#answ.

“uh huh.” rebecca used to be patching up cops all day, back in stars. she’s heard her share of macho crap — just a scratch, barely felt it, take care of someone who needs it. you should see the other guy. she’s heard this one too, but never in such a defeated tone. like stating a fact, rather than a boast. turning back to the machines monitoring leon’s heart rate, “from what i hear, the ‘other guy’ is inside you.” hastily amending, because she’d heard how it sounded far too late — “…inside your chest, i mean. i’ve seen your x-rays, that’s all i was trying to say.”

he doesn’t look well. she’s seen the scans of the strange parasite inside his chest. it had piqued her curiosity, even when the government agents sent to escort her here wouldn’t actually answer any of her questions. he looks just like anyone else — any other soldier, any other man in a bad situation, bracing for the worst. his wrist is cuffed to the bed, she notes. because they’re worried about the parasite taking control? or for another reason? who the heck is leon kennedy?

"my apologies." his smile is an oil slick, smarmily polite. jd takes another drag of his cigarette, takes the opportunity to examine the girl standing before him. surely one of the infamous yellowjackets, the town of wiskayok's very own national sob story. "i didn't mean to offend."

he's seen their faces on the news, surely, but didn't take much note of it. in the photos, they look like any other teenage girls. they were all the town could talk about when jd first moved to new jersey, their precious soccer champions, disappeared without a trace. as if the earth swallowed them whole. and then, miracle of miracles, here they are again, a year and a half later. some of them, anyway.

jd turns his gaze up to the statue again. jackie taylor, wiskayok's very own golden calf. seems a little tacky, to only immortalize one girl in stone when he's pretty sure there were others who died out there, but what does he know? maybe death doesn't turn everyone into saints. maybe it's only girls like jackie taylor, team captains with perfectly coiffed hair, that the town wants to remember.

something about his words. not a lie. it's -- what had barbara called it? sarcasm. saying something, but meaning the opposite. cassandra isn't sure she sees the difference. red hood is harder to read than most, with his mask completely obscuring his face. but his shoulders are tense. ready for a fight. not with her -- not this time, at least. with the cultists stalking them through the gotham sewers.

she thinks of telling this story to stephanie, later. thinks of how steph would laugh in disbelief, and then interrogate her for every detail. she'd see it as an adventure, then, through steph's eyes, and not -- this.

cassandra had interfered first. barbara had told her no masked criminals, not yet. she'd been following a different target, a minor drug lord. found out he'd been taking orders from the red hood.

so she had been watching him when the cultists came. they weren't skilled fighters -- no one is, not the way that she is -- but they had some kind of ...magic? something strange. it had confused cass, disoriented her.

and now they're running. being hunted through gotham's sewers by those strange hooded figures. at least it lowers the chance that any civilians will be hurt. cass chances a glance up at her momentary ally, her own face still obscured by the batgirl mask. in her mind's eye, she is remembering the way he fought off the cultists, before their escape. something about the way he moved --

miles touches his fingers gingerly to the back of his head, winces when they come away wet. that hick had hit him hard. he'd been admittedly off-assignment, more interested in the missing persons reports coming out of the neighboring muerto county than the water pipe restoration he'd been sent to texas to cover. that's not great... means they won't start looking for him until he misses his deadline on saturday, and when they do, they'll start in childress county. likely won't even draw the connection to the sawyers and newt until much later, especially considering that miles has all his notes about the disappearances on him. fuck, he's an idiot. he'd gotten cocky, broken onto the sawyers' property at night after receiving a tip-off in the right direction. just to look around, maybe take a few photos -- unlike the townspeople, they'd been strangely resistant to any phone calls from journalists, despite the amount of times people had gone missing in their area.

texas is a stand your ground state, last time miles checked, but he's pretty sure that just gives them the legal right to shoot him, not to hit him over the head with god knows what and lock him in a fucking basement.

an...occupied fucking basement, clearly. he forces himself into a sitting position, his head throbbing. takes in his surroundings, and the concerned look on the face of the teen next to him. a fellow captive. so i was right about them, after all. how incredibly comforting.

"am i?" when you speak, you feel the split in your lip. reflexively, you bring a hand to your mouth to catch the blood that follows, a slow drip caught in the space between the thumb and index finger of your right hand. you lick blood off your upper lip, tonguing the broken skin, and then you notice flint's stare. he’s good at hiding his tells. not that good.

or maybe it’s just the getting shot, nearly drowned, and deposed from captaincy that has weakened his resolve. you eye him curiously, thinking of the monstrous visage that had crouched over the body of mr. gates. you haven’t seen that face again since that day, but you think of it, often. how closely it must linger behind the human mask.

a destructive, vicious part of you wants to see just how close. to tempt the beast out.

you smile at him. it’s charming and it splits your lip as intended. your own blood is warm and sour on your tongue. what would it taste like to someone like him?

“certain members of the crew took issue with this morning’s address.” you tilt your head, trying not to act like you’re cataloguing his reactions. “they wanted to make sure i was aware of that.”

basim laughs, so quietly that sigurd's eyes widen with offense.

"and that frustrates you."

it's a hot night, even in the bureau that sits by the bosphorus. sigurd's cheeks bear the flush of sunburn and ayran, and by the start of the evening he had already discarded most of his princely pelts. he would find them, neatly piled, on his bed—in the room reserved for him at the bureau. the place itself is near empty, except for a couple of nervous novices that don't seem to know what to make of the viking's presence. the rafiq, an older assassin with a scarred face, seems lax about it. he's been trying to communicate with sigurd all evening, and refilled his drink when all other attempts failed. he's a man who has had his fair share of strange allies, and is not accustomed to questioning his superiors.

but throughout the evening, candles have burned almost to the hilt, the plates have been cleared and jugs with water, wine and turkic ayran are empty. a couple of novices requested an heron feather. basim studied them carefully as they disappeared into the street. come morning, they will return with a bloody feather, inshallah. or they will not return at all. he does not spare them more than a thought.

on the rooftop of the bureau, where sigurd sought relief from the heat inside, a cool breeze blows. he asked about the feather—in a strained but not quite drunken greek, almost in practice, he asked about many things; his head tilted back, chest heaving with full, content breaths. some answers he gets. basim speaks slowly, half greek and half norse, and the words come to him although he cannot tell if the effort to look for them is a conscious one. and the viking does not try to look unimpressed. at least as long as basim indulges him.

some answers he does not get. he's tense about it, and dangerous as a high-strung horse. basim speaks soothingly, as to pacify one.

"ease, prince. you are among friends." he studies sigurd's reaction as it washes over the horizon of his pale eyes like daybreak. common sense and suspicion have nested there, with the high of alcohol gently fading, but also the thrill of the challenge. like a wary cat, lured with food so delicious that it makes it worth the risk.

and the food is knowledge. he's the one.

"i will not tell you everything, but i will not lie to you." the language of norsemen slips from basim like water. "is that an acceptable arrangement, sigurd?"