WHERE Syd & Jesse’s Apartment WHEN This afternoon, June 3rd WHAT Victor’s sudden arrival and ooof the cold breeze in hereeee. STATUS Complete! WARNINGS References to a shitty upbringing, death, some fucked up powers, being guilted into being a Dad.
Victor did not register with the Department of Outlander Affairs. Victor did not put up a fight with the group of EOs—or he assumed, EOs—when they surrounded him at the small outhouse in what Victor supposed was a park. It was not a park. It was not even Merit or a nearby city. And further explanation, when he wasn't cuffed or thrown in a cell or anything remotely considered imprisonment, told him this wasn't even Earth.
"Do you want to watch the welcome video?" No, he did not want to watch the video. "Do you want a map of the city?" No, he did not want anything, even paper from the bubbling, infuriating assistant on the committee. "Did you want to sit, you look in pain?" No, he did not want to sit or recognize that he was feeling that tell-tale creep of agony. His jaw worked, his knuckles cracked, and Victor left when he held no obligation to stay.
However, Victor was used to slipping in and out of places without attention on him; had killed enough people to know how to escape with little fuss. But he was a beacon of new to the staff of this office, and brushing them off brusquely was not as easy.
He made it to the lift, pressed a button for the lobby, when the same woman in her clicking heels, running with a hand waving in the air to catch him, was saying Sir, sir, someone else mentioned Merit in their file! Clarke, Sydney Clarke at Mornings— Victor did not stop the elevator doors from closing. He did not step off on the lobby floor in a rush. He did not move with any sort of speed, but that was because he used each step to think, plan, strategize.
As he stood in the lobby of Morningside Apartments, the place the DOA offered to give him a room in and he had adamantly refused, his mood soured further. He had taught Sydney better about being obvious, and this sleek, modernized residential skyscraper was ostentatious. Even if he wasn't keenly aware of other people, and specifically Sydney's unmistakable presence, it was easy enough to find her apartment.
Victor stood outside her place, staring at the little gold number placard, ghosting over the numbers with a single finger. Leave no print, leave no mark. But he could do nothing to hide his scent, and already Victor heard the abrasive sniffing of Dol at the seam of the door.
"Sydney," Victor said, even-keeled, monotone, but in that harsh-sharp way of his. This was not a gentle coaxing, a soft request. It was her name as a warning and a demand. Open the door, I know you're in there.
Sydney had been expecting food delivery. Well, it was a little early for the actual food delivery part, but sometimes they had someone speedy on it, and sometimes they were nervous of Dol. Okay, a lot of them were nervous about Dol. So when he barked over any noise beyond the door, Syd shushed him and ushered him back away so she make a path to open it.
When she did, she closed it again immediately. “Fuck.” No doubt Victor would’ve heard it on the other side of the door, and she blew out the most annoyed breath. Dol was pushing his way past her knees again, clearly having noticed and smelled Victor, even if he hadn’t seen the older man in over a year. He huffed at her feet and bumped her again, all hundred pounds of him pushing Sydney around. “Traitor,” she whispered, before pulling the door back open.
He looked the same as what she remembered last. Well- sort of. He had gotten worse off in Atlantis, before he disappeared, and Victor was always good at hiding things. How he was doing, what he was thinking, what shit he was plotting. She wished she felt more relieved about this. It was all she could do to sound casual, even as Dol was pushing past her to get to Victor’s reach. “Hey. When did you get here?”
Victor waited, patiently, in whatever way patience surfaced across his normally expressionless features. The door opened and slammed in his face, but in that brief glimpse of Sydney, he could tell she was older. Older than he remembered. That felt like a problem—the opposite effect of Eli's never-aging face. He let out a quiet huff, clearly annoyed by the antics, but didn't knock again. He knew that the door would open again, and when it did, the look he gave her was something akin to are you done?
His attention drifted over her shoulder into the apartment, and he spoke, not looking at her. Not yet. "Let me in, Sydney." Victor wasn't asking for permission. Victor didn't really ask for things. "I'm not having this conversation with you in the hallway."
He felt he didn't owe her an explanation, it was obvious by the settled-in feeling, by the way she had opened the door without checking without some kind of weapon in her hand, that she was comfortable. Time had done this. Time had afforded her safety and comfort. Victor half expected Mitch to be behind her, in an equally relaxed demeanor.
Well, until he was the unannounced visitor. "I won't ask again."
Oh how Syd wanted to rebel, to tell him no and to go get his own apartment, this one was hers. But that was the immature, rebellious version of Sydney. The one that he actually knew well, given their years apart. But the one grown, with time to learn herself and have her other means of rebellion, opened it.
She stepped to the side as only a pet owner could do, the kind of shuffle that had Dol out of the way and was watching for a tiny black blur to come running. Thankfully, Skelly made her appearance after the door was closed behind Victor, and the black cat skittered around Victor’s legs while Syd took the stealthy opportunity to shove a knife from the side table into the back pocket of her jeans.
“Welcome to my humble abode.” That very obviously looked like a goth cowboy threw up in it, with the giant cactus cat tree combined with Syd’s dark and occasionally vibrant aesthetic she loved. Jesse was thankfully (regretfully? That could’ve been fun to see Victor’s expression) doing defense things, but a pair of his cowboy boots lay directly ahead at the end of the sofa. “It’s not much but the first place I’ve lived at for more than a year in like, ever.”
Stepping into the apartment, Victor regarded the space like it had personally affronted him. It was an assault on the senses, and since Victor's were not acutely suppressed anymore, everything felt overwhelming and bright. If he were the outwardly grimacing type, he would have outwardly grimaced. He almost missed the seedy hotel-hopping; they were dark and dull and easy on the brain.
The cat was a surprise, another notch in the confusion that plagued Victor on the inside, along with the pain and the realization he could drop dead at any moment. The cat clawed up his pant leg, but didn't get further before darting away.
"Over a year," Victor repeated, his tone equitably displeased. It had not been a year since he had seen Sydney. No more than a few weeks. This situation was becoming more troublesome than Victor liked, and he did not like being on the receiving end of information. He liked to hold it all in his pocket, close to the vest, to be used at his own discretion. Victor didn't know if it was worse that Sydney had the upper hand.
His foot pushed one of the cowboy boots to the side, before he turned around to face Sydney. His eyes were to the floor—look at her feet, really—and back up. He wanted to ask where Mitch was; there was no way he was the one shoving his bulk into pointy-toed Americana footwear. "Who else lives here?"
“Fifteen months here, eight in another world, if you want to be specific.” And she knew he did, if there was anything Victor loved, it was specificity, with a lack of variables to account for. Too bad there were a lot of variables when it came to places like Vallo, and Atlantis. The part of her that knew him, that remembered their years spent as-- a dysfunctional family or whatever - just stood there staring at him, answering questions with blunt honesty.
The part of her that was just a kid and missed how things were when everything wasn’t junk, just wanted a hug. Sydney shoved her hands in her pockets instead.
“My boyfriend.” There was no point in lying, and there was no point in trying to hide Jesse, like he was something to be ashamed of. He’d been her family for the better part of those two years. “Jesse McCree, before you go looking him up, though I’m sure you still will. He comes from the future and he’s a better shot than anybody I’ve ever met. Also a great pet-dad.”
He resisted the urge, as he did with many urges unless Eli was involved, to say I do want specifics. It felt a little alarming that there was nearly two years where Sydney was off on her own. She should have been a stranger to him, but whatever time spent away, on different worlds (he didn't miss that little slip in) had been kind.
He went further into the apartment, assessing—not in an admiring way, but as someone who had spent too much time on the run. How many bedrooms, all the doors and their locks, windows, air conditioning vents, access to the roof.
Victor wondered if the mention about better shot than anyone I ever met was a gentle threat. A warning that he couldn't—and shouldn't—do anything that put Sydney in danger. If anything, Victor tended to err on the side of caution, keeping Sydney in places that were intended for safety. He could be held responsible if she decided to not listen to reason and slip out where his protection couldn't extend.
"I have enough bullet holes in my body, Sydney. I do not intend to give your boyfriend a reason to unload a clip." He said your boyfriend with the same contempt he would save for mentioning his parents' self-help seminars. He nearly scowled at pet-dad.
"Does he know you're a decent shot yourself?" Victor asked with cool nonchalance. "It's been some time for you since you shot Eli, but not that long for me."
If Sydney’s eyes could roll into the back of her head, they would have. As it was, they just rolled to the ceiling and she shifted her hands to cross over her chest as she watched him. Followed him. Trailed along as she saw his face just so subtly shift as he snooped. “Jesse’s not going to shoot you. He uses a revolver, anyway.” That joke did at least amuse her a little, bringing a smirk to the edge of her mouth.
Victor answered more than she expected though, referencing Eli. The name wasn’t one she could ever forget, given how he haunted her nightmares for so long. Killing him had only helped briefly, but given Vallo had an affinity for bringing the dead back to life, there was always the chance that Eli would show up here. Alive and “well”.
“I was wondering if that was the last thing you remembered.” Sydney could never pull off nonchalance as well as Victor did, so the hurt was visible on her face as she ran through all of that over again in her mind like it’d happened yesterday. “Do you remember not meeting us, too? Promising and ghosting?”
So she wasn't completely devoid of childishness. At her correction—a revolver was impractical, loud and slow to reload—Victor simply closed his eyes, steeling himself against patience that he usually reserved for other things. This was why they worked better with Mitch as their buffer. Saying he would protect Sydney and actually applying that promise was two very different things. Victor was never really cut out for it, but he had tried in his own fucked up way.
He turned to put his hands on the kitchen counter, fingers pressing so hard against the marble that they went white. There was an electric hum behind his eyes, and he pushed it down, down, down. He was getting better at it, incrementally. It was a nice lie to tell himself. "How can you be so certain I ghosted if you didn't give me time to keep the promise?" Victor asked, subtle in his gaslighting. He never intended to meet up with them, but how would she know, given that two years had slipped by for her?
But when he saw Sydney look hurt, Victor didn't want to admit that it still did something to his cold heart.
"You were better off with Mitch," Victor said, eyes glancing off with disinterest. It was the truth, even if he made it sound like Sydney was a burden. Victor worked better collecting people until their use wore out, this thing with the two of them had been complicated and uncharacteristic.
He made a cursory sweeping motion to the apartment laid out around them. "Clearly. Two years have been kind to you." He didn't want to say it, but what would two years more with him have done?
Sydney stood there with anger vibrating through her muscles and bones, the shiver that went through her right behind it could have come from the anger or it was just another reminder that she was different than most people. Not truly alive. Who ever fucking knew, honestly? But in this case, it was just yet another thing that made her pissed.
They were supposed to be in it together. EOs, the both of them, that knew what it was like, against all odds and against the world. Victor was where she had felt safe, because of that bond.
“That was what my parents said before just throwing me at a nanny and fucking off.” It was a low blow, but she’d been feeling that particular cut deeply the last week or two, so it tumbled out before she could help it. All of her life, people had been telling Sydney what to do and how to do it. Her parents, with how she was to be better, her sister, Victor and Mitch. “I am so fucking tired of people telling me how I’m better off.”
That was less angry than the words made it seem, the energy half drained out of her in the half-choked off words. She took a deep breath, like that was supposed to steady her. “EOs aren’t hunted here, if anything it’s something of a safe haven for people like us. So yeah, I’m not complaining.”
Victor couldn't say he was unaffected by Sydney's outburst, but it was hard to display anything other than tense passiveness. He expected this from her, knew his choice without giving her a choice would be met with her anger. Victor only assumed that he would never be around to hear her displeasure at the whole situation. He wondered if Mitch knew he was leaving them behind.
"I'm not your parents," Victor said. He almost added or your sister, but he knew better than to load that bullet into the metaphorical gun for her to shoot it right back at him. He levied a hard stare at her, intense, always intense, as he worked out the next words to her. Victor wasn't someone who offered comfort for the sake of comfort. Or at all. "But you put yourself under my care, and I made a decision based on that. Whether you liked it or not was not under consideration."
Whether he liked it or not was up for debate. Victor was used to making hard choices, but they never affected him as it did when he left Merit. This felt like a karmic do-over. But his words held a finality to them—he was done talking about parents, choices, desertion, for now.
He swiftly moved the conversation on. "I assumed when they let me walk out of the DOA building without arresting me." Victor thought it a mistake, but he wasn't going to offer up his wrists for handcuffs of the EO variety. "Tell me what else I need to know."
Syd visibly winced. She was never going to match Victor toe-to-toe when it came to barbs, he’d had years of practice digging the knife in and twisting it, and Syd had only been doing light stabbings for a few years now. He was ruthless in a way she could never be, not without a few added layers of bitterness seeping in.
Quiet now, Syd scooped up Skelly as the kitten ran by, to give a comforting snuggle. “Good news for you, you’re not beholden to that anymore. I’m good with being on my own.” It was a lie, she was terrible at it. But she had Jesse and that was more than enough.
The knock on the door made her jump slightly, and Skelly lept back out of her arms. Her hand went to her knife-- a stupid, knee-jerk movement that she hadn’t pulled in months. It dropped away just as quickly. “That’s my lunch.” She glanced back over at Victor before she went to the door, who seemed to be making himself at home until he got answers. “If you want spicy ramen and eggrolls, you can stick around for some answers.”
Victor murmured out an I know as he continued to move about the apartment. The knock too had startled him, but his hand reached for a gun that was no longer at his hip, fingers curling tightly into a fist. While Sydney may not have been used to being surprised by other people at the door, Victor hadn't quite had the years to train it out of him. He didn't think he ever would.
He waited until Sydney opened the door, confirmation that it was indeed her lunch and not someone else, before he sat down on the couch. Victor allowed himself one visible moment of relief while Sydney wasn't looking, before adjusting against the cushions. Skelly jumped up and into Victor's lap almost immediately. Victor glanced down and was immediately caught in an unintentional staring contest with the small cat. He had spent enough time with Dol to not be animal averse, but cats were different.
Lifting a hand and hovering right above Skelly''s ears, Victor paused there before smoothing his palm over her head in the most robotic fashion. A test, a tiny truce made. "I'll take the eggrolls," Victor said, not looking up. "And a run down of the city, medical facilities, and who else you've been associating with in the past two years, for starters."
Where it pleased her to see him petting her cat, she still rolled her eyes at his list. “The whole ass city?” Sarcasm laced each word, because what else could she do but be sarcastic? It was sarcasm or hurt, and Syd was tired of being the victim. She’d shed that part of her a long time ago and had no plans to bring it back. Victor was tough. He was tougher than Mitch, who she could openly throw herself at for a hug. He was tougher than Dom, too, who had at least attempted to be some sort of strange uncle. Where Victor had always looked out for her, the realization of why, with Eli’s revenge laced in it all, and Victor’s own selfish motives… that just sat on the surface of her thoughts.
It was a tough thing to focus on, the idea that everyone around her just thought of her as a burden she’d pushed at them, when she’d been young and alone and lost. Crying about that now wouldn’t have gotten her anywhere, though.
But it helped to dream of introducing him to Gasoline. “Alright that might take a while. So first,” she tossed him the bag of eggrolls. “I’m going to tell you about the farm I work at and all the animal’s names and you’re going to listen to all of it.”