Chapter Text
Bits of dirt scuttled across the cracked desert earth. Mirage dropped against a rock, heaving, twisting a shield cell as his whole body tremored with pain, then took in the godly cocktail of drugs that made up a med pack until he went from a one-shot kill to a one-shot killer. He watched behind him as he reloaded his weapons, a team firing shots from the ancient skull that cast its shadow on the town. They didn’t see him. Ahead was a little settlement that he quickly shuffled into and began looting, trading his prowler for a longbow and 8x scope and gathering all the bombs and health he could carry. He was solo now, his whole squad taken out by the firefight in Skulltown because of course he got matched with two new guys who thought they knew half anything about surviving. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t glad their banners had timed out.
He moved quickly with his usual flair; humming as he grabbed this and that, a few quips that he made sure the cameras trailing him caught, bit of a dance on his way into the town outside bunker and a kiss to everyone viewing before he settled down at the top of the tower for some sniping. He added a little butt wiggle as he got comfy, then aimed towards Runoff, where the circle was centering.
To his surprise, Bloodhound was kneeling on a roof, seemingly having taken an old Pathfinder zipline, gazing up at the Leviathan that had begun wandering closer to Kings Canyon. We’re they alone? He scanned the area, concluding that they had to be. Bloodhound never strayed from their team, ever, and no signs pointed to company. Mirage wasn’t sure if he feared them more solo or not. They’d only started a season before him, but in that time they’d won almost every game they played in, and made a record as the fastest rise to Legend status in Apex history-less than three weeks, all told. They were a God, and Mirage had been terrified and fascinated as anyone else by them when he joined the games as a fledgling. His first encounter with them they’d shot him with a sniper from who-the-hell knows where and then was polite enough to come down and stab him while gently saying, “there is more honor in death than a life without test.”
He had been, understandably, impressed.
After making it to Legend status (alongside Pathfinder-he’d never thought they would actually let a robot join the games, but first time for everything! He was happy for him) Mirage had been ready to meet the Legend, he assumed face to face. But Bloodhound was a ghost. They were never out of uniform, hardly in the cafeteria, and when they were they just scribbled in a notepad and watched their bird drink water. They were honestly super nice and courteous and polite or whatever, always volunteered to run the fledglings through the basics before they went and got murdered for other people’s entertainment, but beyond that, they were just kind of…blah. So, Mirage forgot about them. They faded into the background, he let the mystery that enwrapped their being go with them and they became all but a cardboard cutout placed in different spots every couple of days. In the ring though, they were spectacular to play with and spectacular to die by. But even more spectacular was the chance to kill them.
He took long enough to check around him, then that his magazine was full-if he pulled it right, he could get a two-shot knock, then one shot elimination. Oh, oh, oh, or, or! He could go finish them. Yeah. That would totally boost his ratings. Not that they needed boosting of course, but…
Then he saw it, someone crawling up the wall of the building behind Bloodhound. They must have been silent, however they were doing it, as the hunter did not stir. Mirage bit his lip. They had to be a mid-tier player at most, considering he didn’t recognize them at all. Probably newly appointed. He remembered how it felt then to go after a Legend, to even encounter one. It’d taken him until he was nearly High Tier status to kill one. It’d been Gibraltar. He gripped the gun, watching through the scope. Something made him stop. Something made him give them a chance. One he’d never gotten.
They crept up behind Bloodhound. They stood behind them, holding their breath. Elliot expected them to pull the peacekeeper from their back and blow Bloodhound’s head off-brutal, camera-worthy. Splatter would be great. But they didn’t do that. It was one swift movement, a single reach around and pull, and there was the biggest secret on the whole Frontier.
Elliot panicked. He threw his own peacekeeper behind him and in a single shot, all three cameras were gone. Then he went back to his sniper, to his scope. The mask was in the hand of the nobody and there was a face with absolute, unabhorred panic looking up at them from the ground, like some tragic renaissance painting. He shot the nobody. They dropped the mask and turned. Bloodhound took this moment to grab them, arm around their neck, and slit their throat. The blood flooded, pooled and spilled over Bloodhounds arm as they stood, gripping, squeezing. Finally, something seemed to snap in them and they dropped the player, stabbing them once in the chest.
Bloodhound picked up the mask and knelt by their kill as the body dematerialized, replaced by a death box. When they looked up, Mirage felt a shiver run from the back of his skull to the tip of his toes. There was something in the gaze that felt strange and sort of…forbidden?
The stare didn’t move. They saw him, they knew where he was. They knew who he was. But they didn’t look away; they pulled the mask over their head, they pulled and tugged and tucked into their layers. Elliot couldn’t see from the distance exactly what they looked like. He couldn’t tell someone if they were a man or a woman, biologically speaking; he couldn’t tell someone their eye color, he could maybe say their hair was brown. But he wasn’t sure. He saw them put their foot on the corner of the box and kick, sending it sailing off the roof to the ground. Then they jumped after it.
Mirage didn’t know what to feel in that moment. Then, he didn’t feel much of anything, because someone shot him in the head.
He was sitting on a bench in the men’s locker-room after a shower, damp towel draped over his head and shoulders. The migraines after headshots were always worse than the actual headshot, but at least this time he had a nurse that wasn’t shy with the FuckYaUppers (as Wraith so eloquently dubbed them). He’d stayed in the infirmary late, and as a result was alone, something he counted as a blessing. What would he have done, surrounded by people with that image in his mind? He felt like a sinner in church, goddammit. It was so far away, but the fact he even had the image at all, any clue of their skin or hair, the knowledge they had eyes, even though that was usually a given-
A pair of boots appeared on the floor. He inhaled deeply and looked up. Yep. That was them. In full terrifying regalia, ominous raven included.
“Mirage.” They said. Their ventilator echoed between the tiles.
He shivered, managing a nod.
A long, extremely uncomfortable pause. “We need to talk.”
He looked at his hands-still there. Therefore, he wasn’t dead. Therefore, he probably wouldn’t be dead in the next half hour; and therefore, he could breathe again, albeit shakily. “Right.” They were silent. “Uh, here?”
“Your apartment.”
“Suppose I owe you dinner first?” Haha why the hell did he just say that.
“Ha.” He wanted to die. Like, half die. Breathing but non-existent until they walked away and never talked to him again. But that wasn’t happening anytime soon, so he got up and started walking out.
“Uh-”
“What?”
“Um, a-towel?”
He took hold of the one on his shoulders. “Uh, yeah?”
They gestured to the rest of him. He looked down. Oh yeah. He wrapped the towel he already had around his waist, which covered his ass but was clearly not long enough for Bloodhound’s tastes, then went on ahead in his bare feet to the elevator. Bloodhound followed, visibly glancing between him and the door as they traveled up to the penthouse, currently Elliot’s. One of the perks of being a Legend was having a floor completely to oneself. Some weird mechanical engineering magic rearranged the floors each season by Legend popularity. And Elliot, using his masculine wiles, had scored the penthouse for the season. He punched in the door code and led the coveted hunter into his humble (pretty damn fine) abode.
Open concept kitchen that led to a sunken living and dining room; at the far end a fireplace was cattycornered to the left, and to the right were sliding glass doors leading to a sizable balcony. Beside the kitchen was a hall leading to a couple bedrooms, bathrooms and a spare room he used to tinker in. All was off-white carpet and dark oak flooring and beadboard walls that matched the trim and cabinets, furniture appropriate line between fashionable and comfy, decorations to his liking. Yeah. It was damn nice.
Bloodhound made a noise of admiration, but quickly turned to Elliot. “Put on pants. Please.”
“Right. Pants.” His brain went from “everything is fine” to “haha what the fuck” all over again. Found a pair of sweatpants, came back out and there was the raven-crow? The big bird boi was sitting in his sink. Bloodhound was hissing at him in their language from the entrance. “Uh, what’s…up?”
Bloodhound hesitated, then sighed. “He…he wants a bath.”
“Oh. Well-uh, I mean…I’ve never had a crow-“
“Raven.”
“-Raven, take a bath in my sink, uh, before but uh…that’s fine. Do I just-turn on the faucet or?”
“Yes-not too hard though he gets…nibby.”
Elliot raised an eyebrow as he walked over. The raven cocked its head at him and rustled its feathers in anticipation(?). “Nibby?”
“Nib-nibbly. Actually, I should…”
They hesitated again, looking between Elliot’s impeccable carpet and their nasty ass field boots that he hadn’t noticed until then. Feeling much more confident now that he was in pants and his own house, he shook his head. “Just take them off.”
They hesitated again, like he asked them to get naked or something, but they finally pulled them off and padded across in plain sock feet to the kitchen. They turned the faucets simultaneously, adjusting according to which glove the bird nipped at until the bird seemed content. “There, Arthur, are you satisfied? You little andskoti.”
“Your birds name is fucking Arthur?”
They turned to him, far less intimidating two inches shorter and bootless. “No, just Arthur.”
It took Elliot a minute to get that.
“Is there something wrong with that?”
“Oh, uh, no, but I definitely expected something other than Arthur.”
He could hear a tinge of annoyance, followed by a sudden removal of their mask. Elliot jumped back. Their eyes were blue- like cracked ice, spine-shivering in their intensity. He hadn’t met a single person with eyes like that in his life and he was somewhere between distraught he hadn’t and afraid he’d meet another; their skin looked soft, they had a little scar on the bridge of their nose and a mouth that turned down at the corners and-and what the hell were they doing? He had seen them sure but not-not like this! Did they not realize? He managed to meet their eyes. They had him backed into a wall. They were studying him. He felt like prey.
“You saw me.”
Their voice-without the ventilator, the distorter-Mirage heard music. It was clear and sweet, soft toned but firm, even, confident. His head was swimming. “I-I-I am now, yeah.”
“I found the cameras. You shot them. Why?”
They’d followed his trail? Of course. “B-Because face.”
“My face?”
“Your face. Was there. Right there.”
“…Why did you shoot the cameras?”
He stuttered and stammered, every word he started ended in a bumbling soup of nonsense. Bloodhound slowly took a step back, and he felt he could breathe enough to manage, “n-nobody knows what you look like. S-Some aslow-asswole-shit, asshole shouldn’t, you know, harve-have charge of that-Jesus I was just doing what I thought was decent!”
They blinked, eyebrows raising slightly. Arthur squawked behind them, louder and louder until they stepped back further, eyes still on Mirage, and turned off the faucets. The bird shook off and started preening himself. “That’s why?”
“Uh-yeah? Do…do I need another reason?” His heart was pounding, and he hated himself because it wasn’t just because he was scared. Bloodhound paused, then leaned back against the kitchen counter, arms crossed. They ducked their head, sighing. “I…oh shit, you don’t think-I wasn’t going to blackmail you or anything.”
They shrugged slightly; eyes aimed at the floor. Stray umber locks fell from a neat bun at the back of their neck, curtaining their face. “I’m afraid it would not be the first time.”
He could breathe again. He couldn’t stop thinking about their eyes. He did not like what he was feeling at that moment. “That’s messed up.”
They turned their head up and gave a thin-lipped smile. “So is the world; this one and the next.”
He shook his head. “Well, I wouldn’t do that. Like, ever. That’s just-no. And I wouldn’t dream of saying anything. I mean, besides the fact you’d totally kill me in my sleep-“
“I’m afraid it would be dishonorable to not allow you a fight.”
OOOOHKAY PUTTING YOU IN THE DO-NOT-FUCK-WITH BOX “-Uh, right. Besides that I…don’t wanna make your life difficult or anything.”
They nodded, slowly. “You swear to be quiet.”
“I swear.”
“You swear to deny you ever saw.”
“I swear. And when the Officials come tear me a new asshole about the cameras, I’ll blame a twitchy trigger finger.”
“They won’t believe you.”
“I don’t care.”
They cocked their head at him with a sudden full, real smile-oh no. Dimples. He was done for. “I suppose that is all that needs said then.”
“I-I, I suppose it is.” They turned their mask in their hands, then pulled it over their face, exhaling. Arthur waited by the door as they put their boots back on, carefully tucking in their pants, tapping the toe; all the while Elliot leaned on the counter, biting the inside of his cheek so hard he could taste blood. Just as they put a hand on the doorknob he sputtered, “h-hey, wait.”
They turned their head toward him. The image of their face was burned in his mind; instead of the mask there was those eyes, soft lips downturned, a little scar.
“If…if you-…look, you must wanna take that make off sometimes. My place is safe. I swear to God, or Allfather or whatever you’re most, uh, whatever means the most to you-I swear there’s nothing here but me. And if the-if the me is a problem you can totally go to your own place and everything but if…if you wanna I…don’t know, hang out or something, I’m totally cool with that. More than cool with that. Like-…I’ll stop talking.”
A noise from their ventilator-did they laugh? “I will consider your offer, Mirage.”
“Elliot.”
They paused an awkward amount of time-they seemed to have a thing for that, then gestured to themselves. “All I can offer is the name I already have.”
He laughed nervously. “Hey, I’ll take it,” Bloodhound nodded and turned to go, “wait! Sorry-one-one more thing what…what about the guy? That…yeah. That guy.”
They audibly laughed this time, pulling open the door. “Do not worry, felagi. It was his last game.”