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storypaint) wrote2010-03-02 02:11 pm
storypaint) wrote2010-03-02 02:11 pm
[Magic Knight Rayearth] The Breath Against My Neck (Ignis/Eclat)
Title: The Warm Breath Against My Neck
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth [Mafia AU]
Length: 2594 words
Prompt: n/a
Pairing: Ignis/Eclat (male OCs) & Clef gen
Other: There is no excuse for this. Way precanon to The Sharp Edge of Your Smile. Ignis and Eclat are actually the names that Chi and I gave to the Pharle and Guru before Presea and Clef, so when we started talking about how Clef got into the business, this happened. PG-13 for dark themes.
Excerpt: He'd been with Eclat for almost fifteen years now, but had met Eclat's last business partner only once, when the two of them had turned up on the doorstep on a dark night that was pouring rain. The woman had been clutching her stomach in hopes that her organs would all stay in place, and she hadn't been very talkative.
Ignis sat down to start work and immediately Eclat came home. Or that's how it felt to him, anyway. He'd gotten engrossed in his current project and totally shut out everything else, which was a bad habit of his. His coffee was congealed to the cup and totally undrinkable, but he grimaced and finished it anyway before getting to his feet and stretching, feeling his joints pop and his muscles protest from lack of use. He'd set up Outlook reminders, one an hour, so he'd remember to get up and take a walk around their apartment; in his focus, he'd simply hit snooze until there were eight of them, all lined up in a row. His stomach rumbled and he saved his program before shutting off the laptop and wandering into the kitchen to see what his partner was doing. Normally Eclat came straight through to the living room to scold his work habits and sprawl out across Ignis's lap, demanding a footrub. Ignis thought of him like him like a cat in that way-- if they had one, it would demand his attention in much the same manner.
"Hey--" he began, but paused, perplexed, because Eclat wasn't alone, and it wasn't as if he had the sort of job where one brought friends home. He'd been with Eclat for almost fifteen years now, but had met Eclat's last business partner only once, when the two of them had turned up on the doorstep on a dark night that was pouring rain. The woman had been clutching her stomach in hopes that her organs would all stay in place, and she hadn't been very talkative.
"If I hadn't come here, she would have died," Eclat said grimly as she bled all over the hall carpet. He was focused, serious, his hand gentle on her shoulder, and Ignis had responded to his unusual demeanor the best he could, calling an ambulance and sitting with the two of them in the bathroom. Eclat had one hand in hers and with the other he clutched Ignis's arm, almost hard enough to bruise, but Ignis didn't say anything about it as the woman sat in their bathtub and bled out before the ambulance came. Eclat had never even told Ignis her name.
Eclat never brought coworkers home, and this person was much too small to be one, anyway. Ignis pegged the kid as ten, maybe twelve on the outside, and one thing about being gay was that one didn't tend to acquire children unexpectedly, especially not preteens with sullen looks on their face. He lifted an eyebrow.
"Ignis, this is Clef," Eclat said, mouthing something over the boy's head-- "Be nice," Ignis assumed. Ignis leaned down and ruffled the kid's hair.
"Nice to meet you, Clef," he said. The boy scowled furiously.
"Don't touch me," he said, turning his back and clutching at his sleeve. Clef was wearing a t-shirt three sizes too large for him and it hung in a manner emphasizing his skinny frame. Ignis looked up at Eclat and lifted his eyebrows again.
"I was thinking about making chicken for dinner," Eclat said, ignoring the boy's outburst. "I think Clef could use a bath and you--" he leaned up to kiss Ignis's cheek, to show he wasn't annoyed at him for misunderstanding, "probably want to take a run, don't you?"
Ignis did. He loved his job but certainly did not love how sedentary it was. And maybe a good run would be all he needed to fix the particular section of code he was arguing with at the moment. So he threw on a pair of sweatpants and left Clef and Eclat in the kitchen, where the boy was having an impromptu knife lesson before his shower. In the back of his mind Ignis hoped Eclat wasn't showing Clef everything he could do with a kitchen knife. Surely, surely, this kid wasn't going to join the business?
Well, the side of the business that Eclat was in. Ignis did not judge his partner-- he just didn't. He didn't want to go around killing people himself, but that was Eclat's business. A lot of people would take umbrage with what Ignis did for a living, which was mostly crack credit card and bank websites (under the same employer as Eclat, though he was billed as a consultant to Cephiro LLC). He liked the challenge and also thought it was a good lesson for the banks-- no website was secure when he was around, he always boasted.
And it wasn't like either of them had many employment options. Mr. Pillar's people had taken him on after he got out of jail the second time (because becoming the best hacker ever had a dangerous learning curve). No one else wanted to employ him, but the Mafia gave good health insurance and decent bonuses. He'd met Eclat due to one of Eclat's ex-boyfriends, whom Eclat still referred to as the "dead roses guy." When he'd found out what it was exactly that Eclat did for a living, it had amused him that Eclat had borrowed him for muscle. Ignis was tall and buff, sure, but he was certain Eclat could take him in a fight without even sweating. Of course, the dead roses guy didn't know that, and the ruse had amused Ignis enough that he called Eclat when Eclat offered his phone number.
It was all just work, and the two of them kept work and home as separate as possible. Ignis turned off the laptop when Eclat came home for the day, and Eclat laundered his own blood-spattered laundry. He also slept with a revolver in easy reach, but Ignis always had his smartphone in the same range, so he couldn't really complain. They were happy, for the most part, just like everyone else.
They'd never even talked about children, though. Ignis liked kids, but only in small doses, so he stuck to being an uncle to their friends' children. Eclat had never seemed particularly interested in anyone under the age of twenty.
He had a good run, pounding his confusion into the pavement, and when he came back, Clef was freshly washed and wearing something that belonged to Eclat, which fit slightly better. After Ignis took a quick shower, the three of them ate together. The boy said nothing while Eclat and Ignis laughed and spoke. He just watched Ignis tease and Eclat pout as if he'd never seen anything like it before. Maybe he'd never met gay partners, Ignis thought. Even in this day and age, when the idea of two men living together caused little more than a raised eyebrow in most circles, a lot of kids weren't exposed to non-heterosexuals, simply due to the dominance of heterosexuality in their culture.
Eclat was patient with the boy, seemingly determined to bring him out of his shell. Clef helped Eclat dry the dishes without any protest, but any conversational gambits that the man tried soon ran dry. Eclat pressed on. Clef said nothing. Finally, Eclat grew quiet as well, and it was in silence that they all watched the news together, Eclat's feet in Ignis's lap and Clef opting to sit on the floor, even when Eclat offered him a chair.
They made the boy a makeshift bed on the couch, gave him an extra toothbrush, and finally went off to their own bed.
"So?" Ignis asked finally. It lacked class, but it did have the advantage of getting straight to the point. Eclat looked up from shucking off his pants and put on that guarded look that Ignis remembered from the day that woman had bled to death. So this was work-related.
"He's fifteen," Eclat said first. Ignis blinked in surprise.
"I know, I was surprised too. But that's not the point. He's just a kid, but he's one of her projects."
"Her" would be Emeraude, scarcely older than Clef herself, but already her father's right-hand lieutenant. One didn't often see Mr. Pillar, not anymore, but Emeraude represented his wishes with firmness, if inexperience. Apparently she'd begun to have her own ideas on the side. Ignis frowned at the idea, and Eclat mirrored his expression.
"I'm supposed to train him. He has a twin sister, you see. Emeraude has a theory that closely-bonded partners will work together best-- no chance of betrayal."
His eyes flickered across Ignis's face, and then he looked down and finished changing. After a moment, still staring at the floor, he continued, "I told her that if she tried to get you to work with me, I'd shoot myself."
His tone was flat as he spoke. Ignis felt like his dinner was going to come up again. He stared at Eclat, willing him to look up and meet his eyes, but Eclat just turned and got into bed, his movements deliberate and slow. He lay back and threw his arm across his eyes.
"So she found these two, Clef and his sister. No parents. I don't really know what she offered them-- probably a way out of the orphanage in exchange for their services. Neither Clef nor Emeraude would tell me. But here we are, a week later, and she tells me he's tried to run away from his hotel three times already, and there's no sign of the sister. She asked me to take care of him."
Eclat was still speaking in that careful neutral tone, but when Ignis joined him in the bed, Eclat curled around the bigger man and pressed his face into his neck. Ignis wrapped his arms around Eclat and just held him.
"He got her out somehow," Eclat continued, his voice now tinged with faint admiration. "Smart kid. But he hates this. He's a decent shot on the range, but he never talks and he's so angry all the time. You can't take anger into a career like ours or you won't stop killing when you should. And the only solution to that is one more murder." He laughed humorlessly.
"Usually that's what she means when she asks me to take care of things. But I went to visit him. It was a nice hotel but he just sat in the corner and scowled at anyone who came near. I thought that bringing him here-- it might help."
Eclat stopped speaking then, like he was finally out of words. Ignis didn't respond for a moment, though, tangling his hand in Eclat's hair. Eclat pressed into the touch, digging his nails into Ignis's back, still pressed against him for comfort.
"I hope it does," Ignis said finally. He wasn't sure that what to think of Clef, but he was a big believer in second chances. The kid watched-- he paid attention. That meant he could learn. And he had something to live for, too, Ignis thought. That might be the deciding factor. Having someone to come home to, even just in your mind, could mean a lot.
Eclat smiled against his skin. "Are you excited about becoming a papa?" he teased. Ignis laughed quietly, conscious of the boy's presence in the next room. Or, chances were, the boy with his ear pressed to their door. Eclat did say he was smart.
"I think I want a paternity test," he answered, and Eclat bit his ear. The ensuing scuffle resolved itself in sex, and if the boy was smart he really would have gone to sleep by now.
*
And so, in fits and starts, the two of them became three. It worked better than Ignis had expected, though the boy was never bright or outgoing. It just seemed to be his personality.
He left only once, two days after his first job concluded. He was back within the week, as Eclat was reluctantly preparing for a chase that would have broken all of their hearts. A good thing he had waited, then. Ignis slept well that night for the first time in days.
The next week, the first letter came, addressed in a small fine hand. Clef kept it with him at all times, as if he expected the two of them to try to read it while he was gone. They wouldn't have dared anything more than what they actually did, which was exchange fond glances over Clef's head (he'd never grown any taller, though he had filled out a little). In any case, Clef was a little happier then.
The kitchen door swung open and Ignis lifted his laptop just in time to save it from Eclat's sprawl across his knees.
"You didn't make dinner?" he whined. Ignis set the computer on Eclat's back and returned to typing.
"I never make dinner," he said, as if that should be obvious. It was true; after Ignis used the iron to make grilled cheese, he was banned from feeding other people. Still, Eclat always asked the question.
"It's my turn," Clef mentioned, poking his head in before turning around and wrestling with kitchen implements.
"Hey," Ignis said to Eclat, still typing, "does your bank account number still end in 3570?" Eclat blinked.
"Yes," he answered, and then twisted around so that Ignis had to pick up his laptop again; still, he was grinning in triumph. "You didn't hack my bank again, Ignis, did you? They're really beginning to think I have something to do with that!" he whined.
"You do, sort of," Ignis answered cheerfully. "Don't worry, you won't even notice."
"Just like the time you changed my total balance to "$306.17 and one pie"? I noticed that, Ignis. It took them forever to decide on the monetary value of the pie." Eclat scowled, but Ignis kept grinning.
"Not stupid pie, delicious pie," Ignis began.
"It's your turn to do the dishes, though," Clef said in tones of mild reproach, looking into the living room again at his father figures sprawled across the couch.
"Fine, fine," Ignis said, heaving a dramatic sigh of his own. He rose from the couch, thereby dumping Eclat in the floor. Eclat protested, but hey, couldn't he expect an assassin to have better reflexes than that?
So he wandered into the kitchen with said whiny assassin clutching to his waist, and did the dishes while Clef made more. The late summer sun shone over the three of them, capturing what might have been a normal family about their business.
*
When, a few months later, the illusion popped like a soap bubble, it was this memory that Ignis looked back on the most. He held Clef's shoulder at Eclat's funeral and remembered how they'd laughed (and Eclat had screamed) when he'd threatened to add pi ("You know, the irrational number this time!" he'd said with a grin) to Eclat's savings.
The thought made him smile, just a little, even if going home to an empty bed was the hardest thing he'd ever done.
Fifteen years together hadn't been enough; a lifetime wouldn't have been enough. But they'd had a little time in which to be happy.
So Ignis hacked Twitter to give his partner a proper goodbye (he felt that Eclat would really have approved of all the sparkles), and life sort of went on, new, for a while.
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth [Mafia AU]
Length: 2594 words
Prompt: n/a
Pairing: Ignis/Eclat (male OCs) & Clef gen
Other: There is no excuse for this. Way precanon to The Sharp Edge of Your Smile. Ignis and Eclat are actually the names that Chi and I gave to the Pharle and Guru before Presea and Clef, so when we started talking about how Clef got into the business, this happened. PG-13 for dark themes.
Excerpt: He'd been with Eclat for almost fifteen years now, but had met Eclat's last business partner only once, when the two of them had turned up on the doorstep on a dark night that was pouring rain. The woman had been clutching her stomach in hopes that her organs would all stay in place, and she hadn't been very talkative.
Ignis sat down to start work and immediately Eclat came home. Or that's how it felt to him, anyway. He'd gotten engrossed in his current project and totally shut out everything else, which was a bad habit of his. His coffee was congealed to the cup and totally undrinkable, but he grimaced and finished it anyway before getting to his feet and stretching, feeling his joints pop and his muscles protest from lack of use. He'd set up Outlook reminders, one an hour, so he'd remember to get up and take a walk around their apartment; in his focus, he'd simply hit snooze until there were eight of them, all lined up in a row. His stomach rumbled and he saved his program before shutting off the laptop and wandering into the kitchen to see what his partner was doing. Normally Eclat came straight through to the living room to scold his work habits and sprawl out across Ignis's lap, demanding a footrub. Ignis thought of him like him like a cat in that way-- if they had one, it would demand his attention in much the same manner.
"Hey--" he began, but paused, perplexed, because Eclat wasn't alone, and it wasn't as if he had the sort of job where one brought friends home. He'd been with Eclat for almost fifteen years now, but had met Eclat's last business partner only once, when the two of them had turned up on the doorstep on a dark night that was pouring rain. The woman had been clutching her stomach in hopes that her organs would all stay in place, and she hadn't been very talkative.
"If I hadn't come here, she would have died," Eclat said grimly as she bled all over the hall carpet. He was focused, serious, his hand gentle on her shoulder, and Ignis had responded to his unusual demeanor the best he could, calling an ambulance and sitting with the two of them in the bathroom. Eclat had one hand in hers and with the other he clutched Ignis's arm, almost hard enough to bruise, but Ignis didn't say anything about it as the woman sat in their bathtub and bled out before the ambulance came. Eclat had never even told Ignis her name.
Eclat never brought coworkers home, and this person was much too small to be one, anyway. Ignis pegged the kid as ten, maybe twelve on the outside, and one thing about being gay was that one didn't tend to acquire children unexpectedly, especially not preteens with sullen looks on their face. He lifted an eyebrow.
"Ignis, this is Clef," Eclat said, mouthing something over the boy's head-- "Be nice," Ignis assumed. Ignis leaned down and ruffled the kid's hair.
"Nice to meet you, Clef," he said. The boy scowled furiously.
"Don't touch me," he said, turning his back and clutching at his sleeve. Clef was wearing a t-shirt three sizes too large for him and it hung in a manner emphasizing his skinny frame. Ignis looked up at Eclat and lifted his eyebrows again.
"I was thinking about making chicken for dinner," Eclat said, ignoring the boy's outburst. "I think Clef could use a bath and you--" he leaned up to kiss Ignis's cheek, to show he wasn't annoyed at him for misunderstanding, "probably want to take a run, don't you?"
Ignis did. He loved his job but certainly did not love how sedentary it was. And maybe a good run would be all he needed to fix the particular section of code he was arguing with at the moment. So he threw on a pair of sweatpants and left Clef and Eclat in the kitchen, where the boy was having an impromptu knife lesson before his shower. In the back of his mind Ignis hoped Eclat wasn't showing Clef everything he could do with a kitchen knife. Surely, surely, this kid wasn't going to join the business?
Well, the side of the business that Eclat was in. Ignis did not judge his partner-- he just didn't. He didn't want to go around killing people himself, but that was Eclat's business. A lot of people would take umbrage with what Ignis did for a living, which was mostly crack credit card and bank websites (under the same employer as Eclat, though he was billed as a consultant to Cephiro LLC). He liked the challenge and also thought it was a good lesson for the banks-- no website was secure when he was around, he always boasted.
And it wasn't like either of them had many employment options. Mr. Pillar's people had taken him on after he got out of jail the second time (because becoming the best hacker ever had a dangerous learning curve). No one else wanted to employ him, but the Mafia gave good health insurance and decent bonuses. He'd met Eclat due to one of Eclat's ex-boyfriends, whom Eclat still referred to as the "dead roses guy." When he'd found out what it was exactly that Eclat did for a living, it had amused him that Eclat had borrowed him for muscle. Ignis was tall and buff, sure, but he was certain Eclat could take him in a fight without even sweating. Of course, the dead roses guy didn't know that, and the ruse had amused Ignis enough that he called Eclat when Eclat offered his phone number.
It was all just work, and the two of them kept work and home as separate as possible. Ignis turned off the laptop when Eclat came home for the day, and Eclat laundered his own blood-spattered laundry. He also slept with a revolver in easy reach, but Ignis always had his smartphone in the same range, so he couldn't really complain. They were happy, for the most part, just like everyone else.
They'd never even talked about children, though. Ignis liked kids, but only in small doses, so he stuck to being an uncle to their friends' children. Eclat had never seemed particularly interested in anyone under the age of twenty.
He had a good run, pounding his confusion into the pavement, and when he came back, Clef was freshly washed and wearing something that belonged to Eclat, which fit slightly better. After Ignis took a quick shower, the three of them ate together. The boy said nothing while Eclat and Ignis laughed and spoke. He just watched Ignis tease and Eclat pout as if he'd never seen anything like it before. Maybe he'd never met gay partners, Ignis thought. Even in this day and age, when the idea of two men living together caused little more than a raised eyebrow in most circles, a lot of kids weren't exposed to non-heterosexuals, simply due to the dominance of heterosexuality in their culture.
Eclat was patient with the boy, seemingly determined to bring him out of his shell. Clef helped Eclat dry the dishes without any protest, but any conversational gambits that the man tried soon ran dry. Eclat pressed on. Clef said nothing. Finally, Eclat grew quiet as well, and it was in silence that they all watched the news together, Eclat's feet in Ignis's lap and Clef opting to sit on the floor, even when Eclat offered him a chair.
They made the boy a makeshift bed on the couch, gave him an extra toothbrush, and finally went off to their own bed.
"So?" Ignis asked finally. It lacked class, but it did have the advantage of getting straight to the point. Eclat looked up from shucking off his pants and put on that guarded look that Ignis remembered from the day that woman had bled to death. So this was work-related.
"He's fifteen," Eclat said first. Ignis blinked in surprise.
"I know, I was surprised too. But that's not the point. He's just a kid, but he's one of her projects."
"Her" would be Emeraude, scarcely older than Clef herself, but already her father's right-hand lieutenant. One didn't often see Mr. Pillar, not anymore, but Emeraude represented his wishes with firmness, if inexperience. Apparently she'd begun to have her own ideas on the side. Ignis frowned at the idea, and Eclat mirrored his expression.
"I'm supposed to train him. He has a twin sister, you see. Emeraude has a theory that closely-bonded partners will work together best-- no chance of betrayal."
His eyes flickered across Ignis's face, and then he looked down and finished changing. After a moment, still staring at the floor, he continued, "I told her that if she tried to get you to work with me, I'd shoot myself."
His tone was flat as he spoke. Ignis felt like his dinner was going to come up again. He stared at Eclat, willing him to look up and meet his eyes, but Eclat just turned and got into bed, his movements deliberate and slow. He lay back and threw his arm across his eyes.
"So she found these two, Clef and his sister. No parents. I don't really know what she offered them-- probably a way out of the orphanage in exchange for their services. Neither Clef nor Emeraude would tell me. But here we are, a week later, and she tells me he's tried to run away from his hotel three times already, and there's no sign of the sister. She asked me to take care of him."
Eclat was still speaking in that careful neutral tone, but when Ignis joined him in the bed, Eclat curled around the bigger man and pressed his face into his neck. Ignis wrapped his arms around Eclat and just held him.
"He got her out somehow," Eclat continued, his voice now tinged with faint admiration. "Smart kid. But he hates this. He's a decent shot on the range, but he never talks and he's so angry all the time. You can't take anger into a career like ours or you won't stop killing when you should. And the only solution to that is one more murder." He laughed humorlessly.
"Usually that's what she means when she asks me to take care of things. But I went to visit him. It was a nice hotel but he just sat in the corner and scowled at anyone who came near. I thought that bringing him here-- it might help."
Eclat stopped speaking then, like he was finally out of words. Ignis didn't respond for a moment, though, tangling his hand in Eclat's hair. Eclat pressed into the touch, digging his nails into Ignis's back, still pressed against him for comfort.
"I hope it does," Ignis said finally. He wasn't sure that what to think of Clef, but he was a big believer in second chances. The kid watched-- he paid attention. That meant he could learn. And he had something to live for, too, Ignis thought. That might be the deciding factor. Having someone to come home to, even just in your mind, could mean a lot.
Eclat smiled against his skin. "Are you excited about becoming a papa?" he teased. Ignis laughed quietly, conscious of the boy's presence in the next room. Or, chances were, the boy with his ear pressed to their door. Eclat did say he was smart.
"I think I want a paternity test," he answered, and Eclat bit his ear. The ensuing scuffle resolved itself in sex, and if the boy was smart he really would have gone to sleep by now.
*
And so, in fits and starts, the two of them became three. It worked better than Ignis had expected, though the boy was never bright or outgoing. It just seemed to be his personality.
He left only once, two days after his first job concluded. He was back within the week, as Eclat was reluctantly preparing for a chase that would have broken all of their hearts. A good thing he had waited, then. Ignis slept well that night for the first time in days.
The next week, the first letter came, addressed in a small fine hand. Clef kept it with him at all times, as if he expected the two of them to try to read it while he was gone. They wouldn't have dared anything more than what they actually did, which was exchange fond glances over Clef's head (he'd never grown any taller, though he had filled out a little). In any case, Clef was a little happier then.
The kitchen door swung open and Ignis lifted his laptop just in time to save it from Eclat's sprawl across his knees.
"You didn't make dinner?" he whined. Ignis set the computer on Eclat's back and returned to typing.
"I never make dinner," he said, as if that should be obvious. It was true; after Ignis used the iron to make grilled cheese, he was banned from feeding other people. Still, Eclat always asked the question.
"It's my turn," Clef mentioned, poking his head in before turning around and wrestling with kitchen implements.
"Hey," Ignis said to Eclat, still typing, "does your bank account number still end in 3570?" Eclat blinked.
"Yes," he answered, and then twisted around so that Ignis had to pick up his laptop again; still, he was grinning in triumph. "You didn't hack my bank again, Ignis, did you? They're really beginning to think I have something to do with that!" he whined.
"You do, sort of," Ignis answered cheerfully. "Don't worry, you won't even notice."
"Just like the time you changed my total balance to "$306.17 and one pie"? I noticed that, Ignis. It took them forever to decide on the monetary value of the pie." Eclat scowled, but Ignis kept grinning.
"Not stupid pie, delicious pie," Ignis began.
"It's your turn to do the dishes, though," Clef said in tones of mild reproach, looking into the living room again at his father figures sprawled across the couch.
"Fine, fine," Ignis said, heaving a dramatic sigh of his own. He rose from the couch, thereby dumping Eclat in the floor. Eclat protested, but hey, couldn't he expect an assassin to have better reflexes than that?
So he wandered into the kitchen with said whiny assassin clutching to his waist, and did the dishes while Clef made more. The late summer sun shone over the three of them, capturing what might have been a normal family about their business.
*
When, a few months later, the illusion popped like a soap bubble, it was this memory that Ignis looked back on the most. He held Clef's shoulder at Eclat's funeral and remembered how they'd laughed (and Eclat had screamed) when he'd threatened to add pi ("You know, the irrational number this time!" he'd said with a grin) to Eclat's savings.
The thought made him smile, just a little, even if going home to an empty bed was the hardest thing he'd ever done.
Fifteen years together hadn't been enough; a lifetime wouldn't have been enough. But they'd had a little time in which to be happy.
So Ignis hacked Twitter to give his partner a proper goodbye (he felt that Eclat would really have approved of all the sparkles), and life sort of went on, new, for a while.