New Assignments

"I got called in for a... an interview, I guess... today," said Antoinette. 

They were sitting side-by-side against a brick wall; the paintball match had not gone their way, but to add verisimilitude they were supposed to stay where they were until it was over. 

"Oh?" asked Chris. 

"Deputy Chief Frummelt spoke to me in his office," she said. "He wanted to know if I'd be willing to go back out into the Grey." 

"Oh," said Chris. Then: "Yeah, he kind of asked me the same thing."

Antoinette turned her head to look at him, then raised her eyebrows. "And you didn't bother to mention that to me?"

Chris shrugged. "They're going to assign us to whatever they decide to assign us to," he said. 

"It would still have been nice to be warned in advance."

"Oh," said Chris. "Sorry."

Antoinette sighed, though she still looked irritated. "Chris..." She shook her head. "I try to let you know when something is going on. I don't expect you to blindly follow my lead. And when Chief Frummelt asked me if I was willing to move into this kind of role, I told him I'd have to talk to you, first. I wanted us to move into this as a team."

"Oh," Chris said again, feeling suddenly guilty. Yeah, no, still bad at teamwork. "Wow, I really fucked that up, didn't I?"

Antoinette studied him for a moment. "Yeah, you kind of did. I just... I don't get it. How can someone as smart as you be this stupid?"

Chris, who had wondered the same thing for most of his life, said: "I don't know how to explain it. It's like I come at everything backwards. Most people, when they look around, they look at the big picture and then add in the details... while I start with the details and then build the big picture from them. So sometimes I see details that other people miss, but sometimes I miss things that are glaringly obvious to everybody else." And on top of that, sometimes I'm trying to hide things and I know I'm no good at that, so I just don't talk because that's so much easier. And sometimes I want to talk, and words just won't come out for me.

Antoinette tilted her head, studying him closely. "Is that because you're a wolf?" 

"No." He considered that for a moment, then told her: "I mean, wolves and other ROs do see things differently. But I'm weird even by their standards."

Antoinette chuckled. "Not too weird for a girlfriend, though." 

"What do you mean?" he asked, and then cut himself off, wishing he could swallow the words back.

"Elyssa," Antoinette said slowly, watching him carefully. "Your girlfriend Elyssa."

"How do you know about that?" asked Chris. "I mean, there's no reason you shouldn't know, it's just..."

Antoinette sighed, frustrated. "Frummelt asked if I knew her, since she was your girlfriend. He wanted to know if I could work with her, and he wanted me to ask you if you thought you could work with her professionally. I think he's considering assigning her to our team."

"Your team," Chris said quietly, as a magus with a paintball gun crept past them. "You're the magus here." It was a token objection; he knew his partner was doing her best.

"You really don't think much of us, do you?" Antoinette asked after a moment. "You... what? You recognize the power of the Ministry and place yourself under its authority, but..."

"...I don't trust it?" He shook his head. "I was at Pettibone when it happened," he said simply. "How could I trust it?"

Antoinette sucked in a breath. "Could you at least trust me? To include you as part of the team, and not just some... soldier under my command?"

"I do," Chris told her. "That's why I protect you the way I do. It's not just the geas that they put on us; I could find a way around that."

Antoinette looked horrified. "The what?" 

"The geas," Chris repeated. "It's part of becoming a Registered Outsider. We agree to defend the magi, not to harm them except in the extremes of self-defense -- by which time it's usually far too late -- and avoid revealing our natures to mundanes in any way. The Ministry enforces it with a geas to make sure that they can safely allow us into the Mundus. You didn't know that?" 

"I-- No, I didn't know that." Antoinette had forced her voice back down to the quiet volume they'd been using while the exercise was still in progress, probably by an act of will. "That's horrible. Do you want me take it off?"

"Could you?" 

"...I don't know," she admitted, "but I'd damned well try. There has to be information on it in one of  the libraries."

"Don't," he said, "and don't start agitating to have it removed. The Ministry is never going allow any of us into the Mundus without those sorts of assurances. I may not like it, but it's the only game in town."

"Jesus," Antoinette swore quietly. "It's a wonder you aren't out there trying to burn the Ministry down."

"I came here after Pettibone," he said quietly. "I've seen where that leads, too."

Antoinette looked away. When she finally looked back, she said, "All right. So tell me about Elyssa."

"Will you hold a secret for me?"

"Absolutely."

"We aren't romantic," he said, and watched Antoinette's face twist into an expression of God Damn, I fucking knew it. She held her peace, though. "I'm her boyfriend because one of the magi took an interest, and she needed a boyfriend to put him off. I don't even think she likes men, as a general thing."

Antoinette exhaled everything that had been in her lungs, laid her head back against the wooden boards of the training ground, and then drew breath and chuckled quietly. "You are... very possibly... the worst partner in the history of partnerships ever," she said. "Did it not even occur to you that I might be willing to help with a situation like that?" 

"It did, actually," Chris admitted, though he was feeling distinctly uncomfortable. He'd been trusting his instincts at the time, but he was nowhere near as certain of his footing here as he'd been for the rest of all this. 

"And?"

"He was a Thornblade," Chris said, pitching his voice for her ears alone. "Trying to protect you, remember?"

There was a long moment of silence, while Antoinette squeezed her eyes shut and laid her head back against the boards again. "Jesus H Christ in an Easy Bake Oven," she said under her breath. "Does trouble just come looking for you?" 

Apparently. "No, I think it pretty much knows exactly where to find me," he admitted. 

"I think I finally know what your problem is," said Antoinette. "You have no idea when you're in over your head."

Chris grinned at her. "Was I, though?" 

She shook her head. "You keep surviving, and it's very possible that you saved my life twice so far," she admitted. "It could still be luck, though."

"It could." He nodded. "You're my partner, and you should know this, but you should never speak of it: Julius Thornblade was torn apart by a vengeful ghost, one that he created through his own actions." 

A wolf and one of the great cats bounded into the room, and Chris fell silent. They were shooting at each other with paintballs, the cat running up walls and bounding off the ceiling while the wolf bounced from wall to wall. Even here in the Mundus, it would take a silver bullet to damage a wolf -- an unexpected result of popular culture polluting the local environment and reprogramming the Grey -- and while the Great Cats had no particular vulnerability to that metal, it was generally considered to take at least three shots to kill them. Still, the wolves were tough and could generally expect to require the same three hits before they were dead.

Paintball rules for Registered Outsiders were complex and somewhat fluid. 

The wolf took a hit, and sprinted out through one of the (fortunately empty) windows, while the cat clung to the ceiling and hesitated before circling away in a different direction. 

Chris waited, and when the battlefield was silent again he said quietly, "So I think that Deputy Chief Frummelt is making a statement by moving us under his direct command. He's protecting us, politically -- especially Elyssa." 

"And also making sure we'll be loyal to him," Antoinette said quietly. 

Chris shrugged. "There are worse reasons to be loyal to someone."

"Is all that true?" asked an unexpected voice from behind the boards they were leaning against. 

Chris growled, deep enough to shake those boards. "Grundus, if you repeat a word of this I will rip your fucking throat out."

"You think you can take me?" the older wolf asked.

Chris growled again, making the air vibrate with it.

"All right, maybe you could. But I'd have had kept my mouth shut anyway." He paused, briefly. "The pack protects it own, even the ones who behave like solitaries."

Chris shook his head, exasperated. "We're not a pack," he said. "We're all the wolves who don't have one left."

"If you keep thinking that way," Grundus said, "it'll keep being true."

"Whatever you're doing, leave me out of--" He ground out, before his partner interrupted him.

"I'll accept the new position," Antoinette cut in, firm but quiet. "To keep you safe, to keep Elyssa safe, whoever she is." She sighed. "May the gods someday spare us from politics and grant us a sensible way to live."

"Amen," said Grundus, and Chris -- reluctantly -- nodded.