter how abundantly clear Vitali would make it each and every time, no matter how often he would refer to them as customers, there was always– always– the occasional asshole who thought himself to be more important than the others, and oh so very special for having had Vitali’s boobs in his mouth. He’d gotten used to it by then– and really, it wasn’t as if any of them could hurt him, emotionally or physically for that matter– but the constant repeating was starting to drive him nuts.

Hatchet threw out another wow and Vitali scoffed in return, straightening his back and shoving balled fists in his pockets. ‘Christ, Hatch– Quit acting like you didn’t know.’

‘We had somethin’ there!’

‘We had sex. Which you paid for.’

Quite a hefty sum of eddies, too, more than the usual gonk. But he decided to leave that out of the equation for now.

Vitali watched with clenched jaw as Hatchet paced back and forth behind the counter, muttering to himself in Spanish just quiet enough for Vitali’s hearing aid to fail picking any of it up. He already regretted not taking the back entrance instead; sure as hell would’ve saved him a whole lot of time that he already didn’t fucking have–

‘Fuck, man, whatever– At least just–’ Hatchet had stopped pacing and leaned back over the counter, pointing at Vitali who instinctively took a step back. ‘At least tell me that I was–’

‘Eladio!’

Immediate silence washed over the shop. An older, balding man walked in through the bead curtain separating the front and back of the shop, dressed in similar attire as his son but wearing a once white apron around his short, stout body. He was in the process of taking off black nitrile gloves, revealing two cybernetic hands, and gestured at Hatchet to move away from the register as he tossed the gloves in what Vitali could only assume was a bin hiding behind the display.

‘Leave the boy alone,’ Alvaro said, waving his hand in the direction of the kitchen behind him. ‘Go– Don’t look at me like that. Go help your sister. Good morning, Vitali.’

The atmosphere in the shop changed immediately– for the better– and Vitali allowed his shoulders to relax as he watched Hatchet pointedly leave, not even bothering to make eye contact anymore. He ran a hand through his hair to push it out of his face, giving the old butcher a quick nod as greeting.

‘How’s business?’

Alvaro pursed his lips and vaguely waved his hand again. ‘Eh, igual que siempre. Though more backyard business with 6th Street and Valentinos runnin’ around. Seen the news?’

‘Yeah, it’s a mess.’ Vitali paused, and couldn’t help but glance behind him through the little window overlooking the Valentinos’ ride. ‘You’ll, uh, manage?’

Kind of a dumb question. Of course Alvaro would; built that shop with his own two hands– ironic as that statement was– and he wouldn’t leave it behind with half the city on fire, or whatever other hypothetical Vitali could think of.

‘Always, kid,’ the old man replied to him, giving him an equally as crooked smile as Hatchet had, and he nodded at the doorway again. ‘Now get. They’re waiting for you.’

Vitali quickly continued his way further into the shop, entering the kitchen through the bead curtain. He greeted the other employees inside, zigzagging around countertops and tables and beelining for the left exit beside the walk-in freezer, avoiding a still sulking Hatchet to the best of his abilities.

He almost felt bad. Almost.

But he stood by what he’d said– Hatchet was nothing more than a paying customer.

One of many.

Vitali pushed through the heavy swinging door with his shoulder, the tiled walls instantly replaced by bricks and concrete in the poorly lit garage of the shop. He bumped fists with the mechanics, in the process of taking apart two rather beaten up Colbys– and he briefly wandered into the scrapyard to wave at Dozer, who was busy taking inventory of a new Badlands haul.

Al’s Chops was always a lively place, even if it didn’t seem like it at first glance; and with its business located nice and far away from the prying eyes of the NCPD it was the perfect shop for gangs to drop off their unwanted rides.

And the meat Alvaro sold was mighty fine, too.

Vitali turned right into a short hallway curving around Al’s office and the stairs leading up into his house, and entered what was partially being used as a large storage space, and partially as– surprisingly so, though not to him– a boxing ring. Large crates and boxes stood shoved out of the way near the back door of an equally as poorly lit room; the only illumination came from a single light bulb and whatever natural light could reach through the small windows at the top of the exterior walls.

‘Ah, there you are, mano! Was startin’ to wonder if you’d show.’

Jackie Welles was dressed in a distractingly tight tank top and boxing shorts, curls tied up in a bun to keep them out of his face and some fresh cybernetic lining decorating his cheekbones and jaw. He grinned wide and waved at Vitali with a gloved hand, following it up with a playful double jab and cross in his direction.

In the corner of the ring stood Viktor Vektor, in his usual attire of jeans and a short sleeved button-up. Vitali had no idea how that was comfortable in the suffocating, clammy warmth of the room; he could already feel his own forehead getting sweaty, and he had only just walked in.

‘Got held up, sorry,’ he quickly said, taking off his jacket and zipper hoodie and tossing them aside– then after short hesitation also took off his t-shirt, leaving him in his sports bra and basketball shorts reaching just above his knees.

‘Nicky got his house key back, then, eh?’ Jackie chuckled, walking over to hold out his arm for Vitali to grab onto while pulling himself up in the ring.

Vitali was still unsure how his friend always seemed to know exactly what was going on in his life. He’d never been a talkative type– sure as hell knew better than to tell Jackie Welles of all people about any of his personal endeavors– yet he still knew of all of Vitali’s college acquaintances, the parties he visited, and also exactly what kind of drugs he’d been doing the night before.

Vitali scoffed, stepping onto the platform and immediately receiving a push from Jackie’s elbow that if he hadn’t been paying attention could’ve easily knocked him over back into the ropes instead.

‘None of your fucking business, Jack.’

Another hearty chuckle. ‘If you want your “yes” to be less obvious, I recommend saying no next time.’

Vitali wisely decided to keep his mouth shut.

His gaze was drawn to what he assumed to be a training robot, idling in one of the empty corners of the ring. Judging by its right lower arm being bent at a significant unnatural angle, it had already been used as punching bag before his arrival.

‘Started without me?’ he asked, gesturing at the robot.

‘If you’d ever bother to show up on time you’d be surprised of the things we usually get up to without you.’

Viktor finally moved out of his corner, smiling upon noticing Vitali’s slightly offended expression and he came to a stop next to him, hands on his hips as he nodded at the robot. ‘Like it?’

Vitali grimaced and spat on the floor of the ring. ‘That a trick question?’

‘Yeah. Don’t like it much either. Al was kind enough to keep ‘er from this Militech stash some Valentinos brought in last week, let me poke around in the programming. Think I’ll let him know to sell her, I’m sure there’s some gym fanatic out there who could use the, uh–’ Viktor paused, and gestured vaguely. ‘– Artificial muscle.’

Vitali had never understood the appeal of a robotic opponent– in any context, for that matter. He still vividly remembered observing his father’s chess matches against pre-programmed holographic pieces; nothing there to analyze but the game itself, no human opponent to watch take calculated risks and decisions, no unique style or patterns to pick up on and strategize against.

Where’s the fun in playing against a couple lines of code, designed specifically to find the most effective way to prevent its opponent from winning?

‘Well,’ Jackie said, giving Vitali a smack on the back of his shoulder with a no longer gloved hand, ‘you two catch up, I’m grabbin’ a drink. Sweating like a netrunner trespassing in NetWatch servers.’

‘Don’t get lost,’ Vitali replied, and watched as Jackie left the room with a little wave thrown in their direction.

The conversation instantly died down into comfortable silence and Viktor redirected his attention to the training robot, opening a panel in its back to mess with some of the wiring until it powered itself off. Vitali watched him work in silence for a bit, tying his hair up into a high ponytail to get it out of his face for the training.

He was still getting used to it. The rhythm, the routine. Every Sunday morning– though at this point afternoon– sparring with Vik and Jackie, learning how to box like one of the pros. An urgent suggestion from the latter, since Vitali had continued his infamous streak of picking fights at school; but these college bullies had quite the extra muscle on them in comparison to the delicate plumes of wheat he’d had to fend off in high school, and he’d begun to struggle finding himself on the winning end of it.

‘Hey, Vik– What’s up with this place anyway?’ Vitali ended up asking, glancing over his shoulder– noticing a second pair of boxing gloves in the corner of the ring, and he quickly walked over to put them on. ‘I mean– I don’t mind coming here, but why here? Special memories?’

‘Alvaro and I go way, way back,’ Viktor replied with a small smile, without looking up from his work. Vitali effortlessly recognized the look on his face and he lowered the glove in his hands, pausing to raise his eyebrows and give the old ripperdoc a knowing look.

‘Oh?’ No response. ‘Really now?’

Viktor paused, gaze catching Vitali’s, and he scoffed.

‘Don’t push it, V.’

Knew it.

‘Didn’t say anything.’ Vitali chuckled and put on his gloves, ignoring the tch coming from Viktor’s direction. He really had no right to speak, anyway– with the shambles of his own love life in the picture it was none of his business to try and dig into that of Vik’s.

‘Next time give me a ride at least– one more gopnik out in the street stare at me like I’m his next prey I’m buying a gun.’

Viktor visibly paused for a moment, eyes darting back in Vitali’s direction as he watched him finish up. He walked closer and reached out to grab Vitali’s wrists to help pull him back up on his feet once the gloves were on, with enough force that it would’ve sent Vitali flying had he not been prepared for it.

‘Surprised you haven’t already,’ he said, readjusting one of the wraps of Vitali’s glove around his wrist to put it on straight. He noticed Vitali’s caught off-guard stare, and merely shrugged. ‘Life in Night City ain’t sunshine, kid. Don’t think I gotta tell you that.’

It wouldn’t be the first time Viktor had offered Vitali some well-meaning advice. Ever since Jackie had introduced the two to each other he’d voiced his concern about Vitali’s substance abuse– which, Vitali supposed, made sense, and although he definitely let Vik’s advice enter one ear and immediately fly out of the other he appreciated the gesture– and since he had caught wind of Vitali’s latest side gig he had not stopped bothering him about at the very least getting regularly tested for STIs.

Buying a gun was kind of a different league of advice, though.

‘You’re encouraging me to buy a firearm?’ Vitali asked, though the question was phrased more like a statement; doubtful one at that, as if he wasn’t entirely sure if he’d heard the man right. ‘You? Of all people?’

‘What, I look like your dad to you?’ Viktor paused, licking his lips as he took his sunglasses off to be able to look Vitali in the eyes– something he rarely did, and Vitali instinctively straightened his back.

‘Look, Vitali–’ Oh, here it comes– ‘I’ve seen the state of that apartment you call your home. Your landlord sure as hell ain’t gonna protect you when some leadhead waltzes in in the middle of the night and decides the place is theirs now.’

He wasn’t necessarily wrong. In fact, if Vitali would open up more often about what he got himself into those days then Viktor would know the exact hypothetical he’d sketched out had already happened twice that month– and only one of those occasions had been Vitali’s fault.

But despite that, he still wasn’t sure why Viktor even bothered. Vitali wasn’t asking for protection– sure as hell didn’t need a fucking stand-in family member, now that his own blood had decided to ghost him after he’d left home– and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t actively trying to make some sort of a stubborn point by doing the exact opposite what Viktor kept asking of him, to try and get him off his back.

Either the hint completely went over Viktor’s head, or he was vehemently ignoring it.

Vitali once again wisely kept his mouth shut, receiving an encouraging– consoling?– pat on the shoulder from Viktor which he playfully returned with a soft gloved punch to the upper arm. The door behind them opened again, and Jackie finally returned.

‘Took you long enough,’ Vitali called, rolling back his shoulders to get himself warmed up and ready. ‘Told you not to get lost.’

‘Went for a piss while I was at it,’ Jackie apologetically replied.

Classic Jackie.

A pause, followed by a gleeful smile in Vitali’s direction.

‘Ready, V?’

Nearly three hours later than originally planned, the training finally began. Vitali versus Jackie, just their boxing gloves, no special protection. Definitely not the safest way to do it, but they weren’t allowed to aim for the head anyway– and aside from the occasional accidentally aimed too high right hook, that rule had stuck well so far.

They built it up simple, as always; warming up with some basic combinations, which Vitali was guided through by Viktor, beating down on Jackie’s boxing pads until he’d gotten in the rhythm. He hadn’t gotten very far in terms of technique; body moving faster than his brain, to the point he had to do the same few movements over and over and over again until his muscle memory got the upper hand of his impulses.

Though no matter how well Vitali executed his jabs, hooks, and uppercuts, none of it seemed to faze Jackie much. It often felt like repeatedly punching down against a brick wall– an unrewarding situation even with Vitali getting his technique perfectly right, eventually– and even when he started throwing in more of his weight Jackie still wouldn’t budge.

Vitali’s heart was beating a million miles an hour and he began seeing red, frustration pounding against the inside of his ribcage until he decided he’d had enough and sharply turned around, gearing up for a roundhouse kick directly in the middle of Jackie’s boxing pad. The sheer force and the surprise element of the move finally caused him to bounce back a few steps, and Vitali let out a triumphant huff.

But when he turned to look at Viktor, he immediately knew the move was not well received.

‘Last time I checked we don’t do kickboxing here, kid,’ he calmly stated, arms still crossed in front of his chest. The expression on his face was next to unreadable. As usual. ‘Got it out of your system?’

‘Fights out there never go like this,’ Vitali spat in defense, walking backwards and gesturing at Jackie’s boxing pads. ‘No one in the real world is gonna stick to boxing rules when all they want to do is rip your throat out.’

‘They won’t, no.’ Viktor’s voice was still agonizingly calm, as if he was doing it on purpose just to rile Vitali up more. ‘But a fight in the real world’s gonna be over real fuckin’ quick if you don’t have any fundamentals to base your own style on. Your opponent will, nine out of ten times.’

Vitali was barely listening.

Every week went exactly like this, and it was starting to piss him off; he did everything right, every single time– okay, with the necessary amount of repetition– yet none of it ever seemed to bother Jackie even a little bit, and he knew it was gonna make him look like an idiot if he ever were to try any of it out in practice.

He realized a little late that he had been quietly staring Viktor down that whole time, chest heaving from the combination of physical exertion and built up resentment over time. It caused the ripperdoc to finally move, briefly leaving the ring to grab Jackie’s gloves again which he had dropped on a side table.

‘Jack,’ he said, tossing the pair back in the ring, ‘put these on. V, take a breath. I’ll show you what I mean, okay?’

Vitali watched in silence as Jackie changed gear, the beating of his own heart thrumming heavily in his head. He hadn’t calmed down– and if anything, Viktor telling him to take a breath had just made him want to break a piece of furniture even more– and part of him wished he had just decided to roll over and go back to sleep instead of getting up to rush to another subdistrict for this on a fucking Sunday of all days.

They readied themselves in the center of the ring again, continuing as before; Viktor calling out combinations and Vitali following along until the instructions stopped and he could take over himself.

Jab, cross, jab. Jab, cross, left hook. Jab, right hook.

He exhaled sharply, dodging an incoming attack and resetting his stance to take a moment to gather himself. He already started seeing red again– doing everything just right, just fucking right, and yet here he was taking forever to get anywhere and despite the amount of time it took, literally nothing happened at the same fucking time.

He lunged forward and tried executing another combo– jab, cross, left hook, again– but Jackie parried it with ease and the force of it nearly knocked Vitali off his feet.

‘Patience, V,’ Viktor said, allowing Vitali to curse in Russian a couple of times before regaining himself. ‘Don’t let adrenaline get the best of you.’

He was trying. Patience had never been Vitali’s strongest suit, but he knew he had to work on it; instead of arguing with his teacher– just this once, since he’d already stared him down enough at that point– he simply steadied himself on his feet again, and gave Jackie a quick nod.

‘Again.’

Cross, left hook, cross. Jab, cross, uppercut. Jab, cross, lead hook, cross.

Vitali kept his composure, now– doing what he knew worked best, giving Jackie opportunities to strike back too to practice his blocks and parries. But the longer they spent throwing punches back and forth, the more his exasperation returned; and when Jackie almost knocked him off his feet again, he swung wide with a frustrated yell and proceeded to fall forward when Jackie dodged the whole punch by merely pulling his torso away.

‘Swinging wide hopin’ to hit literally anything in the process has never helped anyone,’ Viktor calmly remarked.

‘Again.’

It wasn’t hard to tell what point Vik was trying to make. Vitali was impatient, sure, but not stupid; Jackie continued using the techniques he’d been taught and it gave him the upper hand in combat, even with Vitali trying to think out of the box in hopes to gain any sort of advantage.

Double jab, cross.

Come on.

Jab, right uppercut, left hook.

He was starting to get tired, now; the muscles in his arms and calves burned as he and Jackie danced around each other, the latter now receiving less opportunities to strike back as Vitali picked up the pace.

Another double jab, cross. Jab, right hook– fucking screw it.

Vitali scoffed and landed a jab then followed it up with a feint jab and a lead hook, swiftly spinning to follow it up with an unexpected kick which made Jackie step aside– Vitali used the momentum to step forward and swing around, elbowing Jackie hoping to knock him off balance, but Jackie moved all his weight forward and effectively pushed Vitali to the floor without even having to use his arms.

‘Motherfucker–!’

Vitali winced as he tried pushing himself back up as fast as he could, ignoring the burning sensation in his back and shoulders and angrily readying himself for another round as if nothing had happened.

‘Alright, alright–’ Viktor said in soothing manner, and he reached out as if to try and stop him– but Vitali immediately shook him off and turned back to Jackie, who now also took a defensive step back with his hands up to signal a break.

‘V!’

Vitali’s attempt to walk forward was immediately stopped by Viktor, who grabbed his shoulders and turned him around– and for a split second, just a moment, Vitali tensed up, instinctively readying his arms and bracing for not entirely sure what– and Viktor noticed, closing his mouth and loosening his grip on Vitali’s shoulders in response.

The sudden tension in the room felt awful. Vitali exhaled sharply, clarity washing over him and a sharp pain in his chest once again made him wince. He focused his attention on Viktor’s thumb rubbing gentle circles on his shoulder and tried to match up his breathing to it, until he could feel his heartbeat settle down.

‘Look,’ Viktor quietly continued, ‘we know you can throw a punch, alright? A damn good one. I promise. You wanna play dirty– good. No one dumb enough to start a fight with you will be wantin’ to play fair either. You’re not the tallest, don’t have the strongest build. But you’re fast, and you’re agile. And you know how to use this to your advantage.’

‘And none of it is good enough,’ Vitali bluntly responded. Apparently.

It felt bad, saying it. Like admitting defeat.

‘What is your weakness, V?’ Viktor asked, ignoring Vitali’s self-pity and circling around him, walking over towards Jackie instead. ‘What’s the one thing that’s been keeping you from getting the upper hand here today?’

Vitali shrugged, tossing up a hand and vaguely gesturing with it. ‘Dunno. Indulge me. I’m too trigger happy? Anger issues clouding my better judgment?’

‘Don’t let this get personal.’

Viktor suddenly turned around to Jackie and went for a sharp cross, left hook, cross– Vitali braced himself again, but Jackie was quick and positioned himself to– albeit a little awkwardly– successfully block each and every one of Viktor’s incoming attacks.

‘You started with a lucky kick,’ Viktor called, taking a few steps back and gesturing for Jackie to follow along, centering the two of them in the ring. ‘A fine kick, too. Pushed ol’ Jack here back with it. Didn’t knock him off balance, though.’

‘You don’t have to rub it in,’ Vitali coldly replied as he watched Viktor go for another quick double jab and cross, noticing Jackie’s slightly more tense composure now that he had a different– and arguably much more experienced– opponent in front of him.

‘I’m not.’ Viktor blocked Jackie’s jab and dodged his hook. ‘I’m trying to make a point.’

‘I parried you, earlier,’ Jackie said, rolling back his shoulders as he steadied himself. ‘You lunged at me. Got out of your position.’

‘And then you proceeded to swing wide, losin’ your own center of gravity.’ Viktor allowed Jackie to land a jab and cross on him, but quickly followed it up with a jab and a well-aimed right hook himself. He paused, and turned to look at Vitali. ‘And then a dare I say creative combination of a kick and a sneaky little elbow between the ribs, and yet you still got knocked off your feet. How’s that?’

‘I don’t know!’

It was more of a sneer than an answer at this point, but Vitali had no more patience left to give. Yet even before the words had fully left his mouth, Viktor stepped towards him and threw a double jab in his direction– and Vitali scrambled to try and block, yet instead managed to dodge by not so gracefully stumbling over his own feet and falling backwards into the ropes of the ring.

Oh.

Viktor pointed at Vitali’s feet. ‘Footing’s miles off, kid.’

I’m going to kill myself.

Vitali’s ears burned bright red, chest tightening from embarrassment as he allowed Viktor to pull him back up straight. All his earlier frustration had been knocked clean out of his body– leaving behind nothing more than a deep pit of shame in his stomach.

‘I can tell you’re used to dealing a single hard blow and leaving it at that,’ Viktor said, holding his hand on Vitali’s shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze. ‘Probably a good thing. Would’a been a real pain in the ass for your teachers otherwise. But when it comes down to protecting yourself, what you’ll want is confidence, not arrogance.’

‘I’m not arrogant,’ Vitali immediately snapped.

‘You sure as hell fight like it, though.’

Short-tempered? Sure. A sore loser? Absolutely. But arrogant?

Vitali mentally went over every move he had just made, jaw clenched painfully tight trying to think of anything that would fit that description. In any other situation he would’ve just walked away, or gotten angry– but he had gotten far past that point, and now he just wanted to fucking understand.

‘You know when you win a fight, V?’ Jackie asked, grinning wide and placing his still gloved hands on his hips. ‘At the end of a fight. Not at any point before that.’

‘I know that,’ Vitali interrupted him, shooting him an irritated glare. ‘But sometimes you can tell when your opponent is getting tired or distracted. I can tell when a hard strike that might not necessarily follow your stupid boxing rules is going to do the trick.’

He was good at analyzing people. Picked up on body language fairly quick, and Vitali felt it had always given him a step ahead in combat. He took advantage of his opponents’ slip-ups and attacked when they were vulnerable; which is why a single strike had generally speaking always been enough for him to get the point across.

‘You play chess, Vitali?’ Viktor suddenly asked.

Vitali scoffed angrily. ‘Don’t you fucking start with me.’

‘Check does not automatically mean checkmate, right?’ Viktor paused, expectantly looking in Vitali’s direction, but he didn’t get any sort of reaction out of him. ‘Sure, a hard strike might knock someone down temporarily, and in the right situation it might give you a window to run. But it doesn’t immediately mean you’ve won.’

Point made, point taken.

‘So you say I’m arrogant because I fight to win.’

‘I say you fight with arrogance because you expect to know when you’re gonna win.’ Viktor paused, and gestured around the ring. ‘Look what happened here today, Vitali– you keep losing your footing tryin’ to land the finishing blow and none of them got you anywhere.’

Vitali supposed Viktor was right. Perhaps it had felt right in the moment, but looking back at his moves now it looked more desperate than anything else; thinking that maybe if he’d throw everything he had into it it’d make a difference, and then eating shit the second it wasn’t enough.

‘Maybe we should leave it for today.’

The words had left Vitali’s lips before he could stop himself, a newfound control to his voice he hadn’t even been aware he was capable of. Jackie shrugged, visibly not all too bothered by the idea either way– but Viktor merely laughed in response and he immediately shook his head.

‘You, giving up? Absolutely not, kid. Show me what you got. One last time.’

Jab, cross, jab.

Jab, cross, left hook.

Cross, left hook, cross.

His muscles ached so bad.

Vitali could feel the adrenaline turning into frustration again, the longer it went on. He waited it out, dodged, blocked– let Jackie land a few hits, too focused on keeping his balance to remember to pull his forearms up in time.

He saw a window of opportunity when Jackie pulled back after a missed hook, and stepped forward for a double jab against the ribs followed by a mean cross to try and knock Jackie off balance– but it wasn’t good enough, and Vitali realized too late he had stepped forward entirely too far again.

But instead of giving Jackie an opportunity to respond, he used the momentum from his lunge to take another step forward and shoulder rolled out of the way on Jackie’s right, repositioning himself behind him instead– and rather than waiting for his opponent to turn around to continue the fight Vitali pushed his foot into the back of Jackie’s left kneecap to make him sink through his knees– quickly catching himself and regaining his balance on Jackie’s left to stay out of his reach– and then swung around to elbow Jackie in the ribs which successfully knocked him down on the floor.

Finally.

‘Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!’ Jackie roared, the sudden noise startling Vitali a little to the point he bounced back on his feet and readied his arms again. He couldn’t stop a grin from spreading on his face when Jackie jumped back up on his feet and ran over, wrapping both arms around Vitali and lifting him from the floor.

‘Footwork, mano!’ he exclaimed, setting Vitali back down and playfully punching his shoulder a little harder than he’d probably meant for. ‘Look at you– dancin’ around me like a fucking matador!’

‘Well done, kid.’

Viktor was smiling, walking over to give Vitali a congratulating pat on the back– yet something still felt off. Vitali couldn’t say he was able to read it off the ripperdoc’s face, or tell from his demeanor, but he knew he still hadn’t done exactly what Vik had said and an all too familiar knot of anxiety tightened in his chest.

‘I know I still lunged forward,’ he reflexively said in response, ‘and I know you said to not do it. I’ll work on that, really, I just–

‘Hey, hey–’ Viktor raised his hands a little, getting Vitali to stop talking. ‘I didn’t say anything, did I? You caught yourself, corrected the slip-up by using it in your sequence. You did good.’

Oh.

Viktor and Jackie continued talking, but Vitali was no longer listening as his mind wandered off elsewhere. It only now hit him just how tired he felt all over– he was bruised and sore and his muscles ached, his back too, and he noticed he had definitely been clenching his jaw entirely too much for probably the full duration of the training.

He slowly exhaled, allowing the tension to wash off his shoulders, and looked down at the boxing gloves on his hands. He knew he still had a long way to go– and needed to learn to redirect his energy to actually get rid of some frustration, instead of letting the sparring make him even angrier than before– but it was nice to see some progress, as little as it was. At least he knew what to work on now.

‘Vitali?’

He quickly looked up, a little startled by the sudden calling of his name.

‘Wanna call it a day and go grab some food?’ Jackie repeated himself, already in the process of taking off his gloves. ‘I could eat a horse right now.’

‘When not?’ Vitali playfully replied, grinning and protectively lifting his forearms when Jackie reached out to slap him with one of the gloves. ‘Sounds good. Nick’s impromptu scrambled eggs breakfast wasn’t great.’

‘What did I say, mano? Right all a-fucking-long.’

While not an unseen phenomenon, it was far from a common sight for early January, only days after Nathan’s birthday. He had spent that day snowed in in his little apartment, had celebrated it alone; not as if it mattered much, he doubted Kid even knew and besides his ex-colleague from MOBIUS he severely lacked other friends to hang out with those days.

He stood motionless at the fence of the small playground located in Krimson City’s public park, gloved hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his long, black coat with the collar popped up to shield the lower half of his face from the occasional sharp gust of wind. He had not moved in a while, shoulders and tousled black hair covered in a thin layer of fine white powder, frost nipping away at the tip of his nose as his eyes followed a group of kids excitedly running around.

It did not take a genius to notice Lily was significantly older than the others there, but none of the kids seemed to mind. It came as no surprise to Nathan to see her there– she had not once lost her playfulness even after everything MOBIUS had put her through, and without a proper outlet for it in all her years trapped in the shadow organization it only made sense for her to want to have a chance at spending the remainder of her childhood like she had always been supposed to.

He watched in silence as she scooped up some snow in her pink and orange mittens, wincing when one of the other kids threw a snowball directly at her face; she was smiling, though, and quickly pressed the snow together to then hurl it back, the surprisingly well-aimed attempt hitting someone else on the back of their coat.

‘You’re startin’ to freak out the other parents, standing there like that.’

The corners of Nathan’s mouth lightly curled up upon hearing the familiar, low voice, not needing to turn his head to know who joined him on the other side of the fence.

‘Was starting to wonder how long it’d take for you to notice me,’ he said, his own voice a little rougher than usual on account of the cold, and his severe lack of proper rest in the past few weeks. ‘Was gonna give you another five minutes before I’d walk over to introduce myself. You’re getting slow.’

‘I’m getting comfortable,’ Sebastian Castellanos corrected him with a scoff, returning Lily’s little wave as she ran by the both of them– Nathan merely greeted her with a single nod of his head– before quickly shoving his hand back in the pocket of his green jacket.

‘No need to keep my eyes up anymore, Nate. Threat’s gone, MOBIUS’ gone. Life’s improving day by day.’

‘Good.’

Nathan wished he shared Sebastian’s sentiment.

If anything, life had turned rather sour for him after they had successfully gotten rid of a large chunk of MOBIUS several months ago. He had never expected to walk away from it alive to begin with– and now, without the steady income the organization had provided him with for years, he found himself struggling to get by.

He glanced to his right, gaze briefly meeting that of the ex-detective before he quickly averted his eyes and let them wander back to the playground, trailing over the various snow-covered playground sets.

Sebastian looked good, healthy– much better than the state he’d been in when Nathan had last seen him all those months ago. Part of him regretted not reaching out sooner, the sudden reconnection now an obvious sign that something was wrong; though the wiser part of him knew that had he stuck around the Castellanos family they would not have been able to move on and heal, which was the last thing he would have wanted to be responsible for.

‘What about you?’ Sebastian quietly asked, as if he’d been able to sense Nathan’s melancholy. ‘You look like you haven’t slept in days.’

Nathan scoffed, slightly tilting his head to look at his feet and he absently kicked some snow off his boots. ‘That obvious? Sure feels like it.’

He had teamed up with Juli Kidman to deal with the remainder of MOBIUS, after the Union incident. Of course the destruction of the STEM environment hadn’t led to the fall of the whole organization– it would’ve been stupid of them to link all of their employees directly to the mainframe of a single STEM device, despite the Superiors’ obvious lack of knowledge concerning the technology– and while MOBIUS had suffered massive losses, it would only be a matter of time before they would regroup.

But he was not there to talk to Sebastian about how their hunt was going.

Something else had come up.

Nathan’s silence did not go unnoticed and Sebastian turned toward him, leaning sideways against the fence with a concerned look in his eyes. He did not need to say anything– and neither did Nathan, as he slowly pulled his hands out of his pockets and removed one of his black, leather gloves.

The pale top of his left hand had a burned appearance, as if fire had scorched away skin and flesh– the wound only partially healed leaving it broken and torn clinging closely to his veins and bones. Though despite how recent he had received the scar, its appearance instead implied years long possession, and despite its severity it did not hurt at all.

He could tell by the look on Sebastian’s face the scar reminded him of someone.

‘Now, I know what you’re gonna say–’ Nathan started, but Sebastian cut him off.

‘I can’t do this, Nathan. I have a daughter–’

‘–I know.’

His voice came out a lot sharper than he had meant for.

‘I’m not asking anything of you,’ he said, his heartbeat pounding in the back of his throat.

‘Not this time.’

It had started as police radio chatter.

Late in the afternoon, Nathan had already been getting ready to go home. Kid had picked up a mention of Beacon– its doors long closed for the public yet the building remained in the heart of Krimson City, left to rot and wither away– supposed ghostly activity reported within its decaying walls, and she had wanted to investigate.

Nathan sharply exhaled and put his glove back on, exposed fingers growing numb in the freezing winter air. He leaned forward with his arms on the fence, to move a little closer to Sebastian; as if he was afraid someone would overhear them, as if they could make sense out of any of it to begin with.

‘He’s back, Sebastian,’ he defeatedly stated, and the other man lowered his gaze. ‘I saw him. He did this to me.’

‘Impossible.’

‘Wish it was.’

Despite hearing many tales, and having worked on his project for years as developer within the MOBIUS branch he had been part of, Nathan had never seen or met Ruvik face to face. The brilliant mind behind the STEM technology had always remained in the shadows; up until his death, after which his brain had become the core of MOBIUS’ very first STEM device.

Naturally so, when Nathan had run into the man while wandering the abandoned hallways of Beacon, his first assumption had been that he was asleep– followed by a brief moment of panic in which he had believed he was dead, or somehow back in STEM.

But Ruvik had touched him– had forcefully grabbed his hand to make him drop his gun and had left a burn similar to his own scars– and had then vanished the second Kidman had yelled out Nathan’s name, the old and presumed broken STEM device in the room next door whirring and humming as if it had never been deactivated in the first place.

‘I’m here to warn you,’ Nathan softly continued, eyes fixed on a random spot in the bright snow covering the playground and thumb absently running over the gloved back of his scarred hand.

‘We don’t know yet what exactly he’s here for, what exactly he’s tryin’ to do. Investigating as we speak, but– shit’s looking serious. Somehow reverse engineered the STEM signal to reach outward, expand into reality. Push itself out rather than draw people in.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Similar to the wireless connection that pulled you into STEM the first time round, but– without being pulled in.’ Nathan had to bite his tongue to stop himself from getting too technical. ‘An– An active environment in our world, if you follow, rather than on the device’s mainframe. Signal seems to be inactive still, but we’re gettin’ the readings. No idea how he’s planning to activate it yet.’

They had moved the device to their own headquarters, on the outskirts of town. Had needed to connect it to the second prototype– the device that had supported the Union environment, which they had taken from MOBIUS’ headquarters after wiping out its agents– in order to gain access to the mainframe, get any data extracted from it in the first place.

Their initial hope had been that it was nothing more than echoes– malfunctions in the STEM device caused by neglect promptly activating the wireless signal allowing shades from within to wander the Beacon hallways– anything but Ruvik’s actual return, however that was even possible–

‘Daddy!’

Nathan blinked, drawn out of his thoughts by Lily’s voice. He watched her run over to the two of them– the front of her coat, face, and hair completely covered in snow and a bright smile on her face as she attempted to wipe some of it from her forehead, but if anything her mittens just further spread it out.

‘I’m getting cold,’ she said, squinting when Sebastian reached out to help her with the snow. ‘Can we go back home soon?’

‘Of course honey,’ he replied, barely able to mask the exhaustion in his voice now that Nathan had explained the situation to him– and for a brief moment it was as if they were back in Union, radioing back to Kidman from the momentary safety of one of their established safehouses. ‘Don’t want you catching a cold.’

Lily looked up at Nathan and smiled at him– but she was a smart kid, and he watched her expression change as she looked back up at her father, head slightly tilting before she shook it to get some strands of her ink black hair out of her face, the single white strand in her bangs– matching Nathan’s own– a grim and constant reminder of her mother’s fate.

‘Is everything alright?’ she asked, and Nathan couldn’t help but wonder if she still associated him with MOBIUS, if she still associated him with the tests and experiments they put her through and if she still associated him with the STEM device, meeting one another within in some facility in the Marrow where he was forced to watch over her like a vulture at all times, all to keep the system stable.

‘Nothing to worry about,’ he simply answered her, unsure if she would fall for his lie, but knowing it would give her infinitely more comfort than the truth ever could. ‘Just came to say hi.’

The breeze picked up, howling loudly in Nathan’s ears as if the whole city softly cried for him; the cold boring its way through his clothes and eating away at his skin, exposed or not, freezing him all the way down to the bone. He lowered his head– a futile attempt at shielding his face from the biting wind and snow, individual snowflakes cutting like knives across his forehead and cheekbones.

He watched Lily smile at both him and Sebastian again before running off to get back to the snowball fight for just a bit longer, diving behind the slide to get cover. His gaze was pulled back toward Sebastian– but said man appeared deep in thought, eyes pointedly fixed on something in the distance, head anywhere but in the present.

‘I gotta go back in,’ Nathan quietly continued; an unnecessary statement, the gravity of the situation like static in the air between the two of them, though to put it into words was to accept the harsh reality of it all– acknowledgement of what had to happen, what was going to happen, something he had not been able to do before.

‘It’s nothing like Union,’ Sebastian bluntly replied with a shake of his head, turning his back to the playground and resting heavily with his elbows on the fence. ‘He’s nothing like Stefano– nothing like Theodore. He doesn’t need a weapon or a core to draw his powers from, you get too close and it’s over. You understand?’

Nathan didn’t know what else to say.

He had never thought he’d have to go back into STEM after Union. He’d be alone this time round– no Sebastian by his side, no Kidman to radio back to. They had reconnected some old friends– Joseph, Yukiko, Esmeralda– but had no idea whether or not their consciousnesses would still be somewhere within STEM, and for all Nathan knew he would be diving into a world entirely of Ruvik’s creation, with the same horrifying creatures haunting it as last time, if not worse.

Of course he was terrified. All it took was one encounter with Anima and he would never see the light of day ever again.

‘You should go,’ Nathan said, pushing himself up from the fence and stuffing his hands back in the pockets of his coat, ‘get out of town while you still can. Grab a bag or two, grab Lily, take her on a– on a road trip up north or something, while we figure this out. Just in case he–’

He couldn’t finish his sentence. The thought of Ruvik succeeding and trapping the world in a constant state of STEM was something he would rather not think about.

‘–you know.’

An uncomfortable silence followed. And rightfully so– what else was there to say? The whole situation was ridiculous to begin with, and for Nathan to show up only now instead of at any other point in time, months of radio silence after nearly dying together in a simulation of reality lingering between real life and a dream–

He carefully watched as Sebastian shifted his weight from one foot to the other, able to study his face for longer now that the other man refused to make eye contact with him. He truly did look a lot better; Nathan could only assume the man had stopped drinking, and had been getting a much better night’s sleep.

Though despite the improvement in his appearance there was still that lingering sense of dread, the dark shadow that had washed over his face the second he had laid eyes on Nathan’s scarring and had realized what he had come to him for.

Nathan couldn’t blame him. But he’d had to let Sebastian know.

He licked his lips and nodded to no one in particular, ending the conversation himself by taking a small step back and turning back around to return to his car, drive home, drink himself blind and pass out to hopefully get some sleep in before he would have to dive back into his worst nightmare–

‘Hey.’

Sebastian’s hand on his upper arm was unexpected and Nathan hated how he could not stop himself from flinching, a reflex more than anything else, and he hated how it made Sebastian pull his hand away as if he’d touched fire, the tips of his fingers on Nathan’s body despite the layers he wore the first physical contact he had experienced in months.

‘Who is “we”?’ Sebastian quietly asked, briefly glancing behind him to see if Lily was still far enough away. A surprising question; though not out of character for the ex-detective, his curiosity piqued just enough for him to try and get a little more information out of Nathan before they would say goodbye and possibly never see each other again.

‘Me,’ Nathan plainly answered, ‘Juli. Used to be just us two but we gathered a team of old STEM developers to help us with this. They got moved on to other projects while we were working on Union– they removed their chips, came back for us.’

‘So all MOBIUS.’

Not even a question, simply a statement.

Nathan bit the inside of his cheek. ‘Ex MOBIUS.’

The atmosphere changed, a sharp tension bouncing between the two of them as Nathan straightened his back and lightly tilted up his chin. He couldn’t exactly place the look on the other man’s face, though by then knew him well enough to know his hesitation wasn’t caused by uncertainty, but moreso distrust.

‘Thought the program was meant to kill them all,’ Sebastian said, a somewhat hostile undertone in his voice that had not been there before.

‘Just our branch.’ Nathan paused, watching as Sebastian slowly nodded and mouthed a soundless “right”– not entirely sure what his reaction was supposed to mean, but he decided not to ask. ‘Already told you it runs a lot deeper than you thought.’

Myra's sacrifice had put an end to the Administrator's reign of terror– had destroyed his legacy, and all research and findings on the STEM system as designed by Ruvik and improved by MOBIUS. Whichever branches remained did not nearly have enough resources or knowledge to pull off something even remotely similar; and whatever scraps of code they could have gotten their hands on before Kidman and Nathan had wiped their systems clean would prove insufficient to provide them with a stable environment.

And even if they would make it that far– provided they’d be able to recreate the STEM device from written instructions alone, Ruvik's original blueprints lost to time and MOBIUS' own burned to a crisp in the aftermath of the Union incident's conclusion– the mental erosion Union's residents had suffered from and the Anima manifestations that had happened as a result had never been resolved, leaving any future STEM residents with the all but comforting promise of a similar fate.

'I'm diving in tomorrow,' Nathan said, knowing there was nothing else left to say. The breeze in the park was picking up again, sweeping snowflakes that were starting to feel more like hail than anything else into Nathan’s face with a lot more force than before, melting on collision and dripping into the collar of his shirt. 'First thing in the morning. Can’t waste any more time. In case you wanna come say goodbye–'

He reached into the pocket of his pants, then held out a note to Sebastian; handwritten, containing an address located on an abandoned warehouse site, not too far from Nathan's own home.

'–our headquarters.' He waited for Sebastian to take the note from him. 'No pressure, of course.'

No pressure.

The note was almost a blatant sign that Nathan wanted him to be there. He could not ask it of him directly– but gave him the option anyway, leaving the decision up to Sebastian instead.

But deep down Nathan knew that Sebastian knew that he really did not want to go back in alone– and if it had been up to him they had recruited Sebastian a week ago already, when things had first started to go wrong.

‘Do you have backup?’ Sebastian softly asked, as if he could look directly into Nathan’s head– asking the one question he had hoped for, with an answer to it that could easily enough change Sebastian’s mind about letting Nathan walk away if only he would play his cards right–

But despite how often he had practiced the entire conversation alone in his car, despite going over all the different things he could say at least a million times, just to get Sebastian to feel sorry for him– as selfish as it fucking was– Nathan found himself unable to speak.

He simply shook his head instead.

The other children and their parents were leaving, now. It was getting late, and colder, and Lily slowly wandered back to Sebastian to start dragging him back to the car if he were to take any longer than he already had.

Nathan looked up at the sky, eyes fluttering shut as he allowed more snow to drift down onto his ice cold skin, and he breathed in and out deeply before turning back to Sebastian.

‘They’re expecting more snowfall tonight,’ he said, locking eyes for only a split second and shooting a smile in his direction, as he began walking backwards into the direction of his car. ‘Don’t wait up. And– Drive safe, okay?’

Sebastian did not answer him.

It snowed in Krimson City, accompanied by a deafening silence weighing it down and choking it out, as if the whole city was expectantly holding its breath.

Nathan left.

taglist (opt in/out)

@nistarot, @deadrlngers, @euryalex, @ordinarymaine, @mojaves;

@shellibisshe, @dickytwister, @mnwlk, @rindemption, @ncytiri;

@calenhads, @noirapocalypto, @florbelles, @radioactiveshitstorm, @strafethesesinners;

@fashionablyfyrdraaca, @radioactive-synth, @katsigian, @estevnys, @devilbrakers;

‘We managed to recapture one after the second breach,’ Nelly said, tapping in a four digit code of which Caleb only caught the last two numbers, allowing them access to observation room B6. ‘Johannes, he’s called. Don’t think you’ll like him much– quite the interesting fellow.’

‘What makes you say that?’ Caleb asked, giving a quick nod in the direction of the two agents stationed at the security desk, his eyes slowly trailing the room to the interior of the holding cell– and his heart immediately nearly ripped a hole in his chest when he noticed the speculum only inches away from the glass he himself was stood right in front of.

‘Think of your blood pressure, Richter,’ Christian casually remarked in his earpiece.

‘Jesus– I see.’

Caleb exhaled sharply, straightening his shoulders as he quickly regained his balance from stepping backwards a little too fast. ‘That’s ugly. Good grief.’

‘Don’t be mean.’ Nelly gestured for the two agents keeping watch to leave the room, leaving only the two of them behind, and she watched Caleb nervously glance back at the holding cell. ‘Don’t worry, sir– it’s a mirror on the other end. He likes looking at himself.’

Caleb could not really see why.

He hesitantly stepped a little closer, eyes rapidly scanning the speculum from head to toe. He’d heard of them, of course, but had never seen one in the flesh before– a humanoid, standing about as tall as himself, ridden of any sort of body hair and seemingly devoid of any genitals too, with elongated limbs that on any human would be severely broken but on this creature seemed to simply just be bent that way.

It was far from textureless, though, its skin almost akin to jute that had been cut open and torn apart by a serrated knife. Caleb could easily count seven, eight, nine large slits running vertically up the speculum’s skeletal body, the openings just about wide enough to show an unnervingly deep darkness inside.

Parts of its skin appeared horribly twisted around itself, wrinkled up into an almost maelstrom-esque design– puncture wounds, he’d assume, though with CALAMITY’s safety precautions he wouldn’t entirely know how the Subject could have injured itself so badly and with how settled and aged into the speculum’s body they seemed to be, it was unlikely to have happened in any of the recent breaches either.

It stood so still. Caleb had to get up close to notice it was breathing– bony shoulders rising and falling just enough to know he was looking at something real, and not simply a projection or cardboard cut-out of the thing. It was uncomfortable, uncanny to a degree, and he knew that no matter how many times he’d come face to face with Subjects he was never going to get used to it.

And really, as unnerving as the body of the creature looked, nothing about it came even close to the horrifying appearance of its face.

Longer than a human’s head, almost tilted inward towards the neck and lacking a proper chin; its mouth was sunken into where the jaw was supposed to be, a thin and narrow strip curling just above the first crease of its neck with the corners reaching nearly all the way up to the ears. Both the ears as well as the nose were nothing more than holes, smoothing out the surface as if the speculum’s head was caving in, actively curling in on itself.

The only part that stuck out was whatever the bulge on its forehead was supposed to be– its texture more like that of a rotten, moldy fruit, thin veins crawling over the protruding egg-shaped sore as if they were the only thing holding it in place. It was sagging; any further and it would start drooping over the speculum’s face.

Caleb’s gaze finished on Johannes’ eyes; two milky, cloudy white near-perfectly round irisless orbs bulging out of flattened sockets, with beady little black pupils right in their centers. An almost comical finish to the grotesque display; a Subject known for its mimicry of humans attempting so very hard to present as one, eyes akin to what Caleb could only classify as big, overly realistic googly eyes.

During this year, the two men have a series of wild encounters that get more and more insane the longer it goes on; it includes, but is unfortunately not limited to, Cassidy biting off a chunk of Seb’s ear, the two of them running over the highway, the two of them getting handcuffed together and chased by the NCPD then hit by a car right in front of the hospital, and Seb sensually licking blood off Cassidy’s face after having stabbed him when Cassidy wanted to strike at a concert Seb is visiting.

All of it comes to a sudden stop when Cassidy learns his client has been lying to him the whole time, and since he does not appreciate lying clients he ends up jumping sides and teams up with the Cobras to do some cleanup duty in Arasaka Special Programs. He and Seb work together to go after a list of targets to get the still ongoing projects mostly to a halt, while remaining in the shadows themselves as to not draw too much attention their way; and during this collaboration they meet several people from their past, bringing back both good and bad memories.

One of these people is Hanan Chisaka, the Head of Security at Special Programs. She ends up becoming the next test subject of Project Cobra after the last successful subjects, Xavier and Gabriel Mason, end up escaping in the midst of the chaos of Hanako Arasaka’s capture in mid-2077. Once Seb’s best friend and Cassidy’s mentor, she’s now forced to hunt the both of them down; but in their final confrontation she snaps out of the controlled mode Arasaka keeps her in and runs away with them, effectively leaving Special Programs without any test subjects. Another one of these people is Reid Bennett, Cassidy’s ex and ex-coworker back at MaxTac. He still works for the corporation and has been on an ongoing investigation into Arasaka Special Programs; seeing Cassidy alive and well, working together with Seb no less, piques his interest and he continues to look further into the case, which will cause him to make a very big mistake later on in the timeline.

By September 2078, Seb and Cassidy have successfully taken down all their planned targets and retreat back into the shadows, leaving Special Programs with many losses and no test subjects. With the APEX program discontinued a month earlier (incident discussed in this fic, which is a continuation of the in-game events), and Hanako Arasaka recovered and ready to take the corporation back from the hands of her corrupt brother, Special Programs ends up having to retreat for the time being, and cook up a new plan in the background.

Special Programs by this point is run by Andrew Colton, Alana Cartier, and Kaida Akiyama, three players who have been in the game for a long time already in the SERPENT projects’ runtime. Colton and Cartier are married– Cartier used to be married to Seb and cheated on him for a good amount of time when he was still at Arasaka– but their marriage is starting to fall apart. Akiyama has had to watch over Special Ops agent Ambrose Hawthorne for a while during his chase after the Mason twins, which ended up with the twins dead and Hawthorne going into early retirement (Arasaka doesn’t know the twins faked their death and Ambrose is now dating one of them lol), and xe is now determined to help Colton and Cartier get Seb back into Arasaka so the projects can continue.

Cassidy’s initial plan was to leave as soon as the collaboration would come to an end, but he has found his place with the Cobras and instead ends up officially joining them.The next chapter in the story is a more laid-back and easygoing chapter, in which Cassidy learns to be part of real life again, and in which Seb learns to let people get close to him again after spending years trying to convince himself he doesn’t need any help. Over the course of a little over a year (all the way to November 2079), the two grow even closer than they had already done, going on gigs together and, you guessed it, slowly but surely falling in love until they inevitably end up together at the end of it.

Not long after the two get together, Reid returns into Cassidy’s life. He wants to try and be friends again and Cassidy gives him a second chance, though this soon enough turns out to have been a mistake, with Reid trying to create distance between Seb and Cassidy and then going as far as trying to sell Cassidy to Kang Tao (one of the few corporations that have been hunting Cassidy down for a while now) in exchange for his own freedom from MaxTac (where he would have otherwise been stuck at for probably the rest of his life). Naturally, Reid can’t watch Cassidy get tortured for long and leaks his location to the Cobras, who find and free Cassidy and take Reid into captivity instead– he does not get killed, but instead has to sit out some time at a safehouse somewhere in solitude, where he gets to decide what kind of person he wants to be in the future.

This brings us to Elysium; a gorgeous spaceship which was supposed to be a relatively cheap escape from reality for everyone who wanted a refreshing break from Earth, but through Arasaka sponsorship has become just another cash-grab project to compete with the Crystal Palace– and considering the megacorporation has its greasy hands all over it, the secret labs in the spaceship are used for a series of very unethical experiments. Naturally so, it would be the perfect place for Colton to continue his SERPENT projects without the risk of Hanako Arasaka finding out and shutting the place down. He sends forces up to Elysium (obviously after his other attempts at relocating the project to space have failed tremendously, having lost contact with every single crew in the smaller Arasaka stations in orbit around the planet), but since he’s not there himself his cousin (one of the CEOs of Elysium), Maxwell Crane, unbeknownst to Colton, takes control of the SERPENT projects in space instead. From the earlier linked Special Programs page: “Project Eryx used the technology of previous projects, but took a completely new approach in the hosts it used; rather than focusing on the human psyche it attempted to create a new type of cyborg which would lack the humanity that caused previous projects to fail. The Cobra chips were no longer used and the software was instead installed directly onto the host’s mainframe. The flexibility of the new hosts– more robot than human, and in some cases the entire human aspect was lacking altogether– allowed for experimentation with highly advanced cybernetic enhancements and military grade tech and upgrades, turning the test subjects– dubbed ‘prototypes’– into dangerous, unstoppable killing machines.”

Things settle down for Seb and Cassidy, but this moment of peace does not last long. In January 2081 the two find themselves traveling to the spaceship Elysium, to investigate a curious situation in the laboratories– they’ve been hired by Arasaka without their knowledge and it’s a setup to get Cassidy killed and Seb back in Cartier’s control.

While in space, they learn that the secret labs have suffered an outbreak of the above mentioned prototypes. They quickly connect the dots and realize Special Programs is back in the game, and they work together with security guards Aubrey Valentine and Leon dello Russo to try and fix the situation before it gets out of hand. Obviously this fails tremendously and Elysium ends up on a complete lockdown after a ship-wide outbreak, which is eventually contained in late March of that year, with CEO Maxwell Crane dead, leaving only his wife Kinsley Osborn behind.

Elysium continues to exist and is rebuilt after the crisis, and Kinsley Osborn can now finally turn it into the retreat it was always meant to be. Previously, most Elysium employees were to be stuck in space for the rest of their lives; however, with Arasaka out of the picture they are free to leave as they please, which results in a gigantic cut in total employee count in the months that follow.

Seb and Cassidy return to Night City and take Aubrey and Leon with them. Aubrey reunites with his sisters; Becca, James, and Rikki, and soon after his return to the city he opens an LGBTQ+ nightclub called Bodytalk with them, found Downtown, City Center, in June 2081. Not only is it a fun place to hang out at, it’s also his main hub as a fixer, and he starts a collaboration with the Cobras to get business going between the gang and the club; and soon enough it grows into a large and powerful network of connections, which is the foundation on which the rest of the stories are built.

After this point in time, many many more things happen but it would take me another hour or ten to go into full detail of all of that, so instead here’s a quick rundown of some of the other things that Bodytalk gets involved in:

Reid Bennett is handed over to Aubrey and he starts working at the club, and he becomes a very valued employee as well as a good friend to many now that he’s no longer fucking insane

Kaida Akiyama returns from Elysium and shows up to Hanan’s doorstep, to ask for her help with getting out of Arasaka for good; much later on, xe starts working for Bodytalk as well, in an attempt to put xyr past behind xem and become a better person

Urban Dynamite starts performing at the club regularly, and it becomes their home base

Luna Serratos, Cassidy’s ripperdoc friend from all the way back to killing era, gets involved in the Harbinger case from Maelstrom (one of the gang’s most feared members); turns out the Harbinger is in fact Reuben de la Rosa, a by then 22-year-old kid who has ended up in Luna’s care with his friend Noah Telavera after the two got caught up in an explosion. She requests the Cobras’ help with getting Maelstrom to let Reuben go

Officer Michele Diaz from Militech (who used to be Cassidy’s boss) is demoted following the lawsuits after the Elysium incident, and her investigation into the incident in hopes to get her job back leads her to Bodytalk; she begins threatening them and sends the whole club and their allies into uncertain times

Many people get married. There’s so many fucking guys here we went a little insane with the numbers but there’s several weddings and there’s a whole polycule going on too feel free to send asks about this if you’re interested

Cobra Cybernetics releases a new line of cyberware, which is incredibly buggy and dangerous to the public; it’s brought to the club’s attention and it makes them realize that Luiza Vidal (Seb’s sister), who not that long ago asked them to kill her husband (William Colton (Andrew’s brother), CEO of Cobra Cybernetics), has gone missing; they now need to get involved without getting the news out that they actually didn’t kill William and that he is still alive somewhere, while also balancing out dynamics between Biotechnica (angry at Cobra Cybernetics for stealing their designs) and Arasaka (the actual reason why Cobra Cybernetics’ designs look like Biotechnica’s designs, because William stole designs from Special Programs after halting their partnership after the Elysium incident, but these designs had been stolen by Arthur Jenkins from Biotechnica even BEFORE that to be able to hijack the European Space Council’s cybernetics following the Frankfurt incident. Are you still with me)

Vitali Dobrynin (fixer and main character from the in-game events storyline and the continuation of it; Vincent “V” Mayer’s boyfriend) ends up visiting Bodytalk after meeting Aubrey at a Fixer Council meeting, which happens in late 2083; this essentially ties the two main storylines together, which means that yes, a lot of the characters from the two separate storylines end up meeting :]

Officer Ulysses Dimakos (used to work with Reid at MaxTac) is sent to investigate Bodytalk following the Cobra Cybernetics scandal, and ends up teaming up with the club to get MaxTac on a dead trail in exchange for his freedom of the corporation

On top of the Bodytalk / Cobras centered storyline, there’s a couple of side stories that are still connected to the whole thing but are more of a standalone thing with only a few touching points to the rest of it all:

This obviously takes place a lot earlier because it’s already mentioned above, but Special Ops agent Ambrose Hawthorne is tasked with chasing after the escaped Mason twins; naturally he lets them go and ends up going into retirement, and Xavier Mason later on ends up becoming Bodytalk’s part-time repair guy on account of knowing Kaida

Gabriel Mason ends up in a car crash with retired security specialist Ames Ortega, who was also in Elysium during the incidents there, and the two end up babysitting Ambrose and Xavier’s kids together while those two are helping Hanan with getting Kaida out of Arasaka (Are you still with me. Blink if you can hear me)

Mercenary Frankie Sayyad gets a promotion from his fixer, Vulture (real name Diana Crane, Maxwell Crane’s older sister and cousin of the Coltons), and becomes one of her Bloodhounds; he works together with Evelyn Harris, Nimue Nkuna, and Beckett Rydel, the latter being one of the very first test subjects of Arasaka Special Programs, and the four accidentally get themselves mixed into a mystery concerning their secretive fixer

Caleb Harris, ex-security at Biotechnica, ends up back at Club Bodytalk not long after the conclusion of the Cobra Cybernetics scandal, and starts working for Aubrey; he is partnered up with Ramiel Al-Masri, a mercenary who has been working for Vitali Dobrynin for a while and has recently joined Aubrey’s mercenary roster too, and together they dive into a series of gigs neither of them had expected

Journalist Bodhi Shankar has finally found more evidence and information surrounding the mysterious cult gang Umbra and its so-called Prophet, Thiago Salazar; however, his antics have led to him accidentally becoming part of the gang himself, and he has to figure out a way to get Thiago to stop listening to the supposed deity that the gang worships known as Scintilla, before she makes him do things that will get many people killed

taglist (opt in/out)

@velocitic, @deadrlngers, @euryalex, @ordinarymaine, @gurathins;

@mojaves, @shellibisshe, @dickytwister, @mnwlk, @rindemption;

@ncytiri, @calenhads, @noirapocalypto, @florbelles, @radioactiveshitstorm;

@strafethesesinners, @fashionablyfyrdraaca, @aemondtargeryen, @radioactive-synth, @katsigian;

‘Kind of depressing,’ he offhandedly stated, following his squadmates down the green-painted asphalt sidewalk curving around the parking spaces intended for visitors only. ‘No windows or anything?’

‘Well, gee, Rex!’ Glory said, pretending to frantically look around before gesturing at the residential homes just on the other side of the road. ‘I’m sure the neighbors will love being able to see the decapitated Lord Skellington the Third being escorted to the courtyard from the second floor every day so he can take his rather ghostly companion Sparky out for his daily walkies–’

‘Okay, okay–! Geez, no need to get all condescending.’

‘You could’ve come up with this one yourself, dude. Get real.’

The entrance was a massive automatic double sliding door made of darkened bulletproof glass, and it opened up into a large entrance hall with a lot more natural light than Rex was originally expecting. The steps directly in front of the entrance led up into the main space to the front desk, situated in the very center– making it hard to miss for first timers– with two sets of stairs behind on the left and right side of the hall curving up to the side and vanishing into respective hallways on the first floor.

Quite a luxurious hall, as well; though Rex was used to that and knew the reason why, as CALAMITY’s headquarters were no different and Harbinger was one of the few specialized facilities after all. The dark gray granite floor made for a much more expensive decor, breaking up the monotony of the concrete walls; and the large plants lined along the wall added just enough of a splash of color, a quickly thrown in design choice as if the interior designers last-minute remembered human beings would go to work here every day.

On their left and right were the bathrooms and changing rooms, various signs above the doors indicating which employees were expected where. The subdivision in sectors allowed for more structure, as each department required different protection gear, and on top of that Rex knew from experience that it was a lot easier to strip down in a changing room knowing everyone else there would also get blasted with disinfectant before being allowed further into the building than doing it when everyone else there was simply getting ready for their simple, boring office job.

Quite the opposite, in fact; had simply wanted to sit down for a civilized meeting with his partner and the club’s owner and have a drink or two– or just a glass of water, really, Vitali wasn’t sure if Vincent was letting him reach for the liquors any time soon– and discuss business, see if the Council was ready to meet again after months of uncertainty with the Broker on the loose.

A fist directly to the jaw made Vitali regain his senses and he grunted as he grabbed the wrists of the mercenary, dragging their arms to the side to give himself the space to ram his forehead directly onto their nose. He kicked against their kneecap and slammed his elbow across their cheekbone, then shoved his foot directly in their stomach to push them into the arms of one of their allies.

‘Just a relaxing night out,’ he mockingly stated out loud, hooking his finger into the collar of his shirt to rip the top button open and give himself a bit more air while spitting some more blood on the floor. ‘Circumstances have settled down enough. What could possibly go wrong?’

‘Spare me the theatrics!’ Vincent yelled, grabbing a merc by their hair and dragging them backwards down to his own level to shove his shoulder against the side of their face and ram them into the same pillar that now had some of Vitali’s blood on it. ‘Forgive me for forgetting you’re the Afterlife’s second most hated guy after Johnny fuckin’ Silverhand!’

Logically, this should have come as no surprise to either of them. Not once in his life had a visit to the nightclub in Watson gone well for Vitali– either receiving an only partially deserved beating, or a scolding from the Queen of Fixers herself no less– and the consequences of the very wrong assumption he could simply waltz in there after the shit that had gone down during his last two visits were starting to make themselves rather painfully known.

Next time we’re meeting at my club.

The mercenaries had Vincent and Vitali surrounded now, six against two, so far with the unspoken rule of “no guns allowed in a fistfight” still in place though Vitali could not say for certain how long it’d continue to last. He took a few sauntering steps forward, steadying himself positioned between the most dangerous looking assailants and Vincent– he really did not need to collect the hits reserved for Vitali alone, especially not with several of their friends watching.

His gaze was drawn to the crowd that had gathered near the bar. Cato– stood between Eddie and Huxley– grinned, and waved excitedly at him. 

‘Surely we can talk this out like civilized people,’ Vitali said, slowly raising his hands when the mercs collectively started closing in. Not as much of an attempt at a parley, but moreso to give them the chance to walk away while they still could; Vitali valued his free time and his rest, but he would be lying if he said he hadn’t been itching to get back into the field now that business had picked up as usual, and what better than a good ol’ scuffle during his night out to get him back in the rhythm?

‘We lost everything because of you!’ one of the mercs spat, parroting a sentence the fixer had heard just a few too many times in the past months; yet another gaggle of the Broker’s left behind mercenaries still out for revenge over something that had been mostly out of Vitali’s control, and if anything it’d been blown out of proportion to the point he wasn’t even entirely sure anymore what they were being so difficult about in the first place.

‘Have you tried lost-and-found?’ Vincent asked, noticing Vitali’s now tightly clenched jaw and stepping closer to ready himself for a possible incoming attack. ‘Box is just outside the entrance, right next to get-off-our-dicks-and-move-on-with-your–fuckin’–!’

Two of the mercenaries instantly charged forward, lunging at Vincent– but Vitali cut them both off before they could even get close, body-slamming one into the other to knock them off their feet. He dodged an incoming fist from a third assailant– but was too slow to step aside for the fourth and landed on his back on the floor before he could realize what was going on, vision blurred by involuntary tears as the air was violently slammed out of his lungs.

Hands wrapped tightly around his throat and for a split second he panicked, the situation reawakening memories of Ravager– the ex-Maelstromer on the Broker’s payroll who had tried to kill him in very similar fashion– but he shook the fear before it could take hold and reached for the knife hidden in the side pocket of his pants, flicking it out and taking a swipe at the mercenary’s wrists.

Not a gun, right?

The pressure was lifted from his neck and he gasped for air, kicking his assailant off his chest and rolling over to create more distance between the two of them– only to immediately receive a kick in the kidney by someone else and he couldn’t stop a pained cry from leaving his lips, cursing in Russian as he flailed the knife around in an attempt to hit, well, anything at that point.

Okay, he was a little off his game. Who could blame him? The last year had not been kind to Vitali and while it was nice to no longer be actively hunted down for sport by a fixer and his mercenaries blaming him for a bunch of lies and things he hadn’t had any control over, the nightmares and dissociative episodes that had followed still held him tightly in their grasp and they had made it difficult for him to focus on anything else.

The tallest of the mercenaries– what Vitali could only assume was their leader– grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and effortlessly lifted him up while avoiding his poorly aimed attacks, Vitali’s feet hovering a few inches above the floor as his wrist was pulled to the side and the knife was forcibly removed from his hand.

‘Nothin’ personal, Dobrynin,’ the man said, grinning as he held Vitali’s own knife up to eye level, threatening to sink it directly into one of his sockets while Vitali grabbed the hand holding his shirt and kicked his legs in an attempt to get down. ‘Simply just settin’ the score. Fair and square.’

All the chaos surrounding them seemed to blur and fade out, Vitali’s mind focusing only on the merc holding him up, and the knife lingering mere inches away from his face, the blade steadily centered at the height of his left eye.

He scoffed in return, baring his teeth as he briefly struggled in the merc’s grip– right before turning his head and biting the man’s hand, as hard as he could, teeth sinking deep into flesh until they hit bone and he was dropped back on the floor, the mercenary crying out in pain and yanking himself loose as if he’d touched fire.

‘First fucking mistake–’ Vitali breathed, straightening his back and wiping the blood off his lips with the back of his hand.

‘– Assume that I play fair.’

Someone fell into Vitali’s side and it instantly drew him back to reality– he grabbed them by the shoulders and used the momentum of their fall to launch them in the direction of the merc leader, to knock him off balance and make him drop the knife. He looked around, eyes frantically searching for Vincent– and found him all the way in the back of the club pinned in a corner, kicking and screaming as he fended off the two last remaining mercenaries at once.

Vitali walked over, noticing his cane on the floor– he had lost it directly at the start of the confrontation, as it had been the first thing that had been kicked out from under his weight– and he hit the bottom end of it with the heel of his shoe to kick it up into his hand; tossed it up in the air to catch it by the bottom end of the shaft and swung it directly into the head of one of the mercs from the side, the impact hard enough to send them skidding across the floor.

‘I got it, I got it–!’ Vincent protested, but Vitali had already grabbed a handful of the other merc’s hair to yank them back– but before he could do anything Vincent grabbed a stool from the side of the bar with both hands and rammed it directly into the merc’s face, causing them to go limp in Vitali’s grip and fall to the floor.

‘I said I got it,’ Vincent repeated himself, a slight hint of annoyance in his voice as his gaze failed to meet Vitali’s– yet he took a step closer anyway, bumping his forehead against Vitali’s still held up hand and the latter gently ran his fingers down Vincent’s temple and cheek, a futile attempt to wipe some blood off his face.

‘Oh, of course. Thought I heard something.’

Vitali turned around and immediately noticed the sudden wide opening in the crowd on the opposite side of the bar, Rogue Amendiares herself stood with arms crossed in front of her chest right in the middle. The merc leader seemed to pay her no mind and charged forward– though before he could get even close Rogue kicked a broken off pole from a stool in his direction right under his boot and he comically slipped on it and fell backwards, the pole slowly rolling further until it came to a stop at Vitali’s feet.

‘Party’s over!’ Rogue called out and loudly clapped her hands together, the urgent undertone in her voice causing the rest of the Afterlife’s clientele to scatter instantly. ‘Everyone get back to your business, if I see any more drawn weapons I’m shuttin’ the place down for the night.’

Vitali sharply exhaled, allowing his heartbeat to settle as he set his cane down on the floor and leaned heavily on it to relieve his leg. The pain wasn’t as bad as it used to be, and he had made decent progress with taking better care of himself and taking his rest– though he had no doubt he’d feel this in the morning, and already considered leaving the office closed until noon to give himself some time to sleep it off.

‘I don’t give a damn how bad of a bad leg day you’re having, Dobrynin,’ Rogue sharply said, lowering her voice and pointing a finger in Vitali’s direction as she briskly walked closer to the two of them. ‘Next time you make a mess of my club I’m handing you a mop to clean your fucking blood off the floor and you’re not leaving until I can see my own reflection in it. We understood?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Vitali replied, barely able to keep a straight face when Vincent mumbled something about attaching a mop head to the end of his cane– and he could tell Rogue heard it too.

As much as he hated to admit it, the fight had done Vitali good. He felt alert, now; more awake than when he had entered the club a little under half an hour earlier, and he felt surprisingly refreshed despite the several hits he had taken directly to the jaw and cheekbone.

Of course it could easily be a byproduct of the adrenaline still coursing through his veins; but a little excitement from time to time– or his cravings for it for that matter– really wasn’t gonna be the end of the world.

Rogue gestured at some of her mercs to clean up the mess at their feet, turning on her heels and returning to her booth in the corner of the club. Vitali followed suit, Vincent at his side– both of them carefully watching their footing as they stepped over the unconscious mercenaries and several puddles of blood from various sources, including Vitali’s nose and mouth, which both still had yet to stop.

‘Now to what do I owe this pleasure?’ Rogue sarcastically asked over her shoulder, glancing to her side and giving Cato, Eddie, and Huxley a wave as she passed them by. ‘Usually never a good sign when either of you shows up on my doorstep.’

‘Wanted to come and say hi, if you can believe it,’ Vitali answered, equally as sarcastic in tone, and he smiled softly at Eddie when they handed him a tissue to clean himself up.

‘We’ve been over this, Vito. Could’ve called.’

‘Rather talk to you in person about this, if you don’t mind.’

Rogue’s movements briefly faltered in the midst of sitting down, glancing back in Vitali’s direction as she realized what he was talking about– and a shadow washed over her face, understandably so, while she slowly let herself sink down onto the couch.

Of course Vitali could have called; nothing he was about to say could not have been said on holo and it would have saved him and his mercenaries the trouble of traveling there– and a whole lot of bruises and sore muscles, too.

He slowly took a seat opposite of Rogue, the gravity of the situation a little undermined by the tissue held up against his nose filling up with blood at an almost comical speed. But Rogue understood the urgency either way– flicked her hand to send off the security stationed at the booth’s entrance, and Huxley and Eddie immediately took their place while Cato wandered off to keep an eye out in the rest of the club.

‘Okay,’ Rogue said, taking a deep breath and leaning back in her seat while draping her arms over the back of the couch. ‘Indulge me. How’s the family?’

A rather pointed question, and a little touchy of a subject at that. Vitali bit the inside of his cheek and shoved the memories of when he had last seen most his family members aside– he knew Rogue was not asking about them in the slightest and she did not need to know he hadn’t heard anything from his siblings or his mother since the conclusion with the Broker back in August.

‘Situation is back under control,’ he replied, carefully allowing himself to relax a little now that his heartbeat had returned to normal. ‘I assume you’ve been informed about the intel provided to the Council’s checkpoints? And the returned resources to the warehouses on the docks?’

‘In passing.’ Rogue paused, giving Vitali a moment to grab a new tissue. ‘Your doing?’

‘My father’s.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Why would I lie?’

The atmosphere in the booth had taken a rapid and sharp turn, Vincent shifting uncomfortably on his seat as Vitali held Rogue’s gaze and moved along with her to stay in her view when she scoffed and tried to look away. She licked her lips and squinted, pulling her arms from the back of the couch and leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees.

‘After all the damage he’s done,’ she slowly said, ‘why this? Your old man, the Broker– full 180 degree turn, do-gooder of the fucking year. Why?’ 

‘Does it matter why?’

Vitali exhaled sharply, pausing to let his heart settle down again– not entirely sure why it had decided to speed up in the first place. He finally averted his gaze, allowing it to wander off back into the rest of the club; business had gone back to normal and the unconscious mercs had been disposed of outside, leaving just puddles of blood behind for an unfortunate cleaning crew.

Rogue raised valid points, and he was well aware. Matvey had shown a rather curious amount of determination to set things right and if Vitali didn’t know any better he would have assumed it was simply part of his father’s plan to manipulate people into trusting him.

But he had lost everything, too.

Vitali watched in silence as Rogue reached for the box of tissues, taking one out while moving forward and leaning with one knee on the low table stood between them to grab Vitali’s face and wipe some blood he had missed off his cheek and jaw.

His parents had gotten a divorce. Naturally so– Nadya’s affair with Ravager had been nasty enough as a deed on its own, but especially in the bigger picture of things it’d been a dirty move considering Matvey’s loyalty to her and he had not wanted to stick around even with the ex-Maelstromer six feet under.

Matvey had lost his job, his wife, custody of two of his children, and all his mercenaries in his professional life as a fixer. If all he was doing was still part of some bigger plan, if he was still trying to manipulate everyone in some desperate attempt to get back what he lost, Vitali would declare him mad– but he knew his father better than that, and he knew that he knew when to accept defeat.

‘I will be honest, I have yet to figure him out,’ Vitali softly admitted, wincing a little when Rogue pushed his face to the side a little too roughly. ‘But he went after all of this by himself, with no one telling him he had to do so. It has to mean something.’

Vitali knew it could easily be wishful thinking. It could easily be him wanting it to mean something, and his judgment could once again easily be clouded by the fact it’s about his own blood– but after everything that had happened, it only felt fair to give Matvey the benefit of the doubt now that it looked like he was actually trying.

Rogue sighed and shook her head, giving Vitali a pat on his cheek as she tossed the tissue on the table and moved back onto the couch. For a second, it looked like she wanted to say something– but visibly changed her mind and looked at Vincent instead, a questioning look decorating her face.

‘I dunno what to think,’ Vincent said indifferently without missing a beat, as if he had already been waiting for his cue. ‘It’s definitely a situation. All I can say is that Vitali isn’t lyin’, and that I’ve seen plenty of people waste a second chance the moment they received it. This doesn’t seem like a waste to me.’

The knot that had taken shape in Vitali’s stomach over the past few minutes of the conversation instantly disappeared, and he turned his head to give Vincent a soft smile; the merc by his side had been avoiding all eye contact with anyone before but crossed gazes with Vitali for a split second now, and despite the hesitance in his voice when he had spoken and despite his feelings on the matter– which Vitali was more than well aware of– he still returned the smile, moving a little closer on the couch to lean against Vitali’s arm.

‘So I can take your word for it when you tell me it’s all under control?’ Rogue asked, picking up her drink from the table and slowly taking a sip.

‘You have my word, Rogue. Always.’ Vitali paused, giving himself a moment to pick the right words to say. ‘You know I will act swiftly if things change.’

A scoff, and a laugh. ‘Will you?’

Alright, he had that one coming.

‘I have the full picture now,’ Vitali calmly continued, knowing very well he had not been as proactive back when the Broker had still been an ongoing issue. ‘He strays off the path again, it’s over. I have given him a chance to prove himself, and no more. I promise.’

‘Good. Glad we got an understanding now.’ Rogue licked her lips, ticking her fingernail against the side of her glass. ‘Shame if I have to dispose of two Dobrynins at once.’

Perhaps a little harsh, but a fair reaction, still. Vitali did not bat an eye and instead put a reassuring arm around Vincent’s shoulder, who had perked up a little upon Rogue’s comment– but Vitali knew she was not throwing a threat his way, but merely a warning.

And he understood– the situation had dragged on for long enough and it partially was his fault alone. His mercenaries and friends were a lot more forgiving on that front, but he knew very well that Rogue was getting tired of his bullshit and in order for their collaboration to survive, she needed his ass back in gear.

‘So what’s next?’ Rogue asked, as Vitali clicked his tongue to signal to Eddie and Huxley they were dismissed, the both of them wandering over to the bar to get themselves something to drink before they’d have to leave.

‘I’d like to meet the Council,’ he answered, pulling his arm back from around Vincent’s shoulders and holding his cane between his knees in both hands, slightly rolling it back and forth– a habit he found himself doing a lot more often those days, especially when he was starting to feel a little on edge.

‘I doubt they will hear me out considering the– V, what did you call it again? The “clownfest” this year has been, so I won’t even try– but we have to look at the future. We still have to work together.’

Rogue nodded and smiled lightly at the comment, glancing into the rest of the club and waving someone of her own entourage over to give her a refill on her drink.

‘Agreed,’ she said, slightly wiggling her glass between her fingers with a questioning look in Vitali’s direction– to which he simply shook his head. ‘V?’

‘Gotta move on,’ Vincent simply answered, also politely declining Rogue’s offer on a drink with a shake of his head. ‘We’ve picked things back up, there’s work to do. Loads of it. Need to know if the Council is on the same page with that.’

‘And are you two? On the same page?’

Another pointed but fair question. 

They hadn’t been, for a while– in the heat of all things they had ended up with different perspectives which had led to a lot more tension Vitali had ever thought he would have with his partner, and in the midst of it all he had for a moment truly believed they were done for.

‘We are,’ Vincent said, not a single hint of hesitation in his voice as he spoke. ‘I’d’ve handled things differently, but everyone would’ve handled things in the way they thought was right. There’s no bad blood. I get why he did what he did. I’m just glad we both lived to tell the tale.’

He turned to look at Vitali again, that same reassuring smile lingering on his face– and it took all of Vitali’s self-restraint to not lean in to kiss him right then and there, the relief that washed over him in that moment strong enough to keep him going for the next few months.

He still worried sometimes. He still felt bad about what had happened.

But Vincent was right– they had to move on, in every sense of the word, and Vitali’s guilt could not hold him back from that.

‘Very well.’

Rogue set her refilled glass back on the table and briefly rubbed her hands over her thighs, signaling to Vitali their conversation was coming to an end. All three of them stood up simultaneously– and he could already feel the consequences of the scuffle from earlier in his legs and hip, the pain searing through his muscles.

‘I’ll call in a meeting as soon as I can,’ Rogue said, escorting Vincent and Vitali back to the bar where the rest of Vitali’s mercs had gathered to wait. ‘Expect a couple days turnaround, I’ll have Nix send you the detes. Who’s hosting?’

‘We can do Prodigy.’ Vitali paused, stepping aside to let some mercs pass by without getting shouldered out of the way. ‘Doubt they will want to visit the Crest, and I am not coming here any time soon anymore. No offense.’

‘None taken. I’ve been tellin’ you to stay away.’

‘So you have.’

Vitali took his car keys out of his pocket and tossed them at Huxley, giving Vincent a soft nudge forward to signal they could go and get ready outside. He watched the four of them wade through the crowd to make their way to the exit on the right, and the second they were out of sight he leaned on his cane a little heavier than before.

‘Take it easy, alright?’ Rogue said, stepping a little closer when she noticed the change in his demeanor. ‘Stupid gets you killed, Vito. I’ve seen it before, don’t wanna see it again. And right now? You’re givin’ me the massive impression you’re being stupid.’

Obviously she was right. While he had been taking his rest, Vitali had gone back to work entirely too soon and he was already starting to feel the consequences of it now– but what else was he to do? He loved his job; he could not sit still even if his life depended on it, and one more day of pure boredom at home would have led him to places he would’ve normally not even gone to with a gun. 

Vitali’s gaze trailed the club, carefully watching the clientele around him– and of course he caught a rather large chunk of them staring, quickly avoiding their gaze the second his eyes crossed theirs, though he no longer knew if it was because of his reputation, because of Rogue, because of the fight from earlier, or because his brain was simply making it all up.

‘I’m trying,’ was all he could manage to say. ‘To take it easy– I’m trying.’

‘I can tell.’ No hint of sarcasm, but Rogue simultaneously reached out to fix the collar of Vitali’s shirt, the bloodstain on it still a little damp against his skin. ‘Try harder.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

He knew there was nothing else he could say.

Rogue carefully watched his expression, her hand lingering on his collar for a little longer than necessary as she tried to read him– then slowly pulled away with a little nod of approval, and she began to turn on her heels to return to her business for the night.

‘And– Rogue? Thank you. For everything.’

Vitali meant it.

She had been the only one to know that his father was the Broker, and she had trusted him through it all– had not once turned against him like the rest of the Council had, and she had shown him patience and kindness he knew he had been undeserving of while he had tried to sort things out for himself.

Rogue glanced back at him and scoffed, shaking her head– though he could see the softness on her face even from a distance, and he could not stop a smile from spreading across his face.

‘Get out of here, Vitali,’ Rogue said, waving her hand in the direction of the Afterlife’s exit, and she began making her way back to her booth.

‘And no funny business on your way out.’

taglist (opt in/out)

@velocitic, @deadrlngers, @euryalex, @ordinarymaine, @gurathins;

@mojaves, @shellibisshe, @dickytwister, @mnwlk, @rindemption;

@ncytiri, @calenhads, @noirapocalypto, @florbelles, @radioactiveshitstorm;

@strafethesesinners, @fashionablyfyrdraaca, @radioactive-synth, @katsigian, @estevnys;