Speedy/Cheshire, at last. Can you say yum? ;)
I really should be studying right now (Good Lord, I have finals tomorrow!!! :O) but I figured I might as well have some lovely reviews to come home to tomorrow afternoon. :)
Got lazy at some parts of this one - especially the beginning, ugh - because I'm not used to writing long-distance like this. Oh well. Overall, I'm mildly pleased with how this one turned out; not ecstatic. (I guess nothing can measure up to how much I adore Butterscotch, eh? :D)
Enjoy, loves. We're almost 20% of the way through!
Love and cupcakes,
--Phina
--
Prompt #19: Changed
Yesterday evening, her clothes were spattered with blood and gore – her eyes bloodshot – her sleek black suit stained with smoke and pain. But that's what it took to pay the bills.
Tonight she has slipped on a pair of stiletto heels and is occupying herself breaking the hearts of every man in the ballroom of a certain family of French royalty. She smiles, amused, because there isn't a single corner of the world she can't blend into.
She's masquerading as a privileged foreign ambassador this evening. She's not employed, at least not tonight; she has no brilliant, dazzling scheme to lure the host into his own bedroom and rob him blind, deaf and dumb. She's attending this ball simply for the pleasure of wearing a skimpy dress and getting drunk on someone else's champagne.
Her face is impish, now, with the short slashes of ebony locks, close-cropped to her skull; slick, jagged spikes fly every which way. Her legs are tan and her eyes – green, now, because she likes it better than her own feeble brown – are bright and her mega-watt smile is carefully fixed on her face. But it's the dress she loves the most.
She's been intoxicated with silks for a few months now – the swish of it against the ground, the whisper of it against her skin – oh, she adores it. This particular gown is heartstoppingly lovely. A sumptuous red the color of her favorite wine, it shows her bronzed half-moons of breasts; plunges down just below her hips in the back and criss-crosses her entire spine with thin, shining ribbons of silk. Her eyes are smoky and her lips are sugared. She's a goddess, in this dress.
(She used to be different. Quick as a cat, with a smirking mask…oh, yes, she was quite different. She likes herself better now. )
She's danced countless waltzes with every businessman in the room: and now she twirls slowly, alone. The men, despite their alcohol-laced bravado, are too fragile for her feral taste in dance. She's kept her claws carefully sheathed all night – the strain of reigning in her constant energy high is exhausting.
She wants to move. To let go of her cagey precautions – to allow herself to succumb to the music; to kick her feet and grind her hips and toss her head back and dance. She wants to skim across the dance floor, to be a vapor, a stream of smoke – sinuous – capricious – free.
She wants – she wants –
Her eyes flick past a chiseled profile and snag there: a string of wool caught by a bramble.
She knows this profile. Strong, straight nose; an angular jaw, firm enough to form a right angle with his neck; shapely lips, full for a man, and thick eyelashes that always made her stomach churn with envy.
She wants him.
He looks just the same as six years ago, but taller, and perhaps a little more severe about the mouth. (How many times has he risked his life? How many times has he come within a split-second of death?) He's wearing a beautiful old tuxedo – vintage; she picked it out for him in celebration of their two-week anniversary; she remembers he made her pay cash for it – and chatting flippantly with three willowy girls in sheer dresses, two blondes and a brunette. One tosses back her sunlight hair and laughs, raucously. Her faded blue-green eyes bug unattractively out of her skull, but her lips are glossy and her stomach is flat and her breasts look ready to take over the room, so it shouldn't have been such a surprise that half of the male population in the room had their eyes fixed on various parts of her anatomy.
He grins and tucks a lock of hair behind the brunette's ear – ever the playboy – and his gaze drifts from her face, across the room, like he could feel her standing there, watching him –
Emerald meets emerald as their gazes lock. He doesn't look surprised in the least to see her standing in the midst of a crowd of rich Parisians. The blonde girl follows his gaze – a flash of rage flits across her heart-shaped face as she sees catches sight of the wine-silk dress. She takes his chin in her hand, smiles coyly, but he ignores her completely as he strides across the dance floor.
"Would you care to dance, mademoiselle?" His voice is so similar to how she remembers it – low and husky, dangerously seductive. She thinks of melted chocolate and plush velvet cushions. There's a teasing tilt to his chin that she remembers vividly from their lazy days in Rome.
She smiles, lets her fingers dance across the neckline of her dress. "You're asking me? Really?" She gives him a luscious wink. "I don't think I've had quite enough to drink to justify that sort of behavior."
She can see his eyes glittering mischievously. He always enjoyed these cat-and-mouse games. He doesn't realize – not yet – that this cat-and-mouse game involves two cats, and one of them is just as smart as she had been when she wore the mask.
"Some wine, then?" He snaps his fingers, and a waiter appears instantly at his elbow.
She accepts a delicate crystal flute filled with frothy champagne, grins at him over the rim of the glass. "You must be eager to sweep me onto the dance floor," she comments lightly.
"Terribly." He takes the glass from between her fingers and sets it onto the passing tray of the maître d', then replaces it with another.
She sighs and rolls her eyes good-naturedly, giving up, and twirls him onto the dance floor.
He spins her slowly for a few minutes, thoughtfully, his palm rough and warm in hers. "Have we met?" he asks, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his full lips. His eyes are just as intense – sparking with ice-fire – as she remembers. Some things never changed.
"Mmm…I can't seem to remember any doe-eyed redheads in the recent past," she purrs. She tilts her head up to give him a teasing sideways glance, watches his pupils dilate with hunger. "Of course, what with all this wine you've pressed upon me, I'm not surprised in the least that I don't recall anything from the last three months of my life."
He had always been tricky that way. So had she. She hasn't taken a sip of wine the entire night.
He draws her closer: there's barely a whisper of breath between them as they waltz. (He smells like cinnamon and ice mixed together: it reminds her of warm nights in cafés, drinking ridiculously expensive espressos in cups too small for his fingers.) Their rhythm is fluid; their bodies move sinuously, like twin coils of smoke. He dips her so far down that she thinks her spine will snap from the pressure, but she knows it looks fantastic, so she smiles icily through the pain. When he lifts her back up, she slides deftly between his legs and twists to her feet, tight dress be damned. Her fingers run over the wideness of his shoulders, feeling the contours of muscles under her palms – they feel just as they did, six years ago. She sighs happily. Some things never changed.
He turns to face her and gathers her back into his arms – they've missed only a few beats – and they fall back into step.
"That was a daring move," he murmurs into her ear, and she bats her eyelashes mischievously.
"I've always been one to take risks," she whispers back, and then spins deftly out of his grasp. She kicks off her heels and winks voluptuously at him. "Catch me if you can, love."
A waiter passes in front of him, obscuring his view of her, and by the time he can see again, she's gone.
--
He finds her, of course, like he always did: and like a spark meeting gasoline – uncontrollable – out of control – they explode.
They find their way, blindly, through the anthill of the mansion. Hearts thudding – pulses racing – breath coming in harsh, sharp pants – it's just like it always was. Her lips are fierce on his. His hands scrape against the smooth skin of her back – scrabbling past the slender ribbons lacing up her spine – scratching, marking, claiming.
She finds she does not want to be claimed.
They stumble together into a dark room, alone, except for a stuffed zebra head staring mournfully down at them from the far wall. (It's a voyeuristic sort of feeling – but she's not surprised that, measured against the steady pressure of Roy's lips on hers, it doesn't distract her in the slightest.)
He pins her forearms against the wall. The cool stone is a welcome relief to her skin, blazing red-hot from his touch. His lips move along her jaw – tracing the familiar path of her cheek, her neck, her ear – familiar, because you never quite forgot the topography of a face you'd sketched out with your own lips.
His lips sear the corded muscles in her neck; touching, tasting, scorching their way to her mouth. She sighs lightly and he kisses her smiling mouth.
"You've missed me."
His red-gold hair is silk between her fingertips. "Mmm," she murmurs into the empty space behind his ear. "You must be mistaken. I don't think we've ever met."
His fingers spread-eagle across her back as he kisses her softly, blistering her lips. Heat, everywhere – like fire –starting deep in her belly, rising – warming her throat, her skin, her hands. She pulls him closer, sipping his kisses with a hungry mouth. He breaks away for a second to feather her neckline with kisses – soft, deep ones that leave rosy circles behind on her bronzed skin. "Then I should ask…do you make it a point to seduce complete strangers?"
He's playing along, just to make her smile. He was always funny that way.
"Only when they particularly intrigue me," she breathes. His eyes flutter open – betrayal stabbing through them – and she wonders how he could have possibly been so naïve as to think her chaste throughout their parting.
A twinge of regret pricks at her chest.
She doesn't have an answer that will make him happy – she doesn't have an answer that will justify the files she stole from men she slept with, from men she wooed into their marriage beds. It was a sad sort of irony that he – the playboy – had managed to stay faithful when she – who never stayed in one city for more than a week – could not.
The only answer she has is forgive and forget – what a hypocrite she is – so she kisses both of his eyelids shut, reminding him wordlessly that the greatest joy can sometimes be experienced only with closed eyes.
"You are particularly intriguing," she murmurs, as if that could make it all better. Her fingers trail down his strong forearms, curl into his hands like they had never been separated. "So intriguing that you're beginning to frighten me."
He swallows, hard – locking away the betrayal inside of him.
He had probably expected as much anyway.
"So you're one of those women who're afraid of commitment," he says lightly, teasingly. His voice is just as steady as ever. "For better or for worse, I've always been attracted to those types."
The fire between them burns hotter. She untucks his dress shirt, slides a palm under and lays it flat against his chest – feels the beat of his heart. The heart that belongs to her. The heart she'd never allowed him give away completely. And tonight would be no different. Some things never changed.
"It's a shame they can never seem to stick around, then," she says quietly. She's forgotten to play make-believe; she's forgotten to pretend she doesn't know him. She has never seen him this vulnerable in her life, even when she flicked her own butterfly knife against his bare throat; even when she nicked his jugular and watched in horror as his heartbeat pumped itself to death; even when she wrapped their linen sheets around his neck and begged him to hold on, to hold fast, to be strong.
She wonders why she never allowed herself to be the one who needed saving.
One last kiss, then – she presses it to his dry lips, lets the warmth consume her for a final, soaring moment.
His eyes are huge and dark in his face – like wet emeralds – rimmed with a fringe of thick lashes. "You're not leaving."
She curls a hand around one of the buttons on his ruffled dress shirt, holding onto the smooth ivory as if it was anchoring her to his body, his heart. "Did you expect any differently?"
"I just found you."
She holds him in place for a moment with her silence, then smiles widely – wide as the Cheshire Cat that was her namesake. "And I was just leaving."
She presses her fingers to her lips, brushes them lightly across his cheekbone – he shivers – and then she leaves him standing in the dark room with no one but the stuffed zebra on the wall to see his shame.
--
Winding her way through the stone corridors, she can hear him behind her.
"Jade, we can make this work. I didn't travel halfway around the world in fourteen hours to drink expensive coffee – I knew you would be here."
She speeds up slightly; ducks through a wide, arched doorway and into a shadowy hall.
He sighs, and the sound echoes through the passageways. "Listen to me."
She smirks to herself and doubles back through another hallway.
"The Titans are regrouping, Jade. We're taking down the Brotherhood once and for all." His voice catches. "Come with me. Come with us. I know you want to change."
She pauses for a split-second. It's a tantalizing thought: giving the metaphorical equivalent of a bitch-slap to her nastiest employers to date.
Tempting.
But not worth the trouble.
She slips through another darkened stone room, lifting the trailing silk of her dress to her thighs, feeling the curves of the invisible furniture with sensitive fingertips. She can hear him behind her, hear his quiet breathing and hushed footsteps. His icy cologne prickles at her memories. It's as if she had never stolen his password from his briefcase and used it to clear all of the charges on the Justice League mainframe from her alias; as if she had never given him a toxic kiss goodbye, her mouth slicked with the poisonous lipstick he had given her as their one-week anniversary gift; as if she had never left him, paralyzed, tangled in the still-warm sheets of their shared bed; as if he hadn't spent the last six years chasing her down to this gala in Nice, France.
As if she hadn't let him.
She pauses by a lighted doorway – lets him steal a glance of her silhouette – and laughs quietly behind her hand. His breathing speeds as he sprints towards her lighted profile – she smirks as she sidesteps with a neat salsa move, ducking into the shadows as she has always done. The wind of his passage is an inch from her hip as he races past her, intent on only the lighted doorway.
She laughs again, more softly, and lets herself smile – just for a moment – as she thinks about how she loves him so. Loves him so much that she always lets him find her. Loves him so much that she never lets him quite close enough.
She slips back through the darkened room and finds her way outside, the silken-wine dress gleaming tantalizingly in the moonlight. The wind is chill and the night is pierced through with small barbed-wire stars. It's beautiful.
She smiles blissfully, waltzing slowly down the grand driveway. The lights fade behind her. The shadows hug her close, like they always do.
Gravel crunches frantically behind her – a cinnamon-ice smell meets her nose in an exhilarating swirl. She glances behind, sees his lithe, shadowy frame – blows him a kiss he'll never see; a kiss that he'd feel anyway, because the pull between them was undeniable and they could never exist apart. They were but two halves to a whole.
"I'm not letting you go," he calls, unruffled, but she can hear the old determination in his voice, the fierce passion that bleeds into everything he loves. "I'm not going to leave you until you come with me."
She lopes into the great woods surrounding the mansion, hears the soft thud of his footsteps behind her. He was close – so close – but she feels like laughing because she knows she is fast enough. Fast to lead him, fast enough to make him chase her from here to kingdom come.
Perhaps, perhaps – if he's swift enough, strong enough – she might let him catch up. Might let him seduce her over to the light side.
Perhaps.
She listens to his heartbeat for a split-second. It's a lovely sound. Or maybe she just loves him.
A smile curves her lips.
She knew he would follow. She always lets him.
Some things never changed.
--
Just because I'm bored, who do you think the random blonde girl was? :D