jin character piece #5

[bipolyjack]

 

There’s no cell service down here, obviously. Jin shakes their head in disgust, pockets their phone, and leans back against the wall, blowing a sigh.

If hard-light AIs could sweat, Soul looks like she would be sweating, holding the huge pillar construct together with all her might. Jin doesn’t want to risk breaking her concentration, so they leave her to it, fishing shakily in their other pocket for cigarettes and lighter. The nicotine does its work quickly, as always, but it doesn’t stop their mind from racing as they tilt their head back and close their eyes, breathing out smoke.

It’s been, what, five, six hours? Since Belle confirmed it, not since she took him there. Jin isn’t sure which was worse, the hours when they didn’t know where he was, or the hours when they did. The stomach-clenching anxiety of before has calcified into a spike of restless rage, and now they’re sitting on the floor at the foot of the watchtower in the ass-end of this fucking death trap prison, paralyzed with exhaustion, not sure if they could get up no matter how badly they want to.

They could, of course. The nanobots have gotten them up from worse.

Jin takes a long drag of the cigarette and feels the barely-healed edges of the sword wound in their chest tug and sting on the inhale. The thing is - the really shitty thing - is that they’re in no shape to storm NutriTech. And NutriTech might have been the last place they wanted to be as recently as this time yesterday, but right now in this second they’d shove that fucking bullshit angel sword up their whole ass if it meant they could get there faster.

There’s a shout from outside the chamber - “Soul? Jin? You guys still there?” and Jin calls back, “Yeah,” without getting up. Might as well save what little energy they have left, for when it matters.