Chapter Text
Blackwatch HQ - Location Classified
Local Time - 8:30 PM
[6 months later]
The last couple months from where Karrick left off were mostly uneventful. Due to Blackwatch’s covert policy, all agents were required to live onsite in special dormitories. Karrick's new room was more spacious than the one he had in the lab.
It was more than a small bedroom and bathroom. There was a living room and kitchen divided by a half-wall with an island in the kitchen in the middle of a U-shaped countertop. For Karrick's own safety, he decided to not touch the stove yet.
Karrick has been very busy ever since he first started. Did you guess that he'd be busy with being sent on missions?
Because that's wrong.
He has yet to be sent on any missions in the past 6 months despite having completed all of the necessary training.
Instead, Karrick was stuck doing what was essentially a bunch of office tasks. He usually found himself settling into the monotony of keeping track of weapon inventory, mission data entry, and other menial tasks like making copies of reports. It was so far from the action-packed missions he had envisioned. The closest he’s had to it was going to the practice range when he was done for the day.
At first, he tried to stay positive, telling himself that this was just a phase before the real work began. Karrick would happily throw himself at his assignments with the same dedication he had shown during his training, hoping that someone would notice his hard work and finally put him to use in the field.
Karrick wasn't the type of guy to complain, but after a few months he was starting to think his talents and abilities were wasted on being “Gabe's errand boy”, as some people called him.
Even Cassidy got to go on a few missions with small teams. He once told Alyx that he was even the unofficial leader of one of them.
It didn’t help that Alyx hadn’t entirely adjusted to being around a ton of new people everyday. He’d usually spare himself the awkwardness by going to his dorm room in his free time, so Karrick wouldn't have anyone to talk to except an inanimate plushie when Cassidy was away. The dorm room, though more comfortable and homey than the lab, started to feel like another kind of cage. It was an unhealthy habit that Alyx would relapse to, but didn’t like talking to people he didn’t know.
On the bright side… When Karrick completed his tasks for the day, he'd have some free time to relax from a long, exhausting day of doing things for everyone.
Alyx was chopping up some green onion in the kitchen while eyeing his journal for the recipe he was following. Meanwhile, Cassidy sat on the couch in the living room with his feet propped up onto the coffee table, talking about his most recent mission. He got up and leaned against the half wall, and into the kitchen, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips as he got to the end of his story. “So there I was,” Cassidy continued, “outnumbered three to one, and you know what I did?”
Karrick would often roll his eyes, not because he was annoyed, but because he was secretly jealous that Cassidy got to do all of that without him. “ He wouldn't need to tell me if I were there too…, ” he thought.
“What did you do?”
“I lined them all up, and shot them all down before they could even aim down their sights,” Cassidy chuckled as he made a few ‘Pew!’ sounds while doing finger guns.
Karrick gave a forced smile and nod when Cassidy finished his story. He wanted to give that proud ‘way to go!’ for him like he usually did, but he was just too bummed out. Instead it was more of a ‘that’s nice’.
Cassidy noticed Karrick’s half-hearted response and raised an eyebrow. “So, how was your day?”
“It was good,” Karrick poured all of the green onion into a large bowl that had several other ingredients inside. “I probably would’ve finished my tasks a lot sooner if the printer worked,” he briefly chuckled to himself.
Cassidy peered into the bowl, “Whatcha makin’?”
Karrick telekinetically hovered his journal over to Cassidy. The journal was turned to a page with ‘Karrick Family Cheese Ball Recipe’ written at the very top.
“Don't share it with anyone,” Alyx said. He started to mix and knead everything in the bowl together with his hands, each time becoming rougher as he took out his frustration on it. “You know,” Karrick started, “I have a little theory on why Gabe won't send me on any missions…”
Cassidy raised an eyebrow, looking up from the page. “Oh, yeah?”
"I think Reyes is scared I won't need his training anymore," he said, sounding a little more upset than he intended.
Cassidy's grin widened as he closed the diary and set it aside. “Is that right? Think you’d outshine the boss if he gave you a shot?”
Karrick rolled his eyes, not exactly disagreeing. He telekinetically placed aluminum foil over the bowl, and placed it inside the fridge. Alyx trudged into the living room and over to the couch before plopping down with a heavy sigh.
Cassidy settled onto the couch beside him, resting his arm on the back as he watched Alyx droop his head back and stare at the ceiling. “Well, maybe he’s just waitin’ for the right time to toss you in. I’m willing to bet you're gonna get a mission that no one else can complete. Not even Reyes.”
Karrick barely heard the suggestion with how distracted he was with his own frustration. He sat up, letting out another sigh. "I dunno, Cole. I’ve wanted this job for a long time. I just wanted to do it as well as you."
“Hey, you're doing a great job yourself,” Cassidy chuckled. “No matter how many printers you break.”
Karrick’s face went a little blank at Cassidy's joke, but after a second of getting over it, he started to smile softly. “Thanks.”
“You just gotta give it a rest, and get outta your own head. You’re plenty ready. There’s no need to keep goin’ over it.” He smirked as he wondered if he could finally make a subtle move. Cassidy scooted a little closer to Karrick, slowly moving his arm around him. “Maybe instead, you and I can watch a mov-”
“You know what! You’re so right!” Karrick interrupted, springing up from the couch and catching Cassidy off guard. His ignited determination made him a little oblivious to the fact that he was being hit on. “I’m not gonna sit around and talk about how ready I am. I’m gonna go down to the practice range and actually show myself that I am!” He testified, now marching towards the door.
“Uh…” Cassidy rubbed the back of his neck while chuckling awkwardly. “Yeah. You go on ahead.” He looked back behind the couch and into the kitchen. “I’ll help myself to that cheeseball in the meantime.”
As Karrick was leaving, he hollered “Don’t touch it!” and then closed the door behind him, just barely firm enough to be a slam.
Cassidy watched the door close with a slight shake of his head, a smirk tugging at his lips. “That guy’s somethin’ else,” he muttered, leaning back on the couch and flipping on the TV.
It didn't take Karrick long to get to the firing range - as no one tried stopping him to chat. Most other agents have returned to their rooms for the day, or were getting ready to. The ones that were still out and about were most likely lounging about somewhere with friends, so they'd be out of the corridors and out of his way.
The practice range itself was mostly empty as well. Karrick only counted three other agents there. One by themselves, and the other two in a group. Alyx decided to keep to himself and take a spot a few booths away from them.
Karrick picked up a pistol off the nearby rack and looked down the range. He held the pistol firmly and aimed at one of the circular targets.
He squared his shoulders and clenched the pistol tightly as he focused on the center of the target. He breathed slower to try and keep himself from drifting.
Just focus , he thought to himself.
He pulled the trigger. The shot rang out, hitting the target, but not the bullseye. All things considered, it was still a decent shot, but he didn’t see it that way. Karrick furrowed his brow and adjusted his stance.
I can do better…
He fired again, landing a little closer to the target's center, but it still wasn't the bullseye.
As he was firing, the two agents talking nearby seemed to be more interested in Karrick than their own practice. They started whispering about him, and those whispers started to divide Karrick’s attention.
“I swear he's in here every other day. It's kind of sad,” one of them said.
“Are they talking about me?” Alyx asked himself. He gritted his teeth, his grip tightening on the pistol. The idea that people whispered and gossiped about him was gnawing at him. It was like a static buzz that grew louder with every passing second, making it impossible to focus. His shots reflected it, as they were no longer steady or close to the bullseye but scattering across the target.
Eventually, he decided that he had enough. Karrick needed to know what they were really saying. He set the pistol back onto the rack and quickly moved to a closer booth.
At first, he second thoughts and asked himself if it would be nosy or rude to eavesdrop on them.
“No… “ Karrick thought. “I mean, they’re talking about me, so… technically it IS my business.”
He shook his head to stop worrying about it, and just leaned over to one side and zeroed in on what they were saying with a subtle squint.
“Seriously, I'm willing to bet he's trying to show us up. Who the hell practices that much unless they’re trying to make the rest of us look bad?” one of them said, sounding frustrated, but it wasn’t the kind of mocking Karrick expected.
“Oh, come on. That's ridiculous. He's probably just trying to keep his spot in the top 10 of the leaderboard.”
Karrick tilted his head and whispered, “There's a leaderboard?” He briefly looked around the firing booth.
It was on one of the holographic screens, and he must've never noticed the button labeled “Accuracy Score” in the very upper left corner of the screen. Out of curiosity he decided to check and see what the placements looked like.
The number one slot was taken by Cassidy with an accuracy score of 97.2% - with Gabe being in second with only two points behind. Karrick himself was sitting in tenth place, only beating someone else by less than half of a point.
“Ooo…!” Karrick exclaimed proudly, but not because of his own placement, but because of someone else's. “Cassidy never told me he was in first place. Good for him.”
“Yeah, so he can brag about it,” The agent argued with a comment that made Karrick roll his eyes. “Why else would that psychic weirdo speed through all those tasks he does? I'll tell you why. He wants to beat everyone to the range.”
The other agent laughed heartily. “You're starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist, Nick. Besides, anyone who rushes taking attendance would definitely mess up at least once.”
A warm smile spread across Karrick’s face as he listened to their conversation, and how one of them seemed to truly appreciate all the things he did.
He’s always been rather good at counting and keeping track of people. As a kid, whenever his mom left for a mission, Karrick would sit in the hangar each morning and count everyone who boarded a certain ship while he anticipated his mother’s return, and he’d remember his count for each ship until she got back.
He guessed he probably got a lot of extra practice when she didn’t come back.
No one has ever talked about him positively behind his back before, even about some of the smaller things like making coffee for everyone.
Karrick leaned away and looked down at the ground in silence. His eyes slowly drifted to one of the pistols on the rack again. He thought about trying again, but another part of him wanted to finally give something a rest. Was that his problem? Was he so used to getting better for the sake of pleasing people that he didn't even realize he didn’t need to do it anymore?
Karrick shook his head, pushed off the wall and walked away from the booth, leaving the practice range. “I don’t need to try so hard.”
Karrick returned to his dorm room with a very giddy and happy expression still plastered on his face. He felt so uplifted he practically levitated the entire way back. After 6 months of hard work and doing stuff he didn’t actually like to do… hearing that he was at least doing it right made all of it feel just a little better.
As he started taking off his boots, Karrick heard that the TV in the living room was on. He walked down the small hallway and into the living room, where Cassidy had crudely passed out on the couch with his arm hanging off the side and his hat covering his eyes. It surprised Karrick as he figured Cassidy would’ve gone back to his own room by now.
Karrick shut off the TV and then walked up to him, staring down at Cassidy and watching him sleep and snore like a bear. “D'awww,” he exclaimed quietly, tilting his head to the side.
Alyx couldn’t help but wonder what he was dreaming about. He figured it wouldn’t hurt to take a small peak, so he telepathically linked to Cassidy and looked into his mind.
What Karrick saw was a little fuzzy, as most dreams are, but he could make out a very subtle image of a sunset with Cassidy sitting on the edge of a building and sharing a drink with someone Alyx didn’t entirely recognize. It was a guy with black hair, brown eyes, and what Karrick guessed was a bow beside him. He didn’t know why, but he felt like he was supposed to recognize him.
Karrick leaned away and giggled softly. It seemed like a really nice and relaxing dream, so he wasn’t going to bother waking him up. He just turned out the lights and went to his bedroom.
Only a few moments later, Karrick quickly walked back out with a blanket in his arms. He draped it over Cassidy, and finally decided to turn in for the day.