The three arrived at Cusp’s End two days and a half later. The town teetered at the edge of a cavernous pitfall so deep the bottom was clouded in thick, black shadows. But it was happier than Clockwork City by almost as many miles dividing the two. Vices of all kinds flooded the streets; staggering men and cackling women crept everywhere Jongdae looked. 

Despite all he’d seen, the last thing Jongdae expected as the door to the leaning three-story home before them opened were two big, brown eyes. The owner of which was short and small in stature. Ruddy Complexion. Pink lips. Gray nowhere to be seen.

“Shoe.” The male voiced, his surprise obvious. 

“Hey, Deo.” Minseok responded to the nickname without missing a beat. “How’ve you been?”

“ty.” The male, whom Jongdae presumed was Deo, shrugged. 

“The usual then.” Minseok laughed, showing a smile he hadn’t the entire trip to this very doorstep.

“We thought you,” Deo started, only to shake his head, “well that doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“Not when I’ve come for help it doesn’t.” Minseok gestured behind himself, Fay more brooding than usual and Jongdae never more confused. “Meet Jongdae. My brother.”

“By blood?”

“By name.” Minseok corrected Deo’s assumptions. And the following look on the petite male’s face flew over Jongdae’s head. In too deep to change his mind now, he figured he’d just roll with it. 

Multiple piercings lining either ear. Black hair a shaggy mess. Limbs long and lanky. A laugh akin to a child’s wind-up toy escaped the mad Scientist, Tao, as he welcomed Minseok and his friends to his humble, creaking, abode. His hands were wide open, the gesture nothing but mocking in nature. 

“Come back, have ya?” Flipping back his white lab coat marred with numerous stains, he dramatically rolled his eyes, voice nasally and frankly, Jongdae wouldn’t hesitate to admit, a bit annoying, “Freedom not what you quite imagined it to be?”

“I need your help.” Minseok seemed to admit from between a clenched pair of teeth, and Jongdae felt guilty as he watched his brother have to metaphorically bend a knee to the obvious maniac.

“Do ya now?” Crossing his legs after plopping back down into the rolling chair he’d risen from, he arched thick eyebrows. “And under what pretenses should I be helpin’ ya?”

Minseok side-stepped, presenting Jongdae like a trophy he’d won, “I’ve found Cerberus.”

The scientists eyes visibly lit up, his legs propelling his chair forward until he was mere feet from where Jongdae stood, face cringing in anticipation of his high pitch. “Him?”

“Him,” Minseok nodded.

Jongdae thought he’d choke on his own spit as he stood there obediently, watching as Tao watched him. Judged him. Raked over him with his cat-like eyes, red veins that surrounded his pupils on the verge of popping. It seemed the scientist was on to something big recently, what with the many vials of glass that surrounded them in the small office, an odd smell hanging about.

It smelt like mold, specifically. Jongdae had grown used to it after a few hours upon first traveling through the Underground. But the concentration of it there, in that tiny space, in that tilting house, was more pungent. More repugnant. More disgusting, a hint of something burning lacing beneath it. 

What looked like a teapot balanced itself upon a bunsen burner; one of many scattered across the intricate tubes that flashed and glowed under the light overhead. It was only when it began to cry out that Jongdae drew his eyes away from the numerous piles of papers and folders scattered everywhere—he’d stepped on one on his way in, in fact. It was only then when Tao finally spoke up.

“That’s fascinatin’ it is.” 

Fascinating was one word to explain the sight before Jongdae’s eyes. Not the one he’d choose, but one nevertheless.

“I thought Cerberus was servin’ Hades up there in our glorious Haven. But here he is?”

“Here he is.” Minseok affirmed for the second time.

“And her? She a stray as well?” Tao suddenly whipped around, noticing Fay only now. Or, perhaps, not caring who—what—she was until now. “She’s a beauty, she is. Didn’t know any females survived this long.”

And this time, Minseok stopped being submissive. Jongdae made a mental note to reprimand Minseok for his transgressions. “Bros before hoes” and all that. Though, without a doubt, Fay wouldn’t take too kindly to that term—plus Jongdae had already decided the label “psycho ” was rude enough long ago. Besides all that, Minseok had to do his duty as “not-boyfriend,” didn’t he?

Jongdae understood. 

“Chicks before ” he thought to himself, dissolving the seriousness of the situation he was now in as much as he possibly could—even if he was only doing it for himself.

“She’s not.” Minseok blocked Tao’s view of her with one more shift of his weight. 

At those words, Tao lost interest in her immediately, “Disappointin’. All you do is disappoint me, Shoe.”

“Tao.” Deo called out, breaking his silence. His scorning tone had the young scientist groaning outwardly, spinning round and round and round in his chair. No longer a child’s toy, but just a child instead, Tao groaned out in frustration as he continued his self-play. Seemingly stimulated with each circle he committed, it wasn’t long until his laugh assaulted Jongdae’s ears once more.

“Just don’t go doin’ it again from here on out, got it?”

It was when Tao began to whistle following his ultimatum that Jongdae was grateful Minseok knew when to play nice, even when others didn’t.

“We won’t.” He made another promise, accepting responsibility for Jongdae’s and Fay’s actions both. Before Jongdae could say a single word of gratitude or otherwise, Tao’s laughter interrupted him, and quite possibly ruptured his eardrums in the process.

“Orthrus and Cerberus appear at my doorstep without me havin’ to do a single thing? Haven’t I hit the jackpot?”

Jongdae was left alone with Fay as Minseok discussed the sure-to-be unfair terms of becoming a “family” with Tao and Deo. Her past—airing on the side of violent and volatile—transgressions aside, he was genuinely curious about the way she’d acted since they’d arrived. Quiet and obedient, he wondered if it was partly his fault—as everything else was.

Thus, he ventured to find out as he commented, in a passing manner, “You were being awfully meeker than usual.”

“Minseok told us he’d do the talking.”

Folding both her clothes and Minseok’s own that they’d carried with them, she sat legs crossed on the floor of the spare room Deo set aside for her. It was the size of a walk-in closet, though Jongdae was sure Fay’d never complain. Unlike him, she treated the hand life dealt her like a straight flush. Like she couldn’t want for more—another reminder of how many differences were stacked between them.

“You kept quiet just because he told us to? What if—“

“What if he betrayed us? Handed us over to the people who’re after you? To others who could care less about me?” She shook her head, believing to the point of disbelief. “He wouldn’t.”

“How can you trust him so easily?”

“He asked me to.”

Spit went flying as Jongdae choked out a perplexed, “What?” 

Fay remained unfazed by his judging stare, her own asking the same question as she looked back. Eyes ablaze. Full of passion for a man she met a single day after Jongdae himself. She was a flighty woman, he decided then—finally having a word to describe her with past the physical.

Beautiful or not in the eyes of a mad scientist, a flower in a bed of weeds or not to his brother, she was cheap to Jongdae. Easily swayed by romantic gestures and pitifully privileged Blessed. Doing as she liked when she liked, but changing her stance when guilt would strike. When Minseok would just ask her to.

He couldn’t believe she could be bought so easily.

“That’s it? None of that ‘trust is a thing to be earned, and he earned it’ nonsense? No heart-wrenching story he told that caused you to feel so much pity for him you practically had to bestow upon him undying trust? Just, he asked, and you gave it?”

The woman with burning eyes.

“Anyone who asks to be trusted doesn’t have to audacity to do so without reason.” Looking up at him, she appeared to be smiling, “I half expected you to ask.”

Her flame burnt dimmer to him now. 

“Ask for what?”

“For my trust.”

“Such a petty thing? Why would I want that?”

Why would he want her?

She shrugged, “You speak better with your eyes than you think.” And she laughed, “Have you been practicing?”

Fay laughed, and Jongdae didn’t think things were as bad here in Cusp’s End, with his new "family," as he originally thought. Not when cheap women still laughed. Soft and teasing. Like her guilty lips and the swaying gun at her hip.

A/N: Jongdae's a jerk. Also, happy birthday to me!