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whataperfectwasteoftime · 11 months

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Forgive These Bones I'm Hiding (Part 2 of 2)

Pairing: Serial Killer Marcus Pike x f!Reader (Reader is a police officer with the nickname “Cricket”)

Rating: E (explicit smut, 18+ only)

Word Count: 13.8k

Warnings: This is a Spoooooooky fic for Halloween season. Please heed the warnings; this is not darkfic, per se, but it explores dark themes and contains elements of suspense and horror. The following subjects are mentioned in the context of cases that the reader deals with. I do not go into explicit detail about any of these themes and any violence is implied rather than seen, but please heed the warnings for: child abuse, domestic abuse, alcoholism, drunk driving, implied sexual assault, suicide, drug use, drug overdoses. Whew. Okay, for the story itself, please be warned that there is: derogatory language (someone calls reader a “bitch”), murders, body horror (corpses!), Marcus Pike being a bit unsettling, Very Enthusiastic Pussy Eating, unprotected PIV sex (this is fiction! use protection and also maybe don't fuck a serial killer!)

Summary: When five paintings are stolen from their frames, an unusual crime for your small-town precinct in Hannibal, Missouri, it's easy for you to project your insecurities about being a female police officer in a tiny, Midwest town onto the handsome FBI Agent from Washington who arrives to help with the case. But as your disposition--and the solid walls you've built around yourself--begin to soften, you quickly find you have bigger problems than the charming man you can't help but develop feelings for. One by one, bodies are starting to pile up. Bodies that all seem to share one connection… You.

Additional A/N: OKAY, so things definitely pick up in this chapter! Please heed the warnings, as Cricket’s past cases feature in a big way. There are more corpses, more unsettling!Marcus, and, of course, more MURDER. Thank you to @littlebirdsbookshelf for being an amazingly supportive human, beta reader, and crime consultant! Thanks for making sure my self-indulgent fanfiction always has its roots in reality!! They can’t fuck if I can’t make it make sense first. PLEASE check out our Playlist for all the spoopy Midwest Gothic vibes. The title of this fic itself comes from Family Tree by Ethel Cain, which is of course on the song list!

Masterlist | Part 1

The next morning starts with a headache.

"Wha'th'fuuuuck," you croak. You’re so disoriented that it takes you a few moments to realize your alarm is going off.

You fumble for it, surprised to find it on the charger. You don't remember plugging it in. For that matter, you don't really remember getting home last night. Did… Did Marcus…?

Confusion and dread cut through the hangover, and you switch on the lamp as you sit up in bed.

You're still in your clothes from last night, but your boots are untied and placed neatly on the floor next to the foot of the bed.

You look around your bedroom, looking for more clues as to how you got here. There's a glass of water on your nightstand, and upon further inspection, two ibuprofen next to it.

You rifle around beside it looking for a note, but you come up empty-handed. It doesn't really matter; you can pretty much guess what happened: You got so wasted that Marcus Pike had to help you get home. He took off your boots, but clearly didn't feel comfortable taking off the rest of your clothes. He made sure your phone was on the charger and even went so far as to anticipate your need for water and pain medicine in the morning.

Something still feels off, though. Just call it a gut feeling, an instinct, some vestigial part of your hindbrain that's telling you something.

Maybe you forgot your purse…?

But no, when you finally drag yourself out of bed to check the entryway, your purse is there, hanging on its usual hook.

Shaking your head (probably a mistake, going by the ache that shoots through it when you do), you chalk up the odd feeling to the hangover. You don't remember the last time you had that much to drink, after all.

You feel slightly better after taking a shower and downing another glass of water, but your stomach still roils and your head still hurts as you throw on your uniform. You're thankful for the dark sunglasses that come with it when you step outside your house.

Fuck. Why did you drink so much?

You pull into the station about thirty minutes late, which isn't that bad, considering how many glasses of whiskey you had. How many, exactly? You lost count after three, but you know there were more. You were upset about Bobby and unsure of whether you even made a difference in this town and… wait, did you cry last night? In front of Marcus? An image flashes through your mind: Your head buried in the crook of his neck. A wet patch on his white dress shirt from your tears.

Oh, fuck.

The man in question gives you one of those characteristic grins when you enter, still wearing your sunglasses.

"Moving a little slow today, are we?" Marcus asks playfully.

"Jesus fuck," you murmur, collapsing into your chair with a sigh. "I guess so."

"I've never seen a woman put away that much whiskey," he comments with a wink in your direction.

"And you never will again," you groan. "I'm swearing off the stuff for life."

"I don't blame you."

"Jesus, I don't even remember what happened last night. I woke up this morning with no memory of how I got there."

Marcus laughs. "You don't?"

"I barely remember what the hell we talked about. Oh, God–was I an ass? Would you tell me if I made an ass of myself?"

"You didn't make an ass of yourself," Marcus promises.

"I feel like I got all maudlin about the job," you say, frowning.

"You did, a bit."

"Sorry if the evening was a sob-fest."

"I think you're allowed to be upset after finding Bobby Pearson like that."

Cold dread shoots down your spine. Heart in your throat, you stare at Marcus open-mouthed.

"Did… Did I tell you that last night?"

"Didn't need to." He holds up a copy of the Hannibal Courier-Post with a grim expression. Oh. Right. There it is, right on the front page, accompanied by a picture of you deep in conversation with the Coroner.

You shake your head, laughing slightly. "Jesus, guess I really am out of it this morning."

"You up for a ride?" Marcus suddenly asks.

"Huh?"

"To the St. Louis field office," he explains. "I texted you yesterday about forensics, remember?"

"Shit, that's right! I'm–I'm sorry–"

"Don't be. There was a lot going on," Marcus insists. "But they've got some stuff for us to look over. Wanna go for a little drive?"

"Only if it's you who's doing the driving," you say.

"Done."

"And if we stop for coffee."

"You drive a hard bargain, but I accept."

An hour later, with a latte in your hand and your head tipped against the cool glass of the passenger-side window, the fog of your hangover begins to clear and you start to feel much better. The sun glints off of the pavement of State Road 61 as Marcus speeds along in the left lane on the way down to the city. Everyone steers clear of what’s obviously an unmarked police car, and like all officers before him, Marcus takes full advantage. The tall grass next to the road blurs as you stare out over endless fields, dotted with the occasional farmhouse. The day is crisp; one of those beautiful fall days where the temperature stays low even though there’s not a cloud in the sky. If you squint your eyes, you can pretend you’re flying.

At the Field Office, Marcus breezes through security with his badge and his characteristic toothy grin. After you’re presented with a visitor’s badge, the two of you walk down the stairs to the basement, and down a dimly lit hall until you reach a door that reads “Forensics - Art Crimes.”

"Basement, really?" you ask, wrinkling your nose.

"Windows are bad for the degradation of paint," Marcus points out. Then, with a grin, he adds, "Plus, they always give Intelligence the prime real estate."

When he opens the door, your face brightens. Unlike any forensics department you've been in previously, this one is full of… well, art. You aren't sure why that surprises you, but Marcus chuckles as you gaze, open-mouthed, at the selection.

"It's like our own little secret museum, huh?" he says, eyes twinkling.

"Okay, I think I get why you like your job now," you say quietly as you examine what looks like an ancient Greek vase on one of the tables.

"Is that…"

"Fake," one of the lab workers says with a shrug. "Art museum still purchased it for two mil, though. Oops, right?"

"Oh. Is most of this stuff fake, then?" you ask.

"Nah. This one's a genuine Picasso that was recovered from the black market," the woman says, waving her hand at a colorful painting leaning against the wall. "We're in the middle of returning it to the rightful owners."

"Holy shit," you breathe.

"New to art crimes?" the woman asks.

"Not a lot of paintings to steal in Hannibal," you say with a smirk.

"Ah, so you're Rockwell.”

“No, I’m–oh. Haha, I get it.”

“Damon’s been taking the lead on that one. His office is there in the back; he’s expecting you two.”

Marcus greets Damon like an old friend while you stand by his side doing your best to look ‘official.’ Something about being here–in the FBI building–makes you feel like a country-bumpkin of a cop. Maybe it's just the ever-present chip on your shoulder (Okay, it’s definitely that.), but the moment makes you feel like you need to fight to take up more space, puffing out your chest and straightening your spine. And when Damon offers his hand for you to shake, you grasp it more firmly than strictly necessary, something you’ve learned over the years is an effective tool to assert yourself as a female officer.

“So you’re the lead detective on the case?” Damon asks as you shake his hand.

“Yessir.”

“Fantastic. Well, I hate to bring you all the way down here to deliver bad news, but running the prints didn’t give us any matches.”

Your heart sinks.

"But," the agent emphasizes, "your team did excellent work canvassing the area around the museum for CCTV footage, and we got some hits at one am at a few different places. Compiled it in a presentation for ya, if you wanna take a look."

At your eagerness nod, Damon turns his second monitor around to face you.

"So, first hit is at Main Street Bed and Breakfast," he explains as a grainy, black and white, blurry photo appears on the screen. Hard to ID, but it looks like we've got got male, maybe six foot, two-thirty, on foot heading away from the museum, which would be just across the street over here–" he points at the corner of the screen.

"Then the same individual shows up walking past Java Jive–" another grainy photo, not much clearer than the first, " –and then he turns down the alleyway behind the Dutch Country General Store, and gets into a white Pontiac Grand Am."

"He puts something in the backseat," you exclaim, pointing at the blurry shape.

"Mmhmm, something skinny and long," Damon says.

"...Like five rolled-up canvases," you offer, raising your eyebrows.

"It's not a lot to go on, but this is the only individual we saw out walking that night that didn't originate from any of the establishments we analyzed."

You watch the series of images, squinting as if it will help with the pixelation. The license plate, of course, is completely illegible as the car drives away.

"We've got people analyzing the plate, but best they can do is determine that the first letter is either a 'C' or an 'O.'"

"Better than nothing," you concede.

"Obviously, a Grand Am is gonna be a pretty common car in the area, but it's somewhere to start. We'll start pulling state records, and we'll be in touch if we–"

The loud ringing of your work phone interrupts Damon, and you wince apologetically as you pull it out and see 'SGT HUBBARD' on the caller ID.

"Hullo," you chirp amiably.

"Hey," Hubbard says on the other end. "We've got a body."

You straighten with a sharp intake of breath. Two deaths in Hannibal in less than a week? You don't think you've ever seen anything like it. Frowning, you duck out of Damon’s office and walk several paces away.

“I’m in St. Louis for the Rockwell case, but I’m finishing up,” you tell him. “I can be there in an hour and a half.”

“See that it’s quicker.”

You roll your eyes, mutter a “Yessir,” and end the call.

“Pike,” you bark, causing Marcus to look up with those pretty, soulful eyes of his. “We gotta go. There’s a case back in Hannibal that needs my attention.”

“Yes ma’am.” He gives you that wide, toothy smile again, and you remember how last night it had felt… unnerving to you. Like there was something lurking behind that earnest grin that no one else knew about. You shake your head. Jesus, you had way too much to drink last night. Get a grip, Cricket.

Lights on and sirens blaring, you zip past farms and woodlands. The official GPS time says one hour and forty-nine minutes, but you can do way better than that. Other vehicles automatically part for you, leaving them all behind in a blur of red and blue. Tongue poking out between your teeth in concentration and hands on ten-and-two, you think this might be the best part of the job. The part where you’re flying.

You drop Marcus off at the Station with your apologies and race to the address Hubbard gave you.

The coroner’s office and a local news van are already there when you arrive, and the Sergeant looks disapprovingly in your direction, as if you could have shortened the drive from St. Louis through sheer force of will.

“What is it?”

“Harold Dalton, 54. Apparent suicide.”

“What? What the hell is in the water that–”

“Hush. Keep your voice down. Right now, we’re waiting on State Police to come help with this one–there was a firearm involved.”

“He shot himself?”

Hubbard’s mouth is a thin line as he nods grimly. “Not a pretty sight.”

“Dalton…” you murmur to yourself. “Why do I know that name?”

“He’s got some priors,” Hubbard says. “Possession, some assault charges that were dropped, and–”

“Child neglect,” you whisper, as the realization hits you. “Oliver Dalton.”

“Shit, yeah,” the Sergeant says, realizing the connection at the same time. “God, how many years ago was–”

“Five,” you answer automatically.

“That would make Oliver…”

“Sixteen.”

“Mm,” Hubbard grunts. “Ever check in on him?”

“He’s bounced around from home to home,” you answer, trying to keep the emotion and bitterness out of your voice. “Doesn’t last in one place for very long.”

“It’s a fucked up thing for a kid to go through,” Hubbard mumbles. “Can’t imagine he’s all that well-adjusted.”

The two of you stand in silence on the run-down, rotting porch. What a fucking shithole, you fume, scraping a piece of flaking paint with the toe of your boot. In the distance, you can hear the faint sound of sirens coming closer.

“Know we’re not supposed to say it,” the Sergeant finally says, as the State Police car pulls into the gravel driveway, “but good fucking riddance.”

Dalton. Now that the connection has been made, you can’t believe you didn’t remember immediately. You suppose you have tried your best to put his name–and several others–in a tidy little box in the corner of your mind. It’s easier that way.

Except… Why does it feel as though you were just thinking about him? As soon as you hear it, the pang of familiarity rushes through you, but you can't put your finger on why…

Hubbard is shaking hands with the two state cops that just arrived when your phone pings. You pull it out and glance at the thumbnail.

“Hope everything’s okay! Talk to you later.”

It’s from Marcus. Something prickles across the back of your neck, and you slide your phone back into your pocket without responding.

“Officers,” you greet the newcomers, forcing a cordial smile and sticking out your hand to shake.

It was just the cold breeze making your hair stand on end. That’s all.

“Sorry I had to dump you at the station like that this morning.” You tap out the message on your phone as soon as you get back into your squad car.

“It happens, don’t worry I know how it is.”

After a few minutes, Marcus begins typing again.

“Want to meet up for a drink?”

“Fuck, no. You have any idea how shitty I felt this morning?"

"Noted. How about dinner, then? And some water?"

You pause. Drinks are one thing. But dinner? That could be considered "date" territory if you think about it too much.

You must be silent for too long, because your phone pings again.

“Had something I wanted to ask you about the CCTV sweep.”

It’s an obvious effort to sweeten the deal and get you to say yes, and you know it. You should tell Marcus you’ll discuss it tomorrow at work, pick up some fast food on the way home, and eat it in front of Jeopardy!–alone.

Instead, you find yourself typing, “Dinner sounds good. Water sounds better. Where were you thinking?”

Marcus begins typing almost immediately. “How’s the Mark Twain Dinette?”

You snort to yourself. “Just as bad as you’re thinking. But Finn’s Food and Spirits is surprisingly edible if you’re looking for local eats.”

“Edible, huh? That’s not really a ringing endorsement, but I try not to go to chain restaurants when I’m traveling, so… let’s do it! :)”

It isn’t until you get into the shower that the reality hits you of how strange it is to be washing off the remains of two very similar cases in as many days. Not just two consecutive deaths–but two suicides, in a town of barely fifteen thousand people.

And you knew them both.

What you find most jarring, however, is the difference in your own mood between the two days. Yesterday, the weight of Bobby’s death felt as though it was dragging your body down. Today, though, there’s a weight off your shoulders. A burden you didn’t even realize you were carrying, suddenly gone. Hubbard had said it well, earlier–said what you’ve been thinking the entire day since.

Good riddance.

You arrive a few minutes before Marcus, so you go in to grab a booth for the two of you–sitting where you can see the door, as you always prefer to do. Being a police officer has left you with some funny habits; it’s actually pretty nice to be able to talk to another person in law enforcement, for once. It isn’t like you go out much with Hubbard, who is both your supervisor and over twenty years your senior. Evan strictly works nights, so you don’t see much of him, either. You’re acquaintances with some of the officers in surrounding towns, but you don’t have much patience for their “I’m a cop” bravado–or even worse, the “Thin Blue Line” stickers on their car windows.

Marcus seems different, though. Sure, he’s got an air of confidence around him, but you can tell it’s not an act at all. And yet, despite that confidence, there’s a softness to him: something in the upturn of his eyebrows, in the way his lips part when you speak, the way he seems enraptured by your every word–

When the man consuming your thoughts enters, you jump slightly, afraid, for just a moment, that he could read your mind. His expression brightens the moment he sees you, eagerness written all over his face, and you shake yourself.

This is why you can’t let him in.

“Everything go alright today?” Marcus asks amiably as he slides into the booth opposite you.

“Yeah, yeah,” you wave him off, shaking your head. “Nothing big.”

The lie sits heavy on your chest. He’ll find out tomorrow–along with the rest of Hannibal–when the day’s Courier-Post arrives at the station. It’s just that you don’t want to talk about it, not tonight.

“Yeah,” you say again. “So what was the thing with CCTV?”

“Hmm? Oh,” Marcus says, taking his eyes off the menu for a moment and giving you a discerning look. “Why don’t we just save work stuff for tomorrow, huh? C’mon, take a break–what’s good here?”

You shrug. “The catfish is usually fresh-caught from the river, if that’s your sort of thing.”

“Is it your thing?” he asks, a glint in his eye.

“I make it a point not to eat anything that was recently pulled from the river.”

Marcus hums in response, scanning the menu again. When the waitress comes by to take your orders, he gets the catfish.

“Country-fried steak,” you say, handing her your menu.

Silence falls at the table; without reading material or decisions about food to be made, you aren’t sure how to talk to the man opposite you. He intrigues you; he attracts you… he also scares you, just a little. Is it possible to be too disarming? Too earnest? If so, Marcus certainly is, and something about his sincerity… puts you off.

Fuck, when you think about it that way, maybe you’re just an asshole.

“So the CCTV question was just a pretense to lure me here,” you say, raising one eyebrow in challenge.

Marcus holds up his hands in mock-surrender. “I plead the fifth. But I–listen, the truth is, Cricket–I can call you that, right? You, uh, you never gave me your first name.” When you don’t offer an answer, he forges ahead. “I’ve been told I’m forward, and that’s probably accurate, but the truth is, I think you’re one hell of a good looking woman, and I’d love to get to know you better.”

Your stomach flips over at his words. As much as you’d hate to admit it, you’re not immune to flattery, and certainly not coming from such a beautiful man in his own right.

“Thank you,” you say quietly.

“I find it easy to talk to you,” Marcus continues. “I’m on the road a lot, and it can be… lonely. You don’t know how much of a relief it is to have someone to talk to who gets it, who’s been there, you know?”

You nod thoughtfully, tracing the rim of your water glass. “I do get it. I–I’ve been alone for quite some time, too, and there are few people in Hannibal that I can really sit down and just talk to. I–I guess what I’m saying is, it’s a relief for me, too.”

Marcus reaches slowly across the table and, in a barely-there caress, runs his index finger across the back of your other hand.

“I–” you say hastily, pulling your hand back and settling it in your lap, instead. “I want to be clear that I’m not in the stage of my life where I’m looking for anything temporary.”

“Me neither,” Marcus says, his eyes burning intensely into yours.

“Anything between us, is, by very nature, temporary,” you point out. “I live here in Hannibal. You’re going back to Washington upon completion of this case. I’m not against seeking mutual relief from loneliness, but I’m just… I’m not sure if I know you well enough to go down that road.”

Marcus’s eyes are full of understanding and acceptance. He draws his hand back and sits back against the booth with a small, wry smile.

“So, what’d’you wanna know?” he drawls, letting the Texan accent slip out in full force.

So… you talk. And talk.

And talk.

Your plates have long-since been empty and the ice in your water glass has melted, dripping condensation onto the checkered tablecloth–and you feel as though you’ve been given a glimpse past the toothy smile and confident demeanor, into a deeper, hidden vulnerability underneath.

“...She–She broke up with you via text message?” you ask, dumbfounded at Marcus’s most recent admission.

“God, when you put it that way, it sounds… way worse than it was, but yeah,” he chuckles. “But honestly, when I look back, the writing was on the wall. I was rushing, she was dragging her feet. There… there wasn’t a future there.”

“Do you do that a lot? Rush, that is?”

Marcus hums loudly as he seemingly deliberates his answer. “Mmm, I don’t like to see it as rushing.”

“How do you see it?”

“I’m a man who knows what he wants,” he says simply, dark eyes flicking up to meet yours.

It makes you shiver slightly.

“Has that made me hasty, on occasion? Impulsive? Sure. But I don’t see the point in hiding what I am only to be disappointed later. Eventually, I’ll find who matches me beat for beat. Someone who has the same ambitions, the same drive. The same passions.”

His eyes bore into you again, and you swallow.

“You are forward,” you comment, somewhat breathlessly.

“I know what I want,” Marcus says again–quieter, this time.

“I wish I had that degree of certainty,” you whisper, laughing shakily.

“I think you do. In here,” he says, placing a palm over his heart. “But you second-guess it in favor of what’s up here.” He taps his index finger against his temple.

“I happen to think humanity in general should obey their brains a little bit more, speaking from experience.”

Marcus laughs loudly, breaking the intense mood that had settled over the table. “I don’t think you’re wrong. But when it stands between you and your desires? Sad,” he comments, pouting his lip slightly.

“Some desires should remain just that–desires, nothing more.” Your voice wavers.

“I respect that,” he says lightly. Signaling to the waitress with a wide, friendly smile, he asks for the check. “But you don’t strike me as a person who indulges most of her desires. You put everything else first, don’t you?”

“Not always,” you object, bristling slightly at the blatant call-out.

“I’m sure,” he grins as he scribbles a signature on the receipt. “Well, Cricket, I hope I’m wrong. I hope you chase the things you want, that you indulge in the little things that bring you joy, that you live your life not being afraid to say ‘I’m doing this for me.’ After all, I’m seeing such a fleeting moment of your life, aren’t I? A blink of an eye in the scheme of things. You and I are merely ships passing in the night, never to be seen or heard from again.” He stands. “Have a good night, Cricket.”

And with that, Marcus gives you one last fond smile and disappears through the front doors, leaving you stunned–frozen to your seat as you absorb his speech.

You wake up confused for the second morning in a row.

Bright and loud. Why is it so bright and loud?

This time, the confusion resolves itself quickly as your brain comes back online and you realize that your work phone is ringing again.

The old-fashioned alarm clock across the room reads 5:23 AM.

“Hullo?” you croak.

“You’re not going to fucking believe this.”

At the sound of the Sergeant’s voice, you switch on your bedside lamp and blink rapidly in the harsh light.

“What is it?” you ask, trying to sound more awake than you actually are.

"Maisie Fletcher called the station around four saying her husband never made it home from the Waterhole. Evans drove the road from town to their house about a mile south just to take her statement, and found solid evidence of fresh skid marks leading into the river.”

Your heart sinks. The river.

“Any sign of a vehicle?” you ask, already suspecting you know the answer.

“No.”

You take a deep inhale through your nose and let it out slowly through your mouth. Pulling a body from the Mississippi is miserable, unpleasant drudgery. First, you’ll spend hours directing boat patrols back and forth in a cross-hatch pattern for miles south of the suspected entry point. Then, once you finally find the vehicle, the work to exhume it from the water begins. The fire department will need to be coordinated with, and, depending on the depth of the car, a SCUBA team or a crane.

“Fletcher…” you repeat, frowning. “Isn’t that–”

“The domestic disturbance couple, that’s right,” Hubbard confirms.

You snort. ‘Couple’ is a strong word, in your opinion. The husband, Gavin Fletcher, was single-handedly responsible for half a dozen trips out to their house along the river over the years, but every time you’d asked Maisie–with increasing urgency in your tone–if she’d like to press charges, she had declined. And every time, you’d leave the house with a lead balloon in your stomach.

You always worried it was a matter of time before the “domestic disturbances” turned ugly. Or worse… fatal.

And now… he’s in the Mississippi. Maybe. Possibly.

Is it bad if you find yourself hoping he’s at the bottom of the river?

Yes. Yes, it is.

“Understood,” you sigh into the phone. “Let me throw on my uniform and I’ll meet Evans down at the bank.”

After a long day of standing on the banks of the Mississippi, watching patrol boats pass back and forth in slow, deliberate lines while drizzle slowly seeps its way down into the innermost reaches of your clothing, a vehicle turns up around six pm. You watch as the fire department uses the Jaws of Life to pry open the driver-side door, sending a cascade of muddy water onto the ground.

It’s difficult to recognize the former person being pulled from the wreckage–even after less than twenty-four hours of being submerged, water can do a fucking number on a body–but a search of the wallet in the back pocket of its jeans confirms the identity of the swollen, bloated corpse that used to belong to Gavin Fletcher.

Predictably, the task of notifying Maisie Fletcher is handed down to you.

Your mouth is a thin, tight-lipped line as you drive down the gravel driveway that you wish wasn’t so familiar. You barely have to knock before Maisie is at the door and falling to her knees in a display of grief that you simply can’t find yourself to feel. Try as you might, you can’t force anything–any emotion other than ‘numbness’ onto your face as you deliver the news as gently as you possibly can.

Maisie, still weeping, agrees to meet you at the morgue tomorrow to officially ID her late husband, and as she shakily rises to her feet, you can’t help but note the not-quite-healed-over bruise on her temple.

You need a fucking drink.

Thirty minutes later finds you at the Waterhole nursing a cold beer and an even-colder mood in your still-damp uniform.

Palmer, ever the charmer, leans into your personal space with all the enthusiasm of someone attempting to disarm a bomb, and mutters, sotto-voce, “You smell like a goddamn fishmonger, Cricket.”

At your deadpan glare, he backs away, hands in the air, and makes a show of cleaning cocktail glasses instead.

You don’t much feel like talking.

For one–yeah, the lingering smell of river brine–with the barest hint of ‘bloated corpse’ underneath–doesn’t put you in a sociable mood.

But what’s really bothering you is all of those old “domestic disputes” hovering in the forefront of your mind ever since Hubbard said the name ‘Fletcher’ at 5:30 this morning. God, you had all-but-begged her to press charges; in hindsight, you probably sounded insane. And each time, you took her refusal personally–as if it were happening to you, not to her. You’ve worked hard over the years to put that hurt, that anger away in a tiny little box in the corner of your mind, but the death of Gavin Fletcher seems to have released it all over again.

He’s dead, you point out to yourself. There’s no point in resurrecting your demons.

“Back at it, I see?" a slightly amused voice calls out from your periphery, and you close your eyes in exasperation.

You can't do this dance now.

"Marcus," you say with a resolute sigh.

"Fancy seeing you here," he grins, and slides onto the barstool next to yours. "I'll have the same," he says to Palmer, who nods.

Seated next to you, you can tell exactly when the odor of your uniform hits his nose. He pauses, beer bottle halfway to his lips, and cocks his head in a way that would be comical, had you been in a better mood. His eyebrows pinch together, causing a little crease to appear between them, as he looks at you.

"Did you… get dumped in the river earlier?"

You sigh again. "Not exactly. Had a car go into the river last night. Had crews searching all day, and finally found it this evening."

Marcus lets out a low whistle. "Roads must have been slick last night with all the rain," he points out.

"Yeah, exactly," you agree. "Honestly, it's probably worth it to put a feature on hydroplaning in the local paper after the news comes out. Not enough people take it seriously."

"Occupants?"

"Just the one. Male, forties. I can't release any names until tomorrow, though."

"I know," Marcus says, smiling fondly. "So after a day in the rain and the Mississippi mud, you're so ready for a beer that you don't even change out of the wet uniform, huh?"

"Fishmonger," Palmer grunts from the other side of the bar.

"I wasn't going to say it, but…"

"If you two are gonna gang up on a woman drinking, I'll damn well go home and do it alone," you grumble.

"Nonsense," Marcus grins. "If I bought the second round, would that convince you to stay?"

"One," you say, holding up your finger. "You have me for one more drink. Then I'm going home and getting into a hot bath."

"Yes, ma'am," he drawls, a glint in his eye when you mention the bath. "Guess I'll have to get my fill in the span of two beers."

You drain your first bottle and set it down challengingly.

"...One beer," he amends.

"It's just as well," you tell him. "I'm less than pleasant company tonight."

"Impossible," Marcus promises. "Your company becomes more and more entrancing to me the more I'm graced with it."

"I guess if you can't handle me at my 'smelling like rotten fish,' then…"

"Don't make me beg to 'handle' it."

"Marcus!" You bark out a surprised laugh in spite of yourself.

"Ha! There it is," he crows triumphantly.

"Are you trying to cheer me up or piss me off?"

"You looked like you could use the former. Seems as though you already have enough of the latter."

You can't help but chuckle again. Damn him that it's working.

"Is it so wrong to desire the company of a beautiful woman who smells like the bottom of a river?"

"Leaving," you sputter through your stifled laughter, although you make no move to get off of your stool.

"You wound me."

"I'm not the one habitually insulting your smell.”

“If I smelled like that, I’d hope someone would ask why,” Marcus points out with a teasing grin.

"I guess if I had known I'd be doing… this, I would have gone home and showered first."

"Doing… what?" Marcus asks, a flirtatious glint in his expression.

"This. This… dance, this back and forth." You gesture between the two of you.

"This… dance?" he repeats teasingly. "Cricket, if you wanted to dance, all you had to do was say so."

"Do you ever stop?" you laugh, rolling your eyes.

"Of course I do," Marcus answers, sounding affronted. "I'd never push someone if I didn't think my feelings were returned."

You close your eyes and exhale shakily. "You know I do… I do feel the same way, Marcus. And it isn't like I haven't thought about what you said last night–in fact, I've thought of it a lot. But I keep coming back to the fact that I just… I don't want to just scratch an inch. I'm looking for…"

"Connection?"

"Yes," you say emphatically. "Exactly. Not to be melodramatic, but I'm just too damn old for anything else."

"I feel the same way," Marcus murmurs.

"If you feel the same way, how the hell do you reconcile the fact that we're from two different parts of the country?"

"I don't know," he says softly. "But I know I can't ignore what I feel for you–the connection I feel between us. I know that's real, don't you?"

You drain the last of your beer and set it down on the counter.

"Guess that's my time," Marcus chuckles resignedly.

"Walk me to my car," you say quietly.

Marcus nods, throwing some cash onto the counter and extending his hand to you. "Shall we?"

Not taking your eyes off of his, you gently slip your palm into his own. He walks you to your car, one hand resting perfectly at the small of your back and making the skin there tingle slightly.

“I won’t ask to kiss you,” he announces as you open your door. “But from one passing ship to another, I’ll just say that you look so goddamn beautiful right now under the streetlights.”

You turn carefully around. Marcus’s expression is open and earnest. His lips are parted, his eyebrows upturned as he watches you. He’s made his desires clear, and you… you simply want to bask in that all-consuming attention of his for just a few moments.

Slowly, achingly slowly, you bring your palm up to lay against his sternum. Your eyes meet–a question in his, an answer in yours.

Just as unhurriedly, Marcus steps closer. He gently cups your chin in one of his large hands as he tilts his head just slightly and lowers it to meet you.

His lips are soft when they slowly brush against your mouth. The kiss is sensual, full of longing and barely restrained passion lurking just under the surface. His lips are parted, but he makes no attempt to deepen the kiss; you never feel the careful slip of his tongue into your mouth or the sting of teeth. Despite this, it might be the most sexually charged kiss you’ve ever received. A wave of pure want surges down your spine and into the base of your core and your grip on his shirt tightens to steady yourself as a small, involuntary noise escapes from deep in your chest.

You expect things to escalate from there. You wait for your back to hit the side of your car, to feel the weight of Marcus’s body against you as he pins you against the door. You wait for his hand to grip your hip, his fingertips to dig into the back of your neck as he takes control.

Instead, he pulls back–breathing shakily as he does–and rests his forehead against yours.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have done that,” you laugh breathlessly, thinking of how the hell you were supposed to to work with him now.

“Maybe not,” Marcus chuckles back. “But I don’t regret it. I can’t.”

The orange light from a nearby lamp casts half of his face in shadow, making his features stand out in dark relief: the bow of his upper lip, the angle of his cheekbone, the strength in his brow, the line of his nose…

He’s the one who looks beautiful, you think. Out loud, you say something else.

Just one word.

Your name.

Marcus’s lips part in surprise, eyebrows turning upward as he realizes the gift you’ve given him. He could have used it all along, of course, had probably seen it in the city directory before he’d even met you.

But he waited for your consent, instead.

And oh, how sweet it sounds when it falls from his lips for the first time like this, his mouth just inches from yours.

“I can’t believe I let you kiss me smelling like this,” you joke, trying to dispel the heavy cloud of tension.

He laughs quietly, and murmurs your name again, his thumb brushing delicately back and forth against your cheekbone. “Go home,” he whispers. “Take that bath. It’s late.”

You nod, swallowing thickly. “See you tomorrow.”

Marcus steps back, giving you a fond, warm smile. “Sure will.”

Christ, what have you done?

The thought doesn’t hit you until the wee hours of the morning, when you bolt upright in bed before your alarm and realize that you’re going to have to continue working alongside Marcus for the foreseeable future.

You don’t know him, not really; you don’t know how he’ll act in a professional setting after a very unprofessional moment between the two of you. He brings out a softness in you that you don’t recognize, a deep yearning at the very core of you that had been shoved down and suppressed for years. Vulnerability is punished in your line of work, especially as a woman, and you’ve gotten so well-practiced at stamping out any trait that could be perceived as weakness that you, unknowingly, eradicated it from your personal life as well.

How long has it been since you’ve let someone in?

How long have you denied yourself the comfort of another’s touch?

Damn him.

He’s brought all of these feelings to the surface, and now you have to worry about not only his reaction to seeing you at work today, but yours as well.

Will you be able to hide the way your body seems to gravitate toward him? Can you keep your face from betraying you?

Will he be able to remain aloof and businesslike, or will the mask drop–showing everyone the hunger in his eyes?

You shudder slightly. Please, let the day go smoothly.

As it turns out, all your nerves were misplaced. There’s no awkward reunion, no shy smiles or stilted small talk.

“They ID’ed the guy!” Marcus exclaims loudly as you walk into the bullpen.

The outburst from the typically softspoken man surprises you so much that you nearly drop your coffee.

“What?”

“Your Norman Rockwell thief! His name is Reuben Porter, and he lives in Moberly.”

A slow smile spreads across your face. “No way.”

Marcus grins back, dimple on full display. “Fancy a drive to the field office today?”

“Hell yes. Gotta be sooner than later, though,” you add, thinking of Maisie Fletcher. “I’ve got a meeting at three.”

“Yes ma’am,” he smirks. “Shouldn’t take too long. They’ll share all of their files, and you and your precinct can be the ones to make the arrest.”

“Wait… you’re not doing that?”

“Told you it was still your case,” he points out. “Yeah, before you know it, I’ll be out of your hair and on a plane back to D.C.”

“What a relief,” you joke, but the words hardly have any bite to them. Back to D.C.? Part of you wants to have your fill of him first; that kiss last night only left you craving more. All you can think about is his lips on yours, and wonder about the feel of his body as it pins you to the bed.

“I’m sure it is.”

Marcus’s voice deepens, his tone tinged with amusement, and you fight the urge to avert your eyes like a schoolgirl.

“Shall we, then?” you say lightly, raising your eyebrows and tilting your chin upward.

“You’re driving, this time,” he says with a boyish smile.

The car is where the tension finally returns. The air feels dense, each lull in polite conversation pregnant with what goes unmentioned and unacknowledged. To your surprise, you find yourself itching to address the elephant in the squad car, even after what feels like hours of giving yourself pep talks before work, promising yourself you wouldn’t be the one to slip.

“When… when is your flight?” you ask instead.

“Tomorrow.”

“...Oh.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Marcus says seriously.

You blanch. “You do?”

“Mmhmm. ‘Good Riddance,’ right? Mister Big City Agent, finally getting out of your way so you can arrest the jerk who had the audacity to defile the Mark Twain Museum.”

You bark out a surprised laugh. “I can’t tell if you’re making fun of Hannibal or not.”

Marcus makes a show of appearing offended. “I would never poke fun at the birthplace of Samuel Clemens.” Sobering, he adds, “I hope you know by now that I care very deeply about every art case.”

You can’t help but beam at him. Taking a leap of faith, you respond. “And I hope you know by now that I’m not hoping the door hits you on the way out.”

“Yeah?” he asks quietly.

“‘Course.”

Marcus slowly reaches his hand over to you and drags just the tip of one finger from your wrist and down your hand to the end of your pinkie finger in a barely-there caress.

You let out a shaky exhale as the squad car pulls into the lot of the St. Louis field office.

Damon greets you and Marcus cheerfully as you enter the Art Crimes Department. He shakes your hand, offering his congratulations, as you follow him back to his office.

“Here you go,” he says, handing you a singular flash drive. “The final identification reports identifying Reuben Porter as the thief, and all related case notes.”

“...That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Oh,” you say, turning the flash drive over in your hand. “Why not just email it?”

“File’s too big,” Damon shrugs.

“Got some stuff for you, too,” Marcus adds, pulling out his field notebook and a manila folder and handing them to you. “My notes, and my formal report of my involvement in the case.”

“Thank you,” you say, looking at Damon, and then at Marcus. “For your expertise and your support. I’ll–”

You’re interrupted by the loud ringing of your work cell. Grimacing, you give the agents an apologetic smile and duck out of Damon’s office.

“Yeah,” you say impatiently into the phone.

“Hey,” Hubbard replies, sounding, for once, incredibly hesitant.

“...What’s going on?”

“Can you go on a call?”

"I'm at the St. Louis field office with Pike," you tell him. "You'll have to call Evan in."

"Evan is already here," the Sergeant says, making you frown in confusion.

"He is? Then why–"

"We’ve got a body, but Cricket? …It's Johansson."

You don't realize your legs have given out until you feel the cold chair underneath you. Your breath comes in short pants after hearing That Name. That fucking name.

"Jakub," Hubbard continues, as if you needed to be told.

"H-How?"

"Looks like an overdose, but the autopsy will have to confirm it, obviously."

You feel as though you're floating above yourself. That fucking case. You hadn’t been on the force long; it was the first time the system had failed you. Failed her.

"I just thought you should know," the Sergeant is saying. "If you need to take a few days–"

"I don't," you interrupt. "Thanks for telling me. You still need me to come?"

"Nah," Hubbard says. "Have fun in St. Louis."

"Yeah," you hear yourself saying over the blood rushing in your ears. "Thanks." You robotically set the phone down on the table, eyes unseeing as you process the conversation.

A warm palm lands on your shoulder, and you exhale shakily. "S-Sorry, just give me a minute."

"Are you okay?" Marcus's voice is full of concern.

"Yeah, it's um… just a name I haven't heard in a while, is all."

But that’s not true… is it? The name is fresh in your brain, feels familiar when you silently form the shape of it with your mouth. Jakub Johansson. You’ve tried your best to put him–and all the other cases that keep you up at night–in the past, but ghost after ghost keeps turning up this week, in more ways than one.

“Do we need to get back to Hannibal?” Marcus asks.

“Nah. No. They’ve got it handled, they were just–it was one of mine, so… informing me, I guess.”

“One of your… what?”

“Sorry. Just an old case. Someone connected with it, anyways.”

“Everything alright?”

“They’re dead,” you deadpan. And even as you say the words out loud, a weight you didn’t realize you had been carrying seems to lift from your shoulders. Finally unparalyzed, you turn and look at Marcus. His gaze is burning, his eyes searching your face with unrelenting intensity.

“Do you need to take a moment?” he asks softly, plush lips barely moving and his wild eyes never once leaving you.

Suddenly, the windowless Art Crimes Department feels stifling, like there’s not enough air. You can’t speak; you can’t breathe. Instead, you nod as you quickly rise from your chair and all-but-bolt from the room, walking quickly down the hall and up the stairs until you reach the lobby, then rushing out of the main entrance. It’s only then that you feel as though you can suck in a deep, ragged breath of crisp autumn air.

You’ve carried this case with you for almost seven years. Seven years of feeling like you were the one who failed–not the system. You. You could have collected more evidence, you could have fought harder, you could have–no. You pace the sidewalk, repeating the statements the Force’s therapist gave you all those years ago. You did everything you could do. You helped a woman in need and brought a bad man to justice. His light sentence is not your fault.

And now he’s dead.

Why doesn’t this feel like relief?

That feeling, the one you've been having all week, returns. That feeling of wrongness, like you’re forgetting something important.

“Hey.” A soft voice cuts through your thoughts.

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” you murmur, not turning to acknowledge Marcus. “What the fuck is happening this week? Pearson, Dalton, Fletcher, J-Johannson… I’ve seen more dead bodies in one week than I’ve seen in a fucking lifetime.”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Marcus points out, “not a dead body.”

“The case with Johansson, it… it fucked me up for a while,” you say quietly, not looking at him. “I had to take time off, I was appointed a therapist to speak to, I–”

“The details must have been really upsetting to you,” he says gently, laying his hand on your forearm.

“I had panic attacks,” you whisper, feeling the leftover shame wash over you. “We’re supposed to keep our own emotions out of the job, and I… I failed–”

“That’s not a failure–” Marcus starts, but you interrupt quickly.

“I failed her,” you grit out through clenched teeth, spinning to face him head-on. “I thought I was doing everything I could, but it wasn’t enough.”

The soft sound of your name causes a sob to catch in your throat.

“Listen to me,” Marcus says softly. “You did everything you could, I know you did. You’re a caring, capable, brilliant cop, and you did everything in your power. And besides, the universe has a way of making things right, doesn’t it? He came to justice in the end.”

You snort. “He fucking overdosed in his own home, and his victim was left with a lifetime of trauma. If that’s justice, the universe has a funny sense of humor.”

You deflate with a sigh. Checking your watch, you give Marcus a humorless smile. “We’ve gotta go, anyway. I need to be back to meet with the wife of a drowned man at the morgue.”

Maisie Fletcher’s demeanor is far more stony than it had been the day before. Head held high and lips pursed, she strides confidently into the observation room and watches expressionlessly as the sheet is peeled back to reveal Gavin Fletcher.

“That’s him,” she confirms with no emotion in her voice.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” you say, because it’s what you’re supposed to do.

Maisie snorts, the first time her facial features have changed since she walked in. “Really? Knowing what you know about him? You might be the only other person who knows the truth about what he really is.”

When you don’t answer, she speaks again.

“This might be the best thing that's ever happened to me." The words are whispered, barely audible even in the cryptlike silence of the morgue.

You nod at the mortician, Milo, who you remember from a few grades below you in school. He nods back and carefully replaces the sheet.

You escort Maisie back out to her car with a heavy heart and brooding thoughts.

"What are you going to do?" you ask quietly.

"I'm leaving town. Soon as I can. I–I never meant to stay here, but…"

"It's hard to leave," you murmur. "The town, mean," you correct quickly. "It sucks you in. Believe me, I know."

"You could go, too," Maisie points out. "Every town needs cops."

"And leave all this?" you joke. "I'm good. Really. Just been a week for the record books."

As Maisie drives off, you turn and see that Milo is watching you from the front entrance.

"There a problem?" you call out.

"Nah, just wanted a second opinion on something. You busy?"

You shake your head, walking back into the morgue behind the mortician.

"Lot of new tenants this week," Milo says. He pauses, looking over at you as if waiting for your laugh. You manage a weak one, but it seems to satisfy him. He stops in front of one of the metal drawers and turns toward you. "This one, the one they found yesterday? The autopsy hasn't been completed yet, but I wanted to run something by you to see if you agree with my analysis."

You shrug, holding your arms out in a gesture for him to continue. He grabs the handle and pulls, revealing the pale, stiff corpse of Jakub Johansson. You suppress a flinch.

"It doesn't take an autopsy to conclude that the overdose killed him," the mortician says. "We've got all the classic signs of a fatal dose of Fentanyl. Should be cut-and-dry."

You pause, a small frown on your features. “If it’s cut-and-dry, why am I sensing a ‘but’ there?”

“Well, the overdose is cut-and-dry. No one walks away from that many drugs in their system, but… well, it looks like he got into a fight or something right before.”

“A fight?”

Milo sweeps the sheet back from the corpse’s arm. “Here. See, there’s the puncture from the needle, but look–” he gestures at the upper arm, where, through the discoloration of the already-decomposing skin, you can clearly see five purple marks.

“Someone grabbed him,” you say quietly.

“Mmhm. And here.” He points to the forearm, where a larger bruise runs horizontally across the skin.

Staring at the marks, the image starts to crystalize in your mind. “It looks like… like someone grabbed his upper arm, and held his forearm in place with their knee, or something.”

“That’s exactly what it looks like,” Milo nods grimly.

“He was held down,” you murmur, barely audible in the silent room. “He was held down and given a fatal dose.”

“The injuries were perimortem,” the mortician adds. “They would have been sustained just before he overdosed.”

“How long before?”

“No way to be precise, but…” he clicks his tongue, “...no more than an hour or two.”

You thank Milo in a daze, heading back out of the morgue with rapidly swirling thoughts. You can no longer ignore the facts: All the people who have died this week, with the exception of Bobby Pearson, were on your list of ‘Cases that Haunt your Dreams.’ That list… subconscious, but so vivid that you may as well have it written down on a piece of posterboard and hung opposite your living room couch. They were the cases that kept you up at night, the reason you…

… the reason… you…

…drink… to… forget.

The phrase seems to set off a chain reaction in your mind. You hear it again and again, but not in your own voice…

In the voice of someone else.

“They say there’s only two kinds of people,” Marcus says. “Those who drink to remember, and those who drink to forget.”

You remember his soulful eyes, the understanding in his expression as he acknowledged that he knew exactly which of those people you were.

“I drink to remember.”

“The living, and the dead.”

The dead.

Images flash rapidly in your brain. Him telling you the work matters. Urging you to tell him the names. Pouring you another drink. You, crying against his dress shirt. Him pleading with you to let it all go, the burdens you carried.

The names…

Nothing makes sense, anymore.

Well, actually, everything makes sense, it’s just that you don’t want it to.

Everything that’s happened over the past week is leading you to one conclusion–and you simply aren’t ready to face it. Not yet.

You can’t face it… but you can’t let it go, either. It would be against everything you thought you stood for. So rather than go home and drown your suspicions in more whiskey, you go back to the station.

Not bothering to turn on the lights, you sit down at your desk and power on your computer. The blue light is harsh in the dim bullpen as you open the FBI’s website and search for the Art Crimes department. You glance at the directory–Supervisory Special Agent Marcus Pike at the very top, of course–then navigate over to the department’s news page and scan the recent case headlines.

Wilton Man Admits Operating Fraud Scheme

Palm Beach Art Dealer Sentenced to Federal Prison for Laundering Money From Art Fraud Scheme.

Lips pursed, you open up a second tab and search for ‘Wilton.’ It’s a small town in Connecticut–and you find the town’s local newspaper easily. You click back to the FBI page, look at the date the man was arrested, and look through the newspaper archives on and before the same day.

No major headlines stand out, but when you read the obituaries for the week, goosebumps begin to rise at the back of your neck. Elliott Bradford, 42. Overdose. Mark Hampton, 38. Suicide.

Those kinds of deaths are common everywhere, you try to tell yourself. But, pulling up yet another tab, you search for the first name. Immediately, article after article appears in the results. Heart in your throat, you click on the first.

Sex Offender Elliott Bradford Implicated in Trafficking Ring. The news is from over a decade ago–but the details are enough to turn your stomach. He’d been sentenced to ten years in prison, which means he would have just been released… last year. Mere months before Marcus would have been there for work.

When you search for Mark Hampton, you find a similar story. Marjorie Hampton Files Suit Against Husband Mark Citing Repeated Abuse. And just a few years later, he’s dead, too.

A little voice in the back of your head tells you to stop digging, but you can’t seem to quit. You repeat the search with Palm Beach, and find that again, the obituaries are filled with accidental deaths and suicides from the town’s most violent men.

Minneapolis. North Hollywood. Palmdale. You’ve gone as far back as 2016, and every town has the same pattern: Marcus Pike arrives for a case, and days later, known abusers start turning up dead.

Every.

Single.

One.

It’s nearly two in the morning when you finally force yourself to stop. Your mind is swirling with names, dates, and heinous crimes. And all of them died within weeks of the town being visited by a certain FBI Art Crimes Detective. There’s still a part of you that can’t believe your conclusions are real–that the sweet, kind man you can’t deny your feelings for any longer is actually a killer. Which is why, hands trembling, you do the one thing you definitely should not do at this moment.

You text Marcus Pike.

“I need to talk to you.”

You regret it almost immediately. Part of you hopes that he’s asleep. He has to be, right? It’s two AM. Shaking your head and inwardly chastising yourself, you slip your phone into your pocket and start shutting down the computer.

When you get up to leave, however, your phone pings.

“Where and when?”

"I–I need to talk to you,” you blurt out the moment the hotel room door opens, but the sight before you almost makes you swallow the last few words.

Marcus is shirtless, wearing nothing but a pair of gray sleep pants low around his hips. You can’t help but stare at the sight, taking in his broad shoulders, the light musculature of his arms, his slender waist and the soft skin on his stomach. A light trail of hair disappears below the waistband of his pants, and you swallow thickly as you drag your eyes back up to his face.

"So you said," Marcus says quietly. If he’s amused at your obvious staring, he doesn’t show it.

"You–what're you doing up so late?"

"Never did sleep much," he says with a crooked grin. One of his eyebrows raises as he looks you up and down. "Why are you up and at my door at this time of night?"

"Losing my fucking mind," you murmur shakily.

He steps forward, reaching his hand up to tenderly cup your cheek. Your eyes flutter closed as your body instinctively responds to his touch.

"Marcus," you whisper.

"And why does that bring you to me?" he asks, his voice deepening. His thumb traces back and forth across your cheekbone.

To confront you, you want to say. To make you tell me I'm not crazy. That I figured out your secret.

Instead, you reach out and touch one trembling hand to his sternum, indulging in your desire to touch that expanse of golden skin.

You open your eyes to find him watching you with a hooded, coal-black gaze. His eyes flick down to your hand on his chest, then back up to your face.

The moment feels like the drawing back of a bowstring. It seems to linger, seconds stretching out longer and longer until the inevitable moment where everything snaps.

Suddenly, Marcus is pulling you forward, shutting the door, and pressing you back against it in one swift, fluid motion.

His entire body molds to you–hips, hands, lips–with far more ferocity and less restraint than the night before. You feel the sting of his teeth, the grip of his fingertips as he takes from you.

You aren't exactly idle, either; your hands map the planes of his chest, hips canting up to grind against the hard length you can feel there. When he pushes right back, you groan loudly and dig your fingernails involuntarily into the meat of his upper back, and he hisses.

"Sor–"

"Again," he growls, so you scratch harder.

A low, feral sound escapes from deep in his chest he breaks away from your lips and kisses a frenzied path down your neck.

"This was always going to happen," Marcus rasps into your skin. "You, and me. Can't you feel it?"

"Feel–?" you gasp, arching your back at the little nip of teeth at your shoulder. What you feel, right now at least, is the hard, thick length of his cock pressing insistently against your stomach, and it empties your mind of all other thoughts.

"Feel the electricity between us. The connection," Marcus clarifies between kisses back up your neck until he gently nibbles your jaw.

"Mmhmm," you whimper. Your knees almost buckle.

"Tell me," he orders.

"I feel it."

You reach down and grasp his erection through his clothes as if to punctuate your meaning, and Marcus’s knees do buckle slightly as he sags against you with a broken groan.

"Every fucking night," he growls, "I pictured how you would look spread out on this bed. You'll forgive me for indulging that, now."

"Tell me," you parrot coquettishly, staring up at him coyly from behind your lashes.

Another low sound emanates from deep within Marcus's chest at your command. Spinning you around so fast you nearly lose your sense of direction, he pulls you further into the room and deposits you on the bed before crawling over you.

"Tell you, huh? Tell you what? How I would close my eyes and think about the sounds you'd make for me? Or about how I'd get so worked up imagining the way you'd taste, the way you'd look coming undone beneath me that I'd have to fist my cock just for a little relief?"

"I wanna see that," you say lazily, licking your lips and making a show of pulling your shirt over your head.

"Next time," Marcus promises darkly. “Next time I'll do it just like this, with you staring up at me, watching me fuck myself for you. But I don't think I can go one more night without being inside you."

"Please," you whisper, staring up at him with wide eyes.

"Yeah?"

"Fucking… yes, Marcus, shit–"

He chuckles, straight, white teeth showing as he grins and starts to unbutton your pants. You let him draw them down your hips, along with your underwear, your breath getting shakier as you see the hungry look in his eyes. It makes you feel powerful, the way just the sight of your bare center seems to affect him.

When your pants reach your ankles, he yanks them off the rest of the way and casts them aside in the corner of the room. His gaze is almost predatory, but you get the feeling you are the one who has him under your thumb at the moment. Giving him a sly, crooked smile, you spread your legs wide.

Marcus pitches forward onto his elbows, dropping down onto the bed as if deep in prayer, but everything about the man in this moment is sinful. With his mouth inches from your pussy, he breathes in, closing his eyes and shuddering visibly. When he opens then again, they're deep obsidian. They don't move from your face as he lowers his mouth to you.

You aren't sure who moans louder at the first generous lick of his tongue into your pussy. Rather than start at your clit, he dives in; thrusting the wet, warm muscle as deep into your cunt as he can while his nose presses deliciously against you.

He devours you greedily, licking up into you as if he could pull pleasure out of your channel with just his tongue. He seems to be getting almost as much satisfaction out of doing it; his eyes are closed as if savoring you, low, muffled moans from deep in his throat punctuate every lap into your pussy, and every so often, his hips thrust slightly against the bed as though he can't help but seek a little relief.

His hands scrabble at your hips, yanking you closer as soon as he can find purchase, and you throw your head back on the pillow as he buries himself even deeper than before.

Christ, how is he even breathing?

His nose rubs back and forth against your clit, and you can feel your orgasm starting to build. Growing bolder, you rock your hips subtly against Marcus's face, and by the loud groan that escapes him when he feels you do it, he enjoys it.

He pulls at your hips again, wordlessly commanding you to continue.

"Fuck," you murmur. "Marcus, your mouth–"

You slowly grind on him, gyrating your hips as you chase the sensations that feel best for you. It causes everything to pull up tight, and before you even realize what's happening, you're falling apart on his tongue.

"Have to have you," Marcus pants in your ear, having surged up to cover you with his body even as you were still trembling with aftershocks. "Tell me I can have you."

"Yeah," you agree. "Fuck, take it. It's yours." Make me forget.

"Condom?"

"Clean. You?"

"Clean. You–You sure? Tell me now, because I don't think I can wait any longer."

"Please," you whisper, reaching up to gently wipe away some of the slick above his upper lip with an amused smile. He looks wrecked already–the only time you've seen him with a hair out of place–and it's incredibly endearing.

You don't have time to dwell on that thought, because with a broken sound, he sheathes himself within you.

The noise that escapes you is involuntary–an instinctual, guttural reaction from somewhere deep in your subconscious brain. You can feel Marcus everywhere at once, pressing against nerves deep inside of you, nerves you didn't even realize you had.

Anyone would be forgiven for expecting sex with this clean-shaven, softspoken man to be just as gentle and sweet as the man himself. You would have thought the same thing, except for one feature of his that always made you feel as though something darker was lurking underneath: that smile. Wide, toothy, eager; the rows of straight, white teeth; the boyish little dimple it exposes.

It's his eyes when he smiles like that that have always made you wonder what he's hiding; what demons are being concealed behind pearly whites and laugh lines.

But you think the way Marcus fucks might expose far more than anything else about him.

The fire that dances in his eyes has certainly hinted at a deeper passion, but you've yet to experience anything like the way it feels to be on the receiving end of this much intensity.

He's unrelenting in his pursuit of pleasure; fervent and raw and so very physical. He doesn't shy away from the messiness of sex; he licks an escaped tear as you reach your second peak, he spits on your clit and rubs it in with his fingers, and when he finally pulls out and finishes on your chest, he immediately covers you with his mouth and sucks himself off of your nipples.

You'd also be forgiven in thinking Marcus was done with you. That, given the late hour and the vigorous, explosive way he had fucked you, he'd collapse on the bed with a tired, sated sigh.

Instead, he pulls at your hip and guides you to turn over on your stomach. You're about to open your mouth and question his motives when you feel his hot, wet tongue press against your other hole.

You squeal involuntarily, burying your face in the pillows as you surrender to the onslaught of Marcus’s attentions. In this, just as in every other way he's already had you tonight, he's incredibly vocal. He straightens his tongue and pushes it inside, and moans loudly as he feels you give way for him.

"Good girl, so fuckin' good, gonna make me hard again, aren't you? Mewling so prettily into the sheets like that while I take you apart. You like that, don't you? Filthy fucking girl, huh? Good. I am, too–told you we were made to do this."

Marcus is merciless, giving you his tongue, fingers, tongue again, over and over and over in your pussy and your ass until you come undone again with a wail.

You're boneless and pliable as he hauls your trembling body up onto your knees and enters you again, this time from behind.

He's equal parts brutal and reassuring: ample, generous praise spills from his lips with every rough punch of his cock.

You're so overwrought with pleasure, you can't even speak. Marcus is destroying you in every delicious way, and you aren't sure how you're supposed to come back from this. How you're supposed to confront him after he's made you feel things you didn't even know how could feel.

His lower hands are pressing down on your lower back, intensifying the arch in your spine and causing his cock to hit the perfect spot inside you.

"Gonna–" you gasp.

"I know," Marcus answers. "Together, this time. With me, yeah? I'm so close, but I'm waiting on you. Cum for me, let me feel it baby."

You sob into the pillows as he fucks you through your orgasm, your walls aching and ultrasensitive from the relentless onslaught of his cock.

You're only barely aware of him pulling out and letting you collapse forward onto the bed. You aren't sure why it surprises you–perhaps just the intensity of the moment before–but you aren't expecting the warm, gentle arms encircling you as Marcus follows you down and wraps you up, pulling you into his chest.

You're still panting, trying to catch your breath and regain equilibrium as you hear his voice behind you. It's not rough and rasping like before, but soft and soothing as he croons into your ear.

"So good for me, so perfect. Took me so well, look so good in my bed. Incredible.”

Giddy and overwhelmed, you start to laugh breathlessly.

Marcus chuckles too, nuzzling the spot behind your ear with his nose with a satisfied hum. His fingers start to trace a path up and down your stomach, and you sigh bonelessly and settle against him.

"This… this wasn't what I came here for," you murmur after a few moments.

"No?" Marcus nips playfully at your jawline just below your ear.

"No, I… I…"

The teasing kisses continue, causing sparks to shoot up and down your spine.

"Marcus," you sigh, as you feel another little nibble on your neck. "Marcus. Stop."

Slowly, cautiously, he pulls back. You turn in his arms, frowning slightly.

"I came here… Jesus, this sounds–I need you to convince me I'm just being jumpy. That I've been spooked, scared of my own shadow…"

“You’re under a lot of stress,” Marcus says gently. “You’ve had a hard week.”

You scoff. “Hard week? I’ve had hard weeks. This week was devastating. I’ve seen more deaths in one week than in almost my entire time on the force, and–” you swallow and look up, meeting his dark eyes, “–they’re all connected to me.”

“It’s not your fault,” he whispers. “They were bad men, and they all had their vices…”

“Every single one,” you forge ahead, “was connected to a case assigned to me. But that’s not the only connection, is it?”

Marcus cocks his head to the side, not dissimilar to a confused puppy. “What do you mean?”

“They were all connected to cases that keep me up at night. Cases that didn’t end in justice. Cases that I confessed… to you.”

Confusion melts away into an easy, casual smile. Marcus chuckles softly. “I thought you said you didn’t remember anything we talked about that night.”

“Details might be blurry, but it’s the only thing that makes sense,” you say, laying back to stare at the ceiling. “I was upset over Bobby. I was disillusioned with the job. You were all too eager to lend an ear, to let me drown my sorrows and whisper the names of the men whose faces I’ll never forget. I cried on your shoulder, Marcus. And you… you took those names, and—”

“Are you saying you’re accusing me of being some kind of one-man vigilante justice machine?” Marcus asks, beginning to laugh outright. “Cricket, do you have any idea how that sounds?”

“It sounds crazy," you say, turning toward him again. "So convince me otherwise. Tell me I've lost my fucking marbles on this one."

"I think it would be natural for anyone to look for some kind of reason behind a string of deaths of people they know," he offers gently. "And these men, they've… they've affected you more than most–let's not mince words, you were traumatized by these cases. It's only natural that you would look for answ–"

"Answers?" you interrupt. "My job is to find answers, you should know that. I've been researching you on your own website, what do you have to say about that? I know where you've been for other cases."

Marcus chuckles, although it seems… deeper, this time. "That's publicly available information on the government's own servers. I'm not sure what your point is."

"I also looked up all the newspapers from the times you would have been there," you say. "And just like in Hannibal, there's a rash of suicides and accidental deaths, and all of the victims? They all had rap sheets miles long."

"Cricket," Marcus intones softly. "I know you're desperately trying to find connections here, but you have to realize these all sound like huge coincidences–"

"You got sloppy," you accuse, picking up steam and confidence as you continue to talk through it. "Did you know that? Johansson's death was no accident. He was held down and given a fatal dose. It was rough; whoever did it wanted it to hurt–"

"Stop." Marcus cuts you off, his voice harsher than you've ever heard it. "You're grasping at straws. You're under a ton of stress, and you've concocted a wild fantasy to cope. It's a good story, but that's all it is. The things you're accusing me of, the person you've made me out to be… it's not rational, and it's dangerous. I'm an agent with the US Government, and you're throwing around some pretty serious allegations."

"I know what I've seen…" you murmur, shaking your head.

"You haven't seen anything," Marcus insists. "I'm not sure what your game is here. You come to my hotel room in the middle of the night saying you want to talk, you come onto me, we have sex… and now you're telling me you think I'm, what? A serial killer?"

"I–I think I should leave," you say quietly, getting up from the bed and padding over to pick up your uniform–where your gun is still holstered in your belt. You grab the pile of clothes and retreat to the bathroom to breathe and regroup. You splash cold water on your face, trying to ignore the fact that your hands are trembling slightly.

Get it together.

The pull you've felt for the man all week doesn't matter. Put it aside. Do the job.

You take a few more deep breaths, then pull on your clothes. With a set jaw, you unholster your gun and slowly open the bathroom door.

"Marcus Pike, you're–"

You freeze mid-sentence, staring at the now-empty room.

"...gone?"

Epilogue (1 year later)

“I know it’s not much, but–”

“It’s perfect,” you breathe, walking into the small office, carrying a paper box full of your belongings, all waiting for a home among the bookshelves and desk space.

“Sure,” the other agent laughs.

It might not have a window. It might not have much charm. But it has a door–a real door that closes and everything–and even more importantly, it bears your name on a plaque.

A real office.

Yours.

“You’re coming to us from… Saint Paul?”

“Saint Louis,” you correct amicably.

“Welcome to White Collar Crimes,” your new coworker says with a wan smile. “It’s like Organized Crime, except instead of bodies, you’re examining accounting spreadsheets.”

“Good,” you say emphatically. “I’ve had enough death for several lifetimes.”

The other agent makes a face. “What the fuck was going on in Saint Louis?”

You huff a laugh through your nose. “You don’t wanna know.”

You set the box down, taking out some of your most prized possessions: A Mark Twain bobblehead, your Bachelor’s Degree in Criminology from the University of Missouri, and more recently, a certificate from Quantico labeling you as a Special Agent with the FBI.

It had taken most of the year to coordinate your exodus from the tiny town of Hannibal where you grew up. Sure, you could have simply gone to another city to be a cop, but the endless parade of speeding tickets, accidental overdoses, and orders to break up tent cities was wearing on you. Were you really making a difference where you were?

No.

You wanted to go after the real criminals. Those who swindled the vulnerable out of their hard-earned money. Those who gamed the stock market only to make a few million more than they already had.

White collar crime.

“Well, welcome to D.C.,” the other agent says, his tone tongue-in-cheek, but your smile is genuine nonetheless. He leaves you to your task–setting up the tiny, cramped space that serves as your office.

You unpack a box of your favorite pens, your stapler, a potted plant (fake) to add some greenery. Maybe when you get an office with a window, you can get some real plants, you think as you rearrange your notebooks on the small bookshelf beside your desk.

You glance down at the badge on your lapel and smile.

It had been a year since your strange run-in with the Art Crimes Agent that changed the course of your career.

After Marcus Pike fled the scene of his own hotel room–leaving most of his belongings behind–you couldn’t find it in yourself to continue down the road of being a small-town police officer, handing out tickets and misdemeanors and investigating every tragic case that came across your desk. And they were all tragic, make no mistake.

After a few months of being angry and indignant, you’d grown to respect Marcus Pike. You’d realized he was telling the truth all those months ago: he’d felt useless as an Agent, cutting through all the red tape and bureaucracy, and he’d simply taken matters into his own hands in the end.

He used his connections within law enforcement to gain access to the world’s undesirables: the violent, the unhinged, the maladapted, the unacclimated.

The bad men who had gotten light sentences or slaps on the wrist when they should have been removed from polite society for the gain of humanity.

Compared to you–fighting through the red tape of Government at every turn–Marcus was unstoppable. You guess that’s why so many people like to read about comic book heroes who spend their time doling out vigilante justice. Fighting for prolonged sentences within the criminal justice system was one thing. Living by your own creed of law and order? That was another.

Marcus simply… went around the law.

Did the ends justify the means?

That was a question that kept you up for months on end–that still causes you to shoot up in bed, panting and sweating, fighting off the remnants of a nightmare.

Even now, you aren’t sure of the answer.

That, on top of the real job opportunities that the FBI awarded you, is what really brought you here.

Marcus Pike… is a murderer.

You’re here to keep an eye on him.

Putting aside your… more personal connections, the man is dangerous. After all, you have no way of substantiating that his moral code, the way he kills for his own perceived sense of good, will always match the general sense of human morality. Is Marcus the type of man who would take a personal slight and warp it into his own twisted sense of justice? Would ever kill to satisfy his own grievances? Would he ever simply kill for the sake of it? You have no way of knowing.

A soft tap on your office door interrupts your reverie.

“Got a briefing on the Waters case in five. I’m assuming you read the file I emailed over?”

At your nod, the other agent continues. “It’s in conference room 2E63. Since this place is a bit of a labyrinth, thought we could walk there together.”

“Appreciate it,” you say cheerfully, snapping your laptop shut and grabbing your notebook.

Time to work.

“Got any questions for me before the meeting?” your coworker asks as you navigate through the halls.

“Are other departments involved in this case?” you ask. “There’s the embezzling scheme, stock fraud, that’s obviously us. But what about some of the company’s other operations? The file mentioned something about illegal smuggling and money laundering, surely that’s–”

“Organized Crime, yup. We’ve got two representatives from that team, they’ve been heavily involved. It was recently discovered that some of the goods smuggled were uh, famous paintings or something? So we’ve recently added someone from—This is us, by the way.”

Your coworker opens the conference room door, and across the room, a familiar set of deep brown eyes flicks up in surprise.

“Anyway, yeah, we also recently added someone from Art Crimes to assist in the recovery of the, uh–” your coworker trails off, turning to the only other agent in the room that you happen to know, apparently hoping for him to complete the sentence.

He doesn’t. Agent Marcus Pike is still staring at you, lips parted, his face white as a sheet. Fear lurks in his wide eyes.

When he blinks, though, the mask suddenly drops back down over his expression, his agitation replaced with cool confidence.

“Cézanne,” he answers patiently. To you, he extends his hand. “I haven’t seen you around here,” he says carefully.

To anyone listening, the words are straightforward, said by a stranger, but you catch the hidden, underlying message. I’ve seen you before, but in a different world. You are out of context.

“Just started today,” you comment lightly before giving him your name, taking his hand, and shaking it firmly. Very firmly. Marcus blinks. You see a flash of that wild intensity that you know lurks beneath his unassuming exterior.

When he smiles, you take in the rows of perfectly straight, white teeth and his singular dimple.

A warning. Or a promise.

“I look forward to working with you.”

#Marcus Pike #Marcus Pike x you #Marcus Pike x reader #Marcus Pike x f!reader #Marcus Pike fanfiction #the mentalist #the mentalist fanfiction #pedro pascal

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call-sign-shark · 1 year

Text

Pop Goes the Rat || Modern Arthur Shelby x Reader

Summary: When Arthur Shelby was discharged from the Special Air Service Forces due to his PTSD symptoms, his whole life fell apart. As his mental health declined, his wife divorced, and he became a drug addict. But recently Arthur is more than committed to getting his shit together. He even goes to drug anonymous meetings. If he manages to stay clean and get better, he will be reintegrated into his unit. And if he is, maybe Linda will come back.

That being said, you had never been part of the plan. And yet you're here, ready to wreck his life and rob his heart. Who are you? Where do you come from? How did you end up in the streets? No one knows. What they know though is that you call yourself "Rat".

Words: 2.5k

TW: Mention of drug use, otherwise it's kind of cute and funny. The vibes are grumpy veteran x unhinged punk girl.

Notes:

♠ Even though I tried to keep "Rat" as Y/N as possible, there are two physical traits described: she has blue and long hair.

♠ This is not supposed to be a series but I had to exorcize this idea. If some people are interested in the concept I might write a few blurbs or one-shots for Rat and Arthur!

MASTERLIST

“I see a new face here! Welcome dear. I am proud you joined us in today’s session. What’s your name?”

“Arthur.” He mumbled, feeling awkward.

“Hi Arthur.” The whole participants replied in unison.

Arthur nodded to greet them but remained silent during the whole meeting. At first he was convinced that going to these anonymous groups was nothing else than bullshit, but as people shared their experiences and struggles he had started to feel better. To the point a faint smile flattered his lips. When the chairman clapped in his hands to signal the end of the discussion, Arthur got up from his chair and grabbed the leash of the huge malinois that was sleeping at his combat boots. Hannibal was his military dog, a fierce animal who had accompanied him throughout his most dangerous missions. Most of the time, he was also his only friend. The dog woke up and stretched his body, yawning. Even though the meeting had been a positive experience Arthur did not feel to talk with the other addicts. All he wanted now was to go home, take a hot shower and try to sleep. He left the place to go grab his jacket in the cloakroom. That was when he first saw you, your hand in the pocket of his utility jacket, seeking for his wallet.

“Oi! The fook are ye doing?!”

You jumped, heart missing at least two beats. To be true, you did not know what scared you the most: the man’s hoarse voice or the dog barking at you? But despite getting caught, your survival instincts kicked in and you exited the house through the window with a surprising agility. Arthur did not really bother running after you, for you had left his wallet. Moreover, he did not want Hannibal to tear you apart.

“Bloody hell.” He said out lout, barely processing what he had just seen. Was the young woman and her long blue hair really there or had he imagine her?

The second time you met, Arthur had just got out from the 24/24 shop nearby and was smoking a cigarette in the parking lot. Whenever he could not sleep, the soldier opted for a night walk and a snack or a cigarette rather than staying at home with his crippling anxiety. Usually he would take Hannibal with him but tonight he wanted to be alone, for he felt at the verge of relapsing into his bad habits: he was torn apart between the need to buy cocaine and his will of staying clean.

“I can’t. Fuck, I can’t do that.” He whispered to himself as his throat tightened at the sole thought of snorting some snow. The need was too overwhelming to resist — just one line, it could not be that bad right? Just one line, he told himself. It was at the moment he had made up his mind about whether or not to get high that he saw a familiar face.

A young woman with blue hair rushed out of the shop, a few stolen goods pressed against her chest. Her two long braids were floating behind her as she ran past him like some kind of feral pixie. Arthur frowned as he recognized that naughty little thief from the drug addicts meeting. Maybe that was why he grabbed her by the arm and forced her to stop.

“What the —“ You exclaimed, almost stumbling because of the sudden stop. You flickered on your legs a little bit and turned around in one vivid movement, your heart racing as you realized a man was keeping you from escaping.

“Nice to see you again, thief girl.” Arthur said, one brow raised.

You blinked several times, not recognizing him at first, but when you did your eyes widened even more, “The fuck is wrong with you dude?! Leave me alone!”

“What did you steal this time, eh?!” He replied. As he did his lips stretched in a carnivorous smile that showcased his pointy fangs.

“It’s none of your business, fucker! Let me go! Lemme go or I’ll scream!”

“You must be kidding m—“ Arthur could not finish his sentence for the shop holder hailed him. Truth be told, the man was fuming.

“Here you are stupid bitch!” He roared, one thick vein pumping on his forehead, “Thank you for catching her!” He said to him before shifting his attention back to you, “who’s laughing now? I’m going to call the fucking cops!”

“No, no, please, no.” You started to plead all the while pulling your arm in a desperate attempt to free yourself from the soldier’s grip but his strength outmatched yours. From then, everything happened really fast: first Arthur looked at your face and realized how young you were. Judging by your physical traits, you were in your start/mid twenties. The second detail he noticed was the pathetic content of your loot. Indeed, what you had stolen was literally a pack of menstrual tampons, a sandwich, a bag of chips and a bottle of water. Arthur clenched his jaws and his heart ached a little bit. Despite his violent outbursts he was far from being devoid of empathy. Somehow, it was quite the contrary.

“Listen lad, she’s me girlfriend. We had an argument and she’s a bit drunk. I’m sorry for any inconvenience. I’ll pay for what she took. “ Words left Arthur’s mouth before he could even fully understand what he just said.

The shop owner looked at him with surprise, his thick brows furrowed in confusion, “That crazy chick is your girl?” He asked, his eyes shifting from him to you several times in a row. When he finally looked at you longer, you awkwardly offered him your biggest toothy smile, “Erm yeah okay. It’s fifteen bucks, man. But next time I see her in my shop I’ll call the police. Got it?”

“Hm.” Arthur replied with a grunt and, with his free hand, he took fifteen pounds from his pocket and then handed them to the man. The latter took the bills and left without further ado, leaving the two of you all alone in the parking lot. Arthur, who was still firmly holding your arm, lost himself in his thoughts a few long seconds. That was your annoying voice that snapped him out of his bubble.

“Your girlfriend?” You exclaimed, outraged. With one quick movement you managed to break free from his grip. Wincing, you massaged your sore skin, “I’d rather kill myself”

“C’mon, I’ve saved your ass. The least ye could do is show some respect. Kids these days…” Arthur growled, his piercing blue eyes staring at you.

You replied by poking your tongue out — which properly astounded him. What a fucking brat, he thought, “you want me to thank you and repay you the favor? Spoiler at fucking eleven, I’ve got nothing to offer. And if you suggest me to suck your dick I’ll punch your bollocks off.”

Arthur opened his eyes wide, his sharp face adorned with an almost cartoon-like shock. God, you had a fierce spirit for such a small creature. Yet he had been in combat zones all over the world and met a wide sample group of people, “Bloody hell. Calm down, midget. Yer a kind of psychotic Smurfette or what? I wasn’t going to ask you these kind of things.”

“Oh? Erm. Really? Yeah, whatever,” Once the fury faded away from your pretty juvenile face, all was left was an indescribable adorable pout. Your eyes fled his.

“I’m serious. I wasn’t going to say that. No need to repay it. It’s only fifteen bucks.” A tint of amusement appeared in his blue irises as he observed your facial expression, similar to a kitten caught in the middle of doing something stupid. He slightly tilted his head to the side, observing your more in details. You were irresistibly cute for a little criminal, “the name’s Arthur Shelby by the way, eh.”

“Well, thank you Arthur Shelby.” You finally said a bit reluctantly before walking away. You had barely made a few steps when Arthur’s voice echoed behind you.

“Oi! Wait a minute!”

You did not. Quite the contrary, you ran away before the soldier’s steel blue eyes, who looked at your slim silhouette disappearing in the shadow of the night. All that remained from you was the soft sensation of your skin against his that was still tingling on his fingertips.

What you loved the most about spring was the fact you could sleep outside without freezing. Curled up on a bench lost in the midst of a parc, you tried to rest but Morpheus refused to bring you to his Kingdom. A little growl escaped from your lips as you wiggled, trying to find a comfortable position. But the wood was hard, and your backpack was an awful pillow substitute.

“Doesn’t seem comfy, eh.”

The gruff voice that just talked caused you to sit on the bench in one vivid movement, all your senses on alert just in case you needed to run away from a potential threat. Living in the streets was harsh enough for those who suffered from this life —but when you were a woman, the struggle became even worse. However, your muscles relaxed slightly when you saw Arthur’s face.

“You’re stalking me or what?”

“Fook off, kiddo,” He rolled his eyes, annoyed, then he made a quick head gesture toward his legs. When you looked down, you saw the gargantuan malinois sitting at his feet. Even though the brute did not move, his dark beady eyes were carefully observing you, “I always walk my dog here during the night.”

“That? A dog? Looks like a fur rocket. It barked at me.”

“Ye were trying to rob my wallet, eh.” He refreshed your mind.

“Whatever,” You sniffed and crossed your arms.

Silence fell above you. The only noise that could be heard was the light murmur of the leaves moving at the wind’s discretion. Arthur’s charming blue eyes looked at you a few long seconds as he thought about his next words. Contrary to Tommy, his little brother, he had never been skilled with them. He was too easily flustered and always ended up looking more stupid than anything else.

“I don’t even know your name. That’s what I wanted to ask you last week but you ran away.”

You looked at him, surprised.

“Rat.”

“Rat? Bloody hell, girl. Your parents really didn’t love you.”

“Hey! Fuck you!” You retorted, your eyes burning with a blazing annoyance, “ That’s what people call me! Not my real name.”

“Why do they call you rat? That’s… Fookin weird.” Arthur asked, taking a flat silver case out of the pocket of his cargo pants. Then, he slipped one cigarette between his teeth.

“Gimme one?” Your eyes shone at such a sight. You dreamt about a good smoke for days but cigarettes were incredibly hard to steal.

“The magic word?” He teased, the gravel in his voice coated with genuine amusement.

“Fuck off, Arthur.” You retorted.

“That’s a right answer, stinky rat.” As he spoke, the soldier pushed you with a nudge and slumped on the bench next to your frame. Hannibal looked at his master, then lied down between his parted feet. Arthur gave you a cigarette and lit it up when you brought it to your lips. A sigh of relief escaped from you juicy lips as you exhaled a cloud of smoke from your burning lungs. It did not take long for the pleasant effects of nicotine to alleviate your anxiety. Admittedly, it felt good. Glancing at you with utter curiosity, Arthur could not help but give a faint smile at how adorable you looked when fury left your face, “So, why do they call you rat?”

“Because of him,” Following a show-don’t-tell policy, you slowly moved your left shoulder. Arthur raised a brow and truly wondered what you were doing, twitching your shoulder like that. But his interrogations soon found their answer when a tiny pink snout appeared between two blue hair strands. Then followed the little and furry white head of an albino rat.

“What the — how fookin adorable that is,” Arthur’s face enlightened with awe. He expected you to roast him but all you did was blessing him with a genuine smile for you were delighted by his reaction. Usually, people would were quite disgusted when they saw your little friend, “His name’s Plague.”

“Ah!” Arthur’s loud and hoarse laugh rose up to the sky, “what a cool name. I like him.”

Plague wiggled his pinky snout, smelling the fragrances of both the stranger and his dog. When he was over with it, he just disappeared again behind one long and thick blue braid.

“Yeah, he’s a bit shy. “

“Hm.”

Another silence. But contrary to the awkward previous one, it was pleasant. Almost comforting. It felt like the rest of the world had disappeared in a void, and that all was left was you, him, your pets and this bench. A feeling of surprise dawned within as you caught yourself smiling.

“Oi, Rat. I know that sounds weird, and I don’t want ya to think I’m a kind of creep or something but —“ Arthur paused and exhaled loudly through his nostrils. He could not believe je was going to say that… As he did, your eyes observed the dog tags that were hanging from his neck, “If ye need a place to sleep tonight I’ve got a comfy sofa. The only con is that you’ll have to share it with Hannibal.”

The dog barked joyfully, as if it wanted to agree with his owner.

“Why would you do that?” You asked, palpable hesitation filling your words. Your reaction did not surprise Arthur, who was kind of expecting it. He was well aware his invitation sounded a bit strange.

“The night you ran from the shop and I grabbed you I was about to buy cocaine,”

The vivid memory of your first meeting assaulted your mind, “Wait. But I saw you at the anonymous drug addicts meeting.”

“Yeah, I know,” Arthur paused and looked down at his dog. But you did not need to see his blue eyes to understand the shame that had bloomed within him, “I was ready to relapse y’know. Sometimes me head screams so loud the only thing that soothe me is drugs. But me mind got busy taking care of your bullshit. As stupid as it sounds, you kept me from snorting cocaine and ruining all my efforts.”

“That’s not stupid,” You said in a rather friendly tone, “Well… I’ve got nowhere to go and I see threatening clouds in the sky so… Okay” You answered after mentally weighing the pros and cons, “But don’t say I’m your girlfriend ever again,” You teased with the brattiest grin ever, “Deal, old dog?”

“Deal, stinky rat.” He repeated.

You gave him the finger, but truth was he could not get mad at you, for your smirk was so beautiful it made him forget about the stars.

#arthur shelby #arthur Shelby x reader #Peaky blinders imagine #Peaky blinder x reader #peaky blinder imagine #Peaky blinder angst #Peaky blinders #Peaky blinders x reader #arthur shelby x y/n #peaky blinders au #peaky blinders fluff #peaky blinder fanfic #peaky blinder headcanon

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daughter-of-melpomene · 2 years

Text

: ̗̀➛ OC SCENE DUMP: Dot Watanabe (The A-Team 2010)

(A/N: Please note that these aren’t in any particular order or meant to be part of any fic, I just thought they’d be fun. Hope you guys enjoy!!)

“So,” the creep practically purred, and Dot’s battle with the urge to aim a kick where the sun didn’t shine tilted towards the losing side. “What’s a pretty thing like you doing out on the range so early? Trying to figure out how to work that gun?”

Oh, clearly this guy had no idea who he was talking to. A perfect opportunity for Dot to have some fun with him.

Instead of answering right away, Dot fixed the creepy captain with her sweetest smile, the one that Face always joked could give someone diabetes if they so much as looked at it. Then, only breaking eye contact to give the quickest glance over her shoulder, she looked back at the guy and twisted her arm back so that her gun was pointing behind her, towards the target.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Dot didn’t have to look to know whether her shots had landed or not; she knew her own abilities well, and the captain’s utterly shocked expression was all the proof she needed. Still, she couldn’t resist sneaking a look over her shoulder, and a smug grin overtook her face when she saw the result.

Five perfect bullseyes, directly in the center of the target.

Reverting back to her sickly sweet smile, she turned back to the creepy man and spoke, affecting a mockingly high, damsel-in-distress-like tone. “Oh, yes, it’s so hard to learn how to shoot properly. I sure hope a pretty little thing like me never actually needs to use a gun, because I’ll be completely helpless. It’s not as if I’m one of the best snipers in the US military or anything.”

And then she gently pushed the gun into the hand of the captain, who was still standing frozen and shocked, wished him luck with his shooting practice, and headed back towards her quarters, knowing how much of a laugh this would get out of Hannibal.

***************

“Of course he’s sending in Dot,” Face grumbled, gesturing harshly towards her. “She’ll win this guy over in two seconds flat, she’s too cute not to.”

“Watch it, Faceman,” Murdock warned from the couch, clearly teasing. “That’s my cutiepie you’re talking about there.”

“Not like that!” Face insisted hotly. “I just mean, like, she’s got that sweet face and that smile that makes you feel like you can tell her anything. He’ll trust her, because she gives off this vibe of kindness and understanding that most people can’t resist.”

“Aw, Facey,” Dot teased, giving the man a shit-eating grin. “Do you feel like you can trust me?”

Face rolled his eyes and gestured hard at her. “See, look at her. She knows what those doe eyes can do to people.”

Dot giggled, flipping some hair over her shoulder and fluttering her eyelashes in an exaggerated manner. “It’s a talent, what can I say?”

***************

“I’m asexual.”

“I’m ace.”

It took a few seconds for Dot to register exactly what Murdock had said, but once she did, her eyes flew back open and she regarded her boyfriend the exact same way he was regarding her - eyes blown wide, mouth hung open in shock at the confession they’d both just made.

For almost two solid minutes afterwards, Dot and Murdock just sat there, gaping at each other in surprise and borderline wonder. Then a massive grin suddenly overtook Murdock’s face, and he burst into peals of cackling laughter.

Dot’s first instinct was to smack his arm and scold him, because her coming out was not funny even if he’d come out at the exact same time, but his laughter was just too damn contagious, and really this whole thing was kind of amusing. Eventually she started giggling too, leaning into Murdock as her whole body began to tremble with the force of it.

“It isn’t funny,” she mumbled into the pilot’s shoulder once both sets of laughter had died down. “I mean, at least neither of us have to worry about hurting the other person’s feelings if we don’t want to have sex, but it’s not amusing.”

“Like hell it ain’t,” Murdock responded cheerfully, moving the arm Dot had been leaning on so that it was wrapped around her shoulders. “God, who coulda guessed that we’d both turn out to be garlic bread-lovers?”

Dot blinked, needing a second to process what her boyfriend had just said, before pulling away from Murdock to give him a look that was equal parts fond and confused. “Did you just… refer to asexuals by using a meme?”

***************

“He lit my arm on fire!” Face exclaimed, gesturing harshly to the scorch marks on his sleeve and staring at Hannibal with an intensely indignant expression.

Dot couldn’t help it; her face broke out in a shit-eating grin. “I like him already.”

***************

“Ten seconds,” Hannibal intoned through the earpiece, and now Dot could hear them, the heavy footsteps about to round the corner and catch her and Murdock doing something they were definitely not supposed to be doing. Practically growling with frustration, she gave the door lock one last angry yank, but it didn’t budge any more than it had any of the other times.

Letting out a string of swear words under her breath, she straightened up and whipped back around to face Murdock just as Hannibal informed them that they only had five seconds left.

“You’re gonna have to make it look like you’re making out with me in a few seconds,” she informed him, and before Murdock could utter so much as a confused “huh?” Dot twisted her arm behind her back, yanked the zipper all the way down, grabbed Murdock by the lapels of his suit, and yanked him towards her, slamming their lips together and guiding his hands to the small of her back as she pressed her back up against the wall.

For the first instant, Murdock simply stood there with cartoonishly wide eyes as Dot moved her lips against his, his entire body stiff, and Dot felt a sharp stab of fear slice through her gut as the guards finally turned the corner, terrified that they would notice how forced this kiss was and realize what they were really here for. But Murdock must have seen the guards out of the corner of his eye and realized what Dot was trying to do, because it only took a moment for him to relax into the kiss, his eyes fluttering shut and his own lips (which were much softer than Dot had anticipated) beginning to move against hers.

Against her better judgement, Dot forced her own eyes to close, trying her best to seem like she was too caught up in this makeout session to notice or care that a couple of armed guards were now in the hallway with them.

But as Murdock’s gentle hands began to roam over the bare skin on her back and he pressed further into the kiss, his forehead coming to touch hers, that turned out to be a lot easier than Dot had anticipated. Murdock’s lips felt so nice against hers, those calloused fingers of his so light as they danced over her skin, that before long the world began to buzz and fade around her, a bright warmth blossoming in her chest and drowning out everything that wasn’t the cool wood of the wall against her back and Murdock’s soft, beautiful lips on hers.

For all the bragging Face did about being the world’s best kisser, Dot found herself thinking, she was pretty positive he had nothing on the A-Team’s pilot. She would be perfectly fine if she never had to stop kissing Murdock, never had to come up for air, never had to leave this aura of lovely warmth that was making her and Murdock the only two people in the universe.

Eventually, though, the sound of retreating footsteps snapped her back to reality, the feeling like a splash of icy water cancelling out the effects of Murdock’s kisses. Her eyes jerked open to see the guards turning back around the corner, apparently determining that the pair of lust-stricken partygoers they thought that had seen were no threat to any of the dirty little secrets this mansion held.

Realizing her lungs had begun to ache from depriving herself of air for so long, Dot pulled away from Murdock the second the guards were fully out of view, fighting back a wince at the distinct wet smacking sound their lips made as they were pulled apart. For a second, Murdock’s lips still followed her, the pilot leaning forward slightly as if hoping to recapture her mouth, but then he seemed to remember himself and straightened back up, looking faintly embarrassed.

There was a solid minute of silence where the two of them just stared at each other, faces heavily flushed and chests heaving, both looking like deer in headlights and both unsure how to react to what had just happened. The air between them suddenly felt very tense fragile, like one wrong word could shatter this whole situation and ruin everything.

Thankfully (or was Dot really thankful for it? She couldn’t tell), Hannibal’s voice came back over their earpieces, saving them from having to break the silence on their own.

“Murdock? Dot? What’s happening? Everything okay?”

Finally dragging her eyes away from Murdock’s face, Dot turned back to the locked door and reached up to press her earpiece with a shaking hand, flapping her other hand by her side a few times to calm herself down.

“Yeah, we’re okay,” she told Hannibal in a voice that fought not to shake, as Dot tried to will herself back into the Deadeye mode she’d been knocked out of my the kiss. “Guards didn’t even notice us. Everything’s fine.”

But she didn’t think it was, not now. And she wasn’t sure how it could ever be again, now that she knew what kissing Murdock felt like. Now that she desperately wanted to do it again.

***************

“I’m not going back.”

All three men turned to look at her almost in unison, matching expressions of surprise and confusion on their faces.

“What?” Hannibal asked, looking at Dot like she’d grown a second head. “What do you mean?”

Taking a deep breath to brace herself, Dot moved her gaze to her hands, folded on the crappy diner tabletop. She knew what she needed to say and she wasn’t planning on backing down, but she didn’t think she’d be able to make eye contact with any of them, any of these men whom she loved like family and who had always trusted her, while she said it. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to handle it.

“I’m not going back to the Rangers,” she repeated, fighting with herself to speak clearly and not to mumble. She could feel three sets of eyes looking at her curiously, and the weight of their gazes forced her to bunch up her shoulders, curling slightly into herself in an attempt to make herself feel smaller. “I’ll help take down Pike and get the plates back, obviously, and I want my name cleared, but I don’t want to be reinstated.”

“Wh-why?” Face demanded, looking at Dot like he absolutely couldn’t believe what she was saying. “Dot, you’ve been a Ranger since forever, why would you-”

“Exactly,” Dot cut him off emphatically, feeling a burst of fiery courage shoot through her at Face’s inability to understand. She knew logically that it wasn’t his fault, that he couldn’t understand her experiences and what it had been like for her, but she couldn’t help it, it pissed her off. “I’ve been a Ranger pretty much since the moment I turned eighteen, and the only reason anyone acknowledged me at all was because I could outshoot everyone. Do you really think anyone would’ve cared about an autistic Asian woman in the military if I wasn’t more talented than everyone else?”

“Dot,” Hannibal said gently, and she hated how clear it was that was trying to tread lightly, like she was overreacting and he didn’t want to upset her. “You know none of that has ever mattered to us-”

“Not to you, no,” Dot interrupted, finally jerking her head up to meet the older man’s eyes. He had a cautious look on his face, like for once he wasn’t sure what his next move should be, and there was a fiery part of her that took a grim satisfaction in it, in the story of her struggles being the thing that finally tripped her team leader up. “But to everyone else. And it mattered so goddamn much that I had to fight tooth and nail for every single nod of approval. I had to be ten times better than everyone else just to be respected, and I still wouldn’t have gotten any of my promotions or accolades if you hadn’t been behind me. And I’m grateful for that, Hannibal, I swear to God I am, but you… you don’t get it. Bosco’s the only one who could possibly understand-” She jerked her head towards B.A. beside her. “-and even he doesn’t fully get it, because he’s still an allistic man. None of you can understand how much it sucked to be a person like me in the military, and I don’t want you to understand. I’m glad you don’t understand, that none of you had to go through that. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the worst.”

Her hands were shaking on the tabletop now, faintly rattling the spoon resting near them. Face started to reach across the table to lay his hand over hers, trying to comfort her, but Dot yanked her hands away and set them on her lap, balling them into fists. She appreciated him trying to be sweet and make her feel better, but she didn’t think she could handle touch right now.

“So I fought. I followed orders and I practiced my shooting even when I didn’t need to and I trained for hours after everyone else had gone to bed, and I never regretted it, because that’s what let Hannibal know about me in the first place. That’s what got me to being a lieutenant in an elite Ranger team, so I never regretted a second of it. But even after all that work, all the blood, sweat, and tears I put into my military career and making sure no one would ever overlook me again, the higher-ups were willing to discharge us with no proper trial, just because something happened that made them look bad. They didn’t care about everything I gave, about everything all of us gave, just as long as they could cover their asses.”

Heaving in a trembling breath, Dot finally forced herself to look around at the three men sitting around her. All of them were looking at her with the same expression, wide-eyed and soft and sheepish, but she refused to stop talking to reassure them the way she wanted to. She’d been putting the rest of the team before herself for so long; she couldn’t do it anymore.

“So yeah. I’ll help you get the plates back and go after Pike, because I want him dead as much as you do, and I want my name cleared as much as you do. But I refuse to go back to a military that was so willing to abandon me when all I ever gave it was everything.

I’m worth more than that. I know I’m worth more than that. And even if you guys don’t think so… it took me too long to realize that. I won’t go back to an organization that’s just going to take that away again.”

***************

Dot wasn’t exactly sure what possessed her at that moment - maybe it was the fact that Face’s plan had worked and Lynch had been taken down, maybe it was the fact that Murdock had just survived being shot in the head, maybe it was the unfiltered joy rushing through her at the thought that It’s over, we’re free, no more running, we’re okay.

Whatever the reason, though, she cupped Murdock’s face in her hands and kissed him, and this one was much more light and brief and chaste than the sort-of-pretend makeout session they’d had in Morocco but God it was so much better. They were, both of them, filled with adrenaline and sheer happiness, and from the moment their lips touched, Dot swore she saw fireworks. She’d never believed that stupid rom-com cliché, but she supposed she’d been wrong; kissing Murdock now, when it was real and sweet and when she’d been wanting to for so long, she could’ve sworn she saw bright colors exploding behind her closed eyelids, making this whole thing that much more amazing.

After a moment, Dot leaned back on her heels, ignoring Face’s wolf whistle and focusing only on the huge goofy grin spreading across Murdock’s face. She felt an answering grin of her own come across her face, and reached to lace her hand with one of Murdock’s without fully thinking about it.

Her hand in his felt perfectly right.

“Well, Dottie,” Murdock said cheerfully, giving her a shit-eating grin but looking at her like she was the most perfect thing he’d ever seen. “You sure you’re okay gettin’ with a villain like the Joker?”

Letting out a small huff of laughter, Dot leaned in close to Murdock again, lowering her voice to a soft, affectionate whisper. “Hey. Every Joker needs a Harley Quinn, right?”

A-Team OC Squad: @auxiliarydetective, @datasgirlfriend.

General Taglist: @hiddenqveendom, @auxiliarydetective, @foxesandmagic, @artemisocs, @reyofluke-ocs, @endless-oc-creations, @stanshollaand, @ginevrastilinski, @luucypevensie, @arrthurpendragon, @fakedatings, @impales, @ocappreciation.

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