PFM snippet - Joran (pre-game AU)

*AU where Joran knows MC before the start of the game 

Your client is a no-show, which doesn’t really surprise you, seeing how skittish he was over the phone. 

Still, you were desperate for cash, and so, despite your growing reservations, you dragged your ass off your couch, abandoning the relative warmth of the one-room apartment for an elusive promise of a hefty payment. 

Now, as you huddle under an abandoned bridge (paymentless and soaked to the bone), you gaze at the downpour that pelts the asphalt, wishing that your affliction was that of foresight instead. 

“That little fucker,” you spit out through chattering teeth, turning your anger and blame towards an easier target. “He better pray we never meet, or so help me.”

In truth, you’re mostly mad at yourself, though, and all the choices you made in life that led you here. The rapidly worsening weather, paired with the shitty circumstances that you can’t seem to be able to improve, only exacerbate the matter. 

The moist air suffuses through the layers of your clothes, wrapping around you like an octopus, leaving you hunching into yourself as you clutch a small, unassuming package to yourself. The soggy cardboard creases under the strain, causing the white ‘FRAGILE’ stickers plastered all over to peel off, half-sticking to your blazer instead.

“Should have just taken a fucking grocery bag...” Alas, nothing today is going according to plan.

Exhaling a cloud of milky steam, you turn your gaze upwards. The ridiculously high awning of the dilapidated bridge makes you feel minuscule and insignificant, and you revert your gaze to the landscape outside. It’s marginally better than where you stand, if only because the bushes that surround you lack the piss stains and vulgar graffiti.

The evening is dreadful, but you shudder to say that it couldn’t get any worse, lest the higher powers decide to prove you wrong. With every morose second that passes, however, your mood plummets like rainwater - down the drain.

And then, as if by a miracle, you see a literal light at the end of the tunnel. A car. You turn towards it with renewed hope—

Only to grimace when the vehicle halts right in front of you, and a familiar haughty face pops up when the passenger window rolls down. 

“Joran.”

“What’s this?” the agent starts conversationally as he looks you up and down. His sunglasses are tucked neatly into the collar of his shirt, and their absence in their regular place makes the ridicule in his usually hidden expression abundantly clear. “An artistic rendition of an abandoned kitten?”

You almost start to curse him out, when a soft click reaches your ears. A second later, the door is pushed open, and you waste no time taking Joran up on his surprising generosity. 

“Watch the upholstery,” he warns halfheartedly, while you scramble into the seat, trying your best not to get the mud all over it. He doesn’t even pretend to care about the package that you balance on your lap. He spares it barely half a glance before busying himself with restarting the engine.

“You’re not going to ask?”

“About your clothes?” His eyes flick at you in the rearview mirror, just for a second, before they return to the road. There’s hardly anything to pay attention to here, as the only sign of life in the area is a gas station a mile ahead. “I already told you that you dress like a bum.”

“You spend too much time with Alan,” you huff, leaning as close to the heater as you can while keeping your backside fully on the seat. “The pants are designer, I’d have you know.”

“Mhm. ‘Made in Trashcan’?”

“Oh, fuck off!” Joran’s lips twitch at your outburst, but he keeps his amusement otherwise contained.

He looks... well, as usual. White shirt, black slacks, brand-new leather shoes hitting the gas pedal. His hands are bare, though, with thin indentations around the wrists as if from a bracelet or especially tight latex gloves. 

“What about you?” you ask, returning a question he never voiced. “Of all the people I expected to see under a dilapidated bridge... Actually, why do we always meet in places like that?”

“Because folks rarely die in clubs or restaurants,” he states matter-of-factly, the pads of his shoulders lifting briefly in a shrug. “At least not in the cases they call me in for.”

“Ah. So you were picking up a corpse?” 

You breathe in through your nose as discreetly as you can, but you don’t discern anything out of the ordinary in or around him. 

“You don’t smell like decay. Not any more than usual, I mean.” Joran lets out a nasal noise, neither in surprise nor in demand for an explanation. Simply an acknowledgment that prompts you to ask, “Was the death recent, or...?”

“That’s classified,” he intones dryly. When you pop a disbelieving eyebrow at him, he adds, “I have an exclusive buyer. And they’re not you.” The, ‘so don’t bother asking,’ goes unsaid.

“Is it Alan?”

Not even berating you for being overtly curious, Joran thinks for a moment, then shakes his head. “It has nothing to do with him. At least not yet.” 

When you make an interested hum at that, he only raises his arms in another of his shallow shrugs. You’re getting no other information from him, it seems.

“Where are we going, by the way?” you ask instead, watching as the car passes the gas station, rejoining the regular traffic. “The HQ?”

“Mhm. I’m turning you in.” His joke falls so flat that if you knew him less, you would have been tempted to believe him. 

“What did I do this time?” you sigh, playing along. “And don’t say ‘fashion crimes.’”

It seems that wasn’t what he wanted to say because a startled chuckle breaks out of him. “I was going for something generic, but I like yours better. At least you’re self-aware.”

When you click your tongue, he laughs again. Just a short, breathy huff, before his expression flattens.

“Do I have a high reward on my head?” you ask after a moment of silence, watching as the city lights change from white to neon.

“No, but if you did, I reckon it’d be as high as a burger. And not even with fries.” Seeing your grimace, he adds, “That’s a good thing.”

“Is it?”

“That means nobody will bother arresting you. Too much trouble than it’s worth.”

“Says the guy who just threatened to sell me out.”

“Well, I’m a special case.”

A ‘nutcase’ would be a better description, but since it’s rude to talk back to your driver, you keep that part to yourself.

“Besides, it was a chance encounter.” As expected of the biggest opportunist in Elazar, huh? “I’ll drop you by the perfumery,” Joran says just as the familiar winding alleys come into view. “I don’t really have time for detours.”

“Gotcha, thanks.”

After mumbling out a, “Don’t mention it,” that sounds as novel to you as it must taste for him, Joran pulls over, letting you jump out of the car. When you’re almost all the way out, he places a foldable umbrella on top of your package. 

“For your designer pants,” he says, perfectly calm and detached, like he’s unaware or uncaring of how odd he’s acting. And he’s been for a while now, with every favor he does for you unprompted, asking nothing in exchange. “Wouldn’t want to ruin them, would you?”

You thank him again, but that only deepens the sense of awkwardness that seizes you.  

On impulse, you brace the box against your chest, and with a freed hand, you pull out a tattered bill to slam against his (surprisingly hard) thigh. “For a burger AND fries,” you announce before quickly pushing the door closed.

Through the partially tinted window, you see Joran’s face draw in consternation. Then, throwing his head back, he starts to laugh. You can still hear the empty echo of it as you dash down the street.