ransomhazard

[ransomhazard]

beccasavage​:

The anticipation is literally going to kill her if Ransom draws it out any longer, the dickhead. She’s half ready to pull out the big guns and go find Mal to help her convince him, when he finally gives in and answers—god, she’s torn between kicking him in the shin underneath their shared desk for making her think he was actually going to make her do something and springing up from her seat and hugging him until he can’t breathe anymore.

She settles for somewhere in the middle, breaking into a wide grin and replying, “Oh my god, Ransom, you’re literally the worst person I’ve ever met.” 

It’s honestly a hundred times better than she’d expected. Of course she would have wanted Clementine to DJ anyway, because Clementine was the best, and of course it wouldn’t have felt like a party without the rest of the Hazards there—Piper and Paige were pretty close to the top of any guest list she made anyway—but there’s something grandiose about the whole thing, as Ransom frames it, that feels like so much more than she would have aimed for. It sounds… fucking perfect, honestly. It sounds incredible. 

     “I mean, it has to be a costume party. That’s just tradition. When your birthday’s basically Halloween, you have to embrace that immediately. But—okay, what do you think about something really glitzy?” 

.

This whole thing is already ideal just from the reaction he gets from Becca when she hears his unless. The grin on her face like he’s doing something big for her, when this is just a no brainer, and of course, he would do anything he could to make this party exactly as perfect as she imagines it could be, and more, if he can. In another life, he probably could’ve been a party planner; hell, doesn’t sound like a half bad retirement plan, really, since he really has no intention of ending up one of those aurors who sticks around until he’s old and grey and can hardly even handle fieldwork anymore.

It’s easy to grin back at her, put a hand over his heart as she calls him the literal worse person. “Thank you, I try very, very hard for that title, I appreciate the recognition,” he says.

And now comes the real fun, the planning the perfect night, finding all the right ways to make her dreams for a twenty-first birthday party to come true. It’ll be nice, having a distraction from everything that’s been going on around them all lately, the very real danger they’re all facing, worrying that he could wake up missing someone else. Ransom is more than ready to throw all his focus into this right now, even better if it makes Becca happy.

“Of course, it does, it’d be stupid not to take advantage of the timing. No costume, no entrance; none of that half-assed bullshit people try to pull. I love glitzy, I love glam, it’s fucking Vegas, it has to be glitzy. You have your costume picked out? The atmosphere should follow your lead, not the other way around.”

[ransomhazard]

malachaifortune​:

Their blood begins to run cold, as she talks through the story, and as they look over at Ransom they can tell it’s the same for him—worse, for him. His face may not show it, he’s always been good at hiding how he feels, but they can see it in his posture, in the angle of his arm at his side, tense, like holding the pose of calmness takes every ounce of effort he has. The two of them seem to piece it together at the same moment, just waiting for Rebel to say it out loud, to confirm the unthinkable, that this problem really is just as bad as she’d made it out to be. The New Blood Order.

They haven’t been on any of the recent surge of NBO cases the Squad has been seeing, but they’ve heard enough about all of it to know that it makes sense, that the NBO seems to be ramping up to something. And it sounds like Rebel, and Black Lantern, and whatever this artifact they wanted replicated was, has something to do with it. Which means that this is about keeping Rebel safe, finding Journey before anything happens—and it’s also about stopping the NBO from getting their hands on whatever they need, to execute whatever plan they’ve been working towards, before a lot of other people get hurt. 

     “I don’t know what to do, dad,” Rebel says, after a moment, her voice breaking, her composure finally breaking fully with it, and Mal steps to the side as she crosses the room in three long steps and wraps her arms around Ransom, buries her face in his chest, seeming all of a sudden like a small child and not like the twenty four year old dark artifact smuggler she’s grown into. And who can blame her for it? Journey’s been their friend for almost longer than he’s known Ransom; they’re terrified to think of what might have happened. But Journey’s her mom. They can only imagine the greater depths of feeling, and be amazed that she managed to keep it together this long.

     “You were right to call us,” they say, after a long moment—after a minute or two of giving her and her dad some space. “We’ll take care of it, Rebel, I promise we will. Do you have—records or anything? A name for your contact, anywhere we can start?”

.

There’s very little keeping him from panicking here, but he focuses on what is. Focuses on Rebel, who clearly needs him to be the anchor here, to figure out a way to fix this, focuses on Mal, who he can tell just from a look is about as worried about this whole mess as he is, which is just more proof he made the right choice to bring them along, because they get it, and they care about Journey and Rebel, and the whole family, really, enough to know this is going to be a balancing act of making sure none of them end up in worse danger than they already are, while also figuring out a way to do their job. He used to thrive off of this shit, solving problems that seemed impossible, hell, it’s still something he loves, or else he wouldn’t have bothered sticking with the aurors, but this is different. This is his family. 

Before he can say anything else, Rebel goes on, that sturdy wall finally breaking, and she crosses the office to him, burying her face in his chest, and in a way that halts the panic in its tracks. It’s instinct, after all, to want to do anything he can to make sure his daughter doesn’t have to keep feeling like this. He wraps his arms around her, one hand moving to her hair, that instinctual gesture of comfort, like she’s ten again, and one of the other girls said something mean. “It’s alright, sweetheart, that’s why we’re here. We’ll figure it out,” he reassures her quietly, giving her all the time she needs like that. After a few minutes, her sobs quiet, and she pulls back still staying close. He nods as Mal speaks up, keeping a hand on her, steady, and again he’s infinitely grateful for Mal, and how they somehow know exactly how to handle this.

“No real names, like most of the Black Lantern’s clients; just information. I was in contact with the weapon’s specialist, an older woman, by the sound of things. I’ll get everything sent to both of you...” she explains with a sniffle, voice still shaky, even as she pulls out her telekit. “The artifact, it's an antique magical gun. Something aurors used to use.”

He wishes that he had been put on an NBO case before now, but there’s nothing to do about it now. Magical guns, though, is a whole different concern, but the fact that it’s related, somehow, to old aurors means they’ve got a leg up here. “Luckily, we’ve got plenty of people who can help with that.” he asks gently. “And if they’re waiting for the rest of a shipment, it means we have time, but we’re not going to leave Journey with them, I promise. Let us get you back to my place, I don’t want you on your own right now. We can go through everything while you get some rest.”

[ransomhazard]

malachaifortune​:

     “It is,” they agree, and for once it’s all they need to say, all that needs to be said. They’re used to filling up the space between them and Ransom with words, the two taking stabs at one another back and forth. Building tension and cutting it. There’s no tension, here, on the boat. Of any kind. There is just a kind of gentle ease they haven’t felt, except alone, in a long time, something simple and uncomplicated, even though the fact that it’s Ransom and that should somehow complicate everything. 

At some point they’ll have to make their way into the captain’s quarters, check their heading on the enchanted readouts there to make sure they’re on track. At some point, they and Ransom will have to talk about this case, the mysterious disappearing and reappearing boat, the missing people, the inexplicable nature of whatever had caused this. At some point, they’ll make it to Alaska and have to return to reality.

Somehow, they think, it won’t be as impossible to do as it feels right now like it would be. Somehow, they think the boundary between normal and this is more porous than they would have liked to imagine. That all they’ll need to do is step off the boat and back into their ordinary self, the self that Ransom knows as well as they do isn’t really them. Do a job they are technically unqualified for, but still very good at.

     “There are blankets, inside,” they say, gesturing. “And it blocks the wind. This time of year, up near Alaska especially, it can get pretty cold.”

.

It should probably feel stranger that this isn’t strange. Everything feels so different, and yet it’s not something jarring, not something that makes him nervous in that underlying way he’s more likely to compensate against by being louder and more outwardly confident than to show. If he was, though, oddly enough, it feels like something he wouldn’t have as much trouble being honest about here. He doesn’t really know what it is about this boat, about being out here alone with Mal, drifting further from the rest of the world by the minute, but it just feels easy.

It feels like something he wouldn’t mind holding onto, if they would let him. And he thinks that it might not be as hard as it would’ve otherwise to convince Mal to let him back on this boat after this, now that they’re both seeing this, because he knows they can feel the nearly comforting simplicity of this here, together. 

“Ah, well, you know I’m more delicate than I look. Somehow, the cold’s never really been my thing, didn’t inherit that New Englander cold resistance. I wouldn’t mind getting a little cozy, if the boat’s fine without us out here for a minute,” he hums, hint of teasing to his voice, but maybe not as much as there usually is there. Ransom takes that as his cue to get up, get a tour of what he can only assume is a small inside. Maybe it should be the cue to bring up the case, too, but then it’ll be easier to concentrate in the warmth, maybe. Or maybe not; hard not to be distracted by everything, by Mal, here, no real desire to worry about work.

“Next time, we go somewhere warm,” Ransom says, looking back at Mal, and it doesn’t feel as presumptuous as it maybe usually would, to assume there’ll be a next time. “I could use a tan, and a few hours away without a case hanging over our heads.”

[ransomhazard]

Mal and Ransom + tumblr text posts

[ransomhazard]

beccasavage​:

She rolls her eyes at his joke. Of course he knows she’s not twenty one, because she’s three months older than Paige and Piper are, and he’s seen her fake ID, the one Marleigh got her for her sixteenth birthday. It’s a terrible ID, it looks nothing like her, but it’s charmed so that no-majs don’t question it, which works well enough until you go to a wix bar or club, and then you have to hope no one’s paying too close attention, which, once you turn eighteen, almost no one ever is. She can tell Ransom’s saying it to fuck with her, taking his time getting to the point, drawing it out excruciatingly to get back at her for… something, probably. Or just because he thinks its funny, which, yeah, he thinks everything he says is funny.

But then he mentions her birthday present and she can’t help but light up a bit, excited. She wonders, briefly, if she can swindle him into telling her what it is early—not because she wants to know that much, she loves a surprise, but just to see if she could.

But first things first. A party to plan. She needs to persuade him to agree to this before she starts figuring out how to sneak anything else out of him with her powers of super persuasion. And she’s still got two weeks until her birthday, and Ransom is stuck with her basically every single day at this desk, couldn’t escape her if he tried. 

So she leans forward a bit, on her elbows, across the desk towards him, waiting for him to go on with whatever he’s decided it’s going to cost her for him to give her this.

     “Unless…”

.

He can see her perk up at the mention of her birthday present, because of course she does, he knows what his daughters are like, what she’s like, and half the fun of anything like this is all the teasing that comes before agreeing. Hell, that’s half the fun of most anything for him. And he can already imagine what she’ll probably do to try to bribe him into telling her what he’s gotten her already over the next few weeks, but presents are one of the few times he’s actually good at keeping quiet. The payoff is too good, the satisfaction of watching someone open a surprise that he’s picked out specifically for them, he’s always loved that sort of thing. One of the many reasons he’s grateful for the financial side of his well being, the ability to give anyone he cares about whatever they could want for birthdays, parties, no occasion at all but he saw something that reminded him of someone. Birthdays are his favorite.

To her credit, though, she doesn’t get sidetracked by that temptation offered, instead very clearly filing that away for later. There’s still the party to deal with, after all, and the grand favor she’s asking.

Ransom looks at her thoughtfully, as if considering the unless. Not that he actually had something specific in mind when he said it, anyway, but there are plenty of options here to just contribute to the night, help make it even better.

“Unless you let us help you do some planning,” he says finally, leaning forward, too. “I’m sure Clem would love to DJ for you, Sage could get some of her Cirque du Soleil friends to entertain, set the mood. I’d be happy to play your...master of ceremonies, of sorts, make sure things stay on track while you kids have a grand ol’ time. Of course, the vibe of it all, the aesthetic, anything you want for the party, that’s up to you, guest of honor, but closing the club down on one of the busiest weekends of the year, well, I still want to have my fun, too.”

[ransomhazard]

beccasavage​:

She lets out a bright little laugh at his answer, because thankfully she doesn’t actually need anything illegal or criminal from him. She thinks Ransom’s whole long-suffering dad schtick is hilarious—and, okay, she is not going to psychoanalyze herself over the fact that the person she spends the most time with in the office who isn’t a) basically her age or b) basically related to her is old enough to be her father, she really isn’t. He’s just funny, and useful, and anyway he’s her desk mate and she has to look at his face all day either way, so they might as well get along. 

     “So,” she starts. “My birthday’s in two weeks. My twenty first birthday. Which, obviously, is a huge deal and, obviously, deserves a huge celebration. Like, you know, bigger than just having a bunch of people over to my apartment.”

She takes a second to watch his facial expression, making sure he’s not going to jump in and cut her off before she can finish, but true to his word, he is hearing her out all the way to the end, so she keeps going.

   “And you happen to own, like, pretty much the coolest club I’ve ever been to,” she says, and that part is a little bit of an exaggeration, but she’s not going to tell him that while she’s trying to ask him for a huge favor. And anyway, Paige says it’s way cooler now than it was when Ransom was in charge, especially when Clementine’s there. 

This is where the ask gets risky; if she just wanted to have her birthday party at Ransom’s club she wouldn’t even ask. If she just wanted to have her birthday party at a club, she wouldn’t have picked the Dark & Stormy. But… it’s an inconvenient night to want to throw a huge party, because everyone wants to throw a huge party. Which means she needs to pull some strings, and Ransom’s strings are the ones she’s got right now. 

     “So what would it take for me to persuade you to let me rent the place out on… the night before Halloween?” 

.

When she had started on the squad, he had made a big deal about mourning the loss of his solo desk situation, any previous deskmates he’s had moving of their own accord out of sheer annoyance, but he really couldn’t ask for someone better sitting across from him. He’d been vaguely aware of her already, just like he tries his best to be vaguely aware of all of his daughters’ friends, but it’s easier said than done, when there’s so many of them, and friend groups seem to change with the girls so often. Becca Savage, though, has always been a name that stuck out, of course, just like Savage sticks out pretty much anywhere it crops up. He had assumed she’d be just like what he saw of her parents years ago, and what he knows about her mother now, and she is clearly her parents’ daughter, but she’s also a twenty year old in 2021, so, you know, very much not the same.

Just as intelligent, but much more entertaining. 

So he makes a big show of listening closely, sipping on his coffee as he regards her, as she mentions her birthday. And then he makes a big show of surprise, as if he didn’t know her twenty-first approacheth. Ransom keeps his mouth shut for once, though, letting her get through her request. A request that isn’t actually a surprise, all things considered, but is still flattering, that she would want to have her party at the Dark & Stormy when he’s well aware Vegas isn’t exactly most people’s taste in the office.

Ransom is sure she probably realizes he’s not going to say no. He probably couldn’t say no to her if he tried, in the same way he’s never been very good at saying no to his daughters. Doesn’t mean he’s not going to have fun, though.

“Hold on, back track for a second,” he says with a frown, holding his free hand up. “You’re not twenty-one? What the fuck? I’ve seen you in the club before with the Blondies, I cannot believe it, my own deskmate, pulling the wool over my eyes.” Mock incredulity, and then a slow exaggerated realization.“Wait, does this mean Paige and Piper aren’t twenty-one either? Wow, no wonder they’re always so happy when I buy them drinks...”

He shakes his head, takes another sip of his coffee, before sitting up straight finally. “Kidding. Already have part of your birthday present, actually,” he admits. “The night before Halloween, though, that’s a tough one, kid. You know Halloweekend is big. Don’t know if even I could convince the girls to close it for a private event, unless...”

[ransomhazard]

malachaifortune​:

Ransom seems… quiet. But not a nervous kind of quiet, not the kind of quiet they might expect someone who was scared of being farther out on the water than they’d ever been would be. No, that doesn’t seem to bother him; he seems calm enough about it—excited, as he says. The quiet is something else, a calmness they aren’t used to seeing from him. Not totally foreign: there’s still the cavalier way he hods himself, the posture, everything else. All there, just subdued. 

it’s… nice, really. Watching him look around the boat, look out over the water, as the shore slips away, closer and closer to moving out of view, it makes something in their chest feel warm, and loose, and easy. The same way just being out on the water does.

     “It’s not as different as it could be,” they say. “With the magic, and everything. It’s always a little smoother than it has any right to be, and faster, too, than a no-maj boat. This trip would take us weeks, on a boat that wasn’t magic.”

     “My uncle had a boat, when I was a kid. Just a little two-person sailboat he’d let me go out in, but we never went very far. Turns out it’s all easier when you don’t have to care about the wind being on your side, and when you’ve got magic shielding for when the waves get too choppy. It almost feels like cheating, except that it’s still damn hard to sail sometimes.” 

.

It’s pretty damn calming, he has to admit, as the boat gets further and further from shore, the gentle rocking, certainly unnaturally so, of the boat, and the way every other sound besides the water lapping against the sides, the wind catching in the sails slips away without much ceremony. They’ve only been on the boat for a second, in the grand scheme of this trip, but he can already understand why Mal loves this, and maybe why it’s not something they’ve ever shared, either. Because the air feels different on the boat. Mal feels different. Their shoulders seem looser, more relaxed in a way that he hadn’t even fully realized they were even holding tension in the first place, they just seem calm. They’re always calm, really, but this has a new tone to it, something he can’t really remember seeing before, even during quieter moments. It’s never been quiet like this, though, a quiet that’s wholly comfortable, nothing unpleasant to it, no need to fill the air with snarky comments and pushing buttons for the hell of it. It’s a strange feeling, but it’s a good one.

And he’s pretty certain that Mal feel that strange difference, too, just from the way they’re looking at him, when his eyes move from the receding shore back to them. He nods with their explanation, considering what that would be like. “For the best, I don’t know if I’m quite ready for weeks on a boat, yet. Although, I have a feeling I could get there,” he hums.

They tell him about their uncle, about a little sailboat that they went out in, doing it all without magic, learning that skill in a way that probably just made it all the easier to slip into this, to find their way here. He can’t remember ever hearing about their family, even just in passing, even something as simple as this, he’s not even positive he could have said with any certainty before this moment whether they had come from magic, or not, or a combination.

“A pirate from the start, I should’ve known. I can tell you now, I couldn’t do it with or without magic, so no cheating in my book. Just a slightly different set of skills, I’d imagine. It’s nice, though, that you still do it, even after all those years,” Ransoms says. “Nice to have something consistent.”

[ransomhazard]

malachaifortune​:

It’s been a long time since they’ve been back here; however much time they’ve spent at the Dark & Stormy in the past handful of years, it had felt like their days moving through back hallways and into the private office had ended a long time ago. Now Ransom didn’t even run the place, didn’t use the office, wasn’t even there most of the nights Mal found themself there, so there was no reason to, but they’ve been back here so many times before that the path still feels familiar, a long-forgotten muscle memory moving through space, even when the emotional tenor of it all is so drastically different. 

Rebel’s pacing around, when they get inside, and she looks—awful, really, looks freaked out, only barely looks momentarily relieved when she sees her dad’s face, and then sees theirs. They’ve got a real fondness for her, from their interactions over the past few years. She’s a good kid, a hard worker. Smart, too. But smart only gets you so far when it’s paired with young, and god is she young. She looks younger now than she usually does, the panic in her eyes betraying her usual collected, cool composure, the posture that makes her look older than her age. No, now she looks her age, looks like a twenty-something kid who doesn’t know what to do.

     “Hey, hey,” they say, catching the pace between her frantic words. “Slow down, Rebel.”

They’re not sure what she’s already told Ransom, but from the look on Ransom’s face it seems like he doesn’t have all that much more of an idea of what’s going on than they do, and she isn’t doing them any favors right now in terms of filling them in.

     “Start from the beginning, tell us what’s going on. We can’t do anything unless we know what happened, okay?”

.

She looks between them for a minute, as if deciding something, and he can guess plenty about whatever must be happening just from that. There’s an unspoken agreement between himself and her mom, one that happened naturally when he went from handling dirty money by the thousands for people in her business, laundering it squeaky clean, to MACUSA informant. Their own sort of don’t ask, don’t tell, to keep all of them safe. He couldn’t get any information about the less than legal side of the Black Lantern pried out of him, if he didn’t have it in the first place. And that’s how it’s been for years, no details given, no specifics, and they’re all good. Clearly that’s going to be something that’ll change as soon as she starts talking.

There’s a silent question in her eyes as she looks from Mal back to Ransom, and he wonders if maybe he shouldn’t have brought them, because it’s not exactly a fair position to put someone in, the expectation of holding onto things that could get any one of them in this room thrown into prison. But that’s the thing, Mal was in this room long before Rebel was. Mal knows probably nearly as much about the Black Lantern as he does, and they haven’t said anything before. He wouldn’t have asked them to come, if he didn’t trust them with his family’s safety.

“It’s alright, Rebel. Whatever you say doesn’t leave this room. You never have to worry about either of us,” he reassures her with a certain nod. It takes a second, and a deep breath, before she nods too, and finally goes on.

“I heard about an opportunity. I’ve been trying to do more, so I jumped on it. I thought if I could facilitate a new deal, it’d prove how far I’ve made it. It seemed simple, they were looking for a specific artifact, and once we found it, they needed it replicated, which is easy enough for us,” she nods, words coming out a little slower now. “I didn’t realize who it was until way too late, and I tried to pull out of the deal. I didn’t want to help assholes like them, but that made it so much worse.”

His heart is beating harder than he wants to admit, because he thinks he has a guess here, given how things have been lately, given the way it doesn’t seem like anything any of them can escape. “And who are they?” he asks, voice almost scarily even as he tries to keep himself from panicking. Because he can connect the dots, and if it got that bad, he knows Journey would’ve figured it out, would have intervened, and Journey isn’t here, and Rebel is a mess. 

“The New Blood Order,” she replies, the guilt clear in her voice. “One of their members...mom went to go try to fix things, but she hasn’t come back, she won’t come back, unless I finish the shipment, but I can’t. I can’t give them more weapons.”

It takes all his strength not to show the very real panic setting in that he might not actually be able to fix this one, but he tries to push past that right now, because that’s not going to help anyone. “There’s no way you have known, Rebel, they’re tricky fuckers, or else they all would’ve gotten caught twenty years ago. But we’ll figure it out, just have to...think about this logically,” he tries to sound certain, but he’s not sure how successful it it.

[ransomhazard]

Even he has to admit that everything’s been a little trying lately, no need for any of the big, bad news to hit personally with family to make even him worry, but that was without everything else, with it suddenly turning very personal, for different reasons. But there’s no sense in lingering on it, when he’s done all that could be done to keep his family safe, and plans to continue to do what he can in the office, too, keeping a watchful eye on the others, especially the younger aurors, even if that doesn’t really feel like enough.

All in all, a strange fucking autumn it’s been all around, which means he’s dragging a little, not as sharp around the edges as he usually is in the morning, as much an early bird as he is a night owl. What he needs is a distraction, or maybe ten, to feel like things are how they’re supposed to be. (Or maybe what he wants is the weekend to hurry up and get here so he can have an excuse to sit on Mal’s boat for a few hours.)

So Ransom’s not as early as he usually is, he’s just on time, even stopping to grab breakfast and coffee, but the moment he steps in, he’s hit with his name called by Becca, the sort of smile on her lips that he’s very familiar with, from having seven daughters of his own who are nearly as spoiled as her, too. And that makes him grin, because she really is a little bright spot in the office, a surprisingly entertaining deskmate, considering her age, her ambition, and most importantly, her parents, who nearly arrested him twenty-some years ago.

“Why do I get the feeling you’re about to ask me for something I shouldn’t give you?” he rolls his eyes fondly, as he puts one of the coffees and the pastry bag on Mal’s currently empty desk, before sitting down at his own, getting himself situated. 

He makes a big show of taking his time unwrapping his breakfast croissant, keeping his eyes on Becca, narrowed slightly, as if considering her words with grave seriousness. “Alright, I’ll hear you out, but just remember that officially I haven’t committed a crime in like a decade, okay? Not my scene anymore, so I reserve the right to pull a no comment on this one, and refer you to a different alleged criminal, depending on said crime. So deal, hit me, little Savage.”

Pacific Squad office, Becca’s desk, mid-October, @ransomhazard​

October is probably her favorite time of year. Because October 1st, she gets to start looking forward to the end of the month, the suspense and build up, the month-long anticipation to the best day of the entire year: her birthday. At Ilvermorny, and then at the Academy, her birthday parties had been legendary, the kind of thing people talked about for literally months after. The fact that it happened to coincide neatly with Halloween was just a perk.

But this is her first year having a birthday when she isn’t in school since she was a little kid and her mom planned her birthday parties. Which means she hasn’t exactly figured out what to do, because she could just have people over to her fancy new apartment, but… well, she’s turning twenty-one, and it feels like it deserves a little something more special. 

Which is how she starts to formulate a plan, a plan that begins with her getting to work a few minutes early, making sure she’s all settled in at her desk when Ransom gets in for the day, sos he can smile her thousand-watt smile at him the second he comes in.

       “Ransom!” she says, bright—brighter than usual, both colored by her own excitement and by her attempt to play the whole thing up to make sure she got Ransom to say yes to what she’s planning on asking. “Just the man I was looking for.”

After four months sharing a desk, talking basically every day, she likes to think she knows a thing or two about Ransom Hazard. She did go to Ilvermorny with, like, four of his daughters, two of them in her own year. And now that they were deskmates, she spent nearly as much time talking to him as she did to Emmy, even if half of that talking was him trying to comprehend half the things she and Emmy talked about.  

      “So, okay, I have a question for you, but before I ask you have to promise you’ll hear me out on this. Like, no matter what. Deal?”

[ransomhazard]

rileymetzer​:

There have been times in his life, more frequent than not, that Riley has prayed someone would take this away from him. Take away the sight, take away the visions, take away every act of rememberance for lives he never knew, people he never touched. But there must be something in him, some survival mechanism, something that holds on to the good. Because she talks, and he still feels sick to his damn stomach. He still feels like he might throw up later at the very idea of it. The violation, having body parts and skills taken away from you – ripped away, with violent hands. So someone else could use it. And maybe it would be one thing if they just used magic to do it. Magic could hurt, it was true. But it was probably cleaner and, Riley imagined, it wouldn’t be as violently traumatic. 

He lapses into quiet and lets Ransom wrap things up, lets him finish his questioning and thank them. He strains out a smile and nods his head, and follows Ransom when he leaves the room. Selfishly, he’s glad to be away from them, from the visiual of the situation. It made his head hurt too much, like he could almost imagine what it felt like in far too many different ways. And it was dangerous for him to imagine too much. He still felt something looming, dangerous, at the back of his mind. A phantom tingle in his eye. 

He shakes his head, glances at Ransom. 

“Is it?” He asks, a little hesitant, wanting to know. “Fantastic, I mean.” Because the word stuck out to him, and it gave him some level of hope that Ransom… knew something he didn’t, could point them in the right direction in one way or another. The grusome ideas made Riley feel a little lost, but he can see how something like that might point Ransom, who had a world of different experiences under his belt, down the right path. “The fact that they’re willing to use no-maj means. That’s helpful, for you?” He thinks the egde of hope creeps into his voice, as they walk out of the hospital so that Ransom can side-along him to talk to Blue.

He stops when they get outside, and offers his arm. Once again waiting for the contact, something to hold on to during the journey. And a moment of vulnerability creeps up. “Does it make me sound like an awful coward if I tell you I’m not looking forward to all of this?” It’s something at his own expense, but something he feels the need to say. Ransom should know if he’s working with a nervous wreck, and Riley is a wreck on the best of days, it feels like. “Better tell me now, so I can reign it in in front of Blue.” 

.

They finish up easily, and head out of the room, making their way back through the hospital, and he’s already thinking about the best way to get in with these people, who they might be able to call on to help make it more believable. But first, he’s right to ask what the hell he was talking about, they’re partners, after all, he needs to get him filled in. “Fantastic was probably the wrong word, but it is helpful, yeah. It’s royally fucked that they’re using no-maj means, too, and it shows a certain level of sadism that makes me think this isn’t just business, but maybe something more personal. They could have a prejudice against seers, for some odd reason, they could be trying to send a message, or they could just be sick fucks who like to see people suffer needlessly. But the big thing here is that I know a few criminal organizations who have that same trademark in the Vegas underground,” he explains, talking fast, as they start out of the hospital. His thoughts are already a dozen steps ahead, figuring out who he could call that might know something. Easier to focus on that, than the why of it being so familiar.

He stops, though, halting those thoughts for a second as soon as they get outside, and Riley admits how much he’s not looking forward to any of it. It says something that he asks if it makes him a coward,  to be nervous in the face of something this enormous, in the face of other people with his skill being kidnapped and trafficked, having unspeakable things done to them. His look softens a little into a frown. “I’d be concerned if you were looking forward to heading into this, being a seer yourself. If it makes you a coward, then I’m a coward, too,” he pauses for a second, considering giving a bit of his own vulnerability. It’s not something he talks about really, but it only feels fair to give him something, too. “I have some personal experience with what it means when people like this are willing to use no-maj means to make their points. It’s not the same, of course, but I get not looking forward to this. So don’t worry about being nervous. Hell, I’m sure Blue will understand even better than me; they went through it, after all.”

That’s about as much vulnerability as he can give just about anyone, but he hopes it helps a little. It’s not the sort of thing he can linger on, though. Ransom gives him a little pat on the shoulder, and finally takes his arm, apparating them to the location listed in the case file of Blue’s office without waiting. And it’s just the sort of place he was expecting of a nonprofit like this run out of fucking Cambridge, just down the street from Harvard. He lets himself focus on that, instead, on the familiarity, the way being on the east coast, even for a second, makes him feel like he’s seventeen again.

They don’t even make it inside before he sees Blue, though, waving someone off, probably an organizer or donor or some shit, just as tall and handsome as he remembered them being. It’s easily to slip into his winning smile, let any lingering worry slip away for a second as he approaches. “They make you stand out in the New England cold even though you’re the boss around here?” he asks, with a grin, as they come up to them.

“Ah, no one makes me do anything. The cold is good for you, sharpens the mind,” Eden Blue says, mirroring his smile easily, before holding out their hand to shake. “The aurors, da? I have seen you make an appearance at fundraisers before. Ransom Hazard?”

“The very same. And this is my partner on the case, Cadet Riley Metzer,” he introduces him. “We really appreciate you being willing to meet with us, I’m sure you’re horribly busy.”

“It is no problem, anything to help stop this mess,” they wave him off, but look at Riley curiously, before recognition seems to dawn on them, their smile changing. “I am familiar with you, too. Eden LeRoux Blue. You are the tiny baby bird my husband has told me about, aren’t you?”

[ransomhazard]

malachaifortune​:

     “It’s my second, actually,” they say, falling easily into the conversation as they work. They thought it would feel strange, with Ransom here, the extra noise of him, but he’s managed to find a place where he’s out of the way, and he’s staying there, which is a pleasant surprise—and… well, maybe it feels nice, to have someone else on the boat again, when it’s felt far too empty for too long. It’s not meant to hold just one, too big, too much space, and two isn’t ten but it isn’t one either. 

They run a hand along the smooth wood for a moment. There’s a piece, here, just there, of wood a different color to the rest, a scrap from his original boat, the one they’d bought before they even had a crew, recovered from it when it had been damaged and they’d decided to go with something larger instead of just repairing the damage. Their old crew had decided it was lucky, a little ritual, to touch the discolored wood at the start of every voyage. A little prayer to the sea. 

     “My first one was smaller. The Crooked Star. I was still getting a hang of the whole thing, tore the underside apart on a shoal after a year and a half. But this is the one I’ve had as long as you’ve known me.”

They finish the final checks, everything secure, and functional, and in the right place. Everything ready. They pat the hull once, then move to unmoor the boat.

     “Alright, we’re good to go. You ready?”

.

It’s strange to realize that this is one of the first times he’s actually considered deeply that they have a whole before, which is maybe stupid, and definitely self absorbed of him, but it’s the truth. When they met, after all, how they met, after all, was in a place where you didn’t ask those kind of questions, and that kind of information wasn’t offered. There was a reason he was able to be a Hazard there without any big deal being made out of it, for the same reasons that Mal had ended up in the Dark & Stormy in the first place, because secrets weren’t just accepted there, they were expected. They had only barely been skating towards something else when it had all ground to a halt.

But they had another boat. The Crooked Star, a name that makes him smile a little for some reason. Just like something about the rest of it does, too, weirdly, knowing this is the same boat that they had years and years ago, too, when they’d first met. He’s glad he can see it now, glad he can watch them run their hand over the spot of wood that’s a different color, something almost reverent in the gesture.

“You gotta learn somehow,” he hums, voice a little less boisterous than it would be otherwise, the feeling of being here making quiet feel right, somehow. 

Ransom nods, as they move to unmoor the boat, ready to be on the journey. “Never been more ready,” he says. He considers for a minute that he should probably bring up the case, that they should come up with a game plan for once they get there, but it doesn’t feel necessary with Mal, when he knows full well they won’t have a problem working together. And he doesn’t want to, not just now. It’s a case that brought them here, but ti doesn’t feel like the most important thing, while they’re on their way.

“You know, I’ve never been far enough out on a boat that I can’t see land,” he says, and he’s not exactly sure why it matters, but it feels like it does. “Kind of excited for it.”

[ransomhazard]

malachaifortune​:

It only takes a moment of watching him, as he answers the telekit, Rebel’s frantic voice half-audible in fits and starts on the other end of the conversation, to know that something’s wrong. Ransom doesn’t seem panicked—and maybe that’s something parenthood teaches a person, because Mal can’t imagine receiving a call like that and not instantly panicking, not rushing out without a word, can’t imagine making a comment about a raincheck if there was trouble of the kind that would make Rebel sound like that. She’s barely older than a teenager, but Mal knows her, knows she isn’t prone to hysterics. 

But maybe Ransom’s more panicked than he looks, after all. Maybe he’s just hiding it better. Because they can’t figure out why else he would be inviting them to come along. The only thing that makes sense is that… well, Mal is something familiar, and someone good in a crisis, and they know that Ransom knows that. So maybe he is panicking, under that cool exterior, the surface only slightly disrupted by the troubled look on his face. 

So it feels important, that they say yes. And maybe they wouldn’t have two or three weeks ago, maybe they would have kept trying their best to keep Ransom at arm’s length and gone on with it all. But it feels like they’ve already stepped across a line they can’t step back over, and being on this side of it means that suddenly, Ransom needs them again, and suddenly, they want to let him. 

     “Yeah,” they answer, with an earnest nod, the air of playful banter gone now. They pat their pockets, making sure they have everything—telekit, wand—suddenly grateful that they haven’t had much to drink yet. “Yeah, of course, let’s go.”

.

He’s glad that this is the sort of thing he’s always been good at, pushing all the panic and worry and catastrophizing to the very back corner of his mind in favor of calm, collected laser focus until the problem’s been dealt with, and he’s alone, allowed to let any cracks show. Except it’s a little harder in this case, when it’s one of his daughters, when it’s Rebel, and apparently maybe her mother, too, who are mixed up in something bad, need a problem fixed that goes far beyond the sort of things that he’s been fixing for the last eight years or so. So maybe asking Mal to come with him is just proof of that, a little crack slipping through, the concern a little too close to home, the need to hold onto something familiar, someone he can turn to if the cracks keep forming before he can take care of this.

It’s a lot to ask them, he knows that, especially when a month ago it’s the sort of idea he would’ve laughed at, asking Mal to come help with a crisis his daughter is dealing with. It’s a lot to ask, but he’s also not surprised when they agree, voice suddenly serious, too, certain in it, as if it’s a no brainer. And it kind of is, oddly enough. Feels easy to ask them, to rely on them.

“Great, good...thanks,” he nods, glancing around, seeing if he notices either of his parents, but he has no idea where they are. It doesn’t feel like there’s time to waste, though, so he starts through the crowd, towards the front door, instead sending both of them a message saying he had to leave early, without giving the reason.

Once they’re outside, and past the wards, he takes their hand, and in seconds they’re in Vegas, outside of the club. He’s tempted not to let go, the solidity of it a comfort, but he does, not wanting to show any more cracks than are already visible, as they find the private entrance, start through the back, avoiding the crowds that are blissfully unaware. He leads Mal to the office, opening the door without knocking, surprised to see Rebel alone, expecting at least Storm to be there, too, pacing in front of the desk, typing on her telekit frantically. 

“Hey, hey, who are you messaging? What happened to wait until I’m here?” he asks, closing the door behind them once they’re in, and then pulling his wand out to throw an extra spell over the room, in case anyone could be listening. And he goes over to her, puts a hand on her back to stop her pacing, try to help calm her down. “We’ll fix whatever happened, Rebel, but we need to know what’s going on.”

“I was making sure no one knows anything’s wrong, is what I was doing,” she says forcefully, finishing whatever message she’s sending before looking up, eyes moving from Ransom, to Mal. “Oh, thank Merlin you’re here, I don’t know what we’re going to do, I don’t know if we can fix this. I fucked up, I thought I was helping, but I was tricked, I fucked up. And Mom tried to help fix it, but they weren’t too happy about that.”

[ransomhazard]

rileymetzer​:

Riley finds a place to stand, a little out of the way, and listens to Ransom speak. The questions he has speak of the experience he lived in the past. Riley hasn’t paid an excess of attention, to a lot of people at work with him. But he new, of course, the vague details of his co-workers colourful pasts. Ransom was one of those, with a story that Riley would probably never have the nerve to ask about. These kind of dark corners weren’t Riley’s own area of expertese. Illegal gambling, smuggling. Riley delt more with bloody and traumatic deaths, the things that lived inside his head for far too long after he had seen them, visions lingering and giving him new fears and new anxieties to add to his list. Fires, being buried alive, the woods at night with no light to guide him. He listens, and tries to follow along with what Ransom is discussing. 

Of course, he nods his head in agreement when Ransom looks to him. He’s the expert here. Going in as bookies sounds like the best bet, sounds like somethng Ransom could definitely pull off –– Riley wasn’t so sure about his own acting abilities, but he would do his best, as he always tried to. 

His heart aches, looking at the girl on the bed before them. Bianca wakes Ilana with a gentle touch, with careful words. She looks so small in the bed before them, and it brings out something in Riley that wants to step forward and be the carer, be something comforting and warmer than he feels. He’s always had the soul of a nurturer, so someone once said. It was his job to care for those that couldn’t care for themselves, little brothers and fathers and long lost uncles and stray dogs. 

Ilana’s undamaged eye finds them and she looks so tired it almost breaks his heart. He can feel something like a headache building at the back of his skull, sympathy and the weight of the universe. And he tries to shake it off, shake it away, but it lingers when Ilana looks at him and Ransom. Her voice is quiet when she speaks, uncertain. 

“Before –– I don’t…It’s fuzzy.” She says, and it sounds weak. She’s a girl whose been tampered with, her memories shaken and warped. “There were… bars, around me. I don’t know where I was, but there were men, and.” She reaches up, gestures at the eye, the missing one. It’s a halting, faltering movement, shaken. “They took my eye. My sight. It was why they wanted me.”

He shivers, at that. Part of him wants to reach up and touch his own, careful fingers.But he doesn’t. He doesn’t need his own sight to give him the phantom feeling of pain in his own eyes. He watches her instead. “Do you… know what they wanted it for?” He asks, uncertain, as he stands beside Ransom. He looks to him, just for a moment.

.

Ransom isn’t surprised to hear that it’s all fuzzy. He has a feeling that the people who hit her with a memory charm are the sort who know what they’re doing, the kind of memory charm that it might not ever be possible to fully break. It makes him feel even worse for what she’s gone through, that there’s a distinct possibility that she’ll never get back what’s been taken from her. And her words send a chill through him. He glances at Riley, hoping he’s doing alright hearing this, knowing it can’t be easy, to know that it’s because of his own unique skill, too, that this happened to her. It’s dangerous what they’re going to be doing, extra dangerous because of Riley’s own talents, even if he has a feeling they’ll make it easier somehow. But he’s prepared to make sure he doesn’t stand a chance at ending up like Ilana, and that they make sure no one else does, either. Ransom gives Riley a slight nod of encouragement as he looks back at him after asking the question.

Ilana frowns, looking from Riley, to Bianca. “I don’t... I have no idea, but they wanted my sight, I’m...I don’t know why they didn’t take both,” she shakes her head, clear just how much this has affected her. And it makes him think they shouldn’t push much longer, that it’s not worth it, when they have other avenues, not wanting to make her relive too much of what she does remember.

“From the little I’ve been able to find on these sort of attacks,” Bianca cuts in, putting a comforting hand on Ilana’s arm, “It seems like there are people who believe a seer’s abilities can be used, or even transferred if you take the source. I don’t know why they didn’t take both eyes, or why they let her stay. It’s been hard to find concrete information, the whole thing’s always been quiet, somehow, but the other seer, the one I mentioned from that old case, they might be able to give you something better. I haven’t had a chance to talk to them, yet.”

Ransom nods, fighting through the way it turns his stomach, thinking about people taking seer’s eyes to use, to try to take their abilities. It makes him wonder how, but that’s not the question here, and he knows he wouldn’t like the answer. What they need to do is find the people who did this. “Just one more question, and we’ll let you keep resting. Do you remember anything the men said, anything at all might help us,” he prompts gently.

She pauses for a second, clearly thinking. And then she looks up at them with a frown. “I heard one of them say something about it not always needing to be magic...like maybe they weren’t doing it all just with spells,” she says. And that feels like a jackpot to him, because he knows of several different parts of the underground that like to combine magical and no-maj means to get the job done, several of which he could see branching out into something so strange.

“Fantastic. Thank you both so much. We’re going to head out, talk to Blue, but we’ll send you a message if there’s anything else. And we’ll let you know when we find the people who did this,” Ransom nods, raring to go now.

[ransomhazard]

malachaifortune​: 

Nice. It is nice; they always feels calmer on the boat, always feels more relaxed when they’re on the water, something atavistic about the gentle sway and the sound of the waves lapping against the side of it. The familiarity, of a craft they know better now than they’ve ever known almost anything. The routine of years and years of work. The ease of knowing where everything is, of being able to rely on their instincts, their muscle memory, not having to think before they act, the way everything anymore feels like at least something of an act. They lean into it, already starting to untie ropes, to slowly lower sails down, the habit, the rhythm, their heart falling easily into the pattern of the work.

     “It’s alright,” they say, glancing over at him, their hands still moving. “It’s all designed for two hands at this point. I’ve made some modifications.” Something they’ve had to work on, over the years, a change from the days when this boat was operated by six or seven people, but something they’ve perfected. It feels, somehow, like. it would be more work to try to separate out the steps in their head, figure out which they could assign to Ransom without accidentally skipping a step or losing track.

Half of it’s done with their hands, half with magic, a careful dance between the two as the sails unfurl, as they check and double check each thing. They don’t usually talk, while they do it, but it doesn’t pull them out of their stride, isn’t as distracting as they expected it to be, as they glance over their shoulder again to add,

      “Not that I don’t think you know how to follow orders, or anything. But she’s temperamental  enough when it’s just me.”

.

Mal immediately starts getting to it, and it’s clear just how much of a routine it is, the sort of thing that they clearly don’t even have to think about anymore, the movements of it all second nature. It’s kind of hypnotizing to watch, but he’s glad to help, wants to help, maybe wants to know what it feels like, like that might give him a better understanding of Mal, those private corners that even he isn’t let into. Because this boat feels like one of those corners, and here he is now, and because of a case, of all reasons.

Not a surprise that they don’t need his help, that after he doesn’t even know how long they could probably do this all alone with their eyes closed. He’s sure he’d be more of a burden than anything, definitely would make things take longer than they need to, so he tries not to take it personally, a near impossibility for him, but the effort is valiant at least.

“Right, right, of course,” he nods, looking around, eyes landing on a spot he thinks maybe he’ll be out of the way enough, but still close enough to watch Mal at work. 

He feels a strange mix of calm and restless, like his body knows it’s going to be able to relax here, but not yet, not when it’s only been minutes, and it’s still so new, and it feels like he needs to be doing something with his hands or he might end up doing or saying something he’d regret. An odd feeling, but maybe understandable, he thinks, because being here feels like something important, even if it’s for a case, even if it’s just for the ease of being able to use their boat in case of anything overly sinister up in Alaska.

He should probably let them work in peace, but he can’t stop from bouncing his leg, the need to keep talking almost compulsive. “So... is this the boat you’ve always had?”

[ransomhazard]

malachaifortune​:

The first excuse Ransom gives is a good one, almost persuasive—Mal doesn’t know how to waltz, at least not really, learned once for some ridiculous school formal and then immediately discarded that information as utterly useless when there were more interesting things to learn. They wouldn’t know how to lead a waltz if they tried, though their faith in Ransom’s ability to lead while he looked like he was following has been tried and tested numerous times and Ransom has never let them down. 

The second, though, only turns it back around, makes them want to win even more. Ransom’s parents seem like the least objectionable of the old purebloods here—they’d overheard a few of his father’s jokes, earlier in the night, and he could see where Ransom got it from, would have loved to have a drink with the old man just to see how deep the resemblance went—but there’s something undeniably tempting about the idea of scandalizing a bunch of rich people, and about Ransom’s parents talking to him about the dashing swashbuckler he’d led lead him in a dance. 

   “Oh, come on, Hazard, when have either of those things ever stopped me?”

.

He can already guess how this is going to play out, because this dance of theirs is as familiar as a waltz is to him. They’re going to have this back and forth, until eventually he gives in and lets Mal think they’ve won, lets them lead them in a bad approximation of a waltz to give the boring old rich people something to talk about, because that’s the sort of night it is, no reason to start a real argument, no reason for him to pout. He’s decided it’s going to be a good night, after all. He reaches out, hands moving to adjust Mal’s shirt for the express purpose of being able to brush fingertips over the exposed skin of their chest

“Never, but sometimes humility can be a good thing, especially when––” he stops mid sentence, feeling his personal telekit vibrating in his pocket. He holds up a finger, pulls it, utterly confused at who would be calling him, immediately worried seeing Rebel’s name, his daughters never calling. “Shit, sorry, it’s Rebel.”

Etiquette says he should step out, take the call privately, but he’s worried, and it makes him think about the boat, that maybe staying next to Mal will make whatever this call is about easier to handle, so he picks up. “Rebel, everything okay?... Slow down, sweetheart, what’s going on? What? Okay... I’ll be there in ten minutes, alright, don’t do anything until I get there.”

It takes a second after he hangs up, thoughts racing, coming up with a plan. He didn’t get the full picture, Rebel’s too distraught to make it all clear, but there’s some real panic there just knowing what she and her mom are involved with, knowing how it goes when something goes wrong. “Gonna have to take a raincheck on that waltz, actually. Something’s going on with Rebel, got to go meet her at the club,” he shakes his head, repocketing his telekit. He pauses, as he looks at Mal, and it’s strange, he knows, not something he’s ever asked before, but something compels him.

“Do you... would you come with me? Rebel loves you, and I could use the backup; I think something happened with Journey. Unclear. If you’d rather stay and find someone else to waltz with, understandable, of course, just... thought I’d ask.”

[ransomhazard]

aurorcaro​:

There’s a small pause in the causal back and forth of the conversation that doesn’t go by wholly unnoticed by Lucky. They’re not sure just what- or more like who, has caused their’s and Hazard’s usually flings to become less frequent, but fuck, they hope it’s as fun as he makes it sound when he starts talking again. There were several people at this party tonight that could use some good luck thrown their way, and they genuinely hope Hazard has found something in the beards- or beard of another. 

“Ah, see now you’re just bein’ condescending,” they bark a laugh, “I’m doin’ plenty fine without your ass in my rotation. If it gets so bad you feel obligated to ‘pencil me in’ than that’s my fuckin’ fault, and I deserve to deal with the consequences” 

Glancing around the room, their eyes land on Hazard’s dad again, and they can’t help but smirk as they think about their “silver fox” comment from earlier. 

“Besides,” they let out a sigh, shooting a devilish smirk in his direction, “you can have your beard… there’s another Hazard’s ass I was eyeing anyway.“ 

Turning around they start to walk backwards in the direction of the elder Hazard, continuing to smirk at Ransom as if they were actually going to follow through with it as they do. 

.

Maybe he’ll have to see how this night goes. Of course, he’s well aware that Mal’s here, natural instinct to keep an eye out of them, to know where they are at any given moment only heightened after their case, but maybe he’s been getting a little too hyper focused, maybe he’s been setting himself up for more devastation again. The last time he let himself get that distracted, he ended up nearly dead, and he still has the thick, gnarly scars all over his chest to prove it, no amount of healing magic having been able to get rid of them completely. Maybe it’s the right choice to switch it up for a night, keep himself from letting his mind get too full of one specific beard. Something he plans to keep in mind as the night progresses.

Their bark of laughter makes him laugh, a much lighter noise, grin still there playing on his lips. “I know, I know. I have eyes, Caro, if that pretty little face of yours isn’t making due without my ass, then this world’s got bigger problems than I thought,” he hums, teasing.

When Lucky looks around, eyes landing on the other person in the room who towers above the crowd, and they give him a mischievous smirk, Ransom lets out a grand laugh. Now there’s an idea.

“Go for it, sweetheart, you might hit the jackpot and find yourself a sugar mama in Dawn Hazard while you’re trying to pick up good old Victor. But I’ll warn you, after nearly fifty years hitched to the same woman, my dad’s not nearly as easy as me. You know how to find the resident Hazard harlot, if it doesn’t work out, though,” Ransom says with a wink. holding his arms out.

[ransomhazard]

malachaifortune​:

     “I shouldn’t have expected anything less, from you,” they reply, with a grin. Waltzing, it all feels a little ridiculous, a little like something out of a terrible romance novel, horribly melodramatic, but then again, they’re only a step and a half away from being a treasure hunter with a pirate boat, and their outfit tonight only exaggerates the truth of that, so maybe they’re both a little romance novel, if not from radically different ones. 

It’s the thing that’s funniest, about watching Ransom effortlessly charm his way through a party like this: they thought there would be something different about him, in this elite pureblood company, but he’s exactly the same. The same confidence, the same attitude, the same jokes. All the same steps to a completely different dance, and they weren’t quite sure how he did it, how he made it fit everywhere but—then again, they’re doing something all too similar themself, only the slightest shade of change between who they were before and who they are as an auror. 

They’d come into it thinking of it as a lie, as a mask, but there was no fake Ransom, here, just like there was no fake Mal. The Mal of the Dark & Stormy, the Mal from the office, the Mal on their boat, the lines between them kept blurring, further and further, the partitions keeping pieces of their life apart slowly melting away. Like ice, melting everywhere Ransom touched them with warm fingers. 

     “Of course, that implies you’d be leading,” they add, and there’s a daring little glint in their eye at that, a challenge. As if they’re let Ransom lead anything. But he always had oh so much fun trying.

.

“I’m nothing if not delightfully predictable,” Ransom shrugs, his own smile mirroring theirs. He does love that grin of theirs, the way it’s just a little sharp around the edges, the sort of sharp that other people probably mistake a charming. But he knows them, he knows what that grin can hide. There’s something a little thrilling about having a secret of sorts kept between them in plain sight. After all, he’s pretty certain no one else knows Mal’s real story––even if he himself hardly knows most of it, just a hint more than most people who think they really are some transfer from the Chilean aurors. And the strange part of it is that it doesn’t actually feel like much of a secret, because everything about Mal is still so terrifyingly familiar that it could almost be a cruel joke, if he didn’t know any better.

If he hadn’t seen what he had on their boat. That had been enough to dispel any doubts he had, any worries that he was missing something besides the obvious and still unknown real reason for them joining the aurors. The problem with it, though, is that it also makes it all the more confusing, because it’s all the same. It feels almost terrifyingly like nothing has changed with the two of them, since before Mal disappeared without a trace. And he doesn’t know what that means. But he’d like to find out. 

First, though, some teasing, and maybe a waltz. The little glint in their eyes, though, tells him that it’s not going to be so easy, because nothing ever is with them. That’s half the fun of it, after all.

“Do you know how to waltz, Malachai? If you don’t know how to waltz, then how the fuck are you going to lead me?” Ransom asks, mock incredulously. “Besides, both of my parents are here, I’ll never hear the end of it if they catch me letting some swashbuckler, albeit a very dashing one, leading their beloved son, their only heir, in a waltz.”