#quest han

The night didn’t go as smoothly as planned.

A regular client of Quest’s had tasked him with the job of stealing – or as Quest put it, the job of retrieving – a Paleolithic ivory sculpture from one of the client’s competitors. In the original plan, Quest planned to have no confrontation with security. Of course, he had back-up plans for elements out of control, but the run-in with security was his own fault. Britney’s fault, in a way.

Quest could’ve stolen the sculpture the traditional way. Dismantled alarms and a silent break-in during the dead of night. All black outfit and avoiding cameras. But that was so dull, especially when the perfect opportunity to get near the sculpture arose. The owner of the sculpture – a man from money that advertised himself as a charitable philanthropist but was actually intimately involved in arms trades – was hosting the premiere of a new art installation in his private museum. A party where guests turned their noses up at the homeless in their own cities while lamenting the poor orphans of Africa that they would never meet nor truly understand. Their outfits might as well be made of money. Shimmering and jeweled dresses, the name brand suits, the special-made outfits paired with hundreds or thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry. No one would be wearing outfits cheaper than $6K, and some dresses would cost over a half million.

Fancy parties with out-of-touch rich folk would always be Quest’s favorite targets. He could dress up in his best clothes and spend an evening stealing priceless items from millionaires and billionaires. What could be better?

He opted to play the role of a married man, rather than an eligible bachelor or not-quite-tied-down engaged man. Not that the status of his relationship mattered to particularly persistent women. Regardless, he made his decision, and for that decision, he needed a wife. There were a few women he could contact to help him, but none were as readily available as Britney.

Quest had contemplated bringing in team members to help with cons in the past. Their consistent impulsiveness deterred him, however. Plus, none had his extensive training in adapting to any situation. Britney wasn’t trained either, but in her life before the team, she was well-practiced in pretending. Now, she never had a need to effortlessly plaster on a smile, nor sweet-talk or flirt her way out of trouble. Turns out mutant powers can get you what you want, too.

Quest found out by chance that Britney could still use that skill when she wanted. He couldn’t remember exactly what she’d asked for, but she’d wanted him to pass her something. She demanded it. Expecting a snide response and not thinking much of it, Quest told her to ask nicely. Britney put on her smile that would’ve been downright charming if Quest didn’t know her to be a bitter and angry person. That small interaction was enough for him to seriously consider asking for her help.

Britney hesitated at first. How could someone with her complexion be any help in a con? After a decent amount of convincing and a long battle with body make-up, Britney was willing to help. With a realistic blonde wig and a floor-length, long-sleeve, black dress, she looked like any other human.

It wasn’t really her fault the plan went wrong. But she was the reason Quest lost his usual focus. During a con, he had to become his role. Anything to do with life outside of the con could be ignored until later. And Britney, stunning in her dress, distracted him from the role.

Quest had successfully done jobs with gorgeous women plenty of times in the past. Not once had they hindered a job with their beauty or personality. If he was attracted to them, or wanted to have sex with them, that waited until the job was over.

He couldn’t wait with Britney.

Maybe it was the unknown aspect. In the past, he had a pretty good idea of who would be willing to have some celebration sex after a successful heist. And if he assumed incorrectly, that was fine. They were infrequent co-workers. Britney, however, he saw regularly, and he wanted to keep in his life. She was more human and more real to him than most people in the world. Their relationship as it stood was different than anything Quest had known, and because of that, it didn’t seem right to pursue sexual intimacy. He flirted with her frequently, and she flirted back, but it never got beyond just playing.

During the job, the last of Quest’s willpower snapped. A new experience for him. He didn’t know he had limited willpower. He got so used to controlling his emotions that this sudden lack of control caught him completely off guard.

The role of man and wife gave him an excuse to touch her and flirt with her. His hand rarely left her waist. He let himself get distracted by the way her lips moved when she spoke. The way she glanced at him with amused smiles. The way she flirted and teased him. When she gently pressed her lips against his, putting her all into selling the act, Quest wanted to abandon the job and bring her home. Even if he did abandon the job though, he wasn’t sure she’d go home with him.

In his distraction, Quest screwed up his plan, and he had to deal with security. Britney came to his aid, the party of rich guests unaware of the commotion in the East wing of the building. Quest got the sculpture. They got away without anyone on their tail.

A few miles from the private museum, in a poorly lit gas station lot, Quest had another car waiting for them. They switched to that car, to shake any possible tail, and left the first car with Quest’s driver. After winding turns down a few backroads, including some unpaved, Quest felt confident that no one followed them. He pulled onto a main road, and the intersection light turned yellow, then red. He knew the light was a long one. A long one with a red-light camera. There were no cars around, just wet pavement reflecting the glowing red of the stop light and unnatural yellow of the streetlamps. Quest let himself look at Britney.

The blonde wig lay in a heap on the floor; her vibrantly yellow hair was freed from bobby pins and hair-ties, spilling over her shoulders. In the fight with security, the make-up on her hands had melted away. The acidity of her powers and perspiration left the foundation on her neck and face splotchy and streaked. Beads of sweat gathered on her collarbones, glistening red and yellow under the streetlights, magnifying the green tint of her skin. Quest wanted to lean over and touch his lips to the shimmering beads, run his tongue along her bare skin, taste the salt. He felt a stirring in his lower abdomen and mentally chided himself for his lack of control.

The night gave Britney a wonderful high. Between the gown Quest bought her, the make-up, the adrenaline of the heist, and Quest’s hands constantly on her, Britney was overcome with bliss. After spending a few hours feeling genuinely beautiful, she got to relish in the power that came with knocking out a few security guards. The combination of beauty and power was intoxicating. Only when she slid into the passenger seat of the second car did the high begin to fade.

Waiting for the light to turn green, Britney flipped down the passenger side sun visor and slid open the small mirror. The light next to the mirror lit up her face, highlighting every flaw. Her make-up was caking and oily from sweat. The orange light of the car mirror didn’t do her any favors. She looked like a sickly vampire made of wax. She disgusted herself. The high was fun while it lasted, but tomorrow would be hell. Any mirror would be a reminder of just how monstrous she was now.

“You’re gorgeous, Britney,” Quest said, breaking the chain of negative thoughts.

“Huh?” Britney said, glancing at him. “Have you looked at me? I’ve sweated all my make-up off.”

“I know,” Quest said. He reached over and put his hand on her lower thigh, their skin separated by the fabric of her dress. She didn’t visibly react to the touch or his comment. “And I mean it; you look really gorgeous.”

“I looked prettier earlier,” she said. “I look ugly now.”

Britney enjoyed play-flirting with Quest. The attention was flattering and made her feel almost normal. Sometimes though, he would get all serious. His voice would get quiet and almost husky. A sober and earnest tone. Gaze intently locked onto her. Compliments. That was always too far for Britney. The play-flirting was fun, but that intense seriousness made her uncomfortable. She couldn’t believe he was being truthful when he said those sweet words to her. It was mean.

“You looked very pretty earlier,” he said. “You look gorgeous now.”

Britney smiled a little as Quest squeezed her thigh and his fingers crept higher up her leg. Reminded of the way his palm rested on her waist all night, she said, “You couldn’t keep your hands off me.”

With that intense gaze and earnest tone, he said, “I still want to have my hands on you.”

“The light’s green,” Britney said, pointing out the window.

Quest breathed out a frustrated sigh and moved his foot to the gas. He didn’t remove his hand from her leg as he took the exit onto the freeway.

Britney didn’t want to let go of the high quite yet. Maybe with Quest, she could keep pretending for a little longer. Letting impulse dictate her decisions, Britney wrapped her fingers around Quest’s hand and moved it all the way up her thigh, to right below her hip. She focused on him, ignoring the unnatural color of her skin. Quest’s hands were nicked and scarred from knives and fights, leaving his skin rough and worn.

Quest’s body reacted before his mind could. A small smile touched his lips when Britney wrapped her fingers around his. Then she moved his hand within centimeters of her crotch, and for the first time in a very long time, his brain short-circuited, and his body decided to take the lead. Quest blinked hard, forced the muddy haze in his mind to clear, took a deep breath and held it, hoping the lack of oxygen would keep his bodily responses in check.

Cold air from the car’s air-conditioning gave Quest a weird feeling of hot and cold. His insides flashed hot, while the hair on his arms and neck rose from the cold air.

The reaction was unreasonable. He knew women’s bodies intimately. Even while driving, he’d gotten pretty intimate. But none of those women were Britney. Though he may have wanted it, he never expected anything much to come from play-flirting. If he touched Britney, it was always above the belt. He’d had her hands on her waist plenty of times. Once they’d even shared a kiss, during a rare moment alone, when they were flirting and bored.

“Britney,” Quest said. He sounded like a man deprived of water. He cleared his throat.

“Yeah?”

Quest breathed in heavily through his nose, considering what he wanted to say. Nothing sounded quite right in his head. Settling for the direct approach, he said, “I want to take you home. To my place.”

“Now?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” she said.

As far as Britney was concerned, there was nothing wrong with her. The self-induced isolation had nothing to do with an inability to process through confusing emotions. She’d ditched the team after the last heist because she wanted some much-needed alone time. No one could deny that the team was infuriating and a complete pain in the ass at times, and it was perfectly reasonable for Britney to hole up in a motel for a little while. She wasn’t throwing a tantrum, though. She wasn’t. And that billboard she’d doused acid slime? That wasn’t an outburst of rage. If anything, she’d improved the advertisement. The cracking and smoking mixed with the smell of acid and burning metal and plastic was incredibly satisfying. She watched as the acid ate away at the oversized photo of that smiling white woman with flawless skin and straight, perfect, shining teeth, and long, full eyelashes, and glossy lips, and hair that was too fucking shiny and smooth to be real, and—

Okay, maybe she’d been a little pissed at the billboard. But, other than that, she was fine.

Wearing an oversized sweatshirt, with the hoodie pulled forward to hide her face in the dim yellow lights that hummed above the reception desk, Britney exchanged a wad of cash for a cheap motel room. The bored woman behind the counter smelled like cigarettes and hairspray, and she barely glanced at Britney as she typed, the long nail on her forefinger clacking against the keys.

“Enjoy your stay,” the woman said nasally, giving Britney a dull look. There didn’t seem to be much life behind those blood-shot eyes. Britney took the key without a word.

She had to walk back outside to get to her room, and up a flight of steps to a veranda that lined the second-floor motel rooms. A group of drunk men, surely stumbling to the next bar or strip club, yelled a jumble of intelligible words at Britney. One voice called out above the rest.

“C’mon baby, whatcha hidin’ under there?”

Britney curled her lip in disgust. She pulled back her hoodie, revealing the yellow-green tint of her skin and her colorless eyes. If she had to spend the rest of her life looking like a monster, she might as well put it to good use. The joyful hollering of the men morphed into startled confusion and fear. Britney wanted to pelt them with some slime for good measure, but that would cause too much of a scene that she didn’t want to deal with right now.

The motel key protested going into the lock, but eventually gave way, and the door swung open with a horrific whine. Britney flicked on the light and closed the door behind her, taking in the room. Once there may have been color, but by now everything was dull yellow or brown. The wallpaper peeled in the corners and stains patterned the ceiling. The light on the nightstand flickered uneasily, sending shadows dancing across the walls.

With the number of heists the team had pulled over the past few months, Britney could afford a much nicer place to stay. She could be in a penthouse suite, overlooking a beach and crashing waves, the lights of the city dotting the peripheral. A room with fluffy white towels and soft cotton sheets. An enormous high definition television and a bathroom with tiles that gleamed and reflected anything that passed.

Small and cheap was better for a girl like Britney. There was no chance of seeing herself reflected in the dulled, dirty tiles of this bathroom. No television to broadcast beautiful men and women overreacting about menial problems that could never compare to the shit she’d been through. The greenish tinge of her sweat would be indiscernible on the already-stained yellowed bedsheets. Mutant sweat might be the least gross bodily fluid on that bed.

Once this place would have disgusted her. Now, she could think of nowhere more fitting. Except maybe a sewer. A sewer where the slime of the walls could match the slime that slipped off her in her moroseness. Maybe she’d make friends with the supposed alligators that lurked in the disgusting water, or a pack of oversized rats.

There was a chance she was being dramatic right now, but if she’d spent a second to dwell on that possibility, she would’ve decided that dramatics were completely justifiable.

Britney dumped a duffle bag full of stolen magazines and make-up onto the plain desk against the wall. Only about a foot and a half separated the desk and the full-sized bed that took up most of the room. She plopped down into the plastic desk chair and set to work, opening the first magazine her fingers touched. Stealing full purses worth of make-up would never be as enjoyable as destroying entire warehouses full of make-up products, but it brought her some satisfaction. Especially when she used the stolen products as an outlet for her anger. She stabbed the point of a knife into palettes of eyeshadow and blush, assaulted and marred the smiling faces in her magazines with eyeliner, mascara, and lipstick, turned each flawless face of beauty into something monstrous. Something like her.

Turning the page of her third magazine, Britney was greeted by another smiling face. This triggered something in her that the others hadn’t. All of the airbrushed smiles infuriated her, but this one was the worst yet. The rage hit her with a jolt. The woman, a young woman, probably not yet twenty, looked like Britney. Not Britney now. Britney with clear, human-colored skin, and soft, strawberry blonde hair.

With a small shriek, Britney stabbed the magazine repeatedly. The knife tore through the pages and sank into the desk, leaving marks in the cheap wood. She didn’t care. She stabbed until the woman on the page was nothing more than shredded glossy paper. For good measure, she spit on the page, leaving a glob of green-ish saliva.

Britney reached to toss that magazine into the trash. There was nothing left of it to destroy. She had her wrist bent to chuck the magazine aside when she heard a noise. Tensing, she froze, listening carefully. This motel didn’t reside in a nice area, so disturbing noises had reached her ears since she’d arrived, but this one was different. The noise of someone or something trying to be quiet, followed by too much silence, like a teenager sneaking back into their house after a night partying, and freezing when the second to last stair creaked beneath their foot.

Then a scraping noise came from the same area, near the window. Britney rotated the knife in her hand, holding it with the sharp edge of the blade angled away from her. In her other hand, she produced a glob of slime, the shape of her fingers melting away into an oozing green liquid. She tip-toed across the room and plastered herself against the wall, beside the window.

--

Quest hadn’t thought twice when Britney unexpectedly vanished two weeks ago. She could be the poster child for angsty teenagers, and he figured she just wanted some time to let off steam. It happened to all of them. One of them would go missing for a week and return in better spirits. If they were worried, they could track one another by the carnage they left in their wake, keeping tabs to make sure their team member wasn’t dead or in danger. Which is one of the ways he found Britney. The acidic, steaming holes left in billboards were useful breadcrumbs.

If anyone else had gone M.I.A., Quest wouldn’t have paid so much attention. This was Britney, though. From his first day on the team, he had an affinity for her that he couldn’t quite explain. At first, it was fascination. Britney resented her powers and everything she’d become. Quest admired her power and found it interesting that she didn’t. The fascination evolved into genuine liking. Quest enjoyed Britney’s presence, even with all of her moaning and complaining. So, when a week passed and Britney still hadn’t returned, he decided to go looking for her.

Following the destructive breadcrumbs, and a few leads from his family’s underground network of spies, Quest found Britney easily enough. She’d committed some petty thefts at Walgreens and CVS pharmacies, as well as some make-up stores, hopping from motel to motel as she did so. At each hotel he’d been just a little too late, but this time, he’d found her before she left. He slid the motel room window up and climbed gracefully inside the room.

Only to be met with a knife in his face and a raised fist of oozing slime. Not steaming slime, so he was in no danger of losing his skin, but it would still be unpleasant.

“It’s been a while since anyone has greeted me with a knife,” Quest said. “You sure know the way to a man’s heart.”

“Through his ribcage,” Britney quipped flatly, lowering her arms. “What the fuck, Q?”

“Nice to see you too,” he said, closing the window as Britney stepped back to let him in.

“You couldn’t have just knocked on the door?” she asked. “I could’ve stabbed you.”

“Eh, I’d be fine,” Quest said. “Would you have let me in if I knocked on the door?” he asked.

“No,” she said flatly. She didn’t want to see anyone, including Quest.

“That’s why I didn’t knock,” he said.

Quest crossed the short length of the room, his eyes drawn to the mess on the desk. Britney felt a ripple of anxiety, followed by a wave of anger. He was invading her personal space and examining things that were supposed to be her secret way of venting. Why was he here? He needed to leave.

“Nice art project,” Quest said, touching his forefinger to a destroyed eyeshadow palette. A residue of purple, glittery dust covered the tip of his finger. He rubbed the dust away with his thumb, watching with what Britney thought was a weird amount of interest as the eyeshadow fell away.

“Will you leave.” It wasn’t a question the way Britney said it.

“I just got here,” Quest said, picking up a magazine.

Britney was beside him a second later, still brandishing the knife.

“Maybe I should just stab you anyway,” she suggested, pressing the tip against the side of Quest’s neck. He leaned back slightly but made no indication of fear or concern.

“Stabbing. That’s romantic,” he said, with a distracted air. He placed the magazine back on the desk and then peered closely at the photo that was stabbed into ribbons.

Britney rolled her eyes, pretending that her heart hadn’t started to beat a little faster, and then said, “Fucking leave, Q.”

“I came to see you,” he said, touching the destroyed magazine.

“I don’t want to be seen,” she said. “I want you to go away. An-and stop looking through my shit!”

Britney pushed him away from the desk and blocked the mess that covered it with her body. The action broke his reverie and his eyes didn’t drift back to the table. Instead, he gazed at her face, eyes moving slowly over her features. He always looked her right in the face, and it unnerved her. Never with disgust. Usually with what seemed to be mild interest. Britney felt like Quest was taking her apart and figuring out every secret she’d ever had when he looked at her like that.

This time though, he looked concerned. Quest was a master at masking his true emotions and replacing them with anything that would help him get his way. But this didn’t seem like a mask. Britney spent enough time around him to accurately guess what he might be feeling. It helped that he was more candid around Britney than he was around anyone else. He still never showed exactly what he was feeling, but enough that Britney was learning how to read him.

There was a slight, angled bow of his brows and a glimmer of softness in his eyes, suggestive of concern. Quest made no effort to hide it. The silence grew heavier and thicker for Britney the longer Quest gazed at her like that. No more than a foot separated them, and Britney wasn’t used to having anyone so close to her, unless it was Will or Dev making an effort to annoy her, or one of the girls showing some gesture of sisterly affection. And occasionally, Quest, with a flirting, possessive intent.

Britney was about to snap or yell at him, anything to dissipate the silence, when Quest’s expression turned neutral again, any trace of emotion melting away. He stepped back and sat down on the bed.

Quest started spending time with the team more out of curiosity than anything else. He wasn’t raised to work in team settings or to trust anyone else’s judgement. Joining the team offered him a challenge. To his surprise and horror, he started to care for the train-wreck teenagers, especially Britney. There was just something about her. Quest prided himself on his ability to remain detached. In hindsight, he should’ve known the day he met Britney that she was going to ruin that.

Britney was never happy, not really. The closest she got to happiness was the high that hit her when she destroyed things. But right now, she was worse than usual, and that bothered Quest. The sickly tone of her skin was more sallow, and the color of green bruises marked her under eyes. The muscles beneath her black, long-sleeved leotard were taut and tense. Not like she was ready to attack. More like she wouldn’t know how to relax her muscles if she tried.  

Except for the rare occasions when Britney was in a truly good mood, her reactions could be unpredictable. Anything could set her off. Quest knew that, and he’d learned to read her moods and could usually guess when he’d only make things worse. He wasn’t sure now. Clear indications of her current anger covered the desk behind her. But she hadn’t kicked him out yet. Risking ticking her off, Quest stood again, and reached his hand to her face, gently pinching her chin between his thumb and forefinger. His knuckles brushed against the spot where her chin met her neck. Britney jerked her head up, a defiant gesture, but she didn’t push his hand away.

“Britney,” Quest said softly. He almost asked her what was wrong but changed his mind before the words could reach his lips. “This place is a dump. Let’s go somewhere else.”

Now she did bat his hand away.

“No,” she said. “I’m fine here. It’s a good place for me.”

“This isn’t a good place for anyone,” Quest said, glancing around the cramped space and wrinkling his nose. “Actually, it might be a good place to torture someone. Just being here would be a form of torture. Other than that, it’s no good for anyone.”

He looked back to her face. The horrid flickering yellowing light wasn’t doing her any favors. Even so, he found himself drawn to her. Her lips, the purple-ish black color of blood pooling under the skin after death, were downturned and pouting. She frowned at the floor.

“I’m not going back to the theatre,” Britney said, glancing up but keeping her chin down, so her colorless eyes glared up through her eyelashes.

“Okay,” Quest said. “I have somewhere else we can go.”

“Of course you do,” Britney grumbled.

With a grimace, Quest added, “I can leave you there if you want to be alone. I just don’t like the idea of you being in this disgusting hellhole.”