Into The Gray Chpt. 8 (House Call)
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.”
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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.
On The Run Part 2
On The Run (Part 2/3) "Lloyd Trash-Stache Hansen"
Fandom: The Gray Man (2022)
Pairings: N/A
Type: Gen, (Multi-Chap) (Part 2/3)
(Requests are currently open.)
Words: ~3.8K
Tags: @lady-of-nightmares-and-heartache, @torchbearerkyle
Six never startled awake.
With the exception of those first few weeks adjusting to juvie, his dreams–mild or horrible–had never had an effect on how he reacted to it in the waking world. It gave him an advantage as The Gray Man, the ability to process information while no one thought that he was conscious. Sometimes, it was a skill imperative to his survival, and it had become something that he’d practiced to make habitual. As natural as any of the other habits that made him who he was.
So when he woke from another nightmare, Fitzroy’s blood clinging to his hand, sticky and coagulating, he woke quietly, flexing his fingers to remind himself that it was just a nightmare. A reminder of an even starker reality, but regardless, a nightmare. His lashes fluttered, then his vision shifted to his surroundings as his eyes opened, everything blurring into focus one corner at a time. He laid on the couch, one arm tucked behind his head, the other draped across his stomach.
Six’s brows furrowed into a confused scowl. He didn’t remember falling asleep.
His head shot up, whipped around. Claire appeared in the very center of his vision, sat at the table with a bowl of ice-cream, acknowledging him by waving her spoon after yanking it from her mouth. She looked bored, a fist pressed against her cheek, supporting her head.
“What did you do?” He cleared his throat, scratchy from sleep, squinting through the haze. Shuttered eyelids still felt heavy, blinking several times to clear the fog that blurred the living room into abnormal shades of color.
“Slipped Melatonin in your coffee,” she supplied easily, unperturbed. “You looked like you needed a little more than five hours.”
“Claire–”
“Stay ready so that you don’t have to get ready,” Claire dropped her voice a few octaves, an exaggerated mocking to her tone that he guessed was supposed to sound like him. “I have to stay vigilant in case the bad guys come to get us again. I can’t do that if you drug me.” She gave him a droll stare, raising her eyebrows. She went on, deadpan. “Great advice, Six. I’ll be sure to remember that.”
He heaved a heavy sigh. “I was going to say that you could have warned me.”
Her smile was cheeky. “I’m sure that’s exactly what you were doing to say.”
Wincing from the cramped confines of the loveseat that he’d quite literally tucked himself into all night, he rose into a languid stretch. He pushed against his knees to stand, grabbing Claire’s phone from the table to check the clock–that was all it was capable of doing besides running the game she liked to play.
18:32.
“Eighteen hours?”
“It’s more than five.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” He grimaced at his own lack of awareness, the fact that a twelve year old could drug him and still come up with a retort before he was completely self-aware. “Are you eating ice-cream for dinner?”
“It’s all we have. We need to go to the store again. I wouldn’t argue against takeout, though.” Before he could speak, she’d already answered the obvious question for him. “Pizza, preferably Hawaiin with some pepperoni on the side. Breadsticks.”
A pause.
“Yes, you are getting predictable.” She added.
Grimacing, he obliged her by walking into the kitchen, blindly grabbing for his keys on the counter, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. When he moved back into the living room, he found that Claire hadn’t moved, still in her pajamas, standing by the door. She wore slippers on her feet, shifting her weight from the front of her toes to her heels. He raised an eyebrow. “Are you going out dressed like… that?” He waved vaguely.
“Are you going out dressed like that?” Claire quipped, a more exaggerated wave thrown over him. “You’ve been wearing the same tracksuit for three days.” She reminded him. “If you can wear that, I can get pizza in my pajamas.”
“Okay.” He yielded, and victoriously, she moved ahead of him, out into the driveway where his car was parked–not so much his car, but the license plate was legitimate at least. They slid into their respective sides, Six arguing time and time again that she sat in the back with her seatbelt on. Sometimes she listened, and other times she argued until he let her sit in the front so that she could mess with the radio.
Asking that she keep the windows rolled up often went unheard.
Air won’t stop a bullet, but a window has a better chance to lessen the impact.
You worry too much.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her hand make waves in the air, the wind from the open window brushing her hair out of her face. Six reluctantly rolled his down too. He’d known what confinement was like, at almost the same age, but he wondered just how different their situations differed. In a way, he acted like her warden, but it was to protect her from the world, rather than the other way around.
Somehow, he found that endearing, seeing her in a completely different light. It was almost like she was an actual kid again, back at Fitzroy’s house. The most she had to worry about was being in bed by a certain time and making sure he wasn’t eating gum in any place that wasn’t outside. It’d put him on the defensive, creating a habit of looking around as he carefully unfolded a piece from its wrapper. Sometimes he swore she had another sense, the way that she would pop up out of nowhere and ask him what he was doing.
And he was the one that was supposed to exist in the gray.
“You’re doing that thing again.”
Six’s eyes darted forward, resting his arm against the windowsill. The breeze touching his hand made his fingers flex, then open fully, palm out. “Doing what?”
“I don’t know,” her head pivoted to the side, looking at him critically, furrowing her brows. “It’s kind of a weird staring thing that you do when you’re thinking.”
“Is it weird?”
“For you. You’re usually looking down all the time.” When he didn’t supply an answer, she was quick to follow with: “I know you still think about Uncle Donald.” Her eyes made a trail across the suddenly cramped confines of the car, back to where her hand made arcs out the window. She exhaled a sigh through her nose. “I think about him too. All the time.”
Six nodded slowly, not completely understanding where she was going with this.
“You think you’re not doing a good job, but you are.” She continued when he didn’t offer a response. “He wouldn’t have done what he did if he didn’t think that you would be there to take care of me.”
Six’s heart flipped in his chest, somersaulting into barbs at the bottom of his stomach. Outside, he remained stoic and mellow, quiet in that unassuming way that he had. He didn’t know what to say, except: “I think it was more for my sake than yours, kid.”
“Someone’s gotta make sure that you get some sleep.” She agreed.
“Okay,” his expression scrunched, but he was smiling, subtle but more heartfelt than what he’d given anyone in the last two decades. “Let’s… not do that again, okay?”
She snorted. “No promises.” ~~~~~
When Six opened his eyes again, he did so silently; the first inclination that he was alive was that his head fucking hurt. The next was a fist colliding with his face first thing in the morning, his head snapping to the left and continuing for the next hour afterward. Pain was at least something that he could concentrate on, the dull throb against his cheek, a piercing sting above his eyebrow. It made it harder to think of Claire, of Lloyd fucking Hansen, and how long it’d been.
Time had passed while he was unconscious, and for once, Six cared a lot about how much. He’d been placed in a small room, brick enclosing him within four walls. Guards were stationed on every side, watching him out of the corner of their eyes as though they expected him to suddenly jump up and start kicking their asses, comforted only by the fact that he was restrained and there was more than one of them. Likely, Six was going to be pried for information, then he was going to die.
That fact added a little kink in his already shitty day.
“Look at him. Fuckin’ take a look.” His tormentor snickered, a broad shadow descending on his chair, and a chorus of chuckles erupted around him. He felt the man lean in nearer, Six’s eyes half-closed but his breath a pungent stench in his nose, sweat and perspiration wafting off of him like cheap cologne. “This is The Gray Man?”
“I’m having an off day,” Six answered, refraining from coughing up one of his lungs. He spit a puddle of blood off into a corner, heaving a raspy breath while he shifted into a more comfortable position. Zipties dug into his flesh, grinding a bloody indent that spilled blood down his arms.
He looked up.
His tormentor didn’t back off. The smart one’s did.
“This has been… something, but can you get Hansen in here? If he’s going to kill me, I’d rather him just do it. If not, I have somewhere else to be.” Maybe it was the evenness in his tone, not a note of bragging despite his situation, just a recitation of facts that made them all quiet. Lips twitched. Eyes narrowed. The smarter ones took a step toward the door.
“Fuck you.” His tormentor spat.
Six’s eyebrows shot up then settled into his neutral expression. “Wasn’t expecting that one.” The remark earned another punch, but he didn’t retaliate, even if he very badly wanted to.
If they knew about Claire, he would have to be prepared to offer his soul. Whatever was required, he’d pay it. Unaware of whether they were actually ignorant or not, he played the part of a prisoner, acting as if he hadn’t already planned his way out. Staying in his bindings was only common courtesy. All it would take was a single nod that they didn’t know, and he would be gone. Lloyd Hansen’s revival be damned.
The guards continued to watch him from their positions around the room. Five altogether, wearing blank expressions aside from the one that had been beating on him. He wasn’t fooled. Any time that he coughed or tugged at his restraints, they’d jerk forward, on edge. He leaned his head back, stretching out the kink in his neck from the position that he’d been forced into, somehow still more comfortable than the couch.
Off to his right, the only part of the room that wasn’t brick, instead a harsh and hefty metal door creaked open as Lloyd’s familiar form stepped over the threshold. His sense of style was still enough to embed an expression of disgust across Six’s already dour expression, the trash-stache doing very little favors for his face. He almost made a remark about him shaving it. Actually, his mouth opened to do just that before he was punched again. His neck cracked from the force, and he damn near thanked the bastard for sorting that out for him.
He heaved, another spluttering of blood spat out next to his chair, looking up at Lloyd.
“Come on, dumbasses,” Lloyd tutted. “What the fuck are you doin’? That’s my job.”
“He’s been running his mouth all fucking day,” his tormentor responded. It wasn’t the man from the elevator he realized, but someone who had it out for him all the same.
“Well guess what? So have you, dumb fuck.” Leaving the door open, the suggestion was there, and some were smart enough to leave. The ones that weren’t were gifted with a harsh gesture thrown at the door, a piercing glare with Lloyd’s loud timber bouncing off the walls. “Read the room and get the fuck out!”
The room was immediately emptied, no one taking any chances of bumping into Lloyd directly, albeit Six thought that he stood closer to the doorway to evoke the challenge, or as a reason to lash out if they did. “Fucking morons,” he muttered, his hand grappling the back of a chair and dragging it none-too-quietly across the concrete floor. The legs scraped, a piercing screech following its journey from a spot beside the door and in front of Six.
Lloyd plopped down across from him, leaned back into a slouched position, crossing one leg over the other. “What’s up sunshine? You’ve seen better days.”
“Seen better faces too.” He quipped.
“Yes!” Lloyd’s hands clenched into fists in front of him, a visible show of excitement as he sat a little taller, leaned a little more forward. His smile was broad, all teeth. “There it is. “You know what I love about you, Six? It’s your sense of humor. It’s got the right amounts of sass and still somehow manages to be annoying. I almost thought that we weren’t friends anymore. Thinking that I was going to have to throw out the bracelet.”
The corner of Six’s mouth twitched, expression folding over.
“Guess what I’m thinking now.”
“That you’ve overshared.”
Lloyd scoffed a laugh. “I’m thinking–actually I know you’re also a wanted fugitive. I got off easy seeing as everyone thinks I’m dead, but you? You, my friend, are not just wanted in the U.S. Apparently, you took the downfall for Carmichael and are the excuse behind all of the FBI’s bullshit, and for my murder. You’re an international fugitive. So?”
“So?” Six raised an eyebrow. “Looks like I fucked up.”
He hummed, tilting his head left then right, acknowledging that he was right, but also wasn’t. “You did fuck up, but–” The chair scraped against the ground as it was yanked forward, their knees nearly touching. “Bacon. Dough! Dinero! Millions for your head. Lucky for you, I don’t need money. I have money. I think we can help each other out with something else.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Alright, bad choice of phrasing.” Lloyd held up his hands, backpedaling on his earlier words. “You can help me, and in return, I promise not to put a bullet in Fitzroy’s little scrap.” He raised his hands, palms forward, sounding almost apologetic. As apologetic as this fucking sociopath could be. “I know. It’s not the best news–” As if the idea of killing a kid was a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things, easily excusable. As if Six wouldn’t leap out of his chair and kill him for suggesting it.
And make sure that he was dead this time.
“You found Claire?”
Lloyd sighed. “Sound advice for you Six, if you’re going to be on the run, don’t bring the only thing that can bring you back with you.” He tsked, a glimpse of Six’s face which, while wasn’t murderous, got the point across all the same. “Don’t be pissed off. It’s not a good look for you. Might make me think you actually care.”
His fists flexed against his restraints, a subtle tug that wouldn’t give. “I want to see her.”
“Oh! Don’t worry about her. She’s got a new ticker and is excited to see you.”
“Lloyd–”
“Oh, right! Right. I didn’t even tell you the best part!” Lloyd threw his hands out in a grandiose show with his next announcement, a shit-eating grin growing more broad with the anticipation of a confession that made Six’s heart drop into the center of his stomach.
“I know all about you, Courtland Gentry.”
It was so much worse. This had to be another nightmare.
“It doesn’t give me as many chills as Sierra Six,” Lloyd pressed a finger to his forearm, rotating it to assess the lack of goosebumps. “See? Hardly nothing. But!” His lips smacked together, raising an index finger. “What it does give me is leverage. Despite your clear daddy issues that you got goin’ on, you’ve also got a brother. Who the hell would have thought that? Not me.”
“How do you know about that?”
Lloyd ignored him, his excitement bordering on juvenile. He sunk in and drowned in this victory while he had it. While he had it. “Isn’t it great to know each other’s secrets, Court? You know I’m alive, and we’re officially on a first name basis. That’s what friends do naturally, which is why I know that you’re going to be more than willing to help me if you want your life to stay under wraps and not crash into flames inside a fucking abyss.”
Six’s lips pressed together in a taut line, the tension in his muscles keeping him from lashing out. His eyes searched Lloyd’s face, devoid of any remorse or reasoning. In this situation, he really didn’t have a choice. There was no other way out.
He immediately regretted asking, seeing Lloyd grin with giddy, childlike glee at the temporary, and very fragile alliance. “What’s the job?” ~~~~~
Lloyd Hansen.
Lloyd fucking Hansen.
He was underneath the thumb of Lloyd ‘Trash-Stache’ Hansen.
Not because of his old life, not because of Claire, but because of his own choices; because of his own inability to let things go. He’d become weaker over time; since Fitzroy, since Claire, since Sierra Four–relying less on the upsides of killing and more on the upsides of caring and protecting. It sounded like something straight from a self-care pamphlet for assassins and murderers, and it was that thought that made him want to punch a whole through the goddamn wall.
It was because of him that everyone he knew, the few that he knew that weren’t dead, were in the sights of a sociopath. A target was painted on their backs unless he did everything that Lloyd wanted, and damn the consequences that would put him in the ground whether he complied or not. The butt of his rifle hit the wooden table with more force than necessary, shaking it at its foundation and threatening to crumble.
Outside the brick confines of the room was just a dingy safehouse, much more rough looking on the outside than the inside. Lloyd had a habit of maintaining a clean appearance, and noticeably, his choice of torture places followed the same general set of rules. The same guards from before were there, albeit they drunk themselves stupid on cheap alcohol because they didn’t have to keep an eye on him anymore.
Whatever happened next was ultimately up to him.
He’d searched the safehouse from top to bottom, checking every small crevice that he could fit into, but Claire was nowhere to be found. Not that he expected her to be. Lloyd was many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.
Other than the drunken stupor of the guards, he had no choice but to sit at a table and prep his guns while he listened to the sound of Lloyd fucking some prostitute stupid in an adjacent room. Killing him while he was balls deep in a foreigner was a possibility, but he couldn’t do anything until he knew where Claire was and figure out who he extended the information about his past life to.
That alone was the only thing that kept him heeled and not yanking on his leash.
“Could you sound any more pissed off, Court?” Lloyd came out of the adjacent room, dabbing at his face with a towel and clad in nothing but his boxers. The lack of anyone else reacting to it suggested that this was a normal occurrence. Regardless, Six dragged his eyes away. He didn’t take the bait.
Lloyd whistled as though he were addressing a dog, snapping his fingers directly beside his face. “Hello? Courtland? Courtney? Gentry-Geriatric?”
“That’s not my name, Hansen.” Six corrected him, running a cloth over the barrel of his rifle, taking the clip from the table and shoving it back in.
“But it is.”
“Not anymore.”
“I didn’t realize you were going to get your panties in a twist over it.” Lloyd slumped down into a chair sitting opposite, running a hand through his sweat soaked hair. He tilted his head to catch Six’s eye, but he was focused on the rifle, prepping it for the mission ahead. “You know the difference between you and I, Court? I’ve come to realize that you hide behind a moniker. At least when I kill somebody, I give them the benefit of knowing my name.”
The rifle hit the table, laying sideways with the barrel pointing directly at Lloyd. Across the room, heads turned, hands moving for guns at sides, but the look that Six fixed them with kept them in place. That razor sharp glare turned on Lloyd, and he went on, deadpan “That’s the only way we’re the same. You’ll know mine when I kill you.”
Lloyd whistled low. “Bite and snark. When’s the last time you’ve gotten laid? You’re stressed. I can give you a round with my girl. Not the best fuck, but she probably won’t be conscious for most of it if that’s your kink.”
Six’s expression pinched at his bluntness, although even only knowing Lloyd for a few months, he entertained that there was nothing that came out of his mouth that could or should surprise him anymore. Yet, it did. A mold of disgust had settled into a permanent scowl across his face, raising his hand in complete denial of the suggestion. “No. I do not want anything that your dick has been in.” He retrieved the rifle, swinging it over his shoulder as he rose from the table.
Lloyd had the decency to appear surprised. Taken aback. “Why?”
“Because I don’t like you,” he answered flatly without missing a beat. “We’re kind of on the same page with that, remember?”
“Actually, I think you’re growing on me.” Lloyd confessed, and even as Six took that little tidbit as a sign that he should walk away, Lloyd was there, directly in tow. Appearing nearly naked in front of six grown men unphased him, apparently. “You always have a stick up your ass, but I don’t think we’re that different.”
As Six whipped around, it forced Lloyd to come to a dead stop. They weren’t much different in height, and yet somehow, he was still looking down on the bastard. “We’re not the same.” He half-snapped, unable to take him seriously looking like a half-naked toddler with a lip rug. “Go put some clothes on. There’s still a job to do.”
“You’re such a fucking boyscout. How hard did you suck Fitzroy’s dick in the agency?” He was walking away before Six could answer, not even sparing him a glance. “You really shouldn’t spend so much time on your knees, Court. It’s bad for your age.”
Six raised his rifle, aiming the barrel right down the line of Lloyd’s back. He fingered the trigger, back and forth before Lloyd disappeared in the other room, suddenly regretting the consequences of his actions.
Like A Light (Rey) (01)
Summary: "I was happy when you took your place at my side and raised your saber to fight with me. You saved me, and that has to mean something to them just as much as it does to me." They couldn't be, the two of them, and she constantly kicked herself for that fact. The resistance wouldn't accept him and it was the only place she felt as if she belonged. Well, except for right then.
Pairing: Ben Solo x Rey
Warnings: Cursing, Violence
Words: ~4K
Rey had never imagined what her death would be like before now.
It would not have been a bad idea to contemplate the possibility. After all, she had been close numerous times. The majority had been before her Jedi training had started when she was nothing more than a scavenger in the scorching deserts of Jakku. Never mind her battles with Kylo Ren, with the Supremacy in the throne room, and basically every strike she had made against the first order since.
Naturally, it had to be her grandfather that finally struck her down.
Family drama at its finest.
Regardless of the how, it was likely that the sensation was very much the same-inviting itself to embrace her with open arms. Welcoming, and warm.
It was urging her to rest. To close her eyes and let her journey end there in the caves of Exogol among the dirt, the ash, the blood.
In the end, it was her exhaustion that won, aching and tired muscles practically screaming. The brightly lit sky blurred above her, ships crashing into flames were becoming mere shapes and the sounds of people screaming-some cheerful, others calling out in outrage, and in scorn-deafened in her ears.
The stench of death and smoke grew further away, her broken body left lying there in the remnants of the war.
Except what she had expected of death never came, she realized as she opened her eyes to nothingness. Unless, this is what was meant to be on the other side?
A voice called out to her; called her name.
She whipped around in the darkness towards the soft melody that housed an edge of authority. It urged the barest trace of a smile that overtook any previous fear she had felt of this unknown place, this in-between.
"General Organa." She greeted the translucent silhouette, her heart practically leaping inside her chest. The previous general's life had transcended the force during her fight with Kylo Ren on Endor, when she had given her own life to pull her son back to the light. Was there some other purpose left unfulfilled?
"Did I fail you, Master?" One tentative step forward, if only to prove that she could. Even if it felt as if she were moving underwater, even if she felt detached from her own body. Her previous master may not have been touching her, but she felt the weight of an embrace holding her upright.
Leia shook her head. Transparency softened her features, her movements fluid and without the burden that came with age-unless that was merely another thing that death would offer, a gift that could come from this place. It gave the woman a more youthful look about her, something akin to peace. "Not yet, but there is more that I need from you."
Rey's head swiveled around like a panoramic view, looking through the very depths of the in-between as though what was needed of her would magically make itself known. It didn't. "This is it." She shrugged helplessly, an eerie sense of calm settling over her. "Why am I here if my journey still continues?"
"The dyad is strong. Even death cannot interfere in some cases."
Her brows pinched together, a different sensation tugging at her subconscious. Something lulling her into a sense of security. It began as a scratching in the back of her head, searching for something inside before giving way to a surprising warmth. Usually, such a sensation she'd shut out, ignore it and hope it would go away of its own accord. Only because it meant that she would give more than she intended, would show a vulnerable side of herself to someone that had no reason for seeing it. Someone she never had the strength to so easily shove out of her life.
Like a voice in the back of her head, he was always there.
Ben.
"It is Ben." Leia voiced her thoughts aloud, echoing into the void. Into nothing. "He is giving you his life force. Destiny speculates that he should come join me and his father, Luke and his grandfather, but the force is demanding otherwise it would seem." She laughed at that, a small dry laugh that didn't quite match the otherwise stoic expression on her face. "There are still plans for you. Both of you. Don't give up on him, Rey."
Rey smiled fighting back tears of joy. A sense of relief welled inside of her. Ben was okay, and Rey-she'd get to go home. To the resistance, to her friends and newfound family that she had found on her own. And to Ben who had every reason to be given a second chance. "I won't." She promised. "I won't let your sacrifice be in vain."
Leia's lips had moved once again, but this time it was inaudible, and no extent of squinting could make out her words. Her transparent figure faded into fog, sweeping away into the non-existent wind and throwing itself into the never ending darkness.
The tugging sensation that she had felt previously yanked her backward into the dark. Then, her back hit nothing. The force knocked the breath from her lungs, and as her eyes flew open, she gasped inward attempting to breathe. It tasted like ash, like smoke, and like death but she was alive. Back in the caves of the Sith.
Above her, fleets of ships plummeted toward the earth, lightning streaked across the sky clad in a red and orange hue, splitting through the clouds of smoke and splitting them apart. Like a light, it burned.
It was beautiful.
Making an attempt to speak had at first been fruitless, her lips parting but no sound coming out. Her throat felt dry, constricted, and flexing her fingers was met with resistance. One hand having grasped around her lightsaber, the other bunching the fabric at someone's waist. Through the damp cold that settled within the cave, warmth radiated through the clothing into her hand.
"Rey," The breathless whisper of her name and Ben was looking at her. Really looking at her, one hand braced around her back, the other coming to rest on her hand.
He helped her to sit up, and her eyes found his face at last.
Silence hung in the air between them only briefly.
"Ben," Came her whisper of response, a brightly lit smile etching itself on her face. "We did it. We won."
Hand coming to rest on his cheek, it tangled in the damp strands of his hair looking into dark but hopeful pools of brown. Tears held in his eyes, settling over a gratified expression.
Drawn in by a sense of longing, a sense of want, of a connection, Rey closed the little distance that filtered between them until their lips met.
Their kiss lasted only a second, lips against lips, his breath on her cold skin, the stench of war surrounding them, threatening to grab hold. At that moment however, nothing else mattered. Nothing except when they parted, and Ben actually smiled, a longing grin followed by a laugh of pure relief, pure hope. Something akin to a genuine happiness Rey hadn't been sure if Ben would ever feel.
He could only nod. His arms around her were tight. "You won." He whispered then, his forehead coming to rest against her own, breathing her in and reveling in the moment as though afraid she would disappear.
Rey didn't let him go.
Around them, the caves of Exogol were lurching, the cracks in the ground opening into bigger indentations that split into chasms. The bodies of their enemies fell through, colliding with the caves walls and disappearing into the endless depths below. Rubble hit the ground and shattered, aiding in the ground's dilapidating state.
It urged Rey to her feet, and although it was a gesture she regretted it was one that had to be done. Untangling herself from Ben, she pulled him upward, catching his slight stumble and the weight he was refusing to put on his right leg. Draping one of his arms across her shoulders, her other hand wrapped around his waist and ushered him forward.
He was hesitating, keeping the majority of his weight on his own. Being much bigger than she was, his weight in his current state was not something she felt he could handle.
"Just lean on me!" Rey ordered, adjusting him on her own. The pair caught each stray stone and crack that happened in their path, and she had to adjust him every few feet, but they pressed on to the only exit that hadn't been blocked by debris or stone walls as the world quite literally fell apart.
Thankfully he listened, even if his eyes stole a glance up at the ceiling caving in. How the crashing ships only aided its impending threat. Briefly, Rey wondered if he was thinking of Luke's betrayal, how he had used his connection to the force to pull the ceiling in on them both…
No, no. Now was not the time to think about that.
They were so slow. So agonizingly slow.
Ahead, a light signaled an exit and she pressed on at a faster pace, even if the effort of supporting his weight warned her against it and her rapidly growing exhaustion. Ben nearly buckled at her side but she forced him upright as the ground continuously opened up behind them, and with every shake it forced her balance to readjust. Rey feared that they would be swallowed up and sent to a fate of nothing, to drown in the neverending darkness opening up…
"What do you want to do when we get home, Ben?" Rey was careful in putting emphasis on the word "we". Of course she wouldn't go home without him. If fate so willed it, she'd likely sit in the cave forever with him even if to rot. Only because if fate would deal him an unfair hand, she would share the burden.
"What?" Ben asked, breathless at her side.
"You can do anything you know," She mused, soft tired gaze fixated forward as she tugged him along. "We could go hunting. I could use a break from training courses for a while, I think." While a lame attempt to keep their focus on something else, Rey ever the positive one still took an attempt to try. To get him to see her, or at least see that he had her. He always did. She had wanted to grab his hand, and in the end she'd taken it. After the end she continued to hold it.
Right now it was one of the few things that made sense.
"I'm… not sure." He answered, breathless. "It… isn't on my list of concerns at the moment."
They burst through the cave's exit, the world outside coming into focus more clearly now. Around them, their world was crumbling, pieces tumbling through the brightly lit sky. When she turned to Ben, he didn't blink, instead gazing upon her as if she were the only important thing to him in that moment. His lips trembled, words forming in his throat but nothing coming to light. It stayed in the back of his complicated mind.
Their urgency remained the priority despite both clearly wanting to stop for rest. Whatever it happened to be was a conversation that had to wait, everything still descending into chaos and the ship that she had driven to Exogol was thankfully intact.
The hand that braced across her shoulder had curled into a fist.
"Come on." Ben said. "We have to go."
Pieces of shattered Star Destroyers and X-Wings crashed nearby, followed by another, and then another. Being in the direct flight path of remnants from the battle, the cracked earth swallowed up the majority of the debris, but she would not let it swallow them up as well.
Readjusting their weight once again, her hand clutched tightly at his own, the other coiling tighter around his waist as they hobbled on to the X-Wing that she had taken there, old but thankfully unscathed. She caught Ben looking around with vague confusion as though something were missing, but for the moment Rey decided against asking him the reason.
Luke's X-Wing should not have made the trip, being submerged in the ocean of the isolated island as long as it was, but Rey was hopeful that it could make the return trip home. Truly, they didn't have much more banking on them than that. "I'm going to have to squeeze you behind the cockpit." She mused aloud much to Ben's distaste as she left him leaning against the rusted metal to climb up one of its wings.
It would be a tight fit, but it had to work. It had to.
Adjusting the pilot's seat forward, unfortunately in Ben's position he wouldn't have enough leg room to stretch out comfortably, but leaving him behind was not even an option she would entertain.
Activating the inner computer, it beeped rapidly as it activated its core systems. The control panel's switch lights turned on one by one, the ship shuddering to life before it was ready for take off.
Behind her, a loud crash forced her to whip around, her gaze catching Ben whom had darted to the side of a flying piece of shrapnel that tumbled into the abyss at their side. She smiled sheepishly at his vaguely irritated expression, climbing down the ship once again to help her companion inside.
To say that she had ever seen Ben annoyed was an understatement. Watching him squeeze behind the cockpit of the X-Wing had been an amusing enough experience as it was, his knees pulled against his chest and squeezed into a corner. It had ushered a laugh from Rey-one that was met with a gentle glare-but she didn't wait around to hear any complaint, settling into the pilot's seat and fumbling for the controls.
With practiced precision, her hands flew over the consoles flipping switches and pressing buttons until the hatch closed over their heads and the hum of the ship drowned out any attempt at conversation as debris pounded relentlessly against their glass cover. She could feel Ben behind her though, his labored breathing, his soft intake of breath as he struggled to deal with his injuries. She couldn't look now, instead focusing on pulling the ship into the air. The communications buzzed as signals attempted to make it through the chaos.
As they ascended into the atmosphere, a signal finally managed to come through. Excited. Cheering. Genuine happiness and celebrating victory.
The resistance.
She jumped as a voice boomed over the comms, filling the empty space in the ship with demanding insistence.
"Rey?! I see the X-Wing. Tell me that's you!"
"Poe, we-" She froze, deciding how much was too much to tell him at that point in time. Already imagining the outrage, the hatred, the demand for answers if they knew the infamous Kylo Ren was on her ship and on his way back to the resistance base. "I'm okay." She assured him, steering directly past the mass of other ships crowding the sky. All resistance, all numerous than what they had originally started with.
So they had heeded their call…
Her heart sank.
"Do you need assistance? We're rendezvousing back on Crait-"
The comm was flipped off with an insistent click and silence settled inside of the cockpit once again. There was nothing. Nothing other than the inner mechanics of the ship and its engine.
Out of the corner of her peripherals, she just caught tousled dark hair propped against the wall, head leaned back with an expression of passiveness. If his pain tolerance was not very high, she may have just heard him gasp, wince, groan, something. Instead, the only sounds that escaped him was his labored breathing and one last tired sigh.
They had made it. Rey had made it. And it was finally quiet.
She was relieved, too.
Until Ben finally spoke.
"I doubt your… friends… the resistance will be happy to see me." She heard him muse from behind her, his words raking her own fears down her spine.
"I know."
"They're only going to see me as Kylo Ren."
"I know."
Rey could feel it, his eyes burning into the back of her head, tense and with a mock anger marking his soft features. Some sort of spark suddenly lit in him, and she didn't have to look back to know that he was frowning, mouth pulled into that usual tight line. "They won't understand. I'm not like your resistance friends. Kylo Ren is still a part of me, even if you refuse to see it. I killed their friends." She heard him inhale sharply. "Their families. Me."
The ship lurched upward with Rey's growing irritation, her motions on the controls becoming more agitated as the ship flew at a much unsteadier pace, away from the resistance fighters, further and further until they were nearly hitting the atmosphere at lightspeed. The ship groaned in protest, but she pushed it harder, even as it quaked fighting against gravity, even with the diagnostics flickering across the screen and warning her against it.
It was a chance at a distraction, focusing all of her attention in keeping the ship in the air. His words stuck with her, each a thread weaving in her mind and forcing her to come to terms with the fact that Ben was right. He was absolutely right, no matter how much she wanted to run from the truth.
The resistance would cast him out to the deepest parts of the galaxy. Alone. They would sooner see him dead than welcome him as their own. He'd taken so many of them, had wreaked havoc amongst the resistance fighters, and they would want to see their vengeance answered. On Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, either way to them, he would always be the same person.
Except, she had promised Leia that she would look after him. That stayed with her, etching itself in the very deepest parts of her being, and she hadn't any intention of breaking it. And Han. He'd given his life in proving that Ben was still inside of Kylo Ren somewhere. It had only taken enough sacrifices to finally pull him back. Their sacrifices couldn't be in vain.
"I know." Rey found herself whispering.
Another sharp intake of breath, and he was gritting his teeth. "Do you remember how you looked at me when we talked back on the island? About how I killed…" He hesitated, and for a moment she almost turned around to see if he hadn't suddenly killed over on her. But then he continued, attempting to form sentences that couldn't quite piece themselves together, or rather trying to pick a certain word. "Han. It's exactly how they will feel, and how they should. They'll remember."
Perhaps it was ridiculous to think that he could wedge himself in with the resistance fighters and attempt to make something of his life. Some things simply didn't heal with time. The legacy of Kylo Ren was one of those things.
But there had to be a way. Had to.
"I will see them all every time I close my eyes. I'll hear them plead and cry before I took their lives from them."
Once more, he paused.
"And I'm sorry."
His apology came so softly, at first she hadn't been sure if she'd heard it. She'd felt it however, that sorrow. His despair, and his grief connected them by a thread through their dyad. His doubt and regret had been kept at a distance, overshadowed by the rage that had pulled him to the dark side because he had been abandoned in a world that didn't make room for him. Because the people closest to him hadn't been there.
The vulnerability she'd felt had initially opened her mind to him. Their shared visions, and with those shared visions, she'd been able to label him as something other than a monster that so many others saw him as.
And Rey wanted to reach for him, wanted to pull him close and break the ocean of emotions constantly threatening to pull him away from her and drown him.
Except, she had her own demons to face first, the truth of her lineage having come to light. It'd been easy at first to push away when she was dying, only because then it hadn't mattered. It'd been easy to pretend the truth wasn't there in her attempts at pulling Ben from the caves. Now that they were there, alive, she had nothing else to do in the uneasy silence than to reflect.
Kylo Ren had been honest with her about the darkness that plagued her bloodline. Coming face to face with her grandfather had slapped the truth in her face, and suddenly the constant pull to the dark side had made so much more sense. It's unwavering enticement, the magnification.
Setting the coordinates, the ship lunged into hyperspace rattling them in their tight confines. Rey turned in her seat just enough to catch Ben in her peripherals, how very human he looked right then in the unwavering solemnity. His walls were gone, his guards shut down. Whatever biting remark she could find died before it could leave her lips and instead she raked a soft glare over him, her lips moving with uncertainty.
"I don't care. I'm not going to leave you." She had promised Leia, and the resolve in her voice was steeled by that. At least, that's what she assured herself it was. It didn't have anything to do with genuine feelings tugging at her heart. No, it was just a promise.
"I was happy when you took your place at my side and raised your saber to fight with me. You saved me, and that has to mean something to them just as much as it does to me." They couldn't be, the two of them, and she constantly kicked herself for that fact. The resistance wouldn't accept him and it was the only place she felt as if she belonged.
Well, except for right then.
She shook her head willing the thoughts away and turned to face forward again. Stars sped by them in burning streaks of light, illuminating the dark vastness of space.
"I don't know if they will see it the way you do." Ben attempted to convince her. "One act of kindness will not atone for several years worth of damage. Several million lives over just one." He reached forward through the cockpit, his fingers brushing against her arm and sending chills down her spine. "Please, Rey." He sounded so soft, so defeated. "I didn't save you to lock you in any sort of debt. I did it…" Again, that hesitation as he picked for the right words. "Because I wanted to. I was worried about you, and I knew that I could."
All at once, his hand retreated, leaving a cold uninviting space between them. The burning sensation left her as he shifted away, instead diverting his attention elsewhere. Not that there was very much to look at in the first place. He must have taken her silence as a well enough answer, as he spoke no more instead leaning his head back with a soft exhalation of breath.
Perhaps he would finally attempt some sort of rest, and her thoughts came true as he requested she wake him up when they arrived, his voice no more than a whisper now as sleep willfully took him over, pulling him into the realm of dreams and nightmares all at once.
She could hear it. His head sliding sideways until it embedded itself in a corner of the ship, labored breathing becoming more soft, his tousled hair draping in front of his eyes like a curtain. Rey spared another glance, and for once he looked at peace within himself, less worried, less alone. A sort of content rested upon his sleeping face, his hands tucked into his lap until the rest of his body followed suit into the corner, a slight arch in his spine.
Turning away and leaning her head back against the cockpit, Rey silently prepared for the worst when they returned.
Hiloo!! Big fan of your work, especially ‘into the gray’, it’s been a great while since you last updated it.. is everything okay? Are you busy? Could you update us ?
Hi there! (:
College started back up a couple months ago, and I’ve also been working, so I haven’t had as much time to work on it. However, I’ve been taking the last week or so to get ahead with school related things and actually opened it back up a couple of days ago.
The new chapter is coming along well, and I promise that I haven’t abandoned it. Unfortunately, I don’t have an exact ETA, but I can tell you that it is soon.
I’m really glad that you’re enjoying it and thank you for reaching out!
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
Into The Gray (Chpt. 7)
Secrets (Into The Gray Chpt. 7)
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
Everything that you’d learned about human behavior and habit had been through careful instruction, nothing ever given to you without intention. There were things that you’d picked up through basic experience and casual observation–people had a habit of writing their name when given a new pen for example, and if you have a plan B, then plan A is less likely to succeed.
Sierra Six had uprooted the CIA’s plan A and B, and so far, he was already eliminating all expectations for plans C, D and E. Just like with you, interrogations only left the interrogator more exhausted than when they started, and although you found the entire thing entertaining, you reveled in Carmichael’s frustration with coercing any kind of confession and the realization that he didn’t have Claire to use as leverage this time around. He told Six otherwise, but out of many things that The Gray Man was, ignorant wasn’t one of them.
For once, you could say that you weren’t the only cause of Carmichael’s misery as much as you wished you were.
Undoubtedly, getting Six’s compliance was going to take more than pulling a few teeth.
You traversed down sterile white hallways in search of his room–the holding cells had been searched already, and he hadn’t been there–so you strongly entertained that he was put in the same room that you had been during your induction. Carmichael had never said exactly, and although he had suspicions about your whereabouts when apprehending Six, he didn’t have the time to properly look into it, and you’d already been covering your tracks just in case he did.
Your list of things that Carmichael didn’t need to know was growing exponentially longer you realized, but you were too far in to consider confessing them all now.
Watching him spin in circles had also proved to be vastly too entertaining.
A few winding hallways and empty rooms eventually led you to find him. Sitting in a stationary chair in the middle of the room with his elbows propped on top of his knees, he looked as though he were debating the world. His expression was fixed into something akin to contemplation, tunnel vision on the tile, but you suspected that he was aware of you outside the room. You weren’t trying to be subtle, anyway.
“You’re here,” he said once you stepped in, looking up.
“You should go into espionage with those observational skills.”
You thought that he bit back a smile, but you couldn’t really tell. There were things that he was good at hiding, such as your involvement at his house at all, you’d learned. He hadn’t told Carmichael; he’d acted dumb when Carmichael had asked. Six had knowingly or unknowingly backed your lie, but you didn’t thank him for that.
It was the reason behind it that most perplexed you, and you couldn’t help but be a little curious. It was only another thing that you’d find out eventually on your own, so you didn’t ask. He did ask the most obvious question however, still traversing on that very fragile line, and risking the plummet. He’d gone outside of his conditioning and learned to care , and a killer with morals was still a humorous concept to you.
You’d noticed that you had a habit of looking at him, a little too much and a little too long. You had never been a creature of habit, but there was something about looking at a book and suddenly not knowing how to read. Your eyes flickered, traveled , over his form in the chair; no particular direction, and no particular reason.
“I’m surprised they didn’t cuff you to the chair too.” You mused aloud, recalling the number of irritated negotiators that had left the room with you, then with him –they’d never been brave enough to negotiate without restraints, but they had been more afraid of Sierra Six than you. You’d been frustrating, but him ? “They’re scared of you.”
He scoffed. “I don’t think I’m anything to be scared of.”
“I believe you.” You hummed. “But people like you tend to say that.”
“People like me?”
“A total contradiction that somehow balances out.” You said, but didn’t clarify. Even when he looked at you, eyes probing, you didn’t offer an answer. His brows furrowed, first in confusion, but eventually they settled into the neutrality that you were so familiar with. He recognized very quickly that there was no point, that he may as well have backed down instead of pushed forward. You considered that he didn’t care about that much, and he shouldn’t have. Your opinion hardly mattered as much as anyone else’s.
You were nothing and no one special, not where he was concerned.
“Do you know where Claire is?” He finally asked the most obvious question.
“Not here,” you answered immediately, walking further into the room, your arms crossed. There was still a reasonable distance between the two of you, several feet that demanded conversation higher than a whisper. You didn’t mind. It wasn’t as if you were passing secrets. He knew that Claire wasn’t here.
He sounded tired. “Do you know where ?”
“What makes you think that I do?”
Lips pressed together, he waved vaguely, as though it were really a question worth asking. Unlike you, his eyes never lingered on any certain part of you for too long. “I couldn’t really tell where she went because of your friends from the CIA pummeling me, but I’m pretty sure that you were the last person to have been with her.”
“I know. I watched you get pummeled,” you corrected him.
Then he really did look at you, and quirked a brow.
“Long enough to watch you get a cheap shot on Agent Morrison.”
His brow quirked further.
“I never liked him that much.” You clarified with a shrug, eyes darting elsewhere. “He has an extensive record, but he had enough connections to wipe his slate clean.” A pause. “He’s also a prick.”
He looked down. “Sounds familiar.”
“Depending who you asked.” You confessed. “If you’re going to be a prick to anyone, I think you’d at least be honest about it.”
Then, you thought Six really did smile, even if at the floor; an approximation of one, as close to one as someone like him could get. A scoff of a laugh escaped him, and when he looked up again, his gaze was darting, never staying. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly in with the popular crowd.”
“You’re not missing much.”
Your eyes followed his to the same familiar sterile white walls, the minimal amount of furniture, parts of the tile and the baseboards still protruding from where you’d tried to pry it apart so many months ago now; not so much a cell as an actual room .
You wondered what had changed to get you promoted to being on their payroll, earning an inch of freedom at a time, but you’d always been good at pretending. As far as they knew, you’d only wiped out one of Carmichael’s key obstacles, and you contemplated that he kept you close by for the same reason that they kept Sierra Six alive. Blame. Carmichael hadn’t found your record, nor any hint of your past.
Yet.
“I’m assuming that Claire went to a safehouse that you showed her,” you went on. “I didn’t follow her, so I can’t say for sure where she went. If I don’t know, then it’s safe to say that Carmichael doesn’t know, either.”
Something akin to relief flashed behind his eyes—he knew the location, but you didn’t. You didn’t ask; you’d said that you’d find her when you needed her, and that was true with or without his help.
“You said you weren’t with the CIA. Who are you with?”
A smile crept onto your lips, lingering close to the surface. You could have scoffed, could have laughed, but you didn’t. Your head tilted, your expression flat despite your amusement. “You ask a lot of personal questions for someone who doesn’t go by their actual name.”
“You don’t ask enough.” He retorted.
Then you really did smile, a slow upturn on both corners of your mouth. “I told you the answer already.”
“The truth.”
“I wasn’t lying.”
His brows furrowed, clearly skeptical. “So you’re parading around with the CIA for… what, fun ?”
“The same reason you’re sitting here when you can leave at any time, I guess.” You said. “You want something.”
“What do you want?”
“What do you ?” The two of you stared at each other, level but with one more perplexed than the other. It wasn’t you. When he didn’t answer, you shrugged, incapable of supplying the answer yourself. Instead, you asked: “Have you ever heard the phrase ‘supply and demand’?”
He nodded slowly, still with that perplexed expression that you somehow found endearing.
“You’re demanding, but you’re not supplying.” You explained. “I’ll give you,” you paused, but it wasn’t a critical decision on your part; the choice wasn’t hard. “Six questions.” You caught him resisting the urge to roll his eyes at your choice of amount and smirked. “Whatever you want to know. But only six.”
Six looked to think for a moment, picking his words carefully. His eyes had a way of darting you noticed, observing nothing and everything all at once. He was acutely aware of everything in the room, from the protruding tile to the resewed lining in the mattress, to you . From an outside perspective, he may have looked like nothing special, but he definitely was as smart as you gave him credit for. The depth of his mind was far from anyone’s reach. “Why did you let Claire escape?”
“First question. She wasn’t my target.”
“Who was?”
“Do you want to use one of your questions for that, or can you work it out on your own?”
His brows pinched. “... Why me?”
“Second question. I needed to see if you had information on Donald Fitzroy. I was going to search his house—“ well, it’d been closed off as a crime scene until the FBI could tear it apart at its foundation, and that was before Six had gotten ahold of it. You shrugged. “There’s not much of it left.”
“What kind of information?”
“Third question: A program. Not Sierra.”
“Are you going to count every question?”
“Does that count as four?”
Six shook his head. “Fitzroy didn’t have any program besides Sierra.”
You shrugged.
“He did ?”
You raised your eyebrows, a silent question. Question four?
He’d deduced it on his own. You could see his mind working, but in a much more delicate process than your mindless interrogators. He sighed. “Fitzroy’s dead.”
“I know.” You shrugged. “It doesn’t change anything.” To anyone else, it would have. The main target had died, and that usually meant the case was closed. Anyone else would have moved on, but you weren’t just anyone and there were still things that you had to do, and still things that you had to find.
You were stubborn, but that was what had led you to Sierra Six in the first place.
“Fitzroy had a lot of secrets,” Six said, still sitting in that same position as though he were debating the world. At least, you knew that he was debating his circumstances inside the room. His fists were curled on top of his knees, sitting straight in a demeanor that suggested he could pounce at any moment. There was a relaxed tension in his muscles that you hadn’t noticed before, but that could change in a second. “The Sierra Program hardly had any records.”
“There are always two people to every secret. If not you, then someone else.”
Six’s eyes searched your face for the first time since you’d arrived, lingering longer than what was normal for him. You held gazes, but then he was standing, suddenly towering over you despite being several feet apart. His build didn’t strike you as intimidating–if he’d meant it to, it would’ve been. He shuffled closer. The two of you could have whispered if you’d wanted to.
“What about you? Who do you share your secrets with?”
You looked up, your voice nearly a whisper now as well. “Question four. You , apparently.”
“I still feel like I don’t know anything.”
“Maybe you’re not asking the right questions.”
“You still owe me three.”
“ Actually , I owe you two, and I’m done answering them for now.” You were leaning up, leaning toward him, bare inches of space that had become familiar for you to invade. He didn’t lean away, even if the coil of his muscles suggested the urge. You’d turned to walk away, but his voice stopped you.
“Wait.”
You half-turned; waited.
Your arms were still crossed, but his were at his sides, two completely different barriers shoving against the same wall. “Whatever you’re doing, whatever you’re looking for; uh, be careful.”
“We share secrets, remember?” You laughed at what was probably the most genuine one in a long time. “I can’t let you out of my sight just yet. I’m not going to make that mistake twice.”
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.
Eyes on Target (Into The Gray Chpt. 4)
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
The Gray Man’s moniker stemmed from his ability to keep a low profile. The entire program was built with that conception in mind. Donald Fitzroy may have been the first, and he had slipped past your notice until his untimely death in pursuit of a drive filled with Carmichae’s baggage, but you had been right when you told Dani about cornering Sierra Six. Fitzroy and Lloyd had been the one’s unfortunate enough to end up in Six’s corner, whether willingly or not. That was your own personal baggage that you pushed aside for later, your feelings about the two not consistent with each other at any given time.
Carmichael basked in the victory, and the skeletons in the CIA’s closet were far outside your area of concern, but you did find it rather humorous that all it had taken was a long list of resources that Sierra Six had single-handedly upended at every turn. Single-handed if not for Dani Miranda’s involvement, but that was another secret put into the ground along with a busted drive and the truth about Lloyd Hansen’s death.
You had never met Sierra Six personally, but when he’d been brought into the CIA’s custody–bloody and beaten, but still able to address the corporate assholes with witty remarks and sarcasm–you thought that you got a better understanding of his quirks and his mannerisms. He didn’t pretend to be anything, or anyone when it best suited him–a measure of himself that was as infuriating to everyone else as it was intriguing for you.
You could see why Fitzroy would employ him. Where you lied and manipulated to survive, he endured on skill alone. So when you’d learned that he’d broken free of his restraints and executed a number of their best operatives on his way out after the shitstorm with Carmichael’s drive, you weren’t surprised.
What did surprise you was that he didn’t care about using the information from the drive for his own gain. He’d just wanted to be left alone.
“You’re punishing yourself,” you’d said to Dani shortly before you’d left to pursue his contract alone, resorting to stark statements if you weren’t allowed to ask questions. She couldn’t handle your ‘answering a question with a question thing’ but you thought that she asked a lot more questions than you did, even when she wasn’t trying to pry.
“The Sierra agent,” she’d said by way of explanation.
“Sierra Six,” you’d confirmed.
“He escaped the hospital,” she’d huffed, breathless, a fierce punch landing a definitive and resounding tap against a punching bag, echoing across the abandoned silence of the gym and nudging you back on your feet where you held it steady for her. It wasn’t often that this space was empty when she was here, but you’d associated it with Dani’s easy frustration and lack of remorse to whoever ended up on the receiving end of it. “He’s on the run. Probably going to find Claire.”
“This upsets you?”
“But not you?” Another tap, then another. Part of you was glad that you hadn’t decided to practice one-on-one this time around if an escapee was enough to get her fired up. Strangely, you didn’t feel anything when the news broke out, even if you had considered it your chance to talk to him. Being on grounds that would be considered your territory would have been preferred but you were nothing if not adaptable.
You found yourself asking. “Should it?”
Dani slowed down, then stopped altogether. You’d let go of the bag, the resistance of holding it still the last few hours made your palms feel raw, a tingling sensation traveling from your palms to your fingertips. She turned around to grab a bottle of water, wrapping a towel around her shoulders.
“You can never give a straight answer, can you?” Her words were lost on a long swig of water, shoulders rising and falling with the continued adrenaline rush, slowly filtering down until she only looked exhausted. “I was using Claire as leverage to keep him safe from Carmichael. Now he’s going to shoot up the countryside until he finds her.” She shook her head. “That might seem okay to you, but it’s not."
“It’s not okay,” you’d corrected. “To him, it’s probably necessary.”
Dani’s low-browed stare only further cemented the confusion behind your support or disapproval of the asset. You hadn’t needed to explain. Carmichael had grabbed the two of you for busywork immediately after that, and as soon as you’d had the chance, you’d slipped out.
There were many things that Six could run from, but time wasn’t one of them. It’d taken you a few weeks, but you’d found him. You’d thought that he would have a more sporadic schedule, or be constantly on the move, switching hideouts and being like other typical textbook deserters that you had pursued before. He proved to be the rare exception.
Having settle in a small neighborhood in the outskirts of Tallahassee, Florida with deceased senior CIA official, Donald Fitzroy’s daughter: Claire Fitzroy–Claire–you’d spent some time before advancing on the target to map out his schedule, only to come to one conclusion:
His schedule was very mundane, and you would even consider it domestic.
All of his time was spent keeping up with Claire, who floated around him like a sunbeam, blissfully unaware of the dangers looming outside the safety of her domestic sanctuary. Her laughter rang out like a melody, high and sweet–and that urged Sierra Six into behaviors that you thought had been beyond the program’s realm of teaching. Aside from cooking, he did relatively well for himself, having adopted a new identity with a steady supply of odd jobs to keep him stable financially.
Six, who was renowned for being characteristically stoic, stone-faced, and having a preference for dry-humor, looked the complete opposite now; an approximation of happiness that only someone like him could get. It was a perfect picture from an outside perspective, but that would never get rid of what he was. A weapon. You could use a spear as a walking stick all you wanted, but that would never change its nature.
You’d never been much of a poet, but you suspected Six traversed along that fragile line somewhere. He’d fallen victim to the easiest mistake someone like him could make: caring. The agency had said that Claire was the leash to bring the wolf to heel, but you weren’t morally unethical enough to consider kidnapping a kid, let alone using one for your own personal agenda. You remembered what you’d told Dani: His actions following his escape had been necessary. If you were in his position, were you more foolish, you strongly entertained the idea that you would have done the same.
For now, you considered a different approach, combatting natural instincts that begged you to satiate your natural curiosity, positioned at the peak of a hill with binoculars and taking note of his day-to-day. The safe way. Also the boring way. Regardless, you didn’t send in any of your notes. A location was enough to bring in a whole team–albeit as many as the agency had wouldn’t be sufficient, considering they were still recovering after his initial escape.
Until you could find an adequate approach to the Sierra agent, you were left reverting back to the stone-age of personal recon. Observation cameras, GPS trackers, public information, drones, social media–all would be naturally ineffective against someone as familiar with watching his back as you were.
You’d counted day fifteen when Carmichael finally caught on to your absence–the timing couldn’t have been better. You’d settled down on your stomach on the hill, binoculars having become a permanent fixture to your eyes, and draped in a poncho because of an inconvenient storm–knowing Florida weather, you knew it would be clear in a few minutes anyhow. A resounding buzz emanated from your pocket. Wiping your hands dry on your poncho, you grabbed your phone, knowing the caller without having to look.
“I’m working.” You said, flat.
“I’ve got another job for you,” came Carmichael’s calm baritone over the phone. If you didn’t know him and his less than endearing quirks, you could almost see him in an 1800 Regency Period romance drama. He had the voice and the looks for it if he didn’t talk so much. “How do you like the beach?”
“I don’t,” you answered absentmindedly, binoculars still held in one hand, hovering just over your eyes. “What’s the job?”
There was a moment of pause, as if he genuinely considered your likes and dislikes, or that you had told him that you disliked something in the first place before settling with pointing out the obvious. “I don’t remember you mentioning that you were pursuing another job. Aren’t those supposed to be approved through me?”
You looked through the windows where Sierra Six had disappeared into the bedroom, panning over to the adjacent window to watch him rifle through some drawers, yanking his shirt over his head in favor of another one. You noted his well-muscled frame, his shirt catching on the bulging muscle riddled with deep scars–his own private collection of imperfection. “I’m making progress.”
“I expect a full mission briefing, but I’m going to need to pull you out. We’ve located our target, Sierra Six.”
“Have you?” You managed to keep your voice level, but the amusement rumbled just underneath the surface. “I’m surprised. I thought it’d take you a little longer.”
“He is our highest priority until he’s brought in.” Carmichael went on. If he had any tips on your sudden change in demeanor, he didn’t mention it, but you knew that he was marking your exchange in a private file for later. “He’s been filtering between the border of Florida and Georgia, but there’s a middle point that we believe may be a safe bet to where he’s hiding. I’ll send you the location. Meet me there ASAP.”
“Understood,” you said and ended the call.
With no other choice, you rose to your feet. There would be enough suspicion against you already if you didn’t meet Carmichael, but approaching the target was your first priority. With less urgency than you likely should, you traversed down the slope, your feet slipping in the mud during your descent. Compared to your training the first few months, it was basic child’s play, a trail winding downward guiding you the safest route for the most part.
Once you arrived, you picked the lock with relative ease, slipping through the front door with a silent grace that you’d been taught in your youth. Efficient study of the house and mapping out its interiors led you to be able to traverse through the dark with little difficulty, noting the minimal furniture, and the lack of pictures on the walls. Even after the last few months since his escape, Six wasn’t getting comfortable. He was ready to run at any time.
As you crept through the living room, every step softened by the layered dust of the neglected abode, your thoughts circled back to the mission–your mission. Sierra Six had somehow managed to create a semblance of life amid the chaos spiraling around him. You could almost hear the gentle sounds of Claire's breath from the bedroom, the rhythmic rise and fall that suggested a kind of serenity rarely afforded to people like him—or like you.
A soft hum of the ceiling fan punctuated the stillness. You navigated around a jagged coffee table, careful not to disturb anything.
Sierra Six, a man notorious for his lethal skills and refusal to bow to anyone—turning his back on a life built on violence and chaos. And here, scattered about his so-called sanctuary, were remnants of a life he seemingly wanted: a crumpled grocery list on the counter, the faint scent of something home-cooked lingering in the air, a couple of worn-out sneakers by the door that showed the most sign of wear.
You’d turned as a light to your left flicked on. Six’s stark outline stood in the entryway to the hall, and the light that illuminated his face almost made him look soft if his neutral expression didn’t appear so deadly, lethal. His eyes were focused and searching but not showing any sign of the suspicion and sudden security that you were sure he felt. He’d glanced around, but there was no one.
Just you.
And him, with a gun aimed at your head.
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! (:
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Requests Open (Regular or dialogue prompts, whatever you want!) : Umbrella Academy, Star Wars, Peter Pan, The Boys, DC/Titans, Marvel, Detroit: Become Human, Stranger Things, Final Fantasy, Disney
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