outplayed

𝗝𝗢𝗥𝗗𝗜 𝗞𝗡𝗢𝗪𝗦 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗛𝗘'𝗦 𝗗𝗢𝗜𝗡𝗚. he's a bastard. a smug, sadistic bastard that knows aiden too well for his ( aiden's ) own good. jordi knows what he's doing, and it's why he's still got a firm press on his pulse point, monitoring the one reaction he can't hide from him, the one giveaway he can't mask with a poker face and misdirected conversation or distracting touches.

「 not that those would work either; jordi knows me better than anyone, alive or dead. better than nicky, by now, probably even better myself. it's a dangerous power he's got in his lethal hands, but he won't abuse it ⸺ or at least i choose to believe he won't; we're in this shit way too deep now, to withdraw the kind of trust i have in him, and if he fucks me over ... well, i was fucked either way. 」

and aiden knows now, with his hands now pressed to jordi's skin and jordi watching him with those dark, sharp eyes that know too much, see too much, that pierce right through every mask he puts up, that he's already underwater and drowning.  “   aiden pearce is ready to pay whatever price he needs to. when have i ever half-assed anything, huh ?    ”

Probably says something about the fixer's state of mind, how he lets Aiden hover and touch, and blinks slowly up at him in response. Mouth curved just enough to provide an a warning of how good his mood was, and how annoyed Aiden was probably going to be once his lips parted.

⬡▸ [ ... ] 𝗡𝗢𝗪 𝗜𝗦𝗡'𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗧𝗜𝗠𝗘 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗧. it isn't, and he tells himself so, in that gruff and stern ( internal ) voice that he usually saves for intimidating criminals. or telling jordi he doesn't want to eat whatever he just put in front of him. now isn't the time, but his subconscious reacts to it anyway; there's the tiniest little blip in his concentration, the briefest pause in diligently working fingers ⸺ a split second lapse, but he's not naive enough to think jordi, with all of his sharp reflexes and keen predatory senses, won't notice it.

he'll be annoyed about that later, though.

right now, his mind is taking a swift detour, shifting from simply patching jordi up as quickly as he can to ... making it tidy as was requested with a threat barely coated by the thinnest layer of honey.

「 it shouldn't matter. it usually doesn't matter. disappointing jordi isn't something new or scary or exciting; sometimes i upset jordi by simply going about my business ⸺ i look up and he's giving me that look. that look that means he's about to complain about something i never knew even could be an issue. i should be used to it. i am used to it. but right now, disappointing him feels like some kind of impossibility, unacceptable, despite the fact that i know i don't really have anything to fear from doing it, other than another verse of his bitching and ranting. i'm not sure how i feel about that. what the hell is going on with me ? 」

aiden doesn't spare the ruined pants a single glance, eyes focused on his own diligently working fingers, threading and stitching split and bloodied skin with the kind of care and precision he'd never bothered to give himself.  “   you're gonna ignore this, but wearing new, expensive clothes to go on murder sprees seem to be asking for trouble, jordi ⸺ especially on jobs you can't do alone.    ”

Not that it mattered - Aiden took whatever quick jobs he got if and when he needed them, and it was rare for him not to need them at this point. Just as rare as it was for him to find a job that Jordi hadn't already inserted his greedy fingers into, although that was just because Jordi found it fun at this point.

It wasn't at all because he was obsessive when it came to a certain fox, that would be fucking ridiculous...

“Jordi Chin is a regular now?” he asks, incredulity barely contained by the bribery of freshly-baked melonpan. He tears a single limb off the green-shelled turtle and chews on it and this new information in turn.

True to form, James Park doesn't disappoint.

They feel Wrench’s eyes on QUIXOTIC like eyes on their own skin.

The last time they sortied out, they’d noticed a thirty-millisecond delay in their FCS that hadn’t been there a week ago. When system diagnostics hadn’t shown anything unusual, they figured it had to be an issue with the hardware itself, and so hauled the whole surfboard-sized component out into the hangar, cracking it open to expose the delicate printed circuits to the world.

Capacitors the size of soda cans. Chipsets the size of 621’s hand, each one a highly complex computer in their own right. They're not sure exactly which part Wrench is interested in, just that he certainly is, in that way their half-mechanical brain makes them decently sure about most things happening in their peripheral. The Coral grafted to their neurons reasons a hundred times faster than their human brain can. They trust the inherited intuition.

You've got a weird relationship with technology, you know that? Yeah, no shit, Marcus, that's why he was thinking about getting a real grown-up job as a robotics guy -

No, bad. Where was he?

Oh, right, the tech. Enough of it to make a past Wrench drool, and a current Wrench squirm. Palms rubbing excited sweat off on his jeans as he just barely avoids bouncing from foot to foot, and manages instead to coil all that energy into something more mature, something hopefully more responsible looking. The very fucking adult movements of gentle swaying, weight pitching from left to right and back again in a constant, soothing motion.

He absolutely needed to see someone about replacing Josh's prescriptions in his system. Not legally, of course, but that was no one's business but his own.

"Please," One hand finds its way to the center of his chest, pressing fingertips light to a shirt so worn it was soft. "I would never go anywhere without your baby's consent. And yours, I mean, obviously." Voice distorted, but still friendly. The lights of his mask lighting up blue, the design of x's briefly replaced with cheerful ^'s. "I'm not some thieving rat, just a little guy with a lot of curiosity." He holds up his hand, pinching his fingers as if to mime how little he is, then laughs bright and cheerful. Steps confident as he ventures closer to the other, and the giant ass badass mech behind them.

God, what he wouldn't fucking give -

perched, legs spread, upon his fellow fixer's work bench like he belonged there. ghoulish mask set to the wayside. exposing the crooked smile Danny aimed dead at the Wrench as a finger coyly gestured south. ❝ what's the story on those, anyways? ❞

⬡▸ [ ... ] 𝗛𝗘'𝗦 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗚𝗢𝗢𝗗 𝗔𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦. does this mean being a caretaker ? a nurse ? or is the this in question just jordi chin himself ? he doesn't fucking know, and he's not really too keen on figuring it out, not when he's got the man's blood smeared across his face and palm, while it's soaking into the fabric of his sweater and staining it maroon, rather than cream, while the bullet wound is still freely oozing more of it. he doesn't have the space in his brain to care about that right now.

「 and i really, really, don't have the patience for the grown man claiming to not be a child practically stomping his foot about getting patched up. don't get me wrong, i get it. jordi's an independent guy and prefers to take care of himself, but i don't give a shit about that. i give a shit about doing at least something for the guy that's making sure i don't keel over in this musty ass motel room. it's not much repayment, but i think it's a start. 」

things had gone ... not wrong, necessarily, but definitely not with their typical smooth efficiency. aiden isn't sure which of them mis-stepped, which of them had their eyes in the wrong place at the wrong time, but somewhere, somehow, there had been a crack in their usually titanium-strength defenses, a crack big enough to have injured jordi ⸻ jordi, the one who rarely, if ever, gets injured on their jobs, usually running support while aiden does the legwork. somewhere, they'd fucked up. somewhere, aiden had fucked up. jordi's rightfully pissed about it.

 “   i'm sure you can,    ” his voice is, thankfully, just close enough to his usual gruff grumble, his irritation buried deep enough to not bleed through.  “   but you don't have to, and ...    ” a short pause as he finally drags everything he needs from the first aid kit and sets about cleaning and disinfecting the wound.  “   i'm already doing it.    ” a triumphant little smirk, then, when he briefly raises his eyes to touch jordi's. they don't linger, but the silent message is clear enough: no amount of bitching is gonna stop me so save it.

Aiden Pearce is a lucky man, in all the same ways he's an unlucky one. He's caught Jordi's attention in a very particular, specific way that no one else before him has done before... And because of that, he was offered a very little amount of leniency. A little earned privilege of seeing Jordi at arguably not his best. A treat for being the rare kind of man that could handle everything he gave to him, and eagerly came back looking for more every time after.

"Right," The flat tone he uses matches the look in his eyes well, and it's almost a good disguise of indifference. Almost because he can't help but touch, bloodied fingers rubbing more incriminating evidence on his cheek. Callouses catching on stubble and dried blood. "Make it tidy, I've seen how you clean yourself up. Don't make me have to grade you on your performance, Pearce. Don't disappoint me."

The threat is hardly hidden, nor does it promise violence, but that was Jordi Chin. Always swinging from one dramatic mood to another, explosive in all things while wrapped up in a tidy, expensive suit. Speaking of -