Prompt Post #1
Prompt Post 1
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The bullet grazes his arm, but David feels nothing. It rips right through his shirt, tears the rich cloth, but he doesn’t care about that now. He refocuses his spyglass, gets a full view of the scene set out in front of him.
This is the pinnacle to a two-year investigation on a trafficking ring. David’s been sent to finish the job, finally capture the man who’s evaded them for so long now. He’s followed him to the abandoned docks and watches as he mingles with a few bodyguards, muttering under their breath.
David doesn’t want to kill him, because he’s never become that bloodthirsty, and the idea of him rotting behind bars is so much more appealing. But he wants to do a little damage, needs to see that stoic face writhe in pain, so that he has the slightest understanding of the pain inflicted on others.
David watches as the goons disappear into their various trucks, and he silently crawls forward from the bush he’s hiding in. It’s desolate, the long abandoned docks free of civilians, but David has one quick look over from his place, before pulling out his long trusted pistol.
David wastes no time, swiftly aiming and shooting in the kneecap. He waits for a few seconds before crawling out of his hiding spot, taking his time as he goes over to the writhing body.
The man stares up at David, his eyes pleading; begging him to put the gun to his skull, shoot two bullets through his eyes, just to stop the pain. But David wont, he crushes the man’s other kneecap beneath his foot, keeps eye contact as he passes out.
David cranes his neck up, sees a helicopter hovering. He logs his actions on his PDA, takes one final look at the body on the dusty ground before walking back to his car.
David just gets so busy sometimes. So busy, that he’s not really sure where the job ends and he begins, he can’t differentiate any longer, and mostly it’s a blessing, because he can report for work completely trouble free, but there are times, more often these days, when the loneliness almost cripples him. He can’t even pummel the feeling away with a lengthy gym session.
He sees Leo when he sees Leo. When he’s in his life, he can’t take his mind off him, no matter how irritated he makes him. But it’s nothing more than that, and he couldn’t cope with any more than a few days at a time. Today though, he’s in Leo’s city. It’s winter now, late November, and David thinks it’s probably been about two months since his last visit.
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Leo smacks his head on the table in shock when he sees David standing in his doorway. He composes himself, stumbling up to full height, before looking at David beneath his fringe.
“Could’ve sworn I locked the door.” He offers eventually, but he kicks out a chair, motions for David to sit down. David’s forgotten that he’s come straight from his mission; that he’s covered in dirt, and that blood is seeping through the white of his shirt. He thinks this is probably why Leo is staring at him a little scared.
“I found your spare,” David replies, rolling the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, ignoring the glare Leo sends him. “Why aren’t you at work?”
“Day off,” Leo says, and David look up just in time for Leo to dab a wet towel at his face. His arm is stinging now, from the bullet, but all he thinks about is how the kneecap felt, crushed beneath his foot, how he heard the bones shatter and crunch. “Did you have business in the area?”
“I managed to apprehend a long-time nemesis of the government,” David replies, and saying it like that sounds more important, validates his actions somewhat, and it makes his chest puff out slightly, enough so that Leo notices and cocks an eyebrow.
“Well, fuck me. You’re like Jason Bourne or something,” Leo says, smiling. His fingers brush David’s skin, and it feels nice, balances out the burn of the cuts. “I like it when you talk like that.”
“I hear they’ve pushed back the trial date.” David changes the subject, he doesn’t want to talk about his work, not with Leo, who won’t understand the positions he’s put in; the responsibility he has. He shirks the shirt from his shoulder, checks the wound, but it’s nothing really. He’s not going to let it bother him.
“They keep telling me that it’ll be soon, that it’ll all be over, but then they change their minds. Maybe the time will come when they’ll finally pick a date and I’ll suddenly forget everything. Teach them a fucking lesson.”
“I hope you’re joking, you can’t back out now.” David pushes Leo’s hand away, looks at him; he’s smirking, but David’s not sure if he’s joking or not. He wishes Leo wasn’t always such hard work.
“They don’t have any idea what it’s like. It might be just another case to them, but I’ve lost everything. I’m standing up for myself, if I don’t, then no one else will bother.”
“You can stand up for yourself when the case is over. In fact, you can do all the standing up you like, but there are so many victims embroiled in this gang’s war. Sergio sold them out, but they ruined a lot of lives, long before the pair of you was even born.”
Leo doesn’t reply for a while afterwards, but he does follow David into the small main room, sits next to him on the couch. “How long are you here for then?”
“Couple of days,” David says, remembering the debriefing email he received from his boss. He wasn’t due back in the city until the weekend. His boss knows he has nothing else on his mind, no family he ever wants to visit, so she’s generally lenient when he seldom asks for vacation time. “Until Saturday.”
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They go out for dinner downtown and when they run out of things to say, they go see a film. David doesn’t like it, it’s too loud and full of profanities, but it turns his brain to mush. Leo’s knee presses against his the whole time; he focuses on that instead.
Despite his brashness, Leo is quite good company. He never asks for anything more than this, and David’s pretty sure Leo doesn’t want anything more than this. David’s used to tearing down other people’s boundaries, but he daren’t do that with Leo, he has no idea what would happen if he tries.
If anything, Leo’s apartment is far more appealing in the dark, and David thinks about this, amongst other things, as Leo pushes him against the wall, kisses him hard. He tastes like beer, his lips cool and his tongue wet, and he tastes like lots of things David never lets himself give into.
David still awakes early, long before Leo, who doesn’t stir even as David stumbles around the bedroom, deciding to head out for a quick run. When he lets himself back into the apartment, he sees Leo sitting at the table, rolling an orange between his palm and the table-top, his hair damp from the shower.
“You still do that running shit?” Leo says, perhaps having a quick flashback to the time David forced him out for a jog, shooting the hit-man down, and sending the entire park into hysterics.
“It’s good for you, helps clear the head and prepares the body for the day ahead.” David takes the fruit from Leo’s hand, peels it with ease and eats three segments, piece by piece, before handing the rest back to Leo.
“Well, I always feel like I’m about to have a heart attack,” Leo says, shovelling the rest of the fruit in his mouth, wiping away the juice that drips down his chin with the back of his hand. David looks away in disgust.
Leo leaves for work and David spends a good quarter of an hour wondering what he’s even doing here. Then he decides to call up HQ, finds out that they’ve detained the man he’d captured yesterday, but that there’s definitely nothing he can do until after the weekend. He goes grocery shopping for Leo, fills his fridge and cupboards with food, something that Leo himself doesn’t seem to do much. He buys himself three new shirts; pale blue and ivory, and pair of plain cufflinks.
Leo is everything he doesn’t really need in his life, he’s a complicated mess, too young and too confused, but it’s sort of nice, vaguely caring for someone. It’s great because usually he’s setting people up for their downfall, or shooting them point blank, and all he wants for Leo is just to be happy, but he doesn’t necessarily want to save him.
When David gets bored, he decides to go through Leo’s stuff. He laughs to himself, validating his actions by deciding that he is a spy, but he gets bored quickly because Leo has nothing, really. A pile of unpaid bills, a handful of brochures to college courses, receipts. David wanders into the bedroom, hesitates momentarily, but then decides to pull open the drawers.
The sides of his mouth twitches upwards when he sees the watch he gave Leo all those months ago, but he pushes it aside, sees a pile photographs, of Leo and his friend, Sergio. They go from mid-teens, to possibly weeks before his death. David puts them away, swallows away the heaviness in his stomach. There’s nothing else of much interest in the drawers, some condoms, a few loose batteries and a pen lid.
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David doesn’t bother saying anything about his snooping, because he found nothing particularly exciting. In his mind he keeps going back to those photographs, how different Leo’s smile is now, but it really isn’t any of his business, so he keeps quiet.
They watch TV, some imported reality show, but the behaviour of the young adults disgusts David so much that he orders Leo to turn the channel over. They find a football game, something David’s eyes are more accustomed too, it’s all he watches when he’s home and it takes no effort on his part.
“Pep took me to see them for my birthday,” Leo says, in a way that suggests David should know what the hell he’s talking about.
“Who’s Pep?” he replies. Leo says he doesn’t speak to anyone, doesn’t want to speak to anyone, and so to hear a name spoken that is neither his own or Sergio’s is surprising.
“My case worker. He helps me with all the official stuff, finding a job and shit. We have dinner once a week. He wears a lot of sweaters.” Leo adds, nose wrinkling at the last part. “Other than that, he’s always nice. One time I phoned him up at two in the morning and he didn’t even shout.”
David turns his head to the side, confused. “Why would you phone him at two in the morning?”
“To see if he answered,” Leo’s voice is soft, and David likes it like that, far more than the snappish tone he’s usually on the receiving end of. “I hate that he pities me, but I appreciate everything he’s done.”
David wants to remark that he’s done a lot for Leo too, that he never seems to appreciate him much, but then he remembers that he’s not supposed to be bothered by this, so he turns back to the game.
It’s nothing like jealousy, though. Because David can’t be jealous over an emotion he doesn’t even feel for Leo. He’s someone to be lonely with. He makes David feel even more secure because he knows he’ll never drop to the gutter like Leo has. He depends on no one, and so there’s nobody to ever leave that truly means something to him.
They have sex when they go to bed, and David relishes those few minutes where Leo responds so easily to his touch, looks so genuinely into it. David isn’t allowed to speak, Leo doesn’t like the words that fall from David’s lips, but it’s enough to just be here, have him like this.
Leo is out for the day with Pep and David is left to his own devices again. He doesn’t really know what to do so he walks the streets aimlessly for a while, before spotting a rundown music store. An appreciative smile tugs at his lips when he steps inside and sees a whole stack of Stevie Wonder CDs. He picks up the greatest hits and buys it.
Walking back to the apartment all David can think about is that this is such a horrible, oppressive place to live. He thinks the least that the witness programme could’ve done was give Leo a better kind of life to this.
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David needs to focus his attention, fall back on what he knows, what he’s good at, because he can feel those niggling little feelings telling him to go home, that he shouldn’t be here, screwing their lives up together like this. So he opens the grotty little window Leo has behind the TV, just enough so that he can see the street below. Leo’s four blocks up from the ground, and David reaches for his spyglass, decides to have a closer look at Leo’s neighbours.
There’s a drug dealer standing on the corner down the street, David’s seen him approached by three people now. One he turns away, but the other two get what they want. He sees a little old lady watching her television, a young woman screaming at her crying toddler in the next room. He’s so caught up in it, all the different scenes playing out before him, that he doesn’t even notice that Leo is home, until he’s standing right in front of him.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Leo asks, as David drops the spyglass from his eye, looks at Leo. He looks bright today, and he doesn’t pull away when David brings him close, he turns Leo to face the window, hands him the small binoculars.
“This is a horrible part of the city. I could call the cops on about five different scenarios I’ve witnessed in the last half hour.” David mutters, pressing in close. He puts his hands on Leo’s shoulders and guides him from left to right, just like he was taught all those years ago.
“Yeah, my neighbour gave me some weed last week just for feeding his cat while he was away,” Leo replies, leaning into David, which is unusual and pleasant and somehow forces David’s arms tighter around him. “It’s not so bad if you keep to yourself.”
“I hope you didn’t smoke it.” David thinks really shouldn’t care much, because Leo is just someone to do when he’s meant to be using up his vacation days. He just doesn’t want Leo to fall back into the kind of life he was living before this.
“No,” Leo says, and his voice drops again, along with the spy glass. “I don’t think I could, not without Kun. We used to get high all the time in high school, I would only shotgun at first because I thought that made me a better person, but then I realised if you’re gonna get high, get fucking high, don’t be a pussy.”
David doesn’t really have any idea what Leo’s going on about and when Leo tilts his head back, to stare at David, all he can do is raise an eyebrow back. “I was an athlete in school. I would never touch anything like that. I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I tried out for the football team, but the coach said I was too small,” Leo says, and he pulls away, turns so that he’s facing David properly. “So Kun got super pissed, started yelling like a crazy man and got himself kicked off too.”
“You two sounded like such pleasant teenagers.” David pictures the kids like that from his own youth. He remembers outlines, not the faces or the names. He was never really interested in forming relationships, not even back then, when everyone else was so obsessed with them.
“Mmm.” Leo makes a noise, but his eyes start flickering about and David knows this means he’s pulling away-mentally, physically, as he has done so many times before, so David pulls him away from the window, decides to show Leo what he brought today.
“This is proper music, not the awful stuff you hear in every market these days.” David hands Leo the CD he brought earlier, watches as Leo turns it over in his hands, smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth.
“You really do love Stevie Wonder, huh?” Leo says, and then, “but don’t you find it hard listening to music when you don’t even know what they’re saying?”
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“I speak English,” David replies, taking the CD from his hand. He scans the back, the titles so familiar to him that their beats start to play in his head. “I speak English, French, German, and passable Russian.”
“Passable Russian…” Leo says, and he looks up and so many words about how young, lost, confused and perfect he looks come to David’s mind, but he never says things like that so he swallows it away. “Where’d you learn that?”
“I spent last Christmas underground in a Russian Syndicate; I picked up enough of the language to get by.” David can feel himself slipping back in time, remembers the cold eating away at his fingers, those nights spent wondering if he was going to last until sunrise. “I’m not at liberty to tell you anything else.”
“Oh, don’t worry David, my lips are fucking sealed.” Leo pulls away entirely, and walks into the kitchen. David follows him; listens to Leo mutter something about Russia under his breath. Mostly he just watches, watches Leo, watches everything he knows he should leave alone.
The next few nights are spent in the apartment. David’s discovered that Leo’s neighbourhood is even worse at night, and stands behind the TV, in front of the window, spyglass in hand, logging the nefarious activities he sees with his free hand. Leo spreads himself out on his couch, flicks through the college brochures Pep ordered him to browse.
“Pep’s asked to spend Christmas with me,” Leo says, “I don’t know what’s more pathetic; that he asked, or that I said yes. He says I have to go to Mass with him first.” Leo’s face creases up at the last part. David thinks it’s probably been a long time since Leo last went to Mass.
David thinks it’s a good thing that Leo has Pep. That he has someone that cares, that takes him out on his birthday, and encourages him to improve himself. It’s good because David thinks maybe he should be doing something like that with Leo. He feels bad for a second, before shaking it away.
David looks across at Leo, sprawled on the couch, staring at David tucked in the corner, binoculars in hand. “Are you sure he doesn’t want to sleep with you?”
“I hope not,” Leo says, and David turns away, goes back to looking out of the window. “I think he’s just lonely.”
David goes back to looking out of the window; it gives his mind something to focus on. Leo has his Stevie Wonder CD playing in the background and David taps his fingers along to the chorus of Uptight, ignoring the steady glare he feels on the back of his neck.
“You’re so fucking weird. You come here to get away from your job yet you still end up fucking spying on my neighbours like a weirdo voyeur.” Leo doesn’t sound as spiteful as David imagines he’s trying to, and he rolls his eyes before looking over. “I get why you’re doing it though, even if you don’t.”
“Normally, I exercise as a way to pass time but I know you’re not a fan,” David snaps back, although he refocuses his attention on the world outside-everything is so bleak, he thinks it’s no wonder that Leo’s so depressed.
“You’re so fucking uptight,” Leo says, and David can tell he’s trying to wind him up, but looks over at him anyway. “One day you’re going to snap, I hope I’m around to see it.”
“I’ve made it this far, I don’t see myself cracking any time soon,” David says, turning away, back towards the window. “I may be detached, but it works well for me.”
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“Are you implying something?” David remembers the conversations they’ve had about how this wasn’t to get serious. David thinks of his watch, in the drawer by the side of the bed, along with the photos of Sergio. He doesn’t think about what this could mean; what he thinks it probably means.
“All I’m saying is that you’ve helped me a lot this year,” Leo says, “but I think I’ve helped you in a way too.”
“I didn’t know you could be so deep.” David laughs, but he can’t shake the feeling that Leo’s words leave him with. He doesn’t bother saying anything else, puts all thoughts and focus in spying on the world outside.
The room is tiny, but David finds it surprisingly easy to pretend that he’s alone. He slips inside his own brain, hears the CD flow from one song to another, playing tunes he knows so well, that he barely hears Leo turn each page of the brochure.
“My dad used to play this song in the car,” Leo says eventually, though David can only just hear him over the heavy baseline of Superstition. It’s one of David’s favourite, he likes playing it late at night, when he’s driving down the highway. “My parents think I’m dead now. It’s so they don’t try and look for me.”
“I’m sorry.” David wishes Leo would stop telling him things, little things like this that make David feel odd, kind of sad and guilty about the lack of contact he has with his own parents. And he feels like he knows everything and nothing about Leo; too much and too little, he doesn’t know what to do with the information.
“It’s not your problem,” Leo says, and he sits up, flinging the brochure onto the coffee table. “I guess it’s not really my problem now, either.”
“Tomorrow is Saturday,” Leo announces, and they’re in bed and Leo’s just sucked him off, and now he’s sitting up, his lips swollen, like he’s expecting David to say something. “Are you still leaving tomorrow?”
David feels Leo’s gaze on him, but all he wants to do is pull Leo back down and fall asleep, no talking, because David doesn’t like talking, but instead he shuts his eyes, tries to think of something to say. “I have a lot of vacation time owed to me; I should probably use some of it up.”
“I don’t want you here forever, but this is good at the moment and Pep says that I’m due a lot of good things.” Leo says, and David’s kind of fed up of Pep sticking his oar in every part of Leo’s life, especially the parts that David is involved in.
“He’s paid to say things like that,” David mutters, “I can stay another week, any more and I think I’ll probably try and kill you.”
“Okay,” Leo drops down, presses the side of his face into David’s stomach. “I wouldn’t want you any longer than a week.”
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“I hope you’re not thinking of smoking that shit,” David takes his jacket off, throws it on the back of the couch and walks into the kitchen like it’s his own house. David pushes that thought away. Leo doesn’t look up when he takes the chair opposite, removing his cufflinks out as he stares at Leo expectantly.
“I keep hearing his voice in my head-‘fuck, Leo, it’s not going to smoke itself.’ You need to lock me up, I think I’m going mad.” Leo doesn’t look up, which is just as well, because David can’t help but smirk. “I hear him all the fucking time.”
“You’re grieving, it’s to be expected,” David says, and then, “I really think you should be putting these feelings into something positive. You should join a reading group or art class.”
Leo looks up, his eyes flashing with anger. “Do I look like the sort of person to wave a fucking paintbrush around? Don’t be fucking stupid.”
“Stop swearing,” David exasperates, “it’s disgusting.”
He ignores him and David mutters beneath his breath as Leo puts the joint to his lips, hesitating slightly before lighting up. He takes a puff and David watches disapprovingly, but doesn’t look away, even as Leo shuts his eyes as if in pain.
“It’s like he’s here in the room, if I shut my eyes it’s like nothing’s changed,” Leo says, his voice low. David isn’t a therapist- he’s not even a very good listener, so he doesn’t know what to say.
“As long as you remember him, he’ll never leave.” David thinks he’s heard someone say something like that before, he thinks it sounds like something a shrink would say.
“You fucking make me feel like Vesper Lynd,” Leo muses, before shaking his head from side to side. “Kun wouldn’t recognise me now, and that’s what scares me the most.” And he looks down at his hands, takes another hit, his eyes scanning the apartment in a lazy manner.
David stares at Leo a long time, the pot giving him a headache, but he doesn’t complain aloud. “I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”
“I don’t either,” Leo says, offering David the joint. And David thinks it’s crazy because he’s always had enough self-restraint to ignore things like this, he knows what’s good, and drugs are so bad, so very bad. “Pep says I need closure, and as I can’t go visit his grave,” Leo looks up at David, but there’s barely any venom in the glare, “- I mean, smoking pot was something we did together, just the two of us. I’ve never smoked without him before, I thought maybe one last time, you know, as a goodbye.”
“So, this is closure to you?” David says, but he doesn’t even feel like laughing. He doesn’t understand-he’s not expecting to understand, instead he just looks at Leo. “This is a really weird way of letting go.”
“I know,” Leo shrugs, “but I’m not seeing a shrink. I’m all out of ideas now.”
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David nods in response, though he sort of wants to point out that Pep seems more like a shrink than a case worker, but he keeps quiet because it just doesn’t feel like the right time to argue with Leo.
The weed is giving him a headache and his eyes are dry, and he needs to tell Leo that he’s needed back in the city-his city, but he doesn’t want to. He sort of just wants to sit in this chair forever and stare at Leo’s sad, stoned face.
“That shitty lawyer phoned me earlier,” Leo’s slurring now and David laughs out loud at nothing. “They set a date for two months’ time, then I’m fucking free of it all, I’ll say my piece and let the fucking cunts rot, and I swear if they go free I’ll take your gun and shoot the fuckers myself.”
David can’t find it in him to scold Leo’s language, he supposes if he’s still got a gutter mouth at twenty-four, it’s never really going to go away. David’s just going to have to learn to deal. “Well, it takes a lot of effort to shoot with my glock. But, I mean, we could go to a firing range if you’d like, and I could get your aim really accurate.”
Leo smiles at him proper, like he means it, and David laughs back, even though he’s got such a big headache, and he feels so tired all of a sudden, and he thinks he might be stoned, even though he’s definitely not taken a puff. He wants to fight it, but he can’t, so he just continues blinking slowly, trying to think through the haze.
“You’d really let me kill them?”
“They’re going to prison Leo, for a really long time. You won’t need to use my gun.”
“All these months I’ve been wishing and hoping to go back, back to last year, so I could be with him again, but now I just want to move forward. I feel like I’m in the fucking dark room, waiting to be developed.” Leo rests his head on the table, his eyes shutting.
“That’s a really awful metaphor.” David can’t really be bothered to laugh, but he feels it in the pit of his stomach. He wants to put out a hand, brush it through Leo’s hair, but he’s too far away.
“Can’t help it. I’m stoned,” Leo says, and David sees him stand, walk around to his side of the table, his hand on the back of David neck, his breath warm on the shell of his ear. “I think you might be too.”
David thinks this is a really good advocate for not getting close to someone-not to fall in love, because when it falls apart, things like this happen. Leo is smoking an illegal drug to help him get over someone, for closure. If he could think straight, David would think it totally pathetic.
In the back of his mind he still knows that he needs to leave, he needs to drive to the airport, get back to reality. This is just a temporary thing, this isn’t his life and he should never have succumbed to it in the first place. He knows they need to talk properly, about what this is, about what it’s becoming. He knows deep down that Leo can’t ever really move on whilst he’s around, and that maybe being here with Leo is showing that perhaps he’s not as well adjusted as he’s always perceived himself to be.
For now though, he’s just going to shut his eyes for a little while longer. He’s going to forget who he is, and where he is, and all he’s going to feel is Leo’s lips and Leo’s tongue and Leo’s teeth. He knows this isn’t good, but he doesn’t think it’s all bad either. It’s okay. They’re okay. He’ll be alright.
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Dear Lord, I'm at a loss for words! I can tell you something, I worship you and your spyverse SO FUCKING MUCH! ♥___♥ Really, this might be my favorite part, it was quite bleak and heartbreakingly gorgeous and your Leo is perfect and your David, there are no words to describe this perfection ♥
Please author, tell me you're not done with this universe. PLEASE!! And thanks again, ilu! :D
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I can seriously not get enough of this! It's like everytime you post a sequel, it's even better than the previous chapter, simply because it uncovers so many tiny things and there are soooo~ many words left unsaid that I just NEED to know how everything will continue. Like Villa subconsciously being slightly jealous of Pep and slowly and unwillingly falling for Leo, even though he irritates him from time to time.
But this is just so lovely. Two reeeaaally damages souls fitting together in a weird yet still perfect way. How the kind of live in their own little world is just beautiful.
So, even if I am repeating myself yet again: please, sequel!
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yeah, the characters are obviously more detailed/have backstories in my head, so it's great to know that certain things come across here.
haha XD there will be another ~final part (even though this was meant to be a trilogy, but whatever). I feel like I should give them a vaguely happy ending.
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I have a few other prompts that demand my attention atm, but without a doubt, I'll be back. ~watch this space, I guess!
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I could read an entire book of this, tbh ;)
and that is so far away from your original prompt!
No, no, no. I love that you made it this way, I love the angst so much. When I first though about this prompt I was expecting someone to give me sillyness because I thought that would be the easy way to fill it and I was totally ok with that! But then you gave me this and I pretty much died and went to heaven ♥
OMG OMG OMG OMG I'll be patiently waiting for more, thank you!! :D
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