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Enjin leaned onto Riyo with a groan, successfully pushing her shoulders down and her head almost into her plate piled high with food. She sent him an unamused look and moved her fork in the direction of his face threateningly. He just made a show of slowly dragging himself off her and plopping into the chair on the left.
“I’m pooped.”
“Did you even do anything today?” Riyo asked as she shoved another forkful of broccoli into her mouth. She liked to eat her food while it was still hot, thank you very much. No melodramatic adults would keep her from that.
Enjin groaned again with the weight of a seventy-year-old man having worked on a farm his entire life and deflated in his chair, legs sprawled out and head thrown back. He clasped his hands above his stomach. “I’ve never worked so hard before.”
“Sure,” she deadpanned and stabbed a potato.
“He probably strolled around No Man’s Land again,” Zanka said with a sigh as he sat down opposite of them with his own plate of food and a large cup of tea.
“Strolled?!” Enjin asked offended, sitting upright and leaning on the table to get closer to Zanka. He stabbed the wood with his finger. “I cleaned up at least a hundred trash beasts while I was there!”
“Waah, how altruistic of you,” Riyo drawled sarcastically into her potato.
Enjin tsked. “There were rumors about an unusual trash beast, but I just found the usual mess.”
“Every trash beast is an unusual trash beast in normal people’s eyes,” Zanka said dismissively. “No matter how it looks, people always get freaked out.”
Enjin dropped his chin into the palms of his hands and pulled a face, almost like a pout. “And I didn’t even get paid for all that cleaning.”
Riyo smirked softly. “That’s what you get for being altruistic. You do it out of the goodness of your heart, because you're passionate about the cause.”
Enjin sighed heavily and grabbed a chicken nugget off her plate to munch on. She allowed the slight but threatened to stab his hand when he made an attempt to steal the second one so he let it wander over to Zanka’s plate instead and stole a piece of bread which made Zanka’s eye twitch.
“Get your own,” he grunted and Enjin grinned around the bread caught between his teeth.
“Speaking of rumors,” Riyo said while nibbling on the remaining chicken nugget. She should have gotten more. “There’s talk about someone falling from the sphere again.” The other two raised silent eyebrows and she shrugged at the unasked questions. “Dunno. I believe some traffickers claim they found a Sphereite, alive, apparently.”
Zanka scoffed. “Sounds pretty fake if you ask me. Probably just want to squeeze money out of people and end up giving them a skeleton they found in No Man’s Land. Who survives a fall from the sky?”
Riyo shrugged again. “It’s just rumors.”
Enjin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I like rumors,” he said. “Should probably go check it out.”
“Being altruistic again?” Riyo teased. “It’s probably nothing.”
“So then I get to chat with some traffickers. Sounds like a grand time.”
Riyo shook her head. “Sure, amazing.”
Riyo wrinkled her nose subtly at the slimy man in front of them, his eyes a little too wide and his voice a little too pronounced. She sent a subtle look to Zanka who made no effort to hide his disdain and the way he looked down his nose at the man, but he had always managed to come across as aloft rather than outright condescending to most people. They clocked him as a posh noble without much trouble even if he wore the Cleaner’s uniform. She could see right through him though and knew he’d rather be anywhere else than around this piece of filth.
And it wasn’t the trash that bothered him.
“Ah, word travels quickly,” the man said and rubbed the back of his head with an almost bashful grin. “Yes, yes, it’s true. We do have a Sphereite. Caught it alive no less. I don’t know how it managed that, but I would say it was just our luck. Almost got trampled by some trash beasts, poor thing.”
“Oh,” Enjin said with never-ending enthusiasm. “That’s pretty rare. What’cha gonna do with it?”
“Sell, of course,” the man said like it was a no-brainer and simply logical. “We’re just waiting to see whether to sell as a package deal or in pieces, depending on demand.”
Riyo’s eye wanted to twitch but she retained her blank expression. She was no stranger to how the ground worked, she was not a saint either, but to talk about a person like they were stock at the butcher was still a step further than what she deemed necessary. Sphereite or not, even scum deserved to simply die rather than suffer unless they identified as a trash beast.
“So it is still in one piece?” Enjin asked, voice light as always. “We’ve been looking for a while but you know, lots of dishonest people out there, selling fakes and such. Even harder to find one that’s actually legit.”
The man nodded and smiled a little too wide. “Still in one piece, would you like to see? Can’t let you touch though.”
As if they were at a zoo.
“Lead the way,” Enjin said and the man led them over to the trucks parked on the other side of the camp. Some of the gathered men were busy hauling scrap into one of the trucks and shouting orders back and forth. This is what they usually sold, paired with some illegally obtained merchandise of course. They also dabbled in the “transportation” of humans occasionally.
The man unlocked the rolling door at the back of one truck. “Doesn’t look like much but I promise you, it’s the real deal,” he said as he pushed the doors up.
Riyo wasn’t sure what she had expected and she couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows as she was greeted with a surprising amount of light colors and gleaming golden accents. Even the supporters’ uniforms weren’t as light as this and gold was such a rare occurrence on the ground that some people didn’t even know what it was or how valuable it could be. If it was real and not just painted, that was.
The Sphereite was sprawled on one side like someone had tossed a useless piece of junk onto the ground. Both arms were twisted back by what seemed to be chains connected to the floor of the truck. The clothes looked thick, a little fluffy with a large hood pooling on the ground. There were scratches and patches of dirt on it, small tears lining the sleeves and pants, but most notable was the large stain of blood down the front of it. Riyo wondered if it had come from an injury. It wouldn’t be the most absurd thought, falling from the sky into literal piles of trash and then getting attacked by trash beats made for a sure-fire way of getting injured. The polluted air didn’t help either, if one didn’t have a mask they would cough up blood after only a couple of minutes.
Riyo’s eyes wandered over to the Sphereite’s face and found wild, white hair that turned darker towards the ends. It was a strange choice for hair color but she wouldn’t judge - much at least. For a moment she thought the Sphereite was unconscious since there was almost no movement except for strained breathing, but then she spotted two blood-red eyes locked onto them from behind strands of messy hair and heavily lidded eyes. She wouldn’t say there was much awareness, just enough to remain conscious. She also noticed the crude contraption encompassing the lower face, almost like a muzzle.
It made for a pitiful sight, like seeing a small rodent a cat had just finished hunting and playing with but had now lost interest since there was no more resistance and struggle for survival. Because one thing was for certain, that in front of them was a kid, most likely younger than Riyo. The clothes were deceiving but there couldn’t be much more than skin and bones hiding underneath. She glanced at the man subtly, her opinion of him burrowing further underground.
Enjin was eerily silent for a moment too long, taking in the sight presented to them with a calculating gaze before it morphed into the fake version of his pleasant demeanor. “So what’s the price we're looking at here?” he asked lightly.
The man clapped his hands together and rattled off an absurd amount of money. “We have to take all the resulting trouble into consideration as well,” he continued with that annoying voice of his. “We lost some equipment, also trashed some of it while we were trying to get it settled. Almost bit one of my employee’s hands off, degloved two fingers.” The man sighed and shook his head. “Feral thing, that one.”
Right now the kid looked nothing more than a couple of days from wasting away.
Enjin sighed, his hand reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket while Riyo’s wandered down to where Ripper was secured. Zanka shifted his weight subtly and gripped his Jinki a little tighter.
“Wrong answer.” In one swift move, Enjin hooked the handle of Umbreaker around the man’s neck and yanked it down to make his forehead hit the edge of the truck with one very resonant and satisfying ‘clang’.
Things were dropped, people shouted and ran over and two of them sprang into action. While they didn’t use lethal force, they weren’t exactly careful to avoid injuries. Zanka had no qualms about hitting anyone with his Lovely Assistaff square in the face and flinging them away further than strictly necessary. Riyo felt no remorse as she dealt with the remaining offenders and within a minute the camp was filled with weak groans and bodies littering the floor.
“You took away the fun part,” Enjin complained half-heartedly but still reached over to pat both of their heads once. Zanka tried hard not to preen too much while Riyo rolled her eyes at his reaction. “Now then,” Enjin turned back to the truck and climbed in to crouch down in front of the Sphereite.
The kid hadn’t moved an inch, probably couldn’t, and his breathing sounded like he had shards of glass stuck in his lungs. His red eyes were trained on Enjin though, barely keeping focus but with fury bubbling just underneath the surface, only damped by clearly having no energy. Enjin leaned over him to unlock the chains and pursed his lips as he saw bloodied bandages peeking out from underneath big sleeves and a pair of leather gloves. He had half expected the kid to make an escape attempt or to lunge at him but it was more worrisome that he did neither of those two.
“Up we go,” Enjin huffed and grabbed the kid.
“Careful, all that blood has to come from somewhere,” Riyo said as she watched him haul the kid onto his shoulder. The reaction she had been expecting never came so maybe the blood wasn’t related to a gruesome stomach wound after all.
The hood flopped over his head and hid his hair.
“Time to head back,” Enjin announced as they left with the kid, leaving behind a bunch of goons in the dirt amongst piles of trash.
Everyone stared down at the scrawny kid they had dug out from underneath that fluffy oversized coat. He was even smaller than expected and a hell of a lot paler too.
“Doesn’t the sun shine up there?” Zanka asked with a bewildered look on his face.
“Maybe they never go outside?” Riyo mused though she too was confused about the pale tone of skin. At least he didn’t have any wounds tearing his stomach open which was a good thing. Surprising, but good. Eishia had gasped and muttered about the state of his lungs however and said it was all shredded up and that he had probably been in No Man’s Land for too long before getting swept up by those traffickers. His breathing sounded a lot better once she was done treating that part, but he remained unconscious.
She was busy unwrapping the bloody bandages on one arm when she suddenly froze and stared down at the limb in disbelief and something akin to horror.
“What?” Zanka asked and everyone leaned in to look.
For just a brief moment, Riyo’s heart dropped as she stared at the blackened and marred limb cradled in Eishia’s hold. Her brain couldn’t recognize it as a human hand at first, the markings bizarre and too regular, not natural but not entirely man-made either. It was a strange, concerning sight. Clearly it had the silhouette of a human hand, but the color and texture of it was all wrong. Not to mention the spiderwebs of cracks running across them, some of them crusted in dried blood and some oozing red sluggishly. Riyo wondered if the traffickers had already started their own torture of the Sphereite, but that didn’t seem right. While he did have bruises and cut in places that coincided with punches and kicks, she had never seen anything like this before.
Eishia carefully raised the limb to look at it from different angles but was hesitant to move it too much. “This is… old,” she mumbled in disbelieving surprise.
“Like, a couple of days?” Zanka asked, his eyes squinting at the dark hand in an attempt to make sense of it.
Eishia shook her head. “Years, probably.”
“Yea-...” Enjin didn’t repeat the word and just frowned. “What, the Sphereites are into disfiguring body modifications?”
“I highly doubt this was a voluntary decision on his part,” Riyo said with a nod to the kid. It certainly didn’t look like it or the Sphereites were truly even stranger and more absurd than she had been willing to believe.
“I’m not sure what this is,” Eishia said quietly. “I would assume burns but these patterns…” She shook her head, clearly not happy with the situation and the lack of a proper treatment to apply. “I don’t know, but I’ll change the bandages.”
Which wasn’t all she did. She took the time to clean both arms, disinfect the open wound, apply a salve in a desperate attempt to do something to help and then rewrapped everything down top the fingertips like it had been before, just a lot more neatly. With the disfigurements hidden, both hands looked deceivingly normal, but knowing what was hiding just underneath, none of them looked at them the same way.
・・・・・
Enjin and Gris just so happened to be there when the kid woke up. Gris had wanted to check in, having heard about the newest addition to the headquarters and being reasonably concerned about his condition. He always wanted to take everyone under his wing, especially the kids, so Enjin wasn’t surprised about his reaction. Gris sat there, fully in that fatherly mode that he encompassed so well even at just thirty and the one that Enjin desperately tried to deny had been thrust upon him as well. Voluntarily, sure, since he had been the one to collect all these feral kids after all, but he would still deny being anything of the sorts.
“He’s tiny,” Gris said, sounding sad and disappointed, but not at the kid but at whatever circumstances had brought this about. They didn’t know much about the Sphere but judging from how much trash they produced and discarded, especially perfectly usable things, they made the assumption that whoever lived up there must live in abundance and luxury. What circumstances would lead to a kid looking like a feral cat trying to survive on the streets down here? All scrawny and disheveled.
Enjin just hummed. “He may just be tiny, you know?” It was a weak rebuttal, especially with the subject right in front of their eyes, and Gris sent him a look that said as much. Enjin shrugged. He didn’t have an explanation either.
Both of them looked down when they heard a wheezy noise from the kid. He looked to be coming into awareness, slowly blinking those blood-red eyes of his open and struggling to adjust to the overhead lights. They only watched for now, Enjin anticipating all sorts of reactions and preparing for a not so peaceful one from what he had been told by that trafficker and the unnerving stare he had received from the kid before even half unconscious. They hadn’t had the time to talk to him and explain they were not the enemy, probably, and he had passed out somewhere on the way back to the car so he had no clue about their intentions. It was questionable whether that would have helped but it would have made waking up marginally easier for all parties involved.
He scrunched up his face, eyes still squinting in an undefined direction. It didn’t appear like he had noticed them yet which may be a good thing until he was fully aware. With the next breath he took he made another wheezy sound which quickly turned into a scratchy cough. Eishia may have healed his lungs but as they all knew, it wasn’t an instant fix and there would always be resonances of the injury. A dry and scratchy throat surely didn’t help. The kid struggled to sit up in between wheezes and coughs to be able to breathe better.
“Here.” Gris reached out to help and Enjin had just opened his mouth to tell him maybe that was a bad idea, when the kid’s eyes snapped to the approaching limb and he chomped down on Gris’ arm. No questions asked, no prior indication, just full on chomp, all teeth buried in skin and eyes somewhere between unseeing and furious.
Gris escaped a mostly surprised yelp, Enjin jumped in his seat, arms raised like an animal trying to appear bigger cause he had no idea what to do about this. He waved his hands around, trying to come up with something that didn’t include whacking the kid over the head with Umbreaker before he tore off Gris’ arm, if he could do that. Who knew with Sphereites. The trafficker sure had made it sound like it.
Though within only a few seconds the whole thing was over cause the kid released Gris’ arm on his own as he swayed towards the opposite side. Enjin thought better of catching him, even with the large sleeves of his coat as protection he wasn’t willing to risk a bite of his own. The kid crumpled on the other side of the bed, arms giving out so his upper body drooped over the edge. They couldn’t see but they heard retching and vomit splattering onto the floor. It was a lot and Enjin curled his nose, poor kid. He glanced down at Gris’ arm that was only marginally bloody and had teeth imprints but aside from some small punctures, there wasn’t much harm done. Maybe freshly out of unconsciousness, the bite hadn’t been at full power yet.
The retching tapered off with some dry heaving and more coughs. Enjin waited for the kid to right himself which he didn’t, he just slumped further forward and started tilting over the edge, on a good way to slamming his head into the floor tiles in the middle of his vomit puddle. This time he didn’t think twice about reaching out.
“Oh, woah, woah,” he said as his hand grabbed onto the back of the kid’s shirt and pulled him back onto the bed. He didn’t receive the same snappy treatment as Gris which was a small victory. The kid dropped against the pillows, curled up in a pitiful heap with a flushed face, glassy eyes and sweaty temples. He was still heaving a bit, breaths coming out strained and he trembled with the worst being his bandaged hands that shook unnaturally.
Enjin had expected him to recover a bit after throwing up, to regulate and maybe they could wave the white flag and offer peaceful negotiations, but if anything, the kid was getting worse. He huddled into a ball, almost curling around his shaking hands and all he managed to do in between wheezy breaths was make pained noises he didn’t quite manage to suppress. Knowing what his hands looked like, Enjin wouldn’t be surprised if they hurt.
Gris and him exchanged a look, both for communicating that no, this wasn’t normal and no, they didn’t know exactly what was going on or what to do about it. Was this just pain or more? Why was he throwing up? Stress? Was there something else they should pay attention to? Perhaps Eishia could help? But with the kid awake and his biting habit, would she even be able to get close enough to do anything?
“Hey, what’s hurting?” Gris tried, refraining from touching for now but mostly for the kid’s sake and not his own arms’ preservation. They didn’t get an answer apart from a fleeting glare that then drifted off in a panicked search around the room. Perhaps he was looking for an escape route? Enjin braced himself for an involuntary game of tag, or maybe another rescue attempt to prevent the kid from cracking his skull open, but instead of making a mad dash for it, the kid’s eyes got stuck on something particular. Gris needed a moment but then looked between the kid and the gloves they had taken off and put onto the shelf at the end of the bed together with his oversized coat. Enjin raised a questioning eyebrow but didn’t say anything when Gris reached over to grab the gloves.
If looks could kill, he would have dropped dead instantly and Enjin was surprised the kid wasn’t going for his throat like a rabid vampire. Gris, ignoring the murder daggers shooting his way, offered the gloves to the kid calmly, bloody arm ignored for now. Enjin watched silently, muscles tense in case he needed to intervene and pry sharp teeth away from vulnerable flesh. He did not look forward to that task, he wasn’t an animal trainer.
The kid was in a similar state, staring at the gloves and then Gris in an attempt to figure out his angle. Gris just smiled which should have put anyone at ease but clearly the kid had trust issues written all over him which, considering, wasn’t too surprising. He had been thrown off the Sphere into this hellhole and had gotten picked up by traffickers after almost getting mauled to pieces by trash beasts. Still, he reached out slowly with a badly shaking hand, always expecting the other shoe to drop, and his fingers hovered above the gloves for a moment, eyes flickering to Gris’ face who didn’t change anything, just held still. The kid snatched the gloves out of his open palm, immediately curling around them like they were a precious treasure and slipping them onto his hands.
Enjin watched with fascination as the trembling slowly ceased and the heaving breaths calmed down to something more normal. It took a good while, but everything simmered down as if the gloves were some sort of antidote. Perhaps they were, it wasn’t the weirdest thing they had seen down here as givers. They were a special kind of weird after all.
They just watched this happen silently and waited.
Until Enjin couldn’t anymore. “Man, you’ve got a good set of chompers on ya.”
Expectedly, Gris gave him another look of disapproval because he was the adult out of the two of them. The kid however, actually looked at them properly for the first time and seemed to be registering more than just a potential fight for survival and pain. Enjin sent him a signature grin which he liked to believe would put even the most disgruntled grandma at ease but Riyo had told him made him look like a jerk and would make people want to slap him. But what did Riyo know about manly charm? The kid was clearly still highly suspicious of them and for a brief moment, Enjin considered he might not even be able to speak or understand him until he opened his mouth.
“What do you want?” he muttered around his badly disguised nervousness, topped off with a glare from hell and a painful rasp in his voice.
But that was indeed a good question.
“Nothing,” Gris said before Enjin could ruin it. “Just trying to help.”
The kid eyed Gris suspiciously, glancing down at his bloody arm and shrinking back a bit as if he expected any late repercussions for his earlier attack. Obviously Gris wasn’t about to take it out of him. They knew that, the kid didn’t.
“Does anything hurt? You looked like you were in pain,” Gris prompted when he got no further response. Enjin could practically feel him itching to do something.
The kid ducked his head, muttering a defensive ‘no’ which was certainly not entirely truthful, he had a couple of nasty bruises, not to mention his hands, but they left it at that.
“Alright,” Gris sighed. “I’m Gris, this is Enjin.” He gestured to the other.
“Yo.”
The kid eyed them again and when he finally got to Enjin, it took him a couple of seconds to take him in, which Enjin was used to since the grandmas always did the same before tutting at him, but when he finally recognized him, he looked surprised, then bewildered, then something different altogether. “You were there.”
They didn’t need more context than that.
“Enjin got you out from the traffickers,” Gris said in an attempt to at least start explaining things. The kid didn’t look like he quite understood that sentence, but his distrust receded just the tiniest bit, replaced by something akin to curiosity, and that was a step in the right direction.
“You got a name, kid?” Enjin asked. He first got a curled nose and he could practically hear the ‘I’m not a kid!’ from that expression alone.
It took him a moment to decide whether he should answer but in the end, he did. “Rudo,” he mumbled at no one in particular.
Gris still smiled. “Welcome to headquarters, Rudo.”
The greeting received a look full of bewilderment and confusion. “Headquarters?”
“There’s a lot of people here,” Gris said, as if that would explain it.
“So many people,” Enjin sighed, not feeling up to explaining anything further than that either.
“Don’t worry about that for now. We’re just glad you’re doing okay. If you need anything, let us know.”
Rudo looked at Gris like he had grown a second head, clearly not understanding and growing a bit suspicious. He then looked around the room but didn’t allow himself to let them out of his sight for too long. He also continuously glanced down at Gris’ arm and then at his face as if still prepared for a late reaction. That was until he slumped over the edge of the bed again and threw up a second time. Not as much came up this time around but that was only a small mercy.
Enjin grimaced and was ready to pull him back but Rudo managed to right himself on his own, wiping the corner of his mouth and sniffling through a watery nose. He looked pitiful.
“You alright there?” Gris asked concerned.
Rudo looked at him over his shoulder, caught between distrust and resignation. He sniffled again, dropped his head and pulled up his shoulders. “Fine,” he grunted hoarsely and added a belated cough.
Gris pursed his lips, not at all convinced. “I’ll go get some water for you.” With that he left, leaving Enjin alone for the moment who just continued staring at the kid curiously. There were so many unanswered questions still hanging in the air.
Why had a kid been kicked off the sphere? While it wasn’t common, they occasionally stumbled upon, usually, the remains of a Sphereite and he had heard once or twice from people actually seeing someone falling but being unable to do anything about it. Not many people would feel prompted to aid in the first place. However, in all cases Enjin could remember, those people had been at the very least young adults or even older. This kid right here looked like he had barely hit puberty properly. Maybe that was a false assessment on his part and he was looking at a hardened criminal, but somehow he doubted it.
“You sure had a rough start here, buddy,” he said eventually. Those red eyes stared at him and if he wasn’t used to being stared down by trash beasts, he might have been a little unnerved by the intensity.
“Why do you care?” Rudo grumbled and Enjin, having dealt with one too many moody youths and being no stranger to such standoffish behavior, just grinned.
“Why not? Those traffickers are a bunch of morons. I don’t know about you but I generally don’t endorse hacking kids to pieces and selling them.” Rudo looked like he wanted to say something so he continued. “Even when they come from the Sphere.”
Rudo pressed his mouth shut and remained silent. Enjin would have been surprised if this had been enough to completely convince him but he didn’t think insisting too much would yield better results either. Maybe it would be best to just let things develop as they went and hopefully Rudo would realize no one was hiding around the corner just waiting to sack him. Trusting strangers was hard, even more so after everything that had presumably happened within the last few days which meant they had to be patient. They had experience with that around here, even if it wasn’t Enjin’s greatest virtue.
“Did they give you anything?” he asked eventually. “Any drugs or whatever?” He wouldn’t be surprised, especially with how explosive the kid’s temper appeared to be and how barely conscious he had been in that truck. While Enjin wasn’t closely familiar with how the traffickers worked, he knew they had ways to get people to be compliant and silent. The kid still had red grazes and slight bruising around his nose and jaw where the muzzle had been.
Rudo shook his head curtly and then shrugged. “Just forced me to eat shit slob, I think.”
“Ah…” Enjin glanced at the ground even if he couldn’t see the offending puddle. Yeah, that would explain the vomit, which they would have to clean up sometime soon. Not something he looked forward to. He may be a Cleaner but he wasn’t that kind of cleaner.
“Is… is that all that exists down here?” Rudo asked, sounding genuine for the first time - genuinely concerned.
Enjin laughed. “Nah, we have real food, don’t worry. We can get you some if you manage to keep that water down.” Poor kid, no wonder he looked like skin and bones.
Rudo relaxed a fraction and remained it somewhat even when Gris reentered the room. He handed Rudo a glass of water which he eyed for a long moment before taking it from him. His eyes flickered down to Gris’ arm and he ducked his head.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “About your arm.”
Gris blinked in surprise but then smiled. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
Rudo didn’t look entirely convinced but dared to sip his water nonetheless. He didn’t turn green immediately and made no indication of having to throw up again, which was a good sign.
Gris and Enjin exchanged another look which communicated mostly that they didn’t know shit about the kid but that he had appeared to calm down a bit and trust them at least about an inch now. There were a lot of points they could address; the sphere, what on earth had happened up there, the kid’s arms, his gloves, why he looked like a ghost, but for now, they should only focus on the most pressing things.
“How was the canteen looking?” Enjin asked.
“Mostly empty,” Gris said, realizing why he was asking. Getting some food into the kid was something they could remedy without much hassle and it was still well before lunchtime. There should be leftovers from breakfast somewhere and if not, well, Gris should manage to put something together and while Enjin couldn’t be trusted in the kitchen, even he would be able to make a sandwich.
They cleaned up the floor and bandaged Gris’ arm while Rudo sat on his bed and did his best impression of a scolded puppy. At least that’s what he looked like to Enjin, a scolded puppy with trust issues and a temper trying to appear like a big, strong dog that felt guilty about trashing something. The guy who had called him feral maybe hadn’t been too far off. He slipped off the bed when they were ready to go and he reached out for his coat but flinched back when he saw the large blood stain on it and turned away. Enjin tilted his head curiously but forwent asking about it.
“You go ahead, I’ll be there in a sec,” he said and headed into the opposite direction once out in the hallway. While they didn’t have a donation center at headquarters, they did have August’s room which was honestly almost the same. The guy collected fabrics and clothing like a lunatic, either to flip it or to design something and create it from scratch. So Enjin didn’t feel too bad about going in without knocking and not even saying hello to August who sat at his desk with music blaring out of his headphones loud enough to be heard by anyone. How he hadn’t gone deaf yet was beyond him. A brief search revealed a couple of basic clothing items and Enjin pilfered a muted blue hoodie that was sure to be huge on Rudo but seeing as his coat had been largely oversized as well, that shouldn’t be a problem. He closed the door behind him, August being non the wiser about the quick visit, and made his way to the canteen.
Gris had gotten Rudo to sit down at a table in the corner and the two Supporters who were there playing cards had the presence of mind not to bother them. Enjin dropped the hoodie onto the table next to Rudo who looked up at him in surprise.
“Welcome gift,” he said and slipped into a chair next to him. “Free of charge, don’t worry.”
It still took Rudo a good few moments to dare more than just stare at the hoodie like he expected a hidden trap. He pulled it closer carefully, brushing his gloved fingers over the fabric and glanced at Enjin one more time to make sure, before he slipped it on. His hair came out even more ruffled and Enjin itched to tussle it like he did with everyone else but he held back for now. He wasn’t entirely sure Rudo wouldn’t bite out of habit.
Gris came back only a minute later with an artfully crafted sandwich and a cup of steaming tea. He sat them down in front of Rudo before taking a seat opposite of them. Rudo just stared at the sandwich as if it was an equation waiting to be solved and then glanced up at them.
“What do you want?” he asked again, with a little less heat than last time. “For… for this.”
Enjin blinked, not quite understanding the question at first.
“Nothing, Rudo,” Gris said, getting it a lot quicker. “Promise, just eat for now and then we’ll see about everything else, okay?”
It was clear Rudo didn’t trust that statement further than he could throw them, but he was also tired and hungry and… Enjin couldn’t quite imagine what was going through his head, they knew too little about him and his situation, but he was clearly young and thrust into something anyone would have a lot of trouble coping with and adjusting to. He probably wanted to trust them simply so he could relax for a moment. He ate his sandwich quietly and looked to be able to stomach everything. After that he just sat slumped in his chair, staring down at the crumbs on his plate in defeat.
“How old are you, Rudo?” Gris asked after a while of silence.
Rudo didn’t lift his head and just continued staring down at the table. “Fifteen… probably.”
“Probably?” Enjin asked bewildered, focusing more on that than the actual age. He had picked up kids younger than that but Rudo was currently the youngest.
“We’re not… we weren’t completely sure,” Rudo said.
“So you don’t know when your birthday is?”
Rudo shook his head curtly.
Enjin scratched the back of his neck. “Well, fifteen is close enough I guess. We can always make your fall day your new birthd-”
“No!” Rudo growled and glared at Enjin who held up his hands in surrender at the strong reaction since he didn’t want to get bitten after all. He had been trying to make a joke but clearly he had no frame of reference what would actually land with Rudo. It was another one of his bad traits, always joking around and making light of things which was not appreciated sometimes nor did it land well with everyone.
“No, that day Regto-” Rudo cut himself off sharply and jerked his head away. His fists clenched in his lap and his shoulders shook. Something about mentioning that particular day had hit a rather sensitive nerve which had not been Enjin’s intention.
“Regto…?” Gris asked gently, not sure if asking further was the right thing to do but he also didn’t want to leave it unaddressed if it caused this reaction. They barely knew anything about Rudo but he was clearly struggling with several things at once. If they knew one thing about teenagers, it was that they were masters at bottling things up and not talking about it. Granted, they were strangers but everyone on the ground would be a stranger to Rudo. He had no one down here and as harsh as it sounded, that was the truth. There was bound to be a lot to unpack, otherwise a kid would not have been kicked off the sphere
Rudo bit his lip and for a brief moment Enjin expected him to start crying though he seemed to be too angry for that just yet. “My… my dad,” he managed to get out and looked like he regretted saying even that much just a second later.
“Did something happen?” Gris asked, daring to go one step further and that made Rudo’s barely contained temper snap.
He jumped up from his chair and slammed his hands down onto the table which rattled in response. He hit the edge of the plate which upturned and rolled off the edge to crash into the floor and break into several pieces with a shrill clash. The two supporters on the other side of the room raised their heads, shared a look and decided to vacate the premises which was both smart and appreciated.
Rudo’s eyes were full of rage and hatred as he spat out the words. “Someone killed him and I couldn’t save him! Just fucking put a knife through his chest for no reason and ran!” His fist slammed onto the wooden table again and the cup still standing wobbled dangerously. “Someone killed him and they blamed it on me!” Rudo’s voice cracked and his expression wavered between furious and devastated. “They blamed me and they- they just left him!”
He sucked in a couple of chocked breaths and pulled his hands back from the table with a twitch. Everything he had just said caught up to him and he turned his head away, staring at the broken plate at his feet instead. He sniffled wetly, clearly struggling to regain some sense of control which must be hard with the way his body shook and with everything he had just unloaded.
When Enjin glanced at Gris, he wore a grim look. They were quite used to collecting traumatized youth and therefore used to emotional outbursts, but this was new territory even to them. Either way, whatever they had assumed about the Sphere was clearly a bit tilted because declaring a teen to be a murderer and to have killed his own father which resulted in them executing him, or trying to, was about twenty steps too far. Unfortunately, being used to circumstances on the ground, they weren’t surprised that despicable people were everywhere and taking advantage of the vulnerable was common practice no matter what.
Rudo wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and nose and sniffled again. “Sorry,” he rasped and crouched down to scrape the broken plate together. Enjin blinked as he put them on the table and started arranging them like a puzzle. “I… I can fix it, I just need-”
“Rudo,” Gris said, his voice a bit more loaded with emotion than before. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. It’s just a plate.”
“I can fix it,” Rudo insisted stubbornly and continued arranging the smaller pieces almost frantically. It was as if focusing on this was the only thing keeping him together at the moment and as if fixing this broken plate would fix everything else as well.
“Hey,” Enjin said in an attempt to lighten the heavy mood besides his bad track record. What could one more try hurt? “It’s just a plate, it’s done its job. It won’t be upset about wandering into the trash.”
“It’s not trash!” Rudo yelled, almost breaking the piece he was holding in two. Enjin was about to try a different approach, when blood-red flames bled out of Rudo’s gloves and engulfed the plate pieces on the table. It glowed brightly and morphed into a new shape. Once the glow faded away, they were looking at a dark gray, almost metallic plate-shaped object with red markings and additional spikes all around the rim like a deadly frisbee.
Gris made a confused noise while a wicked grin spread across Enjin’s face. Of course the traumatized teen kicked from the Sphere, almost mauled by trash beasts and then caught by traffickers only to land in their hands in the most roundabout way turned out to be a Giver. His glowing red eyes just confirmed the deal.
Rudo dropped the plate as if it had burned him and it wobbled on the table for a second before stabilizing. The chair behind him scraped against the ground as he took a step back and pulled his hands close to his chest. “Again?” he asked under his breath in confusion.
“Again?” Enjin repeated with raised eyebrows but then shook his head. “Would you look at that, you did fix it.”
Rudo turned his head towards him slowly and stared full of befuddlement and perhaps concern for his sanity. Enjin just patted his arm and Rudo made no indication of wanting to bite him so he applied some pressure and made him plop down onto his chair again.
“You know, Rudo, there’s probably lots of stuff to talk about but during puberty it’s completely normal to-”
Grin interrupted him with a groan. “Enjin,” he chided before turning to Rudo. “Don’t listen to him. Though this is somewhat normal, don’t worry about it, we’ll explain everything.”
Rudo looked more confused than ever.
“How does your own bedroom sound?” Enjin asked just to put the cherry on top.