Triggering Love
Song: Can't Stop by Maroon 5
And now…the fall.
At a rate that is truly alarming.
Sigh. Cue opened eyes; frighteningly frightened glacier blue.
Think. Think. What do I do?
How…do…things…work?
Good, he decided. Slow. Controllable.
…Right?
Damn, falling again…
Being closed is even worse.
"Say it."
"Say what?" Child-like innocence that he could perhaps have pulled off years and years ago when he was an infant without words.
"Ask. Go ahead, I know you're wondering."
Clench fists. Smooth face. "What does it do?"
A mock gasp. "Ahhh…Artemis doesn't know what the trigger does?"
Glare. "I know what the trigger does."
Her eyes sparkle like rain drops hitting the black street at night. "Do you?" She walks closer, gun in hand.
"I know how it works."
Heart races. Stop. Stop. No. NO. Now he can see her and it's growing worse, out of control, a monster, rising from the street to slide up his window and let me show you…
Fear. NO!
"It doesn't just trigger the bullet," she whispers, breath brushing his neck. "It triggers death. It triggers a spirit. It triggers memories that you didn't even know you had, hadn't even remembered." She knows he wasn't asking about the trigger.
Stay calm…
"It depends on how you kill them, of course," she says, louder now, done circling him. "Snipers aren't as dramatic." She grins deliciously and adds, "I like a face-off."
He's always known.
There is a painful end haunting the horizon. He wants it because he knows he is going to get it, like a storm he can see miles away. He has anticipated hitting the ground running for so long that he even knows his last words.
Wait – no. He doesn't. He is smart enough to know otherwise.
He tries his voice. Someone croaks in an echoing room, "I like a face-off…" Weak, but words are words.
Who is that person? Should he help him? No…he is a Fowl. He helps no one but himself.
What do I do?
He sits in his chair, staring at the window. The sunlight gliding in does not hit him and he cannot see out, just the twinkle of glass.
Well, there's always pretending…
One order, coming up.
A slow smile curls like the sunrise and will drop like the sunset.
He stands.
"How many?" he asks one day. "At your hands or, rather…your gun."
She shrugs. "It's best not to remember. You take away their memories; you don't want more of your own. See their faces through a film, through a mask if you can. I usually don't have to wear one because I've gotten used to forgetting. Anyone can but it takes more practice than others."
There is an unspoken question in the air. She doesn't urge him to speak it, but it haunts both their eyes, reflections of each other.
He turns to her sharply suddenly, changing the subject (but not completely.) – "Do you ever think about someone killing you?"
A flash of something sparks in her eyes, unreadable like a book at night when you can't turn on a light for fear of something besides the dark. Compassion? Sorrow? Sympathy? …Nothing?
She is choosing her words slowly. "Yes…it's hard, though. It's not the dying that kills me…" She laughs softly at the pun. "It's the realization that…I was killed by someone doing what I do. That I wasn't good enough."
He reaches out tentatively and strokes her dark, dark, mesmerizing hair coldly.
They don't have to say anything. They know that the words aren't good enough.
He slides along the wall toward the window, praying a silent mantra of invisibility.
Not yet…
Had he thought it would be anger that spurred her tearful reaction? Or what emotion that could invoke such a bite? She is a tarantula…black widow…spider, creeping sliding along the rooftop.
No dignity, no shame. With pride comes diligence.
He takes a deep breath.
I'd give my life to somehow attract your attention. Ironic, so, SO ironic…
She waits underneath the brush, undetectable. The cameras won't see her if she doesn't move and she knows that she won't, though she might have in the very beginning. Being reckless at first meetings is her…forte, so to say. Cue chuckles.
It annoys her so much that she starts to laugh so hard that in an effort to stay silent and unmoving, tears roll down her cheeks. This was so cliché, so out of the books that she had read (but in all of the others that "normal" people read…) that she almost snorted. The tears wobbled dangerously on her chin.
Her sensed acutely sharpened as she caught a movement in the direction she was facing. A flash of white against transparency.
I can't stop thinking about you…And how true that statement was.
A grin crossed her lips, deliciously teasing. But it triggered no emotion. She is too much past that.
What do I do?
I can't stop.
So it doesn't really matter then.
She waits for three slow seconds. I…can't…stop…
He counts two times, ready. I…do.
In a shattering fountain of glass and a (to his shame) cry that is torn from his throat, he slams the lamp into the window and hurls himself through.
The rapid fire of a machine gun follows, and then a half second later the intruder alarm system sounds. The home is locked down, but no one can trap a Fowl or an assassin (last name has been censored due to privacy protection), except for maybe one another. Because Heaven knows (if it can think) that being inside the room was torture.
And not being able to hear her, hear the bullets that are almost part of her because they're tearing through him to his heart, was painful. Is this worse?
Her eyes widen. Oh God. His body is in the bushes now, rustling slightly. Or is that the breeze? There is an echo haunting the house now. Everyone is gone
"I didn't know!"
He glares at her and he is mad, fucking mad, out of CONTROL. He grins sadistically. "You never saw him at my house?"
She ducks the china plate aimed for her head. "Artemis, PLEASE. I forget! It's my job to forget, to see people and then never remember them."
He snarls. "You LIE. Aren't you supposed to remember people? Isn't that the point? So that – "
"Artemis, this isn't a fucking funeral!"
"I KNOW," he screams. "If you see someone on the street, shouldn't you MEMORIZE their face? Know that the next time you meet, you first saw them on 5th Avenue in New York City and now they're on a rooftop trying to KILL you?!?!" His voice is hysterical. It doesn't belong to him anymore.
Nothing does though…
"He's your – "
"WAS!"
"WAS your BODYGUARD!" she cries. "You're SO fucking emotional!"
He glares at her.
She catches on and now she is smiling and he knows he is in for it. "I can kill you too, you know. So you can be with your…" She hesitates, watching him wilt. "With your…friend," she whispers, and now he is silently dead, lying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
"Who wanted him dead?" his voice is shaking and it is hoarse and can't possibly be his.
"Does it matter?" She is shooting him over and over again and she knows it.
His voice cracks. "Are you trying to kill me?" he pleads, and suddenly he is only human.
She is shocked by this raw emotion and her eyes – wide – are following him as he sinks to the floor and dissolves in tears.
Only human…
She takes a step towards him and then stops, uncertain of what to do. If only love were the opposite of hate…or of war…then it would be easier.
She goes over to him and sits by him. She slowly raises his head to look her square on and he complies, even though he is completely hysteric (there's no other explanation for this reaction).
His words falter sometimes. "It's just…I-I can't b-believe that…no matter what you do…I still love you. W-want you." There. He's said it, and now there's only her reaction.
There is none.
Her face does not change. Her eyes do not harden. He is weary, but not surprised.
"I can't be with you, Artemis."
One word. He chokes it out.
"Because I can't do this. I can't be a killer and a lover. I can't shoot people and then come lie next to you in bed. I can't. I'm just not brave enough."
He is going to say something but she cuts him off. She can't bring herself to look at his piercing eyes. She isn't brave enough.
"I couldn't just leave, so I thought that if I took the job and killed him, it would be easier for me to leave. You might hate me then." She glances at him. They are so alike…
"But that didn't work and then I didn't leave fast enough…but that doesn't matter because I'll be gone soon. And I completed the job…" She feels his question. She sighs. "It was just the Russians. 'Payback', they called it. I suspect that all the Butlers working for you Fowls will be dead within twelve hours."
Cue closed eyes.
"Good bye," she whispers. She is stupid enough to kiss him before she leaves.
It is her last gift to him. He plans to hurt her like she hurt him, and if not, then, well…
He's pretty sure they'll end up in Hell together eventually. If he believed in religion, that is. He prefers not to.
The alarms are going off and the house is shut down and she is crawling over to him, tearing apart the branches in her way. She sees his pants, the shine of his shoes, the white skin, the blood, the smile.
Suddenly there is a ripping noise and stars and pain as her head connects with the ground.
He chuckles and leaves. She is slipping into unconsciousness and perhaps if she's lucky then she won't remember him. Amnesia?
Sounds good.
She didn't think he could ever be an assassin: he was too methodic and liked to clean up after himself.
But he was never predictable, which was in his favor, and this time he was leaving a huge mess in his wake. She was too feeble to finish what he had started and he didn't care if she lived or died: they all died anyway
He was contemplative as he drove away, never to return to their house in the hills. He can be both a genius and an assassin, but she doesn't really swear enough to be what she is.
He doesn't want to go over the facts of what has happened, but he feels that just for the hell of it he should. Then he can go on, satisfied with the completion of it all.
She thought he was stupid. She thought she would do him a favor. Well, he knew that Butler was only half the assignment. It figures that the Mafia would be sent in to do a simple a job as it was.
He grins. He is never simple.
And that room…his grin is gone. Wiped clean like a slate. Trapped.
But she thought he would escape. They all did. Well, he wasn't going to be kept in there – in practically his own home – forever.
She chose the wrong viewpoint. Cue curled lips. He could have shot himself had he been her.
Like it's somebody else…
He keeps driving. He keeps leaving it behind, over and over, with each mile he runs over.
Cue opening eyes. She is crying from anger and disappointment, and the tears are disturbingly real. How dare he just walk away? How dare he just knock her senseless and leave?
She chokes from the irony.
And he knows. He knows she will pretend she finished it and then he knows that she will be forced to quit the Mafia and hide before they uncover the truth.
Cue shut eyes. She clenches her fists and teeth.
There is a crinkle of paper in her hand.
5th, NY
She stares in disbelief before laughing. She could kill him sometimes…
They spot each other suddenly and quickly. They avoid each other's eyes until they are right in front of each other.
There is a moment reserved for staring.
"Hello," he says cordially enough.
She grins and slaps him hard.
"Now we're even," she whispers, helping him pick himself back up again. Then she kisses him long and deep, with the passion of a full grown rose.
He is arrogant and cocky and presumptuous (but always right). "Love you too," he says with their lips pressed together, smiling. She can taste it. She knows he is right and doesn't try to deny it.
"I couldn't forget you," she says simply once they pull away.
He grins. "I know."
Love is love; deceptive.
I can't stop thinking about you.
So…? I know, I know, I haven't updated School for Dummies in about a month. High school WILL NOT LET ME; I have to collect ideas again since I'm having writer's block. However, I did manage to slip in time for this, which was okay. :D Please review and tell me watcha think! BTW, the song is Can't Stop by Maroon 5. All italicized phrases/words are lyrics. Bold phrases/words are sometimes lyrics too.