#richard macon x ofc

[hesbuckcompton-baby]

please enjoy some Yara x Macon in these trying times <3 set during the march in part 9 because i love making people suffer tagging: @latibvles @karasnonsense99

-> uncharted

How long had they been marching? Days? Weeks? In the late winter darkness, it became harder to tell what was day and what was night, harder to draw the line between one day and the next. They existed in some state outside of time, some seam in reality where it didn't matter, where the only thing that did was the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other. Yara's feet had been begging for release for hours, rubbed raw beneath hard leather, every step its own private agony.

Settling in the brick factory for the night had seemed a godsend, huddled together on the floor, the warmth of the furnaces practically a luxury. Stepping inside, the men had made a rush for the glowing embers, gloved hands held out as they jostled for position. She had elbowed her way through, facing less pushback than the other men around her - even after all these months, there were still concessions to be made, liberties she could take knowing that the mere fact of her gender would help her get away with it. These men knew the Seraphim girls were tough as nails - they'd seen it themselves. But no one wanted to be the guy who told the women they couldn't shoulder in next to the furnace.

And yet the exhaustion of the march had taken so much out of their wretched group that the struggle for warmth had only seemed to last minutes before everyone found their places on the floor, unable to sustain any sort of labour even if it promised precious warmth. Yara propped herself up against one of the shelving units, the corner of the wood digging against her spine, but not quite uncomfortable enough to warrant the exertion of moving even a few inches. She wanted to kick off her boots, but she wasn't confident that they'd still be waiting for her in the morning if she did. Everything was so sacred out here that nothing was - nothing could be put down if one didn't want to see it stolen, tucked away into another prisoner's pocket before one could even blink.

Maisie had tucked in beside her, their bodies pressed tightly against each other to keep warm. "Y'know, next week it will've been exactly one year since we went down," She whispered.

Yara blinked. It had been a while since she'd had any sense at all of what date it was. She hadn't realised it had been that long. "... Really?"

"Mhm."

"You been keeping count?"

"Yeah."

"... Huh."

There was so much unspoken between them, so much implied by that simple fact. It wasn't the Seraphim crash that mattered, not really.

One year since they'd last seen Sylvie. Angel. Sadie.

One year since Thea had died.

She pondered this for a long moment, but when she turned to speak to Maisie once more, the radio operator was already long gone, fast asleep against Yara's shoulder, snoring softly into the fabric of her coat collar. Letting out a huff, she folded her arms tightly across her chest, waiting for sleep to come for her too. Then growing steadily irritated when it didn't.

The sudden nudge of a steel-toed boot against her leg made her flinch, shoulders tensing as her gaze darted upwards. Macon sat opposite her, sandwiched between Daniels and Jefferson's sleeping figures, unable to move anything but his legs for fear of waking them, the pair leaning against both arms. "Shit. Sorry," He whispered, her chest slowing its rapid rise and fall as she recognised him in the darkness. "I didn't mean to scare you."

She'd almost denied it. But he had scared her, the feel of his boot against her too similar to that of the guards, impossible to tell the difference in the dark - at least not fast enough to stall the panic in her chest.

"Can't sleep?" She asked, freezing for a second as Maisie squirmed slightly, lowering her voice to avoid her stirring. Richard shook his head slightly, taking a deep breath.

"First couple months we were here, me and the fellas kept talkin' about how we were gonna escape. S'all we talked about for weeks."

"Well, when you manage it, send a postcard," Yara smirked picking at the fraying wool in her glove. He cracked a grin, a flash of teeth through parted lips.

"You never thought about it?" Macon asked. It happened to everyone sooner or later - everyone convinced themselves they could be the one, the person to break out and make it home free. Sometimes it wore off, sometimes it didn't - She watched Kit and Bucky all the time, huddled together in secret conversation, and she knew exactly what they were planning. Yara had given up so quickly that she wasn't sure she'd ever truly believed it in the first place. She didn't need to run for the guards to find an excuse to kill her.

"Nah. I'm waiting it out and goin' home to my sisters."

He was smiling again. "You didn't tell me you had sisters."

"Twins. Maya and Leda - they'll be nearly nineteen now."

Nodding along, Richard shrugged. "Well. When I get back, I'm gonna go to-"

"To your twenty-three acres of loblolly pine, yeah, I know," Yara grinned.

"Point seven."

"Huh?"

"Twenty-three point seven acres," He pointed out. She laughed then, raising a hand over her mouth as she suddenly became conscious of the noise, careful not to wake anyone around them.

A true smile was a rare sight around here.

Hers made him dizzy.

"You should come," Richard nodded.

Her brow raised slightly. "Me?"

"Yeah, you," The corner of his mouth rose in a smile, another flash of teeth. "You think these other assholes are invited? Build you a house - hell, I'll build you a dozen, we got room."

"Shut up," Yara chuckled, shaking her head. "You're sleep-deprived."

He shrugged, as if daring her to argue. "Feel pretty awake."

Her shoulders tensed. She didn't want to think about it - what it could mean if he wasn't kidding, what life could promise beyond the four walls of this frozen factory. She didn't want to think about it, because letting herself think about it meant giving space to hope, letting it permeate the walls she put up around herself. Yara Katz had decided to stop caring about anything but cold, hard survival a long time ago. She cared about enough people here already - too many - she didn't have space to care much for herself as well.

And what would it mean if she let herself admit that perhaps, just maybe, she was glad to have met Richard Macon, the man sitting across from her, staring at her like she was the sun? Did it mean she was glad to be here? Did it mean she was glad for the crash? For everything they'd gone through? For Thea's death? How could she appreciate the one good thing that had come out of all this without disregarding all of the bad?

Yara sucked in a deep breath, rubbing uncomfortably at her wrist as Maisie moved against her again.

"... Ask me again when we're free."

Macon nodded, slow and understanding, pressing his lips into a thin line. "Ok."

Her eyes narrowed, staring at him for a moment. "And stop smirking."

"I'm not."

"Yes you are."

He looked down at his lap, letting out a huff of amusement. "Damn, Katz. You know I'll wait for you."

She shrugged, folding her arms across her chest as she slumped slightly against the shelves, readjusting her body to a more comfortable position. "Yeah, I figured."