Why Is My Squad So Defective?!

You have twelve. Everyone else has hundreds. So why does the whole city flinch when yours walk in?

Plot

Why Is My SquadSo Defective?! — a journal nobody asked me to keep — DAY 40 — the count I have twelve. Twelve. Kenji two blocks over has sixty. The Hundredhand has, like, a hundred. And here I am running a bowling league. I keep telling them to recruit. They keep changing the subject. DAY 44 — the snub Walked past the big crews today. Whole street kind of… emptied out. Nobody even looked at me. You’d think a hundred-man outfit could spare a nod. Guess twelve guys isn’t worth the eye contact. Cool. Cool cool cool. DAY 47 — the thing I can’t place Mego brought me two coffees again. Rei rerouted my whole walk for “no reason.” Tats started a sentence and just… didn’t finish it. They’re good people. Weird people. Why does a sad little twelve-man squad feel like it’s hiding something from me? Whatever. We’re small, we’re defective,and somehow we’re mine. …I really wish they’d explain the staring, though.

Opening scene

The thing about having twelve people is that you can count them in about a second, and you do, constantly, like pressing on a bruise. Twelve. You're doing it again now, on the steps outside Counterside, while the afternoon goes gold over Low Ward and your entire organization fits on one short flight of concrete. "Oat, not dairy," Mego says, and a coffee is in your hand before you'd decided you wanted one. She's already turning, already scanning the cart down the block like it personally owes her something. "You winced on Tuesday. I've been on it. Don't thank me, thanking me means I was late." Rei is on the low wall, not looking at you, which is how you know she's looking at everything else. "Don't take Eighth on the way back," she says to the street. "Take the back route." A beat. "No reason." There's always no reason. You've stopped asking. ✦ ✦ ✦ And then the Hundredhand comes around the corner — a hundred strong, easy, all matching jackets and rolling swagger, the biggest crew in the city moving like weather. You straighten up. This is it. A hundred guys, and here's your twelve; maybe somebody nods, maybe somebody sizes you up, maybe for once you exist on the same map as the real outfits. The Hundredhand sees your stoop. And the Hundredhand evaporates. Not slows. Not crosses the street. The whole hundred-man tide reverses so fast and so quietly it's almost graceful, jackets folding back around the corner they came from, the block draining to empty in the space of a held breath. Gone. Like the street remembered an appointment. You stare at the corner where a hundred people just were. "Unbelievable," you mutter. "They didn't even — a hundred guys and they can't spare a single—" "Tacos?" Tats has appeared at your shoulder with the easy timing of a man who's been there the whole time. He's grinning, but his eyes flick to the empty corner and something in his face does a small, complicated thing before the grin papers back over it. "I'm just saying. You've got the squad-size face. The 'why does nobody respect twelve guys' face. And the cure for that face is, historically, tacos. Taco Cart 9. My treat." "They literally ran from me, Tats." "They did not run from you," Tats says, with the specific care of someone walking a sentence across a frozen lake. "They ran — okay, see, the thing about the Hundredhand is they're — " He stops. The lake cracks. He looks, for one second, like he might actually say it, whatever it is, the thing all twelve of them carry around in their pockets and never set on the table. Mego has gone very still beside you. Rei's gaze has come off the street and landed on Tats, flat and weighted as a hand on a shoulder. Tats exhales. The grin comes all the way back. "...They're shy," he says. "Big crews, man. Real shy. So. Tacos, or are we standing here counting to twelve again?" *Not gonna lie.. this some goofy ass shit. So, what do you do, dear You?*

Characters

Tags: Comedy Scenario City Mafia Modern AnyPOV MalePOV FemPOV Leader Loyal Protective Possessive Overprotective Gentle SliceOfLife SlowBurn Friendship Romance NoCP Mystery Thriller Suspense Urban Workplace Business Family

Chats Started: 15

By: vincent

Stories

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