I wrote something!
Title: An ill-fitted glove (Preview - 1/?)
Fandom: Havemercy
Pairing: Rook/Balfour
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don’t pretend to be nearly as talented as Jaida and Danielle. It’s incredibly intimidating to even play in their world, really.
A/N: To the wonderful, talented
molly_commas, who is such an inspiration to me. I'm only sorry I'm so rusty after my huge writing hiatus, but I wanted to have at least a little something done for your birthday, even if it is just a preview. Hope you have a great one!!!
Summary: When a new Airman joins the Dragon Corps, Rook finds himself faced with long-buried secrets that threaten to jeopardize the only life he knows. omgplotwhatthehell
ROOK
It took me all of two seconds to realize he’d never be one of us. He was standing all proper-like for starters, reflection stiff and straight-backed in the glass of the atrium walls, looking as though he’d never gotten his hands dirty his whole life. A proper fucking aristocrat, who looked as though he’d sooner be bending over for th’Esar than set foot anywhere near the Airman. I wouldn’t have been able to find a worse replacement if I had scouted the slums of the Pantheon.
“Boys,” barked Adamo, as if we were naughty 'Versity boys caught nodding off to some real important speech. “This is Balfour. He’ll be Anastasia’s new rider.”
“Real fucking funny,” I smirked, flashing my teeth. “Didn’t know you had a sense of humour, Chief.”
Compagnon giggled from somewhere to my right, and the some of the others grunted in agreement. The Replacement just lowered his dark eyes to the floor, scuffing his boots against the spit-shine polish of the checkerboard tiles.
“Enough,” said Adamo, voice cutting through the noise like a whip. “He’s part of the Corps now, and if any of you horseshits have the indecency to complain about it, don’t think I won’t start looking for more replacements.”
As if anyone really believed that. Still, I flipped him the finger just for good measure.
Ghislain caught my eye and cleared his throat, face screwed up in concentration, thick eyebrows furrowed. “But it’s Anastasia, Chief. Ain’t just anybody that can fly her, and we can’t afford any more losses.”
“’Specially with the Ke-Han army breathing down our necks at every turn,” I added, helpful as you please. “I bet he shits himself his first raid, that is if the old girl doesn’t throw him off first.” I made a rude Molly gesture between my legs, ugly and unmistakable, to emphasize my point. It earned me a few reluctant chuckles, which at least was something.
“Hiring a right civ if I’ve ever seen one,” I continued on. “Just look at him, boys. He’s no Robbie, that’s for sure.”
“No,” said The Replacement, raising his head and speaking up at last. “I’m his brother.”
There were a few raised eyebrows over that little gem, let me tell you. He - Balfour; never really had a mind for rememberin’ names - didn’t even look a thing like him. Robbie, with his broad shoulders and rasping sandpaper laugh. Robbie, who could weave through the Ke-Han fires like a knife through butter, enough precision in each iron wing-stroke to be a match even for Have and I. Robbie, who had fallen to the mercy of the Cobalts when we were ambushed us at the border, screaming curses the whole fucking way down.
“Bastion,” swore Raphael.
“Shit,” Magoughin muttered, cracking his knuckles as though spoiling for a fight.
“Doesn’t change anything,” I said, glaring around at the rest of them, daring anyone stupid enough to contradict me.
I didn’t know what they were expectin’, really. This was the Dragon Corps, not some cindy therapy class where we all sat around and talked about our feelings and shit. We were in the middle of a fucking war, for bastion’s sake, and I’d be damned if I was going to let things like pity drag us down. When you’re diving through the smoke, metal hot and hard beneath your fingers, there’s no time for any of that. Acting soft is exactly the sort of thing that gets a man killed in battle, and the rest of the boys knew it as sure as I did.
Adamo cleared his throat, looking as though he was holding back a smirk, ‘cause of course the bastard knew it all along. Balfour was back to staring at his boots, clearly an Airman through and through.
“Rook, you’ll be showing Balfour to his quarters,” said that whoreson Adamo, just because he knew it’d piss me off the most. I swear by Have that if it weren’t the bleeding chief, my boot would’ve already been halfway up his ass. I was still working out the best way of choking him in his sleep when I realized he had pushed the poor bastard towards me.
The rest of the boys scrambled awkwardly off their chairs, no different than a group of blushing virgins staring all wide and nervous like, not knowing what they was supposed to do next.
“Put your eyes back in,” I grumbled to no one in particular, my hands curling into fists at my sides, as if the Replacement didn’t look intimidated enough already.
I bared my teeth as I passed Adamo on the way out, drawing myself up to my full height and getting right in his face, glaring daggers into his stupid pointed skull. He might’ve won that round, but I’d make sure he got what was coming to him sooner rather than later.
“Hurry the fuck up,” I said to Balfour, who had been keeping his careful distance a few paces behind me. “Don’t tell me you’re lame as well as mute.”
He hadn’t said a word since we had left the atrium, and he didn’t look like he was about to any time soon. He just played with his hands, bending his long fingers back and forth and doing fuck knows what, and every so often he’d look up at me with his big brown eyes, as if expectin’ a basket full of sympathy cookies for his loss.
“Command’s over there. And that’s the common room,” I told him curtly, waving my hand in the general direction. “For all-purpose fucking around. Now that one there,” I breathed in the heady smell of spices and musty floral crap, “is for fucking women. Not that you’ll be wanting to do much of that, by the looks of you.”
He raised his head at that, all hurt and anger and defiance, with something strange sparking beneath the surface like the scrape of metal on metal. “I know who you are,” he said plain as day, as if all of Thremedon didn’t know the same.
I rolled my eyes. “Fan-fucking-tastic. We need more brains like yours in the Corps.”
“Showers. Bunkers,” I continued the tour. “Right above the dragons, mind, so watch you don’t piss them off, or they’ll set your sheets on fire.”
Balfour made a noise at this, soft and pathetic from the back of his throat. “I’m not an idiot, you know. I’ve been here before.”
“Good. Great. So no more tour then.”
“I’ll manage, thank you.” I didn’t know if he was trying to sound rude or clever or whatever, but it came out soundin’ more genuinely polite than anything else, and it made me want to be sick.
I looked him over, taking in his pale skin and rumpled brown hair. He looked for all the world like a Versity student just rolled out of bed, knowing nothing of war and rage and burning Ke-Han villages to the ground. That’s when I noticed his hands starting up their fidgeting again, twisting a familiar ring around one of his knuckles, the metal disappearing and reappearing under the rotation of his thumb. With its silver polish and Volstovic knot, it was unmistakable.
He must’ve caught me staring at his hands then, because he looked me straight in the eye and told me it was his brother’s, like I was some sort of common idiot. Still with the red-rimmed eyes, staring real steady as though trying to pretend Robbie hadn’t bit it only last week. Staring as if challengin’ me to say something, anything remotely sympathetic.
Like he wasn’t enough of a man to go on if I didn’t.
“Nice boots. They new?” I taunted, breaking away from his stupid mind-fuck games.
He didn’t bother answering me. “This one’s mine, right?” he said instead, stepping into Robbie’s old room. “Right next to yours?”
The little shit. If he wasn’t scared of me by now, he damn well should’ve been. There was just something about his open neediness, raw and pathetic, that got my blood boiling like nothing else.
“Look,” I growled, shoving him up against the wall. “ I don’t know what they’ve told you, but if you think you can just waltz right in and pretend like you own the place, you’re sadly fucking mistaken. I don’t care how much of a hot-shot your brother was, you’re not one of us and I’m willing to bet you sure as hell can’t fly like one of us neither.” I rammed his shoulder hard into the graying stone, hoping to hear him whimper or cry or make some sort of nellie protest about his honour, but he said nothing.
“You’re nothing special,” I whispered, my breath heavy at his ear. “So maybe the chief’s taken a liking to you, so what. He’s the one you’ll be crying to when you realize what a worthless little fuck you are.”
I put on my best shit-eating grin, stepped out of the room, and shut the door behind me. “Sleep tight!” I called out.
Ghislain must’ve been following us or something, because when I got out he was leaning against the wall, his huge arms crossed, looking at me like he was trying to get inside my head. Whatever. I didn’t have to answer to him or anybody else.
I shrugged, followed him to the common room, and picked up a handful of darts, kicking aside one of Raphael’s precious books about flowers or some other such pillow-biting horseshit in the process.
“You don’t think that was a little much?” he said at length, eyes darting back and forth between my hand and the board.
“He had it coming.” I scowled as my dart missed its mark.
“His brother died,” Ghislain said, adding it in there like I was too thick to remember.
“So fucking what. If he can’t suck it up, he’ll go soft and turn into a woman. He needs to grow some balls if he wants to be a fucking Airman.”
I know I did, and bastion knows I’m the better off because of it. Not that it’s anyone’s fucking business. Wouldn’t do to get some piss-pot lecture about how to live my own life. Ghislain isn’t really the type, but with a chance to show me up, you never know.
He laughed, but for the life of me I couldn’t tell whether he agreed with a thing I had just said. Hard bastard to read, Ghislain.
“Don’t worry. We’ll break him.” I watched his wrist angle back and his eyes narrow into slits.
“Damn right,” I conceded, and tried as best I could to ignore the fact that his dart had hit dead center.
***
To be continued...