The Ghost of Christmas Past and Future
When they had told him, he'd been staring out the window of the baby's room. Imagining being home, imagining the snow that would be falling if he were back home. Fucked if he knew why he was still here. Cali-fucking-fornia. Only reason he stayed was in this very room. Or had been in this room
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She doubted that too, she'd read the files, the FBI shit that Snake had hacked. She wasn't walking into this blindly, and she certainly wasn't walking into it speedily. She'd procrastinated for weeks, possibly two months, she'd lost track.
But life working the streets is lonely, and Christmas makes it even more so. All those people shopping, buying presents for their loved ones, all those fucking songs about family and being together. Vivian was a romantic, nothing had changed in that respect, and if there was the remotest chance that she actually had family, family who cared, then Christmas brought it all crashing down on her, and gave her that final push to make a move.
So here she was, wondering why the fuck she was here. She wasn't wearing her work clothes, she had a pair of jeans on and a nice shirt, clean crisp cotton. She'd pass for decent, wholesome even, the girl who should have survived, but died a long time ago. She'd wondered briefly as she looked up at the huge house, if her clothing had been a bad choice. It was harder to find her brassy front when she was dressed like this, it made her more vulnerable. But she was vulnerable, and no outfit could change that.
She wanted this to turn out good. She wanted to like him, she wanted him to be pleased to see her. She needed someone to love her. She turned and looked back up the street, the urge to flee and forget this stupid notion tearing at her heart. She was standing on the threshold of a huge decision, and she didn't know which way to walk.
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It was her, or one hell of a goddamned good imitation. No, he knew better. It was her, Vivian. He knew it, he felt it. He believed, he wanted so hard to believe. But, why? Why now, why here? Just disappear off the earth, and suddenly appear on Christmas fucking eve, right on his - their - doorstep?
Narrow eyed and suspicious Top he looked around for any tell-tale signs that she wasn't alone, that she was a lookout or a trap. She had to be a trap, where were the others? Shit like this didn't just happen. Not to him, not to them. So what in fuck-all was she doing here? Suddenly he wished for a line, or even just a single snort of cocaine to help him clear his head.
Damn, she looked so small, smaller than he'd last seen her. Or maybe it was because she wasn't pregnant, maybe that was it. But she looked clean, that was a start. Clean and, well, clean of the drugs, at least. Or clean enough that she wasn't stumbling around in the dark. Of course it could have been because she wasn't wearing those slut-shoes she liked, the ones with the high heels. Wasn't in her normal clothes, either. She looked - good. Damned good. Too good.
Top pulled his radio off his belt, lifted it to his lips and hesitated, still staring. How many times had they been like this, her in the light, him in the dark watching her? How many times had he stalked her unaware, how many times had he startled her, frightened her? How many times had he stared down at her while she was sleeping, caught between the terror-twin urges to caress her, and strangle her? How often had the woman danced on the edge of that dangerous edge and never even known it? He'd always managed to keep in control before, to not give in totally to his wants, his desires. Would he still be able to, even after all of this bullshit? Did he even want to? Would he... oh fuck it all to hell.
Maybe this once, just this once he wouldn't follow his normal pattern. Maybe this once he'd give her a hint that he was around. Just this once, give her a chance to decide if she wanted back into the wolf's lair, could he do that? Just that?
Tops' eyes nearly glowed in the darkness, staring at her. No. Oh fuck, No. No way in hell. Mine came the thought bubbling deep out of his subconscious. It was primal, it was predatory. It was Top, truly, un-remorsefully, the soul and black heart of Top Dollar.
Finally, Top flicked a switch on his hand-held radio, tuning it to the channel that ran to the front gate. And when she came back again, when she had turned around and walked close enough, he spoke into it.
His words echoed from the double voice boxes at the front gate, obscuring his actual voice speaking low in the shadows. "You lost? You look like you're lost. What do you want?"
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Vivian was clean, well as clean as you can get given her status in life. Yeah, she took the odd line of coke when it was offered, but she didn't squander her own hard earned precious cash on it. If it was offered, then she took it, but she didn't seek it out anymore, and she couldn't actually recall ever having taken heroin. But she knew she had, there were scars. They weren't the scars that worried her though. The faded white line across her breastbone bothered her, the healed puncture wounds on her neck bothered her, the scar across her palm that was like some twisted parody of an extended life line, bothered her. She couldn't recall any of them, but she knew that she'd hit rock bottom at some point. She also knew she'd been shot three years ago, an incident that had left her... well she'd got through that hadn't she?
The redhead, who by all laws of probability shouldn't be standing where she was standing, who shouldn't have looked as fresh and hopeful as she did, actually was. Perhaps more so than she had in a long time, a clearer more optimistic outlook, a regression to her former self, a girl that even Top had missed the tail end of.
She stared at the intercom for a moment, afraid to speak up, only breaking her stunned moment by searching for the cameras with her eyes.
"Damn." She laughed awkwardly again. "Cameras, shoulda known that, shoulda spotted that one. Go me!"
And then a pause, because shit, the voice had actually asked her a question and fuck she had to actually answer it.
"Lost-- yeah. That's the one, I'm lost. Y'know it's funny that, I really am. I'm umm-- sorry to-- to bother you? I-- emm-- yeah-- lost. I should-- go. Definitely should-- should go. Probably best, need to find the place I was looking for after all. Which isn't here-- probably-- is it? So this is me, going. Nice to talk to you."
She was about to leave, about to run, everything in her wanting to escape this moment of... fuck she didn't know what was going on, but she knew she'd just sounded like a complete idiot. She did turn, she was leaving, and then she spoke again, over her shoulder, more open, less flailing this time.
"I was looking for someone called Top, I was told he knows me. Does he-- know me? Would you know that? I'm Vivian."
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Top drew the radio away from his lips, thinking. She called him Top, not Mr. Dollarty, not Wolfie. Top. That meant she had been talking to someone, maybe a lot of someones. And, if that was so, well - Top Dollar wasn't always a very nice man. Idly he wondered how much of his past she knew about now; how much that he'd kept from her before.
"It's late, Vivian. On Christmas Eve. Boss is probably asleep. You want me to wake him up and ask him if he knows some lost woman named Vivian?" The tone implied that she was nuts for asking.
Top went silent once more, thinking. What did he want? Truly?
"Did you come here for money?" If so, he would give it to her, leave it for her and she'd never have to see him at all. But what if, what if she wanted something more? Top shook his head.
"You know he's..." Top drew a breath and tried again, lowering his hand held radio, coming closer. "Top's not a nice man, Vivian, he's not one of the good guys. But I bet you know that."
Did she realize his voice was coming from the figure in the darkness behind her, coming out of the shadows and into the streetlights. From the stillness of her body, he'd bet that she did. Still, she didn't turn, she didn't move as he drew close, so very close.
"Cinderella" Came the whisper in the air above her head, his breath ruffling her hair. "You have a choice, little girl." He slowly moved around her, circling her ever so slowly, until he was caught in her peripheral vision and her gaze was captured in his own. So gracefully did he move it seemed as if he were not simply walking but gliding on ice, or air until he was the center of her vision. Not the grand and ominous house in the distance, not the gate nor the cameras. Just a man, or perhaps more - or less?
"I knew you." I loved you, I hate you, I love you still. His hand reached up so carefully, and brushed away a stray strand of hair that blew across her cheek and eyes. "But I wonder if I know you now?" Amnesia, the doctor's told him in New York, at the clinic he burned to the ground. Total and full amnesia.
"A choice, I said. You can give me one week" One day, one night, one hour to be with you! "One week to see the life that was, the life you left behind. And if you want to leave after that you can go, safely, and with no reparations. I'll have my lawyers write up the paperwork you will have money beyond your wildest dreams, money to let you live the life you want. One week, Vivian."
He drew away, then. Closer to the massive iron-wrought gates. "One week if you come with me now, right now." This would be no contract, no streetwalker situation. This was something totally, completely different. In the distance, a church bell began to ring, followed by another, and yet another at it tolled at midnight, Celebrating Christmas Eve as the two one-time lovers stared at each other from the distance he'd placed between them.
And this time, this one time Top raised his hand to her, holding it out with palm up, asking her, inviting her.
Welcoming her.
Wanting her.
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"Money? God no. I ain't here for money." Was she? Money'd be nice, she couldn't deny it, but it was only part of the fairytale. There was a story here, a story that she'd only read the last page of, and there hadn't been a happy ending, far from it, maybe she was just looking for the happy ending. She scoffed at that, her own cynicism mocking that naive dream she'd always buried so deep, but never relinquished.
And then she listened, the voice's warning only serving to push it further into the recesses of her mind, far from where her heart resided. Protecting it, a heart that was battered and bruised, its optimism that she fought so hard to set aside and ignore. But it never stopped beating and it had brought her here, tonight, against all her better judgement.
The same voice that was no longer crackly, the voice that was so close now and she didn't dare to turn to look at it. Because she knew, she knew now who owned the voice and it made the muscles of that battered heart constrict, so tight. The untold story whispering 'Cinderella', a voice and a name that she knew, the echoing thud of her heart and the unseen hand that was twisting it, so foreign, but her heart knew him.
She could only watch him as he circled her, even as his hand reached up to move her hair, she was caught in something between fascination and fear, neither flinching nor smiling, and her chest grew tighter and her breathing faster and the stupid dreams of a girl who still believed stepped forward to take his hand.
"A week..."
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But his other hand did not grasp, did not grab or tug or touch. No, he simply stood behind her, steady and strong as she looked out through the gates to the long driveway and manicured lawns to the house beyond. The house that, against his initial wishes had been strung with lights, flickering and colorful, because he became convinced that it would have been what she wanted, had she been home.
And now she was.
The bells continued to ring out the birth of the Christ Child as his fingers slipped to his belt and hit the remote gate locks. Almost lost in the peeling of the midnight bells came a click, and as one the gates opened before the two of them.
Behind the auburn haired woman, where she would never see, would never know, a tear sparkled in the lashes of the tall man behind her. Cinderella, home at last. Home where she belonged. And this time, he wouldn't lose her. This time, this time...
"I only have two rules in my house, our home Vivian." Steadily he began easing her up the driveway, towards the house now so much more inviting seeming without the metal bars separating it from the roads. "One, I insist on complete honesty here. I always have." It was a low undertone, nearly a growl, those last three words were.
"Total honesty. If something bothers you, you must tell me. If something is wrong, if I ask you how you are doing - I want the truth. Do you understand?"
They were nearly to the door now, the gates left far behind, having shut just as silently as they had opened. There was no resounding clang, no discordant noise to show that they were closed off from public view.
"And two? If you want me, if you want us, if you decide you want my touch again, my caress, my lips, you must come to me." This he said deliberately, a plan forming in his mind as he spoke. "I will not force myself upon you, and I will be as honest as I can about our past - I am certain you have many questions... but I will not take you unless you want me. And you must tell me. I'll not use you like that, Vivian." Not now. Not yet.
Top, attempting to seduce his own wife? Oh yes, oh yes indeed.
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It didn't occur to her that she could turn around or change her mind. She had to know. Everything about him mesmerised her, from the curve of his nose to the shine of his hair. She must have kissed those lips. She found herself considering the swell of his bottom lip, scrutinising it almost. Did he know? Is that why he mentioned them? Had she once refused them, why had she changed her mind?
Love.
It had been love. She would never... not that, not a kiss, not unless...
Softly she smiled at him, desperately reaching into her mind to bring the memories back.
"Okay," is all she managed in response, the word barely uttered, just a whisper on the edge of her own lips.
And then she laughed, a pure unadulterated laugh as her gaze fell to the impressive building before them. "Man, that's a big house. Must be a bitch to keep clean." It was one of those nervous joke comments that she made so often when she was in uncharted territory and out of her depth, covering desperately for her ineptitude. He'd know it so well, he knew her so well, far more than she realised.
"I like the lights," she offered with a far quieter smile after an awkward pause. She wondered if now was the time to mention her daughter, what happened to her. But instead she kept smiling, despite the grief behind her eyes. "They're real pretty. I always liked the big houses with all the lights. You just know, if they spent that kinda cash on the outside, then they gotta have the biggest Christmas Tree inside. Like the ones in the stores, ya know?"
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Was there a tree, well as a matter of fact there was. A large one, and he'd paid out the ass to have a decorator come make it all sparkly and shit. Had to keep up appearances. Now Top was glad that he had actually gone ahead and gotten the tree, gotten the candles and the strands of lights.
"Its not a store. Its a castle. Your castle, Cinderella." His arms wanted to hold her close to his chest, the desire was so strong just to crush her to him. But he held back, held on. Held control. Hard as it fucking was, he absolutely had to keep in control, not to frighten her away, not to lose her again.
"Welcome home." My love.
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