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“Hey. Uh- you good there?”
Everything hurt. It felt like someone had shot at him. Saps felt like that was something that was pretty likely to have happened.
Or they’d just taken a sledgehammer to his wings.
He was hungry, too, and his head was clearing, and that was coming with an awful lot of panic his body did not feel ready for.
“Of course he’s not good, goonball.” Another voice, this was terse and mocking, and Saps could hear his own blood moving. Downwards. Everything was in the wrong place. “He ran into a snare, d’ya think he’s gonna be good?”
“Hey- I don’t know. He could be, like- a hero, or something.”
He was upside down.
“Yeah, and he probably is. Great going, Sharpness. You’ve made some State-side hero our problem.”
“It’s your trap!”
“And you’re the one who spoke to him. So congrats.”
Saps was hanging upside down. By his ankle.
Oh, he was way too out of it to deal with this. He giggled, a little, his limp fingertips brushing against feathers. His feathers, wasn’t that nice. He felt like crying. He wanted to cover his face, but his body wasn’t working with him.
Then everything moved around him, and his wings hit the ground before his shoulders, before his hips, before his feet finally felt solid concrete again, and it felt way too good just to have his spine laying flat that Saps considered passing out again.
“Hold up there, partner.” The same mocking voice from earlier was back, and those light footfalls must belong to it, scampering back around to beside Saps’s head. “I caught you. That makes you my problem, and I’m not dealing with someone dying while I’m skipping class.”
“You’re skipping class?”
“Duh, Sharpy, some of us have a life.”
“Oh... I thought you were… sick all the time.”
“Fuck, why do I bother-“ They cut themselves off, and sighed, and Saps would really, really like to sleep now. Whatever he was running from was behind him, now. “Right. From the top. Hi, I’m Jude, call me whatever the fuck you like—don’t, please, actually, Jude is fine—and this is Sharpness. Do you have a name?”
“Saps?”
“You sure about that, Saps?”
“Maybe? There’s… stuff in my wings?”
“That’d be gravel. Congrats again, Sharp. We found someone with your IQ.”
“Yay?”
Sharp, and Jude. Saps could work with that. They weren’t State, by the sounds of it, and nor did they seem to be about to throw him back over the border. That would be more than sufficient for the rest his body was crying out for.
“Not yay, dumbass. You see what I have to deal with, Saps?” Jude sighed, and Saps was reconsidering his notion that they seemed like a good few years younger than him, because that had all of the battle-weariness of his hero mentors back in State. “Anyway. You a hero, or didya find something better to do with your life?”
“Heroes are- I’m a hero, Jude.”
Sharp was whiny. Saps might be out of it, but either Jude was spectacularly irritating, or Sharpness just sounded like a bitch.
“Yeah, fuckface, so am I. Get with the program.”
“I- I’m a hero.” Saps mostly wanted to put this awfully confusing conversation out of its misery, and to get food, if that was possible. “Do you guys have any food?”
“Carrots.”
Jude sounded obnoxiously smug about it, but Sharp sighed, pointedly, and Saps heard another set of footsteps approaching.
“Don’t mind him. Rabbit hybrids, you now? I’ve got a flapjack.”
“What, you don’t think I have carrots? You want me to prove it, princess?”
“No, they’re gonna be up your ass or something-“
“They are not, actually. Not this ti-“
“Thanks.” Saps winced, pulling himself upright before Jude could get to the end of that one, curling his fingers unsteadily around the plastic wrapping. “Who- are you guys?”
“Hookers.”
“Jude- we’re students. Sorry about him. At the- academy.”
“Just the one, around here.” Jude sounded even snarkier now, a savage bite to his mockery. “Not enough kids for more than that. Less who bother to go to fucking school, which, y’know- good for us. But they make it for the heroes.”
“Jude.” Sharp’s teeth were gritted. “Not now. He’s a real hero, and so am I.”
Saps finally managed to focus on them. He was so hungry.
Jude seemed to be the one with the hood. Had to be, actually, because there were soft blue rabbit ears peeking out from under it, and his black bandana looked like the sort that someone would spew such bullshit from behind. He had magenta eyes, narrowed but not quite unkind. It was hard to tell his age, or maybe that was the spinning in Saps’s head.
Sharp was easier. Clearly in his early twenties, at oldest, probably younger. Pure blond hair tied back in a high, messy ponytail, revealing considerably more dangerous, pale green eyes. Wearing something a lot more skintight than Jude, and looking like that hadn’t been such a bad choice with the posture and harsh concentration of an athlete. He was crouched, down on one knee, holding at Jude’s shoulder like a hunting dog.
Saps stared. This was what students looked like, down in Unstable? No, that was… biased, or something, he had media training. He’d written the media training. He must be pretty mixed up.
He was. He should cut himself some slack, sitting like a bird who’d just fallen out of the nest, staring at two apparently crazy Unstable students.
God, he was just so tired. He’d been running for so long, with so little food, and Saps wanted to cry, with how long it had been since he could sit still and have a conversation.
Oh, he was crying. That was pathetic. Face buried in his trembling hands, trying to hold it all together. He was out of State, so in that much, he was safe. But here was somewhere else entirely, and Saps didn’t feel ready for any of it.
“Sharpy-“
“On it. Saps, I- I don’t really know what you’re scared of, but- you were running, right? That’s the only reason we see State heroes down here, so…”
Saps nodded. He could breathe, that was something he could do, and he was, he was. He didn’t need Flux taunting him to calm down from a-
Flux.
Crying again. Jude cursed, and Sharp patted his shoulder pityingly, and Saps was so, so tired.
“Well, whoever you are.” Sharp had a comforting sort of nonchalance, entirely calm as Saps felt like he was falling apart. “You’re safe here. We- Jude, can we promise that?”
“Fuck no. But being a hero’ll get you pretty far.”
“Not a hero. Not since… since I last saw the stars, at least.” His voice was coming out muffled, but it was hitting him how long ago that was, and that hurt a little too. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Sharp sounded like he was speaking on instinct, too fast to not be rehearsed to an involuntary response. “Uh- don’t mind me, either. You’re safe anyway. I’m a hero?”
“And a wonderful one, Sharpy, but I imagine he needs more than that.”
“Do you guys… no, I- I don’t want villains.”
“Oh, do we have villains-“ For someone friends with someone who claimed to be a hero, Jude sounded far more enthusiastic about that than he probably should.
“And he doesn’t want those, Jude. Vigilantes? No heroes, either, I’m guessing.”
“No heroes. No- anyone. I… don’t think I can do the government, either, or anyone who- wants anything, god, I’m sorry, I’m done with it.”
“…I know someone like that.”
“You do?” Saps couldn’t help himself looking up hopefully, staring at Sharp with a pitiful kind of desperation. His wings had wrapped around him, without him noticing, feathers acting as blinkers to protect him from what might lurk in this new world. “I just... need to be somewhere no one cares about me. Nothing special.”
“Pretty special.” Jude scoffed, then leaned backwards. “Sharp- are you thinking of-“
“Yeah. Clown could give him enough stuff to stay safe.”
“You are- way too cocky, Sharpy, jeez. One field mission and you think you know it all.”
“I know him! I swear, Jude, try me, I- I know people, now, and-“
“Right.” Jude patted Sharp’s arm, rolling his near-glowing eyes. “Sure you do, princess. And I’m a bunny rabbit.”
“You are.”
“Rude.”
“Sorry- who is Clown?”
Saps was really, really confused. Maybe he should have read up on Unstable before he ran here. It wasn’t like he’d had much time.
“ClownPierce.” Jude’s eyes settled on him again, seeming to flash for a moment. “Just- don’t call him Clown. It’s- fucking weird, that’s it. He’ll sell you something, if you really need it, and… it’s not the worst idea. But seriously, Sharp, that’s the first thing you think of?”
“Yeah. You know anyone else unaligned?”
“He trades with villains, princess, you call that shit unaligned?”
“That- sounds fine?” Saps was getting desperate, before the conversation ran away from him again. “ClownPierce?”
“Might as well try Spoke, if that’s what you call unaligned.” Jude scoffed, clearly unimpressed, and Sharp sighed right back.
“You’re obsessed with Spoke, Jude, seriously-“
“Only recently!” Jude was almost squawking, becoming more and more agitated. “I’m doing my fucking thesis on him, is that so wrong?”
“You’re not doing a thesis, and- oh, shit, Saps, yeah. Distracted.”
“No, you guys carry on. I don’t… mind.”
He was seriously going to fall asleep. There was a wall behind him, Saps was pretty sure. ClownPierce. That would be a good place to start, after he’d gotten some kind of rest.
“Saps. No falling asleep on us. My liability, remember?”
Jude was so bad at pretending to be an asshole. Saps caught Sharp’s eye, and sensed their thoughts were running along roughly the same track.
“Jude… I think he needs to sleep.”
Finally. Someone talking sense around here. Saps sighed, and nodded, and leaned back.
There wasn’t a wall.
Shit.
His head spun again, and Saps’s wings hit the ground, and he groaned, faintly, a sense of defeat washing over him. Jude was sniggering, and he was pretty sure Sharp just made a vaguely disappointed sound. Saps was fine with this, actually.
He was really tired, anyway.