#rook.ini

Fuck. L.t.’s gonna skin him alive for this one. Rook fucked up.

The mission went… fine. Fine enough. As good as it can with Rook in tow, anyways. He and the lieutenant make a decent team, after all—Rook’s good close quarters, Crow’s good long range. Rook’s a bad omen, Crow’s good at making sure bad omens don’t completely screw them.

He’d even stopped Crow from getting a bullet through his pretty skull. That’s gotta count for something, right? Even if that bullet had ripped through Rook’s abdomen in the process, it’s worth it. Probably. Hurts like a fuckin’ bitch. He’d just shrugged when Crow asked if he was all right; the man looked guilty enough. Shouldn’t pile more on, not right now. Probably.

Crow’s gonna be pissed at him for not stopping at the armourer. For makin’ him do paperwork for live ordnance and guns around base again. In the barracks. But Rook can’t be fucked to care right now.

[ Rook learned quick that, cursed though he may be, he’s a gambler at heart. See, his curse just gets people he loves hurt—other than that, the river flows his way more often than not. And it’s real, real easy to make sure it flows his way. A card up the sleeve here, a disarming smile there, and Rook’s rolling in chips.

And he may be better at blackjack—or, rather, better at cheating in blackjack—Texas Hold ‘Em just… itches him just right. It gives him a euphoria he’s only known holding a life in his hand. Burn, turn, and win.

He’d started when he was still bouncing from foster home to foster home, before he’d given up on the whole thing. One of his foster siblings taught him, gave him a few cigarettes to bet with, then promptly won them all back. And Rook, his shit cards in hand, demanded they play again.

It’s a skill he’s brought with him ever since; betting with scraps of food with the other folks living wherever they could find shelter. Betting with cigarettes at school when he bothered to go. Betting with chips when he scraped some cash together to get into the casino, fake ID in tow.

Risk and Rook are synonymous, which is why it’s no surprise he garners some notoriety. Gets invited to private tables, ones where secrets are the chips on offer. And Rook is no snitch—so he makes sure to clean house to keep his fuckin’ mouth shut.

Gets him in some trouble, that. Rook becomes a bit of a keeper of secrets, knowin’ far, far too much to be left alone. Makes some people antsy. Makes some people violent.

He’s seventeen when he gets more blood on his hands. Some of it his own. Most of it not. And the jobby who’d had the fuckin’ nerve to pull a knife on him got to see his guts on the ground.

He’s seventeen when he meets him.

[ cw: abuse, death ]

[ It shouldn’t be, obviously. Having a space to call his own, to unwind and relax and just exist, should be great. It should make him feel wanted, safe, maybe even like a person.

It doesn’t. All it does is itch under his skin. Coming back to the same place, knowing he can be found at the same place, being a permanent fixture somewhere—it goes against all his rules.

Be a ghost. Be memorable, but forgettable. Do just enough to get the job done, but get out.

When Lieutenant Vale said he’d look into getting Rook a permanent room again—Rook almost lashed out. Swore at him and told him no, after everything he’s done. He’s just trying to be nice, to be a good CO, but he doesn’t know Rook.

It’s much easier, scurrying around the base like a rat. Sleeping wherever there’s space—the garage, on top of the hangar if it’s not raining, occasionally in the rec room if he knows it’ll be empty. Wherever there’s no people, wherever it’s easily defensible, and especially never the same place twice in a row.

And there’s perks to it: Rook knows all the gossip. Who’s shagging who. Who’s done what. Who’s gonna do something. Who isn’t doing something.

Rook’s no snitch. He’s not gonna go rat out any of the cheating bastards or the slack-offs. All he wants is a library of weak spots to target if needed. Tearing someone apart is a lot easier if he knows where the gaps in the armour are beforehand.

Half of what he’s good with is knives. The other half is words. Rook knows just where to twist those to get a rise. To get blood flowing, to get anger roaring, and make his opponents clumsy. Stupid. It’s just too easy.

If he runs his mouth and gets a fist to his face for the trouble outside of combat, that’s just proof he’s good at what he does. That he deserves to be here just as much as any of these silver-spoon fucks who had everything handed to them. They don’t know what it means to fight, not really. To be born, bred, and built for life-and-death situations. To know nothing else.

Most of these men never felt the life leave a body before they joined. Rook has. He’s known since he was young how warm blood is on his hands. He’s known the stench of death for longer than he can remember. Foul and acrid and sticking to his lungs.

It’s all he’s known. It’s all he’s good for. It’s all he has. It’s all he needs.

[ Rook doesn’t really take offence to it; he’s abrasive and rude and he knows it. On top of being the unluckiest bastard alive, it just comes with the territory. People don’t like being around him. Don’t like working with him. And he doesn’t really mind that.

Yet, the man beside him doesn’t seem to care about being saddled with the team curse. They’re on infiltration, slipping through darkened halls quiet as a whisper. Taller than Rook, but that’s not hard to do. A bit lanky, nothing like the meathead brutes on the assault team. Covered head to toe, except for focused grey eyes that scan their surroundings.

Completely fuckin’ silent, too. It’s a bit off-putting, actually—Rook would rather be called every foul name under the sun than sit in silence for too long.

They turn a corner, the man pulls out his phone for a second, then pockets it.

“Infiltration team will need a detour, spotted patrols in the area,” comes a text-to-speech voice over the radio. The ever-elusive and mysterious Crow, from overwatch on high. No one's ever met the man—and some people swear he doesn't even exist. Always on overwatch. Always one step ahead. Always gone as soon as the mission's done.

Rook peers around the corner to see he’d been right. Patrols lazily wander through their planned course.

“Take the access hallway to your left.”

“Damn,” he hums. If it had been any other mission, Rook would have plowed right into them and gotten his partner killed. Happened before. Probably will happen again. Probably will happen tonight. “Good thing we’ve got Crow, huh?”

The man just shrugs, nodding towards an access hall to their side. Rook remembers seeing it on the floor plan—it’ll take them a bit out of the way, a bit further into the belly of the compound than originally planned. It’s still silent, the man following behind Rook with no complaints.

Rook isn’t even sure who's the higher rank between them. He’d never introduced himself.

They emerge into the maintenance area, an uncanny forest of pipes and valves. Their footsteps echo strangely amongst the rusted metal. Something’s off. Rook can’t quite place it, but he’s got that feeling. The same one he gets right before shit goes tits up and people around him die.

And then his partner tugs his vest, sharp—dragging him into a thicket of pipes. Rook’s about to open his mouth, to say something stupid, when a hand covers it.

Footsteps pass by, along with the jangle of heavy tac.

They pass and Rook raises a brow. “Good catch," he murmurs, quiet.

And the man shrugs again, stepping out of the alcove. They make it to electrical with entirely too few incidents; it's setting Rook on edge. That can only mean one thing: a storm's brewing.

The storm, as it would turn out, is the men they passed doubling back the second Rook kills the power. Bullets ping near his head, yelling echoes from the doorway, and he ducks on instinct. His partner supplies cover fire, just enough to get Rook behind a decommissioned generator, and just enough that a bullet slams straight into his shoulder.

Of course it's saving Rook's ass that gets him hurt—that's just what being partnered with Rook means.

“Could really use Crow's fuckin’ genius right about now,” Rook complains, popping out of cover long enough to fire a couple rounds. He hears the bullets slam into plate, shattering the ceramic. Before he can celebrate the small victory, he hears ripping of velcro and the swish of a new plate sliding home. “The fuck are guys this well armed doin’ down here, anyways?”

Keeping his curse going, apparently.

His partner shoves gauze into his shoulder with brutal, almost robotic efficiency. He doesn't even flinch, just tapes off the wound and stands again.

Normally whoever had the misfortune of partnering with him would be swearing up a storm. Cursing him out. Bemoaning their rotten luck getting stuck with him. This guy just returns fire as if this is normal. As if Rook isn't some double-edged sword.

With the press of the release, the man drops an empty magazine from his rifle. Reloads. Fires more. Fires until his rifle clicks uselessly in his hands.

And Rook sees it, sees the moment something flickers in those grey eyes: an idea.

For a second, the man hesitates. His eyes flick to Rook, uncertain, before he gestures to a set of pipes near the door.

Rook gets it. He gets it. He pops out, he fires a few rounds that pierce the metal, and steam screams out. The air becomes heavy and humid quickly, but shrieks of pain and furious yelling prove it's worth it.

When they're out, Rook hums.

“Thanks, Crow.”

The man looks at him for a moment, and for a moment Rook thinks he might be wrong.

But the man sighs. He nods, pulling out his phone.

The op went tits up. Usually does with Rook around. He's always been a bit of an unlucky bastard. A bad omen, some say. A curse, others argue. Good at what he does, his superiors remind.

Didn't matter how good he was. His team got ambushed. They'd been taken captive. And the whole time, the whole fucking time, they'd blamed him for it. They blamed him every day. In their cells. In interrogations. In his dreams. All his fucking fault.

He was the last one now. Last bastard alive. Head tipped back, held in place while they marked him, permanently branding him as the fucking curse he is. He laughed, he thinks, as tears and blood streamed from his eye.

He laughed when the door burst open. He laughed when his captors had been gunned down. He laughed in the face of the man that untied him.

"Easy, lad," the man had said as he undid the bindings.

And the moment he's freed, Rook launches at him. Tackles him to the ground. Puts his hands on his throat and squeezes. Even when he hears guns raise behind him, he doesn't let up. Not until a hand finds his hair, greasy and streaked with blood. Not until it gently cards through strands.