Chapter Text
Ink and navy are two different colors, if you even care.
Bruise is another color, a bit in between the previous two, and that's the color the sky was on the day I realized I didn't want to die.
Don't misunderstand. I had never wanted to die. I had simply never thought about it one way or the other. That ambivalence changed rapidly for me, and I quickly realized how much I wanted to not die. (Forgive the split infinitive, will you? I know no one's out there editing this, but if it's being read, I need you to know that I, Christine Koslov, do know how grammar works.)
But the sky was bruise-colored, and by the point that I snapped out of the haze of post-work dissociation, the majority of my body was changing shades to match it. The real kicker--and by that I mean what really snapped me out of my funk--was when I was slammed into the roof of a taxi, and that stupid lighted sign jammed into my lower back, right where the metal rods holding my vertebrae where they needed to be were, and I accepted that this was not my average Thursday walk home.
The newbie lay sprawled on the ground, blood pooling on the ground beneath her face from what appeared to be the brokenest of noses. Ragatha was the one who finally moved, skirting her way around Kaufmo's still-warm corpse, to kneel beside the newcomer and help her sit up. She tore a patch of cloth from her sleeve, using it to dab gently at the girl's face. Once the stillness had been broken, Jax supposed there wasn't any point in leaning up against the wall surveying the scene like a civvie rubbernecking the latest freeway pileup. He pushed himself away, making his way across the dim room to where Kaufmo was...deposited...and nudged the body with his toe. The man didn't move.
"Blast," Jax said. "Crying shame about that."
"Jax," Ragatha hissed. "That's a human being!"
"Eh, not anymore."
Gangle approached cautiously, her thin, gloved hands balanced delicately over her mouth. "Not again... so soon? But what will Caine tell his family?"
Jax scoffed. "The same thing he always tells them. The same thing he'll tell your parents when you kick it, Crybaby: here's five-hundred grand, shut your mouth and buy a pretty casket."
Gangle's only response was a whimper.
I invited Felix over again.
Why does that feel like such a heavy confession?
Maybe it's just the state of the world right now. Everything in the city seems so much worse, now that I know the truth. There was so much I could ignore before, so much I could walk by. Is this how all those famous vigilante superheroes felt, looking around the places they had grown up in and loved, and knowing they had the power to change things? Well, the difference between them and me is that I don't love this place. I want to leave. I want to go somewhere else. I don't want to be Christine the Grocery Chain Accountant forever. I want my stupid book published. I want my friends back. I want to talk to my parents again. I want to know how to apologize to them.
And for those many reasons, and perhaps some other ones as well, I invited Felix over again.
And I'm not an idiot. I'm not easy, and I'm not the sort of person who just falls for someone, but... I might love him. He's, like, this ray of sunlight in my life. If, of course, sunlight shows up in thrifted jeans and an old leather jacket. I'm not saying that's not hot, but--UGH, look at me! He's thrown my writing style into complete disarray.
I want to kiss him.
"Hey, short stuff, show us a trick!"
Pomni threw her middle finger up in the general direction of the resident Worst Person She'd Ever Met.
Laughing quietly, entirely unintimidated, he stalked closer. "Come on, Poms! Show us what you've got. You can't keep it hidden forever."
"Actually," Pomni muttered. "The track record is really making it look like I can."
He leaned down, far--too far--into her space, grinning right in front of her eyes. "Caine wouldn't have kept you if there wasn't something special about you, sweet cheeks. Come on, give us a tease."
Pomni reached out, setting her hand softly on his shoulder, and tossing him a little smile in return. A brief look of confusion crossed his features, but it was just as soon washed away by the sheer pain that contorted his face as Pomni drove her knee directly into his crotch.
"Don't talk to me like I'm some kind of hooker, sweet cheeks."
It was Zooble who spoke first, their voice tight enough to hold water. "That's the line you're going to go with? 'It was for the best?' Do you know how overused that is? Do you have any idea how much I hate you?"
Gangle, to no one's surprise and, oddly enough, everyone's agreement, nodded along. "It was our lives that were on the line this whole time, and now you're telling us... it was a lie?"
Kinger blinked out toward the unknown, seemingly unaffected by any of the goings on that were completely upturning the lives of every coherent member of the team.
"Oh, that's not even the worst of it," Jax called out. "Just wait until you hear what comes next. Oh, you think this is bad? Oh, man." He burst into hysterical laughter. "Hey, shorty, this is irony, right? This is real, actual, proper irony, isn't it?"
"No," Pomni said quietly. "It isn't. The irony comes later."
It was Ragatha who suggested they kill him.
It was Kinger who actually tried.