Exodus
Title: ExodusFandom: Kuroshitsuji AU: Mafia.
Author:
write_rewrite
Rating: PG-13.
Pairings: Grell/Angelina/Joseph.
Warnings: None.
Notes: For naoki_hime partly; mostly, because I liked the idea of Grell and Joseph working as unofficial partners, though it wasn't well described here.
Summary: Something is after them again.
In the windy grounds of the mansion, nestled within a growing storm, the only patch of solace was the red-brick house with its amber windows and the sounds it contained within - in the neatly-kept acres of the mansion's land, the bareness of the ground provided neither a place to hide nor one to shelter in. If it started raining, they'd have a hell of a run before they reached the house. Be soaked once they got there.
Grell walked ahead of him, and at his side, the large, growling dogs - wolf dogs with shiny, salt and pepper coats - gambolled around his legs like young lambs, yipping playfully.
Joseph grinned, quickening his pace to take Grell's arm, at the warning of one of the behemoth mutts.
"Down, Lycidas," Grell ordered, and Joseph's grin widened.
"... Lycidas? What, was Killer or Ares not special enough?" Playfully, Joseph nudged him with his shoulder, watched his body wobble on the sloping ground, though Grell's impeccable balance did not betray him yet.
The spy turned. His red hair brought out the grey, pallid colour of the clouds further; the taste of the rain on his tongue seemed to accentuate the air around Grell, unsettled and tense from friction and restlessness; it seemed to feed the growing storm, until a chord of distant thunder rippled over them.
"The other one's name is Adonais," Grell informed him, wild grin lit by the lightning.
Joseph laughed, but the sound went awry, and they kept walking down the trimmed path. Overripe briar rose bushes had their petals torn off by the wind, swirled in a pink tornado around them, and the bobbing heads of bluebells and snapdragons ducked nearly to the ground to avoid it. Joseph's hair whipped around his face, slinging across his jaw, his skin, water-like. The dogs barked louder at the storm, chasing the scattering petals.
In the distance, the lake adjoined to the property was piled high with hiding ducks, yellow blobs of colour, snuggled tight against the wet bank and the smooth rocks. Joseph turned his head to look back at the house, half a mile away and warm in spite of the weather, and walked on with Grell.
"Where are you going after this mission's done?" Joseph tucked an arm around Grell, his fingers hooking around the spy's gloved ones, "you were tasked with infiltrating the East, right? Getting some of our men out?"
"Aye, and with that blasted wall, it's a pain in the arse - I managed it, though. Heard rumours I'm going to Vietnam next."
Neither one of them winced, though the mood dropped.
Grell stopped still, suddenly, and stared off to the right, his head tipped just a few degrees. Joseph followed his line of sight; the barking dogs were far off in the storm, terrorizing the ducks, and there in the tall grass, there so close to their heaven, their safety, was the feral glint of metal and the sheen of lightning on glass.
"Sniper!" Joseph rammed Grell to the ground, covering him with his body as the shot whistled above their heads - before he'd registered the action, Grell was already pulling the handgun loose from his holster, taking aim and shooting as the sniper readjusted his sight, and then Grell rolled, pulling him along until Joseph was on the bottom and he was curved on top of him like a preying lion, peering out at the fallen man.
The sniper was sprawled down the hill, and his gun lay in the grass, puddle-like.
And then the wolves came.
Black shadows swept from behind rocks and behind bushes, from trees and tangled leaves, from parked cars - there were six men, seven at least; maybe ten if there were more below, next to the lake. Grell fired twice, the gun jumping in his hand, and killed two before he handed the gun back to Joseph.
The familiar weight of his gun fit neatly to his hand; he twisted to put Grell beneath him and shot as the spy threw knives, distracted the ones behind him long enough for him to turn and shoot them - he could not see their faces when they fell but their voices were distinctly Eastern, rough as growls, with an accent that mangled what they said.
When they lay on the ground, Grell scrambled to his feet and moved to the closest one. He kicked him over, patting his chest down with gloved hands, searcing for ID or, at the very least, papers - but there were neither. Then, standing, and taking his hand, Grell ran towards the house, towards peace, which may have been compromised.
. . .
It was settled that Angelina would take the children and run; Joseph would accompany them as chauffeur, becuase they couldn't trust the car outside, and Grell would come along after phoning Alan.
Angelina pulled Lissy's coat tight around her and tucked Mattie closer against her heart, layering the blanket over his young face. The worry had subsided from her expression; she looked, Joseph thought, rather like what he'd always imagined the wife of a spy to look like - beautiful and determined and strong, and just a tad ferocious in the way that she gritted her teeth, the way her eyes flashed, the way she kept he children close.
Grell passed her a packet of throwing knives and kissed her goodbye, and murmured something fond and soft and sweet that had tears glinting in her eyes.
"Take my gun," Joseph insisted, and pressed the handgun into her hand; turned away when she tried to give it back.
Grell crouched to hug his daughter, and she buried her face in the side of her father's neck, giggling and softly chiding, her little fingers winding Grell's hair like it was pieces of ribbon or string; her big green eyes, so like her father's, seeking out Joseph's - they were bright and playful, oblivious to what had happened. Everything was an adventure to Lissy. She'd always been a happy, imaginative child. With luck, that would never change.
When Grell released her, she came running over to him for a hug, and he knelt and picked her up, and heard her whisper against his neck - "Daddy says we're going to play hide and seek!" - and managed a chuckle. It was the kind of thing that they would have told them - they'd agreed on it before. When Angie had had the children, he remembered standing at the bedside with him, discussing how to raise the children.
Fathers. Better than Grell's father, better than his own.
"Yeah, and we can't let anyone see us, Lissy; and if someone looks at us for too long, you tell me, okay? I'll tell you the rules of the game when we get to my house." The house he'd grown up in, that had never been opened - nobody knew where it was. They couldn't risk people waiting for them to get to Rachel's home, or to one of Grell's other homes. If they'd come here, they'd known where the rest were.
"We should go - come on, Lissy, let's go--" Angelina gave her husband a look, too complex for Joseph to analyze, and they left.
He lingered long enough to give Grell a soft kiss on the forehead, and followed behind them, adjusting his chauffeur's cap.
. . .
In the light of their absence, Grell phoned Alan, and received one busy signal, and he phoned William, who told him that Ronald had been shot and he couldn't really talk too much, but that they had business to discuss. He phoned his new partner and told him he was taking leave, though his partner was at some party or another and he'd probably not heard a word he'd said.
Then, he'd wandered around the house and memorized the way it look - he memorized the stove, and the burn marks on the counters from where Angelina had tried her hand at making (albeit tasty) muffins, and he memorized the table Lissy sat at with the cook after dinner and listened to her folktales - he moved to the living room, and remembered teaching piano and violin, and Joseph smoking his pipe by the window, Angelina knitting a pair of little booties for their children with the swell of her belly strong beneath the white lace of her embroidered frock.
He went upstairs and rearranged the children's toys in the messy, scattered way they liked them best; and he went to their bedroom, and saw, as though it was happening there and then, the way the three of them had made love when the children were asleep, heard the ghost of Angie's voice demanding more attention, the whispering laughter from Joseph when his wife conned them both into her games.
Closing the door silently behind him, Grell went dowstairs, checking that he had everything - knives, a never-used gun, one of his passports underneath a different alias - and still couldn't leave.
He sat down on one of the kitchen chairs (with a gnawed on leg, from when Lycidas was still a puppy) and drew out a knife.
Bending forwards, he began to slice off his hair.