Wanting

Bats gets home with a groan, stepping into the apartment with his body aching all over. It'd been a long day, pawning off the trash that Ori had collected on his recent job after finishing his shift at a shady tech-repair shop.

Things wouldn't be that bad if that was all, but he'd gotten jumped by someone as he made his way to his apartment, losing basically the entire days work, including the goodies Ori had found... God he hated this fucking city.

He wished he could just go back in time and tell Eman they'd be better off driving into a volcano than settling in this place... Alas, even if such technology existed, it was way out of his hands.

He pops a couple pain killers and downs them with some immuno-blockers, pills designed to prevent the body from rejecting Cyberware, of which he had more than the average person due to his chosen profession as a Ripperdoc. Then dropping into the dilapidated couch with a tired sigh, turning the TV on just so he wouldn't be stuck there alone in silence.

The more he had to think about his and Ori's current situation, the more depressed he'd become... His nephew's mood and attitude worried him since it reminded him of some of his old clients, guys with clear mental illnesses that decided that gettin' more chrome would be a good substitute for therapy... He only saw them months later, a police report of recent Cyberpsycho attacks.

He dearly hoped it was just Ori grieving, but the presence of those nanites put him on edge. There weren't any known studies linking nanites to Cyberpsychosis since the body couldn't really detect them as it would an altered organ or body part.

Bats honestly felt pretty useless, his inability to do anything to help Ori with the nanites, or even with Eddies considering he'd just gotten robbed. If Ori didn't need someone to keep him company, watch his back, and provide advice, he'd have either left Night City already, or jumped from the nearest bridge...

Ori couldn't use another Ripperdoc either since they'd probably drug him into a coma and try to sell his body in its entirety with the nanites... If any Corporation found out about them there was no doubt in his mind that they'd hunt him down with full force.

"One day at a time..." he mutters to himself, "It will get better..."

...

*Click*

The door to the apartment opens and Bats stands and reaches for the nearby pistol, just in case the thief had decided to follow him... Thankfully, it was just Ori, his nephew looking at him with weary, eyes that matched the exhaustion of Bats' own.

Ori hadn't stopped since Casinha had been destroyed, the only breaks the kid had taken were when he was getting operated on or reluctantly sleeping...

"Ori, you alright?" he questions, seeing the reflective expression on his face.

"Y-yeah... Bats-, I'm sorry..." Ori quietly offers, stepping forward and wrapping the stunned Ripperdock in a hug.

"W-what's this for, kid...?"

"Nothin'. Just felt like sayin' it... Thanks for being here, Bats."

The Ripperdoc lets out a restrained breath and slowly nods, reciprocating the hug, "Yeah. No problem..."

"We're good...?" Ori almost whispers.

"We're good... Everything's good. Everything'll be fine..."

-------------------------

Later, once Ori had calmed down Bats glances over at him from the other side of the couch, "You alright kid? I mean, we haven't really talked about it, Casinha..."

Ori shakes his head, "We'll talk about it when we get Cat back..."

"Then just now...?"

"Just finished a-... Difficult job. Had to let some things out."

Ori, Max, and Six had to leave Quentin in the carpark, tied to a chair next to the corpse his dad, they'd made the whole thing look like a kidnapping gone wrong, which should hopefully stop Quentin from being seen as complicit.

He'd had a chat with the guy, and while he didn't regret it, he felt far, far worse after everything he'd done. Quentin's suffering was almost wholly at Ori's hands, yet the guy didn't even know about it, and was confiding in him, the murderer.

Bats slowly nods, he wasn't an Edgerunner, but most folks in Night City knew generally what they were about... He decides to not worry the kid about him getting jumped earlier, he definitely didn't need the stress. Instead, he tosses a shard over at him, "Klepped this from the tech-repair shop, got 'anti-privacy' software on it, basically means your face'll be blurred to most cameras... Thing's a little faulty though, so a good Netrunner may be able to get through it... I'd keep that Scav mask of yours on if I were you."

"Thanks... You checked it for viruses?"

"Obviously." Bats shrugs.

Ori nod and slots it in behind his ear, his vision buzzing as it shows a filling bar indicating the software download. "Got it."

"You got any more jobs? How much your last one pay anyway?" Bats inquires.

"Fifteen thousand. I ain't got it yet but it should be coming soon enough." Ori states.

"F-fifteen K!?" Bats stutters out, "What the fuck did you do that was worth that much!?"

"You don't wanna know." Ori sharply answers, unwilling to talk about it.

"That's a lot... I mean big time. Do all Mercs make that amount!?"

Ori shrugs, "Dunno... Just know that I'm not doin' a job like that again in a while, if I can help it. With all that I should have... Twenty-three thousand? Think that's enough to hire someone to find Cat?"

"With how little info we have on her? I doubt it... I don't know much about this kinda thing though, so maybe it is?"

"Hm... I'll talk to some people, see what the 'rates' are... As for if I've got any more jobs? Not right now, my Fixer... Got in over his head..." Ori pauses, "Hey, can we do some more checks? Youknow, about the nanites." he asks, wanting to double-check if there was a possibility of them completely taking him over.

Bats nods, "Sure, we can make it a weekly thing if you want, to be certain."