"Radio Silence" part two [fic&art]
Title: Radio Silence
Author/Artist/Author: essouffle [ART!]; maybe77 & night_reveals [WRITING]
Betas: thank you so much to adamaddict_rh & eternalsojourn! Such lovely ladies.
Team: Angst
Prompt: Silence
Word count: 2k total; 1.2k this part
Rating: R
Content Notes: violence, sex
Notes: continuation of maybe77's Radio Silence.
Summary: Arthur finds himself staring ahead at his sole hope, the solid oak door that hides the man who hides the people after Eames.
go back to part one
Long icicles hang like waiting butcher knives from the eaves of the roof that Arthur stands under, their tapered points catching the sun and reflecting its rays back onto his wind-chafed face. When he glances up he catches the stare of an old man trudging down the narrow alley, but Arthur’s brown eyes are as sharp as the winter’s ice. The man looks away.
Kiev is as awful, as beautiful as Arthur remembers.
He’s here on a hunch. It’s a pittance of a thing, a lead Arthur would scoff at in his working life as being useless, too tenuous, too unsound. But nothing is beneath him now, his fingers scrabbling at the bottom of the barrel, hands bloody from his attempts at prying information from anywhere he can reach. A day ago he’d been poised on the Canadian border, close enough to Vancouver that when he got an email -- the first remotely useful scrap of information in the last three weeks -- he was on a flight to Kiev within the hour.
Shivering, he fingers the cold metal buckle of the belt that wraps around his middle like a coiled snake. The coat is tribute for a job well done, made from a thin velvet too soft for the frigid white around him. He wears it now, stubborn, as he waits for the doors of a certain building on the street to crack open even a notch.
As the hours creep by the cold seeps into his bones, warping his skin to something tight and hard on his body, tendons clenched with it. He finds himself staring ahead at his sole hope, the solid oak door that hides the man who hides the people after Eames -- but feels himself slipping into memory, transfixed where he stands.
‘This one, then,’ says Eames. ‘What do you say?’
The velvet inside of the coat is soft beneath Arthur’s fingers, impractical and all the more alluring for it.
‘Fine, fine, get it,’ he says, giving in with a small smile.
Later, Eames loops his fingers through the metal belt to thread it away from Arthur’s body, pulling him down to the thick wool blankets, hot hand against the small of Arthur’s bared back, whispered words against his nape --
A puff of freezing air bites Arthur’s neck when he shifts unthinkingly and just like that his eyes refocus on the street before him, his gaze still fixed on the curve of a brass knocker blackened with age.
At last the door swings inwards, opening to let the frost and Arthur in. The air inside is close and chaotic, the echoes of shouted orders and clattering footsteps ricocheting off hard surfaces. The metal of his gun is cold for the first three shots, warming steadily under his palm with each life he snuffs out. Arthur crouches low and keeps his back plastered to the walls for cover as he slips deeper into the house, footsteps light on crimson and gold knock-off oriental carpet. Shouts of surprise greet his shots, making it easy to take down one here, one there; it feels no more consequential than dropping projections or swatting flies. He’s lost count by the time he creeps up the rickety wooden steps and reaches the inner office.
One final door separates him from his goal. Before he moves forward he stops to listen. The building has gone quiet, its occupants either fled or draining their blood into the floorboards -- save for the men behind the door he now faces. He grips his gun tighter. If what he’s looking for isn’t here, he’ll be back to square one. He cannot accept that.
Wood splinters in every direction as he slams the heel of his boot against the door. He drops to the ground and takes cover behind the doorframe. When he hears the first uncertain break in shooting he ducks in and fires off two rounds at the gunmen. A pair of hulking, black-clad guards hit the floor in succession. Arthur trains the muzzle of his gun on the man sitting behind a broad teak desk.
A small, uncocked revolver shakes in the man’s grip.
“Put it down,” Arthur says, cold and demanding. In three long strides he’s at the desk, towering over the squat, balding Ukrainian. “Now.”
The gun clatters against the desktop.
“W-w-what do you want?” the man stutters. His voice is thick and sour, like curdled milk.
“Where is Eames?”
“Who?” The man’s eyes are wide; it’s an obvious deceit.
Arthur leans in and acquaints the man with the barrel of his pistol. “Eames. The Brit the Russians hired you to kill. Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” the man says, face tugging downward into a deeper mien of fear. “How do you even know we were after him?”
“The ‘how’ doesn’t matter. If you don’t want to join your friends on the floor, you tell me what you know, right now,” says Arthur. He is calm on the surface but tempestuous below, eddies of worry and fear and desperation swirling in his chest. This man is his only hope.
“You -- you need me,” the man realizes, and Arthur can’t deal with this. He firms his grip on the gun and shoots.
The man screams, grasping his upper arm where the bullet has entered the soft flesh between his deltoid and teres major. Arthur had meant only to graze the man; perhaps he is more upset than even he recognized.
“I don’t know!” the man sobs as blood flows over his tensed fingers. “We didn’t find him. I swear, I don’t know where he is.”
Arthur strides forward and jams the muzzle of his pistol right into the man’s sallow, fleshy neck. “Then I suggest you tell me what you do know. Before I lose my patience.”
“We lost him in Poland,” the man says, and Arthur barely registers that the man’s eyes are starting to water. “The Russian who hired us, he called, very angry. He said we were off the job. Your man -- Eames -- he was in Holland. They have men there who would find him, he said.”
“How long ago?”
“A week, just last Thursday.”
“The Russians, what do you know about them?”
“Nothing, nothing! They did not even give us a way to contact them. We were only hired guns, I promise you.”
Arthur looks him over one last time, appraising whether there is anything further to gain. The man is trembling all over, and Arthur is honestly surprised he hasn’t pissed himself. Satisfied that he’s tapped this well dry, he withdraws his gun from the man’s neck. The man barely has a chance to sigh his relief before the butt of Arthur’s gun collides with his skull.
Arthur runs a hand over his hair to tame it back into place and smooths down the soft sleeves of his jacket. A single lit match flutters in an arc over his shoulder as he leaves the room.
When he’s out on the street, Arthur pulls out his cellphone to call Dom and start a line on any mercenary groups in the Netherlands. He doesn’t spare a glance back at the house, where flames are undoubtedly licking at the windows already. As he listens to the trill of the ring in his ear, the Ukrainian’s words echo in the back of his mind. Your man -- Eames...
go to part three
Author/Artist/Author: essouffle [ART!]; maybe77 & night_reveals [WRITING]
Betas: thank you so much to adamaddict_rh & eternalsojourn! Such lovely ladies.
Team: Angst
Prompt: Silence
Word count: 2k total; 1.2k this part
Rating: R
Content Notes: violence, sex
Notes: continuation of maybe77's Radio Silence.
Summary: Arthur finds himself staring ahead at his sole hope, the solid oak door that hides the man who hides the people after Eames.
go back to part one
Long icicles hang like waiting butcher knives from the eaves of the roof that Arthur stands under, their tapered points catching the sun and reflecting its rays back onto his wind-chafed face. When he glances up he catches the stare of an old man trudging down the narrow alley, but Arthur’s brown eyes are as sharp as the winter’s ice. The man looks away.
Kiev is as awful, as beautiful as Arthur remembers.
He’s here on a hunch. It’s a pittance of a thing, a lead Arthur would scoff at in his working life as being useless, too tenuous, too unsound. But nothing is beneath him now, his fingers scrabbling at the bottom of the barrel, hands bloody from his attempts at prying information from anywhere he can reach. A day ago he’d been poised on the Canadian border, close enough to Vancouver that when he got an email -- the first remotely useful scrap of information in the last three weeks -- he was on a flight to Kiev within the hour.
Shivering, he fingers the cold metal buckle of the belt that wraps around his middle like a coiled snake. The coat is tribute for a job well done, made from a thin velvet too soft for the frigid white around him. He wears it now, stubborn, as he waits for the doors of a certain building on the street to crack open even a notch.
As the hours creep by the cold seeps into his bones, warping his skin to something tight and hard on his body, tendons clenched with it. He finds himself staring ahead at his sole hope, the solid oak door that hides the man who hides the people after Eames -- but feels himself slipping into memory, transfixed where he stands.
‘This one, then,’ says Eames. ‘What do you say?’
The velvet inside of the coat is soft beneath Arthur’s fingers, impractical and all the more alluring for it.
‘Fine, fine, get it,’ he says, giving in with a small smile.
Later, Eames loops his fingers through the metal belt to thread it away from Arthur’s body, pulling him down to the thick wool blankets, hot hand against the small of Arthur’s bared back, whispered words against his nape --
A puff of freezing air bites Arthur’s neck when he shifts unthinkingly and just like that his eyes refocus on the street before him, his gaze still fixed on the curve of a brass knocker blackened with age.
At last the door swings inwards, opening to let the frost and Arthur in. The air inside is close and chaotic, the echoes of shouted orders and clattering footsteps ricocheting off hard surfaces. The metal of his gun is cold for the first three shots, warming steadily under his palm with each life he snuffs out. Arthur crouches low and keeps his back plastered to the walls for cover as he slips deeper into the house, footsteps light on crimson and gold knock-off oriental carpet. Shouts of surprise greet his shots, making it easy to take down one here, one there; it feels no more consequential than dropping projections or swatting flies. He’s lost count by the time he creeps up the rickety wooden steps and reaches the inner office.
One final door separates him from his goal. Before he moves forward he stops to listen. The building has gone quiet, its occupants either fled or draining their blood into the floorboards -- save for the men behind the door he now faces. He grips his gun tighter. If what he’s looking for isn’t here, he’ll be back to square one. He cannot accept that.
Wood splinters in every direction as he slams the heel of his boot against the door. He drops to the ground and takes cover behind the doorframe. When he hears the first uncertain break in shooting he ducks in and fires off two rounds at the gunmen. A pair of hulking, black-clad guards hit the floor in succession. Arthur trains the muzzle of his gun on the man sitting behind a broad teak desk.
A small, uncocked revolver shakes in the man’s grip.
“Put it down,” Arthur says, cold and demanding. In three long strides he’s at the desk, towering over the squat, balding Ukrainian. “Now.”
The gun clatters against the desktop.
“W-w-what do you want?” the man stutters. His voice is thick and sour, like curdled milk.
“Where is Eames?”
“Who?” The man’s eyes are wide; it’s an obvious deceit.
Arthur leans in and acquaints the man with the barrel of his pistol. “Eames. The Brit the Russians hired you to kill. Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” the man says, face tugging downward into a deeper mien of fear. “How do you even know we were after him?”
“The ‘how’ doesn’t matter. If you don’t want to join your friends on the floor, you tell me what you know, right now,” says Arthur. He is calm on the surface but tempestuous below, eddies of worry and fear and desperation swirling in his chest. This man is his only hope.
“You -- you need me,” the man realizes, and Arthur can’t deal with this. He firms his grip on the gun and shoots.
The man screams, grasping his upper arm where the bullet has entered the soft flesh between his deltoid and teres major. Arthur had meant only to graze the man; perhaps he is more upset than even he recognized.
“I don’t know!” the man sobs as blood flows over his tensed fingers. “We didn’t find him. I swear, I don’t know where he is.”
Arthur strides forward and jams the muzzle of his pistol right into the man’s sallow, fleshy neck. “Then I suggest you tell me what you do know. Before I lose my patience.”
“We lost him in Poland,” the man says, and Arthur barely registers that the man’s eyes are starting to water. “The Russian who hired us, he called, very angry. He said we were off the job. Your man -- Eames -- he was in Holland. They have men there who would find him, he said.”
“How long ago?”
“A week, just last Thursday.”
“The Russians, what do you know about them?”
“Nothing, nothing! They did not even give us a way to contact them. We were only hired guns, I promise you.”
Arthur looks him over one last time, appraising whether there is anything further to gain. The man is trembling all over, and Arthur is honestly surprised he hasn’t pissed himself. Satisfied that he’s tapped this well dry, he withdraws his gun from the man’s neck. The man barely has a chance to sigh his relief before the butt of Arthur’s gun collides with his skull.
Arthur runs a hand over his hair to tame it back into place and smooths down the soft sleeves of his jacket. A single lit match flutters in an arc over his shoulder as he leaves the room.
When he’s out on the street, Arthur pulls out his cellphone to call Dom and start a line on any mercenary groups in the Netherlands. He doesn’t spare a glance back at the house, where flames are undoubtedly licking at the windows already. As he listens to the trill of the ring in his ear, the Ukrainian’s words echo in the back of his mind. Your man -- Eames...
go to part three