#prev calling him a little mouse... yeah... yeah...

One, as he thought earlier, he could walk out the doors and one could stop him. Definitely one of the perks of being a boss within SVT. 

Two, he gets someone upstairs to go with him. Siyeon was still up there with Wonwoo and Yeosang, hoping to find a glimpse of Mouse anywhere within the city. Sona…Yeah he didn’t know where she was. Once she showed up and got orders, he hadn’t seen her. There was also the fact that Seokmin was sulking upstairs, quietly boiling in guilt and anger. 

Scanning the nearly empty warehouse floor, Jeonghan made up his mind and hurried up the stairs. He popped his head into the office and called for Seokmin to talk in private for a moment. The other looked confused yet still left the office. 

Closing the door firmly behind Seokmin, Jeonghan grabbed his arm and dragged him down the stairs. “Hurry up, we need to get to the store room.” 

“What-”

“Do you want to go find Mouse or not?” Glaring over his shoulder to Seokmin, he released the other’s arm while he nodded. “Then grab a gun and let's get out of here before anyone realizes we are gone. Leave your phone here so no one can track us. 

Making their way into the store room, Jeonghan tossed his phone on a random table and went for the gun wall. He grabbed a double holster that went over his shoulder, securing it tightly then loaded two light weight handguns into their slots. Seokmin did similarly, grabbing three extra gun magazines of bullets and handing some over to Jeonghan.

“We can head out the back and grab your car.” Jeonghan adjusted his jacket, one that was actually left at the warehouse, long with thick material to stay warm, making sure his weapons were hidden. 

Placing his phone on the table, Seokmin nodded, grabbing a knife and a flashlight as well. “Okay, let’s go.” 

Peeking out of the room, Jeonghan made his way to the back door with Seokmin. He still couldn’t find Sona as he walked quickly but no one upstairs could see them from the area they walked. He sighed a shallow breath when they made it out without anyone spotting them. He didn’t know why he was so worried though. He was a leader of the group, but…Seungcheol’s words were more law in actuality. Everyone still answered to him. 

They successfully got within a few hundred feet of Seokmin’s car, eager to get on the road, but Sona came into view, stepping out from behind the vehicle. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she stepped forward, leaning herself against the driver’s side door. 

“Mind telling me where you’re going?” She tilted her head, drumming her fingers on her arms. 

“Out,” Was all Jeonghan answered, sliding his hands into his pockets. “If you will excuse us, Sona, we have someone to find.” 

“Thought King said to stay put.” She didn’t look impressed at all. 

“Sona, do not patronize me right now-” 

“Kinda hard to leave when Tempest forgot his keys.” She raised said set of keys up, clicking her tongue. “I’m driving. Boss man ordered me to stay back as well.” 

“No-” 

“Do you want to run into King? I know which district he took with some of the guys.” 

Sona unlocked the doors, sliding into the driver’s seat with ease. Jeonghan took the passenger side and Seokmin grumbled that he was in the backseat of his own car. 

“By the way, you guys aren’t as slick as you think.” 

“Yeah yeah, shut up. Now help me find Mouse and I’ll raise your salary.” 

“On it, boss.”

You were unsure of how long you had been standing in the dark. 

Nightmare , as you had come to learn your torturer’s name, was true to his word, not wanting to waste any time. 

After the cut to your cheek, his actions only started to ramp up. You went from sitting in the old metal chair to standing with your bound hands above your head, connected to a hook keeping you upright. Your feet barely touched the floor on your tiptoes and the rope continued to dig harshly into your wrists until they started to bleed. Joker had one of their underlings get another bucket of water and threw it on you again. 

The shivering that you couldn’t control had used so much of your energy to stay warm but it did nothing to help. Dickhead, as you called Nightmare going forward, got an electric powered generator and jumper cables with wet sponges clamped to them. With you standing, he slashed your shirt off with the pocket knife from earlier, the blade catching on your skin and leaving a cut to your stomach. You groaned in pain, jaw clenched tightly to the point you thought your teeth might chip. 

“You’ve got quite the history here.” Joker started, sitting down in the chair you were in previously. He crossed his legs and leaned back, obnoxiously if you might add, and raised a brow at the information in hand.

You didn’t give him an answer, breathing deeply through your nose and watching him past your eyelashes. He flipped through some papers, an annoying hum floating its way across the room from him. Dickhead stepped closer, cable tongs in hand with what you assumed was rubber gloves covering up to his forearms. 

“It wasn’t easy to find some of this information,” He started, stopping on one particular page. “Y/N L/N. Your records have a lot of redactions too.” 

The scoff you let out was followed by a huff, trying to adjust your wrists to relieve some pressure but your footing was hard to find, making it hard to find any comfort or relief. 

“And somehow you went from a normal person with a tragic past to getting all tangled up in SVT, didn’t you? How did you manage to do that?” Joker narrowed his eyes when you didn’t answer. “I asked you a question.” 

Dickhead jabbed the wet sponge against your base side, holding it there. The muscles in that area tensed up and the painful vibration of electricity shot through your system. You let out a cry of pain that had your breath catching in your throat, unable to move away from it to escape the pain.

“Will you answer me?” He asked over your shouts, apathetic to the situation. “Anything?” 

“Fuck off!” You yelled, thrashing until Joker gave a signal for his companion to stop. An angered roar left you, quickly taking in air to fill your burning lungs. 

Shaking his head, Joker clicked his tongue like a disappointed parent, a long sigh leaving him. “Oh, Mouse, so far we have been so kind to you, haven’t we, Nightmare?” 

“Very.” Once more, the sponge was pressed into your side with the second joining the other side.

The entirety of your body tensed up. You screamed loudly, muscles twitching and seizing. The moment the cables were removed, you fell limp, unable to hold yourself up. The pain in your wrists felt welcoming compared to the numbness and weakness that washed through you. There was a faint tingling where you were shocked, the unstable racing of your heart beating out of your chest and up into your throat. 

Tears welled up in your eyes as your head hung down. Dizziness swirled your vision, the floor and walls felt like it was moving in a million different directions. The ache in your side stung when you managed to shift but you didn’t give them the satisfaction of hearing you weep. 

They exchanged a few hushed words before you were left alone, the lights flicking off. Left in complete darkness, you allowed yourself a moment of reprieve, hoping to be prepared for whatever they inflicted upon you next. 

All you heard from the last however long was the mind numbing dripping of water from that leaky pipe. Your throat was dry and every breath felt like sandpaper, scratchy and irritated. The room was freezing, on top of being doused twice previously in water and your energy was rock bottom. 

“You’ll be okay, Mouse.” You whispered into the blank space. “You have to be okay. They won’t kill you. They can’t. It isn’t their endgame.” 

Your eyelids felt heavy, threatening to close as the exhaustion took over. You had little to no feeling in your arms from them being raised for so long, pins and needles stinging the nerves in your upper limbs. The headache transitioned long ago into a migraine, and the pain at your waist continued to tingle and sting in the chilled air. 

While you should have been worried for yourself, you couldn’t stop yourself from worrying about everyone else. 

Was Seokmin okay after finding out you had been taken? How were Jeonghan and Joshua holding up? Had any of them got any rest? Were they eating at all? How were the rest of the groups holding up? Were they close to finding you? 

You craved the safety of being around them. Their presence was what held you together when everything went wrong and right now you were alone, holding onto hope. There were cracks in the foundation of your stability. Mentally you could hold it together longer, but you were concerned of how long that hold out would be. Physically…that troubled you more, already feeling sluggish. If they came in and unhooked you, there would be no stopping you from crumbling to the floor.

Letting your eyes shut, you took in slow breaths, grounding yourself to the reality of the situation weighing down on you. 

“Have you thought about what your future would have been if you hadn’t met us?” Joshua ran his hand up and down your spine, laying on the couch in your apartment, a calm weekday night. 

You laughed, nodding your head. “At first, yeah, but not for a little bit now. I had this decent life plan the moment I left college, like one of those dreams that manifest from watching too many rom-com movies.” 

Joshua joined in your laughter, resting his cheek over the top of your head. “Tell me about it, please?” 

“When I first moved into my old apartment, I told myself three things.” You thought back, unable to stop the giggle from bubbling out. “First, I wanted to steadily climb the ladder at work to live a comfortable life where I didn’t need to worry too much about money.” 

“Got it, so you kinda have that with us.” Wrapping both arms around you, Joshua placed a kiss on your forehead. “Minus the work ladder thing, of course. Sounds boring.”

“Second…my plan was to find myself a significant other after I had the stability I craved. I remember wanting the stupid suburb house with the stupid little white fence.” You rested your chin on his chest, seeing him try not to laugh. It did sound a little dumb. “Number three…” 

Noticing your hesitation, Joshua raised a brow, pouting a little. “Number three?” 

Pushing yourself up, you straddled his hips, smiling to yourself as you shook your head. “I wanted to get married one day… Give myself a life I didn’t know I wanted until I was mostly free of my past. I…wanted a family too so I could be the parent mine weren’t to me.” 

Joshua stared up at you, wide eyed but a glimmer of fondness shining. He gazed over your face, placing his hands gently on your hips before that loving, familiar smile spread on his lips. He scoffed but his grin continued to grow wider until he couldn’t any further. 

“What?” 

“Now that you are here with us, what do you think now?” 

Reaching out, you pushed some hair back from his face and cupped his cheeks. “Well, I kinda have one and I pretty much have the second one, times two.” 

“And number three?” Leaning up on his elbows, he tilted his head to the side. 

“Hm…” You smirked, biting your lip to hold in your snicker. “You’ll have to fight Jeonghan for that one…Maybe even Seungcheol.” 

“Ew, gag.” Joshua fake gagged and you fell forward onto him, wheezing out a laugh.

“Need to spend less time with Seungkwan and Mingyu, babe.” 

—

“Y/N?” Your head snapped up to the sound of Jongho’s voice from behind you. Just as you had much earlier in the night, you watched as he crawled out the window to join you on the roof, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and another one in hand. “It’s freezing out here, dude.” 

“If it’s so cold, you didn’t have to join me. You know I don’t mind sitting out here.” You took the blanket he offered either way, letting him settle close to your side. “Can’t sleep?” 

“Not really. I tried for a while but I kept tossing and turning.” He tucked his knees in towards his chest, pulling the blanket tighter around his shoulders. There was a dark bruise already blooming on his cheek. You grabbed his chin and turned his face towards you to see it better. “I didn’t wash the dishes right so he hit me.” 

You didn’t hesitate to throw your arm over his shoulder and pulled him close. He, though typically adverse to affection, leaned his head on your shoulder. You could feel his posture slump and a sigh puffed out in the cold air. 

“I’m sorry, hun.” You rested your cheek against the top of his head, “I’m gonna get us out of here, promise.” 

“How do you think you’ll do that?” 

“Your pick; bottle rocket, sugar in the gas tank, vegetable oil in the engine, or calling child services.” You were glad to hear his giggle, a big grin on his face. “Or I could do all over them at once and really fuck them over.” 

“Bottle rocket in the exhaust pipe?” He suggested and you laughed quietly, not wanting to wake your foster parents. 

“I can definitely start there. It will take some time to get it since I got to be sneaky.” Ruffling his hair, you sighed, leaning your head back to stare up at the sky. “We’ll be okay, Jongho.” 

“What if they separate us?”  He sounded worried. “What then?” 

“Then…” You tried to think of the best thing to say at the moment. “Then you face the world with your head held high and remember that you are a smart kid. You make sure you keep your grades up so you get into a good college to be successful in the future.” 

“Do you think I’ll ever see you again?” Jongho lifted his head from your shoulder, wide eyes staring back with worry. 

“Yeah, you will definitely see me in the future.” Internally you weren’t so confident but you pinched his cheeks, seeing him cringe and swat your hands away. “I’ll make sure we see each other in the future. And I sure as hell hope fate helps with that.” 

“I’m gonna miss you, Y/N.” 

“I’m gonna miss you too, Jongho.” 

They had been out searching for hours . 

Joshua’s skin was crawling with well hidden anxiety but Seungcheol was fuming every step of the way. While he attempted to keep a level head, Cheol wasn’t hesitating to tear things apart as time went on. The leader would enter a space with authority and at the drop of a hat would have him and their men that they brought along trashing a space before moving on when Mouse wasn’t found. 

“It’s been hours, how has no one found any signs of her?!” For the first time, Seungcheol vocalized his anger, standing in the most recent drug den they raided. 

Joshua ran a hand through his already tousled and knotted hair, sighing for the hundredth time within the last two hours. Leaning himself against a half broken table after checking its stability, he placed his hands on his knees, taking a few deep breaths. Cheol’s anger was palpable and it was starting to get to Joshua and pull at his last string of resolve.

“We have hundreds searching the city, we’ve been searching. It would be a good idea if we branch out from the city and look at surrounding areas.” Joshua heaved out the suggestion, throwing a hand up in thought. “I don’t know where else we can look around here, Cheol.” 

Seungcheol pulled his phone out and made a call to Wonwoo, asking him to contact half their help to expand their search further out. Joshua watched as his friend paced, pulling at his hair, shaking with unraveled concern and frustration. 

“What do you mean Seokmin and Jeonghan are gone?” He stopped his pacing, confused as his eyebrows furrowed together. “Where-? Huh? With? Okay…Fuckers…Just, tell them not to be fucking idiots and that Sona is in charge of them- Yeah, just keep me updated on anything you guys find and I’ll keep you updated here.” 

As he hung up, Joshua scoffed, shaking his head. “What did you expect them to do? Listen in a situation like this?” 

“No but- I don’t know- At least they have one person with them…” Seungcheol grumbled, still fuming down at his phone. “We are going on hour seven and nothing. How does someone simply disappear without a trace?” 

Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Joshua let his eyes well with tears, jaw clenched uncomfortably tight. He dropped his head, raising a hand to rub and message at the back of his neck. His shoulder, neck, and back were tense, moving wasn’t the best idea but he was running on waning adrenaline, maybe a coffee from the morning, and anxiety. The necklace Mouse had given him for Christmas rested heavy around his neck as he felt the metal against his hand. Joshua let himself trace the chain and brought it to his lips, gently kissing the pendent. 

They were going to find Mouse, he had been chanting it every building they entered into and tore top to bottom. No figurative stone was going to go unturned but he worried for the state she’d be in once they got her home. While he knew Mouse was strong and could withstand a decent amount, what were the people that took her submitting to her to? Was she holding onto hope like they were trying to? It was getting difficult to keep his head on straight. 

Cheol rested himself against the broken desk beside Joshua, shoulders slumping. “I’m starting to think like Han, Shua.” 

“Yah,” Joshua’s head shot up, barely holding back the tears that threatened to fall. “Don’t you start with that shit either. Come on, man.” 

“I-” Cheol paused, raising his hands to his face and sniffling, which caught Joshua off guard. “Fuck, man. I can’t fall apart right now.” 

“Do not-” Joshua shuttered, unable to keep his voice stable. He let the tears he was holding in slip down his cheeks. 

Seungcheol threw an arm over Joshua’s shoulder and tugged him into his side. Though quiet, they cried in relative silence, letting the stress of the situation take hold of their emotions. The grip on Joshua’s shoulders was tight as Cheol muttered something he couldn’t make out, maybe a prayer, grounding the two of them to reality. Neither of them heard the footsteps approach but a voice caught their attention. 

“ King, Hades ?” There was hesitation in their crew member’s voice, a nervous shift to his gaze. “We- Uh…The entire place is fully clear, even the underground sections. Whenever you are, we are all ready to move out again.” 

Almost instantly, Joshua straightened up, wiping his face and stood. “We’ll meet you out at the cars, clear out.” 

Once he stepped out and walked away, Cheol sighed.

“I don’t think she is strong enough like the rest of us, she probably can’t withstand anything they might do to her.” Seungcheol ran both hands over his face, collecting his emotions as he stood, shaking his head. 

“Hey, man, don’t underestimate my girlfriend.” Joshua’s attempt at a joke was met with a roll of the leader’s eyes. He brought the pendant on his lips again, saying a silent prayer for her safety. “She will be okay. Mouse is a fighter. I’m sure she is giving whoever took her a run for their money.”

“I hope you are right on this one.”

“All you have to do is answer the question, Y/N…” 

“And like I keep saying,” You spit out a decent amount of blood, thrashing despite your arms still being hung above your head, “Sit on a cactus, suck a dick, and choke on it.” 

Beside you, Dickhead clicked his tongue, ready to aim another punch to your side. It would make for the tenth punch or kick he had landed as far as you counted. Both sides of your abdomen and the left side of your face hurt like hell. You didn’t even want to imagine how you looked…Hell, you were having difficulty keeping your left eye open from the hits to your face. Joker stopped him though, standing up and strolling over towards you slowly, shaking his head. 

“You know,” He took a knife from the other man’s belt and unsheathed it. “You are holding on much longer than any of us expected. Here I thought you'd break a long time ago, but here we are… Is it the trauma from finding your parents dead from an OD?” 

You swallowed thickly and tried not to say anything to his inquiry, needing to breathe through your mouth from how bad your face and nose felt. With the knife in hand, biting down on the inside of your cheek, unsure of his reactions in comparison to his counterpart seeing as he only asked questions so far. 

“Or…was it when you snuck into that building and saw SVT?” 

You stopped breathing, snapping your mouth shut. 

How fucking long had they been watching you? 

“You saw, what? Two people get shot?” He started to circle your hanging form like you were prey, toying with the knife. “Or…was it when Mingyu was shot?” 

That…yeah, that struck a cord inside that had you snarling at him. “Keep his name out of your mouth, pig!” 

“Oh~” He chuckled lowly, tilting his head to the side. “Protective, aren’t we?” 

Joker leaned close, using the knife to brush your hair back. “Would you like to know a secret?” 

When you gave no reaction, he brought his lips close to your ear. “We gave the order to shoot first.” 

If you were an old cartoon character, steam would be blowing out your ears comically. 

You pulled your head away from him before quickly slamming the side of your head into his face. There was the telltale, unmistakable cracking sound and he yelled out at the unexpected pain. Your head spun from the nonstop migraine you’ve had pounding since you first woke up, yet the pain was welcoming compared to their treatment. Your cheek and eye area were pulsing, definitely swollen, along with the pain in your side from the electrocution. Dickhead was having fun using you as a punching bag when you didn’t answer Joker . 

“You…are going to regret that.” Joker got into your field of vision properly, eyes full of rage. 

His nose was broken if the cracking of bone wasn’t enough, slightly tilted to the side, crooked. Blood trailed down from his nostrils and into his mouth, making him spit off to the side. 

Harshly, his hands jutted out and wrapped around your neck, sneezing and cutting off your air flow. You gasped for air, struggling against your confines and swinging your legs out to get him away but it was useless. His grip tightened and the longer he strangled you, the more your vision started to get hazy around the edges. The moment your eyes started to roll back, on the verge of passing out, and your thrashing became sluggish, Joker released his hold. 

The rush of air that filled your lungs was enough to make you go limp. Your head was light in the worst way and your extremities were shaky. Blood rushing through your ears hindered you from hearing their conversation, not that there was a care to give other than breathing. You did notice one of them move before the chain holding the hook up was loosened and your body crumbled unceremoniously to the floor. 

Your bound wrists were grabbed as someone dragged you across the ground, the half broken ceiling lights fading in and out of your clouded vision. There was barely any energy left to struggle, too lethargic and woozy to figure out what they were doing with you. Whoever was dragging you dropped your arms and another pair of hands were tying your legs together.

You tried to focus your eyes on one of the men in the room, their words murky and distant but quickly stopped to save your strength. The light above that stared down at you was blocked by Kihyun’s big fucking head and his ugly ass smirk. He said something you couldn’t hear so you didn’t provide a response, only for a swift kick to land against the side of your abdomen and the pain had you curling in on yourself. From the feeling alone, you had a good handful of broken ribs, at least you were feeling something at this point. 

A few sets of hands grabbed you next, hauling you up from the cold ground and carrying you somewhere. You were dead weight in their arms but they didn’t seem to struggle, being tossed in a crate or box. Furrowing your brows together, you let your good eye flit around, confusion flooding your mind. 

“Wait-” The moment everything clicked, you cleared your throat, rough and frail from Joker’s strangling. Two unknown men went to close the top and you attempted to set up, shaking your head quickly. 

“Wait no-” Someone’s hand forcibly pushed you down and the box was closed and locked shut. You beat your hands against the top, darkness shrouding you. “Let me out!” 

The words had no force behind them, weak screams only bouncing off the walls of your confines. Continuously, you beat your restrained hands and feet against the top and sides as the panic rose in your chest. There wasn’t a way to calm yourself, breathing coming out in short, sobbing gasps. At some point you couldn’t make out any of the words you desperately tried to babble out. You hopelessly dropped your limbs, praying your eyes adjusted to the limited light soon. 

You couldn’t shift comfortably – or at all –, knees bent up with no way to straighten out. The only soothing thing was the cool metal against your barely clothed back, which gave you an answer of what kind of box you were in. The anxiety of being locked in used up the rest of your energy, your throat and sides hurt horrible, and your waning brain power struggled to take in the situation Monsta X placed you in. 

As your eyes adjusted, you noticed the decent sized air holes from what you could tell, but they were near your feet so you couldn’t look out and investigate around. Any attempt to focus on hearing anything came up short, your ears hadn’t stopped ringing. Raising your wrists enough to see them, you determined there was no chance to get free, not even your legs with how small the space was. 

Leaning your head back with a soft thunk, you took the pain radiating through your body as a sign that you weren’t dead . You’d grasp tightly on that fact to keep you going until you were home, however long that could be. You weren’t sure how much more your body could take. Nightmare didn’t pull a single punch or kick, he was uncaring with slashing, and the eclectic shocks had your heart all over the place. Now, in the metal box, you couldn’t even begin to imagine what they were going to hurt you with next. 

You didn’t realize you passed out until a loud, rattling bang jolted you awake. The entire box shook violently and you shrieked in terror at the suddenness of it. Your body shook, tensing up in anticipation of another hit to come. 

The knowing feeling of a looming panic attack built up quickly, fully triggered when hit after hit beat down against the metal. Whatever items they were beating your confines with was making a deafening, metal on metal sound. It reverberated off the walls, never letting up, and you struggled to breath through your (justified) hysteria. No amount of screaming or pleading was going to stop their task of your torture and their entertainment. 

You knew it probably wasn’t long yet it felt like it went on for hours. With your back fully against the bottom, you felt every single vibration like it shocked your system. It hurt even if it wasn’t hitting you directly. You could make out the edges of the box denting from certain hits, making the already small space smaller the longer it went on. 

With your hands bound, you weren’t even about to cover your ears to block out some of the sound. 

“Make it stop!” You screamed at the top of your lungs, hearing your voice echoing in your ears, kicking at the sides the best you could. 

It didn’t stop, tears were streaming down your face as you wailed helplessly. Trembling was the only thing you could do besides pray for relief. 

You could feel yourself beginning to slip into a dissociative state, maybe from self preservation. The banging was starting to sound far off in the distance, out of body the longer it went on. The last time you really had a dissociative episode was in the shower after Mingyu was shot. You could remember the metallic smell of blood, similar to the inside of the box that surrounded you. There was that nauseating feeling in the pit of your stomach like you were falling out of the sky. The air around you was stuffy, your breathing was shallow the more you disconnected from reality. 

If the hits stopped, you weren’t able to tell. The repeated sound replayed in your head in time with the beating of your heart. Any pain you felt was pins and needles, or washing over with numbness, mind and body attempted to regulate their functions to protect you, if your body could protect you.

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Thank stars that Siffrin had been sitting down, because otherwise he was pretty sure he’d have fallen over…

Wait. Why was he sitting down? Wasn’t he just in the house? He looked down to the broken doll in his hands, but it wasn’t a broken doll, it was his own detached calf with that stubborn patch of mud once more needing to be cleaned out.

…

HUH?!

Hadn’t he already done that yesterday? Wasn’t he in the House? Had that been some kind of vision? That wasn’t really a thing that happened to him though…? It wasn’t like he really “slept” either, more just… dissipated? Relaxed? The best human term he had for it was somewhere between “trance” and “stretching,” awareness softening and widening as he just watched… Which maybe? That? Happened? But he didn’t exactly move much during those little space-outs of his, and he didn’t hallucinate either… probably??? It wasn’t like he could go ask the owls if they’d really caught that mouse or anything like that.

So? What? Happened???

[Pale One? Is that…?]

… he probably should’ve been way more concerned about the fact that he was hearing voices in his head, but sure! Though… Pale One? Why did that sound familiar…?

“Siffrin! Siffrin!” Mirabelle! Coming to the meadow calling his name. Didn’t that happen in the weird hallucination thingy he apparently had?

“Sif- FRIIIIN?!” She gasped, jumping nearly a foot in the air and ran over.

Well that was new! What could have?

She looked down at his still-detached leg and oh. Yeah. That’d do it.

“Are you okay? Did you get hurt? Um, I’m not sure my healing will-“

“Hey, hey, it’s okay…” Siffrin said. He swiped the worst of the mud-clump away with one hand and lined it back up to where it slotted with his thigh. With a click, it reattached, and he pushed himself back up to standing. “See? Good as new!”

“Oh… oh! Right,” she sighed in relief, giving him a nervous smile. “Sorry, I forgot you can just do that and sorta panicked… kinda silly in retrospect.”

“It’s okay! I know that for most things it’s really, really bad if limbs come off… I just wanted to get that mud out.”

“Oh. That makes sense…” She stared intently at his knee, fidgeting a bit, but looked away. “I’ll give you a little more time if you wanna clean it properly! Come to the village when you’re ready, okay?”

Siffrin gave a thumbs up as she walked away…

…

…

…

Okay. Okay don’t panic. This isn’t TOO weird yet! But what WAS that? Why is he back here? Was it because… because…

… he failed.

Okay, he was not in the House, that’s the first thing. Secondly, it’s apparently the day before when Mirabelle came to check on him just as he put his leg back on… or failed to do in this case. Third…

…

Okay he can’t think of a third. Weird voice in his head maybe counts? Sure, that counts, if only to make it three.

[Stop by the favor tree when you get a minute. See you soon!]

Well… get up Siffrin, you have a weird voice in your head and a country to save… Hopefully, he’ll do it right this time.

————

The little talk with Mira went better this time! He didn’t mess up the sleepover talk! Woo! Then straight to the favor tree (after some puns with Isa, of course).

The tree reaches overhead, just as before. There’s something strangely comforting about it. So tall that he can’t see all the way to the top from here, wide enough to cover a house or two, sturdy, old… It must’ve seen so many people come and go. Did the village build around it? Was it already grand then? He drifts under, putting a hand on the trunk. Some of the roots come up through the ground, flat enough to give some room to sit. So he does. He finds a root and sits. He’s not sure if this tree has a spirit or not, or if it’d care to hear from something like him, but he strokes the trunk and silently thanks them for the place to sit.

[Sappy as ever, I see.]

Siffrin jolts in place, looking around. Who said that? “… Favor Tree?”

[Noooope~! But close enough with the whole wishes thing.] There was something warm nearby, a subtle tug. Instinctively he tried to find the source of the voice, the warmth, the tug, but…

[You really are attached to that whole ‘sight’ thing, aren’t you? Fine, fine.] The light and shadows seemed to refract, bending into something vaguely humanoid. Dark limbs with little spatters of light (it looked like him, looked like paint he hid) and a larger light as a “head.” Indistinct, but something. [There, easier for you? Yes? Good, good.]

[So! Looks like you went back in time!]

“I… guess I did. Yeah.”

[Isn’t that convenient? And hey! It got my attention, guess the Universe blessed both of us, hmm?]

[And I do believe I can feel whatever brought you here still lingering, so no worries if you mess up again, teehee! So in other words… you’re in a timeloop!]

[So, Stardust, how can I help you this wonderful new loop?]

Siffrin looked awkwardly at this… spirit, he assumed. They seemed quite happy, and it was nice to have someone that knew, but why were they acting so over familiar?

“… sorry, but do I know you?”

The other’s glow dimmed, form threatening to collapse into darkness. Oh stars, they messed up!

“Sorry! I, um, feel like I should? But…”

[Well, we’ll have time to get reacquainted, I assure you. Though maybe it’d be a little easier if you took that off?] It gestured to all of them.

It took embarrassingly long for Siffrin to register that they probably meant their body… the doll. He crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “… no???”

[Oh well, suit yourself.]

They both lingered in awkward silence. Siffrin kicked his legs while, um… wait…

“Do you… have a name right now?”

Names were strange things with spirits. Gifted things. A way of saying “I want you, this you, to stay. I want to be able to get your attention and call you.” Which was distinct from a title or description since, y’know, people had to be able to refer to you as something.

[Oh Stardust, you don’t need that to get my attention! Call me whatever you like. Though since I imagine you will, in fact, be referring to me, I’m it/they by the way.]

They fidgeted on the log, looking around and trying to think of something. And, well, in his defense for what eventually came out of his mouth, spirits in general were not known for their ability to name things. “Loop Helper… no, that’s a mouthful. So just… Loop?”

[Loop works! Loop! Your helpful guide through the loops! Or I’ll try to be helpful, at least. What can I say, I like trouble and it likes me~]

[But for now, well, whatever you did, you should know better this time, right? Go on Stardust, get back out there! I’ll be waiting~]

Whatever they did next looked somewhat like a wave, but felt more like a push… well, that was overselling it. A nudge, more like. Loop was probably right, he had a second chance, so might as well use it!

“Good meeting you!” He said, giving a wave as he left. He doubted they’d see each other again though.

After all, he couldn’t mess it up twice, right?

——————

Mirabelle’s inner thoughts: “Be normal be normal be normal BE NORMAL BE NORMAL” (she really should’ve just been weird)

“Mouse?” A voice from in front of her calls out, but only after she deliberately drags her feet into the threshold of the neutral ground, alerting him of her presence. 

“Quiet as a.” She utters her usual response, stepping into the little flat in Buenos Aries, Argentina. She hears the smile as Soap sucks in a breath at her little joke. Her callback should be old by now, shouldn’t make him smile anymore, but he does anyway. He’s easy to get along with, something hard to come by in war. She crosses the minimal space between the two and takes stock of his little setup. 

For a mission, it’s luxurious. He’s sitting, in a chair might she add, with a scope poking barely out of an antique window on the 7th floor of an apartment building, looking into a busy market square. His arms rest on a table littered with little signs of life, a map of the area adorned with notes and coordinates in inexpensive ink, no less than 7 pens whose caps are chewed through (everyone’s got bad habits but this little sin of his drives poor Price up and down the goddamn wall), two disposable cups with sediment rings denoting how much instant coffee was drunk from them at a time before they returned to their places besides their drinker. Most notably, however, are two radios in a strange moment of near fornication– backs ripped open and wires crossed in an almost pornographic display of field ingenuity. 

Damn demolition specialists, she hears the echo of Gaz say in her head and she absentmindedly rubs the scabbed over cut on her left hand where the shrapnel of a certain someone’s frag grenade got her two weeks ago. She wants to be mad but-

“Hear any good ones, lately?” Soap turns to her, he’s disengaging from his post, changing his guard for her to take his spot, just as command ordered. He’s been in this little nest for about 6 hours and she can feel his desire to scuttle and tinker about radiating off of him. As he takes apart his gun, already aware and familiar that she refuses to use anyone’s but her own, his eyes shine to life. The color of sky blue permafrost, yet they radiate a certain lived-in warmth impossible to distance yourself from. Eyes almost like-

She bites her tongue at the thought. Bad time to be thinking about König… she mourns. But, speaking of the man.

“Yes, but it’s bad,” she offers, in fake warning as she sheds her outer jacket before moving to unhook the case that stands between her and the assembly of her gun. She knows the warning will only intrigue the poor pyrotechnic more. 

His smile is nothing short of sadistic as he raises an eyebrow.

“No, like, really bad,” she emphasizes, throwing a pleading look his way. His grin gets even more shit-eating-er if that sort of thing were even possible. “I mean it, MacTavish. Pass it along to your long-suffering Lieutenant, and you will be picking teeth out of your shit.” “I’m sure I’ve done worse to Ghost,” he supplies, rolling his shoulders. Yeah, I’m sure you have, she thinks but is much too self-preserving to say, especially aware that the Frankenstien’s monster of a radio he’s resurrected from two dead circuit boards is likely not secure enough to promise any real privacy. She would rather not alert Simon Riley that she’s become a dealer in his and Soap’s arm’s race of terrible jokes. He does not take prisoners, after all… 

“Alright, alright, just don’t tell him it’s from me,” she smiles, putting her hands up defensively in a quick jest. “Okay, play along with me now,” he nods along as he steps away from the perch and lets her take his spot at the table. 

“So, what's the difference between a piano, a fish, and a gluestick?”

“I know about two-thirds o’ this one.” 

Mouse trap baited. She smiles.

“Give it a go, then.” She wiggles in the chair, pressing her cheek to the crux of the sight and its metal holder. She sighs into the familiar feeling of control that settles into her bones as she hunches over.

“Can tuna piano but’cha can’t tuna fish?” He supplies, half teasing her already.

“Yep, but you’re forgetting something.” She sighs and goes to fiddle with the red-light optics extension, Command is confident enough in her abilities that she was specifically told to take it off for this one. She hears Soap whisper a quiet ‘oh shite’ behind her when he realizes he probably forgot to himself and she laughs a little. 

“What about the glue?”

Mouse trap set. Poor Soap, always getting himself into ambushes…

She smiles wide and hums remembering how excited her kitty-cat was to tell her this part. 

“See, I knew you’d get stuck on that one.” 

Mouse trap sprung. A moment of silence.

“Oh fuck me, that one is bad.” Soap chokes out a hearty laugh as he collects his discarded coffee cups from her side.

“No thanks,” she purrs as she finally sets herself into position. “Use it at your discretion, soldier.”

“Aye, that I will.” 

Soap goes to rummage through the kitchenette to her right and she takes the moment she lacks supervision to indulge herself. She does not move her sights to alert the man with her of the wandering of her eyes, instead, she scans windows and alleys without visual aid. The stale air threatens to choke her as she rakes over the golden-hued morning scene with desperate efficiency. 

After what feels like an eternity of stolen glances switching between her targeted area and anywhere he may be, she sees him. 

Technically, she has no way to know for certain that it’s König, she doesn’t have his usual wave or cheeky grin (affectionately referred to as a Cheshire Cat Smile in her own belabored heart) to alert her to his presence. That being considered, there is a masculine figure barely peeking out of a window into an alleyway who is just shy of 7 feet tall and his face is covered. Yeah, probably König. She smiles despite herself and her company. She wonders if he has radio access to her little hideout. 

(She remembers the seemingly endless weeks of his arrival to her perch. The early morning light hits the streets the same way it had hit the forest ground that day. Like a fairy tale prince, beseeching a princess on hand and knee, he would always somehow appear in her sights, nearly as though it was just meant to be! 

His form stands out tall and proud from its surroundings and she recounts every single reason he should not be here. By the third time their eyes caught she’d decided he was doing it on purpose, but she never let him get away with it without some acknowledgment on her side. She can only imagine that if she’s getting hunted for sport, her calling out his position will, at least temporarily, halt his advance. 

But by this rate, she’ll be in his mouth by the end of the year. 

His eyes are cold and bloodshot red. Painted tears lick their way down the hood she’s never seen him without, possibly a feeble attempt at impersonality? Maybe if he looks enough like a monster people will just trust their first assumption and leave him alone. But she’s never been one to judge a book by its cover…

“I see you, König.” She warns out to him. He stills among the foliage, bathed in sweet-honey-like warmth from the rising sun. He does not shy away from his imminent death on the business end of her rifle, of course not! Instead, he raises his chest proudly, seemingly aware that the loneliness in her yields to whatever greater magnetism the loneliness in him commands. He’s an enigma, it bothers her that of all the people to put the effort into finding her, it has to be him. Mostly she curses herself for promising him a next time all those encounters ago, if she’d known what sort of a game it would inspire in the predator stalking her like prey despite her flipping sniper rifle, she never would have said a thing. 

He may be in her scope, but he’s got her under a finer microscope to seek her out so faithfully. She wishes she got this sort of dizzying devotion from someone, anyone else. It is the third day this week he has found her.

What she expects to happen is what has happened for weeks now, 1) he hears her transmission, 2) he smiles at her as a predator smiles at pray, his eyes find hers and her hackles rise in utter terror, and 3) he hums to himself and turns away, self-satisfied enough to have won hide-and-seek for the time being.

That does not happen. 

Instead, König sits down, right where he is, and pulls out that monster of a knife he keeps strapped to himself. He throws it up and catches it without looking at it, instead his eyes are laser-focused on Mouse. This is, of course, despite the fact he should have no earthly idea where she is. He plays with his knife idly for what must be an hour, but she does not- no, can not- look away from him.

She remembers her trigger finger twitching with sinful power, she remembers choking back the insistence at killing another lonely person, devoid of their autonomy on a basic level when they signed up for a mercenary-issued ticket to hell.

She remembers hopelessness. She remembers refusal. She remembers the smile reaching his eyes when she played along with his joke. 

“Why don’t rats like cats?” Her radio labors out. 

She half forgot what his voice sounded like, surprisingly excitable and shrill for a man of his stature. Her brain stutters around the implication of the only words she’s heard him say to her since the fateful ravine that gained Mouse her own personal 6’10” shadow. 

She blinks a few times in surprise, genuinely pondering if her long hours hiking through the woods have made her susceptible to hallucination and general hysteria. She is not thinking when she timidly responds-

“Why?” 

“Because they are weapons of maus-destruction.” Konig replies like it’s not the stupidest thing she’s ever heard in her goddamn life. Perhaps it's pity at the memory of his discomfort around his comrades. Of the thought of the way he tries to make his body so small when around others (truly an impossible task he routinely fails.) Maybe it’s irrational fear, twofold and buried in her instinct to shoot despite the clear disadvantage on his behalf and her insistence that she does not do her damn job, or fear of the inhuman man in front of her stalking her through the woods. Or it could be discomfort, no one ever prepared her for dealing with whatever the fuck this is in basic training or field school. In the end, it doesn’t really matter what it is.

In the sparkling, decadent light of a sunrise, her heart hammers in her throat at the first joke he’d told her, in some strange and desperate attempt to fill the meters of silence between them.

She laughs. 

And he hears it.

And with his wide stance, his ghastly executioner’s hood in the place of a crown, and his knife back in its holster- his beautiful eyes seem to smile. Suddenly, his eyes look lived in, like someone has just put up new curtains in an abandoned house. His whole affect changes hinging on what was an irresponsible outburst on her behalf at best.

And for the first time, she does not fear a monster hunting her through the woods, silent and purposeful in his pursuit of prey. Instead, she wants to understand a man, whose eyes have lit up like a princess has just laughed when he kissed her hand.) 

Soap wanders back into her small perch with two cups of coffee and sets one down next to her. She takes a quick glance and hums with appreciation. He takes another sip out of his and she remembers that they’re supposed to share shift for about an hour before his rotation ends.

“You treat all your girls to coffee in the morning?” She quips.

“Only the pretty ones,” he returns with an effortless charisma and her breath catches.

Not because of Soap, but because in that alleyway, where she really shouldn’t be looking, she sees the uneasy rise of two massive shoulders and-

Oh my god, did König just… get jealous? 

The next idea she has is downright evil, really this is not the place or the time or any of that but-

Fuck it. She’s already flirting with the enemy, what more could this do? She’s already told the poor mountain of a man something dangerously adjacent to “God I really missed you when we didn’t talk to each other for three weeks like a horny teenager and by the way I love you desperately and think about you when I’ve got my hands down my pants,” and she probably imagined him tensing up, anyways. No harm, no foul. 

Maybe, it's dangerous, to wave a steak in front of a mountain lion, but what if she wants to get mauled?

“Hey Soap, what page are you on?” She says, putting her terrible plan into action. She sees him look up from his report, or more likely an idle sketch, on her periphery. 

“Ah, only the second chapter, did'ya move my bookmark?”

“Nope, the book’s in the leftmost pocket in my duffle.”

“Thank ya,” He says and moves from his spot to go fetch the book from it. She takes a quick sip of her coffee, delighted to realize he’s made it to her specifications as far as milk and sugar go, as he rummages around in her bag.

The impromptu book club started nearly eight months ago when Nova passed her copy of Emma by Jane Austen off to Gromsko to help him with his English. That turned into Mouse recommending the book Jane Eyre to Nova on the pure suspicion that she would hate it, which she did. Gromsko still needed to practice and enjoyed the spirited discussions so he joined the blossoming group with an English copy of The Doll by Aleksander Głowacki after he finished Jane Eyre. Never one to be left out, and surprisingly well-read when he wanted to be, Soap had pitched the idea of The Lord of the Flies (because to quote “Fucking Brits,” and he wanted to subject others to his high-school reading list.) If she remembered correctly, Farah and Reyes had also started sharing copies of books they enjoyed occasionally.

“Can’t believe it was Gromsko that put it in rotation.” Soap says, pulling out a well-worn copy of The Silence of the Lambs from the bag.

“He said he picked it up years ago in Polish thinking it was a cooking field guide.” She offers, as the man next to her idly thumbs through pages.

“Yer shitting me, yeah?”

She just shakes her head and smiles into her scope. Soap laughs and removes his homemade bookmark, a pencil sketch of a stake-out view somewhere in Mexico scribbled onto scrap paper. He keeps his thumb on the page and flips through to where hers is, much further along.

“Yer a right romantic, ain’cha Bonnie?” Soap laughs somewhere between the pages and somewhere behind her. “Hmm?” 

“This part, that’ya highlighted,” she hears a well-meaning sneer in his words. “The one you put the hearts by and everything…”

Mouse’s mouth tethers itself into a terse line and she attempts her best noncommittal shrug. 

Somewhere in her line of sight, a mountain shrugs himself chuckling lightly. She wonders what it would feel like, to lay on his broad, muscled chest as he laughs, how closely he would hold her, how she could rest entirely on top of his chest and not touch the ground beneath them and-

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” She lies through her teeth. Soap’s laugh behind her is loud and proud. Suddenly, his casual sadism isn’t so amusing when turned around on her. 

“Do you think it's because I like to look at you and think about eating you up—“ he reads from the book, voice dripping in mock chivalry and breathless romanticism. “About how you would taste?"

She feels her cheeks and ears heat up as Soap loudly proclaims her funeral to all those who may care, and she doesn’t miss the way König leans a little too close to his radio as he goes about mocking her. His stance shifts as if he hangs on the very words like he’s found a secret buried deep in her subconscious. Technically, she has no way of knowing, but Mouse knows in her heart that König is smiling. At least someone is having fun. 

Once Soap comes down from his laughing fit he puts her bookmark back to its spot and talks at the back of her head. 

“With your pressed flower bookmark and everything. Oh, it would be sweet if he wasn’t Hannibal the Cannibal.” Soap hisses out. “I always figured you were…” he pauses searching for the right word, “adventurous from how Gromsko talks bout ya, but seriously cannibalism?”

If she’s not mistaken, König’s hand grips ever so slightly tighter on the radio attached to the best. Maybe the battle plan has to change, but she’s still got some ideas. 

Soap is completely oblivious to the electricity licking up the air between her perch and one man on the ground. He looks around frantically, seemingly desperate to find her, and look in her eyes. Mouse is a sniper, she really should hate the attention, but something fatalistic descends into her smile as she lets Soap continue his little outburst. 

“I swear. You and him, yer sure there’s nothing there? He’s even given you special field medicine lessons, no one gets treatment like that from Gromsko.”

“His name is Sobieslaw.” Notably, it is not a denial. Technically, everything that’s just been said is the truth. 

König’s shoulders rise. 

He looks right down her site. 

She smiles. 

Come and get me, kitty-cat. 

“See! That’s what I’m talking about. You’re the only person who calls him by his first name.”

“Because you never put in the effort to learn it.”

“That don’t mean a thing since I don’t have tits.” 

“You do, just not as good as mine.”

“Aye, off it. Gromsko is into you.” She can hear from the way Soap’s voice carries haphazardly around the room that he is pacing and talking with his hands. She doesn’t turn her back, gaze still fixated on the looming shadow in her sights. Soap continues, entirely unaware of the exact type of beast he is tempting. “He swaggers around you, never even bothers to fucking ask to pick up your boxes, he just does it. His voice gets all soft around ya, too, like he’s cooing at a goddamn pet animal or something. He nearly got into an actual pissing contest with Ghost the other day when he bitched about you beating him in poker. Face the facts, Bonnie, he wants you.” 

König’s eyes have focused with the ferocity of an apex predator and his chest labors out concentrated and sharp inhales and exhales. He resembles a recently sharpened knife, desperate for some carnage after a particular kind of attention. His body is crumpled in on itself not unlike a cat getting ready to pounce. His heels dig desperately into the cobblestones beneath his feet. His hand flicks out his beloved Glock field knife with all the reverence of a praying man.

In short, he looks every part like he does in immediate battle. He looks like he did the split second before he started sprinting for her in the snowy woods, the scene that occupies her lonely nights when she tries in complete vanity to recreate the feel of his hands cradling her sides.

Mouse should be scared of König.

Instead, she sees before her a scene of complete and hopeless adoration focused so intently on her alone that she should be afraid of. Realistically, she recognizes the clear and present danger of the moment. Is König upset at her? At Soap? At a potential adversarial suitor by way of Gromsko? She doesn’t quite know, but after a career of intentionally hiding like a coward, she basks infatuated by the calamitous captivation he exhibits.

He looks like he wants to maul something to death.

As keen as she is on getting him close enough to try to get over to her (and ideally, throw her under him,) in her infinite mercy, Mouse decides the teasing has gone on long enough.

“I like Gromsko just fine, but not like that.” Soap audibly scoffs and König’s entire form relaxes. Both men mutter something to themselves before an encore of gunfire breaks out. Mouse’s heart stutters to a stop when her radio comes in.

“Visual on Gaz, he’s hit!” Nova calls out, clearly alarmed. Soap grabs for the radio right next to Mouse and brings it to his face, holding onto a few loose wires as he does to ensure the amalgamation does not fall apart in his fingers.

“Where is he?”

“Two blocks from south from you, Gromsko is a click out.”

Soap looks at Mouse with his heart bobbing in his throat. The pain and worry on his face is palpable.

“Go.” She says. Soap looks around frantically at their supplies, seemingly taking a split second worth of inventory, making as many life-or-death decisions as he can in such little time.

“Soap, listen to me,” Mouse soothes. “I keep overwatch, you take my TAC vest and stabilize him until he can get a medic.”

“Mouse, I can’t just leave you-” “You can, and you will. Go.” She says with all the finality of a door slamming shut. Soap doesn’t look at her again as he gathers her supplies and nearly sprints downstairs. 

Soap leaves. Quickly. Quietly. He never looks back.

Her stomach settles into discomfort and she looks through the door he closed with the same sad nostalgia she looked through falling snow and monumentous trees. She can’t help but think she would not get the same priority in Gaz’s situation. Like some terrible premonition, she imagines bleeding out on the ground as Soap turns away, never once looking back.

Would König come for me? She ponders, before she smothers the paranoia-induced delusion with the memory of his large hands on her sides. She looks down at her shoelace, where she carved a cylindrical hole through his effigy to attach it. The birchwood mouse carving that sleeps at her right toe gives a silent reassurance: he never really left you, did he?

By the time she looks back into her scope, in between the all-too-familiar white noise of war that’s broken out around her, she sees a shadow dart out from the alleyway one down from where König is. The figure is cloaked in the specific type of military fatigue denoting his affiliation, one that is unluckily for him, kill on sight. It ducks behind the building to the right, where König is. It stalks out, lining itself up behind the hooded man, brandishing a drawn pistol.

König doesn’t have the time to react to the blood spray that litters across his back from the other man’s head once Mouse pulls the trigger on her gun, silently thankful (as awful as it is,) that Gaz getting hurt allowed her to take the shot without Soap inquiring into her actions. (But maybe it’s her fault in the first place that König was distracted enough to allow someone to get the drop on him…)

König looks back towards her and his head lulls to the side like a heavy flower bloom weighed down by morning dew. His eyes, somehow the softest she’s ever seen, are also carving a large chunk of her soul like a knife cuts through soft wood. When he lifts his hood to blow a kiss to her, she knows she will never get her traitorous heart back.

“Danke, mein Engel,” the radio on her table whispers in his voice.

“It’s only fair. I did owe you, after all.” She responds, all together unconcerned with whether or not he can hear her. She smiles, thankful she can see those bright eyes another day. 

When he turns away, she feels her entire heart walk away with him. With every step of his fleeting form, she feels less and less herself, as though someone had separated her shadow from where it meets her feet. Something has changed in the air between them, a sad resignation settles into her trigger finger when she releases it.

For the first time, she does not feel as though she wouldn’t run if he took her, but rather that some integral part of her is with him as he leaves. 

All is fair in love and war, but she’s not sure just how much longer she can stand to play cat and mouse.

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She thought back to the assessment they had taken together as apprentices where their mentors sent them to investigate a ‘missing patrol’. She, Russetpaw, and his sister Heatherpaw had discovered his mentor, Darkrush, ‘wounded’ in a set of tunnels. Before they could figure out what had happened, Sunstar (Sunblaze at the time) had descended on them pretending to be a fox. Russetpaw had made the choice to abandon Darkrush in favor of falling back to set a proper ambush for the fox in the next chamber and Goldenpaw had felt terribly about it, even though no one was actually hurt. That had been around the time her crush on him had started to fade, she recalled. 

She twitched her whiskers and forced her vision to refocus on the water. A second too late her paw flashed into the water, just missing the little silver fish she had been aiming for. 

“Mouse-dung!” she hissed under her breath and stood, deciding to move to a different spot on the shore.

“Just because he thought it was necessary doesn’t mean it was right,” Yarrowshade grumbled, kicking a stone. It clattered along the pebbled strand. A few tail lengths away, Scorchplume’s face parted the grass as she poked her head out to scowl at them. 

“Do you think you could gripe louder?” she huffed, “maybe then you can scare off the deaf mice too.” 

“Sorry, Scorch,” Yarrowshade’s ears wilted. 

Scorch shook her head and slunk out of the grass to come stand within a more conversational distance. “Look, I can settle this once and for all. Did you see the trap this Toadpaw got stuck in?”

“No,” Yarrowshade shook his head, “but Russetfrond said it was made of cold silver lines that were as thick as a mouse’s tail and stronger than stone.” Goldenstar shuddered again at the thought. What a strange and frightening thing. Once again, she found it hard to focus on the river over the conversation behind her. 

“Then your Russetfrond was right,” Scorchplume said matter of factly, causing Yarrowshade’s brow to furrow deeply. “Those traps are specifically made to catch cats. Once you’ve triggered them there’s no way out. Sometimes if you’re fast you can get caught under the door and wiggle your way out but you’re more likely to lose the fur on your tail.” She shrugged as if that was that. Yarrowshade definitely wasn’t satisfied. 

“But there must have been something we could have done!” he protested. “The twolegs can open them easy enough, there has to be a way.” 

“Sure,” Scorch laughed, sitting down with a swish of her ginger tail. “Once you grow those long twoleg toes let me know and I’ll show you how to get the traps open. I’m telling you, beebrain, unless you have a couple hours to try and flip it over, you don’t have a chance.” 

“Have you seen many of them?” Goldenstar asked curiously, looking over her shoulder, all pretense of fishing abandoned. 

“A good amount,” she nodded, casting her cool gaze in Goldenstar’s direction. “There are plenty of them in the city. You have to get good at spotting them if you don’t want to get caught and altered.” 

“Altered?” Yarrowshade asked, still frowning.

“Yeah,” Scorch shrugged. “You know, notched? Fixed? Emptied?” Both Yarrowshade and Goldenstar stared without recognition for a moment. Scorchplume sighed. “They make you sleep and when you wake up your bits are gone and your ear is notched. After that you can’t have kits. Do you guys really not know about that?” 

“Oh,” Goldenstar said, “We call it going to the cutter. I’d never heard of them notching your ear though. Why would they do that?” 

“Apparently it’s a mark of shame,” Scorchplume rolled her eyes, seemingly not convinced of her own explanation. “To show the world you’re unworthy of their love. House cats that get altered don’t have their ears notched.” 

“Weird,” Yarrowshade screwed his mouth to the side, eyes drifting to the ground in thought. Goldenstar had to agree with him. Seemed to her that a twoleg deciding they didn’t want to keep you was a blessing, not a curse. 

“The point is,” Scorchplume said haughtily, “Your Russetfrond was right. There was nothing they could have done for the kid. Better him than the rest of them.” 

“But that’s so cold hearted!” Yarrowshade protested again. 

“Maybe,” Scorch shrugged, “but that’s life. You either look out for yourself or you get killed.” 

“Not here,” Yarrowshade glared, not necessarily at her but at her words. “Here we look out for each other. I would gladly die for my Clan.”

“Alright, you have fun with that,” Scorchplume scoffed and Goldenstar noticed her squirming slightly. She frowned. 

“I’m glad you feel that way,” Goldenstar said, crossing to brush her tail against his leg. “But sometimes getting killed only means one more grave to dig. I think we could stand to remember that.” 

Scorch smiled slightly and blinked slowly in her direction. “Well said, your excellence.” 

“I guess,” sighed Yarrowshade. “I’m just tired of losing cats and being powerless to stop it.” Sullenly, he nudged another stone with his toe. Goldenstar leaned her head against his shoulder and purred sympathetically. 

“I know,” she sighed. “Me too.” 

Scorchplume watched them for a beat and Goldenstar caught a small glimpse of a twinge in her throat and something distant and choked and forlorn inside her gaze. It made her want to reach out but knew the other she-cat would probably be uncomfortable with sudden physical contact.

“Well, I’m probably going to head back to camp,” Scorchplume said eventually. “All the prey around here has probably gone to ground for a good while.” 

“I think I’ll join you,” winced Goldenstar. “I can’t seem to focus on anything. What do you think, Yarrowshade? I’d say a nap is in order.” 

“Yeah, alright,” he shrugged. “I’ll see if I can go out with Pantherhaze after sundown and recoup our losses.” 

“Sounds like a plan,” Goldenstar said. Flicking her tail in Scorchplume’s direction, she started the trip back to camp. 

~~~

As they neared the ridge, Russetfrond and Branchbark passed by them, likely getting an early start on the dusk patrol. Goldenstar faltered in her step at the sight of him.

“Everything alright?” Scorchplume asked softly, eyes flickering from her to Russetfrond.

“Yeah,” Goldenstar nodded. “I’ll catch up with you.” Scorch dipped her head graciously and slid up beside Yarrowshade, almost hiding from Russetfrond’s subtle glare in his shadow. 

“Ignore him,” Yarrowshade said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “He’s just jealous.” 

Russetfrond scoffed but the ginger cats were already too far gone for him to give a proper retort. His eyes caught on Goldenstar as he focused on the path ahead and he frowned. 

“Hey,” she said, throat suddenly tight. “Have a moment?” 

“I suppose I could spare one,” he said, sounding artificially cold. When did he start hating me? Goldenstar wondered. Branchbark shuffled awkwardly, glancing quickly between the two of them. 

“Should I…” he trailed off, tail tip starting to twitch.

“No, you’re alright,” Goldenstar smiled, then said to Russetfrond, “I just wanted to say I think you did the right thing yesterday.”

“Oh?” he asked, one brow lifting. 

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Thank you for making the tough call. I know that must not have been easy.” 

Russetfrond nodded. “I’m glad you understand.” 

Goldenstar’s stomach fluttered hopefully. “That’s all. Good luck on patrol.” 

When Paris got home after the flight she calls her friend Madison and make plans to go out that night. They drink and dance at the Polychrome Nightclub (by @cubzikbuilds) until late. On the dance floor Paris turns to Madison and shouts.

Paris: I’m gonna go outside and get some air

Madison nods and follows her to the door. Paris stumbles outside, starting to feel the 6 Juice on the Rocks she’d consumed.

Paris: What time is it?

Madison: Not late enough. Wanna find another bar?

Paris: I have a better idea. How about we call my hot coworker?

Madison: Had that one loaded up did we? The one you went on the trip with? I thought you said he was a jerk?

Paris: And?

Madison: Hmm. Sure, whatever. You’ve been talking about him all night I’m surprised you didn’t call earlier.

2am

Meanwhile Kason and Mercury are asleep at home.

Paris hits Kason’s name in her contact list and waits as the phone rings. Madison stands close by, hand on hip waiting impatiently.

Madison: Well?

Paris: Hello? Kay?

M: Hello?

Mercury answers, her voice groggy from sleep.

Paris: Mars! Hi, I was calling for Kay. This is his phone right?

M Paris?

She gets out of bed and checks the time and the name on the phone.

M: It’s 2am Paris why are you calling?

Paris: Like I said I called for Kay. Why are you answering his phone? A little insecure are we.

Mercury shakes Kason gently to wake him, then gestures at the phone showing him the screen. He sits up on his elbow and raises his brows. She says nothing but smiles back knowingly.

M: First, His name is Kason. Not Kay as he has told you numerous times. Second, I answered his phone because I’m his wife and it’s 2am. Last, you have insecure written all over you. He’s already said he’s not interested. You should stop, Its pathetic.

Paris, surprised by Mercury's response stumbles to reply

Paris: I..I was…just um..uh

Paris turns around quickly looking to Madison for help but she’s not there. Paris loses her footing and trips.

Paris: Aahh! Damnit!

M: Goodnight Paris.

The line goes dead and Madison walks over to Paris.

Madison: What happened?

Paris flops back and groans

Paris: UGH! Can you believe her!

Madison: Her? I thought you were calling your coworker?

She looks down at Paris still splayed out in the walk way.

Paris: His wife answered.

Madison: His wife Paris! Would you get up already!

She folds her arms annoyed.

Madison: You never mentioned he was married. Why even go to all the trouble?

Paris: I didn't think his wife would be an issue...is all.

Madison: I’ve heard that before.

Madison rolled her eyes. Her and Paris had been friends for years and this game of cat and mouse with Kason wasn't Paris's first rodeo. She's pursued lots of men but only once before had she attempted to get involved with a married man and it hadn't ended well for her. Madison had been there to help her through the traumatic situation, but she would avoid going through a similar ordeal again.

Paris climbs to her feet.

Madison: I think you should just let it go... come on I'll grab our jackets. We can pickup something to eat and go to my house.

Paris nods wordlessly, picking up her phone to call a cab. She waits for Madison to return with her coat while playing over the conversation.

Paris:...me desperate.. yeah...right

But even she didn't seem to believe her own words.

After she'd hung up on Paris, M sighed heavily. Kason climbs off the bed and goes to her.

Kason: I’m sorry M…I’m going to deal with this tomorrow. This isn’t okay.

M: Don’t apologize. This wasn’t your fault. Besides, I let her have her fun in the airport, a second time was pushing it. Enough is enough.

Kason: That’s my girl.

He backs her into the door.

Kason: Mmm, I like this feisty side of you.

Her only response is the moan that whispers past her slightly parted lips.

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