#....it feels like cheating to tag Ingo considering he's only in this snippet on a technicality

[hehe-hoho-ohno]

Happy WIP Wednesday! Spoilers for chapter 7 of Misfits under the cut.

That was fine. Ingo could do what he wanted. Emmet skived off patrol all the time, it was fine.

----

Ingo hadn’t come to patrol. Emmet had waited for him. He’d waited for ages and then decided to start on his own. He’d ended up doing the entire thing by himself and Ingo never showed up.

It was just uncharacteristic of him, that was all.

(It wasn’t like Emmet had been looking forward to it or anything. It wasn’t like he’d waited for hours like an abandoned puppy. If he’d known Ingo wasn’t going to show up he wouldn’t have wasted his time.)

(It was his own fault for getting his hopes up.)

He returned to the barracks and froze in the open doorway.

It looked like a war zone.

A few of the lockers were blown open, doors swinging in their hinges. One of the benches was tipped over. The door to the office was open as well, the drawers were ransacked and all the papers that had been neatly piled on the desk were strewn on the floor. The garbage bin had also been knocked over. His spiders were agitated and crawling along the walls and ceiling.

“…Hello?” He called and it echoed back. “…Ingo?”

A few spiders chirped in response but there wasn’t a word from Ingo. A cold feeling settled like a stone in his stomach. He called again. If Ingo wasn’t here then…

He hesitantly stepped forwards into the ruined barracks.

Something crunched under his foot and he hastily stepped back. He’d crushed something into hard red and white shards. A candy cane? Only a small part of one, judging by how little there was on the floor.

How had this happened? Emmet always locked the entrance. He was even doing it right now, closing the door and locking it behind him out of sheer habit.

(Ingo had a key. Emmet had given it to him.)

Gear Barracks had always been a safe place for Emmet. The only safe place. When Emmet returned home it always felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, like he could finally relax. Here, he had been untouchable.

That feeling was gone now. He didn’t think he would be getting it back.

(Ingo hadn’t shown up for patrol.)

It was a shitty, barren, uniform place, but it had been Emmet’s. And someone had broken in and torn it up.

(Was it really breaking in if Emmet had invited him inside?)

No! Emmet shook himself. He shouldn’t make assumptions when he didn’t have all the facts. There was no proof that had happened. Ingo wouldn’t…

(Emmet was still an easily suckered fool who had learnt nothing. Ingo had betrayed him and Emmet had made it so easy.)

Ingo was his friend. He trusted Ingo. Ingo was shy, earnest, and sweet. He said things like, “lonely together” and he meant it, Emmet knew he did!

(Or maybe Emmet wasn’t as good at spotting liars as he thought he was.)

A clicking whistle snapped him out of his spiralling thoughts. Emmet dropped to his knees and reached towards his fuzzy babies. “Is everyone alright? Is anyone hurt?”

Emmet was appalled by his own behaviour, getting wrapped up in his own doubts when his focus should have been on the creatures under his care. Poor little things, they had needed to endure whatever had happened without Emmet there to protect them.

They chirped and squeaked and scuttled away from him, towards a locker all the spiders were converging on. Dread crawled up this throat. He rose to his feet and followed them.

The door was cold when he laid a hand on it. “…Here?”

They squeaked and moved back, a fluffy multicoloured halo surrounding the locker. The dread only worsened.

It was locked.

He blinked. He never locked this one. He never locked any of the spider lockers out of fear he might trap them in there. Hesitantly, he filled in the default code and hoped that was correct. Emmet had never changed any of them, but he clearly wasn’t the only person who would have had the opportunity to do so.

He hesitantly tried the handle, and it swung open.

A body fell out.