Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In Night City there is a cat in a cage, frightened and angry, surrounded by people who torment it for profit. And there is a fixer in her high security apartment, alone and somewhat bored between jobs.

Jan 21st.
Dapper Dasha.

My apartment is just the right size for me on my own, and that’s the way I like it. It’s on the ninth floor in one of the nicer buildings, and well furnished. The old record player is my favourite. I get reproduction records of course, know a guy who can print great quality records. She’s a bit expensive, but the cheaper guys don’t appreciate that any air bubbles trapped in the surface during printing will ruin the sound.
I made this apartment cool. I make everything cool.

I even modified my body to be cool. I made myself look like Winona Ryder in her early years. I’m like those poser gangs except I’m in a gang of one.

Right now I’m adding the last few stitches, mending a jacket that used to be my favourite before I burned a hole in the side. I did it on another job. Nobody ever wants nice, safe jobs fixed. It’s all cheating spouses, blackmail, and beating people up. And don’t get me wrong, I love the money. Like, I really love the money. But recently my heart just isn’t in it. I just need to buck up, pull myself out of this funk, accept some jobs and earn some cash.

My Agent vibrates on my wrist and the voice in my cochlear implant tells me Dr Gigli is calling. He is a very old fashioned kind of man, because he can afford to be, and I owe him a lot of money. This call will take significant delicacy and tact. I make the hand sign to answer.

“Yo. Dr. G. What up?”
“Hello Dapper. It really has been far too long. How’s the face treating you? Are you doing well?”
“Dr. Gigli, the face is a work of art and you are a true genius. The muses must have blessed your hands to create such a fine visage as the one you granted me. I am astoundingly lucky that my path ever crossed yours.”
“You flatter me, and we both know that we are just as lucky to have met you.”
“Just doing my job.”
“We both know that you were not. You were doing the right thing and I am grateful, however there’s no reason for a young lady as resourceful as you should be struggling financially. Is everything going alright? Should we talk about your last few payments?”
“I’d prefer if we didn’t.”
Dr. Gigli let out a small chuckle.
“I’m sure you’ll find your feet soon enough, in the mean time I have a small job I’d like to offer you. A way to make up the last few payments and make us even again.”
“I’m interested.”
“Excellent. Are you able to come by my house within the hour? I’d love to see you before I go to the office.”
“Should be fine. Give me five minutes to see what I can arrange and I’ll text you to confirm.”
“Alright Dapper. See you soon. Take care.”
“Thanks, you too.”

I inspect the mended jacket, and tuck a few oat bars and a bit of paper money into the pockets and finger spell to call to Burger Chainz.

“Morning Dasha. What can I do for you?”
“Dasha! Tell her I said Hi!” Said Vang0 in the background.
“Vang0 says hi.”
“Hi Burger. Hi Vang0. Are you available to help me with a job right away?”
“Hell yeah. I was feeling kinda done with this anyway. What’s the job? Are we going to bust some bad guys?” Said Vang0
“Vang0 wants to know what the job is.”

Burgers agent has a speaker that sounds out loud into the room, or more likely van, so Vang0 can probably hear me just as well as I can hear him, but Burger helpful to a fault. This is going to be a long conversation.

“I don’t know what the job is just yet, but we need to get to The Gates.”
“She doesn’t know but we’re going to those big rich people houses.”
“Nice. We’ll probably get paid. Ask her if we’ll get paid.”

I winced and braced myself for the awkward.

“Vang0 wants to know if we’ll get paid.”
“Yeah guys, I can pay you eventually but not right away.”
“Dasha says that we won’t get paid right away.”
“Why not? Rich people are such jerks.”
“Vang0 says that rich people are jerks.”
“I heard. We’re going to help a friend of mine. He’s not a jerk. He’s just a bit,” I am struggling to find the right word. “Wealthy.”
“Dasha says the job is for a friend of hers, and he’s not a jerk.”
“A wealthy man who’s not a jerk? I’ll believe that when I see it”
“So you’ll do it? You’ll drive me out there?”
“Yeah Dasha, of course. We’ll be over there shortly.”
“Thanks guys.”
“Dasha says thanks.”
“Yeah. Tell her I said she’s welcome.”
“Alright guys. I gotta go. I’ll meet you outside my place soon. Just send a message when you get here.”

Okay. Mental checklist time.
Message Dr. Gigli let him know that we’re coming. Get gun. Check gun safety is on. Check gun is loaded and in good working order. Check gun safety again. Wear chest holster, making sure chest holster is fastened correctly. Wear second favourite jacket. Put gun in chest holster under second favourite jacket, checking to make sure it’s clipped in correctly and easily accessible. Check spare ammo clips are loaded and put into internal jacket pockets. hang burned and patched ex-favourite jacket in storage locker downstairs. Wait for boys.

Chapter Text

Fourteen years ago.

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time at Park Gardens. It was a public park named after a guy called Mr Park. I guess they didn’t want to call it Park Park, so they called it Park Gardens. The Cowards.
I read about it in a plaque when I was bored. And then again another day when I was still bored.

I learned many things. I learned that Park Gardens has it written in law that poor people were supposed to be protected, so laws prevented us from being moved on for no reason. I also learned that cops said that sleeping in public meant you were being a “public nuisance” and they would fine or arrest you if they caught you sleeping. I learned that if cops were harassing you because they were bored they could be easily bribed, but none of us had any money to bribe with. And I learned that if homelessness was ever in the news they would make regular sweeps checking for inconvenient people to arrest and get out of the way.
I also learned that the toilet blocks were locked at night, leaving most of us with nowhere to go but in the bushes or in buckets. And I learned that I could fit through small gap between the wall and the roof that linked the ladies toilets and the maintenance shed. I learned that the toilets were locked hours after maintenance staff stopped working, and unlocked an hour before they started again.
So every night I went from the ladies toilet into the maintenance shed to sleep.

Anyhow, I’m supposed to be telling you about how I met Pix Curtains, Tunnel Rises, and Brick Foundry.

When I first saw them they were in the old heritage gazebo.
Pix was cool, punkish, and authoritative. She’s the kind of girl who would wear the word bitch like a badge of pride, not that I would ever dare to call her that. Though back then she had more of a gangly awkward vibe going on and was holding a shopping bag of cheap sliced bread. I think her hair was green at the time.
Tunnel was tall and thin and egging Pix on in her tirade against old people. He was the kind of thin that could be easily mistaken for weak, but there was surprising strength in his frame. Or at least there will be. At this point he was still all elbows and acne and was pulling cheeses and a jar of peanut butter out from his old puffy jacket.
Brick was short and thick. He never really talked much. His whole general look meant people tended to assume he was stupid and always angry, but if you paid attention he was kind and smart. What would eventually become a broad muscular frame was still deep in it’s chubby phase and he was unloading a series of energy drinks out from remarkably deep pockets in his baggy pants.
I watched them make and eat sandwiches, sitting on the handrail of the gazebo with feet and food resting on the seat. I thought that since they stole the food, they couldn’t really be that mad if I stole some of it back.

The plan was simple. They were looking the other direction. I could sneak up behind them, reach through the slats, and grab the jar of peanut butter. I could get away before they noticed. They just had to not look down. And who looks down? Nobody looks down.

“I don’t know why he was being so rude. We were just hanging around.” Said Pix.

I just have to get a bit closer.

“It’s cause he’s an asshole. That’s why.” Said Tunnel.

If I could avoid making any noise I’d be fine.

“An asshole and a sad bitter lonely old man.” Said Pix.

I could just reach in.

Brick grunted his agreement.

It would be easy.

“Who does he think he is, treating us like we’re a bunch of criminals.”

Pix reached down and grabbed my arm without even breaking her sentence.

“Yo. Thief. Didn’t your mama teach you it’s rude to steal.”

She pulled my arm up and my shoulder dug painfully into the railings.

“Let me go. I wasn’t going to steal your stupid peanut butter.”

I was still holding the jar of peanut butter. I was struggling as hard as I could. It hurt. I just wanted to say whatever.

“Come on Pix. He’s just a kid.” Said Tunnel Rises.

“Not a boy.” I said.

Pix lowered my arm but didn’t let it me go. It didn’t hurt anymore. I stopped struggling.

Brick took two slices of bread from the bread bag, and the spoon they’d been using to make their sandwiches. He gently held the other end of peanut butter jar while it was still in my hand.
I let it go.

Pix looked from him to me then said “Alright kid. How about we make a deal. We’ll make you a sandwich if you do something for us.”

“What do you want?”

“There’s this mean old shop man who doesn’t like us. We just need you to steal something for us while we distract him. Can you do that for us?”

Before I could answer Brick had already made the sandwich and was handing it to me.

Chapter Text

Jan 21st.
Dapper Dasha.

Fuck. The sudden drop of the city skyline always shakes me. I haven’t been this way for two years and the landscape looks like a dream I had but can’t quite remember. Out the window is a bunch of distant buildings that seem too large and too small. and the sun. The sun doesn’t have any business being so in my face so early in the day.

We’re going to Lake View, in The Gates. The Gates is what we call the series of gated communities that form a happy little tax bubble just outside the boarders of Night City, trapping wealth for generations and housing rich people in their own little world. Lake View is one of the less heinous ones. It’s named because it has a large and pretty pond and a view for creative advertising.

When we pull up to Gigli’s house I’m glad to be out of the van. It smells like motor oil, straw, dust, and also weirdly greasy. Like, food greasy. The straw and motor oil smells I expect from Burger, but the grease is new. I spent the car ride politely not mentioning it.

Dr Gigli’s house is the epitome of that too large but also too small feeling. So big you’d expect to get a half dozen families in a building that size, but all the bigness is taken up with giant and impossible to heat rooms that are filled with stuff but don’t seem to serve any real purpose.
I heard one of the neighbours call it a McMansion once. I’m not sure if that was a compliment or not.

“Dapper Dasha, it’s been too long.”

Dr Gigli looks much as I remember. Tall, dark, bald, and very round. Even the button-up shirt and sweater-vest combo seems so familiar I wonder if he’s owned this exact outfit for the past two years of if he just owns so many similar button-up shirts and sweater vests that I can’t tell them apart. And good god. His arms are out. He’s a hugger. I forgot.

I go in for the hug. “Hello Dr Gigli. I’d like to introduce my friends, Burger Chainz and Vang0 Bang0. We work together.”

Dr Gigli hesitates for a moment before taking Burgers, and then Vang0s hand in turn to shake. “I’m so pleased to meet any friend of Dappers.”

“They’re a good sort.” I reassure Him.

Dr Gigli smiles. “That’s wonderful to hear. Shall I offer you refreshments, or would you prefer to get straight to business? I’m afraid I don’t have long.”

“I like the sound of refreshments.” says Burger.

“Me too. Sounds refreshing.” Says Vang0.

“Do you even known what refreshments means?” I ask.

Vang0 shrugs. “No, but I could do with some refreshing.”

“It means snacks and drinks.” I say.

”Then I definitely want some refreshing.”

Something to distract the boys might actually work in my favor. The less these boys know about my finances the better. “Dr Gigli, I’d prefer if we could discuss business in private.”

There’s something in his smile that lets me know that Dr Gigli is unsure, but he is forever polite and sets up two trays of tea and biscuits. We leave one in the kitchen with the boys and we take the other into his office with us.

“Are you sure it’s best to leave them unattended in a strange house? I feel like I’m being a very a poor host.” Dr Gigli asks when we enter his office. “There’s no need for secrecy. It’s really not a sensitive topic.”

My agent chimes in my hearing implant. “Vang0 Bang0 is broadcasting live.”

I make the hand signs to tune in, audio only.

“They’re clever lads. I’m sure they can keep themselves entertained.”

“What up everybody. It’s ya’ boy Vang0 Bang0 here, about to do a tour of this rich guys house. I call this room ‘why is your kitchen so big if you don’t have any food in it.’ I think the kitchen is almost the same size as my entire apartment.”

“It’s bigger than mine.”

“You live in your van B Dog.”

Dr Gigli is searching for something on his desktop console. It’s an older model, complete with keyboard input. I’m never sure if it’s for the vintage style of if he just doesn’t like spending money when he doesn’t have to. “It’s about my cat. He’s gone missing.”

“I didn’t know you had a cat? What’s their name?”

“His name is Mr Crankypants.” He pushes a few buttons and photo of a black and white cat pings into my inbox. “I only got him about a month ago. He was a present form my nephew. Mr Crankypants an ex-stray with a bit of a temper but he was remarkably charismatic for a cranky little thing.”

“Check this out. I’m going to call this room ‘Kitchen two. Just the table and chairs.’ It’s for when you and eleven of your closest friends want to sit around and not eat any of the food you don’t have.”

“Ha.”

“Henry James got you a cat? I didn’t take him for a cat kind of guy.”

“I think he was hoping the cat would prevent me from cutting off his allowance. I want him to get a job. He sulks around somewhere all day and night but he won’t tell me where he’s going. I’m afraid he’s fallen in with another poser gang, and they’re not the safest people. No offence.”

“None take. I understand. Has he been making friends with any of your clients?”

“No. Most of my clients are individual face lifts and rejuvenation. I rarely get mimicing work these days, and after what happened last time I fired Henry James from the hospital. I don’t see how or why he would be interacting with any of them.”

“I’m going to call this room ‘if you wanted this many flowers you could just go outside.’ Or maybe ‘why is your TV so small if your room is so large.’ You could game so good if only he got a larger TV.”

“Couch isn’t even comfie.”

“Good point B dog. What’s the point of all this money if you’re not even going to have a comfie couch.”

“How long ago did the cat go missing?”

“About a week. Henry James thinks he just wandered off to be a stray again, and that’s probably true, but he was under my care and I need to do everything I can to make sure that he’s alright.”

“Of course. We’ll do anything we can.”

“I know you will, but I need to be clear that I’m not sending you off on a wild goose chase with no chance of success or reward. I’ll mark your missing payments as paid in full just for looking for him. If you find him I’ll wipe a few more months off.”

“Thank you. That’s very generous of you.”

“This room is the worst room. Is it only this large so it can have two curved stair cases in it? Who needs two curved stair cases?”

“It also has the front door, and it leads to the other rooms I guess.”

“Yeah, but this could have been a normal hallway with a normal staircase for that. Not a giant room with two giant staircases.”

“Wanna have a race sliding down the banisters?”

“Hell yes I do.”

“Do you know where Henry James got the cat from? We should probably start looking there.”

“I never actually got an answer about that. He said it was a surprise, and you know how he can get when he gets his mind stuck on an idea.”

“I remember, yes.”

“Oh wow. We found our first bedroom, and hooo boy wealthy people decorating tastes are even weirder than I thought.”

“Dude, are those french fries on the curtains?”

“And the bed spread. And look at those rows of terrible tiny plastic toys. Half of them are food.”

“If you’ll excuse the harsh language, those toys look like trash.”

“Can I ask you a question Dapper? Why did you want to have this conversation alone? Were you afraid to admit to your friends that you had debt? You made a wise investment and they don’t seem like the kind of boys who would hod a grudge because of a lack of funds.”

“It’s complicated. What have you done to try and find Mr Crankypants?”

“I talked to Lake View security but they had no leads. And I put a notice on the bulletin board, but nobody really checks those. Mrs. Hempstock from next door said she saw a black and white cat near the lake, but she refuses to accept ocular implants to correct her eyesight so that could have been anything.”

“Hey B Dog, is this you?”

“What’s that?

“A notebook?”

“No. What’s the squiggle?”

“Squiggle? Don’t you know cursive? It’s what pretentious wankers write like when they want to feel smart.”

“Alright. I think I’ll go talk to Henry James and then me and the boys will see what we can do”

“I appreciate it, and I am sorry to leave you so quickly Dapper, but I really should be heading to the office. I trust you can find your way around here without me?”

“Yeah. No problem.”

“It truly is good to see you again.”

“You too.”

“Who are you and what are you doing in my room?”

“Aaaah. Well. Um.”

“Vang0 Bang0 out.”

Chapter Text

Thirteen years ago.

The thing they wanted me to steal was a synth module. They were in a band called Hmmm Electric. Pix was on vocals. She had a pretty good voice for punk. Brick was on drums. Parts of his drum set was probably as old as he was. Tunnel played the synth. His dad would frequently have his drinking buddies over and Tunnels stuff would disappear. Either his dad would give it away, or it would get broken, or sometimes just stolen. It was hard to tell which. I wasn’t told which happened to the synth module, but they needed a new one and after that the synth was always kept at Bricks place.

Brick and his dad lived in an apartment that was pretty close to Park Gardens. His dad was a pilot for long haul flights, so brick often had his apartment to himself for weeks or even months at a time and I was allowed to hang out there when he was away. The walls were a dirty kind of color that couldn’t quite decide if they wanted to be tan or cream, and his dads furnishing decisions seemed to be based entirely around what he could find for free in dumpsters or laying around on the curb. But it was comfortable and I liked it there. I started hanging out in places where I was more likely to find him, cause it’s not like I had anywhere else to be.

On this particular day I found Brick going to the store to get a few things, helped him steal a few things, and had walked with him back to his place.
I was sitting at the kitchen table when he put a stack of potatoes and a peeler in front of me. As I peeled the potatoes he filled a pot with water, added salt, and set it on the stove to boil.

“Why do you boil the potatoes before you bake them?”
Brick shrugged.
“They’re going to be cooked anyway. Why cook them twice.
“It’s better.”
“But is it really better? What if you’re doing all this work for nothing.”
Brick grunted as a response, but also as he took the peeled potatoes from me and cut them into smallish chunks, he also took three pieces of potato and put them aside.

The potatoes boiled until Brick was satisfied and he pointed to a cupboard.
“Strainer.” And he pointed In the sink.”
I got the strainer and put it in the sink. He carried the large pot to the sink and strained the potatoes and put the potatoes back in the pot.
He threw in the three unboiled bits of potato he left out earlier.
“Salt. Oil. Rosemary.”
I got the salt and oil. “What’s rosemary?”
He picked up a small glass container from a rack of small glass containers and handed it to me. It had tiny leaves in it. “It’s a herb. Smell it.”
I smelled it. It smelled nice but also a bit weird. I think I recognized the smell from a few things he cooked.
He took the rosemary back from me and put the oil, salt, and rosemary all in the pot with the potatoes, then put the lid on and began to shake it.
“Why are you doing that?”
He looked at the pot. “Potatoes are better if you beat them up.”
“Is all cooking this violent?”
Brick smiled. “If you do it right.”

Brick had gotten to cutting onions when Tunnel came around carrying a folder filled with old DVD’s. Brick was the only person I knew with a TV that had a DVD player. His dad found it second hand and thought he’d get into collecting vintage DVD’s, but he also refused to spend any real money on them so he had a few old war movies and nothing much more.

“I found these. It thought we could see if they were any good.”
Brick grunted.
“Come on man. Let the kid do the cooking. Lets watch something.”
Brick looked unsure.
“I don’t mind.” I said.
Brick nodded and got a fry pan out and put it on the stove. He pointed at the onions he’d just cut.
“Onions. Low heat. Until they go clear.” Then he got sausages out
“Then sausages. Stab them. Then medium high heat for fifteen minutes.”
I nodded at Brick and he took the DVD case from Tunnel and started pressing buttons on the side of the old TV to make them play.

I heated the onion slices until they went clear, then they started to go a bit yellow brown so I put them on a plate and and put the sausages in the pan. I kept turning around to see the TV properly. There was a girl called heather who had a bunch of other friends also called heather. The cooking seemed to be going rather well. The sausages were sizzling but I was pretty sure that was what sausages were supposed to do.
Then one of the sausages popped, spraying hot oil onto my arm. I squealed kinda loud and both the boys turned to look at me.
I wasn’t sure what to do so I just stood there. Brick came got a sharp knife and came up behind me to poke all the remaining sausages.
“You didn’t stab it enough.”
“I didn’t stab it at all. I forgot”
Brick had never yelled at me before, but still I stood there and waited for him to get mad.
He just put his hand on my shoulder and said, “It’s okay. You just got distracted. You gotta carefully make a list of the steps in your mind and think through your steps as you go. It takes practice. And cooking is better with two people anyway. I shouldn’t have left you to do it alone.”
He looked at the sausages and started cutting them all up into little slices. He picked up the onions.
“Onions are prefect.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
He put them in the pan with the sausage pieces, added flour, stock powder, sauce, and a little bit of water.
He handed me a wooden spoon. “Stir.”
I did.

Pix burst into the flat.
“Oh my god. My mum is such a bitch.”
Pix hated her mum, and her mum disapproved of Pix’s friends, so I never actually met her. All I know is that despite being the only one of us whose family has any real money Pix preferred to spend her time with us, which I thought was nice. Though I was never really included as one of them. I just kinda hung around and they just kinda let me.
Brick grunted and nodded, indicating that her mum was indeed a bitch. Tunnel agreed. And they were back into their usual pattern.
The sausage sauce thickened as I stirred and made quite a nice sausages and gravy. The potatoes came out of the oven and were amazing.
The three unboiled bits of potato Brick picked out and put on my plate specifically. Brick was right, the boiled pieces were nicer. Seemed both softer and crispier.
Pix complained about not knowing what was happening in the movie, so we started playing it again from the beginning. I loved it.
Actually a lot of the movies had the same actor in it. Her name was Winona Ryder. They were really great movies.

After we’d eaten and watched movies and it was getting late I pretended to fall asleep on the couch so they would feel too bad about waking me up and moving me on.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do about the kid.” Tunnel said.
“What’s there to do?” asks pix. “We can’t exactly go tattling to their parents. Dumb kid doesn’t seem to have any parents.”
“But we can’t be their parents!” says tunnel.
“No. But maybe the kid doesn’t need parents. Parents are over rated. All they really need is a place to sleep and some food. They can work for us.”
“Work?”
“Yeah. Hmmm Electric is just getting started. We’re sound good. We could really use a gofer.”
“They’re a kid.”
“So are we.” Pix said. “Technically. And we get along fine without parents.”
“We all have parents.” Tunnel said.
“Shit ones.”
Brick grunted.
“Alright, yours is alright, but he’s also not here and you’re fine without him.”
There was a long silence.
“The kid can stay here sleeping on the couch for as long as dad is away. I’m not sure about when he’s back.”
“They can’t stay with me. Mum is too much of a freak.” Pix said. “Tunnel, they can stay with you the other days. Your dad would probably be too drunk to notice. Probably think he fathered another bastard that he forgot about.”
Tunnel didn’t respond.
“Then it’s settled.” Pix said “The kid works for Hmmm Electric now.”