A/N: These are strange days, so here have a strange fic. Completely unrelated to Spiderdragon: Variations on a theme (my ongoing Widowhanzo story)
Discreetly
He was all alone when she came that night. Still, every time he would dedicate his night hours to wait for her to come over, the woman would always refuse to let the signs of her presence reach out for him – that's why he would always wonder how those heels of hers could stomp on concrete and stone ever so gently, almost soundlessly –
Perhaps it was because there was only a body there,
hers,
harbored and chained to those boots,
but nothing more.
No heart, no soul – not even temperature. Not that fever, he was sure… only coldness, and the color.
That irreverent color of hers, so much like his – so blue.
But then her presence would gradually begin to show, to expose her shapes to him – the one that waits, and searches, and longs for nothing and everything at the same time.
Her color, then, transfixed inside his dark eyes, would become the beacon of light in the night for the man to swim his way back to her distant shore.
Always waiting,
searching,
but not quite longing.
That night was meant to be no exception.
He saw her silhouette against the glass window, her frame barely toying with the light. She had fulfilled her part of the deal – as usually. Now the souvenir of her violence was resting on his desk – a foot, or perhaps a hand, maybe a whole arm.
"There you go," she said. "The son of your rival is gone."
Coldhearted and cruel as expected, yet those words of hers seemed to belong in her private book of petite amusements.
The Yakuza leader inspected the morbid trophy for a while with eyes that knew no remorse. Sometimes he wished she would just tell him that their selected targets had been shot, perhaps an even simpler message could suffice as well: they're dead. But no, she insisted with that macabre ritual of getting him a part of their victims.
What a gesture, my love…
He knew his wife wouldn't be pleased. But if he had to be honest with himself, his wife hadn't been pleased in a very, very long time.
In the beginning she was nothing but a silent victim of their corrupted syndicate, dragged down into Yakuza hell by her own father – being the youngest daughter of a wealthy family, she was forced to marry the heir of the Shimada Clan. Sooner than later the woman had to face reality: handsome as the man was, his beauty was his only good quality. He had killed his own brother with his bare hands and, far from feeling guilt or remorse, the new leader of the criminal empire seemed determined to finish his late father's work. Guns and drugs were the materialization of a thirst for power that knew no limits.
He never loved her.
Never even tried to.
But soon having a wife became a consolation prize for the starving kumicho: he wanted a son, a brand new heir – he needed his seed to take root in the world and bloom, just like his father's seed had done, nearly four decades ago.
When times began to change and Hanzo was left with no other choice than to accept that, in order to survive, it was imperative for the clan to shake hands with Talon; his wife lowered her head and accepted that their son was destined to follow in his father's footsteps, embracing a merciless doctrine that would soon take over his receding innocence.
Her eyes witnessed her own husband shaking hands with the devil.
She watched in silence as the assassins, one by one, left her husband's office.
And watched in utter horror when that blue woman walked right through his door – never to leave again.
Now it was already too much for the woman to accept Widowmaker's presence in her house, shamelessly flirting with her husband as if she wasn't there, killing his victims, expressing her twisted affection with those brutal souvenirs of hers…
He was obsessed with her. There was no denying it.
And for whatever reason,
She was equally infatuated with him.
They had never really talked about it, though, but she made him feel human. Her lack of humanity was enough to remind him of his own human condition, mutilated as it was, broken as it was.
The blue of her skin seemed destined to call out the beast in him every time.
In the blue of her shape, in those big and lifeless eyes of hers,
in her laconically azure body; lavender emotions, washed away by time and torment.
She was unique.
The way she would always look at him, those eyes sporting an eclipse of both despondence and need, would always leave him breathless.
How she felt in his arms, that distant echo of a feeling she could not feel.
Not anymore.
What she saw in him was the synthesis of evil, striving in the dark,
hungry,
struggling for some light.
But when he looked up at her that night, he saw her blue tainted by blood – the brat had put up a fight, albeit unexpectedly.
That rotten son of a bitch had wounded his treasured blue.
He stood up and walked around his desk, landing gracefully on the couch where she was now sitting.
Such strong features, washed away by the timid light.
All he knew about her was that she had once been married, before the blue, before Talon. But no more than that. She just wasn't the sharing type and he had accepted her as she was.
Who was he to ask for more, after all?
She knew he was a strong man – a capable warrior.
A fighter, born and bred in the macabre nest of superiority and duty.
A leader.
An unsuspected ally, a lover, even a competitor from time to time.
But when her eyes found his hands reaching out for her, she began to notice the creases hidden inside such an existence, the erased rivers of blood still pooling around the lines and the corners of his skin.
He wiped the blood from her face with unprecedented delicacy.
Had she been able to feel, she would have melted between his hands and it would have been completely up to his fingers to put her back together again.
She sighed, nearly soundlessly,
he was, indeed, the synthesis of evil.
Good looking and attractive,
devilishly handsome.
But chained to the brutality of the dragon,
starving for blood, feeding on his own sins.
As the woman shifted in his arms, molding her shape with his, she let her lips land on the softness of his neck – her mind wondered, then, as her mouth welcomed that treacherous skin of his, how could she ever choose to stay with such an abomination, such a filthy being like him.
But then, as his lips began to trace the contour of her mouth, she remembered her own obscurity.
It had been too long,
she couldn't even quite remember the one she had been before that man.
The solace that his body could provide was asphyxiating, tremulously dark and vicious,
yet, engrossed in his eerie devotion she would come undone for him every single time.
When his wife stepped into the office and saw the carnival of lust taking place before her eyes she didn't feel the sting of such a scene.
His despondence had deprieved her many years ago.
Now there wasn't room for the surprise to take hold of her – she had known, all along, that his twisted emotions belonged to the one who could not feel anything beyond the simple physicality of his body.
When the wife found Widowmaker's souvenir on his desk she realized they truly belonged together.
It was more than simple lust, more than the simple, basal instinct of two beasts coalescing in order to satiate their urges.
They were monsters.
Ruthless monsters.
When he saw the storm in her eyes he stood up, barely covering his body with a blanket, and tried to put his arms around his wife's shoulders –
Even during such moments he knew some mirages were worth maintaining.
"Don't touch me." She said. "Don't you fucking touch me."
There was an arm on his desk, or was it a foot?
Perhaps a whole leg, dismembered – torn from the rest of the original body it had once belonged to.
And there she was again, contemplating them from the comfort of the couch,
naked,
pure in her essential blue, in the color they shared,
nobody's but irrefutably
his –
the object of his desire; blue as his dragons – blue, exactly like him.
The wife took a step back and looked down,
she knew she was nothing but a nuisance to him; a necessity of sorts.
Unwanted. Unloved. Undesired.
Always had been.
They had gotten married way too young – he had just become the leader of the Shimada clan; right after his father's death, right after assassinating his own brother. A cold heart that could not feel anything at all, exactly like hers, that's all there was to him.
Being the youngest daughter of a well-established family, her fate had been sealed the second she was born into this world. She had been chosen for him – to be his wife, to give him children.
A son she had given him.
She had tried her best to love him – to become his companion. Yet he never let her.
Heartless man, Shimada; the architect of her confinement, the owner of her unhappiness.
Discreetly, as usual, the blue woman watched as the man tried – and failed – to comfort his wife. Indolent eyes, in the scheming sight of blood, analyzed the scene with unparalleled indifference.
The wife scoffed, as she removed his hand from her shoulder: now it was not the time for fake emotions, nor was it the time for him to pretend to care.
"He was as old as your own son…" The woman lamented as she walked to the door, "As innocent as your own son."
She didn't want to leave him alone with the blue woman, yet she couldn't stand the sight of him no more.
But then again, what did her presence meant to him anyways?
He had fucked that blue woman a thousand times already, their voices loud and clear for her to know,
for her to understand,
he would never be fully hers.
"Why do you do this?" The wife asked the blue lady on her way out, "You were once just like me."
"No," The monster replied, "I was loved."
Alone again, lost inside his arms, the blue woman closed her eyes as she tried to remember the love that had once graced her days.
The love she herself had murdered.
As her blue ached for his touch, Widowmaker remembered who she was with –
He didn't have time for her troubled mind to revisit the dead.
He needed her to feel human again.
She smiled quietly to herself, in the darkest moment of their night.
Even if she couldn't feel anything at all at least she was now a conduit for him to feel everything.
Their shadows blended together, then,
Their iridescent blue knew no loneliness after all.
They really belonged together, she thought.
They really did.