Chapter Text
The days at Hunted’s home moved slowly, trickling away like the dullest of games. Cheated slept through a lot of them, her medications pulling exhaustion from her limbs, and her healing wounds sapping her remaining strength. She also couldn’t do fucking much of anything in general – doctors fucking orders. Recovery from being stabbed in the stomach and side meant no big movements, a limited food pallet, and endless boredom.
She might as fucking well have still been at the hospital.
At least it was sunny. Hunted’s place might have been a defensible den, but they’d kept sunlight and airflow a priority. Windows let plenty of both into Cheated’s room and the living room. She preferred the living room, though, and often watched watch Hunted work in their little garden, popping up every so often like a rabbit alert for the signs of danger.
Their nervousness made Cheated smile. It was familiar in a time when her fucking pills were wearing off, calming when the pain began to gnaw at her insides again. But then Hunted grew stiff, attentive, standing straight and shielding their eyes from the sun. Somewhere distant sounded a car on the road – a rattling thing, as if the hunk of metal was a few seconds from falling to pieces. Cheated pushed to her feet, gripping her current mug of juice tight.
Then Hunted’s shoulders eased. They glanced through the open window, and spoke. “It is only Hero.”
Cheated relaxed. She probably should have gone to the door to welcome Hero in, but the movement had made Cheated’s stomach ache, and if she tried Hunted would probably fuss at her. So she sat, heavy, and listened through the open window.
Outside, the car pulled up and parked with a rattling cough. A door opened. “Hunted! It’s good to see you.”
Hunted stepped out of Cheated’s sight, but their voice drifted through the window anyway. “Your flight was safe.”
“It always is,” Hero said, “the sky hasn’t killed me yet.”
“The sky is not where we belong,” Hunted said.
“So you keep saying,” Hero returned, and there was laughter in that voice, “Is Cheated in?”
“Yes, she has been denning on the couch. It’s time for her next batch of pain killers.”
Steps on the front porch, and then the door creaked open. Hunted, followed by Hero, whose ponytail and clothes were both out of order. A fitting appearance for a woman who had come from some country across the world. But even when not hopping onto last minute plane rides, Hero had always managed to look windswept. The sight made Cheated ease more into the pillows.
“Hey there, Hero,” she said, “looks like you finally managed to make it fucking back here.”
“As quickly as I could,” Hero said. She stepped forward and closed the door behind her, while Hunted skittered to the kitchen. Both ignored their rapid movements. Hero was at Cheated’s side in a few seconds, easing onto the couch beside her. Her hand rested on Cheated’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Chea.”
Cheated shrugged off the hand. “I don’t want to fucking hear it,” she said, “nothing you did. Nothing you could do. Where the fuck where you again?”
Hero smiled then, and started talking. Cheated tried to listen – she really did, but the words blurred, and her stitches hurt, and the pain was thudding along her joints. She ended up half closing her eyes while Hero talked, catching a word or two within every sentence. Something about environmental work. Argentina. Blah blah blah. Another charity case, another worthy cause – Hero was always chasing after things to fix or save.
It was good to have her back.
“So,” Cheated said, when it seemed Hero had run out of voice, “how long are you staying in town this time?”
“I don’t know,” Hero admitted. She glanced to the side, where Hunted was in the process of slinking into the room, balancing cups of tea and a small packet of meds.
They popped up at Cheated’s side, and Cheated muttered, but took both, before they skittered over to Hero and offered her a cup. She took it with a smile, and Hunted eased back, settling on the ground and sipping their own drink, staring at Hero with their large eyes. “You should stay for a bit,” they said, “it is better to stay with pack when pack is injured.”
“I don’t need watching,” Cheated snapped. They both looked at her, and scowling, she ripped open the med pack and drained them all, following the motion with an angry swig of tea. They just – cared. They cared, and she knew that. But it as fun as it was to watch Hunted garden like some apocalypse was about to happen, Cheated was getting restless.
And she refused to reach for her Nintendo.
She set her mug down, groaning. “Not that it would be bad to have you stick around for longer,” she muttered, “Feel like I never see you these days.”
“Well,” Hero said, glancing again to Hunted. “You’re not exactly wrong.” A pause, and Cheated watched in annoyance as the two of them stared at each other. And then, as if coming to a silent agreement, Hunted stood and walked into the kitchen, taking dirty dishes with them.
Fucking super power, that was. Hero had always had that way about her – she’d look at someone, and you’d look back, and then you’d know what she wanted you to do and you’d end up doing it. Cheated didn’t believe in super powers, but Hero had an uncanny way of reading people, and getting people to read her.
“In fact,” Hero said, her voice softer, a whisper between them, “it’s been so long that it almost took me forever to get here. I figure you know town better than I do right now?”
Cheated eyed her sidelong, sipping from her mug. “Probably,” she said. She wasn’t a complete home bound fool.
“Great!” Hero said, straightening. “I really need someone to show me around town, and I figure you probably would like to get out of here yourself. Hunted’s den is comfortable but,” she chuckled, “it’s not exactly stuffed full of things to do when you’re couch bound.”
“I’m not couch bound,” Cheated complained, “I can walk. And move around. It just fucking hurts and the damned doctor doesn’t want me to do it too often.” But she could see Hero’s point. Cheated bit her lip, chewing it, then spoke lower, “you planning on breaking me out of here?”
“For a bit,” Hero said, “I’ll have to return you eventually.”
Cheated glanced to the kitchen. Hunted had to know. There was no way they didn’t know. Both Hunted and Paranoid had an almost supernatural sense for when someone – Cheated, Contrarian, Cold, Stubborn, Opportunist – was about to do something monumentally stupid. Not to mention Hunted had the sharpest hearing of anyone Cheated knew.
But they didn’t come out of the kitchen. They’d given Cheated and Hero this space willingly. Bastard. The warm burst of affection in Cheated’s chest almost hurt.
She set her cup down on the side table. Leaned forwards, so her stitches screamed. “Well,” she said, “as long as your car doesn’t fucking implode on us, I’m so down for a bit of a jailbreak.”
Hero’s car was just as rattly on the inside as it had been from the outside. Cheated wedged herself into the seat, buckled herself tight, and then held onto the safety handle the whole ride. Hero’s radio burst out staticy snippets of song, and Hero sang to each lyric that managed to come through. Cheated didn’t sing – singing wasn’t her style. Instead she watched the world outside blur from greens, to the building spotted landscape of town. On the horizon, the city, where Cheated had spent a good portion of her after collage days.
She hadn’t realized that Hunted’s house was so far away. She’d been pretty out of it when Stubborn drove her that way – but now, by the ticking clock on Hero’s dashboard, Cheated guessed that it had to be an hours drive between town and Hunted’s den. More so, between city and Hunted’s den.
Man had really found a place to be in the bumfuck of nowhere.
Cheated let out a sharp laugh between her teeth as Hero slowed down, the run down car rattling it’s way to match town speed limit. Hero glanced at Cheated, her voice light as she asked, “Can you eat ice cream?”
“I don’t fucking care if I can or not,” Cheated said. She leaned forwards, ignoring the pain in her side, and pointed down a road. “Turn there. There’s a damn good ice cream shop. We can grab a bite.”
Hero nodded. A few shifts of the steering wheel, an odd ding from the dashboard, and then they were rattling their way down the road. Cheated craned her head to get a good look at the car’s lights. Almost half of them were on. “What the fuck was that sound?”
“Just a low tire,” Hero said, not even glancing down to check, “nothing to be worried about.”
“It better fucking be,” Cheated said, falling back against her seat, “I’m not getting into a car accident after everything, damn it.”
Hero shook her head. “Cabin’s not going to get us into any accidents,” she promised.
Cheated eyed the dashboard in sudden wariness. Cabin … “Don’t tell me this is the same sack of rust that you had in collage? We told you this thing needed to be consigned to the scrap heap forever ago! Opportunist could get you a new car in seconds.”
“Would you really trust a car that Opportunist chose?” Hero retorted.
Cheated paused. Slumped further down. “No,” she admitted. The car would look good. Quality, however, would be questionable.
Hero nodded, as if that made her point. “Cabin’s old, but she’s reliable. Which way now?”
Cheated pointed, and Hero turned. Within a few moments, they were pulling into the parking spot of the ice cream shop. A few seconds later, they were out of the car, headed inside. Each small movement tugged pain from her side, but the meds were kicking in properly now, and she barely felt the hurt. She still pretended not to notice how close Hero stood, as if waiting to make sure that Cheated didn’t need help.
They got their ice cream, and sat down outside. It was a good day. The light was bright, and the sun was warm, but the soft wind that cut through the air kept it from being overbearing. Cheated leaned back into her seat and licked her vanilla cone, because you couldn’t fucking do better than the classics. Hero herself had some horrible concoction that could only vaguely be called ice cream, if one were to be generous.
It was old, familiar. They hadn’t hung out like this in a long time.
Finally, Hero lowered her god awful concoction. “Cheated,” she said, in the slow way she did when she was trying to start a conversation she knew the other wouldn’t like, “I don’t – actually, fully know what happened. I know you got stabbed, and I know it was done by your …” she trailed off, as if hesitant to say the word.
Cheated bit her ice cream. “You can say it,” she said, sharper than intended. “My girlfriend fucking stabbed me. Multiple times. I’m not going to throw a fucking fit because you said the words.”
Hero flinched, and Cheated felt – bad, for a second. Hero hadn’t meant it like that, damn it. She was just… being cautious, because that was what Hero did. Cared so much about people she fucked around all over the world to help them.
“Sorry,” Cheated muttered, around her ice cream.
“No, no – that was on me. I’m sorry,” Hero returned, shaking her head slightly. “That’s not – fully what I meant to ask, anyway. Skeptic updated me on the situation. I just wanted to ask… she’s been taken care of, right?”
“For now,” Cheated said. It was really fucking hard to look at Hero then, so Cheated didn’t bother. She stared out at the town instead. Quaint, normal life. God, she almost fucking missed it.
“We won’t let her hurt you again,” Hero said, her voice stalwart, strong, “I promise you that.”
“I know,” Cheated mumbled. Gods, she knew.
“So … how are you doing now? Beyond the whole injury thing,” Hero led, her voice quiet still, and still so careful.
“I’m fine,” Cheated said. “Fucked up a little bit, but that’s fucking normal for the situation. No biggy, isn’t it? I’ll get better with time.” She bit into her ice cream again, teeth cracking the cone. “This helps, though,” she said, after chewing, “I need shit to do at Hunted’s den. There’s not enough – games.” the word was bitter.
“We could stop by a gaming store on the way -”
“No,” Cheated said, the word too quick and broken on her tongue. She pressed her ice cream against her lips and stared harder at the town. “We can just pick up some cards at a gas station or something,” she muttered, “or a cross words or coloring book. I’m … tired of video games. Think I need a break. Take a moment to reevaluate things.”
Hero … didn’t speak for a few seconds. Cheated didn’t look at her. She didn’t want to see the look on her face, didn’t want to see the pity or the worry. But then Hero nodded, and stuck her spoon into her ice cream abomination once more. “Alright,” she said, “once we get back, perhaps you, Hunted, and I can play a few games of cards? It’s been a while since I’ve played with you all.”
It was a tentative offer. An open hand. Cheated’s shoulder’s slumped. “Yeah,” she said, quietly, “That’d be fucking nice, as long as Opportunist or Contrarian don’t bust in and ruin everyone’s hands.”
“From what I’ve heard,” Hero said, “they’re occupied. It should be an above table game of cards.”
An above table game of cards… god, when was the last time Cheated had something like that with her friends? Even in collage, it had been rare. Opportunist was Opportunist. Contrarian was Contrarian. Even Cold would often pull some fucking cheating maneuver just to spice up the game. But a game with her, Hero, and Hunted? Yeah, that would be above board. That would be normal.
It would be nice to have a normal game again.
“Yeah,” Cheated repeated, before biting into her ice cream again. “Let’s do it. A few games for old times sake.”
Hero raised her cup. “For old time’s sake.”
Two Months Ago
RAZOR<3 was easier to find than Cheated had anticipated. Perhaps she’d given the cheating bastard too much credit. Cheated always changed her online handles, no matter the platform. She didn’t like the feeling that people could find her too easily – call it a gift from Para’s stories of social media stalkers. Either way, Cheated had been expecting some damned online safety practices from someone who was such a huge pain in the ass.
But there were no online safety practices that RAZOR<3 seemed to partake in. Her Steam account was the same username, and the username in each game she’d shown up in was the same. On a whim, Cheated decided to look her up online – and a fucking youtube channel was the first fucking hit on Google.
RAZOR<3 was a streamer.
Cheated was getting killed repeatedly by a fucking streamer. For legions of people’s entertainment. The mere thought of that nearly made her blind with rage. She actually had to step away from the damned computer and take a walk outside before she did anything she fucking regretted.
By the time she got back, she was calm enough to sit down and pull up RAZOR<3’s channel. The theme was … almost predictable. Each video was dedicated to stalking and tormenting a different player. Cheated recognized some of the names in the video titles – they were good gamers. Damned good gamers, like herself. Not people who’d normally fall fucking prey to a goddamned cheating fuck like RAZOR<3.
Still, it was almost weird that Cheated hadn’t heard of this bastard before. A streamer dedicating copious amount of time to stalking high ranking players and kicking their asses would have been a name in Cheated’s circles. But she’d never heard of RAZOR<3 name until RAZOR<3 had turned that game on her.
The reason why became abundantly clear when Cheated glanced through the different playlists RAZOR<3 had posted. Almost two thirds of them were dedicated to hunting down Cheated, and Cheated alone. None of RAZOR<3’s other targets had near the amount of videos dedicated to them. They were small fish – in RAZOR<3’s mind, Cheated was clearly a favorite to torment.
Cheated didn’t know whether to take it as a sign of her own skill, or be absolutely infuriated. As with most things that were un-fucking-fare, she decided to choose absolutely infuriated.
It was probably a stupid decision to click RAZOR<3’s latest video. It had been posted a few days ago – and it was the same game where RAZOR<3 had finally fucking contacted Cheated. Cheated sat there, curled up in her chair, arched over her laptop as she watched the video load, and begin to play and -
Alright. So it was normal, mostly. The game taking up 70% of the screen, with the last 30% of the screen being dedicated to RAZOR<3’s live camera. Which was stupid. Cheated would never show her face on camera where people could watch, but RAZOR<3 – RAZOR<3 -
So sue her if her thoughts stopped working for a few fucking seconds. She wasn’t a goddamned simp like Smitten could be, but RAZOR<3 was startlingly … pretty, in a sharp, angled way.
Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and the cut of her cheekbones was sharp and defined. So was her nose and jaw, and so were her shoulders, her collarbones – everything about RAZOR<3 was thin and bony and pointed. Her hair too had that jagged edge too it, as if someone had just hacked at it away with a knife or something, and fell in uneven locks and kinks around her head. Her eyes were bright though, and an uncanny red that matched her lipstick painted mouth, and the spaghetti strap tank top she wore. And when she moved, gestured, laughed, her skin – glittered.
RAZOR<3 had tattoos.
Cheated’s eyes flicked over each one, counting them in her mind. Crossed rapiers across the collarbones. A hilt of a broadsword across the breastbone, the rest of the tattoo disappearing beneath her shirt. A machete had been tattooed to the outside of her upper arm, and her forearm glittered with an elaborate saber. Her hands only appeared for brief moments of time, gesturing, but it looked like each joint had been tattooed with a small dagger.
That had to have been painful. Cheated could never get a tattoo – she didn’t like being hurt, not unless it was the heart pounding challenge that came with a difficult game. She had enough fucking pain in her life with the chronic shit that made days so difficult. But RAZOR<3 …
To have so many large, elaborate tattoos, and so many smaller, oddly placed ones … she must have treated pain like an old friend. Cheated had never seen anyone quite like her.
And then what RAZOR<3 was saying kicked in, and Cheated’s moment of admiration – and yes, fucking attraction – fizzled out as if dumped on by a bucket of boiling water.
“Heeeeey my little knives,” RAZOR<3 was saying, her sharp red smile directed at the screen. “Look who just joined the game? That’s right, our little birdy just joined the channel. Let’s go say hello to him, shall we?”
Him.
Fucking him.
For a moment, Cheated saw red.
It wasn’t uncommon in this line of work. Cheated’s attitude and her job as a beta tester meant that most people automatically assumed that she was some guy who didn’t have the charisma to get a better fucking job. And with the fact she didn’t put much of her social life online – well, Cheated had been sought out by developers before, fuckers who asked her to beta test on the assumption she as a guy, and then started making their offers worse when they found out she wasn’t. Misogyny was something she was used to, and it infuriated her every time.
To have RAZOR<3, a woman herself, make the damned same assumption -
Cheated’s hands were flying before she fully caught herself. Scrolling down to the comments section. Typing furiously. The clacking of the keyboard filled her ears, so loud that it almost silenced her thoughts. It was enough that by the time Cheated had fully fucking realized the message she had typed, her finger had already hit the enter button.
The11thCrowCalls:
Hey, RAZOR<3, maybe check the fucking gender of the people you’re playing against next time, bitch. BirdVoice11 is a girl.
The screen loaded, briefly, and then Cheated’s comment was in full display on the screen. The rage that had pushed her suddenly dropped off a cliff. Ice filled her chest instead. Fuck. Shit. She hadn’t meant to hit enter. Scrambling, Cheated hit the delete button, quick as she could probably get the goddamed comment off the site where everyone could see and find a connection between the random comment and Cheated’s steam handle.
But even after the page had reloaded, and Cheated’s comment had disappeared into the void, she still sat there, staring at the blank spot her comment had been a few moments earlier. Disaster (everyone on fucking YouTube seeing her goddamned stupid comment) had been avoided. But RAZOR<3 would still get the inbox in the mail that she had received one. It might still show up, Cheated’s YouTube handle and the connection between it and BirdVoice11 clear to see.
Fucking hell.
Cheated was so, fucking, screwed.