Finneas flattened himself against the wall and motioned for Petra to join him. Whoever it was was coming from around the corner, and they wouldn’t have enough time to run back and duck for cover before the person caught them. Resigned to a confrontation, Finneas clenched his fists as a shadow appeared from the intersecting hall, growing longer and longer, and as it finally turned the corner Finneas found himself face to face with—
He wasn’t sure exactly what he was face to face with.
It was a person, a young person, that much he knew for certain, but everything else about them was ambiguous. They wore a loose-fitting tracksuit made from grey fabric with a greenish tint that hung off their lean, bony frame, blurring any distinguishing features their body might have. Their hair was shaved close to their scalp. But it was their eyes that unsettled Finneas the most— bottomless pools of inky black set against a pale, hollow face; a face with no expression, eyes with no life.
The arrival examined Finneas and Petra with an eerie kind of curiosity, scanning them with those soulless eyes of theirs. Their piercing gaze sent goosebumps down Finneas’ spine. He was too confused to move, yet strangely fascinated, unable to tear his eyes away from the unsettling sight.
The person flung out their arm. A vine shot out of their hand and wrapped itself around Finneas’ throat.
for context: the gang has invited themselves to a fancy gala at Councilor Gideon Black, aka Azami’s dad’s house to spy on some of the guests. dexaComs are this universe’s equivalent to smartphones-- they’re basically air pods that can create a holographic screen in front of your eyes. Finn and Val have elaborated a ruse to steal them from guests in a search for information.
for context on the “Lief” thing, you can read this.
words: 2202. idk what it is with Finn excerpts that i keep posting super long ones.
andromeda ruin wip intro ☆ read the other excerpts here
From the cover of the people around him, Finneas watched as Valyan approached their next target and began to engage in lively conversation with him, paying close attention to the man’s minute actions. Every time the guest started to raise his arm, Finneas anticipated he was removing his dexaComs and got ready to pounce, only to retreat when it turned out he was only adjusting his collar or scratching his temple.
A feeling of unease began to creep over Finneas the longer he waited. And although he was beginning to get impatient, it became increasingly clear that this new feeling had nothing to do with the mission. No, it was a feeling he had learned very quickly to discern during his first few months out on his own after escaping Ghillairde. It was a chill on the back of his neck, the sharp sting of a pair of eyes boring down on him.
He was being watched.
Daring to take his own eyes off Valyan and their victim for a second, he quickly scanned the crowd. Azami and Petra were deep in conversation at the other end of the room and weren’t paying attention to him. No one seemed to be paying attention to him, really, as they were all engrossed in their own conversations or their appetizers or the objects for sale around the room, so why was he—
His gaze locked with Ansel Black’s. A soft “fuck” of surprise escaped his lips.
“Finneas Becker,” Ansel said, his jawline as sharp as ever. “Funny I’d run into you again in my own house.”
The young man had somehow come up next to Finneas while he was focused on Valyan, and now Finneas was trapped. He wore a tailored white suit lined with silver edging that hugged his silhouette and his dark hair was neatly combed back, making him look a lot more like a Councilor’s son than the nervous hoodlum buying stolen goods he was pretending to be when they first met. Finneas might have been tempted to offer a flirtatious greeting, if it weren’t for the Richeport City Police Department badge on his lapel.
“Oh, great. It’s Lief,” he said instead, doing little to hide his disdain.
Ansel tilted his head up in some pathetic attempt to appear tougher, which Finneas didn’t buy for a second from the way he fiddled with the silver buttons on his sleeve. “It’s Ansel, actually.”
The fact that he simply introduced himself by his first name— no last name, no “Officer”— was concerning. “Yeah, I know. What d’you want?”
Ansel shifted his weight and launched into what seemed like a rehearsed speech. “I’ve waited a long time to see you again,” he began, and Finneas had to resist the urge to say that’s gay, dude. “You should be behind bars, and I’m sure attending an extremely high security event like this uninvited will land you there.”
“Oh, but I was invited,” Finneas said with a smug chuckle, pulling out one of the dexaComs Valyan had lent him for the night to project the invitation with his name on it onto his palm.
“It’s a fake,” Ansel challenged. “You did some… criminal magic to make it look real.”
“Just take a look, my dear prince.” Ansel reddened a bit at being called “prince”, and Finneas inwardly chided himself for getting carried away. This is how you got yourself into this situation in the first place, you jackass. “You of all people would know how to recognize your dad’s seal.”
Ansel eyed Finneas, then leaned forward to peer at the seal, and the scent of cologne distilled from pure money wafted off from his shoulders. After a few seconds, he glanced up again, scowling. “I will find something that will get you the justice you deserve,” he swore. “Next time we meet, I’ll get you in handcuffs.”
“Whoa, okay, look,” Finneas said, throwing up his hands. “First of all, I stopped being interested in you the moment I found out you’re a cop. And secondly, we barely know each other. Feels a bit early to get freaky, don’t you think?”
This time, a full blaze took over Ansel’s face. “That’s… that’s not what I was implying,” he sputtered, “and you know it.” Still, Finneas caught the quick movement of Ansel’s eyes down to Finneas’ chest, peeking out from his open blazer, and he didn’t want to know what could possibly be going on in the young cop’s head at that moment.
Oh, no. Azami really wasn’t kidding when she said her brother had an obsession.
He searched the room for the quickest way out. His eyes immediately sought out Petra, who now idly nibbled on a roll alone by the door. A half-assed idea popped into his head, and while he hated it immediately, it was better than spending another minute with Ansel.
"Now, while it was nice to catch up, you’ll have to excuse me," he declared, once again diving into the sea of expensively-clothed bodies around him, praying Ansel wouldn't follow him.
By the time he reached Petra, her appetizer was gone, and she had spotted him as well. She nonchalantly held out her hand, expecting him to place a new pair of devices in her palm.
“I’m gonna ask you a favour,” he hissed instead, “but you’re gonna hate me.”
“I don’t know what you could ask to make me hate you any more,” Petra said, eyeing him. “What is it?”
“Could you pretend to be my possessive girlfriend for a few minutes so that Azami’s brother will leave me alone?”
“What?”
“Just say yes or no before he gets here,” he insisted.
To his relief, Petra swiftly grabbed his hand, shot the approaching Ansel a look that could cut through diamond, and dragged Finneas out of the ballroom with a determined stride. Finneas only dared to glance over his shoulder as they crossed the large doors and caught Ansel’s bewildered face through the crowd.
Weaving their way between guests, Petra led him across the hall and the west foyer to the drawing room. While devoid of people, it was the only way for guests to have access to the washroom, so Azami had suggested using the adjacent library for scanning devices, and that’s where Petra took him. It was only once they had stepped through the doorway and slid the door close behind them did she release his hand.
“Thanks for saving my ass,” Finneas breathed, flexing his fingers, which still stung from the tightness of Petra’s grip. For someone who was notoriously bad at lying, her performance was weirdly convincing, but perhaps her ire was driven by the fact that Ansel was meddling with their mission, and had little to do with any possessiveness Petra might have had over her pilot.
“That one was repayment for the breakfast.” She whirled around to face him, eyebrow raised. “What did you do to make him so obsessed with you, anyways?”
“Nothing,” Finneas defended. He couldn’t resist a smirk. “It’s not my fault I’m a hot bisexual rogue.”
Petra rolled her eyes, and he was impressed with how much restraint she mustered to keep from smacking him, which she clearly wanted to do. “Do you at least have something for us to scan while you’re here?”
Finneas fished into his pocket and pulled out his latest catch. “Where’d Azami go?” he asked as they settled onto one of the plush couches to get started.
Petra pulled her feet up to join her on the couch to sit crossed-legged beside him. “She said something about having spotted her oldest brother August and disappeared.”
“Seems like everyone at this party is trying to avoid the Councilor’s boys.”
Finneas unlocked the dexaComs, then allowed Petra to take over the reigns for the search. The two fell into a comfortable silence, as had become the norm for them over the past couple of weeks. As it turned out, now that they weren’t constantly at each other’s throats, Petra was really easy to simply exist with in the same room. She didn’t require a lot of conversation, which was refreshing for Finneas— despite the outgoing mask he often wore when doing business, he usually preferred his alone time, but he found he didn’t mind so much when she was around. Sometimes, she would let him sit on her bedroom floor and go through her digital books full of wildlife footage to pass the time while she did her tests on the Mohanian plant.
That was kind of what it felt like now, as he watched her fiddle with the two stolen earpieces on the cushion in front of her, scanning them for information. The gold accents lining her jumpsuit and the hem of her train, as well as that headpiece she hated so much, sent little flecks of light around the room like tiny stars, reflections from the chandelier overhead. Azami had been right earlier, Finneas mused. Petra did look like a queen, wearing a crown crafted from the rays of the sun, which framed the soft curls resting on her slender shoulders.
As if sensing he was watching her, she began to glance up, and he quickly averted his eyes to properly survey the room they were in. Next to the door through which they had entered the library, a second door stood ajar, and through the slit a glint of light caught Finneas’ eye.
“Hm, what’s this?” he mused, sauntering over to the doorway.
“What’s what?” Petra asked. Scooping up the earpieces that she had just finished scanning, she followed him as he slipped inside the room— some sort of study— and partially closed the door behind them.
Finneas marched up to an ornate bookshelf and picked up a tiny silver figurine of a slender dragon standing on its hind legs, wings spread out, head reared back, mouth open in a menacing snarl. The Little Dragon, one of the two Stardians of Dracaenos. Finneas couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose in disgust. Probably one of the relics stolen off Ghillairdan shrines when Sayntagnesia took over his home planet; a trophy from their bloody conquest.
Petra snickered. “Did you really just get distracted by a shiny object?”
“Do you know how much a single one of these is worth?” Finneas said, turning it over, feeling the weight of its value in his hand.
“You’re just like a crow.”
“I have no idea what that is.” He glanced over his shoulder and made sure the library was still empty before swiftly pocketing the object. This was much easier than slipping something out of a guest’s handbag.
“If someone realizes it’s missing...” Petra warned.
“They won’t realize it’s missing. There’s five others like it.”
“Could you maybe focus on one crime at a time, please?”
“Something like this could be helpful to us.”
Petra crossed her arms over her chest. “How so?”
Finneas moved over to a minibar in the corner, admiring the vast collection of bottles from all over the sector lined up on the shelves. He had never been much of a drinker, but he recognized a good quality bottle when he saw it. There was wine from the vineyards in southern Sayntagnesia, ale from Epimerys, a bottle of khopeg from Buhaki Bomi, not to mention an entire row dedicated to Ihanashe’s famously expensive sweet teshigori wine. There was no way the Councilor was ever going to drink all of this, of course. Most of the bottles’ seals remained unbroken, simply there for show. Yet another display of indulgence.
“Say we go out on our next trip,” Finneas said, running his hand along the side of the shelf. “Shit happens, and we end up stranded in space. We could pawn off this thing for credits to survive. It’s probably worth enough to get by for a couple of weeks.”
"And we'll be wanted for both treason and theft."
“Always so optimistic, Lacroye. We’ll be wanted for so much more than that by then.”
He picked out the smallest bottle of teshigori wine with his eyes, one he was certain could remain hidden in the folds of his skirt. As his hand reached towards the shelf, the distinct echo of footsteps approached from the library.
Footsteps accompanied by voices.
Shit.
Normally, Finneas would have been able to conjure up a quick lie about what he was doing in that room—they had gotten lost on their way to the washroom, they needed a quiet place to make an important call—but in that moment, with Petra staring, wide-eyed, at the door, he simply froze.
The voices grew louder.
“...much of an issue, Councilor Black…”
He snapped out of his panic just enough to grab Petra’s hand and yank her behind the minibar. They scrambled to huddle together on the carpet, crammed between the legs of two white stools. Beside him, Petra’s breathing felt so loud, her heartbeat pounding rapidly against Finneas’ palm through her own. He gave her hand a firm squeeze—whether to reassure her or himself, he couldn’t tell.
The figurine dug into his thigh, and he couldn’t help but offer a silent prayer to the Little Dragon for protection.
On the other side of the minibar, the door swung open.
please note that i’ve moved blogs. for more recent updates on this wip you can find me here: @chayscribbles
this is a direct continuation to this snippet i just posted from AR2:
“What about one of the escape pods?” Azami suggested. “Could you sneak up behind a delivery ship on it? Or even pretend it’s a delivery ship? Besides the logo, they don’t look all that different from the outside.”
Finneas squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. “They look plenty different.”
“To you. They all look like flying orbs to normal people.”
"I think having a private bunker vacation home disqualified you from being a normal person long ago."
here's a random snippet from AR2. Finn is fucking around with the ship's controls and has just been caught by the ship's AI, SOFI.
“You’re not gonna tattle to the IERA, are you?” Finneas asked warily.
“Although the IERA programmed me, members of this team have shown me kindness,” SOFI said. “My allegiance lies here, not to the IERA.”
"Damn. Okay, then--"
“Not you, though. You were, borrowing a term I learned from my friend Val, ‘kind of a prick’.”
Mother Dracaenos, give me the strength to not disable this thing. “Look,” Finneas sighed, “I’m sorry I yelled at you on our first flight. Can you just… Can you please help me with this one thing? For the team?”
“For the team,” SOFI said, and the “access denied” screen cleared out.
“The ship is way too big to do anything sneaky, and it doesn't have cloaking,” said Finneas, who had been strangely quiet so far in the discussion, mostly eyeing the starfield in the external display while leaning back into his seat, his back to the others. “We’d be spotted immediately.”
“Could you get the ship some cloaking?” Valyan asked.
Finneas grunted. “I’m a pilot, not a wizard.”
have this random snippet with no context from AR2 <3
It took a moment for Azami to realize Finneas was saying something, partially because he didn’t have his own comm and his voice was only a whisper in the background of Petra’s comm, partially because Azami had developed the habit of tuning him out. By the time she was aware that he was talking, she had completely missed what he said.
