Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's "The Walking Dead" or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: Inspired by Liddym2113's Caryl assassin!au gif set which was inspired in turn by her awesome fic: "Wildest Dreams." This was spawned from an inbox fic-bit I sent her after her lovely gif-set made me feel things. Please be sure to take a read on her fic, it is a wip and very interesting thus far!
Warnings: *Contains: adult language, adult content, au: no zombies/assassin!au, canon appropriate violence, very mild sexual content.
Break my arm (then help me reload)
The breaking news was their faces splashed across a brilliant backdrop of siren red. Filling the room with the flicker-flash of grainy surveillance footage and some old family photos some distant aunt must have dug up from a dusty album and zapped with a laser printer for their fifteen minutes of fame. The pictures were from years ago - younger, softer versions of themselves framing roving tag-lines with words like: "crime spree" and "three dead" and "Atlanta's most-wanted."
"You knew it had to end sometime," she murmured, speaking softly into the press of him - fingers bold. Grazing through his stubble before trailing down the jutted plane of his chest. Pitted and scarred after years on the run, dodging the feds and shit. He still had the one she'd given him, the scoring pink line that stood out just below his rib-cage on the right.
The only one he wore with pride.
The only one he didn't regret when everything was said and done.
Such a pretty little disaster.
They'd gotten each other's kill orders.
Compromised. That was what the agency had said.
They'd lied.
She'd missed.
He'd never pulled the trigger.
It was an unrelated double cross. With their handlers figuring they could kill two birds with one stone. Hell, they'd probably laughed about it in the break room, thinking they were being clever little shits. Having their best agents take each other out in a hail of bullets and unsympathetic ignorance.
Only they'd been a couple hours too late. They'd found out on their own what the agency had done. How they brought in new agents. How they chose them. Back tracing and pooling their resources until they found out that Merle's death hadn't been from the cartel at all. That her little girl hadn't-
In the end, it didn't matter.
They were still dead.
Merle.
Sophia.
Nothing was gonna change that.
But everything else?
Yeah, they could do something about that.
They'd had each other in between stitches. Smearing blood and slick across the walls of the shitty apartment they'd broken into when the agency realized they'd fucked up and sent the dogs after them. Setting fire to their careers and any hope of a future beyond their reflections in each other's eyes when they'd dropped that packet of intel on some county deputy's desk – Rick Grimes, or so the name plate read – and hit the open road.
It'd been some crazy shit. But for the first time in a long time, life had been good.
Better.
Filing down broken edges like they were each other's lifetime work.
Slow.
Steady.
Patient.
Making each other whole as they took down the agency from the foundations out.
The diamond studs in her ears caught the light, reflecting - blinding - off the barrel of the Glock on the bedside table. Holding down the stack of green – maybe a hundred thousand give or take - like the world's most dangerous paper weight.
There were sirens wailing in the distance, coming fast behind them as they shared a long, heated look and ran. Clambering out of the window and down the fire escape. Chucking all the shit they couldn't carry into the dumpster two blocks over. Tossing in some lighter fluid and a pack of matches as all the evidence of the last few years went up in smoke behind them.
His lip curled, a snarling smile that looked jacked and fiercely alive in the furling shadows. Satisfied that no matter how this all ended, they were both riding high on the fact that there was another package waiting on Grimes' desk. And enough in it to bury anyone who'd ever heard of Operation: Woodbury and Code Status: Terminus.
Justice.
That was all either of them had wanted.
He kissed her rough and dirty-slow as she slid onto the bike behind him. Palming her waist as he hitched her up against him. Remembering what she'd said all those years ago when they'd clicked the safety off their Glocks and slipped into that bank, guns blazing.
"Let's make 'em earn it..." he rasped.
A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – This story is now complete.