The Million (Tangerine X Reader)

Hi dear! Can I be tagged for "On the run" for future parts?

Usually I wouldn't read fics without a reader insert but this one was too tempting to pass, that and the illegally low number of six fics.

And just to confirm, requests are open right?

Thanks ;))))

Hello! (:

Yes, I will for sure tag you in future parts. I am actually working on the second part to ‘On the Run’ as we speak!

Requests are open, and currently, there is no queue. Depending on the depth of your request, I can get it done fairly quickly. For requests, I can do one-shots, multi-chaps, and imagines/drabbles!

If you are interested in Reader inserts, I currently have two: Into The Woods (one-shot) and Existing in the Gray (multi-chap) that you can access from the Masterlist on my profile!

I’m really glad that you liked ‘On the Run’! (: I had a really fun time writing the interactions between Six and Claire! ❤️

Also, you’re right! The amount of Sierra Six fanfiction is downright inhumane! We love our Trash Stache boy of course, but where’s the love for our 42 Regular boy!?

Thanks for your Ask! If there is a particular request in mind, feel free to let me know and we can plan something out! (:

Intimacy (Into the Gray Chpt 2)

Into The Gray Chpt 2 (Intimacy)

Fandom: The Gray Man (2022)

Pairings: Sierra Six x Reader, Courtland Gentry x Reader, Sierra Six x You, Courtland Gentry x You

Type: Multi-Chap

Words: 2.8K

Tags: @medievalfangirl, @biblichorr, @pyrokineticbaby, @lxvrgirl, @asiludida164, @torchbearerkyle, @jasmin7813, @comfortzonequeen, @my-tearsdryontheirown

Intimacy

While your intrusions may have paralyzed Lloyd in the recent weeks since you had gradually gained new freedoms, it was now made obvious by his complete lack of reaction that he had acclimated himself to them. No rhyme or reason could be made of your quiet alliance. It simply was. It existed. He thought that knew how to read intentions, thought that he could read yours , and he had since labeled them as consistent–harmless. You considered the idea that he enjoyed the concept of harmlessness within these walls. Perhaps he even considered it a luxury.

Easier to manipulate.

With eyes closed, breaths slowed in an imitation of sleep, you could see the way his face ran down a few cluttered hallways in his mind to search for the proper approach to his natural curiosity. In typical Lloyd fashion, he took the impatient route. Those eyes then opened, blue-black pits in a blue-black room. His mouth, ravaged by what Dani had often referred to as a ‘perv stache’ broke into a smile. 

Part of you wanted to shave it. That same part of you could have. 

Compared to his room, yours might as well have been a maintenance closet. The space, overall, was fit for a man of his stature–the sheets smelled like fresh detergent and were cleaned religiously. You never noticed a thing out of place, a man who took so much care in his appearance constantly aiming for some semblance of perfection. A flowery smell lingered in the air, and your own space kind of embarrassed you–the absence of any personality, blank white walls in a blank white room. There was nothing in your space that gave a peek inside as to who you were, and even after the few months since you’d been here, you hadn’t worked to correct it.

Some habits never changed, even when given enough time.

That didn’t matter to you after the fact. It was a slice of privacy to return to at the end of a long day. You’d slept in worse, places that smelled of mildew and covered in mold, dark and damp. Compared to that , your empty space was on a similar level to the highest luxury. 

“I know this isn’t a social call.” He chided. 

You’d settled at his side, legs tucked in, your head pillowed against your forearm. Your fingers gingerly scraped against the buzz at the nape of his neck, the ends of your fingernails dragging in random arcs to the top of his skull. It felt different without product, but the motions remained strangely casual, the only familiarity that you’d given anyone here. Lloyd’s head tipped back, following the motions of your hand until you heard a low, soft noise rumble in his throat. His eyes fell half-lidded, his expression running in the same similar motions as before. 

“You were awake when I came in. Can’t sleep?” You asked.

“Not with you doing this, I can’t.”

Your eyes wandered, even in the dark, resisting the urge to roll. The pads of your fingertips had moved to brush against the bare skin of his torso without a shirt, tracing the lines of hard muscle with innocent interest. Lloyd’s face, a canvas bound over knife-sharp bones, settled into passive neutrality at your touch, some semblance of satisfaction that begged a silent request for more. 

The casual affection had been something that he’d had to get used to in the beginning. Lloyd had settled like a hostage, frozen, trudging through the long minutes while pretending to play dead so that he didn’t succumb to the urge to roll you over and risk a knife to his throat. You took the opportunity to learn about him, test his limits. In a way, it was similar to how you had decided to learn about Dani, except that Lloyd had no connections. He had partners–numerous–but none that lasted beyond a night. He didn’t have family, or anyone that you thought he could or would ever care about. 

Unlike Dani, you learned that Lloyd wasn’t the type to be the team player. He looked out for himself. Anything with Lloyd was brief and fleeting. You used the arm tucked underneath your head to prop yourself up on your elbow, your eyes still wandering, roaming along with your hand. Maybe this was what people did when they didn’t have sex, forming their bizarre little rituals of physical touch. It was new to you. 

“Fuck, you’re killing me.” Another tug had Lloyd easing himself nearer to oblige the wordless request. He kept his arms limp, hands close to his abdomen even though his fingers twitched. They lay arrested to the sheets, slowly curling into fists. 

You were an enigma. A relief, incorrigible, impossible to define. Beautiful, in that perilous sort of way that sent the eyes darting elsewhere. He’d learned shortly after meeting you to receive and never return these odd, tender gestures that you brought. Your touch soothed, and confused, and stung all at once–both needle and feather, warmth and biting cold.

“I have to ask you something.” You crawled over his side, using your knees to push him onto his back so that you could straddle him. Your nails grazed his chest, using the solid surface to hold yourself there. 

A soft groan rumbled in his throat, and he sighed in defeat. “I may or may not be able to answer you.” 

“It’s about Sierra Six.”

“You picked one hell of a time to ask about another guy.” He tensed as you moved, seconds teasing by, trickling past like the clock during your interrogation. He waited and waited, but you wandered wherever you so pleased until he laid beneath your fixed gaze with little more than his own underclothing between you. He wasn’t any different from the men you’d killed. You knew that without having to look too hard. 

You felt him against you, throbbing. The heat that emanated from in between his legs betrayed him entirely. The look on his face could be defined as strong starvation, his fingers skirting up your thigh until it rested just underneath the waistband of your pants–you’d finally taken the initiative to wear the clothes they’d given you, only after they’d been thoroughly searched. His other hand hadn’t moved, pressed against his chest. 

He was getting brave. His breathing picked up. 

Lloyd tried to read you, but it only infuriated him that he could never get anywhere. Locked eye contact kept him level-headed, but even you knew that had its limits. You could feel his heartbeat under your palm, wildly out of control. 

“Do you know Six?” You asked him. 

“Mmn,” he mumbled, closing one eye first, then the other. His answer came out a little ragged. “Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.” He breathed. “I know that he’s got credibility, but I try not to involve myself with Fitzroy’s pets.” A grin flashed at you, and you could see his perfect white teeth, even in the dark. “You thinking about asking him to join?” He chuckled, only to wince when you dug your nails in. 

You thought that only excited him more, and a slight twitch beneath you told you that you were right.

“Why do you give a fuck about the Ken doll?” He went on.

“I’m… curious.” You said and Lloyd listened, not risking another word, not another breath too deep. His fingers relaxed against your waist, aching. Shadows blanketed the two of you through the silence you disturbed. You looked away. 

“You have an alternative reason for everything. I can’t buy your bullshit.” His fingers reached up, catching a rebellious lock of your hair and returned it behind your ear. That same hand trailed the ridge of your jaw and turned your head back to him, his expression more amused than irritated. He smirked. “You know, normally I would have found a really desperate chick looking for a good fuck. We’re not going to get a lot of opportunities like this once I go to the private sector.”

It wasn’t that you were immune to that feeling. How you were trained, how you were raised , that couldn’t combat natural instinct. The heat that buried its way in between your thighs was a natural inclination that a part of you wanted this, all of your taught instincts combating against it. Not without an alternative reason. 

Having it mean something and having a choice. That had been beyond you years ago. 

You leaned down, the space between your faces marginally smaller. Your voice dropped to a low whisper, heat creating ripples of goosebumps up the side of his neck. “I can take care of that myself if I have to.” Intimacy had always been a job, a chore , and never did you want any of them to want you before you’d watched their life bleed away underneath your hands. 

“Why would you want to when I could do it for you?”  His hands gripped your waist, flipping the two of you over until he pressed into you. His body screamed, a want so overwhelming that you nearly succumbed to it too. He breathed down your neck, fingers trailing to the waistband of your pants before dipping inside. “You’re giving yourself away.”

You twitched, earning a soft smirk from Lloyd in turn. “You never know. It might be my funeral you’re going to next.” His lips trailed up your neck in soft pecks, facial hair brushing against your skin. You shivered underneath him, fingernails scraping against the rigid muscle of his back. He let out a guttural groan against your neck, pressing into you harder. 

You gasped, breathless. “It might be because of me that you have a funeral.”

With one practiced tug, the waistband of your pants were pulled down, and just like when you were exploring him before, he explored you . Perfectly manicured fingers danced their way across your skin, tracing the lean muscle of your stomach before following a trail along the bone at your hips, up your sides until it was your shirt that came next, tossed off into a meager pile on the floor. 

You reached down and cupped him, and he bucked against your hand. You scratched him in your attempts to yank down his underwear, feeling him against you, throbbing and hot. The pain only further spurred him on. Lloyd nipped at your neck, leading a trail down toward your chest. Deft fingers trailed up your forearms before grasping your hands, stretching them above your head. “Sorry, Sweetheart. I’m going to take control here.” 

You didn’t tell him that it didn’t matter. In the end, you’d always be in control. 

Into The Gray Chpt. 8 (House Call)

Fandom: The Gray Man (2022)

Pairings: Sierra Six x Reader, Courtland Gentry x Reader, Sierra Six x You, Courtland Gentry x You

Type: Multi-Chap

Tags: @medievalfangirl, @biblichorr, @pyrokineticbaby, @lxvrgirl, @asiludida164, @torchbearerkyle, @jasmin7813, @comfortzonequeen, @96jnie, @ryanclutched, @the-light-of-earendil

You sat in the opposite chair, chin in hand, watching Claire Fitzroy push around the dinner that you’d made. You may have been a little biased, but you hadn’t believed that you’d done that bad a job, considering cooking had become something of a hobby for you—but watching her turn herbs over and inspect them with a vaguely disturbed look, nose scrunched and repeating the action with the seasonings, had you doubting. There may have been too much complexity in flavor for a pre-teen to handle, one that you reminded yourself had lived on a strict diet of Hawaiian pizza and ice-cream. 

Claire’s body angled backwards, ready to leap from the chair in case the plate suddenly leapt off the table.

Garlic and zest may not have been the best option that you could have chosen.

The fork was eventually laid to rest against her plate with a clang. Tentative fingers nudged it away, a few inches and then halfway across the table. Her forearms folded on the table’s edge, the wooden finish worn from years of sitting. She’d addressed you briefly when you’d first entered the safehouse–a wooden cabin in the middle of nowhere–but this was the first time that she’d officially looked at you since you’d arrived. Her eyebrows raised, and yours instinctively copied the action.

“So,” Claire started, trailing off. 

“So?” You echoed. 

She leaned forward, and those raised eyebrows suddenly furrowed, narrowing with her eyes as though she had started some kind of interrogation. Her expression mirrored suspicion, but you thought that she was just curious. It was kind of cute; you could admit that. “You and Six aren’t friends?” 

There was a pause before you answered. Your gaze never left her. “We share secrets.” 

“That’s kind of what friends do.” She pointed out, skeptical. 

You nodded, once as if in understanding, but you didn’t really know. No one came to mind that you would trust to keep a secret, no one that you would consider a “friend” on either side involved. You thought about Dani, and you thought about Lloyd, but every secret that you’d learned about them had been without their knowledge. 

You doubted that it counted. 

Social standards and attachments weren’t lost on you, the sociology and psychology of it, but the fact that you’d only thought about it in a scientific aspect, synapses firing in the brain and the chemistry, only proved to you that you wouldn’t be the ideal person to get that kind of advice from—you were too blunt; too literal. 

“You tried to kill Six,” She accused, flat.

You didn’t. You told her that. “I didn’t.”

“You broke into our house,” her eyebrows flicked upwards, as though she’d caught you up in a lie. “I saw you. He had a gun, and then those people broke in. They took him.”

You didn’t know what to say to that; most of it had nothing to do with you. Most.

“Why did you go after him? Do you know Six?”

You briefly contemplated the extent of how much you should confess with a pre-teen and also the niece of the one person that you’d been after at the very start–the original dividing cog in an already fragile machine. Should you explain? Apologize? 

“I’m only concerned about him through proxy.”

“What does that even mean?” She grimaced, voice terse.

Your own remained even. “It means,” you trailed off, eyes flicking around the small space of the kitchen. “That when I get what I need from him, that’ll be the end of it.”

“And what exactly do you need ?”

When you didn’t answer right away, Claire leaned forward, turning your attention back to her, the suddenly intense stare in her gaze as she rested her chin on top of her fist, squinting as though determined to find some kind of secret that could have been hidden in your expression. You didn’t have anything to hide, so you found yourself staring back despite yourself.

“What are you doing?”

“Reading your mind.” She said as a matter of fact. “I can usually do it with Six; you both have this zone out thing that you do sometimes.” She exhaled, then gave up, the brunt of her shoulders colliding back against her seat. She rolled her eyes. “He’s easier.”

“You know him.”

Claire exhaled through her nose. “You two aren’t that different,” she then clarified: “You both can be really frustrating to talk to.”

It wasn’t often that someone could pull a smile from you, and you hadn’t expected Claire Fitzroy to be one. You could see how Sierra Six was attached to her, the contradiction to the rules–an innocence in a world that was quite the contrary. 

She was a child, and had it been your world before it’d gone, you knew without thinking too hard that she wouldn’t have made it. In your world, you learned how to hide from the CIS, NSA, the DIA, the NRO… among others. Your boss’ bosses, the groups they worked with and who knew their names, but never knew yours. 

You were a stray sitting across from something with an impressive pedigree. 

“If you have a prison tattoo with some Greek guy’s name, I’d consider the two of you twins.” Claire rambled on, her interest in you lost and your puzzled look left unanswered as she turned and slid out of her chair, her dinner left barely touched in the middle of the table. 

She left you, the sound of an old record lilting from a crack in an open door a moment later. You took that as your cue to leave, packing up what was left into the fridge–you didn’t count on the idea that she would eat it if she was hungry enough; you made a mental note to grab a few freezer pizzas when you were able. ~~~~~~~~~

You didn’t know if it was because of Sierra Six, or because of your own, albeit brief, experience with Claire Fitzroy, but you found yourself looking for—not at, but for—specific dynamics among groups of people that you’d initially cast aside as irrelevant. There was no distinct purpose behind it and it had become more of a subconscious behavior, but you found it very ironic that you were surrounded by attachments that exerted the same effort to stay together as much as they also did to keep Six and Claire apart. 

Your interrogators on your first day, the brash one and the twitchy one that still couldn’t meet your eye in the hallway as you passed, carried photos around in their wallets of children–also unbeknownst to both of them–the same wife, but you hadn’t cared to ask who was technically the other half of that agreement. 

Dani fretted with her mother on the phone daily, and there was a working couple in the office a few floors down that fostered children. 

The accounting department went to karaoke once a month, and you were pretty sure that one of the intern’s sudden employment offers and the office manager’s vacation presiding on the same weekend wasn’t just a coincidence. 

They behaved as though Claire and Six’s dynamic, their own miniature version of something resembling a family, was any different from the ones they made up on their own–secretive or otherwise. The only difference was that their circumstances had been created by manipulated events; Claire had needed someone, and whether Six had chosen it on his own or decided that he was her best chance, he’d stepped in.

Funnily enough, these people were the ones that had created the circumstances that had forced them together. 

You hadn’t been to see Six since your last conversation. Carmichael had bombarded you with bullshit busy work to hide the fact that he was compiling evidence against you–unsuccessfully–and still looking into the job report that had coincidentally landed you in Florida at the same time that they had found Sierra Six.

Dani never said anything, whether she had any suspicions or not, but there was something about the looks she gave you that told you to cover your tracks a little harder before every single eye in the agency went back to following you around. She wasn’t as subtle. Her curiosities and willingness to go along with anything that could inconvenience Suzanne and Carmichael had kept you safe on several occasions. 

You liked that about her.

“It’s a Friday night,” the familiar baritone of Carmichael’s voice directly beside you was not enough to persuade you to acknowledge him. You were crouched in front of a series of file cabinets, sifting through dated assignment reports–your search was specific, but to an outside observer, you probably looked like you were sorting through junk; past cases considered closed. 

“Everyone’s left the office,” he said when you didn’t answer.

“You haven’t.”

“I’m waiting on a few friends.” Out of the corner of your eye, you watched his hands slide into the pockets of his pants, suit jacket having been discarded and the absence of it showing the hourly grind. His plain button up was rumpled, his tie partially undone. His head pivoted. “What’s your excuse?”

“I don’t have any friends.” 

“No?” He asked with mock surprise, raising his overly bushy eyebrows. “That’s shocking. I would go so far as to say emotionally complex if I thought of you as the emotional type.”

“I’d rather you not think about me at all.”

“It’s not voluntary, I promise you that.” 

“Is someone telling you to do it?” 

“No, but it's come to my attention that despite your stellar employee record, we have yet to find any kind of outside file on you.” He shrugged nonchalantly, and you heard the sarcastic lilt to the idea of you having a stellar anything. “Suzanne thought that you could be useful if you supposedly took out Sierra; she said that your potential would be a waste serving a life sentence.”

“Should I also be thanking her for this conversation?”

 He didn’t waver. “Interest alignments and general surveillance keep you here, but the lack has me curious.” 

His remark led into silence. You weren’t in the mood for this. You looked up. 

“You’re wasting your time looking.”

“We had Lloyd Hansen on a very thin leash, and I’ll admit that it was an idea doomed to go South, knowing as little as we did, but you’re an entirely different risk.” 

“I’m spending my Friday night looking through paperwork.” You tapped the drawer that you had open for emphasis. 

“Wasting your time looking for information that doesn’t exist, right?” His mouth tilted up at the edges, his suspicion evident; it’d always been. You could tell the lack of anything concrete was frustrating for him. He didn’t understand why you were here, nor why you’d been allowed to stay here. 

You understood that it was because of that lack of existence; you’d have been blamed for the CIA’s fuck-ups already if Sierra Six hadn’t been spotted at the scenes. 

“If I had my way about it, you’d be in the cell beside Six’s, and you’d be let out when we want you out—Suzanne lets you walk free, and I don’t quite get that.”

“If we are basing it off of your negotiation skills with Sierra Six so far, I do get it.” You answered. 

The subtle twitching of his facial expression told you that you’d struck a nerve, but Carmichael was not the type to let his pride get the better of him. You knew that the stab would further his attempts to incarcerate you, but in your opinion, he had more things to worry about. 

The squeak of his leather shoes cut through the tension as Carmichael stepped back. His hardened gaze bore into you, a death glare shot back over his shoulder as he left. You mustered up a smile that you made sure he knew was very obviously fake before you went back to what you were doing–but unfortunately, he was right. 

You wouldn’t find what you were looking for here.

It was not the only thing that he’d said that gave you pause, either. He’d mentioned Sierra Six in a cell. Not a room, where you’d first talked to him, but a cell. 

Over the years, many things had made you hesitate. One had been someone’s daughter, rushing to a dance lesson, outside of her mother’s sight but centered directly inside yours, another had been a scientist who thought himself a comedian but took entirely too long to explain what made his jokes funny, and another a reflected light off a skyline; you’d heard the bullet before you’d felt it. 

You found yourself hesitating now, but what you would have considered previously a very well-controlled ability to maintain your curiosity seemed to contradict itself where Sierra Six was concerned. The file cabinet was slammed shut with more force than necessary, and you rose, taking the straightforward path from the basement to the holding cells, one single angled hallway that was housed behind a reinforced door only available with a keycard. 

You didn’t personally have access to that, nor permission, but you’d taken Dani’s keycard when you’d considered going into the basement earlier.

You wondered if Carmichael had realized that. 

The lights in the hallway were the only guiding points to his cell, the lights inside each having been dimmed until what was visible beyond the glass were mere vague shapes among outlines. There was only one that was inhabited–the one at the very end, farthest from the door. You surmised that decision was made with purpose. 

A swipe of Dani’s keycard granted you entry, and when you walked inside, you were immediately met with the sight of him sitting by the wall farthest from the bed, the folded replacements of his clothes untouched at the very end. 

Six’s legs were bent at an angle, arms folded over his knees. The tousled mess of his hair was flattened against the wall where his head was laid back, blood matting it and specks of it spotting the wall. Upon closer inspection, you noticed that there was a leaning angle in the way he was sitting, as though there was an injury to his ribs. His appearance didn’t immediately alarm you, but you suspected this inevitability after enough time fighting his interrogations. 

 When he didn’t open his eyes, you wondered if he was dead; he was too observant to not have noticed you walk in.

Rather than immediately turn toward him, you pivoted in a slower motion. Your face remained passive despite the gruesomeness of him.

“You look like you got into a fight.” You noted. 

“Your friends don’t make good company.” His casual but strained tone was the only indication that he’d noticed you after all, but he didn’t open his eyes to see you.

“And I do?”

Six shrugged, a wince following the motion. “Better company.”

“And here I thought that Carmichael’s personality was just stellar.” You thought that you’d heard the beginnings of a laugh ushered from him, only to be cut short by a hacking cough before he spit a glob of blood across the floor. You didn’t immediately move to help him, lingering by the doorway as though encroaching on the personal space of his cell was worse than encroaching on the personal space of his house. 

In comparison, it was much smaller. 

“How bad are the other guys?”

“Worse off than me.” He wheezed.

With a hum, you finally strode across the room, finding a meager box of first aid supplies sitting on top of the folded clothes. You weren’t surprised that they had left him to patch himself up after beating him half to death, and like you, he’d chosen to be stubborn rather than oblige to anything they handed him. 

After retrieving the box, you’d knelt down in front of him. 

“Got anything to drink?”

You scoffed as you took a small bottle of antiseptic out of the box. It wouldn’t be enough, but it would work. “You’re going to have to deal with this sober,” you said, still digging out some essentials. You threw a glance up at him, only to notice that he was finally looking at you. It didn’t deter you from the order. “Take your clothes off.”

When he didn’t immediately move, you raised your eyebrows. Six looked back at you, one of his eyes partially squinted, promising a bruise within the next few hours. He hesitated to oblige this particular request and you found yourself marveling. 

The Gray Man, who had broken out of a secure CIA building through agents with years of similar–if not more–experience, felt awkward. 

You raised your eyebrows further. 

He still didn’t move. 

“I can’t help you through your clothes.” You pointed out.

Six exhaled through his nose, shifting with a soft grunt so that he could grab at the hem of his shirt and begin tucking it out of the cover of his jeans. His expression twisted at the extension of his movements, a strain on his wounds that had soaked through the fabric and left residue wherever his hands grabbed. You shuffled closer to him. 

“Let me help.” Six moving his hands out of your way was the only permission that you needed. You tugged his shirt free from the confines of his jeans, careful to avoid his wounds while you worked your way up over the defined muscles of his chest, skilled fingers gliding up his biceps and carefully working the sleeves through his arms before you could yank it free over his head. It was dropped to the floor.

Scars covered nearly every surface, old wounds from old places that you’d observed through the window at his house in Florida. There were new wounds and new bruising over the old, some that would leave new scars, but it did little to hinder his rugged handsomeness. You weren’t a fool; you would give credit where it was due. 

Your hands went for his belt next, but he grabbed them.

“I got it,” he insisted. 

“Are you shy?” You teased. 

Your little mockery gave rise to a very light smirk, refreshing the frustration that’d previously occupied his face, but your hands retreated so that he could take over himself, unbuckling his belt and carefully wiggling out of his jeans until he was down to his boxers. Those were discarded beside him on the floor along with his shirt. 

You poked at the space next to one of the bigger bruises at his ribs, purple and green discoloration starting; you went for an open gash adjacent to that space first, taking the antiseptic and gauze into your hands. Your head was bent low, your eyes wandering over the rough outline and bruised edges with practiced focus. 

“Did you finally sign that confession?” You asked.

“No,” Six murmured, soft. “They started beating the piss out of me before then though, so,” he hissed a sharp intake of breath as you dabbed at it with the antiseptic. “It felt like a win.” 

You glanced up, the edge of your mouth twitching. He was looking down at you, eyes wandering, and when your lashes fluttered and your eyebrows raised, he looked back up, to the space around the cell–as empty and disinteresting as it was.

“Uh, thanks.” He went on. “For–for this.”

“I wouldn’t thank me yet. This is not going to be comfortable for you.” 

Six nodded, leaving his appreciation in the air for another time. He leaned his head back again, closing his eyes. He looked more peaceful like this, the lights of the hallway blanketing over him and giving a warm, favorable sheen to features marred by blood. His hair fell away from his forehead, revealing another cut there; another eventual scar. 

You elicited a low groan from him as you pressed the antiseptic into the wound and dabbed at it with the gauze. One of his eyes opened to look at you.

“Just making sure you’re still with me.” You said. 

“Barely. I am beginning,” he hissed out, the words rising like bile in his throat, “to seriously question my life choices.”

Your head tilted. “The Sierra Program taught you how to take a beating, all things considered.” 

“That’s a family trait.”

You exhaled through your nose, poking on another bruise toward his left hip making him gasp; the skin there tender, but nothing that you had to immediately worry about. Nothing felt broken. “You’re hilarious,” you murmured good-naturedly, the action and remark earning a gentle glare from him. “Here I thought that it was the blood loss making you so passive.” 

“Just another Thursday,” he quipped. 

“It’s Friday,” you corrected him, your knees tucked against his thigh where you’d moved against his side. Six held up his hand except that his arm couldn’t extend that far and it fell back down to his knees. One hand pushed against his knees to flatten them both so that they were laying straight, granting you more access where it was needed.  “I’m going to work on your side first. I’m going to need you to hold still, okay?”

Other than a sharp intake of breath, and an occasional flinch, he hardly moved at all; one sharp jerk had you leaning your arm over his legs to hold him still, pushed close to his abdomen and practically laying over him. You’d nudged him closer to the wall to make more room for yourself, your hip pressed against the side of his thigh. 

Threading a needle with a closed eye, you glared at it in focus before your thumb and index finger guided the needle through his skin right beside a hole, drawing it over. As you worked, refined, you ignored the gentle sounds that you elicited from him. Soft sounds of pain were nothing new to you, and you did have to admit that they had made him rather resilient. You didn’t know what you had expected, but for some reason, you expected backlash.

You assumed that his and Lloyd’s pain tolerance were drastically different.

The iris scissors were lifted, and you tied off the thread before snipping it.

More antiseptic was soaked onto the wound before a bandage was applied. You shifted up his body to inspect the wound by his shoulder. One of your thighs was forcefully planted to one side of him, trapped between his and the wall, and the other folded beside you. The supplies were placed on his chest for assurance. He’d lifted his head up when he felt you move; the two of you were nearly nose to nose, but your head was turned, focused on his shoulder. 

He placed his hand beside your thigh, holding himself in place should he somehow find himself leaning. Where one of your hands was planted against his chest to hold yourself steady, you felt his heartbeat underneath your palm, pounding in a frantic rhythm. His skin was hot underneath your fingers. 

Charming.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that you’ve never had a woman this close before,” you said softly, and low without looking at him, your hand moving away to grab more of your antiseptic. 

His breath hitched when he was about to answer, but you interrupted him.

“I don’t want to know.” You mused.

“I have.”

You snickered. “I said if I didn’t know any better.” You felt his muscles relax underneath your hands, but you associated it more with defeat than relaxation. Granted, you had that effect on people naturally. Considering how often you had knowingly or unknowingly infuriated and simultaneously puzzled Lloyd Hansen and Denny Carmichael, Sierra Six was hardly an added challenge. 

Your slender fingers worked at disinfecting and closing the wound at his shoulder, gradually brushing up the length of his arm. Your skin was cold to the touch as always, and you thought that you felt him shiver under his fingers–there was an explorative nature to your demonstrations, touching every little line and mark as you worked your way up over scars old and new in search of other wounds. 

Your eyes never strayed from the work, speaking in their own silent words. Your hand traveled up to drape across his shoulder and toy with stray hairs, twirling blonde strands in between with gentle tugs that were strangely casual. From there, one would consider a conversation starter, or a knife positioned directly where your other hand lingered at his side, doing the same demonstrations where your fingers splayed at the sensitive skin by his hip bone.

It wasn’t often that you were able to get this close to a man without any other intentions.

Six’s hands lay limp, arrested, slowly curling into fists. When you nudged his arm to look at a wound at his other side, he obliged your wordless request. You felt him tense underneath your fingers, seconds teasing him, trickling past. He waited, and he watched. He didn’t risk another glance, another breath too deep. 

Slowly, mechanically, through painstaking precision, he turned to face you completely opposite with a crinkle in his crescent eyes. You knew that look. You’d seen it before, only with much less speaking involved. Then he truly did subside toward you. He pushed the heel of his palm into the floor for support.

All at once, you found yourself pulling away, your hands retreating from his skin, two breaths escaping in unison once you finally made distance and pulled yourself up from the floor. His fingers lingered, brushing your wrist and curling around your knuckles.

“Are you done?” Six asked, voice sounding groggy, lulled into a kind of security that was never meant to be found with you.

“I think you’ll live another day,” you answered. You forced yourself to not submit, to subside against unwise impulses. Especially with as pale and cold as he was—oh, how he could play the game. 

Later, you promised to no one in particular. 

Six finally exhaled, unable to challenge that certainty in your gaze. He managed a pursed smile, then the smile faded, unreadably flat now. With great reluctance, he let go of you. Not once did his attention stray from your face, clinging to it.

“I can’t promise that I’ll happen to be around the next time you piss someone off.” You advised, the barest twitch pulling at the edges of your lips. “So, be careful.”

“Why did you come around this time?” He’d asked when you’d turned away.

“I wanted to tell you,” you inhaled. “Claire is safe. She wants to see you.”

“I want to see her, too.”

Your hand lingered on the doorframe, and while that hadn’t been your original intentions in coming here, you were glad to give him that reassurance. Claire had never outright said it, but you knew as soon as you’d walked into the safehouse who she’d been hoping to see. You never lied, especially not when the facts were directly in front of your face.

“And you will.”

Pawns in the Game

Anon Request

If you would like a Faceclaim for Sierra Seven, my anon suggested Bill Skarsgard!

Fandom: The Gray Man (2022)

Pairings: N/A

Type: Gen, One-Shot

Words: ~3.4K

Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence

Six had spent years in covert operations. He’d studied faces and evaluated threats for a living; he knew what an operator looked like when a fight was over, and what they looked like when a fight was about to begin. His survival depended on thinking ahead, and through pure expediency, he’d thrived. Long distance sniping, close quarters fighting, edged weapons, Krav Maga, long guns, short guns, explosives, poisons… 

But God, he sucked at Chess. 

With a renewed irritability, he watched as Chief Cahill knocked his King off the board–an unnecessary amount of force sending it careening underneath the dusty couch that he’d taken residence on the last few weeks. Something about that was oddly poetic, as if she was continuously reminding him of his place while she took the only other room in the safe house that wasn’t the bathroom. His face attempted a smile, but it morphed into an awkward little grimace as Cahill maintained eye contact with yet another victory. 

Her chin settled on her palm, raising her eyebrows.

“You do realize that you’re above Special Forces? Strategy is supposed to be your specialty.”

“Chess takes two people.” Six replied easily, glancing down at the stark difference between their remaining pieces on the board. He would have suggested a two out of three, except that it would require him to have a point to barter a tie with. “And nobody is going to bring a Chess board to a gunfight, so.”

Cahill rolled her eyes at the quip, but Six could see the start of a smile before she’d turned away and left the table. The rickety legs shook from the force and the last of his pieces made a home on the equally unsteady floor boards. It wasn’t the best of safehouses, but it was a means to an end until the heat on her died down.

“I’m going to call Fitzroy in the morning and tell him to close the contract,” she went on absently, fishing a cigarette from a pack in her suit jacket. 

“Close the contract?” He echoed. 

“Fitzroy has reason to believe that my trail’s gone cold, and he’s already forwarded the compensation to your bank account,” she turned to him expectantly, lighter in hand. The sparks snuffed out with the confession, and she covered the flames with her hand to shield it from the sudden draft. “You’ve done your job and Fitzroy has another job laid out for you.”

Six should have expected that. So many days with nothing and the clear indication that Chief Cahill was itching to get out of the safehouse and back to some semblance of normalcy–he hadn’t personally thought about what would come after. He’d spent plenty of time moving around between places similar to this one, and most even worse, figuring it out as he went. 

The idea left him unsettled.

“Does he know who ordered the hit?”

“A third party not worth my time, trust me.” She took a drag from her cigarette. One flicker of her eyes up to his face sent her reprimanded him before he had the chance to respond. “They’ve been given a phone call and a financial incentive, and since there’s been no sign of the assassin, it’s safe to say they took their payment and ran.” 

Six didn’t believe that, but maybe it was his own bent moral code and too many years on the job.

“Did Fitzroy look?” 

“One man is not worth our time.” 

“He’s worth mine.”

Cahill sighed, fixing him with a glare that would have brought any other inferior to their knees. If anything, it only made him more determined to go against her orders.

“Your job was to protect me, nothing else. You are not to pursue this.” She pointed an accusatory finger in his direction. “Tomorrow you’re going to be on a plane bound for Europe. Understood?” 

Six worked a tick in his jaw, nodded, only to answer with a flat: “Understood.”

“I’m serious, Courtland. You’re going to be facing disciplinary action–”

“I hear you.” 

Cahill was unconvinced, but for the sake of a headache that only he could cause, she dropped the subject in favor of taking her cigarette out into a less confined space. He wasn’t far after her, but she was beyond conversations about Chess and his lack of social etiquette. 

She dropped her cigarette to the ground shortly after, snuffed out by snow and ice. One last slithering string of smoke drifted up from its tip and disappeared. Any arguments about the possibilities of her would-be-assassin were drowned out in that last puff of smoke. ~~~~

Six’s life had been dedicated to killing men, and there was one out there that he’d missed. If he was going to break the tie with something, it may as well have been something that he was good at. 

Threats of penalties to his paychecks and future support likely awaited him when he got back because he had decided to run off and play the patriot. He didn’t mind, he guessed. He took the time to think about the contract, about the assassin. Someone that worked in service to someone easy to pay off, and that much made it a little easier to narrow down. 

Looking a little closely into Fitzroy’s personal accounts had handed him leaps and bounds as well, backtracking until he found the third party, and then backtracking through the third party to find the culprit. Not a name, or a face, but a general location at the very least. It brought him to the heart of the states, just West outside of D.C. 

West outside of D.C. and directly into a trap that had flipped his car over and turned it to ash. 

Snow had piled onto the roads, but he hadn’t run into much trouble with the car so far. It was finally warming up, the death grip on the wheel loosening to a more relaxed handle as he steered around a corner. Angelic, feathery ice crystals kissed the windshield, and rubber blades squeegeed them away, melted water streaking along their tips. The car passed under the streetlights, illuminating the inside of the cab and casting soft shadows over his face, pulsing and fading, brief but alert all the same.

His hair was damp, frizzled strands out of place while his fingers tucked around the damp ends of his jacket. Six molded over what had exactly led him to this point, but they were moving too fast for him to keep up with. His solution was to grab one and hold onto it. 

Suddenly there was plenty to distract him from. 

Bright lights flashed somewhere to his left. Car brakes desperately needing changed squealed, and with a curse that lost itself under a breath suddenly yanked from him, the tires slid and the wheel whipped to the side and locked. His seat belt snapped into place and his spine bounced against the seat. 

The next thing he could make sense of was that he was suddenly upside down. A crash reverberated against his eardrums, shards of broken glass pelting none too gently against his face. He tasted blood in his mouth. 

Six took a breath of thick and rotting air to rocket forward, to shove up in defiance of impending death. Unbuckling the seatbelt, he fell against the car’s roof. A fierce kick and the door shot open, landing on frozen concrete. It wobbled, metal grinding on ice, then it settled into silence. 

When he’d dragged himself from the car, he’d landed right on one of his wounds, of course. Dark blood squelched upon impact, his breaths ragged as he flipped and sat up, the sound of people nearby soft and muzzled by distance. Six didn’t want to deal with the passersby quite yet. It risked a scream at least; a forcible visit to the hospital at worst. 

A filthy hand dragged down his face. He sat against the car he’d clawed his way out of and took a moment to breathe, one leg folded in, the other stretched outward. A glass shard embedded loosely in his stomach earned a look of utter contempt.

Unconsciousness was taunting, fluctuating, and smug. It left as it desired, only to return before Six had any chance of jolting up and identifying his surroundings. He seldom made it past opening his eyes before they rolled back and flickered shut. 

This was the closest he’d been to death in… he didn’t know how long. Long enough. It was an inconvenience, either way.

A man strode forth through the glare of the hazard lights blinking on and off. His pointed shoes crunched against bits of car, and the Sierra learned very quickly that it was not a good Samaritan coming to help, rather someone with purpose–one that likely ended with his brain matter all over the concrete. 

Six shoved his hand into the folds of his jacket and noiselessly withdrew a pistol–the attached silencer longer than its barrel. He then rolled, prone and locked into a cramp that seized his entire body. When his stubbornness ran its course, and Six finally surrendered, the horrific pressure waned. He sank into crushed remnants of glass and car parts. 

His shoulder shrieked, but not so mind-splittingly as the wounds beneath his chest. Nausea licked up his throat, though he kept the acid down. His hip and leg weren’t doing so hot either, and with exploring fingers he investigated each source of pain. 

Once he was sure that he would live, his forearm braced against the side of the burning metal, attempting to find the strength to pull himself up. 

“Hey, big guy.” A sharp pain behind his knee sent Six buckling with a quiet grunt. His hands slammed into a patch of black ice, saving his face from impact, but he lost his gun. The air dropped into a vicious chill. Snow fell harder, but even it could not bring a quiet serenity to the chaos of the flames and Six’s irritation speaking louder than his words could. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to answer some questions for me, could I?” The voice was like silk. “I’ve been told that I can be very persuasive.” 

“I’m convinced.” A wheeze pushed from him, lungs struggling, burning as he took in the frost. One hand lifted, drained even further of color. Six attempted to rise, soon lifting his other hand to show they were both empty.

Darkness concealed only half his features now as he stared up into the unnerving mug of an old comrade’s face. They’d all visited him in the form of the word ‘DECEASED’ in bright red print on a file. He saw their fleeting shadows, their drowned bodies in the rivers and lakes. And after all this time, one wandered down the side of a street in D.C. with an incentive to kill him.

They’d all had it coming eventually. Every last one of them. It was easier on his conscience to call the extinction of the other Sierras an act of due justice, and his own survival an act of his stubbornness as well as luck. It wasn’t as though Six grieved any of them, but he remembered. 

Especially this asshole.

“You remember me?”

Six squinted, not a single protest leaving him as he analyzed his face. He’d always been a deathly looking man, wearing the lives he’d expunged on his sleeve and shown bare to the world. 

“Sierra Seven?”

“You’re worth a lot of money,” Seven mused. “I won’t need any work for the next few years.”

“You had the lowest contract completion rate.” Six spit through grit teeth, a sudden boot coming down on his hand making him cry out. He clenched it into a fist, hearing a loud snap. Through the pain, he carried on through grit teeth and a breathless gasp. “I’m not surprised you need it.”

A combat knife gleamed in Seven’s right hand, twirling before it came to rest in his palm. 

Six maneuvered onto his hands and knees, wiping a grimy hand over his mouth. “How much do you weigh? One-sixty?” He extended his arm, waving a finger up and over the man’s torso. “The jacket with the–with the blue cuffs. I like it.”

Begrudgingly, but not unexpectedly, the other Sierra sprang toward him just as Six grappled for his gun. Deft fingers raked through his hair then clutched. Not a heartbeat to spare. Seven dove the knife forward in an attempt to stab a jagged gash through Six’s jugular. A pistol fired, grazing Seven’s right calf. Another shot missed, landing squarely in the car’s side.

Six caught the agent’s wrist after a third bullet went flying, the knife slicing his hip. An airy grunt left him. He wrenched the knife away, sending it across the concrete and glass arena. Fists flew and collided while they quietly wrestled for control. They were taught not to go at each other snarling like animals, rather similar to a dance where the two opponents knew the steps of the other quite well. Six managed to catch the agent’s arm and snap it clean at the elbow. A sickening crack reverberated through the open space. 

Another crack. A groan, wet with agony. Six shoved forward, busting the agent’s face into a glistening red pulp. While he struggled for another breath, one hand unhooked itself from Seven’s coat to tear his pistol out of its leather cradle and shove the barrel against his abdomen. A few derogatory clicks followed the realization of an empty chamber.

Six’s face scrunched into a grimace, then he sighed. “Shit.”

A fist sailed directly into his nose, a sickening crack sending him slumping with his spine against the remnants of his car.

Another, softer grumble. 

Six ran a thumb over the middle of his face, the broken bone and the stench of blood square in the center, shoulders stretching back in some pitiful attempt to regain his senses. He half-ducked half-fell to the ground. A thud above him reverberated against the metal, a sudden weight on his back that kept him pinned down, writhing underneath him like a cornered animal with no viable chance at escape. His breathing became labored, but not panicked.

His fingers grabbed blindly for his ankle, grabbing his knife that he twisted around and drove directly into Seven’s calf. A garbled yell deafened in his ears, one of his arms grabbed and shoved up against the car, his arm repeatedly beaten against it until he was forced to drop his knife. It skittered across the concrete with a resounding clang. His hair was a grimy mess of scarlet tufts, one eye shut and bleeding from an open wound at his eyebrow. When he breathed, he spit up blood.

A quiet, displeased grumble shook Six’s chest. The reflexes to follow were sharp, cruel, cold. A large hand lashed forward, gathering the collar of his coat in a row of deadly fingers to jerk him forward and lift. Seven leveled their faces. It was with one, the other dangling at his side in two awkward pieces connected by flesh.

The resistance eroded. Seven set his jaw and gave him a single, very harsh, shake.

“One reason,” he growled. “Give me one reason not to pop your head off like a fucking cork.”

“I’ve been told I have that effect on people, but I’m going to have to ask you not to do that.”

The bitter irony was lost in their heated space as he shoved him hard against the driver’s side. Pain exploded through his back, but his defensive demeanor never waned. The angle of his arm narrowed against Six, adding pressure to his windpipe. “Where’s Cahill?”

“Who?”

His elbow sailed into Six’s nose, making him wheeze. Irritation pinched at his eyebrows, tucking his head back against the man’s bated breaths. “What do you want? An apology?” Six choked. “Catch up over coffee and talk about it?” 

Seven chuckled, amused by the defiance but not any less inclined to change his mind about killing him. He enjoyed the pain that he inflicted, the pressure added gradually and with no other intention except to make him suffer. 

Six took it in stride, between one wounded animal to another, a message had been relayed–his, more clearly. He was going to die, left in the streets without a name attached to his face. A ghost. His vision twisted and distorted, black fringing the outside corners and moving in.

In what would be the few remaining moments of his life, a faint glint flickered at his vision’s edges, then a cloud of red mist exploded from Seven’s head, body collapsing forward and releasing his death grip on Six’s throat. Six slid down until he was sitting, looking over at the corpse that he felt a weird urge to apologize to.

The pitter-patter of light footsteps sounded from his left. Six’s head snapped to the side, lips parting for a moment until he recognized Chief Cahill. She bounded over the wreckage, the ice and debris hardly proving a worthy obstacle. He waved, his other arm tucked against his chest and aching.

“Boy,” she sighed, her irritation and disappointment obvious, even in his nearly comatose state. “Look at me.”

Her orders were answered only by an awkward peering through half-lidded eyes, blood pouring from every orifice of his face. Sounds had been secluded to white noise, his vision swimming in a mixture of red and purple while he struggled to keep his head up. There was an alertness in his distant expression, but he figured that if she asked him any direct questions, he might not have been cohesive enough to answer them. 

“You should have told me that you were leaving,” she scolded, removing her jacket to press it against a spurting gash in his leg. Her eyes were fixated on his face, being none too gentle in her prodding at his more life-threatening injuries. 

The corners of his mouth twitched. “You said not to, so.” 

“I told you to head to Europe.”

“Missed my flight.” 

Cahill rolled her eyes, disappointment, as well as some vague sort of nausea evident as she took in the state of him. He could only imagine how bad he looked, sitting amongst the remnants of carnage and his safe drivers discount. 

“I warned you. You might be a Sierra, but you’re not invincible.” 

“I’m disposable.” Six corrected, shrugging and grimacing at the pain that shot up his spine. “That’s kind of the whole point, isn’t it?”

Cahill narrowed her eyes. “Disposable, fine. You’re not replaceable.” He hissed at the harsh shove against a spot on his calf, strongly suspecting it was on purpose.  “You’re a valuable asset, Six. We can gladly pick any idiot to do your job, but nobody will do it as well as you.”

Through one open eye and a vision of red, he mulled over the confession. The sincerity in her gaze did not hide anything other than genuine honesty. It put him off giving up the ghost for at least a while longer, but the hand that she extended to him almost made him forget that he was injured at all. “You’re still an idiot, though.” She didn’t sugarcoat that. “And you’re still bad at Chess.”

Six laughed, then immediately coughed. God, that hurt. “It still takes two people.” He sighed. 

“Are you ready to go?”

He waved his good arm dismissively. Even his good arm felt as if it would pop out of its socket. “I’m good. I think I might sit here for a while.” 

“You’re going to bleed out.” Cahill mused. “You might go into a coma.”

“I’m hoping so,” he smirked, leaning his head back, allowing his eyes to shut. “It’ll be the best sleep I’ve had in weeks.” 

“It doesn’t look like he hit anything vital. You’ll be alright.” She clapped a hand against his shoulder, and he winced at the sudden contact, hand coming up to grasp the abused area. One eye opened to fix her with a gentle glare, but she’d already turned away, calling who he assumed was Fitzroy and advising him to bring several bags of AB and a new suit–he’d mentioned 42 regular, but he suspected that she ignored him on purpose and told Fitzroy to bring what he had. Once the phone call ended, she’d turned, only to say: “This isn’t getting you out of Europe, by the way.” 

Six offered a meager thumbs up in response. He hadn’t counted on it.

On the Run

Fandom: The Gray Man (2022)

Pairings: N/A

Type: Gen, One-Shot (Two Part-er?)

-> Anon request (Requests are currently open. Other fandoms listed on my profile!)

Words: ~4.5K

Tags: @biblichorr, @ethanhawkestan, @medievalfangirl, @pyrokineticbaby

A/N: Apologies in advance if anyone else wanted tagged. I am still getting used to the tag list thing, and I'm not exactly sure if the people who enjoyed and wanted tagged for the Six x Reader fics also wanted tagged for the Six gen fics and vice versa. Thanks! (: If anyone knows how a tag list works, and how to note specific usernames for specific things, it would be very helpful!

~~~

Every day spent with Claire only made it abundantly more clear that Six didn’t know much about kids. Some days she was happy–ecstatic, and understanding of the things that he couldn’t control–other days, the revelation that anything inside the realm of normal was null and void where he was involved only made her more prone to being angry and spiteful. Most days he could keep up, and most days he was brought back to those first days when she was scolding him for chewing gum in Donald’s house or acting like he was an enigma because his name was filed down to just a digit. 

Six wasn’t Donald Fitzroy. He never would be. He didn’t want to be. 

There were things between him and Claire that he had no hope of understanding, let alone trying to recreate on his own. They didn’t have inside jokes, and he hadn’t known her parents–those were things that he couldn’t talk about like Donald. That kind of connection had never been meant for someone like him, the idea long gone when he’d been served life without parole. 

But she’d said that they were like family, and to him that had meant something. An unshakable loyalty and a responsibility already embedded deep within him when he’d promised Donald that he’d keep her alive. 

Other than that, doing what he knew, he was figuring the rest out one agonizingly slow step at a time. 

And those agonizingly slow steps only felt slower in the humid air of a small, inconspicuous country in Asia. They had something off-brand to a McDonalds from the states, serving many of the same things with different variations of names. It didn’t make a difference to him, either way. Various jobs had taught him to eat whatever was available, and a greasy burger was the same as a steak dinner considering how much he was starving. 

It didn’t embarrass him to engorge himself in front of anyone–food was a means of energy, and it hardly concerned him what he ate to get it. Regardless, he could see Claire watching him out of the corner of her eye, a vaguely nauseous look while she pushed her ice-cream around with a spoon. Sweat beaded her forehead, trailing in thin rivulets and staining a tank-top that he’d bought for her at a small corner shop for a quarter. 

Her eyebrows were raised, mouth slightly parted where she’d hunched over the table, her temple laid to rest against an enclosed fist. The ice-cream had melted, and she couldn’t have looked more miserable than how she probably felt. 

“It’s the best medicine,” he offered in between a mouthful of food, a lame grimace of a smile tugging at his lips while he gestured to her cup. “Ice-Cream.” 

“Yeah,” Claire trailed off, looking down into the soupy mixture with apprehension. “I don’t really think it’s ice-cream anymore.” As if to further iterate her point, she lifted some of it into her spoon, then  let it pour unceremoniously back into her cup. She raised her eyebrows at him, only to shake her head when he offered her a drink, her eyes darting back down. 

Six finished it off, the sound of him slurping through his straw sounding much louder in the sudden quiet that settled between them. He set it back down with a soft tap, the Styrofoam cup scraping as he slid it across the table, then pushed it back a little further. What little bit remained of his lunch was forgotten, the sudden intrusion on his appetite overshadowed by useless attempts to say anything useful. 

He tried to think of something Donald would say, but nothing sounded right coming from him. 

Thankfully, Claire was the one to break the silence first. 

“What are we going to do about money?” She looked at him in a way that ate right through him. He’d been shot, stabbed, tortured, nearly drowned, and yet one single look into Claire’s eyes–a kind of hopelessness that his concerns also had to be hers hurt so much worse. Parts of him thought that he was beyond all that; worrying. He’d built himself over the years to be unusually stoic, sarcastic at the most inopportune times, ready to die if that was something he had to do, but he couldn’t stop his expression from falling at the question, only because she wasn’t wrong.

He’d been forced to take the fall for all of Carmichael’s shit. He was a renowned fugitive, regular work and odd jobs far outside of his list of specialties. They didn’t pay enough. If it was just him, he could live off of a minimum wage, but with Claire, who was used to having so much. It was impossible. Dingy motels and take-out was already too beneath what she was used to. 

Six didn’t have an actual plan. He’d made up one as he went, taunting the enemy forces in Iraq during a helicopter crash that killed several American soldiers. Traversing foreign territory with an entire army at his back, that had been easy. This? He didn’t know why this was so much harder. 

“We’ll figure it out,” he assured her, only because the phrase you shouldn’t have to worry about that didn’t sound right in the moment. 

“Are–are you going to put me in a home?” She asked suddenly. 

“No.” He dipped his chin to meet her eyes, scrutinizing her worried expression with an incredulity so very unlike him. “No, Claire. Why do you think that?”

Claire appeared hesitant to answer, the melted puddle of her ice-cream suddenly more interesting than looking at his face. Her brows creased, her skin taking on a harsher shade of red than what he suspected was from just the humidity. Parts of her voice cracked on every other syllable, as if it was a possibility that she strongly considered before even he’d considered it. “You–you said that we were going to a hos–a hospital. To change my Pacemaker? You said that it could be tracked from anywhere.”

“It can. That’s how I found you.”

She looked up, brows drawn into a harsh scowl, a profound anger betrayed by tears brimming in her eyes. “Are you going to leave? Are you changing it out so that you can’t find me, too?” 

“What?” 

The tremor in her limbs had him angling his body toward her, the instinct to be there in case her Pacemaker were to act up again. He always had a hospital in mind, and an abundance of excuses if any of the doctors were to ask. Fake identities, fake IDs, passports… They moved, and they moved often. She needed direct contact with medical attention, and someone more well-adept at handling things like this. It had been selfish of him to keep her this long, but it was also selfish of him to think that he could have handled something like this in the first place.

“Claire–” He started.

Before he could get a word in, she was already moving from her chair, a harsh scrape against the tile grating against his ears as she shoved herself into his arms. On instinct, he pulled her to him, tilting his chin up to accommodate where she tucked her head. It was a gesture too familiar to fumble, and too brief to question.

Six remembered when she’d treated Donald like that, his own resilience the only thing that had protected him from her desperate kicking and screaming as he’d forced her away. He thought of something similar, doctors who would not have the resilience that he had, the begging and pleading like lead in his ears compared to people who had done the same in the past–for their lives–not his life, or a life with him. The image caused him to squeeze his eyes shut, ignoring the sudden twisting in his gut that felt like a knife. 

It wasn’t fair, but most things in his life weren’t.

“I’m not going to leave you, Kid.” He assured her quietly, but the sudden tension in her muscles suggested that she didn’t believe him. 

~~~~~

Six traversed several dozen stories with stone-faced seriousness, deadpan against the people who looked at him and Claire as an opportunity. Some heeded the obvious warning, others acting with false bravery before he’d tightened his hand around the gun hidden in his coat and let it slip from its confinement until they made the rational decision to back off on their own. His other arm was wrapped around Claire’s shoulders–catching her wide-eyed stare as she met strangers’ eyes in equal intensity. He burrowed her closer to his jacket, speaking low. 

“Keep your head down.”

The Chongqing building in Hong Kong was renowned for operating outside the law, but even if that was the case, they had no obligation to help him. He was broke, and he didn’t want to sign himself over until he was sure that Claire was somewhere safe. After they’d mocked him for looking like the grungy version of a Ken doll, all it took was a mention of his moniker for them to sober up and offer their services in exchange for a decrease of fees from what they would offer their usual clientele. 

He still couldn’t afford it, but it was more in the realm of believability. 

The Gray Man had a reputation, even operating in the dark. His work across several continents had created ghost stories by word of mouth, and that reputation alone scarcely made anyone question his credibility. They’d asked him to carry out a few contracts with some debtors that they didn’t have the means to deal with, and he’d agreed under the condition that Claire get their best doctor. Hands had been shaken, and his agreement had been signed in blood.

This was more normal. This, he knew how to do. 

“Are you sure about this?” Claire had asked, perched on the edge of one of the examination tables while they waited for a man who had referred to him as a ‘Guizi’ before leaving to prepare the operating room. She fumbled with the hem of a hospital gown, twisting wrinkles in the fabric from her nervous fidgeting. 

Six knew there was no use in lying. She always saw right through him, and he had never tried lying to her in the first place. “No.” He didn’t sugarcoat the fact, the notion that he wasn’t allowed to stay for the operation already tipping a scale in something less favorable for him. “But you know we don’t have a choice.” He would go ahead and fulfill their contracts, then find a place for Claire to rest and recuperate. Close by, preferably, just in case there would be some kind of mishap. The doctor–who had expectedly been an asshole–had just as much of a credibility as a doctor as he did a killer. 

That had to count for something, and he was running out of options. 

Desperation wasn’t a good look for him. 

“I know, it’s just…” Claire looked down, her eyes following her toes where she kicked her legs back and forth. Her anxiety was obvious, the way her breath hitched and she peered around as if there was a threat in every ill-illuminated corner, ready to leap out of the dark. She’d looked less scared when there was an actual threat in her house, but she’d also be alone for this one. “I trust you, but I don’t like this place.” 

“Me either.” Six ducked his head, exhaling through his nose. He stepped on the foothold at the base of the examination table. Familiar with the gesture, Claire moved over to oblige his silent request as he lowered himself down beside her, her head coming to rest against his shoulder. It wobbled from the added weight.

His hand moved over hers where it gripped at the gown, and she reluctantly allowed him to peel her clenched fingers apart. 

Claire looked more tired than usual, more small than how he was used to seeing her. Her playful attitude at Donald’s had been near damn non-existent in the last few months, moving from place to place leaving her jet-lagged and more prone to irritability. It didn’t stop his usual sarcasm, that dry wit that had annoyed her in the beginning, only for her to end up admitting that it was kind of funny. “I think everyone around here kind of looks like a criminal.”

Her head tilted back to look up at him. “More than you?” She gave a soft mock of a gasp. “No way.”

Six feigned a look of confusion, brows pinching. “Do I look like a criminal?”

“You do have the tattoos.” She chuckled. It was the first time he’d heard it in months. 

“I told you it was a guy's name in Greek.”

She nodded, looking back down where his hand laid over hers. Even with both her hands, his fingers still managed to envelop them, giving them a reassuring squeeze. A wan smile pulled at her lips. “You never told me if he made it up the hill.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Six mulled it over thoughtfully, the next breath he exhaled more forceful this time, dragging along with his words. “Let’s get through this first, then I’ll let you know, okay?” 

Claire pressed her lips together, minimizing the frown that’d slowly begun to spread across her face as her expression fell. “You promise you’re not leaving me?”

He held out his pinkie.

She rolled her eyes, curling it around her own. Her thumb pressed against his in a final declaration: A stamp, she’d explained that it somehow made it more official. There was something too endearing about it for him to question. 

“Just another Thursday.” He answered. 

“You say that every time something bad happens. I’m starting to see a pattern.” 

“If I can get through this without getting in a fight, I think that this will be more successful than most Thursdays.”

“Ha-Ha,” she said sarcastically. 

He quirked a smile despite himself, and her expression was quick to follow. The door swung open as the doctor walked inside, mask and gloves at the ready. Claire inhaled next to him, her arms wrapping around his bicep. He slid off the exam table, practically lifting her along with him

“You can’t be in the surgery room,” the doctor told him, voice flat and uncaring. It only further exceeded to twist a knife deeper into his gut. 

“I’m going to escort her,” Six said. The nature of his tone was enough for the doctor to begrudgingly oblige his request, waving them out into the dark corridor and through the maze of hallways that he’d gotten lost in on the way up. Claire’s nails dug into his sleeve, and he offered what little comfort he could by placing a hand over her arm. “And this Pacemaker is untraceable?” He pressed the doctor.

“It does not have a registered serial number.” The doctor answered. “It cannot be traced on any national database.” 

It offered very little comfort to Six, but they’d run into too much trouble with her current one. It was a big risk for a bout of selfishness, for giving in to Claire’s demands to stay. He did look at homes cross-country, and depending how the next few weeks went, he may have to make some kind of choice. 

He strongly suspected that whether it went well or not, he may have to say goodbye anyway. 

If she were to have any kind of life. 

“I’ll be right here.” They came to a stop outside of the operating room. 

“Six.” 

“I’ll bring you some ice-cream. It’s the best medicine.”

She leapt onto her tiptoes and hugged him tight, with him leaning to accommodate her height. His arms wrapped around her back, never squeezing, but giving a firm enough gesture so that she understood that he meant it. Once they pulled apart, she was ushered into the operating room, sparing a glance over her shoulder.

Her index finger and pinkie raised, her other fingers curling in. 

He copied the gesture as she disappeared through the door.

Six’s expression slipped as soon as she was gone, then despite his promise to Claire, he turned and walked down the seedy corridor. Fluorescent lights flickered incessantly, forcing him to squint underneath their harsh blinking and fight the urge to turn back around and deposit himself outside of Claire’s room. He convinced himself that she would be fine for the time being, especially after she was put under anesthesia. Hopefully, she would never notice that he was gone.

Various stalls lined the narrow bend of the hall, but he didn’t have the time to so much as spare any of the products a glance. His jacket swayed with his shoulders, a strong confidence taking to an equally strong frame. He wasn’t taller than most of the men in the building by any means, but he could say with a cocky confidence that none of them would be that difficult to take. He’d been ready to at any opportunity with Claire, but for the moment, for her sake, he’d avoid it if he could. 

He turned his torso to avoid products being waved at him, at his face, darting around seedy characters that made grabs for his wallet. 

He had an obligation. 

They were paying him for this, and he had to get Claire somewhere safe after. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a shadow split across the wall and dart around a corner. There was a fraction of a second, then it was gone, one glance over his shoulder confirming that it wasn’t one of the stall owners attempting to pressure him for a purchase. 

Someone was following him. 

Shit. 

With a renewed urgency, Six traversed the remaining figures in the hallway, around a disgruntled patron to take his spot in the elevator, pressing his finger into the man’s chest and none-too graciously pushing him back–the man had shouted something at him in Mandarin, something that he only bothered to classify as some kind of insult–but he pressed the button that would take him down without bothering to grace the man with his usual wit. He jammed his thumb to prematurely close the doors, but someone else managed to slip through the narrow crack in the doors. The man pressed a button, then they were being taken down.

77…

76…

75…

Six had stepped to the far left side, his hands folded together in front of him, eyes fixed on a specific spot in an ugly swirling pattern on the rug. He mulled over his options. Unlike most places he’d found trouble in, this place was full of criminals. Unless he was some kind of big whig that had the staff of the entire building under his thumb, Claire was safe if this asshole wound up missing. 

His eyes rolled back up to the ceiling, the light dim and flickering in there, too. 

“And you are?” Six asked, glancing over to a darkened figure who towered over him. Graciously ignored, his only response was a twitch of the man’s muscles suggesting that his day was about to get a hell of a lot harder. 

74…

73…

Deft fingers grabbed for the gun in his jacket at the same time his attacker jammed the emergency stop button. The two traded shots, a loud ringing that split through the air in perfect unison, just passing their left shoulders in perfect symmetry. A harsh shudder shook the elevator while it came to an abrupt stop, causing Six’s knee to crumple, stumbling through the small space. 

He’d had his hand on his gun, his index finger grappling for the trigger again as the brunt of the man’s palm knocked the side of the gun’s barrel and sent it careening into a corner. It went off somewhere in the dark, shooting a light out in the ceiling, the other twitching, light and darkness blinking rapidly back and forth.

His eyes darted for the gun, following its flight path, only for a sudden blink of the light to illuminate ringed knuckles that came dangerously close to his face. He whipped back, his spine hitting the grip handle on the wall, managing to grab a hold of it just as another punch made impact with the side of his cheek. 

Red exploded. Scarlet tasted bitter on his tongue, taking a few small but dexterous hops sideways to create distance. 

Grimacing, Six spit into a corner, his words coming in soft exhales as he took that brief reprieve to catch his breath. He wasn’t given much, forced up against the wall with the handle digging into his spine. A knife pressed dangerously close to his throat, the side of the blade creating a sharp line. “Can we not do this right now? I’m kind of in a hurry.”

But there were certain elements that lied dormant until it heeded the call for survival. Dangerous instincts hardwired into his biological systems, tangled between societal standards and cultural acceptance. Suffering from the human condition. A fissure had opened between Six’s past and present, threatening to engulf his future. 

Claire’s future.

“You’re worth a lot of money,” the attacker mused with a heavy timber accentuated with an accent that Six didn’t recognize. His expression twisted, a scoff ripping through his throat. “Two hundred thousand for the Gray Man’s head. I’m not impressed.” 

Six resisted the urge to roll his eyes at that natural nonchalance that this man sported–an attitude with the knowledge that he would win.

“You’re no run-of-the-mill yourself.” He retorted, only to earn a punch that speared him in the gut as a consolation prize. A cough forced itself from deep in his stomach, groaning in irritation. His tongue caught a stray lop of blood on the side of his lip, and without warning, he jerked his knee up, slamming it into the man’s abdomen, darting sideways to one of the corners. 

The man doubled over, spitting a slew of curses in a language that Six didn’t understand before charging him again. The full force of his weight knocked into his side and sent him into the wall. Six’s head hit it first, exploding with a sudden burst of pain at the side of his skull. Trembling fingers gripped hard, his eyes struggling to refocus through the ringing in his ears, a pounding sensation rocking against the back of it while his free hand fumbled for his gun. 

Six pushed himself to stand again despite the disorientation. His free arm wrapped around his stomach, just barely stumbling sideways as a fist collided with the wall. 

He swung at him again then again, the cramped confines of the space only growing smaller and smaller as they moved about.

A boot collided with his ankle. Hard.

Six buckled, his back hitting the floor and yanking what little breath he had from him. His blurring figure hovered over him, drawing his gun. In one harsh movement, he threw his foot up, knocking it out of his unsuspecting hands and sending it careening across the floor with a metal clang. He dove for his own where it lay neglected in a darkened corner, scooping it up into his hand, rolling forward, and propping himself onto one knee.

The desire to survive overpowered any hesitations he may have had.

Two gunshots rang out, echoing into the stillness, only to find his attacker not there.

In one fluent movement, the man appeared behind Six and grabbed his arm. He jerked him forward, one arm wrapping around his throat, another delivering a quick blow to the back of his knee, sending him down. His nails dug desperately at the arm that kept him trapped. The free hand grasping his gun was forcibly held still at his side.

It should’ve been easy. He’d done it so many times in half the amount it would take someone without the proper training. Except this time it was purely to defend himself. Six hadn’t possessed a strong urge to preserve his own life. It'd been all about following orders from the very start, and then he’d remembered Claire, preserving her life—everything the CIA had tried and almost succeeded in destroying in him. 

That had been all that mattered, but now even more than ever, Six wanted to live.

And he would try. 

For her sake.

The man’s towering form wavered just a moment, just long enough for another shot to echo out, grazing past his assailant’s right shoulder.

Missed.

Another passed the left shoulder.

Missed.

Blurred edges framed his vision, body warning him that he would pass out. Having the current upper hand, the gun was wrenched from his hand, placing the shaft against Six’s temple. He scratched at the tight hold around his throat that was restricting his blood’s flow, opening his mouth and breathing in. His nostrils flared, his insistent struggling becoming more weak. 

72.

With a ding, the elevator door opened, and through his blurry haze, he came face to face with Lloyd Hansen

“Hey, Sunshine!” Lloyd–fucking Lloyd–greeted him, waving with fingers replaced by prosthetics. “Ease up on the Ken doll won’t ya? There’ll be plenty of time for foreplay later.” At his demand, Six was released, sent into the floor sputtering and coughing. He strongly contemplated that he was dead, that this was some weird type of hell. 

But Lloyd knelt beside him, startling real, and just as annoying. “Have you met my friend?”

Six looked up, his shoulders rising and falling while he caught his breath. He squinted, lips parted in unbelievability, wanting more than anything to wipe the trash stache off of his smug face. With the possibility that he knew Claire was there, it was the only thing that encouraged him to stay on his best behavior until he was sure otherwise. “I’ve had the pleasure, yeah.”

“I paid him extra to choke you out like that by the way. I wanted to reminisce a little about the old days.” Lloyd gently chided. “Before that bitch Suzanne shot me.”

“I remember.” Six said, unable to keep his own version of a smug grin from creeping across his face. “It was kind of funny.” He wiped at his mouth, settling back on his haunches where he could look at Lloyd more fully, relishing in the feeling of just getting to sit down. 

Lloyd lingered. Too close. They were almost nose to nose. 

“What did I do to get graced with your stache now?”

“Oh, you’re going to find out. I’ve got a whole date planned, actually. Just you and me.” At the confession, Six had just blinked the haze out of his eyes, a burst of stars forcing them directly back in. Pain shot through the bridge of his nose, a nausea making him gag as he slumped back against the floor. A low growl rumbled within him, rapidly blinking fluorescent lights and Lloyd’s face swirling around him in those last few seconds. 

Thoughts of Claire came to the surface of it all, praying to whatever God existed that she was safe being the last thing that graced his mind before he was gone.

Behind the Curtain Pt. 2

Fandom: The Gray Man (2022)

Pairings: Sierra Six x Reader, Courtland Gentry x Reader, Sierra Six x You, Courtland Gentry x You

Type: Snippet/Concept (2-part)

The only thing that had graced Six’s mind during the entire performance of Macbeth was that he strongly considered that Claire would have liked it. She would appreciate the overall story, the idea of actors moving about a physical stage, acting out a performance that couldn’t be edited in post–the honesty in the actor’s performances and each line delivered with a conviction that cut through the darkness of the story, each movement a testament to their commitment. 

He didn’t quite understand the concept, having stayed by one of the exit doors to make a quick escape, but all he could think about was how one day, when the heat died down and he was brave enough to grace crossing state lines with her, he might bring Claire to witness it; give her a moment to experience art that didn’t owe its existence to digital distractions or technology–at least, she’d explained it to him like that during one of their movie nights with an old VCR tape of a recorded stage play of Hamlet. 

He shifted where he stood in the back, arms folded in front of him. Curiosity had swirled within him regarding the woman he was meant to be watching–the actress, you, the potential source of chaos since Dani had told him about you. In truth, he couldn’t wrap his mind around how you could sway the currents of power just by speaking to the right people, and how you would know or care to know about someone like him. An outcast. A felon that had lucked out of his life sentence twice–if lifetime service to the CIA had counted. 

Movement entering from stage right forced his eyes forward.

Your presence on the stage was magnetic, emitting a strange kind of captivating energy that engulfed the theater as you spoke your lines with a haunting and simultaneously enthralling cadence. Six couldn’t pinpoint what about you drew his attention exactly; he only noticed the audience leaning in, enraptured by every word and line delivered.

Faces lit up with recognition, laughter bubbling in response to wit, gasps slipping through when your voice took on a darker tone. There was a power in your performance, a raw, unfiltered emotion that surged like a wave threatening to overwhelm the shore. Six was definitely out of place among the rapture, an outsider looking in on something that he had no hope of grasping.

He looked down with a slight jerk of his head, shaking his senses back into focus. He hadn’t come to admire you; he’d come out of obligation, tethered to the rumors that she may know about him, and had the ability to bring him back out into the world. It was his concern for Claire that bid him here, and made him stay. 

Yet, as he stood there, unease flickered through him—not of envy but a strange mix of unease and intrigue.

You drew invisible lines of ambition and manipulation among the characters around you. Six couldn’t help but imagine what conversations happened behind the scenes, what sorts of truths were woven amongst them compared to lies. Maybe you reveled in that chaos and the decisions that you could influence, if what Dani suspected had been right.

He shifted again, allowing irritation to mask his own feeling of helplessness. He thought of Claire; she would have found some poetic metaphor in the actress's delivery, some deeper meaning in the madness on display. Leaning against the wall, he squinted, searching for the humanity behind the performance, but all he could see was a facade, a person wholly absorbed in a role that was not theirs, leaving behind a trail of questions and confusion.

And as the play unfolded, you transcended the space between the stage and the audience, weaving connections that only furthered his own confusion. He wondered if you peered out into the crowd, and could sense the varying emotions emitting from each audience member. He wondered, unsettling, if you could somehow sense him too.

Part of him recoiled, reminding him of his own desires to remain unseen, a ghost drifting through the world. 

The performance ended with rapturous applause, but for Six, it had only just begun. 

The crowd began to disperse moments later, chatter filling the air, but Six remained passive, leaning against the wall before sliding out the side door to the theater’s entrance. 

The street outside buzzed with life, the sounds of laughter and conversation drifting into the cool evening air. Six hesitated, caught between the chaos of the exiting crowd outside and the lingering echoes of the performance he'd just witnessed. Each person brushing past him, laughing, sharing moments, made him feel more conspicuous than before. 

As he shifted through the throng, he caught sight of you stepping from the theater, still alive with the performance, your laughter mingling with that of your fellow cast members. They hung around you like moths to a flame, their faces aglow with the energy you radiated and then they dispersed all at once, like a light snuffed out, until you were alone. 

Several moments passed, and just as he began to doubt whether you’d engage with anyone of interest, or step away from the sidewalk, he spotted another group approaching you—men in suits, their demeanor underpinned by confidence and underlying menace. They moved with purpose, like wolves zeroing in on a lamb straying from the herd.

Their suits were sharp, their smiles gleamed with practiced charm, yet the subtle movements of their bodies betrayed an underlying predatory intent. The atmosphere shifted, and he could almost sense the hairs on the back of his neck rising in response to the palpable threat they exuded. Time slowed almost unbearably, and Six felt in him the need to move, to intervene, but that prodding reminder that his intention to simply watch anchored him to the spot. 

He was meant to gather information, to stay under the radar. And yet, the sight of those suits looming over the woman willed him to seek action.

He shifted into the shadows, recalibrating his approach. The situation shifted as one of the men—a tall figure with slicked-back hair—leaned down to whisper something in your ear. Even from here, Six could make out the discomfort rippling through your features, your body language tightening.

He maneuvered silently, finding the gaps between loitering admirers and departing patrons, his instincts guiding him as he threaded through the throng. The chatter seemed to dull, a singular focus bringing clarity to the chaos, and he utilized his years of training to remain unseen.

He reached the edge of the group as the conversation grew heated, voices barely low enough to be concealed from view.

There, he remained in the shadows, caught between the instinct to intervene and the reminder as to why he was there. It was easy for him to remember times when he had treaded those murky waters, negotiating the fine line between survival and exposure. But this was different; this was a woman who commanded attention without asking for it, your mere presence seemingly capable of disrupting even the most resolute power dynamics. 

Your laughter, buoyant and inviting, echoed into the evening air as you conversed with the approaching men. Those moments of levity contrasted sharply with the dark undertones he sensed lingering beneath their conversation. 

Before he could decide whether to step forward, to push through the wall of bodies between him and the interactions playing out, he caught your gaze. For a fraction of a second, your eyes—sharp and discerning—met his. It was a fleeting connection, one that felt charged with electric intensity. You registered his presence amidst the crowd, and to Six's surprise, your smile didn’t falter; if anything, it grew wider, infused with a sense of secret understanding as if you held the knowledge of his internal struggle.

Time seemed to stretch, and the world around him faded slightly; all that mattered was that moment of contact, that shared awareness. But just as quickly as it had come, it was gone. The man beside you gestured, pointing toward the street with a confident flourish, and you turned to engage with him instead, your body language responding to their words, and your demeanor remained untouched by the men’s advances. The laughter you had shared with your castmates faded into something more guarded.

“Hey,” he heard one of the men say, voice low and feeling more like a threat than an invitation. “You should come join us. We’d love to talk about your performance tonight.”

You tilted your head slightly, feigning courtesy while an imperceptible tension threaded through your smile. There was a flash of rebellion in your eyes, one that set you apart from the asphyxiating charm of the suited men. “I appreciate the invite, but it looks like my boyfriend is here. Thank you, gentleman,” you replied, your voice light, yet firm.

What?

And then you were there, right in front of him. With a swift, confident motion, your hand latched onto his arm, pulling him toward the edge of the throng. The suddenness of your touch shocked him, an instinctive tension flaring through his body at the contact. You were warm, electric; the skin of your fingers was soft yet assertive, a stark contrast to the chilled, armored exterior he’d crafted around himself for so long.

The men in suits, taken aback by your declaration, glanced back and forth between you and him, their expressions shifting momentarily from charm to confusion, like a well-rehearsed play suddenly going off-script.

“Your boyfriend?” One of the suited men echoed, his voice taut but dripping with skepticism, as if he couldn’t reconcile the commanding figure of the actress with that of Six. “We didn’t catch that at the theater.”

Six felt the weight of their scrutiny, the way their calculating eyes assessed him but nonetheless too intimidated to approach or challenge the notion. That, he was confident at least, was a fight he would win. Words fled him; he could only stand there, frozen, caught in the web you had spun so effortlessly.

“Maybe that’s because he wasn’t on stage,” you replied, your tone playful yet edged with an undeniable authority. “But I assure you, he’s quite impressive in his own right.”

The way you spoke about him struck Six in an unexpected way. He had spent so much time in the shadows, a recluse draped in the obscurity of his past, that your casual identification of him as “boyfriend” felt dangerously bold.

The men in suits were still regarding him, their eyes scanning him with a mix of incredulity and irritation, their charming masks slipping ever so slightly. Six could almost hear the low hum of their unvoiced doubts, the question of how this woman—capable of such magnetic performances—could have found yourself entangled with someone like him.

But then again, he felt it too: the absurdity of the moment. Here he was, the ghost of a man with no clear path forward, thrust into a spotlight he hadn’t asked for, standing next to a woman who had just captivated an audience with your artistry. And yet there you were, integrating him into a narrative he never thought he’d be a part of, and holding your ground despite it.

With that, grumbling incoherent curses, they retreated into the evening, leaving you standing there amidst the floodlights and lingering applause, unscathed beside him. The conversation bubbled away as the street filled with life again—a theater where dreams collided with reality.

Six turned to you, still trying to grasp the kaleidoscope of emotions swirling within him. His heart thudded in time with the uncertainty of what lay ahead. “Why did you say that?”

“That you’re impressive?” You asked, a glimmer of mischief in your eye, your presence casting an undeniable spell. “You look like the capable type.” At his skeptical look, you rolled your eyes and backtracked. “Life is a stage, darling. Lines blur, roles shift. I thought you might be interested.”

Six opened his mouth to protest, but the words caught in his throat. He didn’t know what to say.

“And it’s good to see you again.”

“Again?” he echoed, his heart racing not just from the realization that you recognized him, but from the implications of your words. He quickly glanced around to ensure no one was close enough to overhear their conversation; shadows danced across the sidewalk under the hustle of the streetlights, but the crowd had thinned.

You tilted your head, an amused smile playing on your lips. “You weren’t exactly discreet back there. You could’ve just introduced yourself instead of lurking by the exit like a stagehand waiting for a cue.”

Your lighthearted banter caught him off guard. Six’s mind scrambled to assemble a coherent response. Following you? No, more like observing from a distance, trying to glean whether you were who he thought you were—the potential link that could bridge the gap back to Claire.

“Look, I’m not—” he started, but you raised a hand to cut him off.

“Save it.” Your eyes sparkled with an understanding that felt both unsettling and relieving. “I get it. Sometimes it’s easier to observe than to engage, especially when what you’re watching feels like enough of a performance already.” Your grin softened, only slightly, and somehow it made him feel like he wasn’t being judged. “But it’s not a crime to want to observe. Though I’ll admit, it does tend to raise eyebrows.”

“Did it?” Six asked, skepticism lacing his voice. He couldn’t place why your tone felt flirtatious and serious at once, and the blend made him dizzy.

“Of course.” You shrugged, seemingly carefree yet intensely aware. “People are wired to question the unusual. You seemed—at least from the stage—weathered; it’s not everyday someone like you shows up to watch a play. Almost like you aren’t from around here.”

Those words hung in the air, the implications swirling between them, bidding Six the sudden want to disengage and flee.

“Were you following me?” You asked, your voice playful but with an undertone that suggested you were serious. Watching him as if you already knew the answer, prepared for whatever excuse he would concoct.

“No.” The denial slipped out a bit too quickly, and he could see your amusement grow. “I mean…not like that.”

“Then what were you doing?” You eyed him with mock suspicion, leaning slightly closer. “You’ve got to admit, you made quite the impression lurking in the back while I bared my soul to an audience.”

“Do you—do you know me?” Six found the words slipping from his mouth before he could stop them. The question felt urgent, weighted with the rolling tension beneath his skin. Your inquisitive gaze held onto him, curiosity flickering like the streetlights casting shadows on your features.

“Should I?” You arched an eyebrow, your expression merging amusement with genuine curiosity. “You seem like someone who likes to keep a low profile. Not exactly headline material.”

He swallowed, suddenly acutely aware of the small distance between them—the warmth radiating from you was disconcertingly comforting, and he couldn’t help but feel exposed. “Maybe not. But…” His words faltered, and he stumbled over a half-formed thought. 

Your interest peaked, and you shifted, leaning in slightly as if trying to draw him closer, though he couldn’t tell if it was an invitation or an entrapment. “I’m not a detective. It might help if you started with a name.”

You didn’t know, he suddenly realized like a kick to the gut and a sudden onslaught of relief. Dani had been wrong. He tried to pull away gently, but your grip tightened slightly. Not enough to hurt, but enough to assert that you expected him to stay. 

He opened his mouth to say something dismissive, yet the words failed him. Instead, he took a breath, the chill of the evening air filling his lungs. “I just needed to see.”

Your gaze softened as if inviting him to reveal more. The street vibrated with life around you—the laughter of passersby, the distant honking of cars, the occasional clatter of footsteps echoing against the sidewalk. But for Six, the world beyond the two of you faded into a dissonant background, rendering the chaos outside nearly imperceptible. 

“You just needed to see,” you repeated, stepping away just enough for him to breathe. “And what is it you were hoping to see?” The playful spark in your voice had shifted to something more earnest, coaxing out the truth he struggled to articulate.

“Nothing,” he said abruptly.

You tilted your head, your expression shifting from playful intrigue to genuine concern. “You’re a terrible liar, you know.” Your voice was low, almost conspiratorial, as if sharing a secret only the two of you could understand. And perhaps that was the crux of it—this moment felt like a fragile oasis amidst the chaotic life he’d crafted around him. “Or just unapologetically awkward.”

You searched his eyes, the playful glimmer in them softening into something more sincere, almost tender. “You’re going to at least walk me home, then,” you said suddenly, breaking the spell with casual authority. “You can tell me everything and nothing at once if you’d like.”

The simplicity of your request startled him; it was as if you demanded connection despite the anonymity. 

Vulnerability threatened to overtake his carefully constructed walls. He should have said no, should have slipped back into the anonymity he was accustomed to. But as he looked at you, something inside him stirred, and he caved.

“Alright.”

“Good choice,” you said, turning on your heel and starting down the sidewalk. He followed closely, the distance between you shrinking as their footsteps synchronized against the rhythm of the bustling street.

As you walked, he stole glances at your profile—the way the streetlights traced soft shadows along your cheek, the confidence in your posture, each movement graceful yet grounded. You weaved through clusters of people, the laughter and chatter fading into white noise, their surroundings melting into an indistinct haze.

“Where do you live?” he asked, half-wondering if he should be asking at all.

“Just a couple of blocks from here,” you replied with a casual shrug. “I won’t hold you to any specifics though, don’t worry,” you added with a wink, and the ease with which you deflected his unease momentarily disarmed him. “You could say I’m an open book. Just not all chapters are meant for public consumption.”

There it was again—the way your words hung in the air, heavy with implication, making him acutely aware of their proximity. The atmosphere shimmered with a charged sense that everything felt on the brink of becoming something else, something neither of them had planned.

The two of you turned down a narrow alley that opened into a small courtyard, tucked away from the bustling street. A dim light flickered above, casting an ethereal glow that made the entire scene feel like it was pulled from a dreamscape, amplifying the surreal connection the two of you had stumbled into.

“Here it is,” you announced, halting in front of a modest brick building. You cast a glance back over your shoulder at him, your smile stretching wide, matching the glow of the flickering light.

His heart thudded in his chest, a powerful reminder of his unease—the shadows of his past loomed deeper now. He was just supposed to observe, gather information; instead, he found himself enveloped in a moment that felt electric and disorienting. He’d never intended to be caught in your orbit, but here he was, riding your coattails.

“Thanks for the escort,” you said, your voice teasing yet sincere. “I’d say you make a great boyfriend.” 

“It’s... nice; your house,” he managed, clearing his throat, feeling more awkward than he ever had in his life, as if his tongue had forgotten how to form words. He couldn't help but wonder if you could feel the tension radiating off of him like heat waves rising from asphalt.

“I’m glad you think so,” you replied, propping herself against the door casually, an inviting smile on your lips. “Thanks for walking me home. It was nice,” you continued, your eyes sparkling with mischief and something deeper—a warmth that felt dangerously inviting. “It’s not every day I get to share the sidewalk with a lurker.”

Heat crept up his neck, and he turned his gaze down towards the ground, feeling the weight of all the words he should have said, and all the silences that hung between you. “Right.” He rubbed the back of his neck with an uncertain hand, forcing a chuckle that fell awkwardly loose in the stillness. “I mean, I wasn’t really—”

“Observing,” you corrected, feigning seriousness but unable to hide your smile. “I remember you saying that. But ghosts deserve to be seen too, don’t you think?”

“Right,” he echoed, half-heartedly. The words felt clunky, like trying to fit together mismatching pieces.

As the silence stretched between you with you watching him–you stepped closer, your natural confidence blazing. The night air, charged and filled with the distant music of laughter and life, seemed to ebb as you tilted your head slightly, surveying him with an intensity that made his breath catch.

“Should I take this as an invitation to call you out for lurking?” you teased, your voice low, tantalizingly close as you drew even nearer. The warmth radiating from you enveloped him, sending a rush of confused emotions slamming against the walls he had built with such care.

Before he could form a response—a witty remark, an excuse, or simply the truth—you closed the distance, surprising him entirely. Your lips met his, soft yet assured, a fleeting collision that sent a shockwave through his senses. It was clumsy, raw, and caught him completely off guard. His mind raced as he tried to process the whirlwind of feelings crashing over him, eclipsing the years of solitude that had become his fortress.

He felt himself riveted in place, heart pounding, pulse racing, a hundred fragmented thoughts colliding in a cacophony of confusion. How could he respond? What was happening? The world had become a dreamscape, and he felt perilously awake.

And then, in a breathless heartbeat, their lips met—a kiss that ignited something dormant in him, a long-lost experience. The warmth surged through him, swelling with unexpected exhilaration. It was both grounding and liberating, a brief moment suspended in time that felt like unconfined freedom.

When you pulled away slightly, there was a soft glow in your expression. “You see that?" you murmured, brushing your fingers against his arm, the touch lingering just enough to send shivers racing down his spine. “Ghosts deserve to be seen too. Everyone does, in their own way. You were watching by a curtain—” you shrugged, “--maybe it’s time to step out.”

As the last hint of the kiss lingered in the cool air between you, your soft smile anchored him to the present. The uncertainty that had fluttered within him gradually settled, melting into relief very profound. No longer terminally adrift, he had brushed against something real, something exhilarating, yet disconcerting.

“Goodnight,” you said, your voice tinged with warmth, as if the two of you had shared something far deeper than a mere kiss in the dim glow of the courtyard. You stepped back, breaking the spell and bringing the world surging back into focus. The sounds of laughter and distant music spilled back, drowned out against his eardrums.

“Right, goodnight,” he managed in response, his voice thick with an unsureness that he couldn’t quite suppress. The conversation seemed to slip back into the cracks of his awkwardness—his habitual need to be something he wasn’t. He shuffled his feet, caught between the urgency to leave and the reluctance to do so. Each breath was heavy with a million unspoken thoughts that danced just out of reach.

You watched him keenly, a gleam of amusement sparkling in your eyes. Your laughter chimed like a bell, and despite himself, he couldn’t help but smile—a slight twitch of one side–at your infectious joy. “Well, consider this your official invitation to un-lurk, if that’s even a thing,” you said, your playful lilt cutting through the tension that still clung to him. “Just don’t make it a habit to haunt the back rows of theaters. You'll give the performers an existential crisis.”

“Got it,” he replied, the corners of his mouth quirking up at a more profound angle.

As you opened your door, silhouetted by the soft light spilling onto the packed cobblestone, you paused and looked back over your shoulder. “I look forward to seeing you again, lurker,” you said, your smile brightening the shadows of the night. “And maybe next time, you could share a bit more than just your presence.”

You chuckled softly, the sound wrapping around him warmly before you stepped back inside, the door clicking shut with a faint echo.

Six however lingered for a moment after you’d gone, heart racing, mind still spinning from the encounter. He turned and began to walk away, the street lights flickering beside him, their glow illuminating a path back toward a reality he felt both eager and apprehensive to embrace.

Claire.

The name washed over him with gentle familiarity, calling him back to the comfort he had built and reminding him as to the reason behind his mission in the first place. As he made his way toward home, each step felt lighter, the weight of his solitude beginning to dissolve.

But as he walked, your laughter—a soft, musical echo—lingered in his mind, something vibrant intertwining with thoughts of Claire. He didn’t know how to reconcile the two worlds that tugged at him—the comfortable, the predictable, and now, the uncertainty that came with you, an invitation that he didn’t know how to take.

Pull (Leon x Reader)

Fandom: Resident Evil

Pairings: Leon x Reader, Leon x You

Type: Snippet/Concept

Word Count: 3.4K

Snippet/Summary:

“Why did you do it?” He asked. “You aren’t here for me. Why seek me out?”

“Looked like you needed company.” You stepped around him, one fluid sweep of your legs, the bare brush of your skin against his own urging him to turn after you. He reached for you, but you slipped through his fingers. You paused by the doorway, your hand gripping the frame, turning your head to look over your shoulder. Your eyes locked. “Standing in the corner on your own looked lonely.”

The smell of roses and mint brushed Leon’s nose as you left. Right then and there, Leon realized that he was fond of both plants, and finally forced himself to look away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Leon watched you from the shadows of the ballroom, having tucked himself away through a doorway to the side specifically to avoid your attention. It was some kind of sick, divine fate that he would be assigned here, and find you, taking his breath away and curling barbed wire around his beating heart, grabbing the ends with your bare hands and twisting it tight. Days spent on a fucked up island off the coast of Spain had hardly yanked a reaction from him, and yet you managed to do it without notice. 

You had a similar rapport for wearing black like he had, but Leon hadn’t expected the startling blue that you’d decided to grace tonight, throwing your head back and laughing as a young man lifted you into the air. He ignored your partner, and let the sight of you subdue him from doing anything rash. It was all for show where you were concerned, he knew. If it didn’t have some kind of ulterior motive, he doubted that you would even be here.

You definitely weren’t here looking for him.

Regardless, he imagined himself shoving your partner away and taking you into his own arms, whisking you away into his private corner. He could hear himself breathing soft words into your ear, you unbuttoning his shirt and sliding your hands up the rigid lines of his stomach. Your fingers were capable, always approaching everything with care and purpose in mind; you wouldn’t realize that you were doing it, but you would have planned every ridge and crevice that you traced before you did it, skimming your fingers across his chest, pressing your teasing lips to his neck and whispering things of your own. Your soft whispers would fill his ears.

You would say things that would have him thinking on it for months afterwards.

Leon entertained owning a place like this, offering it to you, offering something to make up for the time that you had been close only to be forced apart. He did not delude himself; life had kept both of you on opposite sides, one constantly chasing after the other. He had nothing to offer you, always on the move and one step away from dying. 

But if he could keep you in this beautiful, gilded cage, maybe you would finally settle. It was all a fool’s dream, though.

“You’re gonna burn a hole in her,” he heard Chris off to his left, “you keep staring so hard.”

A droll stare was thrown Chris’ way, and the soldier’s arms immediately threw up in surrender. “I’m only saying. Trust is built through actions, not words, and you two have one hell of a streak.”

“Why don’t you put in a word for me,” Leon retorted. “Let me know how it works out.”

“Better than you’d think,” Chris replied, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “But that’s not what we’re here for tonight. You want paid, you can’t hide out in the corner all night.”

Leon didn’t consider it hiding. Many assignments had insisted that he take to seclusion and observe; get a read on anyone that might serve some kind of importance and document the rest. Granted, he’d been standing there for the last half hour and still couldn’t get a read on you or your intentions, but he wouldn’t have considered it a waste of time, either. 

Regardless, Chris had a point. 

“What about Jill?” He asked. “What’s the report?”

“She’s making sure that the assets stay where they’re supposed to be.” Chris answered. “And the client is currently without security which is you, so.” He cocked his head.

“I don’t see why I need to stand toe to toe with some rich prick all night,” he exhaled, his eyes subconsciously straying back toward you. “Anyone goes after him, it won’t be out in the open where everyone can see.” They would wait, and as far as he could tell, his client had been surrounded by numbers of women and important business partners for the majority of the night.

It reeked of perfume and cologne, it was loud, and Leon had taken the opportunity of his client focusing his energy on gathering donations to battle “bioterrorism threats” and not pretending it was some kind of publicity stunt to instead grab a corner, have a few drinks, and be left alone. At least until he’d seen you and his idea of the night was turned upside down. 

Maybe he was hiding. 

“You know better than that Leon,” Chris continued to gripe into his ear. “Threats can come from anywhere; any time. You’ve seen enough of it.” 

“Ashley Graham could handle herself with possessed cultists. As long as nobody starts eating each other or turning into monsters, it will be a big improvement compared to what I’ve seen.” Leon said absently, nearly a mumble underneath his breath. 

Chris rolled one shoulder. “If it does, I’d rather have you near the client than over here.” 

Leon didn’t have to lean too hard to recognize it as an order, even if Chris was hardly his superior. They were classified as a ‘team’–him, Chris and Jill–but it wasn’t unlike Chris to immediately take up the lead. That didn’t mean that it wouldn’t annoy Leon where it wasn’t convenient. 

“Yessir,” he said with a mock salute, handing off the wine glass that he’d been holding to Chris before traversing onto the main floor. More so, skirting along the outer edge. The throng of people didn’t make it too difficult to blend, but by the time that he looked over to where you had been, he didn’t see you anymore. The absence of your previous dance partner didn’t go unnoticed either, but Leon pushed it aside to ascend the stairs and find his client by the upper railing, surrounded by people talking inconspicuously and flashing their money with their wardrobe. 

Leon was by no means far from the upper class; his type of work paid well after all, it had to, but he didn’t see money, cash or otherwise, saving the world. 

Him, dealing with companies brandishing world-ending viruses and fighting corruption in the form of people just a little more selfish than these people, was a better contender in comparison. He may have also been a little biased, considering. 

It didn’t take very long for boredom to strangle his expression, eyes flicking to the shoe-streaked linoleum floor. The walls below were mirrored, reflecting the colorful throngs of people that moved about in whirlpools of varying colors, their conversations blurring together. 

“I hope that you realize that this is a bad time to brood,” Leon looked up, meeting eyes with his client who had come to notice him for the first time that night. “Leon S. Kennedy, correct? Your reputation certainly precedes you.” He approached him, extending a hand. Leon shook it. “Richard Quincy. Pleasure to finally meet you. They told me that they were sending their best, but I was surprised to see you. I thought that you’d be international.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Leon said plainly. “Not much going on overseas.”

“It must be kind of beneath you, isn’t it? Combating bioterrorism by other means than taking action?” He asked. 

He shrugged. “You said it, not me.” 

“The money helps, you know? Without it, you wouldn’t have a percentage of the supplies at your disposal.”

“Money hardly means anything without the manpower, either.” And he’d gotten through The Island and Raccoon City by whatever he’d had on hand. Money hadn’t given him the experience or the means to his survival; he’d done that on his own.

Money hadn’t guaranteed Ashley coming back. He would’ve asked for a hell of a lot more in that case. 

“You do set quite the example. I’ve heard about your rescue of President Graham’s daughter a few months ago, but I haven’t heard the details about the full report.” He went on, raising a glass as though what had transpired there was something to toast about. Another had raised before Leon could speak. “I’m not going to ask, classified information and all that I understand.” 

“The health insurance is good,” Leon answered. “That helps.”

Quincy expelled a laugh. “Of that I’ve no doubt.” A pause, then suddenly engrossed, he added on: “Lady troubles?” 

Leon’s inscrutable face refused to change. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’ve barely acknowledged my existence despite me being your contract, let alone anyone else’s. Call it my expertise where yours are concerned but,” his head pivoted. “That young lady that was over there,” he’d turned and your eyes followed his lead, but again, Leon didn’t see you, only where you had been. “I thought that it was against the rules to fraternize on the job.”

The details of the room seemed to mesh together, morphing into colorless blobs, but if you were there, you would have been a beacon wherever you stood, people enveloped you as petals would to a pistil. 

“Isn’t it?” Richard pressed when Leon didn’t answer.

“I think you’ve mixed up the definitions of fraternizing and fucking.” Leon drawled, canting his head. His arms crossed. The guy was trying to get too damn personal. “Besides, I’m… on duty.”

“I’d consider it the same thing, wouldn’t you agree?”

Leon didn’t waste a beat. “No.”

“I could introduce you. Her name should be on my guest list.”

Leon considered the suggestion. 

“No.” He decided, rather quickly. Slowly, but surely, the low din of a dozen different conversations rose back in blaring chatter. At this point, Leon could finally ease up a bit, so he did. He couldn’t conjure the words, the greeting, the polite small talk. If this guy only knew, it would never even be a possibility. Besides, what could he want from you before he was whisked off to some other corner of the world?

His job gave him order and calm, but with you?

Whether his dismissive attitude irked the client or not, Quincy didn’t press further, raising a glass in a silent toast to Leon’s chosen isolation–and lack of socializing beyond raising Chris’ blood pressure wherever possible. Being as high in society as Quincy was, maybe he was used to the company, the crowds, and yet Leon had spent the worst part of the last few months being unsure whether someone would leap for his throat or not.

With you, it was a similar concept, except exceedingly more terrifying. 

“I think that I’m going to step out.” Quincy said. “Do you mind?”

Leon nodded, starting to follow, and another voice rose up behind him. He almost thanked whatever higher power for the interruption, except that it meant there was news–something had interrupted the peaceful serenity of the night, not that it hadn’t been expected; it was commonplace whenever the three of them were put onto a team.

“Hey, Leon.” 

Jill jogged up to him, fighting with their superiors–and namely Chris–to wear a tactical outfit over fitting herself formal for the occasion. She had won, unsurprisingly.

“What’s going on?” Leon stood up straight, immediately disregarding Quincy to face her. “What’s wrong?”

Jill raised her hands in a placating gesture, shaking her head. “No, area’s still secure. I got word; Chris wants to talk to you downstairs. I was told to stay with the client until you got back.”

Leon’s brows furrowed. “I just saw Chris. What’s he want now?”

“I wasn’t briefed.” She cocked her head toward the stairs. “Get a move on. Security said that it was urgent.”

Expression fixed into puzzlement, but nonetheless placated at the idea to get off of his short-lived security duty, he descended the stairs. The orchestra had risen into a symphony before crashing into the ground, a new tune rising from the ashes to meet it. It went unheard as he maneuvered through the crowd, turning sideways to avoid a brunt hit to the shoulder from a passing couple, giggling and twirling with an energetic fervor. 

Over the crowd of heads, he didn’t see Chris anywhere. 

What the fuck?

Turning toward the back of the room, after another few pointless minutes of searching, Leon was about to ascend the stairs and call Jill’s bluff, except that two strong arms had grabbed at the flaps of his suit jacket, a sudden momentum swinging him into one of the adjacent hallways by the stairs. He attempted to draw back, only for a sharp heel to sweep around his ankle and trip him into one of the empty rooms. There was a flash, a blurry figure dancing around him with flawless grace and damn near mockery. He grunted, grappling at the doorframe on his way through only to finally retaliate. 

His hands grabbed at his attacker’s waist, slinging them upward and flinging them onto a coffee table. The force knocked the breath from them, and Leon believed that he had finally grappled for release. Except, his attacker’s arms looped around his neck and drew him in close, a familiar face, panting and out of breath, drawing him in until they were nose to nose. 

It was you. 

Your eyes spoke for you what you didn’t immediately say, and despite the fact that Leon hadn’t been the one to hit the table, he felt as if he was the one that couldn’t breathe. 

Your name was a breathless whisper on his lips, unable to maintain his composed facade long enough to regain his composure before you had noticed. He drew back, and you allowed it to a degree, just enough for him to be able to prop himself up with his palms on either side of you.

“I almost thought that you forgot about me.” You said, eyes crinkling with the smile that teased your lips. He could feel your gentle breath touching his face while the oxygen finally inflated back into your lungs, a gentle rasping turning into something more even. 

“No.” Leon said, a little too quickly, and he backtracked to the most obvious question. “What are you doing here?” 

“Why?” You countered, raising your eyebrows. “Are you worried about me?”

“I’m serious,” he untangled himself from you, rising to a standing position. The room was enveloped in the dark, shadows casting across the wall. Somehow, you were still the most prevalent thing inside the room, even if he could hardly outline your face; your figure. You were like an intoxication ushering him closer, a parasite curling inside of him with a smile that contradicted all of his expectations. “You tipped security to lure me here?”

You stood, craning your neck to look up at him. Leon had to shuffle back lest you be pressed up to his chest, and yet his fingers still itched to grab your hand. 

“Don’t worry.” You soothed. “I’m not here to ruin the job.” You brushed past him to flick on a lamp, painting your faces in a pale orange glow. Leon’s head remained cocked at an angle, but one misfired look from you and his composure would unravel. Your eyes were like morning, the first shots pouring through the windows, or the glass atrium above your heads. You glided across the granite like a ghost, quiet enough but not consistently able to evade his notice. 

A fine line existed between speechlessness and stoicism, and he could not tell which side he currently teetered on. Thoughts scrambled for reasonable purchase, one benefit to his dour expression was that at least he had the ability to appear indifferent in the face of beautiful adversity. 

“Then, why are you here? Is it the assets?”

“It’s my first time in Italy,” you reasoned. “I went and saw the San Severo Chapel.” You sighed wistfully. “It’s gorgeous.” Casually, you added. “Oh, and the coliseum. That was exceptional.” The tone in your voice sounded delighted, but your easily excitable nature and compulsion for things that would be considered fun was what had made it easy for you to make friends with Claire. You and Jill were more on a mutual respect level. 

“So, that’s it? You came here for a little sightseeing?”

“Not completely.” You shrugged one shoulder. “It is business, but I had a little bit of time to kill.” You confessed. “I’m here to kill Richard Quincy, raid the buffet table, and take the next plane back to the states.”

Leon found himself dumbfounded, even if he had expected something along those lines. “I thought that you weren’t here to mess with the job?”

“The assets are your job, and mine happens to be a favor from someone who really doesn’t like your client.”

“Jill and Chris are here,” Leon reminded you. 

“And they will get hurt if they get in the way. That is the business part and I can’t afford to make exceptions for friends.” 

Leon grimaced, but you were looking unwavering into his eyes, your expression friendly but passive. The words would have chilled anyone else, or they wouldn’t have taken you seriously at all. He did. “Are you in trouble?” He asked you, reaching for your arm. You let him take it, his fingers curling around your forearm before gradually sliding to your wrist, and then your palm. “I can get you out of it. Whatever it is, we can work together on this.”

You scoffed a laugh under your breath, looking away, eyes skimming the gaudy features of the room before your sharp gaze returned to him. Your head tilted. “You still have a sense of humor. You shouldn’t make promises that you can’t keep.”

“It’s not a promise, it’s a certainty.” He said firmly.

You shuffled closer to him, slipping your hand from his grasp. Your voice was a soft, tantalizing whisper, your calm lilt forcing chills down his spine. “The first time that I needed you, you were chasing after a drug lord with Krauser. The second, you left for some far off island off the coast of Spain. A pause. “On your own.” 

“It was an order from–”

“From President Graham. I read all about it.” You rolled your eyes. “The hero Leon Kennedy goes to a foreign territory to save the president’s daughter from a psychotic cult. You’ve made a name for yourself. Should I ask for an autograph?”

Leon scoffed good-naturedly, shaking his head. “It’s part of the job. It wasn’t exactly a vacation, either.”

“Well, while you made friends with the locals, I was here.” Your falling expression as you looked away did little to mar your allurement. “And I got to a point where I couldn’t wait for you anymore.”

“I’m–” Leon exhaled. “I’m sorry.”

You only shrugged. “Part of the job, right?” 

It was as if it really was that simple; it was a job, and that got in the way of things, had spread the two of you apart as far as you could go. Seeing you again was almost surreal, but Leon had gotten to a point after Raccoon City when he was taking his life one step at a time, leaving whatever happened across his trail behind for what his life had been expected to be. 

Leon nodded, slowly and just once. “Yeah.” 

You copied the action, albeit a little more enthusiastically. “Right, then. It was nice to see you, but I do have a contract just as you do.”

“I can’t let you do that.” Leon stepped in your way, but you didn’t back down, the two of you standing toe to toe. “You can wait here. After the job, we can go somewhere. Anywhere. Just name it. We’ll talk. Really talk.”

You raised your head a little higher. 

“You should’ve been careful, what you did.” He went on to warn. “I could’ve killed you.”

You offered a small scoff of a laugh, incredulous, your lips twitching into an amused smile. “You really are hilarious.”

“Why did you do it?” He asked. “You aren’t here for me. Why seek me out?”

“Looked like you needed company.” You stepped around him, one fluid sweep of your legs, the bare brush of your skin against his own urging him to turn after you. He reached for you, but you slipped through his fingers. You paused by the doorway, your hand gripping the frame, turning your head to look over your shoulder. Your eyes locked. “Standing in the corner on your own looked lonely.”

The smell of roses and mint brushed Leon’s nose as you left. Right then and there, Leon realized that he was fond of both plants, and finally forced himself to look away.

Hii! I hope your having a lovely day/evening. Could I be added to your gray man tag list?

Yes, of course! (: I will add you!

A Friend to None (Into The Gray Chpt. 5)

Fandom: The Gray Man (2022)

Pairings: Sierra Six x Reader, Courtland Gentry x Reader, Sierra Six x You, Courtland Gentry x You

Type: Multi-Chap

Parts of your memories felt like lies, other parts blurring together or not there at all. Faces and voices, names–you hardly remembered your own some days, but you entertained that it was because you had been filed down to a what instead of a who your entire life. Sometimes, you stopped just long enough to think about it, sort through what was real and what wasn’t. More often than not, you ended up with more things being on the fake end, some aspects of your life balancing precariously between the two.

Six was not a victim of prejudice like you were, defined by what he did in the present only. He was moral, and loyal–two things that you didn’t think you were. After all, you’d slept with men that you knew you’d have to kill–blank faces and printed names on a manila folder. You never regretted it, and it wasn’t something that you laid awake thinking about. They weren’t good men, and you’d do it again as many times as you had to.  Lloyd hadn’t been a good man, but you hadn’t killed him. There was something about that; having it mean something, and having a choice. It felt like that semblance of a choice was taken away like most things in your life, except that you didn’t think that you would have done it.

But now you also didn’t have the opportunity to know for sure.

Your eyes rested calmly on Six, his tense and strong outline the most profound thing in the darkened space. A gun was aimed between your eyes, the hand that gripped it steady and practiced from years worth of contracts against people who hadn’t earned the hesitation that you had. His finger didn’t rest on the trigger, but hovered beside it. He hadn’t yet made his choice, but that could change within a fraction of a second.

“You didn’t,” you’d said softly as you toed off your shoes by the door and traversed further into the house, careful against waking Claire. His eyes followed your every move, every languid stride, noticeably taking a step to the left to cut you off from where Claire’s room was. That didn’t stop your curious meander around the edges of the space in all of its emptiness and lack of any expressive or original personality. It was very reminiscent of your own space in some ways.

“Forget to lock anything, I mean.” You clarified before he could answer, picking up an old record– The Yes Album by Yes–before setting it back down on the shelf, more neatly in between a few other records that you didn’t recognize. You didn’t look at him, not at first, too focused on your own natural curiosity about a space you’d mapped, but had yet to test the complete accuracy of. “I can’t read your mind, just your face.”

“I don’t actually have to have to talk to have a conversation with you, do I?”

You hadn’t said anything in response—and only then did you give him that warm, soft smile. It was the heart of that double-edged sword that you did so well. You read people, not because you had to—that part didn’t matter to complete a mission. It wasn’t about violence and calculation.

Not all the time.

You liked people just fine, and you liked Six, some part of him expressing something to you that he was someone that could be likable, but the rarity was you expressing it. You’d consider that much a privilege to whoever ended up on the receiving end of it.

“I thought for someone as smart as you, you wouldn’t try to settle.” You mused, taking another sweeping glance around the house. You didn’t have time to appreciate its simple architecture, but you appreciated the concept. “I’m assuming that after you grabbed Claire, you tried to move closer to your origins.”

Six’s expression changed, while to him may have been indiscernible, to you , you knew that you’d hit close to home. “How much do you know about me?” He asked, cautious, afraid to give away much else; anything else–he’d already given away more than he meant to.

“Nothing,” you said simply with a vague shrug of your shoulders. “Like everyone else. That’s why I think this particular move was very intelligent on your part.”

He glanced behind him, quick, then looked back at you just as quickly. You saw his urge to back up and peek through the blinds, to search for anyone else, but he didn’t take his eyes off you. He was smart. As smart as you gave him credit for. “Am I surrounded?”

You quirked a smile at one edge of your lips, tilting your head. “Just you and me.”

Six remained wary. “And who are you?”

You told him your name, matter-of-factly.

“Are you here to kill me, because if you know anything about me, you know they’re not paying you enough to do this.” He scrutinized your expression, and you didn’t think there was anything on your face that he could decipher from it, nothing that you didn’t want him to see. “But something about you tells me that it won’t make a difference.”

“I’ve been throwing Carmichael off your scent, but now I’m going to need you to come in.”

“What if I say no?”

You didn’t watch where his finger lingered by the trigger, twitching between a lethal decision, but you saw it out of the corner of your eye. He didn’t shoot you for the sake of keeping Claire asleep, if subjecting her to more carnage could be avoided. You hadn’t proved yourself an outright threat, either. Not yet.

“If you say no,” you shrugged again, less subtle. “Then you’re right. It won’t make a difference.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because I’m not here for Claire, and you’re very attached to her.”

“You wouldn’t get very far if you were.” He answered, blunt.

“Oh, I know that.” You smiled. Your feet had lingered at the border between the living room and the kitchen, then you finally crossed from tile to plush carpet directly into his space. Only then did his finger move to the trigger, and you raised your hands, turning them around so that he could see you weren’t armed. “Just like I know that you would rather shoot your way out of a problem.”

“I’d rather not shoot you at all if I don’t have to.”

“That’s your first mistake.”

One of the many things that you’d learned while studying Six were a few of his mannerisms, his quirks, the subtle little movements telling you whether or not he would be a threat. He wouldn’t. Not unless you attacked him first–he fought honorably one-on-one–and not until you proved a threat to Claire. With that knowledge, you pursued him.

Six retreated as you persisted. Your feet were in tow with his own, nearly stepping on his toes with every backward stride that he made across the living room. His back hit the opposite wall, and you were there, looking up at the slope of his chin and the way he tilted his head up to get away from you. Your own head pivoted to the side, eyes narrowing in a casual curiosity.

“Your morality is going to get you killed.” You chided, even with the muzzle of his pistol pressed against your temple.

“It hasn’t yet. I try to be optimistic.” He huffed.

There was hardly an inch of space between the two of you, chests nearly brushing, voices lowered to a whisper as though sharing a secret in a crowded room. Secrets were the only thing that the two of you had, things that you both hid well from a world that you were no longer a part of. Ideas of domesticity and something akin to normal were lost to the both of you, and you believed that maybe, they always had been.

“Optimistic.” You mused aloud with a smile, shaping the unfamiliar word over in your mouth. “For you, or for Claire? It’s been a while since her last incident, and I know that you don’t want to break that streak.” You leaned up, rising onto your tip-toes, your voice a low silkiness that you were sure made him tense, rippled goosebumps along the flesh of his biceps and his throat where he swallowed.

But you knew that somewhere, you’d hit a chord, a harmonious tune that only spoke the harshness of the truth. It wasn’t anything that he hadn’t thought of already, his own insecurities spilling from your mouth in the only place they’d been able to consider a home since Six’s breakout from the hospital–the result had been bloody carnage, special forces wiped out by one injured man.

Six’s skill and morality were a strong and weak point that bounced off one another like two charges at the receiving ends of a battery. Both dependent on the situation, but held steadfast to his value that some people in the world deserved to die. Six may have been something akin to a machine in the past, taking orders and following the demands of his master, but his self-preservation for someone else’s sake and his complete refusal of orders if something immoral happened to get in the way of him and his goal would be his downfall.

Eventually, if not right now.

“Is that what you know?”

“I know that even Dani Miranda wanted to use Claire against you.” You didn’t blink as you listed off the familiar set of names. “Denny Carmichael. Donald Fitzroy. Lloyd Hansen.” You shrugged. “They’re all two sides of the same coin. With Claire involved, that’s one fight you won’t ever win.”

Six looked down at you, but his was an easy gaze that you met with equal force. In the silence that neither of you disturbed, you heard the steady pitter-patter of rain off the roof, the storm sweeping in too late. You’d already proved to be an unstoppable force on your own, the tension in the room too thick to cut through, and yet comfortable all the same.

“And whose side are you on?” He asked, quiet.

“Nobody’s.” You answered, and somehow that was still the truth even in the few months spent in the service of the CIA. Your loyalty never belonged to them, and you’d come from a different set of rules. “Not anymore.”

In the beginning, you supposed that you owed Lloyd, but you couldn’t owe somebody that was dead. You were more practical, and had no intentions of preserving his memory, or living in his name. You didn’t end up a pawn to the CIA because they wanted you to. You were with the CIA because your intentions happened to lie within the realm of their convenience.

“So a friend, then?”

“Is that what you want me to be?” You raised your eyebrows. “Because you’re in the wrong business for that.”

“I’m not in that business anymore.”

You almost laughed at the irony–the both of you still very much a part of that business. It was what you knew best, cozy fairytale endings and white picket fences far outside your reach. You had to give him credit for trying, but you knew that he was in the same mindset that you were–a life like that was never meant for people like you, tools like you.

And it was terrifying. Caring about people. You’d learned not to.

You nodded, only once. “That’s right. You’re in the business of menial labor.” You clicked your tongue. “And you’re terrible at it.”

Six snorted.

Down the hall, the tired shuffling of feet over carpet split between the two of you, the small crack in the door opening wider. “Six?” The voice of a young girl– Claire –called out into the darkness of the house, the only light from the lamp illuminating both of your shadows across the wall, and hers, growing closer, a small blob spreading wide into a silhouette.

The two of you didn’t move, didn’t breathe.

You glanced at him, but he was no longer looking at you. His raging focus was on the hallway, a concern taking to a placid expression. You started to move away, and the barrel of his gun began to lower, but there was another sound too. A quiet shuffling at first until the source of the new noise became clear, a plethora of footsteps in rapid sync, the sound of a hiss as something smashed through the window behind you.

Gas.

All sound was suddenly muted, a dense mirage crawling over the enclosed space. Claire’s further calls drowned in your ears, as well as the sound of sudden gunfire–the embrace of death did not come from a swift bullet to the head as you expected. Six was shoving you to the floor, glass shattering overhead from the windows that had been behind you moments earlier. You thought that you heard him grunt, a sudden string of scarlet running down the crown of your head.

But not from you.

His weight was off of you within seconds, the loud thumping of combat boots and rushed orders signaling the arrival of the CIA–Carmichael was closer than you’d thought. You moved to your knees and crawled the length of the living room, the flurry of bodies nothing but distorted movement in your peripherals. You didn’t go for Six and finish the job for yourself, and you didn’t go for the exit as you should have.

You went for the hallway. For Claire.

She’d backed away at the sudden invasion of smoke, the scene becoming too much of a familiarity for her to start crying, to start screaming. She called Six’s name and backed toward her room. When she saw you, she pivoted back on her heel to run, but you were on your feet and grabbing her arm before she made much distance, yanking her back in the direction that she was already going.

“What are you doing? Let go!” She hissed, her nails digging deep arcs into your arm with violent, terrified desperation.

You yanked her into her room and slammed the door shut, ignoring the ache that split down your forearm. You were sure that if you’d looked, you were probably bleeding. She continued backing away, backing into a corner, instinctively moving for the window.

“Did Six give you directions to a safehouse in cases like this?” You said as you retrieved a backpack by the bed, shoving anything inside that looked relevant plus a few things that you’d quickly noted as sentimental. Through the dark, most things were guesswork, vague outlines of familiar objects, but you were suddenly working against the clock–more akin to a ticking time bomb, you supposed given the circumstances.

“What?”

“A safehouse? Like a–”

“I know what a safehouse is.” She scowled.

You didn’t bite back at the retort. “Okay. You’re going to go there. I’ll find you when I need you.” You’d turned–unable to gradually lose your patience because at the moment you didn’t have any–shoving the backpack into her arms, shuffling her back a few steps. Her bewildered eyes followed you as you moved to lift the window up. It stuck, but with a few forceful tugs, it finally gave way. You were immediately met with an onslaught of rain, the sandy terrain morphing into a muddy sludge sliding downward around the edges of the house.

Claire was looking at the door, at the commotion happening just on the other side.

They were coming.

“Claire.” You said, and she jumped and turned toward you, eyes wide. Dark tendrils of hair stuck to her sweat soaked face, her shoulders rising and falling in rapid succession. Her eyes flicked warily to the door, then back to you.

“Who are you? What’s… What’s happening to Six? Are they going to hurt him?”

You ignored her, standing in front of her, looking directly into her terrified eyes as you spoke just to make sure that she understood. “You’re going to stick to the right side of the house, head toward the crest of the hill, then go where you need to go. Understand?”

“Are–are you one of Six’s friends?”

You didn’t possess the moral compass that advised you to lie in order to comfort a kid. There wasn’t any point, seeing as you were certain that she already knew the answer. “No. I’m not.”

“Okay.” Claire nodded numbly, swallowing the tears that she desperately tried to keep at bay. Her arms tightened around the backpack, growing progressively more unsure. Her feet had slid into ratty tennis shoes, absent of any socks. She was smart. Between the gunfire and the yelling from what was likely a similar group of people that had taken you, she knew which was the more obvious option in her case. She didn’t run for Six even though you could tell she wanted to. “Is he gonna be okay?”

“He’ll be fine.”

She didn’t believe you, but in that regard, you hadn’t lied. Instead, she turned, and only when she’d turned away did the tears begin to fall as she lifted herself out the window. You listened for the sound of her tennis shoes landing in the sludge, the squeaking slide as she narrowly avoided falling, then the rapid, clumsy steps as she retreated.

Once her footsteps faded into the background of the storm, you followed her out, however when your feet touched the sludge with more grace, you ran in the opposite direction.

Thank you for the tag @thousandevilducks for tagging me in "10 People I'd Like to Get to Know Better"! I have also been waiting for the new season of RWBY forever. I’d at least settle for one last season to wrap things up!

I have never done one of these before, but I'll try my best! (:

Last Song: The Business by Tiẽsto

Fave Color: Yellow, but like a sunflower yellow.

Last Book: The last one I finished was The Emporer’s Edge by Lindsay Buroker but the one that I’m currently reading is The Listener by Robert McCammon.

Last Movie: The Other Guys (2010)

Last TV Show: Squid Game (Season 2)

Sweet/Savory/Spicy: Sweet

Relationship Status: Single

Last Thing I Googled: The meaning of the acronym RSV (I’m in a medical field)

Looking Forward To: My WiFi box has been broken since last Tuesday and I finally got a new one today, which is what I have most been looking forward to. After that, I’d like to get caught up on some of my WIPs and edit/fix some others, I think, specifically my "Into the Gray" fic. Other than that, finishing Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (just finished FF16 recently. Absolute heartbreak).

Current Obsession: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and a Sherlock and Co. podcast on Spotify.

My tags for people that I thought of for this: @hederasgarden, @torchbearerkyle, @imzi3, @lostinwildflowers, @justaranchhand, @saangie, @winterschildxox, @www-interludeshadow-com, @eva-712, @niobe-loreley