Fic(let): Line of Sight
Guys, I don't even know. It's been so long since I've written anything that I've lost the ability to generate any sort of coherent story-like product. So have some ATF!AU Mag7 Vin/Ezra ambiance thing. (Also, posting to Dreamwidth using a touchscreen is the absolute pits; definitely don't recommend it. And a new computer is not going to be in the cards until maybe June as I have to save all my money for getting out of my current job and finding a new one that sucks less.)
Line of Sight
Vin's been in place for two hours by the time Ezra shows up, forty-three minutes later than he was supposed to per the op schedule, but right on time per Team Seven's normal operating procedures. He looks disgruntled, and Vin wonders what story Ezra's made up to justify the expression on Edward Allen's face. In the long run it probably doesn't matter much as all of Ezra's covers tend to look disgruntled sooner or later, but it does give Vin something to think about other than the smell of pigeon crap and the ache that's starting to creep into his elbows. Two hours on a rooftop is two hours on a rooftop, and there's no amount of training that will erase the pure physical discomfort of lying still on baking gravel, staring into nothing; best he can do is to retreat into the quietness of his mind, a trick that can do as much bad as good some days. (Today, he reckons, is a good day, because he doesn't feel a desert hovering in the corner of his mind. He thinks watching Ezra plays some part in that, though watching Ezra has it's own pitfalls, only some of which are because it's been nearly two months since they've been able to have more than a quick handjob in the fourth floor utilities closet of Edward Allen's apartment building.)
He tracks Ezra's progress down the street, catalogues the differences in gait and posture that Ezra's adopted to differentiate Allen from himself. Allen is a quiet walker, firm and purposeful, unobtrusive. He strides where Ezra would strut, makes sharply efficient gestures where Ezra would wave his hands widely, flamboyantly, keeps his face still and impassive where Ezra would smirk and flash his fool's gold grin. Even the faces are the subtly different, beyond just the dye that's turned Ezra's hair black; there's nothing about Ezra in Edward Allen, none of the disarming charm that Ezra likes to employ so often, or the sly humor that always seems to lurk just on the edge of Ezra's expressions. The changes are impressive and unnerving, and all at once Vin is struck by a desperate need to see some of Ezra in the stranger he's become.
Edward Allen makes it safely from his car to the foyer of his apartment building and Vin shifts his scope to do a sweep of the surrounding buildings. He clocks two of Mulvaney's lookouts loitering in the doorway three buildings north, and dismisses them nearly as quickly as he spots them; they've been there since the one hour mark and although Vin can see that they're packing he's still confident that he could take them down before they could clear their holsters. Besides, they haven't moved since they first set up -- if they were going to cause trouble, they would have done so while Allen was walking past them. They're here for reconnaissance, same as him, and Vin envies the fact that they're working as a team. Being a lone sniper is fine for the short ops, but he's not looking forward to peeing in a bottle if they don't wrap up this deal within the next few hours.
"South side's clear," he murmurs into his comm, as he brings his scope back to the apartment foyer, back to Ezra standing exposed by the mailboxes and waiting to hear the all clear. Another sweep as Nathan and Buck sound off, and then Ezra is moving to the elevators and Vin shifts his focus up to the big windows of Allen's penthouse. He watches Ezra move unhesitatingly through Allen's life -- sorting mail, draping his jacket over the back of a chair at the breakfast bar, cracking open a bottle of some ridiculous imported water -- and waits until Ezra's moved into the perfect kill shot position before adding (because he can't help himself, he can't, he needs to needle Ezra like he needs air), "The Princess is in the castle."
The brief grimace that crosses Ezra's face -- the closest he can come to flipping Vin off while in cover -- almost makes up for the two hour wait.
"Vin," Chris says in quiet disapproval, and Vin bites down on the inside of his cheek to stifle the joking protest (to stifle the damning explanation) that would normally come on any other op. But Mulvaney is too unpredictable, too prone to outbursts of extreme and explosive violence, and he knows that any real slip of Ezra's cover could cost them more than the five months of painstaking work they've spent building their case.
"Copy," Vin says, instead, and he settles back to sweeping the perimeter, quietly alert for any sign of danger. He doesn't even twitch when Ezra turns on Allen's TV to the golf channel.
("Golf? Really?" he'd asked, back when they'd been spitballing ideas for the Allen cover. "That's as bad as poker."
"Poker is perfectly acceptable sport," Ezra had said, at the same time that Josiah had piped up with, "There are some very interesting things happening in golf right now. Bubba Watson is having an excellent year so far."
"I'm sur--," Ezra had begun to say, somewhat dismissively, before he'd turned to face Josiah squarely and said, incredulously, "Bubba?"
"He's got an excellent long game," Josiah began, and Vin took that as his cue to slip away before he got ensnared in Josiah's enthusiasm.)
*
The bust goes off without a hitch an hour and forty-nine minutes later, and they get Mulvaney into the cuffs without a single shot being fired. The smooth ease with which his team closes down the op disturbs Vin a little -- Team Seven is known for getting results, but they're mostly known for getting those results by regularly causing spectacular explosions and gun fights while in hot pursuit -- and he stays vigilant until he can no longer see the taillights of the transport van -- with both Edward Allen and Thomas Mulvaney securely handcuffed and headed for booking -- in his scope. Once the van is gone, any subsequent fuck up is out of his hands, and he lets go of his focus with a long, drawn out breath. The rush of the world coming back to him is almost overwhelming, and his hands shake a little as he disassembles his gun and packs up his gear; they're still shaking by the time he's unlocked the agency car and stashed his rifle in the lock-box in the trunk. He grimaces, annoyed by the adrenaline that's still spiking through him; annoyed even more by the fact that he's off-center and he can't pinpoint the cause, can't find the cure.
He manages to hold in his annoyance through all the necessary rituals that accompany closing a case: the post-op debrief with Nathan, who sighs very loudly at him when he sees the sunburn on the back of Vin's neck; growling at the computer while he writes his report (the first and only draft of which reads: "spent four hours on rooftop communing with pigeon shit. Annoyed Agent Standish. Did not get to discharge weapon."); taking Chris's absence while he yells at the processing people in an attempt to hurry Ezra through the system as an invitation to steal the bottle from Chris's bottom left hand drawer and drink two fingers of rye with Buck and Josiah and Nathan (but not JD, because JD still thinks a light beer is a proper drink, and they're never wasting good rye whiskey on him again) in celebration of a job magnificently done. He keeps holding it in all the way to the point where JD says, "And I don't think we can get Ezra out of processing before midnight, but Chris said he'd hang around and take Ezra home", which is the point where Vin decides that he's absolutely done.
"I'm going home," he tells the fellas as he hits print on his three sentence field report.
"But it's two-for-one Jäger-bombs at Digger Dave's tonight," Buck says, as if that's highly persuasive argument. Vin rolls his eyes as he grabs his jacket off the back of his chair, because what can he even say to a suggestion like that, and heads for the door. Something of what Vin's feeling must show up on his face, because instead of trying to persuade him like he would on any other night of intentional poor life choices, Buck just sighs and slings an arm around JD's shoulders and says, "You'll still be my wingman, right kid?"
"What about me?" Josiah asks, mock-offended. "I make an excellent wingman."
"Aw hell Josiah, you've already got us banned from Eagle Bend," Buck says, but whatever else he might use in his argument is muffled and lost when Vin lets the bullpen door close behind him. He breathes out, but that naggingly off feeling stays with him.
Vin sighs and heads home.
(It's only as he's making the final turn into Ezra's neighborhood that he realizes that this is where he was always going to end up tonight. It's not home, not by a long shot, but it is where Vin's been spending his nights since Ezra went undercover, and he's man enough to admit that if he has the choice between sleeping on his ancient mattress or at Ezra's, he'll choose Ezra's every time.)
*
"Vin," a flat, Midwestern voice says, far too close to his ear for comfort. Vin startles awake, jerking away from the voice and nearly falling out of his chair. He blinks and squints at the dark form looming over him until, suddenly, the shadows resolve themselves into Ezra -- or, rather, into the tattered remnants of Edward Allen, who still clings to Ezra like a particularly intractable ghost.
"Hey," Vin says, and he stretches out as best he's able to, his back all knotted from falling asleep in one of Ezra's uncomfortable living room chairs. "You're back late."
"Trouble with the paperwork," Ezra says, still with that same flat accent.
"Mmm." Vin pushes himself upright and blinks his way into wakefulness. He's not surprised to feel the same nagging sense of wrongness that's been plaguing him since they wrapped up the op, but he thinks he understands it better now; thinks he knows how to get things back to normal again. He stares at Ezra -- sees him with the same sharp focus as if he was staring through a scope -- and waits until he can feel the valley between his heartbeats, until he can pull forth the patience for the perfect shot.
"Vin?" Ezra asks, and Vin can hear the southern drawl creeping it's way back into Ezra's voice, can see the pinched severity of Allen fade from Ezra's face. "You all right?"
"Hey," Vin says, and he breathes in, breathes out, waits for the lull in his beating heart, "Buck told me it was two-for-one Jägerbombs at Digger Dave's tonight."
"Really," Ezra says, his accent stronger, coating his vowels like golden honey.
"Yeah. And Josiah's his wingman," Vin says, keeping his face as blank as possible until he sees the beginnings of a smirk dancing on the edges of Ezra's mouth. "Reckon it'll be like Eagle Bend all over again."
"Lord." Ezra snorts and shakes his head, and Vin breathes in as he sees the remnants of Edward Allen slough away from Ezra's shoulders. "And you didn't go with?"
"Nah." Vin pushes himself out the chair, knocks his shoulder companionably against Ezra's. "Figured only one of us should end up in booking tonight."
"I suppose," Ezra says, not sounding particularly convinced, as he lets Vin herd him towards the bedroom. "I would like to point out, though, that my arrest tonight was part of a carefully orchestrated government operation, and not because of any sort of alcohol-based decision making."
"'Cept for all that booze that went into agreeing to the op in the first place."
"And you wonder how rumors about our team get started."
"Can't be a rumor if it's true," Vin says, and then he steps in closer, wraps his arms around Ezra and let's his head drop until he's nosing against the short, soft hairs at the nape of Ezra's neck. "Hey," he whispers, "I'm glad you're back."
He feels Ezra shudder, just a little, before he leans into the embrace.
"Yeah," Ezra says. "Me too."
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Line of Sight
Vin's been in place for two hours by the time Ezra shows up, forty-three minutes later than he was supposed to per the op schedule, but right on time per Team Seven's normal operating procedures. He looks disgruntled, and Vin wonders what story Ezra's made up to justify the expression on Edward Allen's face. In the long run it probably doesn't matter much as all of Ezra's covers tend to look disgruntled sooner or later, but it does give Vin something to think about other than the smell of pigeon crap and the ache that's starting to creep into his elbows. Two hours on a rooftop is two hours on a rooftop, and there's no amount of training that will erase the pure physical discomfort of lying still on baking gravel, staring into nothing; best he can do is to retreat into the quietness of his mind, a trick that can do as much bad as good some days. (Today, he reckons, is a good day, because he doesn't feel a desert hovering in the corner of his mind. He thinks watching Ezra plays some part in that, though watching Ezra has it's own pitfalls, only some of which are because it's been nearly two months since they've been able to have more than a quick handjob in the fourth floor utilities closet of Edward Allen's apartment building.)
He tracks Ezra's progress down the street, catalogues the differences in gait and posture that Ezra's adopted to differentiate Allen from himself. Allen is a quiet walker, firm and purposeful, unobtrusive. He strides where Ezra would strut, makes sharply efficient gestures where Ezra would wave his hands widely, flamboyantly, keeps his face still and impassive where Ezra would smirk and flash his fool's gold grin. Even the faces are the subtly different, beyond just the dye that's turned Ezra's hair black; there's nothing about Ezra in Edward Allen, none of the disarming charm that Ezra likes to employ so often, or the sly humor that always seems to lurk just on the edge of Ezra's expressions. The changes are impressive and unnerving, and all at once Vin is struck by a desperate need to see some of Ezra in the stranger he's become.
Edward Allen makes it safely from his car to the foyer of his apartment building and Vin shifts his scope to do a sweep of the surrounding buildings. He clocks two of Mulvaney's lookouts loitering in the doorway three buildings north, and dismisses them nearly as quickly as he spots them; they've been there since the one hour mark and although Vin can see that they're packing he's still confident that he could take them down before they could clear their holsters. Besides, they haven't moved since they first set up -- if they were going to cause trouble, they would have done so while Allen was walking past them. They're here for reconnaissance, same as him, and Vin envies the fact that they're working as a team. Being a lone sniper is fine for the short ops, but he's not looking forward to peeing in a bottle if they don't wrap up this deal within the next few hours.
"South side's clear," he murmurs into his comm, as he brings his scope back to the apartment foyer, back to Ezra standing exposed by the mailboxes and waiting to hear the all clear. Another sweep as Nathan and Buck sound off, and then Ezra is moving to the elevators and Vin shifts his focus up to the big windows of Allen's penthouse. He watches Ezra move unhesitatingly through Allen's life -- sorting mail, draping his jacket over the back of a chair at the breakfast bar, cracking open a bottle of some ridiculous imported water -- and waits until Ezra's moved into the perfect kill shot position before adding (because he can't help himself, he can't, he needs to needle Ezra like he needs air), "The Princess is in the castle."
The brief grimace that crosses Ezra's face -- the closest he can come to flipping Vin off while in cover -- almost makes up for the two hour wait.
"Vin," Chris says in quiet disapproval, and Vin bites down on the inside of his cheek to stifle the joking protest (to stifle the damning explanation) that would normally come on any other op. But Mulvaney is too unpredictable, too prone to outbursts of extreme and explosive violence, and he knows that any real slip of Ezra's cover could cost them more than the five months of painstaking work they've spent building their case.
"Copy," Vin says, instead, and he settles back to sweeping the perimeter, quietly alert for any sign of danger. He doesn't even twitch when Ezra turns on Allen's TV to the golf channel.
("Golf? Really?" he'd asked, back when they'd been spitballing ideas for the Allen cover. "That's as bad as poker."
"Poker is perfectly acceptable sport," Ezra had said, at the same time that Josiah had piped up with, "There are some very interesting things happening in golf right now. Bubba Watson is having an excellent year so far."
"I'm sur--," Ezra had begun to say, somewhat dismissively, before he'd turned to face Josiah squarely and said, incredulously, "Bubba?"
"He's got an excellent long game," Josiah began, and Vin took that as his cue to slip away before he got ensnared in Josiah's enthusiasm.)
*
The bust goes off without a hitch an hour and forty-nine minutes later, and they get Mulvaney into the cuffs without a single shot being fired. The smooth ease with which his team closes down the op disturbs Vin a little -- Team Seven is known for getting results, but they're mostly known for getting those results by regularly causing spectacular explosions and gun fights while in hot pursuit -- and he stays vigilant until he can no longer see the taillights of the transport van -- with both Edward Allen and Thomas Mulvaney securely handcuffed and headed for booking -- in his scope. Once the van is gone, any subsequent fuck up is out of his hands, and he lets go of his focus with a long, drawn out breath. The rush of the world coming back to him is almost overwhelming, and his hands shake a little as he disassembles his gun and packs up his gear; they're still shaking by the time he's unlocked the agency car and stashed his rifle in the lock-box in the trunk. He grimaces, annoyed by the adrenaline that's still spiking through him; annoyed even more by the fact that he's off-center and he can't pinpoint the cause, can't find the cure.
He manages to hold in his annoyance through all the necessary rituals that accompany closing a case: the post-op debrief with Nathan, who sighs very loudly at him when he sees the sunburn on the back of Vin's neck; growling at the computer while he writes his report (the first and only draft of which reads: "spent four hours on rooftop communing with pigeon shit. Annoyed Agent Standish. Did not get to discharge weapon."); taking Chris's absence while he yells at the processing people in an attempt to hurry Ezra through the system as an invitation to steal the bottle from Chris's bottom left hand drawer and drink two fingers of rye with Buck and Josiah and Nathan (but not JD, because JD still thinks a light beer is a proper drink, and they're never wasting good rye whiskey on him again) in celebration of a job magnificently done. He keeps holding it in all the way to the point where JD says, "And I don't think we can get Ezra out of processing before midnight, but Chris said he'd hang around and take Ezra home", which is the point where Vin decides that he's absolutely done.
"I'm going home," he tells the fellas as he hits print on his three sentence field report.
"But it's two-for-one Jäger-bombs at Digger Dave's tonight," Buck says, as if that's highly persuasive argument. Vin rolls his eyes as he grabs his jacket off the back of his chair, because what can he even say to a suggestion like that, and heads for the door. Something of what Vin's feeling must show up on his face, because instead of trying to persuade him like he would on any other night of intentional poor life choices, Buck just sighs and slings an arm around JD's shoulders and says, "You'll still be my wingman, right kid?"
"What about me?" Josiah asks, mock-offended. "I make an excellent wingman."
"Aw hell Josiah, you've already got us banned from Eagle Bend," Buck says, but whatever else he might use in his argument is muffled and lost when Vin lets the bullpen door close behind him. He breathes out, but that naggingly off feeling stays with him.
Vin sighs and heads home.
(It's only as he's making the final turn into Ezra's neighborhood that he realizes that this is where he was always going to end up tonight. It's not home, not by a long shot, but it is where Vin's been spending his nights since Ezra went undercover, and he's man enough to admit that if he has the choice between sleeping on his ancient mattress or at Ezra's, he'll choose Ezra's every time.)
*
"Vin," a flat, Midwestern voice says, far too close to his ear for comfort. Vin startles awake, jerking away from the voice and nearly falling out of his chair. He blinks and squints at the dark form looming over him until, suddenly, the shadows resolve themselves into Ezra -- or, rather, into the tattered remnants of Edward Allen, who still clings to Ezra like a particularly intractable ghost.
"Hey," Vin says, and he stretches out as best he's able to, his back all knotted from falling asleep in one of Ezra's uncomfortable living room chairs. "You're back late."
"Trouble with the paperwork," Ezra says, still with that same flat accent.
"Mmm." Vin pushes himself upright and blinks his way into wakefulness. He's not surprised to feel the same nagging sense of wrongness that's been plaguing him since they wrapped up the op, but he thinks he understands it better now; thinks he knows how to get things back to normal again. He stares at Ezra -- sees him with the same sharp focus as if he was staring through a scope -- and waits until he can feel the valley between his heartbeats, until he can pull forth the patience for the perfect shot.
"Vin?" Ezra asks, and Vin can hear the southern drawl creeping it's way back into Ezra's voice, can see the pinched severity of Allen fade from Ezra's face. "You all right?"
"Hey," Vin says, and he breathes in, breathes out, waits for the lull in his beating heart, "Buck told me it was two-for-one Jägerbombs at Digger Dave's tonight."
"Really," Ezra says, his accent stronger, coating his vowels like golden honey.
"Yeah. And Josiah's his wingman," Vin says, keeping his face as blank as possible until he sees the beginnings of a smirk dancing on the edges of Ezra's mouth. "Reckon it'll be like Eagle Bend all over again."
"Lord." Ezra snorts and shakes his head, and Vin breathes in as he sees the remnants of Edward Allen slough away from Ezra's shoulders. "And you didn't go with?"
"Nah." Vin pushes himself out the chair, knocks his shoulder companionably against Ezra's. "Figured only one of us should end up in booking tonight."
"I suppose," Ezra says, not sounding particularly convinced, as he lets Vin herd him towards the bedroom. "I would like to point out, though, that my arrest tonight was part of a carefully orchestrated government operation, and not because of any sort of alcohol-based decision making."
"'Cept for all that booze that went into agreeing to the op in the first place."
"And you wonder how rumors about our team get started."
"Can't be a rumor if it's true," Vin says, and then he steps in closer, wraps his arms around Ezra and let's his head drop until he's nosing against the short, soft hairs at the nape of Ezra's neck. "Hey," he whispers, "I'm glad you're back."
He feels Ezra shudder, just a little, before he leans into the embrace.
"Yeah," Ezra says. "Me too."
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth where there are
comments