into the storm
Another one for the Tumblr AU prompts, for an anon request. I almost wrote this as "we have to pretend to be siblings" because I am a horrible person, but I don't think that's what the spirit of the prompt was.
(Don't ask me what the actual reason for the undercover mission is because damned if I know. XD )
Title by way of Leonard Cohen's "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong".
"I hate you."
Captain Tréville seems wholly unperturbed by either his glare or the disgust with which he eyes the folders in his hands. If anything the older man looks amused, though of course that's patently impossible in such a serious situation. "It's hardly the first time you've told me that."
"This time I mean it." Athos tosses the folder back onto the table and puts his head in his hands with a groan. "You want me to partner with my ex-fiancée for a mission - the same ex-fiancée who killed my brother. Of course I hate you."
He reaches out, flips the file open again and taps on one of the pages. "You're going to hate me even more once you finish reading that."
Athos looks up. Scans the paragraph. Thumps his head back down onto the table. "I need a drink."
- x -
She appears at the door of his shared office that afternoon, thankfully after he's had some time to digest this. Aramis and Porthos are still at lunch, and so there's no buffer, but he's going to have to get used to it (to her) and steels himself before looking up.
This would be a lot easier if she didn't still heat his blood and make his chest tighten with rage and longing in the same breath. Things are still too charged between them, even now - even if what she did was justified and arguably necessary in the situation - for easy, though. But he's read the file, and as much as he hates his boss for it he understands Tréville's decision. They really are the best choices for this.
"You've heard, then," he says, before she can open her mouth.
"And almost took Richelieu apart before he gave me the whole rundown. Someone's laughing at us, though I don't know if it's god or the devil or our bosses."
"Does it really make a difference?"
Her laugh echoes in the small space as she comes in, closing the door behind her before stealing Porthos' chair. "Not much." Her eyes meet his, pale and solemn as she sobers in one of those mercurial shifts of temper he still remembers all too well. "Are we going to be able to do this?"
"We don't have a choice, do we?" He rakes a hand through his hair and doesn't even try to hide the grimace. "I'm not going to pretend to be happy about it, Anne, but we're both professionals. I'm willing to trust that we can both do our jobs." 'Even if I won't trust you with anything else,' he thinks but doesn't say; it hangs between them anyway, heavy and unspoken.
She tucks her feet up on the edge of the chair and leans forward, a sardonic smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "So. I guess we're getting married after all."
- x -
He digs out the ancestral title he never uses, because there are precious few people living who can connect Lieutenant Athos with Comte Olivier de la Fère, and he works with most of them. Anne remains Anne for similar reasons; the best covers are those with an element of truth. It makes the whole artifice that much more disconcerting, when there are moments that he's reminded all too acutely of what could have been, but in truth he's not sure it would've been any easier with false names. He walks through the society he's shunned all of his adult life with her fingers tucked into the crook of his arm, watching her smile and dazzle and charm while he plays the taciturn husband (not very difficult, that, but lies have always been her forté and undercover is far from his strength; he's there to watch and listen and learn while she makes people slip up).
"It's disgusting," she tells him one night in their hotel suite. She's curled up in the armchair, fancy gown discarded in favour of pyjama pants and a tank top, and with her face scrubbed bare he can see the girl he'd fallen for when they'd met as cadets. "All this excess, when there's so much good they could do with even a fraction of what they're throwing away to impress each other. How did you ever stand it?"
"I didn't," he says shortly, and bends his head back to his list, trying to ignore the weight of her eyes still on him (questioning, assessing, wondering).
It doesn't work, not then and not later; just like before, he's entirely too aware of her, can read the slightest changes - the faintest warning flex of her fingers, the brittleness hidden in her laugh. She'd broken him when she'd killed Thomas, but until now he'd never thought about what it might have done to her. If he's being completely honest, he hadn't done much after but fall into a self-destructive haze of alcohol and anger and regret that hadn't changed until Tréville forcibly pulled him out of it and assigned him to mentor two rookie transfers, and tried not to think of her at all except when he'd had no choice. And he finds that the thought, once woken, lingers, keeps him staring into the dark as she sleeps beside him, plagues him as much as the familiar sound of her breathing and the unfamiliar space between.
They've both done things in the name of their country that have left their hands dirty. Hers just happened to hit intolerably close to home.
- x -
With the constant proximity, he supposes it was inevitable. It certainly feels inevitable, as each moment of playful teasing (he is, after all, supposed to be so besotted as to see little but her, the better to watch those she's with), each touch, each kiss fans the flame. He might hate her but that doesn't mean he can't want her, especially when he's never been able to stop caring no matter how hard he's tried (he might hate her a little more just for that). And he's a professional, damn it, but the constant tension of their surroundings keeps him on edge, and all that watching leaves him acutely aware of the fact that she's skating the same edge, and they're both too tense and something's going to crack. And even if she's not his anymore and he has no right to be jealous, it fucking hurts to watch her flirt with the men at the parties they attend, and that the envy suits his mask just makes the anger that much worse somehow.
And yet passion has a hundred faces, and anger and hurt can change to other things in the span of a heartbeat, and when he drags her out of the soirée they're in one evening in what is supposed to be a fit of jealous rage, there's something very real simmering inside him as he grips her arm (maybe a bit too hard, but in that moment he wants to hurt her, and that would worry him if he stopped to think about it). She's glaring daggers at him, and even standing as far away as possible she's still too close (he should let her go, they're in the elevator now and no one except perhaps a bored security guard is watching, but he doesn't, can't, never managed to).
He doesn't know which one of them moves first. He knows it doesn't matter. All that does is the sudden heat of her body, the messy open-mouthed kiss, the too-familiar curves pressing him into the mirrored wall. She tastes of the gin she'd been drinking earlier, bitter and sharp, but as she grips his face in both hands and kisses him even more hungrily he catches familiar, half-forgotten flavours underneath, something undeniably her.
Something rips. He's not sure what, who did it - hell, he doesn't even know how they're still fully dressed. He's hard against her hip, his leg is pressed up between hers - he can feel the heat of her even through her dress and his trousers, or imagines he can - and if the elevator ride had been any longer he might well have ended up coming like that, pinned between her and the wall and just grinding against her like a hormonal teenager. As it is, they barely make it through the door of their room before he's turned the tables, shoved her back against it, and -
"I'd ask if you'll still respect me in the morning," she says, in a voice that's far too steady for this maelstrom of sensation, far too steady when his hand is slick between her thighs and her own are scrabbling at his pants, "but I'm pretty sure that's a lost cause."
He doesn't have the breath to answer her.
- x -
"I never stopped respecting you," he admits grudgingly.
She freezes at that, blinks at him from her seat on the foot of the bed where she's attacking her still-damp curls with a comb. "You've got a very odd way of showing it."
"I don't like you," Athos clarifies, because this hasn't changed anything. "I can respect you in spite of that."
Anne just looks at him for a long, steady moment, and for once her face is nearly unreadable to him, gone quiet and still and contemplative and maybe just a little surprised. "Good, because we still have to work together tomorrow," she says dryly before she resumes untangling her hair.
It doesn't mean anything to either of them.
- x -
'Lie,' he thinks, three days later, watching their quarry press a gun against her temple with one hand while tightening his grip around her throat with the other. It means as much as everything between them ever has, which is to say too damned much, and now is not the time for this sort of realisation … which of course means now is when his rational brain fails to shut up the emotive part, which is screaming at him that she's going to get killed if he messes this up and god damn it, Athos, how will you live with something like that, and -
Her eyes locked with his, and thank fucking god he can still read her, because that flick of her eyes is all the warning he has before she twists her hand and jabs her nails into the man's thigh, and there's the opening he's been waiting for, just a fraction of a second -
"Crazy woman," he swears as she staggers forward, gasping for air. "You could have been killed." Athos is moving past her, intent on getting Rochefort in cuffs before the immediate shock of the wound (and the resulting shattered forearm) wears off and he does anything else, but that doesn't stop him from splitting his attention between the two, at least until he's sure she's alright.
"I didn't know you cared," she croaks. She sounds shaken and furious more than anything else.
Their eyes meet as she digs out her phone. 'Later,' passes between them unspoken, and he focusses on the blond as she calls in.
- x -
By the time he's done getting Rochefort processed and handed over to his entirely-too-gleeful officemates for interrogation (he'd almost pity the man, except that no, it's entirely what he deserves) it's nearly three hours later, almost morning, and he wants nothing quite as much as to go home and sleep for a week. Undercover always exhausts him, and this had been a particularly difficult mission. Tréville takes one look at him and tells him not to come back in until Monday - that they'll call him if they need him sooner - and Athos is more than happy to comply.
The elevator stops two floors down, and for a moment after the doors open he and Anne just stare at each other. There's a bruise circling her throat, visible above the scarf she's wound around it, and he feels his fingers twitch with sudden fury. "Well?" he prompts, when she doesn't move.
She shrugs and steps inside, leaning against the corner furthest from him. When the elevator begins to move again she says, almost conversationally, "I hear your boys have Rochefort."
He nods, and then, "Anne -"
"I don't regret any of it." Green eyes meet his, sure and steady. Her fingers lift to pick at the edge of the scarf, drop uselessly to her side again. It's odd to see them like that, bare of the ring she'd worn for the long weeks of this assignment; it's odd not to feel that band around his own finger, when he'd grown almost used to it. Her mouth tips up in a smile, though it doesn't quite cover the sadness lurking in the corners. "You were a good partner."
The elevator's counting down; in moments they'll be at the ground floor and going their separate ways, and who knows when they'll see each other again or what will come of this fragile rapport. It surprises him to realise he doesn't want that to happen. This may come to nothing, but they can't really end up much worse off than they'd been before.
"How about breakfast?" he asks, and almost smiles at her surprise.
Endnotes: Porthos and Aramis interrogating Rochefort may be cruel and unusual, but he totally deserves it. He also makes the most convenient 'add-a-villain' ever ... (Also, Tréville and Richelieu are totally vitriolic best buds here and get together after hours and gripe about their subordinates and drink and place inappropriate bets about workplace happenings. Because they would. Worst work dads ever.)
Questions or prompts? Hit my Tumblr askbox if you'd like. I am, as always, myalchod over there.