Foxtrot Nekropolis

Chapter 5

"You, uh. Really weren't kidding about the couch."

Wynn's couch had once been a beautiful cream colour. Now, uh… well, parts of it still were. Mostly, it was a mess of brown and red stains that had seeped quite deeply into the fabric. Not that Wynn had the slightest idea how to clean a couch, anyway; he knew chemistry, but not enough to improvise that. Still, having it commented on by someone else made him a bit angry, cheeks flushing a deep red as they crossed their arms.

"Well, excuse me for bleeding on my f*****g couch."

"Hey, hey," and the asshole had the nerve to lift his hands up as if surrendering, having placed his package of f*****g cup noodles on the dinner table when he walked in, "I'm not judging you. I watched the footage from most of your battles. You take some pretty ugly hits, and I can't imagine you're the type who trusts doctors."

Wynn opted not to answer that, throwing himself on his bloodstained couch with a low sigh and letting his weight sink into it, staring up at the ceiling for a minute or five. The box of scraps was very obviously in sight, but if Liam wasn't going to say anything, Wynn wasn't going to either.

Instead of joining them at the couch, Liam walked up to the table — pulling a chair for himself and sitting on it backways, his chin rested on top of the chair's back as he stared at them, emerald eyes twinkling with an odd gleam of knowing mischievousness. The man looked to be about 25, maybe a bit more, but Wynn had the sudden impression that Liam was considerably older than his appearance implied.

It wasn't exactly uncommon for rich people to slow down their aging artificially, so it wouldn't be unheard of. But it did raise a few interesting questions. A rich man with an accent and a name from the Coalition operating with authority on Aether and taking down established parts of the planet's political ecosystem… something was fishy.

And Wynn was way too tired for this s**t.

"So," the boy tried. "What brought you here, good sir? I mean, I'm sure my delightfully illegal dealings with Mack were a shock or whatever, but I'm not sure you'd sit on my porch for two hours —"

"Three, actually."

"— three hours if you didn't want something."

Once again, Wynn paused.

Yeah, okay. This guy was dangerous. Not in the combat way — Wynn could quite literally kill him with a flick of their wrist. But the man was smart, or perhaps experienced, in ways even Wynn himself couldn't hope to be yet. Thinking back on it, his conversation with Liam had flowed exactly where the man had wanted it to flow.

Crafty.

So, had he somehow predicted his reactions to such a degree of certainty? Wynn supposed so, which was troublesome, as the only data he'd have to pull from were his appearances as Fuhsaz with the vitae. If that were the case, Wynn would likely need to reassert the boundaries between mask and ego before they lost track of 'em altogether.

"... Everything okay, Wynn?" Liam asked; his voice sounded genuinely preoccupied, which only served to piss Wynn off something fierce. He was also tilting his head like a cat, which looked odd on a man as well-defined as himself. "Looking a bit under the weather there."

"Just thinking." He replied with a shrug of their shoulders. "Anyway, feel free to look around after we talk. The vials I extracted are back in my room. You see the weapon scraps already. There's not else to find, but knock yourself out trying."

"Oh, no, no need." He smiled. "I trust you. Well, more specifically, I trust that you wouldn't make this offer if you weren't either very confident I would find nothing or trying to make me believe you were very confident I would find nothing. Or trying to make me believe you were trying to make me believe you — well, nevermind. My point is, you look a bit too sleepy to play mind games anyway."

You'd be surprised, Liam.

But Wynn merely sighed dramatically.

"I can see you're going to be as much of a headache as Mack was." A pause. "What happened to him, by the way?"

"Ran off. We think with the help of an ex-Vitae you may know. Mirrored, I believe his name was?" A pause. "I could be wrong on that. Either way, we raided him and took his stuff, but he essentially vanished into thin air the moment we turned our backs."

Ah, Mirrored. It'd only been a hot second since he'd seen the man; a week, in fact. Since he'd been critically injured and forced into a very early retirement in the very same Gate that had cost them Plaguedoctor, Wynn wasn't really stumbling into the ginger the same way he used to way back when.

And they'd never been all too close, either.

Last they'd heard, though, he'd been on physical rehab — trying to learn how to walk again. Not exactly prime mission status.

"Mirrored's in a wheelchair right now. His Sídhe doesn't extend to himself, so he'd have to be the world's coolest wheelchair driver to get in and out of that. That or he wasn't alone."

"Oh, he wasn't. I'm just saying he was key to Mack's escape. Who was key to his is a much more important question."

Right.

"I gather from your tone that you've got a suspicion."

"Of course," Liam replied, smiling. "Having suspicions and acting on them is my job. But that's for later. For now, I'm with you."

"Yay," Wynn deadpanned, trying to sound as unenthusiastic as they could. "Lucky me."

Liam was clever as s**t.

The guy had purposefully made himself look non threatening and casual, while still emphasizing how competent and in control of the situation he was. He'd guided a conversation exactly where he'd wanted it to end, and then fallen right in place when Wynn tried to push the Fuhsaz dynamic on him — answering Wynn's wit with wit of his own.

This guy could and would outplay them at every turn if they weren't careful. But how careful they wanted to be remained to be seen. For now, they'd indulge the quirky man.

Liam chuckled.

"I see your eyes, y'know. You're practically dissecting me. Sharp kid; you must run circles around Sunburst."

"I run entire spheres around her." He immediately shot back. "I'll make it a hypersphere soon, too."

"So you run circles around her and talk spheres. Got it."

Wynn sighed.

This… really, what a mess. This guy had an end goal, of course he did, but seemed absolutely unwilling to reveal his hand; where did he think this would bring him? Was he gunning for points with Wynn? Trying to get on his good side?

And he was starting to tire of it.

"So, we've got an impasse of sorts, according to you. There's nothing I can do about it, with my current agency. I can't give you the vials and tech and pretend nothing happened, either, otherwise I'm out of commission almost indefinitely. So the only person with any agency here is you, and you know that. Cut to the chase."

The tone of the conversation drastically shifted saw to it that Liam lost some of his relaxed casualness, eyes growing sharper and posture more stiff. His fingers tensed just slightly, and EBON's whirring in Wynn's mind made the boy see exactly where the man's eyes wandered — his left waist. A hidden weapon, most likely.

Not that it would help.

"...Was it really too much to hope for civil conversation?" Liam muttered, and, for some reason, Wynn felt a bit attacked.

"I'm bruised all over from getting my ass kicked, threatened with legal action and alone with a stranger. I'd say I've been remarkably civil, all things considered.'

"Touche," the tall man muttered, a heavy sigh escaping his lips. "Well, you're right; I do have a proposition or three. And then we've gotta figure out something for your schooling, since you're obviously not even 16 yet. But I digress. First, hear me out…"

Silence.

Their eyes met, and there was nothing but grave awareness in Liam's orbs.

"What do you know about the Cradle?"