Prompt Post One
The Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol Prompt Post One is now open!
Go forth and kink!
Ask a Mod // Rules and Warnings // Fills Post // Friending Meme
Go forth and kink!
Ask a Mod // Rules and Warnings // Fills Post // Friending Meme
Canary in a Coalmine [Hunt/Brandt, PG-13]
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“The stage is set,” Benji says dramatically, pulling up the blueprints. “I have all the secrets of The Royal Labyrinth Theatre in the palm of my hand.”
The team pours over the prints, their eyes following Benji’s finger.
“Is that enough?” Jane asks, “It IS called the Labyrinth Theatre for a reason. There are…” she scans the prints. “Five stories? How many tunnels?”
Benji holds his hand up. “Relax. Walk in the park.” He rubs his hands together excitedly, “This is going to be a piece of pie if we get this right. And since this is our fifth mission together I thought it would be nice to mark the momentous occasion-“
“Benji,” Ethan interrupts, “Cut the pep talk will you? We get it. Champagne later. I’ll make a toast. Get on with it."
Benji looks offended but carries on seamlessly. Jane hides a smile behind her hand.
“Well,” he huffs, “Essentially everything would be easier if we could just distract our audiences with a show while we’re silently-silently!” he warns Ethan, “Tracking our mark.”
For a second, Jane looks horrified. “A show?” she repeats.
“Not like that,” Ethan reassures her, “This is a high end setting. There’s a piano and everything.” He glances at Benji, who shrugs. “We really can’t afford to put someone on entertainment.”
“Well it’s all performing arts at the gala,” Benji says, “So unless you break out into musical numbers… I took tap dancing when I was eight-my mum made me but I don’t think that’ll help.”
Ethan winces at the metal image. “Maybe we’ll go without.”
“Can we do that?” Jane asks Benji, “Can we just…You know? Not have a distraction?”
Benji shrugs again, his expression sheepish. “To be honest, our lives would be much easier if we did.”
Finally, after staying strangely silent, Brandt speaks up. “You said this place has a piano?”
Benji nods. Ethan’s not looking at him. Instead he’s watching Brandt, not meeting the icy blue gaze as he hides his mouth behind his fist.
“What?” Ethan demands.
Brandt raises an eyebrow. “I may be able to…Work something out.”
“What does that mean?” Ethan says sharply, “Work something out?”
“I’m just saying,” Brandt laughs and Ethan isn’t too sure he likes the sound of it. “I can be your ‘distraction.’ It’s only for a few minutes while we head down to the mark’s hideout right? I can spare that time.”
“You better not give them a lapdance or anything,” Jane warns him cheekily, “I know you wanted to seduce the rich guy last time.”
“Of course,” he says dryly, “Your virtue is safe with me. Just make sure all your earpieces are nice and loud.”
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The night they spring into action, Ethan wears a $2,000 three piece suit and waits outside the hotel rooms. He raises an eyebrow when Brandt walks out in a tuxedo, the bowtie a little lopsided.
“You clean up well,” he comments because he has nothing else to say. He rakes his eyes over the trim figure.
Brant snorts, “Don’t get too used to this. Benji got me yours.”
Ethan’s heart almost stops. “You’re wearing MINE?!” he yells. Now that he looks closely, the pants just barely skim Brandt’s shoes, and the jacket is only that much bigger if he turns his head and squints.
They go their separate ways at the gala and wait for the clock to strike ten.
“Can you hear me?” Ethan murmurs by the bar. He glances at the clock. 9:45. “Canary?”
There’s the sound of glasses clinking together. “Yes?” Brandt breathes into Ethan’s ear. He’s always uncomfortable at the perceived proximity it gives him. He catches his eye and watches him stir his drink by the piano. There is something different about him tonight, something foreign and confident, like the hint of the tiger Ethan had encountered the first time he’d ever pulled a gun on him. “Bluejay? You hear me?”
“Loud and clear, Eagle.” Jane gives him a private thumbs up below the staircase.
“How about you, Polly?”
Benji sighs. “I told you, I’d rather be called Hawk.”
“No, don’t you know?” Brandt teases, “You’re a parrot through and through.”
“Right,” Benji sounds disappointed. “Canary, your show starts now. Get up there.”
From behind a vase, Ethan watches in surprise as Brandt walks to the piano, suddenly gracelessly elegant and sleek. He settles down and the few remaining guests who have not turned their heads yet look up when he starts playing, his fingers slipping deftly over the keys.
“He can play!” Jane sounds impressed. Ethan grunts. The chords roll in, and suddenly the song is familiar. He used to dance to this song with his wife, when they were -
/“It’s not a silly little moment…”/
Ethan nearly drops his drink and he hears Jane gasp. Jesus. Brandt’s voice. How could he not have heard it before? With his microphone still on, it swept over Ethan’s body, sending chills down his spine. He had no idea this was what the man was capable of, this raw, intimate sound that seared through him.
/”It’s not the storm before the calm. This is the deep and drying breath of/this love that we were working on.”/
Jane is gasping into her mouthpiece, evidently speechless. Ethan musters up the courage to look up at the piano.
William Brandt could give every lounge singer in the fucking world a run for their money. His dulcet tones, creamy and low, and so gravelly sweet, ring in Ethan’s ear, intimate and sensual. He continues to play, and in the light he is the sexiest thing he has ever seen.
/”We’re going down…”/
“Jesus you can sing,” Jane finally breathes out. Ethan sees her fanning herself by the staircase.
He thinks he sees Brandt smile to himself but he can’t take his eyes off the mouth projecting that voice.
/”And you can see it too…”/
This is not the Brandt he knows. The Agent Brandt he knows is sarcastic, stern, serious and predictable. This Brandt is a gift, with a new twist of sensuality, of fluidity, and of pure, raw masculinity. His heart jumps.
/”We’re going down…”/
Ethan tries to concentrate on the job but he realizes he’s gripping his win glass as he watches Brandt on the piano, heat flowing out from the pit of his stomach.
/”And you know that we’re doomed.”/
He remembers his evenings with his wife, how they would sway to this song with love coursing through their veins like a drug. But he has never felt like this before, the impassioned desire, this need burning in his blood. He mouths the next line with Brandt, and it feels like they’re together.
/”My dear, we’re slow dancing in a burning room.”/
Brandt. The one agent in his life who’d ever stirred anything remotely emotional in him. The reactions he can evoke are scary. Ethan almost laughs. This is fucked.
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His heart skips a beat. It is then when he realizes William Brandt will be the death of him. He will not finish this mission because he’ll have fallen head over heels way too soon.
Guiltily, he thinks of Julia, as Brandt’s low, creamy, smoky tenor seeps into every pore of his sense.
/”Baby you’re the only light I ever saw/And I’ll make the most out of this sadness/baby because you can…”/
“Christ.” Benji exhales in Ethan’s ear.
/”We’re going down/and you know that we’re doomed.”/
The clock strieks ten. The piano echoes in the hall and Ethan tries to detach himself from Brandt’s voice, so husky and beautiful, and his own senses, dizzying with emotion.
/”My dear, we’re slow dancing in a burning room.”/
Ethan heads down to the win cellar where he knows Benji will be ready, and Jane will have the ID cards and Brandt will sing on.
/”My dear, we’re slow dancing in a burning room.”/
The piano chords follow him all the way down the empty hall.
FIN
The song (I felt quite fitting) was “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” by John Mayer.
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My favorite line. I went and looked up Jeremy Renner singing afterwards because your descriptions were so good. And yeah, wow!
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