Prompt Post 2
Welcome to the second round of the_eagle_kink .
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Happy Kink, everyone.
~CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS~
Please see the rules before posting.
Please check our delcious account before prompting.
Happy Kink, everyone.
~CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS~
- MORE MOD NOTES: Alright guys I know this fandom is really into historical accuracy and all that jazz but here's the thing. This is a KINK MEME and therefore historical accuracy is not ( Read more... )
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He sees it a fraction of a second before he hears it: orange and black ballooning in a deafening explosion-the silhouette of the humvee in front of them burning away like an overexposed photograph. Nick turns sharply and Marcus is thrown against the side of the car, ears ringing with the explosion. He can barely hear the shouts over the radio that filter through the sound of blood rushing in his ears. He’s stunned for a minute, eyes tracking the way that the fire leaps from the charred remains of the humvee in front of them. Nick is screaming something at him and he needs to get up, get up and check on his men-
A second explosion comes from somewhere behind them-gravel and twisted metal scattering like rain.
In a moment, Marcus is yelling into his headpiece, “Alpha One, Three, Four-status report!”
“Call for backup,” Nick shouts, trying to scrape their humvee past the burning remains of Alpha one, through the sheet of flames. The space is too small and they’re going uphill.
“ETA ten minutes for air backup,” Marcus says and he grabs the Eagle in one hand and a handgun in the other as he opens the door, “Fuck, if they have grenades we can’t just sit here. We gotta get to the cover of the trees. We just have to hold out for ten minutes.” He slaps a hand to his headpiece, “Alpha One, Three, Four-status report!”
Nick climbs out and they move towards the line of trees, ducking low. Marcus hears only static through his transceiver-Christ, how the hell did it break? There’s a sputter of machine gun fire behind them and he swings around, crouching low-god, if he left someone behind-
“What the fuck,” Nick says.
People have appeared out of nowhere-some are peering into the humvees still sitting on the road and others are prying open the burning vehicles.
“Guard this,” Marcus says, dropping the Eagle next to Nick, “And cover me.” He holsters his handgun and shoulders his rifle-if his men are still up there, he can’t leave them behind. He sights along the barrel, aiming for one of the men who is half bent into a Humvee, and shoots. The shot cracks loud and the man slumps face forward into the vehicle.
And then-there is a man next to him-he only sees the three stripes of white facepaint on each cheek and the mohawk as he swings his rifle around on instinct, feels the man grab his arm-
-he’s looking at the ground from fifteen feet in the air and falling-how the fucking hell?-manages to twist himself midair so he can hit the ground on the broad of his shoulder and roll into the momentum. It fucking hurts like hell and he’s dropped his gun a good ten feet away and he has to grit his teeth and suck it up because his men might still be alive and there’s only Nick with the Eagle somewhere in the woods.
He pulls himself into a decent crouch, using the bushes for cover. The man who threw him-Jesus Christ, from where? How the hell? Fuck, no time for that-was nowhere to be found. The men have assembled into a loose circle and Marcus counts them-maybe ten in total-and he lifts his rifle, ignoring the pain in his shoulder and aims.
He shoots, hits a man in the back of the neck and backtracks-they’re going to be looking for him based on the trajectory. What he isn’t ready for is the same man with the white stripes and mohawk materializing not even five feet from him.
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“I thought I killed you already,” he growls-and Marcus knows better than to let the guy touch him this time. He doesn’t know what’s going on but he trusts his gut instincts. He shoots-the man disappears and reappears closer to him-and Marcus breaks into a run, weaving between the trees and looking for any sort of cover because he isn’t sure he can outrun-
The man appears right next to him and grabs his arm-and jerks forward, the outline of his entire body is wavering and Marcus takes the opportunity to get away. There’s a white-haired man dressed in black standing a few yards away, holding on to what looks like a whip. Marcus levels his gun at the man who looks back at him.
“Where’s the Eagle?”
“Give me one reason not to shoot you right now.”
“Boy,” the man says, “I just saved your life.”
Marcus doesn’t take his gun off the man.
The teleporting man lunges at the man in black and three wires whip out of the surrounding trees, trapping him. Marcus keeps his eyes on the man in black but watches the three people emerge from the woods in his peripheral vision.
“I admire your courage, but we are all on the same side.”
“Prove it.”
“My name is Roland. You were supposed to deliver the Eagle to me.”
Marcus keeps his gun steady. Roland reaches into his pocket-Marcus’s finger twitches on the trigger-and produces a set of credentials. Marcus’s jaw tenses as he looks around at the other three who are staring back at him. They haven’t drawn weapons so he moves toward Roland to read the proffered document. It’s an exact copy of the contract Marcus signed. He lowers his gun.
“Now,” Roland says, “Where is the Eagle?”
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Nick is ten feet away from where Marcus left him and unconscious. Marcus had a moment of panic when he first saw the other man but Nick’s pulse was still strong. There’s still an indentation in the dirt where the steel box had once been, but the Eagle itself is gone.
“I suppose I should have learned by now,” Roland says, “If I want a job done right, I should do it myself.”
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Nick is slumped against the side of the helicopter, holding an ice pack to the back of his neck. Marcus’s shoulder is stiff and it still hurts like hell but he’ll live. He has his rifle between his legs, eyes on Roland’s back as he paces the tiny with his phone to his ear. He’s trying to pick out the words that Roland is saying but it’s hard to hear over the whine of the engine.
“Christ,” Nick says. There’s a purple bruise spreading across his temple, “They seriously came out of nowhere, man. I can’t think a single good point of entry-woods on one side and a cliff drop on the other side. Two explosions, front and back. We would have seen them if they came from the woods. It’s like they just fucking dropped out of the sky.”
Marcus doesn’t say anything, just keeps his eyes on Roland.
“And this guy, I swear to god, he just fucking-popped up,” Nick says, and then his voice drops, “God Marcus, look, I’m really sorry.”
Marcus turns to look at him then, “Hey, it’s not your fault.”
“I should have been more vigilant. I should have seen him coming.”
“You wouldn’t have,” Roland says, taking a seat across from them, “They’re called Jumpers.”
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Eagerly salivating for more.
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“I spend my life hunting them down,” Roland says. He drops his phone into his pocket and looks between the two of them, “Try to stop them before they can do any more damage to the natural order of things.”
“Wait,” Nick says, “What are we talking about? Jumpers? Can we please fill a brother in?”
“You should count yourselves lucky that your convoy wasn’t completely destroyed,” Roland looks at Marcus, “And two of them dead. I’m impressed that you fended so well for yourself when you had no idea what you were up against. You might make a decent Paladin.”
“I’ve never heard of you,” Marcus says.
“I wouldn’t have expected you to. We’re technically a civilian branch. Paramilitary, if you will.”
“Who attacked us?”
“A team of Jumpers we’ve been tracking for a long long time. I specifically requested the best team special ops had,” Roland appraises Marcus, “I guess I wasn’t clear enough.”
Marcus pushes the anger down and controls the tone of his voice, “I’ve never failed a mission before today, sir.” Nick is sitting up straighter, a frown on his face. “I promise you that we will do whatever it takes to retrieve the Eagle.”
“I don’t think you understand the full extent of the situation.”
“Then tell me.”
Roland just looks at them. The helicopter is starting its descent-Marcus can pick out the lights of Annapolis in the window over Roland’s shoulder.
“What are Jumpers?” Nick asks.
“Abominations,” Roland answers, “Things that can travel from place to place with a single thought. New York one moment, Cairo the next.”
“Teleportation?”
“They can be in all places at once. They see a place, in a photograph, for a moment, and they can go there. Can you imagine what it would be like, if everyone in the world had that power? It would be chaos.” They’re swinging low over the skyline now, shapes of buildings blurring against the night sky. “We Paladins hunt them in order to restore the order of things as they are supposed to be. All of them, they become criminals in the end, and we bring them to justice.”
“What is the Eagle?” Marcus asks.
“It was a code,” Roland answers, “A certain frequency that when broadcast, stops Jumpers from being able to jump. Broadcast it globally and you can trap them where they are, turn them back into people like you and me.”
“If you get the code-that means you can stop hunting.”
Roland smiles and the helicopter touches down on a rooftop. He gets up and Marcus stands with him.
“Let us join you.”
“You want to be a Paladin?”
“We can get the Eagle back.”
Roland looks at him, then at Nick. He turns, “I’ve sent a driver to take you to the nearest hospital. You should check in with your commander.”
Marcus wants to follow and protest but Nick grabs the back of his jacket.
“Let it go, man.”
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THIS IS SO GOOD, I LOVE IT. YUM.
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“Marcus,” Nick says the moment that the nurse leaves them alone, “That guy? Roland or whatever his name was? Total and complete whackjob. Are you serious about the whole Paladin shit? Are you not seeing the parallelism here? Are you not creeped out by this?”
“Thank you, Spence, I too took medieval history in high school.”
“No,” Nick says, “Normal people do not take medieval history in high school. Normal people trust their gut instinct when it tells them not to sign up for shit that would be way over their heads, lead by some nutjob who considers humans as things.”
“I’ve never failed a mission before, and I’m not going to start now.”
“Seriously?”
“Look,” Marcus says, starting to pace, “If my dad was here, you know what the hell he’d tell me? Told you so. Told you fucking so.”
Nick is quieter when he speaks, “Marcus, come on. One mission isn’t gonna ruin your career.”
Marcus stops pacing and looks at Nick. The television in the corner is on almost-muted enthusiasm, the tinny laughter of the anchorwoman grating on Marcus’s nerves. He breathes, in and out, and then says, “Look, a lot of people are probably caught in the crossfire of this thing. Give the Paladins the Eagle-no more persecution. We’d be saving a lot of people in the future.”
Nick picks at a bandage on his arm, “You’re really not going to make this easy, are you?”
“No. Nick-I mean-you really don’t have to come with me.”
“Man,” Nick says, “I stick with you through thick and thin and you think I’d just abandon a brother like that?” He punches Marcus in the shoulder, harder than necessary, “You fucking crazy bastard.”
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When Marcus opens the door to his debriefing, he doesn’t expect to see Roland sitting in a chair across from the commander. He throws a salute and closes the door after him.
“Take a seat, Captain,” the commander says. Marcus sits, keeping his eyes on his superior officer.
“I take it you’ve already met Roland.”
“Yes sir.”
“Roland has asked for your assistance in the retrieval of the Eagle.”
Marcus spares a glance at Roland.
“I told him we could spare you for a few weeks.”
“Sir,” Marcus says, “What about Lieutenant Spence?”
“I didn’t ask for Lieutenant Spence,” Roland says, “I only asked for you, Marcus Aquila. I have no use for anybody else.”
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“The first thing that you should know about Jumpers,” Roland says as he drops two manila folders in front of Marcus, “Is that they are dangerous and unpredictable. You don’t know what angle they’re going to attack from, they attack too quickly for the untrained eye to follow. We’ve only found one effective weapon against them.” He sets a metal rod on the table and Marcus picks it up.
“There’s a series of charged capacitors in there that delivers a couple thousand volts of electricity, disrupting their ability to jump. Low current, since sometimes we’d like to them alive a little longer.”
Marcus turns the weapon over in his hands.
“They’re sneaky, they’re tricky. You have to be sneakier and trickier. Incapacitate them, then go in for the kill. You only get one shot, get them when they’re least suspecting it. Basic stuff-I’m sure you’ve learned all of this in training.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can test that out later,” Roland says and flips open a manila folder, “For now, a little background information.” Clipped to the top of the stack of documents is a photograph of a man with the same facepaint and mohawk that Marcus saw before-only framing different facial features. “We’ve only ever had two real threats-the rest of the jumpers are disorganized. Many of them think that they’re the only one with their ability.”
Roland taps the photograph with a finger, “We call this group the Seal People, mostly because the bastard who started the entire group was a Navy SEAL himself. He went rogue after he discovered his powers. Most people do. It’s unfortunate that we taught him how to be such a capable leader.”
Marcus flips through the files. Other photographs are clipped with the data collected on each person.
“This isn’t the full team, but it’s a vast majority of them. They’re ruthless, they kill on sight. You’ve already had a little experience with them. Trust me when I say that wasn’t the extent of their powers.”
“Taking out an entire convoy with barely a dozen men,” Marcus says, “I’m afraid to ask how what the extent of their powers is.”
“It may surprise you to learn that the other threat is a single man,” Roland says, opening the second folder, “One of the best reasons why you should never let your guard down around a jumper, and perhaps the best example of how dangerous jumpers are to the natural order of things.”
Esca’s photograph stares up at him. Marcus feels like he can’t breathe.
“He calls himself Griffin though we’re certain that was never his real name. This is a very old picture of him-we haven’t been able to get a more recent photograph of him. He’s very good at finding blindspots.”
Esca looks older in this picture than Marcus remembers-the angles of his face are sharper and there are hollow circles under his eyes. He looks leaner and fiercer than Marcus remembers-but beneath the changes, Marcus can see traces of the boy he fell in love with.
“Griffin is unfortunately, very good at taking down Paladins,” Roland says, and then pauses. Marcus keeps staring at the photograph-he hasn’t heard Esca’s voice in months and hasn’t seen him in years. But this can’t be his Esca, because his Esca is a freelance photographer, a goddamn free spirit who couldn’t be caught and not for lack of trying. “Is there something the matter, Marcus?”
Marcus tears his eyes away from the photograph to look at Roland. “Just. Surprised that a single man could present such a threat.”
Roland smiles. “You’d need to meet the Griffin to understand why. And I wouldn’t wish that upon you.”
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it's brilliant.
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Roland didn’t have any space for Marcus at headquarters so they gave him enough money for a room at a motel on the outskirts of Annapolis, across the bay. Roland had given him the keys for an old blue Ford truck that took three turns of the key to start up properly and told him to be back at headquarters the next morning.
There’s a sign on the reception desk that says that patrons have to pay five dollars for wifi access and Marcus pretends not to see it as he hands over the money for his room and asks, “There wouldn’t be a place where I can check my email real quick, would there?”
The woman behind the desk has her eyes on the bars stitched onto his jacket when she says, “If you want, you can use the other computer back here real quick.” She meets his eyes and smiles, leaning forward slightly so he can catch more of her cleavage, “The other girl just stepped out for a quick smoke-you can have it as long as she’s out.”
Marcus knows that she’s only flirting because of the uniform but he doesn’t really have a choice. He nods, smiling back and she opens the employee entrance for him.
“What are you doing here in Annapolis?” she asks as he pulls up a new window and logs into his email. She laughs a little, “Or is that classified?”
“Classified,” Marcus figures it’s the best way to get her to stop talking. The last email Esca sent him was a month ago-he spent a paragraph telling Marcus about the vodka in Russia and signed off with the normal -E. Esca uses a different email address every time he sends Marcus a message and he’s never replied to any of the messages that Marcus has sent in reply.
He hadn’t thought it was strange before-maybe he was a little frustrated and thought that Esca was just terrified of commitments-like getting a reply to an email meant that he was obligated to reply, like never leaving a phone number meant he didn’t have to answer to Marcus. And reading these emails now: Hi Marcus, I wandered a little too close to Prypiat and took pictures that I’m hoping someone will buy, Hi Marcus, someday you should see the sun set over Mumbai, Hi Marcus, I was in Boston this week and thought about taking the train out but I didn’t think you’d be home-he can’t reconcile any of these with the Esca that stared at him through that photograph Roland showed him.
Marcus hates Esca-he hates him for taking everything from him and never giving anything in return-just these stupid messages that Marcus always replies to and never gets an answer, he hates that his heart always skips a beat when his phone rings from an unknown number like he’s fucking fifteen years old. And he hates that he lets Esca do this to him, that he answers the phone for a casual conversation like everything is fine and he’s not hurt that Esca left and won’t come back, that Esca’s pretends there was never anything between them, that he takes and he takes and he takes and Marcus just keeps giving until there’s nothing of him left.
He answers the phone because he wants to hear the sound of Esca’s voice, because he’s a masochist and he keeps fooling himself that making Esca laugh is going to make him stick around a little longer. It’s a fucked up relationship, and he doesn’t hold any of the strings and he keeps telling himself that he’s not invested in it, that he’s going to find a girl and settle down and stop thinking about Esca, stop replying to his stupid emails, stop stop stop.
But it’s too much of a coincidence, Roland’s Griffin and his Esca and it feels like all of the years are being pulled from beneath his feet, all of the lies and none of it makes sense or everything makes sense and he types Esca, Please call me. -M and hits send before he can reconsider.
“Hey, my coworker’s coming back,” the receptionist says. Marcus logs out.
“Thanks,” he says and shows himself out.
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