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ajremixTitle: Roll the Bones: Between the Lines
Fandom: Skip Tracers
Rating: PG
Word Count: 558
Characters: Balt
In Response to:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
oc_speedfic’s delirious challenge
Summary: Set two years before the series starts.
Balt lies on his mat, sleeplessly staring at the thatched ceiling of his hut. He doesn’t know why, but something about the night struck him wrong. From Catoue’s words to how Shichi acted after the feast.
“Look.” Shichi said, his expression almost desperate. “Look.”
In any other circumstance Balt probably would’ve passed it as his Tourette’s again. But he knew, somehow he knew, it wasn’t. Look? Look at what?”
Rubbing a hand over his face Balt sighs. It’s probably all just nothing. He’s just getting worked up because the sting is going to happen in just a few hours. Just nerves, just being delirious
Delirious? No, wait- delusional. He’s been here too long if he’s starting to get words mixed-
Wait.
WAIT.
Abruptly Balt sits up and dives for parchment and ink. He runs through the words again. ‘Look. Look.’
It’s a warning. The guerillas use the same pattern of words, trilling it through their nose like a singing toad to signal approaching danger.
Catoue’s words are scrawled out in front of him and Balt’s almost panting, feeling like he’s almost upon the key to the subliminal puzzle. He used no title- that’s the first thing. Everyone always uses a title- Intelligent, Clever –when referring to Balt’s alter ego. But that one time Catoue didn’t. For a lifeguide to be stripped of their title is like being a wandering ghost. You may be alive but you were beneath acknowledgement to the villagers.
“You aren’t Wise without seeing…” he mutters. He rewrites the sentence again with a hand that almost doesn’t shake, this time as one long word. And he begins to see. It takes a moment but he combines words, omits characters, adds a few in and he sees.
‘You are known’ reads back at him.
“They know what I am.” Balt mutters in shock. And it all seems so obvious now. ‘To the end’, he’s run out of time. They’re going to get him at any moment. That means the words he strained so hard the hear the day before, the ones he could barely make out-
‘We have movement at daybreak’- ‘we’ using the term for many groups, more people than the guerillas have in this village, the verb conjugation doesn’t match because it’s for a smaller group, ‘at’ meaning ‘place’ and not ‘time’ –disseminate, reconstruct and see.
The sentence, word for word, doesn’t make sense but Balt can read the message all the same:
‘Bait and trap.’
They’re going to ambush the sting. They said they were moving at daybreak but it was just to get Balt to report it in. They’re going to get guerillas from other villages to ambush the strike team and Balt did exactly as they wanted without a clue and it’s so obvious how could he have been so STUPID-
Balt runs out of the hut, shooting into the heart of the jungle. They already know what he is, Catoue is having him watched he knows but he has to hope he can get out of range of their radio jammers and let them know.
“Abort operation!” He yells into the communicator. “It’s a trap! Abort!” There’s rustling in the underbrush around him and Balt knows they’re closing in on him. “Abort the-“
The last thing Balt sees is someone crashing out of leaves, swinging a blade at his head.
Fandom: Skip Tracers
Rating: PG
Word Count: 558
Characters: Balt
In Response to:
oc_speedfic’s delirious challengeSummary: Set two years before the series starts.
Balt lies on his mat, sleeplessly staring at the thatched ceiling of his hut. He doesn’t know why, but something about the night struck him wrong. From Catoue’s words to how Shichi acted after the feast.
“Look.” Shichi said, his expression almost desperate. “Look.”
In any other circumstance Balt probably would’ve passed it as his Tourette’s again. But he knew, somehow he knew, it wasn’t. Look? Look at what?”
Rubbing a hand over his face Balt sighs. It’s probably all just nothing. He’s just getting worked up because the sting is going to happen in just a few hours. Just nerves, just being delirious
Delirious? No, wait- delusional. He’s been here too long if he’s starting to get words mixed-
Wait.
WAIT.
Abruptly Balt sits up and dives for parchment and ink. He runs through the words again. ‘Look. Look.’
It’s a warning. The guerillas use the same pattern of words, trilling it through their nose like a singing toad to signal approaching danger.
Catoue’s words are scrawled out in front of him and Balt’s almost panting, feeling like he’s almost upon the key to the subliminal puzzle. He used no title- that’s the first thing. Everyone always uses a title- Intelligent, Clever –when referring to Balt’s alter ego. But that one time Catoue didn’t. For a lifeguide to be stripped of their title is like being a wandering ghost. You may be alive but you were beneath acknowledgement to the villagers.
“You aren’t Wise without seeing…” he mutters. He rewrites the sentence again with a hand that almost doesn’t shake, this time as one long word. And he begins to see. It takes a moment but he combines words, omits characters, adds a few in and he sees.
‘You are known’ reads back at him.
“They know what I am.” Balt mutters in shock. And it all seems so obvious now. ‘To the end’, he’s run out of time. They’re going to get him at any moment. That means the words he strained so hard the hear the day before, the ones he could barely make out-
‘We have movement at daybreak’- ‘we’ using the term for many groups, more people than the guerillas have in this village, the verb conjugation doesn’t match because it’s for a smaller group, ‘at’ meaning ‘place’ and not ‘time’ –disseminate, reconstruct and see.
The sentence, word for word, doesn’t make sense but Balt can read the message all the same:
‘Bait and trap.’
They’re going to ambush the sting. They said they were moving at daybreak but it was just to get Balt to report it in. They’re going to get guerillas from other villages to ambush the strike team and Balt did exactly as they wanted without a clue and it’s so obvious how could he have been so STUPID-
Balt runs out of the hut, shooting into the heart of the jungle. They already know what he is, Catoue is having him watched he knows but he has to hope he can get out of range of their radio jammers and let them know.
“Abort operation!” He yells into the communicator. “It’s a trap! Abort!” There’s rustling in the underbrush around him and Balt knows they’re closing in on him. “Abort the-“
The last thing Balt sees is someone crashing out of leaves, swinging a blade at his head.
