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dramatis-echo:

Vicious motivator.

#Moran-Series

((Man. I can’t resist this series.  It’s like muse catnip.  Fantastic manip!))

If Sebastian ever has to say anything in his defence, he’ll note, quietly, that it was never about the money.

Sebastian starts learning how to hunt people long before he knew how to hunt tigers.  (Same principle, really; both species are vicious little buggers when cornered, and they’d often sooner take a claw to your stomach than look at you twice.)  He’s a silver-spoon brat with enough hint of a blue blood in his veins to give him an excellent education in books and vice, and when he drops out of Oxford and into the Army he thinks that his mother is relieved.  It’s the last he ever sees of her, anyway; some time later he reads of her death in some tabloids in Mumbai and never thinks of his family again.

First he kills because it was what he had been taught, then because he was good at it, one shot, cold shot, one kill, cold blood, and it was never personal, he owed his victims that much.  Personal meant sloppy, and Sebastian becomes the best sniper in his regiment, then the best in the bits of Afghanistan that were khaki-themed and striped with stars.  When he isn’t on tours, he hunts other game, sometimes with his L115A3 and sometimes with the SIG P226.  Money goes into ammunition which goes into money, the grease that keeps his guns from chambering on empty.

The first paid hit that he makes doesn’t go well, and if he’s drummed out of the Army instead of lined up and hanged, it’s probably only because it would have been far more embarrassing for the Army if he’d had a public court-martial.  Sebastian learns not to take money from men he doesn’t know in bars he doesn’t remember to kill people whom he doesn’t recognise, and he travels, makes better and better hits, up through China to Mongolia and then back west, where the money gets worse but the employment gets less terminal.  By the time he’s back in London again, he’s sold the L115A3 that he’d stolen and the SIG P226 that he’d borrowed and resigned himself to death from enforced retirement. 

And then Sebastian meets Jim Moriarty-

Three Februarys or so after the underground fighting ring, Sebastian slinks back to his SoHo flat, filthy from a full day spent lying crosswise over the stinking roof of an old warehouse, finds two rusted hulks flaking gently on the kitchen table.  It takes him a long moment to recognise his old Army friends, ruined forever from poor storage and disuse or whatever the hell that they’d been subjected to in his absence, warped and ugly against the sleek Springfield wrapped up under his arm.  He runs his thumb over the magazine of the L115A3, then the cheek piece, and breathes out, ragged and soft.  Others who knew Moriarty less could have called it sentiment, but Sebastian knows better.  It’s a reminder. 

(He does still go to Mayfair, though, after a shower and a change of clothes, to kneel before his master and close his eyes and open his mouth-)

The money becomes good, and then excellent, and then he loses track of it and leaves it in a string of Swiss Banks, and somewhere, another February along the line Sebastian understands now that more than money, more than bloodlust, he has a better edge now than he has ever had in all of his life, his hands steadier, his instinct sharper.  And then a tall, skinny man with dark curls saunters into Sebastian’s life, by collateral, and it becomes personal for the first time and for the last.

Love, in Sebastian’s book, is an empty hotel room miles from anywhere and a bottle of cheap whisky poured over bloodied knuckles; it’s waking up marked John Doe in a hospital bed with a necklace of finger-marked bruises and a pink post-it note with a smiley-face in your pocket; it’s passing the matches to a man who lives to watch the world burn, all the while knowing that he’s standing too close to the fire, yet never saying a word; it’s becoming the agent of a dead man’s will, long after he’s gone, keeping his finger on the trigger and the stock tucked against his shoulder long after the money stops coming.

If Sebastian closes his eyes, he can feel the ridged press of a finger against the arch of his chin-

fuckyeahfanficflamingo:

[WRITE OTP EATING DINNER IN ONE SCENE [Fanfic Flamingo] MUST MAKE THEM BRUSH THEIR TEETH BEFORE MAKING OUT IN THE NEXT]

ROFL. This reminds me.  I think one of the running features in a lot of my fics is bathrooms. There’s usually some bathroom or hygiene mention/consideration, somewhere.  It’s terribly Singaporean. 

Look at me.

((for hyperion_swan, who asked for Supernatural, Destiel. Um lol. This is going to be purely conjecture from fanfiction and tumblr, you know.))

Dean fucks up, sometimes.

If he ever dies permanently, they can use it as his epitaph, with all its iterations, like, ‘Dean fucks up, sometimes, big time’ or ‘Occasionally he’s not even sorry’, or ‘what gives, anyway?’ because if he’s going to get into the blame game, he’ll like to submit as ‘Exhibit A’ all the fucked up crack that tends to smack him in the face when he isn’t expecting it.  Someday Dean will write a book.  He reckons that if he adds sparkles and fiddles a little with the Real Life Vampire Encounter, he might make enough money to set him up until the next apocalypse.

“You pissed him off, you figure it out,” Sam snips as snippily as a snippy prep school cheerleader when he’s in a snit about something that’s not in any way his fault, and Dean scowls at him, fists pressed over the steering wheel of the Impala.  When the Dean Winchester Death Glare Mark II fails to have any effect, Dean grumbles to himself and swerves viciously out of the parking lot of the diner, hard enough that Sam almost slams his head against the passenger seat window.

They had been inspecting some sort of Ghostly Haunting or Some Shit in a stately old house in town, and Dean had been wandering around the well-preserved rooms, followed by the anxious caretaker of the estate, alternating between eyeing the antiques on display with curiosity and wondering idly whether the Dean Winchester Life Roulette was going to turn up demons, vampires, rogue angels or some sort of monster that he’d never heard of before but which Sam was possibly going to spout the 1d12 stats to, and then they’d come upon Castiel, in the drawing room.

Angel in the drawing room, with the candlestick. Sometimes Cluedo didn’t have a fucking inch on Dean’s life.

The caretaker had yelped and looked as though he was about to faint, wispy old man as he was, and Dearest Brother had wimped out at the first glance of Cas’ grimdark, I Will Soon End Someone expression, and had offered to escort the caretaker out of the building. Chicken.  Fucking chicken.

So it was left to Dean to shuffle up behind Cas and peek at whatever it was that Cas was shooting laser eyebeams at.

“It’s not a bad painting,” Dean had offered warily.  ”Sort of peeling around the edges but eh, nice colors.”

Having offered the extent of his capacity at art criticism, Dean had waited.  Cas had been staring at a small, dusty painting propped up against the wall, of some white city on a cloud, in that crazy sort of unmoving stillness that the angel managed when he was concentrating on something 110%.  

Put that way, on hindsight, now that he’s out of that crazy, dusty old house that had not been in any way haunted, Dean fights the urge to bang his head repeatedly on the steering wheel.  A white city on a cloud.  The Silver City.  He should have been sensitive or something.  Dean Winchester could do sensitive.  Sometimes.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean had tried again, when Cas said nothing.  ”Just for reference’s sake, have you been in this place long? Like for the last couple of weeks?” According to the old man and the talk in the tiny little roadside town, the weird sounds and rearranged furniture in ‘Lady Anna’s old place’ had started only recently.

“There is nothing like this in Heaven,” Cas had said then, in his low monotone.  ”There are very few colors.”

Dean hadn’t really known what to say about that, so he’d gone for humor, in a sort of knee jerk reaction, plastered on his best grin and drawled, “Well, we could take a photo of this old lady’s house, and you can frame it in your dorm room in Heaven, then I reckon we’ll be cosmically even, eh?”

When Cas hadn’t moved, Dean had looked up, then down, then reached over to spin Cas around to face him.  ”C’mon Cas.  Art appreciation’s over.  We’ve got to hit the road. We’ve been waiting for you to show up for weeks, man-“

And then Cas had glared at him, lips thinned, and vanished, somehow still managing to convey a sense of Castiel Is Very Hurt You Insensitive Human behind.  Dean had breathed deep and sighed.  On hindsight, Dean, maybe, just maybe, sort of preferred Castiel when he was still robotic. 

They pull up at the next motel on the route, have dinner at an even shittier diner, pay for a room, and when they head on up, bickering about who gets to use the shower first, Sam stops dead when he opens the door.  Cas is sitting on the edge of one of the beds, head pressed in his palms, elbows on his knees, and Sam shoots Dean an eloquent You broke your angel now you fix him glance, and backpedals.

Dean steps into the room, with a deep sigh, closes the door, and sits on the other bed, facing Cas.  The room is tiny and it stinks of disinfectant, and the way the beds are placed, his knees are an inch away from Cas’.  ”Okay, Cas.  I’m an insensitive jerk and I’m sorry I made fun of your dorm room in Heaven.  I’m sure it’s a great room and not like a frat house thing and you wouldn’t have needed a-“

“Shut up, Dean,” Cas mutters, without looking up.

“-photograph or anything and okay.” Dean breathes out.  ”So, uh, you’re still upset.”

“I told you to be quiet.”

“Okay! Okay.” Dean holds up his palms, in a gesture of mock surrender, and leans back against the faded yellow wallpaper, folding his arms over his chest.

When his legs start to cramp and his back starts to ache, Cas whispers, painfully softly, “I think that the Lord has stopped caring about his creations, Dean.” 

Dean knows, logically, that an upset Cas can mean terminal injuries for anyone caught within arm’s length of said upset Cas, but what his dumb man-brain actually says is, “Angels can get crises of faith?”

“And if he’s stopped caring about the war,” Cas continues sadly, “Then why am I trying so hard?”

Whoah.  Okay.  Dean rubs at his eyes.  ”Um.  Because you’re a good angel,” he offers, rather insincerely, because he’s not really good at this cuddling-hugging shtick, and then he adds a vague homily that he sort of remembers when he was a kid, “And because God prefers to help people who help themselves, or something.”

There is another long pause, then Cas notes, dryly, “Somehow I feel comforted and yet exasperated at the same time.”

“Oh good, the Dean effect,” Dean relaxes, with his best grin.  ”Do you want to go and get a drink? That’s the usual thing to do when you go through a crisis, you know.”

“By attempting to marinate my vessel’s liver?”

“And getting laid and waking up in a weird bed on the morning,” Dean temporizes cheerfully, because this has always worked for him.  ”It’s called life-affirming sex.”

“With a stranger,” Cas repeats, as though he’s taking mental notes, and as much as Sam has always yelled at him for this, Dean can never resist.  Cas is so fucking easy. 

“That’s why it’s life-affirming, Cas.  It’s doing someone you’ve never done before.  Doing something that you haven’t done before.  It reminds you that you’re alive.  That you have self-determination.” Dean hasn’t had to defend casual hook-ups before, and he’s frankly rather impressed at the bullshit that he’s spouting.  He hopes that Cas actually mentions this offhand to Sam at some point, preferably when Sam is drinking something that stains-

“Oh.  I see,” Cas says slowly, sitting up and blinking, and then to Dean’s shock, leans over to press his mouth against Dean’s.

It’s possibly the worst kiss Dean has ever had, because of the klaxon of what? What? Cas? What? that rings through his suddenly blank mind and because Cas just doesn’t move and stays there, lips crushed to Dean’s and barely even breathing, and then Dean’s brain decides to put forward the great idea of Dean’s mouth parting and Dean’s tongue flicking out and then… yeah, that was definitely a soft moan.  From Castiel. 

Blasphemy thy name is Dean Winchester.

Dean blinks as Castiel carefully fits himself forward, like he isn’t sure where exactly to put his hands or his knees, until he’s awkwardly sitting on Dean’s knees and watching him searchingly, like he’s waiting for Dean to do something interesting, and Dean sucks in a tight breath, then another, and manages an eloquent, “Whuh?” 

“I am doing something life-affirming,” Castiel states primly.  ”This shows that I retain self-determination.”

Dean opens his mouth, then he swallows his protest, and grins instead, slowly, because the end of the world is coming and it isn’t as though Dean is new to the concept of inadvisability where the bedroom is concerned, and because maybe, just maybe, he’s curious.  ”Okay, Cas,” Dean pushes his palms over Cas’ knees, arranging them more comfortably against his hips.  ”C’mere.” 

“I am already in your lap,” Cas informs him, with a faint frown, though he’s pliant enough when Dean threads his fingers over the back of his neck and pulls them together again.

((for anticitizenone, who asked for AC:R, Ezio/Suleiman))

The young prince of the Ottoman Empire looks painfully young when he smiles, even with the moustache that he has carefully attempted to cultivate under his aquiline nose, and Ezio wonders for a moment whether this is what his father once felt like, far away in Italia, walking the shadows behind a boy who would become the uncrowned king of Firenze at twenty winters.

Ezio smiles to himself as Prince Suleiman deflects his uncle with careful assurances.  This corner of the palace is fairly quiet, even with the criss-crossing guard patrols over the exquisitely trimmed gardens, and Ezio waits patiently in the warm afternoon sun until Prince Ahmet takes his leave, and then the young prince turns back to him, slender hands clasped behind his sumptuous robes, an unbroken curiosity in his eyes that court life has not yet taught him to hide. 

“Where were you from, in Italia?” Suleiman asks, and he has yet to learn subtlety, as well, all bright, boyish curiosity in his words.  He cannot be more than eighteen years of age.  Ezio thinks back to the imperious Lorenzo de’ Medici, and isn’t entirely certain if Lord Lorenzo had ever been like this, puppyish and friendly.  He doubts it. 

“Firenze.  It is a beautiful city.  Should you ever have the time or opportunity, you should visit, principe.”

“Ah, Firenze,” Suleiman looks visibly more excited, visibly younger.  ”The city of the Medici famiglia.”

The prince’s pronunciation is enthusiastic but atrocious, and Ezio smiles.  ”Si, principe.” 

“Did you know them?” Ezio hesitates, a telling moment too long, and Suleiman’s grin broadens.  ”You did?”

“Only one of them,” Ezio hedges, if warily.  Remembering the Medici is a practice that is oft wound tight with memories of personal failures.

“You were his assassin, then,” Suleiman looks pleased, as though one of his personal conclusions is confirmed; the boy is an open book.  ”I thought that you might have been.”

“I chose to work with him, yes,” Ezio corrects, if indulgently.  ”As my father did, before me.”

“Truly?” Suleiman asks, so boyishly attentive that Ezio finds himself seated on the royal cushions in the sun, regaling a young Prince with stories.

He had heard the tale of his father’s meeting with a then-six-year-old Lorenzo from La Volpe, the fall, the dive, the imperious way Lorenzo had addressed his rescuer.  He glosses over the details of his missions, but he talks about his service with Lorenzo, later, after his family has been sundered, about the Lord of Firenze’s occasional fiery tempers and impatience, his balancing act in politics, his iron will.

Prince Suleiman plies him with flattery, refreshments and delicacies until Ezio realizes with a start that the sun has set, that he is now long overdue to meet Yusuf, and perhaps he has shown the young prince a little too much.  He finishes his last story a little abruptly, and rises to his feet with a neutral apology.

“I hope,” Suleiman comments, still cross-legged, as he sets down his gold-chased cup, “That perhaps some day I will be lucky, like your Lord Lorenzo.”

“Lucky?” Ezio repeats, a little puzzled.  Lorenzo had not died well.  But then, few people in his position tended to, particularly in Italia.

“To earn the loyalty of men such as yourself, and your father.” Prince Suleiman’s smile is almost coy, ingenuous, and Ezio stifles a snort of amusement.  The boy’s silver tongue is painfully unpracticed. 

“You already have good allies, principe, even if you do not know them.  And if you remain a good man, if you would treat others as they should be treated, heedless of what rank they are born to, or their appearances, or their wealth, then you will gather loyal allies.”

“Allies, yes,” Prince Suleiman rises to his feet with the grace of youth.  ”But you and your father were not only Lord Lorenzo’s allies, were you? You have both risked your life to obey his dictates.  He is dead now, and yet his memory burns so brightly in your mind.  Such loyalty is difficult to find, let alone the loyalty of capable men like yourself.”

“Like myself, principe?” Ezio teases, playfully.  ”I am an old man, who knows a few tricks here and there, that is all.”

“Hardly, menestrello,” Suleiman grins, all mischief.  ”Why, should I ask you to fetch the moon from the sky, I am sure that you would have found a constructive way to acquire it by the very next week.” 

“A week? Give me a few days,” Ezio replies casually, with a wink, and Suleiman, to Ezio’s surprise, actually flushes, spots of color heightening his skin, but he does not glance away.  Curious.  And dangerous.

“Perhaps someday I will hold you to that, my friend,” the young prince murmurs, then he nibbles at his lower lip, and looks hopeful. “After your business in Istanbul is concluded, I would be very pleased if you could… that is, if you still have any interest in-“

“Dogs tend to know one master only, principe,” Ezio notes gently, “And mine is dead.”

“The same, I hear, does not apply to eagles, assassino,” Prince Suleiman draws himself up, in the growing dark, as regal as Lorenzo in the lift of his chin, all of a sudden.  ”And perhaps some walks of life are habit-forming.”

“Perhaps,” Ezio echoes, amused as he is now when he might have been indignant one decade before, and sketches a courtly bow.  ”Allow me to take my leave, principe.”

“As you were.” Suleiman inclines his head, and Ezio turns to step up onto the balcony and backwards into the sky.

(Source: antiposed, via anticitizenone-deactivated20120)

marinarty:

PJ Party!

((for beingevil… who asked for… seriously LOL what the hell is this?? For a long moment I had no idea what to write. hahaha You really are evil :O))

“You’re obsessed with Sherlock,” Mycroft Holmes states, prim and proper in black and white, his back ramrod straight in the gray interrogation room.  ”If mayhem is your way of attempting to attract his attention, I could suggest different methods.  Ones that won’t even end in the possibility of life without parole.”

The older Holmes has much of the interesting Holmes around his penetrating stare and the cruel set to his mouth, but he’s boring, all that lovely intellect and that otherness around him subsumed inside a clockwork soldier.  The grief that Jim intends to bring upon the Holmes family, and the disgrace, might actually benefit this frozen little pen-pusher.  Jim smiles a little at that, tapping at his split lip with his forefinger, allowing himself to show the hint of bloodied teeth.

“Does anything other than mayhem draw his attention, Mister Holmes?” Jim asks archly, eyebrows raised, and as Mycroft parts his lips, then clams them shut again, Jim tilts his head, rubbing his knuckles against his three-day-old stubble.  ”I didn’t think so!” Jim concludes, with as grating a lilt as he can manage.  ”Pity the big brother, all alone in his ivory tower, stringing the world to his will.  For all that you can turn elections and twist foreign policy… your little brother is out of your grasp, all his wild ways and his crazy little notions, his strange little antics, because you’re not quite like him, Mister Holmes,” Jim drawls, “And not quite like me.  Unlike us, you actually can love, in the stupid, blind way that the mundane people do, and that, that blindness, that belief that you can do your baby brother no harm, will be his downfall.” 

Mycroft’s expression doesn’t change, though his Holmes eyes darken a fraction, then he shuffles the paper before him, feigning boredom.  ”You could be useful to the government, Mister Moriarty.  We could use your particular brand of expertise.  And in exchange-“

“And in exchange?” Jim repeats, mockingly, “You’ll what, pay me? I can earn more money in a day than the government can pay me in a year, if I want to.  You’ll what, allow me to have slumber parties with your baby brother? Matching PJ’s, perhaps, paint each other’s nails? This game of mine has nothing to do with reconciliation, Mister Holmes.  And you, and all of the Queen’s men, have no idea what I want.  It’s an unusual feeling for you, isn’t it?” Jim continues, resting his chin on his wreathed fingers.  ”Not knowing what to do next?”

“I know what I want from you, and I certainly know what I can do to you,” Mycroft replies, calmly.  ”The Bruce-Partington plans, Moriarty.  Do co-operate.  We can be considerably less civil if we have to be.”

“Oh, threats.  How mundane,” Jim moans, rubbing his fingers through his hair.  ”And we were going so, so well, Mister Holmes.  So, so well.  I’m playing your little game, Mister Holmes, because I want to.  If I wanted to get out of here, I could.”

“You want to stay here?” Mycroft’s tone reflects only flat, contemptuous disbelief.  ”Do you like pain, Mister Moriarty? Is that it?”

Jim grins, in the unpleasant, wide, toothy smile that always makes Seb narrow his eyes and tense up.  ”You know that’s not it, don’t you, Mister Holmes? But because I’m feeling nice, and because that was a splendid cup of tea that you gave me an hour ago, I’ll tell you now.  I’ll be out of this place within seven hours, clean as a whistle and smelling of roses.”

Mycroft stares at him silently, for a long moment, and then he says, quietly, “Seven hours is a very long time, Mister Moriarty.”

“I think we need it, honestly,” Jim shrugs.  The movement makes his shoulders ache, and the pain in his arm socket flares afresh from where it had been dislocated and reset, but pain is merely intellectual to Jim, and he pushes it aside.  ”We’ll trade, you and I.  I’ll give you clues about your precious plans, and you’ll give me clues about your precious little brother.  Fair?”

Mycroft considers this in still, careful silence, his expression not changing in the least, then he gets to his feet and stalks out of the room without a word.  Jim smirks to himself and leans back against the chair, pillowing his head on his hands and ignoring the screaming pain of his muscles.  He’ll give the boring version of Holmes ten minutes of melodrama.  Mycroft will be back.

“Pawn to e4,” Jim murmurs aloud, into the musty air, as he stretches.  ”King’s gambit.”

((for ragenserenity, Mystrade))

Feeling shame or a sense of vulnerability at one’s nudity is a human concept, circa the Garden of Eden.  As such, Lestriel’s only reactions to finding an equally unclothed My’crostopheles perched over his lap, in his bed, was first astonishment, then outrage, then a slow trickle of terror.  His flat was warded-

My’crostopheles pins him back down to the bed by his wrists with easy strength when Lestriel tries to twist up, his expression impeccably enigmatic.  ”You sleep,” he notes mildly, searchingly, and as Lestriel tries desperately to gather the strongest exorcism he can think of to the forefront of his mind, adds, “And you are warm.  My dear Lestriel.  You have been somewhat more indiscreet than I could have imagined.  How much of your grace have you given away?”

“Enough,” Lestriel doesn’t bother to refute the statement, resigned.  A spell that he could have cast without thought, two centuries or so ago, now eludes him, and he’s beginning to sweat, another uncomfortably human bodily function that he could once repress.  ”Why are you naked?”

My’crostopheles tilts his eyes skyward for a moment, in an elegant gesture of condescension.  ”Why have you been giving away your grace?”

It isn’t often that My’crostopheles asks him direct questions, if at all, while looking so honestly… surprised, and Lestriel would have treasured this moment if he wasn’t (a) distinctly underpowered at present and (b) pinned naked under a daemon with a tier equivalent of one of the Dukes of Hell.  ”Why do you care? This is good for you, innit?”

My’crostopheles’ mouth twists, and his eyes narrow, the banked violence within the dark slits causing Lestriel to press his shoulders back against the sheets in alarm for a moment, then the daemon breathes out, and is abruptly seated primly at the edge of the bed, fully dressed in his usual favorite black three-piece suit.  ”Do you still have your wings?”

“Of course,” Lestriel scoots up warily, fighting the urge to tug the sheets firmly over his waist.  He’s long past being able to instantly clothe himself like that on a whim; it takes far too much effort.

“Show them to me,” My’crostopheles instructs, and as Lestriel sets his jaw, the daemon huffs out a harsh breath, and adds a tight, “Please,” that startles Lestriel so much that he nearly jerks backward and off the bed.

Rather helplessly, Lestriel concentrates, and the wings unfold from here and between into the heavy, weighted air of the mortal world, pulling wide shadows from the steadily rising sunlight edging in from the windows, from the glow of the halo over his head.  My’crostopheles studies him, mouth set into a thin line, sweeping his gaze over his tattered pinions to his considerably dimmed halo to the bedraggled primary flight feathers, and huffs out a deep sigh, as though Lestriel has somehow personally offended him.

“You have been very indiscreet.”

“People pray,” Lestriel snaps, fingers twisting in the sheets.  ”They need me. What else can I do?”

My’crostopheles’ eyebrows arch up a fraction, as though in surprise, then he glances away as Lestriel carefully folds his wings behind his back, hunching over the sheets.  ”Ah.  All these brief little human lives and their most condescending conviction in their own importance.  Please heal my sick child, Lord.  Please make sure that my son comes home, Lord.  Please make me a better person, Lord,” My’crostopheles’ voice slips into grating, mocking falsetto.  ”Your kind stopped listening a long time ago, Lestriel.  After all, there are so very many of them, and so much hunger.  Oh, maybe a little miracle, here and there, for the sake of publicity, but nothing like this.”

Lestriel flinches the whip-hard crack to the daemon’s tone, and his wings nearly knock the lamp off the side table as they flare protectively.  He’s angry now, at least, which is better than fear.  ”Get out of my flat.” 

“You need to eat now, don’t you? That’s why you work,” My’crostopheles notes, pityingly, pronouncing the last word with distaste.  ”My dear Lestriel, this simply cannot do.”

“Why is it your business, again?”

“They’ll forget you, you know,” My’crostopheles drawls, ignoring his demand and glancing out at the window.  ”If they even knew that it was you in the first place. Humans have short memories.  I very much doubt that any of the little mortals that you’ve helped along over the years have been singing hosannas on the street.  They’re selfish little things, and ungrateful, and so appallingly stupid at the best of times.  You might as well heal sheep and turn the oats of horses into apples.”

“I-“

“There’s one homicide every few weeks, isn’t there, Inspector. Husbands beating their wives, children abused in their very homes, theft, blackmail, rape, assault… all the daemons of Hell,” My’crostopheles muses, “Sometimes have not a whit on the evil that these mortals can come up with, and all on their own.  Surely you know that.”

“And yet the Lord is their shepherd,” Lestriel states calmly, “And I am His agent.”

“None of the other sheepdogs take their herding as seriously as you do,” My’crostopheles shakes his head, slipping off the bed.  ”Perhaps there’s no point in destroying you.  You will do it to yourself.”

“Funny way you’re going about it,” Lestriel shoots back, high on adrenaline and defiance, “Climbing naked into a bloke’s bed and then lecturing him like an old lady.”

Fingers tilt up his chin with inexorable strength even as Lestriel sits bolt upright at the abrupt speed by which My’crostopheles has leaned close, the daemon’s smiling mouth an inch from his own.  ”You’re fading, Lestriel.  Perhaps not now, perhaps not tomorrow, but soon you will learn more of mortality than mere physical function.  When you lose enough of yourself and learn temptation,” My’crostopheles whispers, his tone silk-smooth, “I will find you again.”

The daemon disappears, and Lestriel starts back, flailing, as he falls rather ungracefully off the bed in a heap of feathers and sheets with a yelp.  He’s trembling, even as he curls his wings around himself and hugs his shoulders, shaken.

((For molecular_monster, who submitted one of her commissions by the amazing doubleleaf for the fic prompt. Looks AU to me…?))

“Buon giorno, maestro,” Ezio drawls, right behind Leonardo.

Leonardo studies the skittering ink that his startled hand has slashed across the canvas with wry regret.  ”Buon giorno, messer.  How did you get into my studio?”

“You may have left the back room window wide open, maestro,” Ezio notes innocently, “And your ‘assistant’ is nowhere to be seen.” 

Ezio’s tone turns edged near the end of that statement, but Leonardo is careful to seem oblivious.  The Auditore family has been fair generous with their commissions of late, ever since the rather public execution that was stopped at the very last moment in a dramatic fashion by il Magnifico himself.  Leonardo gives little heed to their motives, or to the overtures by Lady Maria, but Ezio, handsome, brash Ezio, is rather more difficult to disregard.

“He is running an errand for me at the market,” Leonardo tells Ezio carefully, as he scrunches up the ruined canvas.  ”Perhaps next time you could use the door, messer.  That was to be one of the paintings that your family has paid me for.”

“Tch,” Ezio shrugs, clearly disinterested in the concept of art and artistry, pulling a folded square of paper from his vest today.  ”I found this in my house.”

The paper turns out to be fine cloth, in actual fact, and unfolds to Leonardo’s surprise, into a complex blueprint, ancient, stained and worn, of what looks like a most cunning little weapon.  A hidden wrist blade, every component carefully detailed, beautiful in its own way.  An assassin’s weapon, and not like any that Leonardo has ever imagined.

And Ezio had ‘found’ it in his house? Frowning, Leonardo glances up, to ask a question, but Ezio is in the process of handing him a small bag.  ”I found this, too.”

It’s a bracer, the silverwork on the leather long scraped and shattered, and beneath it, the same, cunning spring system as detailed in the paper.  The blade, however, is broken, and the mechanism, although carefully taken care of, seems old.  ”Incredible,” Leonardo breathes, unable to think of aught else to say at this point.  ”Ezio, how did you… whose-“

“This was Father’s,” Ezio states flatly, nibbling on his lower lip.  ”Or rather, it is Father’s.  You were the only person I knew of who could begin to know how to fix this.  And the only one who remains a friend of my family.”

There’s vulnerability there, and defiance, and Ezio looks so very young, watching him under his ridiculously long lashes, elegant fingers curled against his belt, and Leonardo manages a slight smile, even as his fingers itch for charcoal and canvas.  ”You can trust me, Ezio.” Conscientiously, because he is, if anything, logical, he adds, “You could have trusted il Magnifico, as well.  He saved your family, after all.”

“I cannot just walk into his palazzo and demand things of il Magnifico,” Ezio points out, somewhat crossly.

“I’m surprised that you did not try,” Leonardo drawls, before he can help himself, and Ezio’s downturned mouth turns into a most endearing pout, before the boy reminds himself and makes it a smirk instead.

“As much of a statesman as he is, I doubt that he will have the means to fix this.” Ezio reaches over to tap at the bracer, “And besides,” he adds, more quietly, “The Altezza is running a leaking ship, and we cannot be certain of his allies.” 

The brash boy has grown up a little, then.  Leonardo feels pity, for a moment, before he nods slowly.  ”Give me two days, amico.”

It is perhaps the finest piece of weapons engineering that he has made to date, and he is rather proud of the filigree and the winged designs that he has cast over the new leather when he hands the bracer back to Ezio, after.  The boy flexes his wrist, tugging on the hidden pull, and the blade flicks out silently, all deadly Toledo steel.

“You are a marvel,” Ezio purrs warmly, with a broad smile, and Leonardo, much to his consternation, blushes.  Ezio’s smile turns into a playful, mischievous grin, and he steps closer, crowding Leonardo back until Leonardo stumbles awkwardly over a couch.

“Ezio,” Leonardo protests, even as Ezio clambers over him, all lines of easy grace, that deadly bracer still strapped to his left wrist.  ”Ezio, this is not amusing.”

“Good. I do not mean to amuse,” Ezio breathes, huskily, eyes narrowing as he leans closer.  ”Your ‘assistant’ is missing again today, maestro.  Perhaps you should get rid of him.” 

It takes Leonardo a long moment to realize that in his cultivated paranoia he has mistaken Ezio’s guarded, adolescent jealousies and all his surprise visits for something far more sinister, and he manages a startled laugh, even as Ezio scowls at him, his considerable boyish pride evidently stung.  Leonardo clasps his elbow as Ezio makes as though to pull back, and squeezes gently.  ”He is merely an assistant, Ezio, and hardly as handsome as you are.”

Flattery does its unsubtle work. Ezio grins again, as he leans close; they kiss with the spring mechanism of the hidden blade pressed against Leonardo’s cheek.