Title: To Kill a Sparrow
Chapter: 4
Rating: M
Chapter Warning: Cursing. And it will be in every chapter through out this whole thing.
Pairings: FemSparrow x OC
Disclaimer: Fable, Fable II, etc, belongs to LionHead Studios. I make no profit from this work of tribute to my favorite NPCs in the series. Please don't sue me, grumpy British game developers. :(
Brody grumbled to himself as he picked his way along a seldom used trail on the fringes of Oakfield. If he kept to it long enough, it would merge with a game trail that ran nearly parallel with the road to Westcliffe. From there, it was only a matter of finding the first pirate-turned-trader ship to Bloodstone before he could let down his guard and relax.
And it was proving continually difficult to keep so much as a third of his brain on staying hidden in the forest while keeping a watchful eye out for hobbes, bandits, and balverines. He was looking forward to the moment he would be sprawled out in a hammock, swaying to and fro with the movement of a ship on open sea, without a bloody thing to watch out for. Then, he could let his mind mull over that crazy woman that distracted him so, despite her being a good three hours back up the trail in Oakfield.
That way, he could figure out why the hell on the second morning waking up next to her he decided to take that walk of shame he should've taken yesterday. It was mildly surprising that he had even managed to sneak out of her house without waking her, when she had woken so easily to the sound of his creaking gloves less than forty-eight hours before. But out he made it, tiptoeing like the stealthy bastard he was while she was left snuggling a pillow in his stead.
It bothered him that his backbone decided to take a vacation. Bothered him even more that he had to put his hands on her throat again to get off. Gods, he had tried so hard to do the deed without that sick twist of bed room magic. She did her best, too, and had nearly managed to pull it off until she had tried to take his mask off—
Shit. Was the mask some kind of stupid fetish, too? What, was he a hardcore sadist now, needing masks and ball gags to get his satisfaction? Next thing he'd know, he'd be tying her up and taking a whip to her back—
Fuck no. No, no, no. And no. He was not that kind of man. He was not that kind of man. He was not that kind of man.
Murderer? Yes. Assassin? Yes. Occasional petty thief? Well, yes. Woman beater? Gods, no.
He killed women, sure. But those were clean, fast deaths. Contracted deaths. Deaths someone felt they deserved for whatever atrocities they committed. But he didn't just go around beating the crap out of women, especially ones he shared his bed with. He didn't go around choking them to get his rocks off.
Brody found a nice boulder to sit down on so he could tear his mask off and run his hands through his hair. It didn't help clear his head. His thoughts were just as jumbled up and frustrated as they were before when he finally settled for pressing his palms into his eye sockets.
The pain from the pressure on his swollen nose helped get his thoughts a little organized.
Alright, he told himself, first off: everything was consensual. Sort of. He didn't do anything to her that she hadn't asked him to do or she didn't protest. She liked it rough just as much as she liked it tender—her being the one last night that left a nice sized bruise on his neck from a rather hard love bite, before peppering his sore nose with soft kisses that oddly made his whole body feel good.
And second: plenty of people have odd fetishes. There was Tom Cat, one of his brothers in the Society with a thing for feet. Nighthawk only banged prostitutes. Shadow liked role playing, and Steve liked dressing up as a woman. Sanguine had a thing for fingering his—well, that was according to his ex.
Certainly he wasn't the only guy out there who finished with his paws wrapped around his lover's throat?
Of course he wasn't. Rapists do that too, you sick fuck, right before they murder their victims.
"What kind of name is Steve for a bloody assassin?" he snarled under his breath.
"Well, not all of us can instill the fear of the gods in the hearts of mortal men," a cool voice drawled at Brody's back, causing him to think up a whole new slew of curses and oaths. "Did you really hear me coming, or are you just cursing my name and falling out of practice, Fox?"
Brody glanced over his shoulder at his brother, scowling, before he climbed to his feet. "No, you've just gotten sneakier."
"I'm as sneaky as a fat woman walking on brittle sticks," Steve snorted dismissively. "Nice shiner you've got there. Get it from our lady Hero?"
"And a whole lot of other ouchies for you to poke fun over," he grumbled, tugging his mask back on as a slew of highwaymen poured out of the trees. He looked at them one by one, taking note of their numbers and the weapons still sheathed on their backs. Five highwaymen, one assassin. He hoped he wouldn't have to kill any of them, especially Steve. He liked Steve.
"Poke fun?" Steve snorted again. "Not when you're the only one of us poor bastards to survive her. I've been praying like mad that she wouldn't pick our path to tread ever since she offed Shadow last week. So, the job's done then, is it?"
Brody cast another look over the highwaymen. They were still watching the trees around them, eyes raptly looking both ways on the trail for a target that wouldn't come. Steve knew better. He knew Brody wouldn't have sat in plain view on a trail if their mark was around somewhere. "We're heading back to the S
ociety, Steve."
Steve cawed happily. "By gods, it's really done, then! You hear that, you thieving bastards? We can get off this forsaken road and find real work, closer to taverns and ale and pretty women."
"Lord Darius said we ain't t' leave 'till he sends fo' us," one of the highwaymen snapped irritably. "Or dinnit ye ferget?"
"And you seem to have forgotten that we aren't under 'Lord' Darius' command," Brody snapped back just as irritated.
"You got her 'ead then, ye ass?" the man chortled, fancying himself clever. "Lucien's contract is fer her 'ead, and we ain't leavin' 'tills we sees it."
Rolling his eyes, Brody shoved a hand in his pack and yanked out a great bloody mess wrapped up in Sparrow's mask. It was the product of twenty minutes of mashing a melon into a vaguely head-shaped object, and anointing it with chicken blood from the village butcher.
The highwaymen let out a low, appreciative whistle as Steve clapped Brody on the shoulder. "Society should have sent you the moment we got the contract," the assassin chuckled.
Feeling all kinds of shitty for lying to one of his brothers, Brody shoved the 'head' back in his bag before stalking off down the trail the way he had been heading. Steve followed obediently, whistling a cheery little tune as the highwaymen headed the opposite way towards Oakfield.
An hour or so passed before either of the assassins said a word to each other.
"You do realize that you're going down in the history books for this, right, Fox?" Steve said lightly. "Tricking a lot of morons into thinking a melon is a Hero's head, I mean. That tale is worthy of a bard's song, in my opinion."
Brody shrugged.
"What happened?"
"She beat the snot out of me, that's what happened," he grumbled. "I'm not dying to advance a cause none of us believe in, Steve. There is only so much I am willing to do for money."
"Lucien will kill you for walking away from her," his brother went on, tone light and nonchalant. "Hell, he might have me do it for him."
"And are you Lucien's pawn, Steve?"
"I'd rather Lucien snapped my neck himself, rather than forcing you to do it," Steve laughed.
"Well, he's turning the whole society into his lackeys trying to keep that woman from getting at him," Brody snarled angrily. "How many have we lost to this one contract? More than we've lost in entire years!"
"It's not that I don't agree with you, Fox," Steve interrupted politely. "It's that I'm wondering if you know what it is you're doing, calling off the entire hunt. You're the best of the best, but do you really have the authority? The master…"
"She gave me a message for the master," Brody lied again, and Steve took it. "How else do you think I escaped with my life?"
"I will admit, I hoped that maybe you maimed her enough to limp your way to safety. Is your nose broken? Your voice sounds nasally."
"In two places. She head butted it not long after she broke it." Truth, finally. He had to stick to as much of the truth as he could. The more he fabricated, the more he ran the risk of sounding like it was all a load of rubbish. The more likely he'd be to trip over his own lies.
"And what is this message you deem worthy enough to call me out of the field?"
"It's for the master's ears, Steve."
"Just curious, my dear boy."
"Something that will get us out from under Lucien's thumbs and get her contract annulled."
They both fell silent as Steve mulled that over. A few minutes later, though, and his mouth was moving a mile a minute as he hammered Brody with questions about his fight with the Hero. Brody grinned and bared it, telling as much of the truth as he could without spilling the beans every assassin in their right mind would want to hear. No, his screw up with Sparrow would stay between him and her, and as far as he was concerned his brothers didn't have a right to know about it.
Not that he would be the first to sleep with a mark. Things happened in his line of business. Sometimes a woman—or man, you never knew what people were in to these days—would make a proposition to try and buy their lives long enough to sort matters out. And while the Assassin Society was no ramshackle group of murderers, it wasn't unusual for one of his brothers to lack the moral upstanding and self control to deny sex bribes. The only difference with Brody is that he was the only one to walk away tightening his belt without leaving his mark dead behind him.
And he wasn't bribed.
And Sparrow wasn't just some random milkmaid who stuck a pitch fork in a farmer's son.
Steve let out a long, low whistle as Brody wrapped up his story, complete with embellishments and exaggerations about how he had narrowly escaped with his life and Sparrow's message. "That is some kind of woman, if you ask me," he chortled, shaking his head with disbelief. "A woman you can fall in love with, know what I mean?"
Brody's back went stiff. "Afraid not." Did he suspect? Did he smell Sparrow on him or something? And he wasn't in love with her, gods no. She just happened to be a rather amazing bed partner—
"Yeah, you know, a big, strong woman like that. A man's got to respect a woman that can throw a punch."
"Respect, yes. But love?"
"What, you like those fragile little noble's daughters in Bowerstone?" Steve grinned, elbowing Brody in the side.
He winced, swinging his ribs away.
Steve laughed again. "She bruised your ribs? Maybe she broke a few."
"It's just I always figured if a woman were to win me away from the Society, it'd be some gentle girl without a callous on her hands or an aggressive bone in her body," frowning, Brody put a hand to his side where he did indeed have a bruise coloring his hide all shades of black and blue. "You don't think that when you retire you want a little wife to show you how gentle the world really can be?"
Steve snorted inelegantly. "I spent my whole life learning how gentle the world isn't. I'm not disillusioned, Fox."
"But you don't want a woman that doesn't share the scars you have?" frowning, Brody paused in the middle of the path to turn to face his friend. "You don't want to come home to an escape where your wife doesn't understand how men could rape a girl and kill her mother? Where the worst that life has to hold for you and her is the tax collector and a mortgage? Or whether or not your daughter is doing well in school?"
Steve gave him a rather serious look. "Men like us, Fox, we're not exactly sane despite all appearances. We're scarred, like you said. We've seen things, done things that no normal citizen of Albion can rightly comprehend. The only way men like you and I will get a girl like that is by giving her a lie to believe. And I like to think that my morality isn't so corrupt yet that I'd be willing to have a marriage of lies."
"I would think of it as protecting her, wouldn't you?"
"From who? You?" Steve poked him in the ribs again. "Don't get me wrong. Any real man wants a woman that makes him feel like a guardian, a real man of worth. But I want my wife to know that I'd gladly kill for her, and not bat an eyelash when I do it. I want her to know what I've done, what I'm capable of. My scars? I want her to know what they are and love me all the more for it."
Brody frowned.
"Every one of them," Steve pressed, before letting out a stressed laugh. "I want a woman that knows why I still wake up in a cold sweat, screaming my little heart out from nightmares. And then I want her to hold me like the big baby I am while I cry my eyes out and know that come sun rise she'll still be there, ready and willing to help me fight my demons."
They stood in silence for a moment, Steve's jaw working as he clenched his teeth and tried not to grind them while Brody's mind worked like a duck in water to process his rather emotional speech. In all honesty, Brody hadn't given much thought to retirement, let alone marriage. Maybe because he was young in comparison to Steve, but he just figured he'd live a content life murdering people for a living. And truth be told, he had always thought one day he'd leave Bloodstone to carry out a mark and never return.
A woman like Sparrow, though… Yes, he could see what Steve meant. She had seen things just as harsh and cruel as Brody had. She could kill a man just as easily as he could, and the only question in her mind before doing it would be the best course of action to achieve the desired result. She didn't gossip of the terrors of balverines and hobbes lying in wait outside the village walls with the other farmers' wives. She took up a sword and did something about it. She confronted it. She didn't hide and cower from the realities of life.
No, she was a clever, stubborn, aggressive woman that dared the world to do its worst and fought everything it threw at her head on.
But then, she had a soft side. The things that Brody first thought he'd want in a woman, she had too. Sparrow knew how to laugh, how to enjoy a peaceful evening cooking a simple meal for her children. She took advantage of her rare moments of happiness. Hell, she took damaged children from torn environments and taught them how to laugh and love again. Showed them that while the world was a harsh and cruel place to grow up in, there were things in it that made the pains and heartache worth living through.
Brody rubbed at his chest and cleared his throat. "I suppose you're right, Steve. If she hadn't broken my nose, I'm sure I'd think of Sparrow the same way."
The assassin clapped him on the shoulder. "Yes, I suppose I am," he grinned, before they both resumed their journey to Westcliffe. "And since you're so disenchanted with the lady, perhaps you wouldn't care to introduce me some time?"
"She'll be in Bloodstone in a few weeks. I'm sure I can manage something then," Brody replied absently.
"Say what? How the bloody hell does she plan to do that while Lucien's got a bloody blockade around the whole damn peninsula?"
Brody froze in his tracks again. "What?"
"The ships showed up not long after you left for her contract," Steve frowned. "It's got Reaver in a right old fuss. He's taken out a couple naval ships to convince Lucien to at least allow his pirates and some traders through, but even then there are spire guards searching every vessel that wants to dock in Bloodstone."
"He knows she's going there? How?"
"How the bloody hell would I know. I thought the prick was just looking for some lost artifact or some such. I never really did understand nobility."
Cursing, Brody looked back down the path towards Westcliffe. He couldn't turn back, not with Steve tagging along like he was. He'd have to come up with some half cocked story why Brody felt he had to warn her, and then Steve might see something between him and Sparrow that Brody didn't want to be seen.
And then he felt like an idiot for even thinking of it. She was Sparrow. Somehow, she had managed to come this far and avoid any traps Lucien set for her. So what if there was a blockade? She'd get there. He didn't know how, but she would. One way or another.
I had a reader once tell me that I was a potty mouth in my fics. She's right, but I like to think that I use my curse words rather tastefully-and always correctly. D: Plus, it fits the characters, in my humble opinion!
As always, please review! Thanks for sticking with the fic. =)
