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Elliott wakes up to the sound of glass breaking, and debates about whether or not it makes more sense to just ignore it and go back to sleep. Of course it does, but Elliott loves a bit of drama when he's not at the heart of it, and sometimes even when he is, so he drags himself upright in his Bamboozle onesie, (50% off until the end of July), and opens his door.
There's a blur of orange as Ramya runs past him full tilt, followed by a slower, less blurry hint of grey.
So Ramya's running and Renee's chasing Ramya at, Elliott squints sleepy eyed back at his clock, seven thirty in the morning, and there was the sound of breaking glass.
A mystery. Interesting.
Elliott shuts his door again and decides to investigate. But, like, slowly, and once he's showered and dressed and fed and shit because by then the answers may already have presented themselves and Elliott's the best at reducing legwork.
He has a shower. He gets dressed. He eats a slice of last night's pizza for breakfast and brushes his teeth. He heads out into the communal living space pissed as hell, because his mouth is slippery and tastes like exotic mango, because that asshole Crypto replaced his toothpaste with lube.
Makoa is there and he's sewing. Mysteries upon mysteries.
"You hear that glass breaking earlier?" he asks the gentle giant as he walks over to the mini fridge and pulls out a gallon of milk.
Makoa shakes his head. "Nope. Thirsty?"
"Weird taste in my mouth," Elliott explains, as he heads out to find Crypto's boots.
Ramya finds him an hour later. He's in the workshop now, holotech spread out in front of him as he frowns emphatically at it.
"Wrong colour?" she asks, hoisting Shiela onto her own table with a thump.
"Wrong everything," Elliott explains as in the distance he hears someone curse his very name to hell and grins.
Ramya raises an eyebrow at him.
"Milky boots."
"Milky boots," she repeats sagely.
"Say, what were you guys up to this morning? You and Renee? I heard something break."
Ramya sighs dramatically. "Only my heart," she intones.
Elliott doesn't know if she's being a serious and if he has to employ some shade of tact.
He opens his mouth without having any words in it but he's not interrupted by the door opening with a slam.
They both glance over.
Renee stands there, chest heaving, face a picture of murderousness.
"I didn't do it," Elliott says quickly.
Renee ignores him and throws something viciously at Ramya.
Ramya catches it - it looks like some kind of small box to Elliott, and she stows it away before storming out of the room in Renee's wake.
He shouldn't follow them.
He follows them.
He's not surprised that in the two seconds hesitation he employed both women have disappeared. Renee always seems to vanish without warning and Ramya's pretty good at making herself scarce, especially when it's time to pay her tab.
"Bonjour, Elliott."
"Bon-jore to you too," Elliott says with a mock salute. Natalie giggles.
"Have you seen Monsieur Silva? I have to pass on a message."
Elliott takes a moment to decode her words. "Nope, sorry. And he's not Monsieur Silva, not by a long shot. He's Octavio at best, and a little shit at worst. So mostly a little shit."
Natalie giggles again. "Such language Monsieur Witt."
Elliott beams. It's got a nice ring to it, and Wattsy here knows a thing or two about rings.
"If I catch him I'll tell him you were looking."
"Merci. And good look catching that little shit."
Elliott feigns outrage as Natalie smiles sweetly at him and skips away.
Shaking his head, Elliott returns to his room to fetch his phone. All of his contacts have been changed to the number of a sex line that caters exclusively to people with a clown fetish. Crypto is being exceptionally low brow today.
He checks his messages.
Hello friend! I have a phone! It's inside me! Love, Pathfinder. Xxx
Oh... kay.
Witt. Do me a favour and get your ass down to the medbay without making a fuss. I need to check how your ribs are healing. Don't make me find you.
Grumbling, Elliott makes his way to the medbay. His ribs are fine, he tells himself as they twinge to tell him they ain't.
Octavio is just leaving as he arrives.
"Natalie was looking for you," he says as the daredevil zips past him.
"That's her problem amigo," Octavio shouts over his shoulder.
Ajay is looking harried as Elliott enters.
"Take ya shirt off."
"Buy me dinner first."
Ajay shuts him down with a glare.
Elliott takes his shirt off.
"You seem... annoyed - fuck!" he hisses as Ajay prods his side.
"Ya fine. And if you see Anita, tell her she ain't funny."
"I'm sure she already knows," Elliott replies.
Ajay ignores him. "I'm just tryna do my job," she mutters to herself, "but no. Rather be caught up in this stupid situation than sit still for two minutes."
Elliott tilts his head at her as she waves a hand at him to lower his shirt once more.
"What situation?"
Ajay sighs. "Never you mind. You're done."
Elliott gets up. "Hey can I take these?" he asks, pointing to a jar of cotton swabs.
"Do I want to know why?"
"Probably not," Elliott confesses.
Ajay just closes her eyes. "Take em, I've forgotten how to care."
Elliott leaves with his prize and heads for the kitchen.
Bloodhound is there. They are cutting up a steak into very small cubes.
"Hey."
"Hello Elliott."
"Feeding time?"
Bloodhound sighs. "Artur I fear is becoming spoiled."
Elliott laughs. "Becoming?"
They stab the knife into the chopping board and Elliott flinches as he opens the cupboard.
"I am not a parent in the conventional sense, but the bird certainly treats me as one."
Elliott nods. "Had a dog just like it as a kid."
Bloodhound returns to their task for a moment before looking up again at what Elliott is doing.
"And I suppose when Crypto attempts to use the peanut butter, it will be ruined by the cotton balls?"
"That's the plan. Not my best, but I'm hoping the upper ones will jump out like a can of snakes."
Bloodhound wisely says nothing.
Elliott decides to find Renee and ask her about the broken glass mystery.
She's nowhere to be found, but he does find Caustic sitting in an armchair reading a newspaper.
"Have you seen Renee?"
"Go away."
Elliott goes away.
He passes by a freshly boarded up window as the cry of "Dammit, Witt!" echoes through the vacant halls.
Smirking, Elliott inspects the damage.
"Hmm. Broken from the inside. Or maybe the outside. I mean, there's no way to tell..." he muses like a cheesy noir detective.
Ramya claps him on the shoulder. "It was me. I broke it," she says simply.
Elliott, still recovering from the minor heart attack, turns to her. "Why?"
Ramya tosses her head. "Because I missed," she grumbles.
"Missed what?"
Ramya's phone chimes in her pocket.
"Gotta get a move on. Don't worry about it, Witt."
Elliott watches her go, consumed with curiosity.
He heads outside of the complex and to the exterior of the broken window. There's something laying in the grass.
Ok, now things are just getting strange, because that is Loba's teleportation bracelet.
He picks it up, turning it over in his hands for a moment before glancing around surreptitiously. Then he tosses it a few feet away.
Nothing happens.
Of course it doesn't. The bracelet has to be biometrically tuned to someone or it would be teleporting people willy nilly just for picking it up and putting it down.
He picks it up again and goes to find Loba.
"Ajay says you aren't funny," he tells Anita as he walks down the hall towards Loba's lodgings.
"Neither is she," Anita retorts. She's holding a screwdriver in her hand and standing by a vent.
"Hey, whatcha doing?" Elliott asks innocently.
"Unscrewing a vent."
Elliott sighs. "I see that. Why?"
"I wanna see what's inside the vent."
Frustration bubbles in Elliott's chest. "Yes, but why?"
"Why not? Look, this doesn't concern you."
Elliott snorts. "It's a little concerning, seargent."
Anita actually smiles at him. "You're funny. Tell Ajay I said that."
"I will. Come on, please tell what the hell is going on in this place today?"
"Wish I could, Witt."
Elliott sighs once more, this time with extra huffiness, and decides the detective life is not for him.
He's hungry, but he's not stupid enough to set foot in the kitchen again just yet so he decides to take a walk outside and pick up a burger.
He gets to the door when Makoa stops him, holding something in his hands.
"Would you try this on for me?"
Elliott looks at the offending garment.
"What is it?"
"A present."
"For someone you hate?"
Makoa looks crestfallen and Elliott feels bad.
"Sorry. Hand it over."
It's a sweater, but it's too short and stops at Elliott's navel. It also has three arms.
"Oh, ok, I see what I did wrong," Makoa says softly.
Elliott shrugs the sweater off again and replaces his shirt.
"It's still a nice design," he says reassuringly. "Green and yellow, unconventional, but it works."
"Thanks brother. Heading out?"
"Was gonna get a burger. You want me to pick something up for you?"
"Chocolate milkshake," Renee chimes in from nowhere. "That's hideous Koa," she says offhandedly.
"Elliott said it was fine!"
"Hmm. Yes. No."
Makoa grumbles and retreats with the disgusting sweater.
"That was cruel. Hey, why did Ramps throw Loba's bracelet out of the window this morning?"
Renee rolls her eyes. "Because she doesn't know know things work. Except guns," Renee amends.
"And why were you chasing her?"
"Because she and I have very different approaches to how things ought to happen."
"What things?"
Renee shrugs. "Hard to say on an empty stomach."
"Alright, I'm going." Elliott takes Loba's bracelet from his pocket and hands it to Renee. "I found this outside."
"Ok. I'll get it back to Andrade."
Elliott returns half an hour later with a cheeseburger, curly fries and a chocolate milkshake. He drops the milkshake off with Renee, who is discussing something in whispers with Loba, before leaving the curly fries at Crypto's door.
Eat, jackass, is scrawled on the bag. They're not poisoned or tampered with in any way, swear on the train.
He heads back to his room and eats his burger while unwrapping the tinfoil from ninety percent of his stuff that mysteriously appeared while he was gone.
It's getting late now, so Elliott calls his mom and answers some fan mail before heading out quickly to stretch some cling film at head height across Crypto's door. Then he decides to call it an early night and heads to bed.
There's a card on the carpet as he opens his door.
It's a birthday card.
It is not Elliott's birthday.
Inside is what was probably intended to be a cryptic message clearly written in Ramya's surprisingly neat handwriting.
"Get your ass to the bar."
Elliott does so, because why not?
A shouted crescendo of "SURPRISE!" almost deafens him as he enters. There's food and punch and balloon and all of his friends and Crypto.
He's delighted.
But really, it isn't his birthday.
Ramya gives him a present. It's a coupon for a free custom gun mod. He reminds her that she still owes him one.
"Now I owe ya two!"
"It's not my birthday," he reminds her.
"I know," she replies with a shrug. "But you've been having a hard time with all that stuff with ya da and I wanted to make it up to you."
Elliott thinks someone is cutting onions.
Makoa gives him the sweater, still too short and still green and yellow, but at least he doesn't have to grow an extra arm anymore. The hole where it was is patched with duct tape.
"I'll never take it off," he swears.
Makoa frowns. "Please do brother. It's making my eyes water."
Anita hands him a dusty wooden box containing a bottle of aged whiskey.
"Is this vent dust?" he asks her.
"Of the finest quality," she assures him. Elliott sees a bandage on her hand.
"What happened?" he asks.
"Caught it on a screw on my first attempt. Ajay wanted to give me a tetanus shot but I threw a bunch of files on the floor and ran off."
"Why?"
"I don't like needles."
"Not funny. You should get the shot."
"Will you hold my hand?"
Elliott smiles. "Sure."
Natalie and Octavio present him with a joint present. It's a book, from Natalie and 'the little shit'.
"Hey!" Octavio protests.
"I wanted you to write your own inscription but you were nowhere to be found," Natalie tells him lightly.
Other gifts are forthcoming, but Elliott still doesn't understand why Renee was chasing Ramya.
He decides to just ask.
"Ramya wanted to give you something... inappropriate," Renee says with a sigh.
Ramya nudges her. "Its not inappropriate. It's about time."
Elliott cocks his head at her.
"Not your place," Renee warns her, but Ramya shushes her and fishes a small box out if her overalls.
"Always a pleasure to go see your ma," Ramya explains. "She told me to give you this and to tell you to pull your socks up."
Renee's still looking disapproving, but Elliott takes the box anyway and opens it.
Oh.
Right.
Fair enough.
He glances around.
A curly fry hits him on the shoulder.
Crypto sidles up to the group looking surly. "Happy not birthday."
"Thank you."
Elliott grabs his hand and drags him to the centre of the room.
"Don't you dare," Crypto warns him.
"Too late," Elliott responds, getting down on one knee.
"Will you marry me?"
"This better not be a joke, Witt."
"I swear on the train."
Crypto looks uncomfortable. "Today?"
"Couldn't be any other day."
Crypto shrugs. "Ok."
"Ok?"
"I mean yes."
And Elliott gets up and slips the ring on Taejoon's finger, because today is the first day they met, the first day they had to trust each other and the first day they drove each other mad.
Ever since, the day had been an anniversary of their prank war, one day each year to antagonize each other because neither of them were really very mature, and all the other days were spent hopelessly, blissfully in love.
But the train, the place where they had first had to put their faith in each other, became the thing they swore on. Taejoon feared being lied to - Elliott felt like everyone was always trying to get one over on him.
So if they swore on the train, they knew it was real.
Elliott kisses Taejoon in front of everyone and whispers his secret name in his ear.
"Hope you didn't waste all the lube," Elliott mutters, because it's not his birthday, and he can be an asshole if he wants to.