[detectives] Chivalry was Murdered
The closest I will ever get to writing fluff, and it involves decapitation.
Title: Chivalry was Murdered
Fandom: Watching the Detectives
Pairing: Neil/Violet
Rating: R
Summary: Violet teaches Neil that historical reenactments are only as credible as their props.
Chivalry was Murdered
_______________________________________________
Thursdays were never very kind to Neil. Statistically, they were highest in rewinds and lowest in punctual returns. And this particular Thursday happened to fall into Western Week: Neil spent the majority of his time bent over the VCR, rewinding tapes he’d let pile up for the past month and a half, while tugging uneasily at the collar of his scratchy wool poncho.
Around two-thirty, a pair of teenaged boys came in and harassed him, wearing shoddy drag on loan from the local costume shop, and spraying silly string in his face. When one started quoting Superbad, Neil threatened to call the police. Finally Lucien returned from his three-hour lunch break and together they kicked the kids out - but not before disturbing a stand of old westerns that it took another forty-five minutes to re-alphabetize.
Gumshoe Video was quiet from then until five minutes before closing - when Neil called Violet.
“Hey, lover!” she picked up perkily.
He paused halfway through his preplanned, robotic hello. “You have call display?”
“Nope,” she said. “Who is this?”
He knew very well that she knew who he was. “Violet…”
“No, I’m Violet.” He could tell she was suppressing a laugh. “Who’s this?”
“Neil,” he forced through a sigh.
“That’s good,” she said in her oddly rushed, always somewhat rehearsed way, “because last time I answered the phone like that I think I gave the plumber the wrong idea.”
Neil pinched the bridge of his nose and screwed his eyes shut. He could feel his earlier migraine making a successful comeback. “You’ve been answering it like that all day?”
“Sure,” she admitted without affectation. “I mean, it’s not my fault I expect most calls to be you. No one else ever calls me on Thursdays - unless, of course, you include that priest last week but he called every day. Talk about humorless. Can you believe he…”
“Violet! Slow down!” He ignored the look the guys were giving him. Lucien waggled his eyebrows and turned to Jonathan, who mouthed “phone sex.” Neil rolled his eyes. “Listen, I’ve had a really rough day at work and I can’t make it over tonight. I’m sorry.”
There was silence on the other end, broken by a distant, stereo dog bark, a quiet shuffle, and then a clatter as Violet presumably knocked something over. Still, she said nothing.
“I can’t actually hear you pout,” Neil said with measured patience.
“No,” she replied, tone resigned, “but you know I’m doing it.”
He sighed. “Look, I really am sorry, Violet, but I’m just going to go home and call it an early night. We’re going out tomorrow anyway.”
“Sure, yeah,” she droned. “Goodnight, Leonard.”
“Leonard?” he asked, but was met with the drawn flatline of the dial tone.
Lucien leaned off the couch, perked up by the dejected click of the phone as Neil dropped it on the jack. “Leonard? Isn’t that Violet’s plumber?”
His feet fell heavy on the cement, each dull thud punctuated with a hiss. He knew by now that he ought to invest in better costumes; his blisters, easy to ignore in the old cowboy boots, rubbed against his normal shoes in new and painful ways. But every time he went out shopping, Violet came along and he invariably got sidetracked.
It had been a trying day, and though the apathy of her voice had made his throat swell with guilt, he felt he couldn’t handle her alacrity tonight. She was a constant beam of sunshine: she awakened and brightened, and occasionally she burnt. Sometimes, it was best to close the blinds and simply sleep away the daylight.
His t-shirt and jeans felt cool after a long June afternoon in three layers of leather and wool. The skin at his neck was prickly and raw; he hadn’t checked his reflection in the shop window before leaving, but he was sure his hair was pressed into an odd wave from his hat, and his cheeks were flushed salmon pink from washing off the make-up. Predictably, Western Week had been his least favorite promotion long before his and Violet’s one night life of crime.
He closed the door and leaned against it, working his shoes off with both hands. The entrance was dark, but there was a dim beam stretching into the hallway. It flickered like candlelight. He squinted, confused. Neil always turned the lights off before leaving for work.
The realization was sudden and bitter, like the venom of a snakebite. A dark chuckle bubbled through him. He was about to call her name when the silence was violently split by her hysterical scream. “You’ll never be king!”
“Jesus Christ,” Neil muttered, stepping on calloused feet and avoiding the mess he’d left his house in. He plucked an umbrella from the closet as he passed, just in case, and entered the light.
His living room was swathed in a warm orange glow, as though the sun were setting. Flames leaped from a familiar trashcan settled in the corner of the room, far enough from the walls and film posters to not catch fire. Violet was on the floor, apparently bound at the hands and feet. Her hair was unnaturally long and braided with gold cord. She was wearing an emerald green gown that reflected the light roughly, like velvet.
“Sir Neil!” she cried upon seeing him. “Oh, thank heavens you’re here!”
He glanced from her to the fire, mouth agape, then to where the flames glinted fiercely off a suit of armor propped against the wall. A sword hung loosely from its hand.
“Oh, come on, Violet!” he yelled, throwing his hands up. The umbrella caught the roof; bits of stucco fluttered down, synthetic snowflakes. “What the hell is this?”
“That’s no way to speak to a lady.”
At the deep voice, Neil jumped. The suit of armor moved, fist closing around the hilt of the sword. Neil stumbled back and hit the doorframe.
“He murdered my father!” Violet screamed. “He wants to overthrow the kingdom! You must kill him!”
Righting himself, Neil pointed the umbrella accusingly at the steel encased stranger. “Look, I don’t know how much she paid you or what you think you owe her, but this is my house and I have had a really, really shit day, so if you could just leave now, that’d be great.”
He raised the sword and knocked the umbrella away. Neil half-laughed and threw it down, raising his hands.
“I’m not going to duel you, okay? Just get out.”
“Sir Neil!” Violet’s voice had him crushing his eyes shut in annoyance. “Please! It’s the only way!”
“Is it?” he yelled, frantic with disbelief. “What am I supposed to do, huh? Pester him to death? He’s wearing a goddamn suit of armor!”
“The greatest struggle rewards the greatest glory,” said the stranger.
Neil turned to him, glare dripping poison. “Thank you, Socrates!”
“There is a blade!” Violet said, attracting his attention again. “They say it can shred metal as though it were parchment!”
He didn’t want to know where she was getting this from - if she had spent the afternoon scripting it while smug seventeen-year-olds were messing up his merchandise, or if she was making it up on the spot.
“Fine,” he said in frustrated defeat. “If that’ll end this, fine. Where’s the fucking sword, then?”
“You speak of fantasy, sir,” came the tinny voice of the suit.
“He lies!” Violet accused. “It resides to the west, in the fabled soft stone!”
Neil glanced to his left and there it was, poking out from between the couch cushions: a sword, too sleek to be plastic. His warped and angry reflection blinked with the stuttering flames.
“You’ll never reach it alive,” the suit growled. “The kingdom will be mine, as will the princess!”
Neil stalked to the couch and ripped the sword out, muscles keening at the sudden weight. The tip dropped to the ground, rending a tiny hole in the carpet. It was sharp.
“Holy hell,” he muttered, somewhat amazed.
“Scoundrel!” screamed the suit. “Fiend! Only one of royal blood may wield the sword! … How!?”
He came at Neil, metal joints clinking and weapon suspended overhead. Struggling, Neil raised the sword just in time to block the slow swing. The heavy clang sent him doubling back, crashing to the floor. His opponent’s sword had slipped as well, leaving a long gash in the back of the couch, not a foot from Neil’s shoulder.
“Violet!” he yelled. “This is crazy!”
The suit stumbled, then stood straight again. “The throne will be mine!”
He glanced from Violet, who looked no more or less concerned than any damsel should, to the suit. He could feel harrowed, erratic pulse in his hands, slick with sweat. “YOU CAN HAVE IT!”
“You mustn’t lose hope!” Violet pleaded.
The suit raised the sword again. It loomed dangerously in the air, catching the firelight and sparking like the eye of a predator. Heart thundering, forehead damp, terror flooding his veins like toxic waste, Neil yelled and swung the sword at the suit’s legs. It hit broadside, sending a painful ripple up Neil’s arms. He immediately let go of the hilt, as if shocked, and the sword fell to the ground with a loud thud.
The suit howled in anguish and crumpled to the floor.
Unsteady stagnance filled the air, finally broken by Violet’s ecstatic, “You’ve done it! The kingdom is yours, Sir Neil!”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” The profanity spilled out on a long, tremulous breath. Neil scrambled over to the suit, shaking his broad shoulders. “Are you okay? Oh my God. Are you okay?”
He felt reality pause and his heart stop in the dreadful, dead silence. Then the suit sat up, laughing. The helmet was pulled off to reveal the glistening, grinning face of a forty-year-old man.
Neil thought he swallowed his tongue. “Leonard?” he asked incredulously.
“Sir Neil,” Leonard laughed, patting him jovially on the shoulder. Neil winced, the impact hard and cold.
“Jesus Christ, I thought I killed you! I mean, I thought you had a heart attack or something! Your leg, did I…?” His gaze swept up and down the armor, looking for a sharp tear.
“Are you kidding?” Leonard asked, rolling onto his knees and attempting to rise onto his feet. Neil quickly stood and helped him. “Kid, you might as well have slapped me with a toothpick. Didn’t feel a thing. Hell of a bang, though.”
Neil stared at him in awe, mind a complete blur. Finally the sound of Violet’s laughter filtered in. She was standing, shuffling rope off her ankles. She rushed over to give Leonard a peck on the cheek, tapping him jokingly on the chest-plate.
“Leonard came over to fix my sink today and told me his ex-wife canceled dinner on him tonight.” Her smile stretched happy wrinkles into the creases of her eyes. “So I got together some costumes and he was completely game! He used to work at one of those medieval restaurants.”
“In the nineties,” he said, sheathing his sword. “Always played a squire, never got to be a knight.”
“So unfair,” Violet pouted.
The thundering in Neil’s ears slowly quieted, the adrenaline in him evaporating. He felt the ground under his feet shift uneasily. His mouth was papery and dry, and he couldn’t muster words as Leonard gathered the other sword and waved goodbye to both of them. Violet frowned at Neil, saying he didn’t look well, and sat him on the couch. She flipped a switch, artificial white light drowning out the hot yellow, and grabbed a bucket hidden behind an easy chair. She doused the flames with water, then came over to sit with him.
“So…?” she asked. “How was work?”
He stared at her in a stupor as she pulled off the long black wig and tousled her hair out of its ponytail and into a spontaneous mess.
“How,” he repeated, as if he’d heard her wrong, “was work?”
She nodded, drawing her knees up to her chin.
“Violet,” he said slowly, pulling emotion back into his voice, “my rug is torn, my couch is slashed, and you could have burned my house down.”
She tipped her head to the side innocently. “Well, they didn’t have lights in the Dark Ages. Duh. And you don’t have any wall sconces.”
“So you set my trashcan on fire?” he asked, baffled and enraged.
Violet looked affronted. “I wanted it to be authentic!”
“It was!” he yelled, rising off the couch. “Authentically dangerous! What the hell were you thinking!”
Unfolding her legs, she jumped up until she was taller than him, standing on the couch with her shadow stretching out. “I was running out of film noir ideas, and all westerns have pretty much the same plot! I mean, come on, don’t you watch any medieval movies, Neil?”
“Not really!” He hadn’t meant to answer her question, as they never failed to lead their arguments in a different, completely irrelevant direction - but it burst out of him, as it always did. “I mean, samurai movies maybe, but not Merlin!”
Violet huffed and crossed her arms. “Oh, well excuse me for not being the Lady from Shanghai!”
“What?” He closed his eyes, inhaling through his nose. “The Lady from Shanghai had nothing to do with samurais. If you ever watched a movie, you’d know that!”
“Okay then!” she yelled. “Kill Bill!”
Neil glared, fists clenched. He stepped onto the couch, footing momentarily unsteady. “We do not talk about Tarantino in this house!”
“God, Neil, you’re so picky!” She gestured widely around the room, wobbling a bit. “You know what? The next time you want someone to dress up like Lady Snowblood, don’t come crying to me!”
She shoved him, palms flat against his shoulders. He stumbled back, ankle sinking into the crevice between two cushions. Instinctively, he reached out to balance himself and caught her arm. She tumbled into him, both their equilibrium instantly shot. Neil landed with half his back on the couch, Violet crashing into his chest, and then they both rolled onto the floor in a painful tangle of limbs and velvet.
Pain shot through Neil’s head. He blinked black spots out of his vision and rocked from his stomach onto his shoulder, off his arm that was crushed beneath him. He looked immediately to Violet, who was on her back, apparently unharmed, and staring angrily at the ceiling.
“I just wanted you to feel heroic,” she said, voice strained. “You sounded so worn out on the phone.”
His mind was screaming profanities and basic safety at her, but none of the words reached his mouth. His tongue suddenly felt dry, fat and heavy, the way it always did when Violet was near tears. He knew he had every right to be angry, but he couldn’t muster the righteous urge to tell her that.
Neil sighed, slipping his fingers into hers and pulling her closer. Reluctantly she sidled up beside him. Violet’s methods could be strange, unhinged, and downright violent, but her intentions were usually good. Usually. “But you’re not sorry, right?”
Tired breath came swilling out of her. “I’m sorry for your couch and your carpet. I didn’t mean for your stuff to get wrecked. About the swords… I didn’t check them. I thought they were dull, but I know Leonard was never going to hit you. I asked him not to.”
He brushed tangled hair from her face. For the first time, he realized his neck didn’t itch and his feet weren’t flaring with pain. The tension he’d felt coiling to a snapping point all day had somehow sprung free of his body. His head and arm ached, but his fingers felt warm woven into Violet’s. A strange, small smile crept over his lips as he pressed them to her cheek.
“Violet,” he said gently, his smile growing wider, some stupid feeling filling his body like ecstasy, “I appreciate the effort you put into trying to cut my head off.”
Her placid mask shattered, a wide grin cracking it from left to right. In a moment she had him on his back, her knees on either side of his waist. “That’s all you had to say!”
She bent to kiss him, but he caught her by the shoulders, steadying her. Her hair fell down, tickling his cheeks; their noses barely touched.
“But your actions have consequences,” he said warningly.
Concern flickered across her face. “Such as?”
“Such as I’m taking out house insurance on this relationship.” He split the tense atmosphere with a joking grin.
She shook her head, hair waving, and pinned his wrists to the floor. “If you haven’t already,” she murmured, lips centimeters from his, “I don’t think I’ve been doing my job right.”
Title: Chivalry was Murdered
Fandom: Watching the Detectives
Pairing: Neil/Violet
Rating: R
Summary: Violet teaches Neil that historical reenactments are only as credible as their props.
Chivalry was Murdered
_______________________________________________
Thursdays were never very kind to Neil. Statistically, they were highest in rewinds and lowest in punctual returns. And this particular Thursday happened to fall into Western Week: Neil spent the majority of his time bent over the VCR, rewinding tapes he’d let pile up for the past month and a half, while tugging uneasily at the collar of his scratchy wool poncho.
Around two-thirty, a pair of teenaged boys came in and harassed him, wearing shoddy drag on loan from the local costume shop, and spraying silly string in his face. When one started quoting Superbad, Neil threatened to call the police. Finally Lucien returned from his three-hour lunch break and together they kicked the kids out - but not before disturbing a stand of old westerns that it took another forty-five minutes to re-alphabetize.
Gumshoe Video was quiet from then until five minutes before closing - when Neil called Violet.
“Hey, lover!” she picked up perkily.
He paused halfway through his preplanned, robotic hello. “You have call display?”
“Nope,” she said. “Who is this?”
He knew very well that she knew who he was. “Violet…”
“No, I’m Violet.” He could tell she was suppressing a laugh. “Who’s this?”
“Neil,” he forced through a sigh.
“That’s good,” she said in her oddly rushed, always somewhat rehearsed way, “because last time I answered the phone like that I think I gave the plumber the wrong idea.”
Neil pinched the bridge of his nose and screwed his eyes shut. He could feel his earlier migraine making a successful comeback. “You’ve been answering it like that all day?”
“Sure,” she admitted without affectation. “I mean, it’s not my fault I expect most calls to be you. No one else ever calls me on Thursdays - unless, of course, you include that priest last week but he called every day. Talk about humorless. Can you believe he…”
“Violet! Slow down!” He ignored the look the guys were giving him. Lucien waggled his eyebrows and turned to Jonathan, who mouthed “phone sex.” Neil rolled his eyes. “Listen, I’ve had a really rough day at work and I can’t make it over tonight. I’m sorry.”
There was silence on the other end, broken by a distant, stereo dog bark, a quiet shuffle, and then a clatter as Violet presumably knocked something over. Still, she said nothing.
“I can’t actually hear you pout,” Neil said with measured patience.
“No,” she replied, tone resigned, “but you know I’m doing it.”
He sighed. “Look, I really am sorry, Violet, but I’m just going to go home and call it an early night. We’re going out tomorrow anyway.”
“Sure, yeah,” she droned. “Goodnight, Leonard.”
“Leonard?” he asked, but was met with the drawn flatline of the dial tone.
Lucien leaned off the couch, perked up by the dejected click of the phone as Neil dropped it on the jack. “Leonard? Isn’t that Violet’s plumber?”
His feet fell heavy on the cement, each dull thud punctuated with a hiss. He knew by now that he ought to invest in better costumes; his blisters, easy to ignore in the old cowboy boots, rubbed against his normal shoes in new and painful ways. But every time he went out shopping, Violet came along and he invariably got sidetracked.
It had been a trying day, and though the apathy of her voice had made his throat swell with guilt, he felt he couldn’t handle her alacrity tonight. She was a constant beam of sunshine: she awakened and brightened, and occasionally she burnt. Sometimes, it was best to close the blinds and simply sleep away the daylight.
His t-shirt and jeans felt cool after a long June afternoon in three layers of leather and wool. The skin at his neck was prickly and raw; he hadn’t checked his reflection in the shop window before leaving, but he was sure his hair was pressed into an odd wave from his hat, and his cheeks were flushed salmon pink from washing off the make-up. Predictably, Western Week had been his least favorite promotion long before his and Violet’s one night life of crime.
He closed the door and leaned against it, working his shoes off with both hands. The entrance was dark, but there was a dim beam stretching into the hallway. It flickered like candlelight. He squinted, confused. Neil always turned the lights off before leaving for work.
The realization was sudden and bitter, like the venom of a snakebite. A dark chuckle bubbled through him. He was about to call her name when the silence was violently split by her hysterical scream. “You’ll never be king!”
“Jesus Christ,” Neil muttered, stepping on calloused feet and avoiding the mess he’d left his house in. He plucked an umbrella from the closet as he passed, just in case, and entered the light.
His living room was swathed in a warm orange glow, as though the sun were setting. Flames leaped from a familiar trashcan settled in the corner of the room, far enough from the walls and film posters to not catch fire. Violet was on the floor, apparently bound at the hands and feet. Her hair was unnaturally long and braided with gold cord. She was wearing an emerald green gown that reflected the light roughly, like velvet.
“Sir Neil!” she cried upon seeing him. “Oh, thank heavens you’re here!”
He glanced from her to the fire, mouth agape, then to where the flames glinted fiercely off a suit of armor propped against the wall. A sword hung loosely from its hand.
“Oh, come on, Violet!” he yelled, throwing his hands up. The umbrella caught the roof; bits of stucco fluttered down, synthetic snowflakes. “What the hell is this?”
“That’s no way to speak to a lady.”
At the deep voice, Neil jumped. The suit of armor moved, fist closing around the hilt of the sword. Neil stumbled back and hit the doorframe.
“He murdered my father!” Violet screamed. “He wants to overthrow the kingdom! You must kill him!”
Righting himself, Neil pointed the umbrella accusingly at the steel encased stranger. “Look, I don’t know how much she paid you or what you think you owe her, but this is my house and I have had a really, really shit day, so if you could just leave now, that’d be great.”
He raised the sword and knocked the umbrella away. Neil half-laughed and threw it down, raising his hands.
“I’m not going to duel you, okay? Just get out.”
“Sir Neil!” Violet’s voice had him crushing his eyes shut in annoyance. “Please! It’s the only way!”
“Is it?” he yelled, frantic with disbelief. “What am I supposed to do, huh? Pester him to death? He’s wearing a goddamn suit of armor!”
“The greatest struggle rewards the greatest glory,” said the stranger.
Neil turned to him, glare dripping poison. “Thank you, Socrates!”
“There is a blade!” Violet said, attracting his attention again. “They say it can shred metal as though it were parchment!”
He didn’t want to know where she was getting this from - if she had spent the afternoon scripting it while smug seventeen-year-olds were messing up his merchandise, or if she was making it up on the spot.
“Fine,” he said in frustrated defeat. “If that’ll end this, fine. Where’s the fucking sword, then?”
“You speak of fantasy, sir,” came the tinny voice of the suit.
“He lies!” Violet accused. “It resides to the west, in the fabled soft stone!”
Neil glanced to his left and there it was, poking out from between the couch cushions: a sword, too sleek to be plastic. His warped and angry reflection blinked with the stuttering flames.
“You’ll never reach it alive,” the suit growled. “The kingdom will be mine, as will the princess!”
Neil stalked to the couch and ripped the sword out, muscles keening at the sudden weight. The tip dropped to the ground, rending a tiny hole in the carpet. It was sharp.
“Holy hell,” he muttered, somewhat amazed.
“Scoundrel!” screamed the suit. “Fiend! Only one of royal blood may wield the sword! … How!?”
He came at Neil, metal joints clinking and weapon suspended overhead. Struggling, Neil raised the sword just in time to block the slow swing. The heavy clang sent him doubling back, crashing to the floor. His opponent’s sword had slipped as well, leaving a long gash in the back of the couch, not a foot from Neil’s shoulder.
“Violet!” he yelled. “This is crazy!”
The suit stumbled, then stood straight again. “The throne will be mine!”
He glanced from Violet, who looked no more or less concerned than any damsel should, to the suit. He could feel harrowed, erratic pulse in his hands, slick with sweat. “YOU CAN HAVE IT!”
“You mustn’t lose hope!” Violet pleaded.
The suit raised the sword again. It loomed dangerously in the air, catching the firelight and sparking like the eye of a predator. Heart thundering, forehead damp, terror flooding his veins like toxic waste, Neil yelled and swung the sword at the suit’s legs. It hit broadside, sending a painful ripple up Neil’s arms. He immediately let go of the hilt, as if shocked, and the sword fell to the ground with a loud thud.
The suit howled in anguish and crumpled to the floor.
Unsteady stagnance filled the air, finally broken by Violet’s ecstatic, “You’ve done it! The kingdom is yours, Sir Neil!”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” The profanity spilled out on a long, tremulous breath. Neil scrambled over to the suit, shaking his broad shoulders. “Are you okay? Oh my God. Are you okay?”
He felt reality pause and his heart stop in the dreadful, dead silence. Then the suit sat up, laughing. The helmet was pulled off to reveal the glistening, grinning face of a forty-year-old man.
Neil thought he swallowed his tongue. “Leonard?” he asked incredulously.
“Sir Neil,” Leonard laughed, patting him jovially on the shoulder. Neil winced, the impact hard and cold.
“Jesus Christ, I thought I killed you! I mean, I thought you had a heart attack or something! Your leg, did I…?” His gaze swept up and down the armor, looking for a sharp tear.
“Are you kidding?” Leonard asked, rolling onto his knees and attempting to rise onto his feet. Neil quickly stood and helped him. “Kid, you might as well have slapped me with a toothpick. Didn’t feel a thing. Hell of a bang, though.”
Neil stared at him in awe, mind a complete blur. Finally the sound of Violet’s laughter filtered in. She was standing, shuffling rope off her ankles. She rushed over to give Leonard a peck on the cheek, tapping him jokingly on the chest-plate.
“Leonard came over to fix my sink today and told me his ex-wife canceled dinner on him tonight.” Her smile stretched happy wrinkles into the creases of her eyes. “So I got together some costumes and he was completely game! He used to work at one of those medieval restaurants.”
“In the nineties,” he said, sheathing his sword. “Always played a squire, never got to be a knight.”
“So unfair,” Violet pouted.
The thundering in Neil’s ears slowly quieted, the adrenaline in him evaporating. He felt the ground under his feet shift uneasily. His mouth was papery and dry, and he couldn’t muster words as Leonard gathered the other sword and waved goodbye to both of them. Violet frowned at Neil, saying he didn’t look well, and sat him on the couch. She flipped a switch, artificial white light drowning out the hot yellow, and grabbed a bucket hidden behind an easy chair. She doused the flames with water, then came over to sit with him.
“So…?” she asked. “How was work?”
He stared at her in a stupor as she pulled off the long black wig and tousled her hair out of its ponytail and into a spontaneous mess.
“How,” he repeated, as if he’d heard her wrong, “was work?”
She nodded, drawing her knees up to her chin.
“Violet,” he said slowly, pulling emotion back into his voice, “my rug is torn, my couch is slashed, and you could have burned my house down.”
She tipped her head to the side innocently. “Well, they didn’t have lights in the Dark Ages. Duh. And you don’t have any wall sconces.”
“So you set my trashcan on fire?” he asked, baffled and enraged.
Violet looked affronted. “I wanted it to be authentic!”
“It was!” he yelled, rising off the couch. “Authentically dangerous! What the hell were you thinking!”
Unfolding her legs, she jumped up until she was taller than him, standing on the couch with her shadow stretching out. “I was running out of film noir ideas, and all westerns have pretty much the same plot! I mean, come on, don’t you watch any medieval movies, Neil?”
“Not really!” He hadn’t meant to answer her question, as they never failed to lead their arguments in a different, completely irrelevant direction - but it burst out of him, as it always did. “I mean, samurai movies maybe, but not Merlin!”
Violet huffed and crossed her arms. “Oh, well excuse me for not being the Lady from Shanghai!”
“What?” He closed his eyes, inhaling through his nose. “The Lady from Shanghai had nothing to do with samurais. If you ever watched a movie, you’d know that!”
“Okay then!” she yelled. “Kill Bill!”
Neil glared, fists clenched. He stepped onto the couch, footing momentarily unsteady. “We do not talk about Tarantino in this house!”
“God, Neil, you’re so picky!” She gestured widely around the room, wobbling a bit. “You know what? The next time you want someone to dress up like Lady Snowblood, don’t come crying to me!”
She shoved him, palms flat against his shoulders. He stumbled back, ankle sinking into the crevice between two cushions. Instinctively, he reached out to balance himself and caught her arm. She tumbled into him, both their equilibrium instantly shot. Neil landed with half his back on the couch, Violet crashing into his chest, and then they both rolled onto the floor in a painful tangle of limbs and velvet.
Pain shot through Neil’s head. He blinked black spots out of his vision and rocked from his stomach onto his shoulder, off his arm that was crushed beneath him. He looked immediately to Violet, who was on her back, apparently unharmed, and staring angrily at the ceiling.
“I just wanted you to feel heroic,” she said, voice strained. “You sounded so worn out on the phone.”
His mind was screaming profanities and basic safety at her, but none of the words reached his mouth. His tongue suddenly felt dry, fat and heavy, the way it always did when Violet was near tears. He knew he had every right to be angry, but he couldn’t muster the righteous urge to tell her that.
Neil sighed, slipping his fingers into hers and pulling her closer. Reluctantly she sidled up beside him. Violet’s methods could be strange, unhinged, and downright violent, but her intentions were usually good. Usually. “But you’re not sorry, right?”
Tired breath came swilling out of her. “I’m sorry for your couch and your carpet. I didn’t mean for your stuff to get wrecked. About the swords… I didn’t check them. I thought they were dull, but I know Leonard was never going to hit you. I asked him not to.”
He brushed tangled hair from her face. For the first time, he realized his neck didn’t itch and his feet weren’t flaring with pain. The tension he’d felt coiling to a snapping point all day had somehow sprung free of his body. His head and arm ached, but his fingers felt warm woven into Violet’s. A strange, small smile crept over his lips as he pressed them to her cheek.
“Violet,” he said gently, his smile growing wider, some stupid feeling filling his body like ecstasy, “I appreciate the effort you put into trying to cut my head off.”
Her placid mask shattered, a wide grin cracking it from left to right. In a moment she had him on his back, her knees on either side of his waist. “That’s all you had to say!”
She bent to kiss him, but he caught her by the shoulders, steadying her. Her hair fell down, tickling his cheeks; their noses barely touched.
“But your actions have consequences,” he said warningly.
Concern flickered across her face. “Such as?”
“Such as I’m taking out house insurance on this relationship.” He split the tense atmosphere with a joking grin.
She shook her head, hair waving, and pinned his wrists to the floor. “If you haven’t already,” she murmured, lips centimeters from his, “I don’t think I’ve been doing my job right.”