A/N: I assume there is almost no one left on this site reading this... so I couldn't be bothered putting back in the formatting / italics in uploading this, so here we are. Fully formatted on Archive of Our Own (Ao3) under the same pen name, if anyone is interested.
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It's spring in Almeria. It is still early in the city, enough that there is only the occasional grumble of morning trucks from the streets below drifting through the open window. The air is fresh and fragrant with rain from the night before, shivering the faintest goosebumps up Nika's arms which 47 will soon kiss away, at the curve of her shoulder. He is always at his most unguarded in bed - which in Nika's experience is not uncommon for men, though this is rarely a good thing. In her experience, sex is almost always actually about something other than sex itself: pain, power, control etc etc - you know, the usual bullshit that results in new terrors and scars, whatever.
But 47 is the rare sort of man who seems to enjoy sex for the sake of sex. Nika lifts her face; she catches 47 by the mouth and he kisses back, messy and hungry and so on edge she can feel him trembling from the effort of holding back. He's been trying to stretch it out for a while now, though she can't tell why. She's faked coming at least twice and he usually buys it, or at least pretends to, but he seems to be holding out for some other reason this time. This time, 47 slows every time he gets close, his breathing strained as he pants by her ear. They're both tacky with sweat, the dawn breeze from the window both welcome and bracing, and now here it comes, just as she remembers - 47 lifts his head to kiss the top of her shoulder, startlingly tender, when she shivers from it. God, her heart. Are you alright , 47 says, as if he wasn't still half in her, his arms bracketing her shaking from the strain of the last thirty minutes of edging so close to and yet never coming. The ghost of his voice is soft and ragged. Should I. Do you want me to stop?
God, this man. She ignores the surprised warmth spreading deep in her, brighter than the low heat that has been coiling alien and uncertain in her belly, and shakes her head, moans and wraps her legs tighter around his hips, pushing back encouragingly. 47 pulls back to look at her, his eyes hazy and black with desire, but she must be convincing enough or her hips insistent enough because he says her name once, fervent and low, and presses back into her desperately, again and again, swallowing her whines with fierce kisses.
He starts to slow again when he comes close, starts to pull out and mouth down her neck, still trying to drag it out. Except for once she is also starting to come close - and Nika can't lose control like that, not at the one thing she's good at. So she clings so he can't pull out; she arches her back so he can't help but catch the dusky tips of her breasts with his mouth, greedy; she clenches and mews and grinds against him, begging prettily and shamelessly. She gives him the full show. And it works, thank god: 47's self control snaps with a groan at last and he stops trying to make it last, and the danger passes.
Afterwards, with 47 warm and solid against her back, lazily tracing a finger down her breastbone, Nika thinks about asking. What was that about , she wants to say. She hadn't dared, had only soaked in the warmth of his rare open pleasure with her like a plant soaking up the sun in winter, quiet and happy.
Perhaps she should have dared. What would he have said, then -
It's just sex , he would have said with a shrug.
Or perhaps: I wanted one last fuck to remember you by. No, that's too sentimental, more like: you were here and available; why not . It could have been anyone; it will be anyone, after this.
47 looks down at her. There is a sudden hush. His eyes are fathomless, and gentle. And he says, what he had said then was:
I have a plan.
Nika wakes up.
It happens so suddenly that she is still in her dreams when she opens her eyes. The same man looks back at her with the same dark eyes, handsome and remote in the rose dawn light. He's fully dressed, sitting on the edge of her bed, and the carelessly untouchable look of him - the formidable black suit, the cool white and slash of blood red like a warning - is so heart-stoppingly familiar that it blurs the edges of reality.
Nika grabs the wrist of the man on her bed, blindly. "Don't go," she says, her voice crackling with sleep. The old panic is back, full bloom in her chest. "Don't leave, let me. Take me with you."
47 of her past looks taken aback. "I'm not leaving," he says, after a pause, instead of looking impatient, turning away. Nika holds on uncomprehendingly, still half-caught in her dream. His voice is low and real. It anchors part of her. "I'll never give you up again," he tells her, very quiet and certain, and that - that is jarring enough that it finally jolts Nika fully awake.
She blinks, blinks; looks down at the bed, around the small room. The muted rose-washed light from the frosted window by her softens everything in the room with what feels like the early dawn. Everything of last night reloads with a click.
After a moment's hesitation, Nika lets go of 47's wrist.
It must only be three hours, at most four since she closed her eyes. She's propped herself up on one elbow without realising in her desperation in reaching towards 47. She can feel every hour of sleep she has missed in the past couple of weeks throbbing behind her eyelids, heavy and weak in her propped arm.
The man before her doesn't even look hungover. Life really is fucking unfair sometimes.
"Sorry," Nika whispers. Her voice is still hoarse with sleep, she clears her throat and embarrassment away brusquely. "Old habits," she offers, smiling weakly. 47 doesn't smile back.
"Bad dream?"
She flushes. "No," she says quickly, then feels herself flush some more. "Not really." She looks down at the blankets, suddenly and inexplicably embarrassed. "It just felt… really real."
She feels more than sees 47 shift from his position on the bed, as if bracing himself. There is a moment of awkward silence. But to her surprise, 47 doesn't let it drop.
"You must have been dreaming of a time that I left you," she hears 47 say at last, slowly. He sounds like he's trying to be gentle, though there is a flat note of apprehension in his voice. "We can. Talk about it. When was it?"
The shock of this startles a laugh out of Nika. "When was it? When didn't you walk away?" She looks up again, more amazed than accusatory. 47 looks back at her, grim despite the soft dawn light straining through the window by them, colouring him incongruously pink and romantic. We can talk about it . Did he seriously…?
Perhaps she is still dreaming after all. Nika can count the number of times with one hand that she's woken up and found 47 still in bed with her, even if this time he's sitting fully dressed on it and staring at her warily as if expecting a blow. She doesn't need any hands at all to count the number of times 47 has ever initiated a conversation that wasn't based on logistics or other practical necessities, because, the answer: never.
There is the beginning of a lightness waking under Nika's skin, an echo of the delirium of last night. She tries to curb the incredulity on her face.
"It was... the morning before you gave me to Abdel," she starts again, trying to sound casual. Not too obviously encouraging. "Do you remember?"
47 looks blank for a beat. Then she sees the moment he remembers: his eyes flick down to her mouth, to the dipping gap in the low curved neck of her shirt, before they flicker back up to meet her eyes again, guiltily. "Yes," he says, managing to sound stiff even with one syllable. She forgot how oddly sensitive he was when talking about their fucking, as if it was something delicate and not to be pointed at.
Nika smiles at him, soothing. "You said to me, I have a plan . At the end, just before you got up to get dressed. And when I asked what you meant, you didn't answer; you just pulled away and got up, so I shut up." She pauses. "I used to think about that a lot, you know. It was - anyway. That was what I was dreaming of."
The man opposite her looks blank again. "That was what you were dreaming of?"
"Yes."
"It was a bad dream because I said... I have a plan ."
"Well... yes."
47 looks faintly puzzled now. He still looks serious, studying her closely, but she thinks she sees the hint of a raised eyebrow. And he says, "Is that it?"
"Is that it?" Nika repeats. "Is that… No, that's not it. It is you dragging me to a stranger's underground den and telling me you were going to leave me there. It is months of - of radio static before that, never an explanation - just you disappearing or walking away all the time, without warning. It is that goodbye fuck that morning, you acting like it mattered, and then I have a plan? What the hell does that even mean? It'd have been better if you'd been more like Bellicoff or his fuckhead brother, at least then I wouldn't have kept wondering if your goddamn plan involved coming back or finally just walking away for the last time; it wouldn't have kept eating me alive every night after you fucking sold me ."
She's breathing hard. Well, 47 will probably never try opening up again, after this; this was probably the exact opposite of being encouraging. Nika pushes herself upright with her elbow, until she's sitting up against the headboard, shoulders hunched up defensively.
"I didn't sell you," 47 says at last. He looks pale.
"I know," Nika snaps, before she catches herself. "I know," she repeats, calmer. She forces her shoulders down, still feeling hot around her face. "I'm not angry," she says, though it was not quite true five seconds ago. It's getting truer now as she speaks, though; the spike of furious hurt is gone, subsiding again to become something more subdued, more embarrassed. "Look, it's... I get it. Now, anyway. You... did what you thought would keep me safe," she says, and it's probably the closest she'll ever come to forgiving 47 aloud.
47 doesn't look comforted by the grudging ease in her tone. "You were safer that way," he says slowly. "If you only knew what you had to know. You would never be a target for more." But he doesn't sound defensive. "I thought you already had all the information you needed to know." He sounds uncertain.
Nika smiles, small and tight, not trusting herself to speak again. But unprecedentedly, 47 is the one who presses on, past the thick pause. "What... else would you have wanted me to tell you?"
She stares. "That you were coming back for me. What your plan actually was, what you meant by it. What might happen after. What you had agreed with Abdel. That you were coming back for me ."
"But you knew I always came back for you, before."
It is 47's tone that gets to her more than anything. It is so perplexed, so matter-of-fact, and - this is the important part - so obviously the tone of such an oblivious idiot that it robs the rest of Nika's anger. 47's eyes are very dark and intent, and he isn't looking away from her as he might have once. He is trying so hard, and he is still not getting it. But, a quiet part of Nika observes, at least he is trying.
The traitorous lightness under her skin is spreading, spreading.
Nika shakes her head. To her dismay, she feels herself starting to smile; she can't help it. "You are so unbelievable," she tells her man, but her smile is full bloom now, undercutting her rebuke. The man across her looks briefly both lost and determined.
"I can confirm to you that I plan to come back," he says, carefully. "Whenever I leave you, going forward. If it would help."
Nika raises an eyebrow. He's trying. That breathlessness is bubbling up inside her now, reminiscent of last night, like champagne freshly popped. She leans forward with one hand braced on the blankets deliberately, towards 47; reaches out and catches the end of his red tie in her other hand. She pretends not to notice 47 go still. "Whenever you leave me?" she says, daring him to comment on the way she's turned towards him, looking up at him through her lashes. "Are you already planning another trip? Is this why you're already dressed to go?"
"You." 47 stops. She watches his throat move as he swallows. "I can give more details too, going forward," he tries again. "About contingencies, my plans."
"Your plans," Nika echoes. She runs the tie through her fingers, the silk light and delicious. "Lucky me," she says, dreamily, watching 47 swallow again. "At least I'll know what's coming before you abandon me again."
"I won't," her man says, low. I'll never give you up again. That's what he had said, hadn't he, when she woke? Nika shivers. 47 says, urgent, "We can talk about that too, if it would help. If you had any questions about what might happen."
"Or objections."
"Or objections," 47 agrees. He adds, sounding wary: "Within reason."
Nika hides a smile. She lets the tie fall from her fingers, still watching its wearer through hooded lashes. But she doesn't lean back; she leans even closer. "You're so sure that this will happen, aren't you? Me, going forward."
She is already half-sure, herself. Being so intoxicatingly close to 47, even in the warming light of the morning, is still as dangerous as last night. 47 always had a special gravity for her, and already she is circling him, a moon to his planet, good sense and experience be damned. I'll never give you up again . Perhaps it would hurt less, this time.
47 is still looking at her in that nakedly intense way, as if she wasn't already an open book written for him in this brightening room. "I won't touch you this time," he says, unexpectedly.
It's enough to startle Nika out of seduction mode. "What?" She moves back a bit, to get a better look at his face. "What do you mean?"
"I won't touch you this time," 47 repeats. He is watching her back closely. "You'd have your own bed. Your own space. I wouldn't expect… more."
"More?"
"If it would help," 47 says.
" More, " Nika repeats, rolling the word in her mouth. She can't help the amusement she knows is showing on her face. " That kind of more. You think this would help me decide?" She does laugh a little then, though she tries to turn it into a cough. Judging from 47's face, she does it poorly. "I don't care about that," she says, sobering with a smile. "I'd rather we did fuck. It always helped to know you still enjoyed it, at least." She's doing a worse job at putting him at ease, if the abrupt expressionlessness of 47's face is any indicator. Nika hastens to correct it. "Not that it would bother me either if you wanted to fuck someone else, obviously. I don't care; that won't be a thing, for us. Assuming there is an us, I mean. Assuming you do actually start telling me what's happening. Going forward. "
She smirks at him, half in challenge and half in apprehension, waiting for 47 to seize the suggestion that a future together may not be an entirely unthinkable possibility. But he doesn't. He looks even more unreadable, if that is possible. It is strikingly familiar in a horrible way.
He is the first to look away. Nika shifts back, uneasy. When 47 turns to her again, he looks calm, and there is something in his hand which he passes to her, like a mini-ipad. Nika takes it automatically, looks down. It really is a screen, split into four fish-bowled videos: three are images of a street; one is of an entrance to a building, looking suspiciously familiar.
In the mini-video of one of the streets, there is a dark car waiting. A small figure in black and white stands by it, waiting. He definitely looks familiar.
Nika looks up at 47. "Is this…"
"The Morrocan has come to collect," 47 tells her, cool. Nika looks back down at the screen in her hands: yes, it's definitely Driss, though why Abdel has sent his manservant is beyond her. And the image of the street, the entrance to the building, is the same one they're in currently.
"He has been there for the last hour," says the man across her, answering her unasked question. "He appears prepared to wait."
"How did he even know we're here?" Nika looks up and takes in 47 properly for the first time this morning, the perfectly knotted blood tie and his black gloves; the silver glint of a gun in the inner confines of his suit and the shape of one edging the jacket flap closest to her. She looks across the room, at the carry-on suitcase by the door: it's been moved, and unzipped. She looks back at 47, feeling dumb. "That's why you're dressed. You're - are you going to fight?"
47 takes the screen back and gives her a glance, startlingly familiar too in its not-quite-impatience, not-quite-tolerance look of it. He used to give them to her all the time when she asked a question he obviously didn't think was worth answering, and its sudden return now, here, is jarring given the conversation they've just had. "It's your ride back. I don't intend to engage unless they do," he says shortly. The bed hiccups up as he stands. "The Morrocan knows we're here because he's had me under surveillance for some time." 47 adjusts the cuffs of his sleeves without looking at her as he speaks, as if he was the sort of man who didn't mind being watched and had not, for instance, once wordlessly and forcibly extracted the film roll of an unlucky camera street stall vendor who dared take a sample snap of them. "I imagine that's how you found me last night."
Oh. Nika shrinks back against the headboard, unthinking. 47 must have noticed because he turns to her then. His voice gentles. "I'm glad you came," he says. He pauses, standing awkwardly over her. Nika relaxes slightly. "It - has helped. The time with you."
Oh. "Me too," Nika says faintly. She looks back up at him, feeling dazed until she realises he is waiting for her. To leave? Something cold curls deep in Nika's gut. "I... should go."
"You don't have to," 47 says immediately, and the ice dagger in her stomach melts a little. "You could stay, if you wanted. I'd settle any debts you have with the Morrocan; you would never have to set foot on his property again."
"I don't have any debts," Nika says, distractedly. She's still trying to figure out the undefined cool change to the tone in the room, to the man before her. She bites her lip and stares at him, unsettled. But Kadin's worried face swims into her mind then. "I... probably should go," she says reluctantly. "I was meant to be back sooner." She's suddenly certain that Kadin was the one that sent Driss, probably as soon as she found out Abdel had sent her to meet 47 in the middle of the night. She dreads thinking of what Abdel might have to say to her, being once again the cause of friction between him and his wife. "I'll be missed," she adds to herself, and it's both a worrying and warming thing to know that it's true. She has not had an actual friend for a very long time.
47 only looks at her silently, inscrutable again. He says nothing even while she clambers clumsily out of bed, self-conscious under his eyes; while she gathers and smooths down her hair to one side distractedly as she finds and slides on her slip-ons again. It doesn't take long at all. All the while, she tries and fails to think of what to say, how to end this without ending it, trying to ignore the knowledge that if 47 had not immediately asked her to stay just moments before, she would be asking him now if she could stay with him a little longer, after all; if maybe he could let them try again. God - less than 24 hours with the man who abandoned her for over two years, and she's already so, so fucked.
"I'll walk you down," says 47, polite, and he does, though he stops at the entrance of the building on the ground floor. The car and Driss are both parked almost half-way down the street, within sight but with more than a respectful distance. Nika thinks she can see Driss shifting nervously from foot to foot when he spots them.
She turns back to 47, who is still watching her with maddening calm. Their pause hums like a note held down. "You really should see a doctor," she tells him at last, unable to stand the silence any longer. 47 merely looks slightly evasive, the infuriating man. Nika waits some more to see if he would say anything, perhaps give an opening back to the heady quiet promises from before, that he really did mean it despite his sudden impassivity now. But 47 doesn't. Nika cracks.
"If… I wanted us to meet again…"
"You know how to find me," 47 reminds her. Nika nods reluctantly. She'll have no excuses to justify meeting him, the next time.
"Yes," she says. "I mean. Alright. Then... Goodbye." For a moment she thinks she sees 47's jaw clench, the shadow of a moment towards her. But then the clouds move overhead or the morning light in the entrance changes, and the illusion passes. 47 gives her a nod back.
"Goodbye," he says, even.
At least he does not turn to leave before she does.
It feels like a long walk to the car, during which she forces herself not to look back, and then a longer drive to the house.
She arrives just in time for Abdel and Kadin to finish their fight.
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