Chapter Text
Gig Type: SOS: Ripperdoc Needed
Objective: Save Verso Dessendre's life
Location: Zetatech Factory on Olivia St.
Details:
It shouldn't have gone like this.
It was an easy gig on paper: klep the chip and get out. In and out, ten minutes of work. It was supposed to be easy. But nothing was ever easy for Verso, not since his dad decided to drop his ass off a building to make a point that their little gang was done. Verso really liked that back then, since it meant he was free and could go solo, but not so much now, when he had to get gigs from wannabe fixers like Tristan.
Now it meant he was shot, bleeding out, missing an optic, and with several broken bones, in some dumpster in Tyger territory. Now his life sucked.
"You... alive?" a voice asks.
Verso grunts as a form of response, like it should be enough. The woman gasps loudly and drops her groceries. Verso can hear some shuffling, cans shoved quickly into a plastic bag.
"Do you uh... do you need help?"
Verso grunts again, louder. He is pretty sure his throat is fucked too. A wire missing or disconnected. Fuck.
Then there is quiet. Judging by the sound of heels walking away, the woman probably decided he wasn't worth it. Which. Fair.
Verso closes his eyes, trying to save whatever energy he has left in case his heart needed it to beat. He tries to bring up the holo to call for help, but it keeps disconnecting and flickering out. Verso was going to die in a dumpster, unknown and disgraced. Nova.
"He's here!" the voice from before calls out, more footsteps approach, then big, burly arms take his broken body and lift him with ease. Someone else carries him. Verso feels the soft, cold leather of a car backseat. Then it is dark for a long time.
He wakes up here and there, sees flashes of bright light and hears unknown voices. There are hands on him, in him, over him. Gentle hands. He sees brown curls and a hushed voice. He smells strong antiseptic and a woody cologne. He thinks he has seen an angel several times. But mostly, there's darkness and quiet.
When Verso opens his eyes again, he is in an unknown clinic. He would recognise the lights and instruments anywhere. At least, he hopes heaven doesn't look like a ripperdoc's clinic...
"Oh! You're awake. Marvellous!" someone unknown says to the side. Verso can't turn his head to see who it is, but he is pretty sure it's the angel from his dreams. "I was getting worried," the voice continues. A man walks into the light and leans over Verso. His eyes are a beautiful, natural looking brown and his face is framed by adorable, bouncy curls. There's almost no chrome on him from what Verso can see. He looks terrifyingly human.
"Ah-an..." Verso tries. The stranger, who seems to be the ripperdoc who saved his sorry ass moves away, then returns with water. Real, actual water. The pricey shit. The angel gently guides Verso to drink. And drink he does, like a thirsty man stuck in a desert. During the entire affair, Verso can't get his eyes off the other man. His two, working eyes. Fuck.
"There, you can talk now," the man says. Verso is too lovestruck to say anything yet so he leans back on the chair.
"Angel. You must be an angel..." he attempts, his voice rough and unused.
The man laughs, clear and beautiful. Like a choir of cherubs. "Thanks, but I was just doing my job. You came in such a rough shape, I didn't think you'd make it."
"I owe you my life," Verso says softly.
"Just a couple thousand eddies, stranger," the angel replies.
Verso chuckles. Being indebted to a divine being seems like the perfect ending to his streak of bad luck. Eat your heart out, Renoir, your son can survive without the Dessendre name behind him!
"Listen," Verso starts and tries to push himself up. Pain shoots through his entire body, like every bone and wire decided to have a damn nerve attached to it and shoot said nerve at the same time. "Fuck," he breathes sharply.
"Easy there," the doc says and pushes him back on the chair. His hands are gentle on Verso's shoulders, like the touch of a butterfly's wings. "You were almost dead when you got here. Moving so soon is not a good idea."
"I was doing a gig," Verso protests. And he needed the scratch. Badly.
"You can go back to it. In a week, promise."
"A week?!" Verso shouts before his brain realises what a bad fucking idea it is. His throat hurts, his lungs burn. He slumps against the chair under the disappointed eyes of his saviour. Shit.
"Do you have a death wish?"
"No, not really."
"Then you will stay put, at least for the rest of today, then tomorrow too, and the day after you can go home."
Verso nods. As the angel tries to back away from the chair, guilt digs its claws around Verso's heart. He reaches for the man, quickly and accurately, as if the ripperdoc's arm was a weapon he needed to stop before it made contact with his body. The man just looks back at him with the same gentle eyes. Beautiful brown.
"I don't have an ed to my name, doc," Verso whispers. "Nothing. Nada," he sighs. "Can't pay you for anything you did here."
The man nods, listens, then hums like Verso didn't just admit he put him in debt for all the chrome he shoved up his ass to keep him on this side of the veil.
"Well, you're in luck! I don't need payment!"
Verso blinks at him, like a dumb owl in one of those All-Natural All-Foods commercials. He laughs, which hurts, then shakes his head, which also hurts. "You gotta be kidding me--" he starts to say. Because it was ridiculous, and stupid, and nobody who didn't want to haze him later would do such a kind gesture, not without putting a backdoor in his system or some similar shit. Fuck, he needed to delt--
"Listen, I understand you might be in a sticky situation at the moment, and low on scratch, but you were hurt. I couldn't just let you die in my clinic."
"You corpo? Have a quota to do?"
"No, I just..." The stranger hesitates, then sighs softly. He leans on the back of the chair, not too much so he doesn't tip it over, then seemingly unable to rest in one spot, walks around it and in front of Verso again. "You were dying. I couldn't let you die. I don't think human life should be dependent on someone's wealth."
"You could have recycled me... if it bother you."
The stranger gasps, covering his mouth with his left hand. He is not wearing gloves, which means Verso gets to notice he is not wearing a ring. Not that many people did that nowadays.
"Take that back! You're a human being!" the stranger demands, his voice trembling around the end with rage and a deep, concealed pain.
So Verso does.
"Sorry, yeah, I-- Sorry about that," he settles on. It's a pathetic attempt at apologising and shouldn't even be counted, but his saviour seems pleased with it. He nods, so Verso continues. "Name's Verso. As you probably guessed, I'm a merc."
The stranger approaches the chair and takes his hand. He shakes it, as they were having a business meeting.
"Nice to meet you, Verso, my name is Gustave, and I've been a ripperdoc here for the last ten years."
"Nova," Verso says, totally not in love.
It turns out, the City still had good folks roaming its streets. And not just good, as in someone who helps an old lady cross the street, angelic good; good-good. The type of good that lets you crash on their couch for a week after patching you up free of charge. The type of good that texts and calls and asks if you ate three times a day. The type of good that Gustave is, with his heart of gold (metaphorically), and kind words, and beautiful, beautiful eyes.
Verso was 100% correct when he called him an angel when they met. He was an angel. Had to be! The City would not have allowed him to survive for so long, basically naked in terms of bodily upgrades, and his heart on his sleeve. His blood-soaked sleeve, from saving gonk after gonk who got themselves in deep shit.
Verso listened and stayed with Gustave for a week. He watched him work, even helped when another pair of hands was needed, and neither of his assistants were there. He listened to Gustave cry over a patient gone too soon and rubbed circles on his back. And he shared bad takeaway with Gustave under the fluorescent lights of his clinic. By the end of it all, Verso knew a bit more about the inside of humans, not enough about the insides of Gustave's heart, and definitely too much about his own thoughts.
Because laying in bed when Gustave went home, on the rare nights he did, meant Verso had time to think. And think he did.
He thought about Renoir, his pretend douchebag of a father who sold his own son for a payday from Arasaka. He thought about Alicia, and how she absolutely mourn him when the news broke of his demise. He thought about Clea, who probably didn't even get the news yet, deep undercover as she was in New Delhi or Frankfurt. He thought about Aline, who screamed for them to stop fighting and bagged them both to talk it out and almost jumped after him. But most of all, he thought about Gustave.
How could he repay Gustave's good deed? He still had no scratch, no gigs, and no fixer in town would give him a second look. He needed a new identity. Maybe he could go by just V, he has heard that was all the rage a couple of months prior to his family drama.
But thinking did him no good. No plan was formed, and suddenly, the day of his departure arrived. Then the hour. And the minute. They came, stayed, and passed. Gustave didn't say anything about it, but kept talking about the newest line of Kiroshi he was going to have available next month. He was over the moon about the deal.
So Verso says something, because it's rude to assume.
"So, I'm gonna go..."
"Huh? Where are you going?" Gustave asks with the innocence of a child upset the friend he just made at the park needs to go home and nap.
"I--" Verso starts, and stops. Where? He doesn't know. He doesn't have an apartment, or a car, or really anything to return to. Perhaps he could claim a really nice bench in one of the parks downtown if he fought the other hobos for it. Or maybe a gang would take him in for the right price.
"Well?" Gustave insists, turns fully to face Verso, his eyes clear and beautiful even in the harsh light of the clinic.
Verso can't lie to that face, so instead he says: "Nowhere. I have nowhere to go."
"Then stay," Gustave whispers, almost begging him to not leave yet. It's quiet, but loud enough for Verso to hear in his mind and in his heart. Stay. Gustave asks him to stay.
"I can't pay you back," Verso mumbles, but Gustave has already moved across the room and into his personal space, a shining comet entering his orbit. Verso can't allow him to crash land.
"Then, do some jobs for me."
Verso snorts, chuckles quietly. "Pay you back with your own eddies?"
"Maybe! I can talk to some friends, maybe they also have jobs for you. Help you get back on your feet!"
Verso is floored by how lucky he was to almost die. A divine intervention type event. He almost falls to his knees in front of Gustave, in prayer. There is no way Gustave is not an angel. He tells as much to Gustave, soft and low in his ear as Verso hugs him: "You're an angel, thank you.'
So Verso stays.
And the first couple of days, nothing really changes. He hovers by Gustave as he works helping when he can, then spends most of his day wasting away by the door, looking menacing and scary. Surprisingly, it doesn't deter any of Gustave's customers, most likely because they are already desperate. In the evenings, he asks around, seeks out gigs and meets with fixers. Another week passes and Verso reaches a painful conclusion: Verso Dessendre is dead, long live Renoir Dessendre. Multiple people tell him he had the talent and skills to be legendary, but nobody wanted to cross Renoir. Especially not when he was on top of the world, on Arasaka's payroll and with who knew how many corpos on speed dial. Everybody wanted Renoir; to be him, work with him, kill him.
"Any luck?" Gustave asks one of the nights, approximately two weeks, one day, and twenty-five hours after they had met. Verso freezes by the door, certain that whatever Gustave would say next was along the lines of 'get out'. He waits there, looking at the closed door, hoping that Gustave will maybe forget he came home. "Verso?" comes after a moment, inquisitive. Fuck.
"Yeah, no, uh... No dice," he clarifies. Even if the doesn't need to, because Gustave knew what he was asking.
"Ah! Ok, come eat then," he says and pushes a box of ramen takeaway Verso's way.
Easy as pie.
Verso is invited to sit at the table, and the conversation flows from there. Gustave doesn't bring the job again, not until Verso decides enough is enough. So he puts a foot in his mouth and a bullet in his leg to say: "Nobody wants to hire me."
Gustave hums around the bite of noodles and synthmeat. He nods, always the picture of therapeutic quiet. Verso is in love with his silence. And his voice. And Gustave.
"How come? You're obviously skilled."
There it is. The opportunity to ask Gustave to enter his biz like he always belonged in it. The chance to drop the entire story about his dad. It's perfect, and natural, and right there, if only Verso took the leap and grabbed it.
"Some bad decisions, crossed some powerfulfolks."
Gustave pauses his chewing, his beautiful brown eyes fixed on Verso. There is curiosity in them, the desire to ask and press for more information. But Gustave was a pro at reading the room, so he doesn't.
"I have a friend," Gustave says instead of the dreaded 'get out' Verso expected him to say. "Lune organises these things."
"She a fixer?" Verso asks. That was new, and surprising, because he had met Lune. Several times, while Verso was healing in Gustave's clinic. Now that he thinks back on it, Lune never once mentioned what she did for a living.
Verso doesn't know what to say, so he says nothing. He stares, noodles slipping out of his chopsticks and then either back into the cup, or on the table.
"Yeah, she is," Gustave says quietly. He drops his eyes and stares at the table, at a burnt spot that made the yellow plastic look like someone with acid saliva bit a piece out of it. A quiet Gustave means a listening Gustave, but also a Gustave that is hiding something. "Do you not like the food?" Gustave asks.
Change of subject. Ok. Verso could deal with that. Everybody had secrets in the City, including him, including Gustave. So Verso makes a simple, but illogical and selfish choice. He presses on, bulldozing through Gustave's boundaries like they were wet cardboard. This was something he needed to know.
"You didn't tell me, why?" he asks with half a heart. "You knew I was looking for work. So I can pay you back." The accusation is unnecessary, but the words leave his lips nonetheless, fierce and biting.
Gustave looks at him, unimpressed by his words, but slightly guilty still. "I was worried," he admits. "I was worried about you, about you leaving, going back to that life and..." Gustave swallows hard, pushes the noodles away and covers his face. The truth seems to ravage his insides. "...and flatline," he finishes. His voice is barely above a whisper, but Verso feels the concern the other man feels for him. Worried. About him. Nobody has ever been worried about him, not like this, not like Gustave.
It makes Verso warm on the inside, similar to overclocking, when his synapses are on fire. He smiles, tries to hide it with the chopsticks, fails, then reaches for Gustave's hand over the small table.
"You're sweet," Verso says, his eyes on Gustave, drinking him in.
"I'm sorry for lying, I just... I don't want you to end up on my table again... in a worse shape, or de--" Gustave interrupts himself, afraid that as soon as he says the word, it will become truth. Gustave covers his mouth and looks away for a moment, restless. "I don't want that to be how your story ends, Verso."
"You know I'm a merc, Gustave."
"That doesn't mean you have to be a dead one!"
"Few of us grow old..."
"Some at least get to call themselves old. You're what? Thirty?"
Verso chuckles, then grabs one of Gustave's hands with both of his. "You're an angel, Gustave, you hear?" Gustave smiles in return, better than any celebrity can do on the screamsheets. It's authentic, and real, and beautiful. "I'm almost eighty, but thanks."
Gustave gasps.
"Now send me your fixer friend's detes," Verso demands. Gustave groans and they finish dinner together.