#queue are the fond object of my affection

[lsbaird]

The Devil’s Luck - Chapter Three Preview!

I’m a day late, it’s true, but hopefully you’ll forgive me. Today Etienne rallies to give it the old college try one more time, but he’s beginning to realize his target may not be quite so murderable as he appears...

It was the D'Grassa, in fact, that proved to be the next opportunity for dispatching Frey.  In the morning Etienne dined alone, again, as Frey was tied up over his breakfast meetings, where he held court with his tenants and resolved grievances between them.  There was a sticky situation involving a sheepdog and some geese, Frey had told him, and it would be quite boring for Elsa.  Etienne heartily agreed.  Not to mention, of course, that Elsa's presence at Chancelion was supposed to be something of a secret for a week, unofficial until her aunt had time to accept her niece's elopement, and the engagement was fixed.  Or, in terms of the Order, when Frey was dead and the Lady Elsa vanished into thin air.  

So Etienne made his way though another round of oatmeal and bland tea, and then retreated back to the library.  Maybe he couldn't steal the D'Grassa yet, but at the very least he could read the damn thing.  

But once he had settled in the window seat, Etienne opened the tome to its first illuminated page and stared at it without comprehension.  His mind was not on the Binding of the Archdemon, centuries past.  It was on the prevention of that same Archdemon's return. His easiest opportunity to do his sworn duty had ended in failure, but there were numerous other methods to be tried. After all, it was only the second full day of his stay.  

He had no idea how long he was there, lost in thought, staring out the window.  The rain had let up, but it had stripped all the autumn glory from the trees, and Chancelion's forests were skeletal frames with flecks of red and peach clinging to them. The timber hills, whose evergreen wombs birthed the hulls of Verlia's merchant vessels, were a dark-green smudge in the distance under a brilliant sky.  In the stone courtyard below, past the lacy ironwork points under the windows, tatty leaves chased each other back and forth like schoolchildren let off their studies, whirling into circles and then breaking apart.  The sudden sound of Frey’s voice scattered Etienne’s thoughts in a much less poetic fashion.

"I would have said my library lacked for nothing, but I see now what it most needed is here at last."  

Etienne started.  Frey was standing in the doorway, his eyes only for his betrothed, love lending him an added appeal that his already fine figure did not need.  

"Frey!"  Etienne said, even as he scolded himself for letting someone—a target, even!— sneak up on him.  He hurried to rescue the book that was falling out of his lap before its fragile binding could crash to the parquet floor.  "I didn't even hear you come in."  

"I could not bear to disturb you, in whatever thoughts you were having."  Frey smiled. "Dare I hope that I was in some small part of them?"  

Etienne liked nothing better than when Elsa could be honest and full of lies all at the same time.  It was so gratifying.  "Why, yes, I do confess that you did feature rather prominently," he said, and neglected to elaborate.  It wouldn't do to tell Frey that those lush, private fantasies had all involved Frey's murder.  "Did you think I would be thinking about the lawns, or the sparrows on the roof?"

"The mystery was so much of the appeal," Frey sighed, happily.  "I should have you painted just like that, tilted away from the frame, so I could always watch you daydreaming."  

Etienne put the book to his mouth to hide his expression.  He breathed deep the reassuring smells of old leather and parchment and felt calmer at once. "Really, my lord," he said, pleased with the teasing note he'd managed, "one would think your thoughts might be ungentlemanly."  

"They are," Frey said, with a dark little smile that made him look far too much like his Great-Uncle, "entirely ungentlemanly.  And if my lady insists on calling me lord, and thinking me so chivalrous, I might have to remind her that I was born a bastard, in a cattle barn, to a tavern wench."  

"So long as your elusive father was not one of the cows, I'm hardly concerned," Etienne said, lightly.  "After all, you are Lord Reichwyn now, are you not?"

"So everyone insists on telling me," Frey said.  "And he has come to ask his betrothed if she would like to go out for a ride."

Horse-trampling, being thrown from the saddle, neck-breaking, falling down a gully, drowning in a creek, impaled on a broken branch, oh yes.  All the things Etienne's dreams were made of. "I would adore the chance for some fresh air."  

Frey held out both his hands.  "As I hope you adore me?"  

Etienne had to rush up then, and take his hands, and be scooped up into another kiss.  It was an easier lie than saying yes, Etienne supposed, but he disliked how it set his lips buzzing and made his heart so loud.  A dull thump from the window put Frey off his affections, but not enough to release his lady.  "What was that?"  

"Ah, damn!"  Etienne said, with feeling.  "It’s the D'Grassa.  If I've broken the binding I'll never forgive myself."  The book, left teetering on the edge of the window seat in Etienne's wake, had toppled over onto the floor with its pages splayed.  

"Not to worry," Frey said, bending to pick it up.  "It's been all right for centuries, it looks like it can take a knock or two."

"Still, I hate to abuse a book—oh!"  Etienne broke off, because Frey, kneeling there over the book and looking so wonderfully vulnerable, had just given him an idea.  

"Something else wrong?"  Frey asked, looking at his lady in confusion.  

Belatedly, Etienne clapped a hand to his ear.  "Yes!  Ah, I've lost one of my earrings.  It was one of the pearls you had in my wardrobe for me. I hope it's not gone for good!"  

Frey put the D'Grassa safely on the window seat, and as Etienne hoped, went back down on his knees.  "Not to worry, it must be around here somewhere, as I saw you had it when I came in..."  

Etienne hastily took out one of his earrings and chucked it away in the direction of a distant bookshelf, while Frey flipped up the edge of the carpet by the window seat, peering at the floorboards beneath.  "This library eats things, I believe.  Just the other day I lost one of my pen nibs, and I was rather fond of how that one laid down ink...  Oh look!  Here it is."  

Etienne's hands froze on his collar, but Frey had only found the pen nib, not the earring.  "I hope then my pearl will turn up," he said, and as Frey went back to searching, Etienne yanked a length of fine, deadly wire from the net of stiffened black lace that rose up from his collar.  The handles were gilt toggles that looked like common decorations, and the wire whispered a high, thin note in Etienne's hands.  What would one more red line be, among the many already lacing Frey's body?  

Frey sat back a little to look under the cushions of the window seat, and then, Etienne sprung.  

It was beautifully simple.  The invisible wire looped around Frey's throat, drawn tight in Etienne's hands as the assassin used his entire body to leverage his force.  It was quick, elegant, bloodless.  With Frey's windpipe blocked, there was only a moment's silent struggle, like a fish dangling at the end of a line.  Frey's grasping hands reached out blindly for aid and knocked over the ink-pot on the writing desk, upsetting a candelabra and igniting the desk papers with a breathy roar.  The heat of the rising flames licked Etienne's face, relaxing the false curls of his wig.  Soon the conflagration would take the entire room, and Freyton Reichwyn Landry with it, along with all the Archdemon's desires.  It was a shame about the books, but it was a mission, Etienne's mission, and it must be accomplished at any cost.  

...except that it wasn't.  

Etienne did not, in fact, get much further than looping the wire around Frey's neck.  The rest happened with glorious brevity in his imagination, until Etienne pulled the wire taut, and it snapped. The unexpected lack of murder sent him staggering backwards a step, bewildered. The finest garroting wire in Ivanis City, specially made for him by a master craftsman in the tools of death, broken in two as though it were no more than a cobweb!  

Frey fell back on his heels with a surprised cough, and Etienne stuffed the broken garroting wire down into his bodice.  

"My lord?"  he asked, shoving his own annoyance aside to radiate mild concern instead, wondering if Frey had chanced to see the wire flickering in front of his eyes.  Perhaps he'd thought it only a stray hair, one of the ones that so often escaped from his queue.  "Are you all right?"  

"Ah—yes, I think so," Frey said, patting his cravat in some confusion.  "For a moment I thought...  It must have only been this pulling tight, though."  

"This?"  Etienne said thinly, bracing for accusations.  But Frey only pulled an object free of his waistcoat.  Twirling on the end of a silk ribbon was a miniature painting of Etienne dressed as Elsa, the one that had been sent along with his letters. Ephaseus had painted it himself for the ruse.

"I put it round my neck this morning, you see, and wound it twice as the ribbon was a bit long.  It must have just pulled tight when I bent over.  The locket's gold, so it's quite heavy."  Frey rubbed his throat, laughing ruefully.  "For a moment there I thought you were trying to strangle me!"  

"Aha ha ha heh!"  Etienne's laugh lacked any humor at all, at least to his own ears.  Surely Frey must know it was false?  "But why would I do that!  I haven't even gotten my ride with you yet."  By the time he got to the end of his protest, Etienne had managed a decent grasp on his facade again.  Still, the word ride came out in far more of a provocative tone than he planned. Frey looked startled and pleased and a little bit breathless at it, though the last was probably more from the near-strangling more than from his lady's advances.  "I mean," Etienne fumbled, and looked around in desperation.  "I, er—oh, look, there's my pearl!"  He hurried over to retrieve the earring, and to do what he could to repair his disguise. "Would you put it back in for me? I'm afraid you startled me so that my hands are shaking.  I wouldn't want it to be lost again."  

"Your least wish is my highest command," Frey said, and with a deftness that belonged to the card-player more than to the manor lord, Frey slipped the gold earring wire back through Etienne's ear, and admired it there a moment.  "I'm so pleased you like them, and your dresses.  This is another you're wearing today, is it not?  From the ones I had here for you?"  

"Ah, yes," Etienne said, trying not to squirm away from the things Frey was doing to his ear.  He detested being tickled.  "They really are lovely.  And the jewels...  You are too generous."  

"I'm nothing of the sort.  Chancelion's fortune is your fortune, and they are yours by right.  I've worked hard to bring the family wealth back here, and to provide things suitable for the lady of the house."  Frey's hand slipped down to Etienne's jaw, and suddenly it was worth the pain Etienne had gone through to have his beard yanked out with hot sugar tallow before the mission.  The least roughness would have been unfortunate, so close.  Damn the man for being such a warm-hearted suitor.  "It pleases me to see you in them."  

Etienne felt a flicker of surprise. "You chose my jewels and things?"  

"I did, though Tobias saw to the fitting of your rooms.  He said you would be more used to extravagance, coming from the southlands."

"Ah."  Gracious adoration, Elsa my girl, he told himself.  You are a woman in love with a rich, handsome man, remember. "It's… so kind of him," he finished, and for once was grateful to be kissed, because it meant not having to talk.  I am going to throw that accursed cherub in the duck pond when I go.

"I would give you all that and more," Frey said, when they parted again.  "But first, I think it best if you try that riding habit on for fit, and meet me down in the courtyard?  Say, a quarter of an hour?  I'll see to some hawks for us, and mounts."  

"I can think of nothing finer," Etienne breathed, kohl-darkened lashes fluttering.  

"Good."  Frey ran his thumb under Etienne's lower lip.  "Till then, my love."  He kissed Etienne's knuckles and then was out the door, whistling again, a besotted and happy man.  

Etienne sprawled back in a spindly chair not meant for sprawling in, his legs splayed wide and his skirts in disarray as he allowed himself one moment of utter and complete disgust with the world.  

"...Fuck."  

[theclaravoyant]

a fitzskimmons 5x06 coda

AN ~ for @sapphicdeanoru who prompted to this effect, as well as for myself, for @florchis because fitzskimmons!! to be clear this is romantic fitzskimmons, though there is a parallel version of this scene in brotp form here if that’s more your cup of tea. (or of course, both!)

enjoy!

Read on AO3 (~1700wd, part of a collection of more shippy but not smutty fsk if you’re into that). Rated T for references to canon-typical violence, injury - but it’s actually quite fluffy, I promise!

--

“Put me down, put me down!” Daisy demanded as they rounded another corner and approached what might, for now, be called safety. Reluctantly, FitzSimmons obliged, and Daisy cried out through clenched teeth as they eased her to the ground as best they could.

“I’m sorry, that was my bad,” Fitz fretted. “I should have nicked the remote-“

“I should have just climbed the bloody stairs instead of being a showoff,” Daisy retorted and gritted her teeth, looking up and away as Jemma prodded at her injuries. “I knew they had it. What an idiot. May’s gonna kill me.”

“If it helps, you looked amazing,” Fitz assured her. Daisy snorted, and Jemma rolled her eyes – though her fond smile suggested she agreed.

“Follow my finger,” she instructed, and began the customary dance while Daisy did her best to follow. When she was done, Jemma frowned, and hummed softly to herself. Daisy grimaced.

“What’s the damage, doc?”

“Well, you’ve got a relatively minor concussion,” she explained, in an exasperated tone, “which I’d say was impressive except that it seems to be due to your poor ankle taking the worst of it. The right one is definitely broken, possibly shattered, and the left doesn’t look too happy either. You’re extremely lucky that you didn’t dislocate something, dropping from that height onto solid concrete.”

“So what you’re saying is, May should kill me,” Daisy noted. “Good to have you onside. Thanks for the support.”

She groaned as she tried to adjust her seating position, and Jemma glared at her.

“What I am saying,” she corrected, “is that you’d better hope your face doesn’t swell up too much because that and your hands are the only things you have going for you.”

Daisy smiled a winning smile, and batted her eyelids. “Aren’t they always?”

Her attempt at humour faded, however, when Jemma pursed her lips and went back to her work. She knew that Jemma was only crabby because she was worried, but it still hurt. Fortunately, Fitz took this moment to reach for her hand, and though her knuckles were bloody and bruised, his touch was soothing. His eyes were gentle, warm and comforting.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said. “Sorry for putting you in that position.”

“’s okay,” Daisy excused him. “It got us here, didn’t it?”

“Sorry about – that Inhuman,” Fitz continued.

“Ben.” Daisy sighed. “Yeah. Me too.”

Jemma paused in her ministrations. Her expression had softened, no longer as affected by her own frustration and worry after overhearing Fitz and Daisy. Trying to cut away the bottom of Daisy’s pants with only a butterknife seemed like a minor problem now. Still, it had to be done. She cleared her throat, cracking through the fragile silence and pulling them back to the task at hand.

“Ah, sorry,” she interrupted. “Does anyone have anything for – “

With his free hand – the one not holding Daisy’s - Fitz reached into his boot and pulled out a whopper of a knife; something that had apparently come straight out of Rambo. It sliced through Daisy’s pants with ease, and Jemma started working on her shoe.

“Where the hell did you get that?” Daisy scoffed. Fitz gestured to his jacket, and the gleaming Genku-larvae badge.

“Evil scary murderer, remember?”

“Right. Got anything else up your sleeve?”

“Unfortunately not. We were short on time and shockingly, when Kasius decided to surround himself with competitive warmongers he requested that no weapons be allowed.”

“Jemma?” Daisy asked hopefully. “You’ve got huge sleeves. Anything useful?”

“Just the butterknife.” Jemma held it up, its tiny serrations shimmering with some sort of blue liquid. Fitz and Daisy frowned at it, then at each other.

“Is that…” Fitz wondered.

“Blood?” Jemma filled in. “Yes, I think so. I don’t think he’s dead, or there would have been more of it, but it’ll throw him.”

“It’ll also make him want to kill you,” Fitz pointed out.

“- but you stole his prize possession, and 'it' helped,” Daisy added, “so he probably already wants to kill all of us. Which means we shouldn’t stay here.”

“Ideally, we shouldn’t move you either,” Jemma pointed out. “But you’re right. Fitz?”

“On it.” Fitz grabbed the knife and hacked one of Jemma’s sleeves away. Then he began ripping the material into strips, and Daisy focused on staying as still as possible while Jemma made quick work of a tourniquet.

“Now, Daisy, don’t you walk on this,” she warned gravely. “And once we get you back to the lower decks, keep it elevated above your heart, okay?”

“What- you’re going to dump me in medical?” Daisy objected. “What about May? What about…“

Voiceless, her lips finished the sentence: what about us?

Us against the world.

Jemma bit her lip. She glanced over at Fitz, and he looked back with the same thought in his eyes. It was risky, but neither one of them would take well to being left behind, especially with the rest of the team in danger. Besides, it was not as though Daisy herself was not hot property: they couldn’t trust that the lower decks would not be raided, and leaving a powerless, severely injured Daisy alone with a price on her head was not something that appealed to them either. In fact, they were probably even less supportive of the idea than Daisy herself.

Somewhere down the hall, a bullet pinged off metal.

“I vote we argue about this later,” Fitz suggested, already helping Daisy to her feet.

“Seconded,” Daisy agreed.

“What are we going to do?” Jemma pressed. Her hands tightened around the knives.

Wide-eyed, the three of them shared a look, each spinning calculations in their heads based on their skills, resources, and liabilities. Questions pinged around the circle.

“You know your way around here, right?”

“How far can you carry 130 pounds?”

“Is it too risky to remove the implants altogether?”

“How many rounds has this thing got left?”

“Okay, I’ve got it,” Daisy declared. “Jemma, you go on ahead. Keep the knives, we might need them later, but the fight’s behind us at the moment. You navigate. Fitz: I’m gonna need you to think buff thoughts. First stop is the nearest elevator, wherever the hell that is.”

“What about you?”

“Me?” Daisy snatched the gun off Fitz, checked its rounds, and cocked it. “I take this. Concussed or not concussed I can still hit a moving target if it’s 180 pounds, especially if it’s moving toward me.” More bullets, and shouting down the hall. Daisy ground her teeth together. “So are we ready?”

Then came a shout of Hey, you there! which the three of them took as a queue.

Jemma took off, piecing together everything she’d learnt over her time here into as comprehensive a map as she could make, and willing herself to find the lift, lift, lift. Fitz hauled Daisy into his arms and ran after her, concentrating on keeping his back to the battle so that Daisy’s aim of the ICER over his shoulder remained true. It was nervewracking, but their enemies fell, and though a few bullets shot past, none of them touched him.

Daisy whooped with glee as they left their first lot of enemies behind them.

“Nice work! How’s that elevator coming, Jemma? And – damn, Fitz, do you even lift?”

She grinned, and Fitz scoffed – insofar as one could, as his lungs started to resist the straining effort of his arms.

“There’s not much to do in prison, okay?” he retorted.

“Prison?” she frowned. “When were you in prison?”

“Long story. Carry now, talk later.”

“This way.” Jemma waved them into a side passage, and then into an elevator.

“Oh, thank God,” Fitz sighed, and for a moment he let Daisy slip to the ground so that she stood on one foot, leaning on his shoulders. She mimicked a swoon, grinning broadly as she teased;

“My hero! Oh – and speaking of which, what was that ‘marry me, Fitz’ nonsense in the arena?”

“Not nonsense! I really meant it,” Jemma objected, and when Daisy met her with a skeptical glare, raised her hands innocently. “What? He was being all dashing and I couldn’t help it. You should’ve seen him.”

“Is this true?” Daisy demanded, prodding Fitz in the shoulder.

“That depends,” he returned. “D’you call this dashing?”

He lunged in for a kiss, running his hands over her back for extra support as she swayed backward on one ankle, the other hovering like a popped cherry. She tasted like sweat and grit, which actually wasn’t unusual for her. He tasted of decadent wine he probably hated, and Jasmine flowers – Jemma’s perfume, Daisy realised. He held her up more strongly than usual, knowing she couldn’t stand on her own right now, but even so his expression was tender as she rested her forehead against his, and brushed her fingers through his stubble. He ran his teeth over his own lower lip, as if he could still feel her kiss on them, and his eyes shone with a deep and powerful sense of contentment.

Daisy sighed, even though her heart was pounding in her chest.

“Fine,” she breathed, running a finger down his jacket and hoping her cheeks de-flushed sometime soon. “Marry me too, ya bastard.”

“It would be my pleasure,” he replied, and put a hand over hers where she played with the badge that rested over his heart. “But I wouldn’t touch that if I were you. It’s made of space bugs.”

“Ooh, what kind?” Jemma interrupted. She paid no mind to Fitz and Daisy’s amused smirk as they passed it over to her; more interested in the diamonte-like decorations. “Looks like Genku larvae. Fascinating.”

“Happy Engagement, babe,” Fitz said, leaning over to kiss her. Daisy tried to counterbalance, but the angle was wrong and she yelped when her toes hit the floor. Fitz straightened up immediately to catch her.

“Sorry!” he cried. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Daisy assured him. “But all I want for our engagement is for you to make it down the next hallway without bumping my ankle on any doorways, okay?”

“Done.”

With that, all three of them refocused with steely determination on the doors that were about to open up before them. Daisy pointed the nose of her pistol forward this time, and Jemma – knives at the ready, just in case – made sure to stay out of the way.

“Alright. Let’s go.”