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Tokyo Fashion Week

The week after Paris

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It was easy to pretend like the last week hadn’t happened, easy to forget when everything was models and flashing lights and debauchery of a kind that the world had forgotten since he had been working with Monroe. Foriegn place, different food, interesting people, who cared about an egg that got lost on the backstreets of Paris when different sorts of money laundering was going on here, when the world kept running along, gaining speed as it went, new connections, new deals, new money.

He had attended a few shows, flashed different IDs to get into different VIP venues, been welcomed with a kiss or a slap - depending on the person or the reception. But the big show was tonight, invitations handed out, and people all heard the rumours of his private party happening tonight, passed down as legend or memory, and the money was aching to attend.

He had invited a few people along from the crews, admitted others more begrudgingly, left them to their own devices as he carved out whatever paths he felt like. 

Location: a small bar near Mickey’s hospital

Time: a few hours after the escape from the chateau

He was rarely ever the irresponsible one-- in any situation, Ace could be trusted to be the one in control, the one who kept his head in the game, who used his logically inclined mind to find creative solutions to any situation given; 

Well. At least so far the theory.

Not much of a drinker usually, Ace was still nursing his first drink, the glass past the cold, damp stage and having moved on to being uncomfortably wet to the touch. His drink was slightly warm already, but Ace didn’t change it, merely taking minuscule sips from time to time as he stared into space, trying to think where he had gone wrong.

It had all been going-- well, shitty, really. The con had slipped past his fingertips in mere moments, where he had gone from being confident to completely overwhelmed within the time span of one blink. So, no. This was not his evening, not at all. 

Thus, the cowardly disappearance to that bar-- Ace had done his best to avoid Sabina (something he had never done before) and managed to find himself a lonely seat at this seedy bar all by himself; the fact that he didn’t speak french didn’t help, but at least it kept people away while he organized his thoughts. Rhiannon was the only one he messaged-- a short text about his whereabouts and that he was alright, merely needed some moments to calm down.

How was he to face Sabina? Scout, Madison? Or, hell, Rhiannon? Failure of such a spectacular extent was not something Ace was accustomed to dealing with, so here he was, wallowing and drowning his sorrows in a luke-warm drink he didn’t even like. With a sigh, he continued, lips pressed tightly.

Truth was, they had gotten lucky. And Ace hated nothing more than games that were based on luck rather than skill.

Some small hotel in the outskirts of Paris

9pm - a day or so after the con

She had escaped as soon as possible, the remains of that first night too broken to remember, then finding her way on the underground and into some small hotel with clean bedsheets and blackout curtains. A cursory message to Monroe that she was alive, then a more detailed location soon after.

(One person had gone missing. No need to add to the fear)

She was sat on the floor in the corner of the room, tucked between the bed and the wall, knees to her chest, a single laptop whirring away endlessly infront of her, dry tears on her cheeks.

At least she was breathing properly now, that sharpness in the ribs that had been present since things had started going wrong had eased away, the cotton in her lungs the moment they had started chasing Mickey melting, the stone in her stomach since she had sat in the car and watched the information from Mickey’s phone blank out finally lifting.

But the tension in her shoulders from when she had panned from camera to camera to camera to camera in the Palais hadn’t gone yet. Searching and looking and trying his phone again and checking for security - look, her hands were still shaking.

(She was going through the cameras from all the available security feeds from the stores around the street corner the white van had pulled into. Catching nothing more than a license plate ditched by the side of the road five miles away. Spending twenty seven hours straight examining every frame, putting together the model of every angle possible. Missing the video where Carter was pulled into the van. Only seeing the top of a phone as it landed on the pavement just within the view of a bank camera.)

The relief of Seb’s text chiming through had left her limp-limbed in the car, all energy slumping out of her, it had mixed with the acid in her throat and left a spinning concoction that still hadn’t gone.

(Fear, ice-cold and confusing flooded through her when the police came up to her, gentle confusion on his face, offering Carter’s ID to her. ‘This is his fake ID, isn’t it? Can we have the real one please?’ Words, stuck in your throat as you tried to explain that Carter Russell did exist. That you were engaged. That he was real)

There was only space for the one laptop by her feet, but she had tapped into the French DGSE with a brutality that had improved their security when they were immediately made aware, but the backdoor she had written into their code alongside them gave her easy access. Searching their database in a vain hope that something new would turn up.

(One miracle had occurred. Couldn’t a second one?)

Hunger was a distant thought, as was sleep (you think you may have gotten a few hours that first night, though you barely remember a bed), her chin resting on her knees, eyes not straying from the progress and informational alerts that sometimes appeared, before being dismissed.

It was a truth universally acknowledged but never spoken out loud among the first years at Hufflepuff, that the prefect girl with hair resembling a lion’s mane and a tongue as sharp as a Hippogriff’s claw was to be approached with utmost care-- she could lash out at the older ones and she frequently did, losing housepoints left and right for her unbelievable collection of nasty swear words. Still, the first years, she was nice to-- at least that’s what the two kids must’ve thought that had planted themselves in front of Maisie as she leaned against one of the towers around the Quidditch field, having rolled a smoke far away enough to think herself safe of her sister’s scrutiny. Which, she was a grown up, by Merlin’s fucking beard. She shouldn’t find secret spots to smoke at just because her younger sister disliked it. Alas, it was also a truth universally acknowledged that for Madison Hathaway, Maisie would pluck the stars out of the sky one by one if so desired-- and she fucking hated astrology. Astronomy. Whichever one was the one with the stars and the bullshit.

Help, they wanted, unbelievable little brats-- coming to her of all people for questions regarding the wizarding world because they were muggleborn and also fucking eleven and had no idea how shit was going down. Which, she understood that-- she too had been scared shitless and worried about her sister back home and wildly confused about the lack of pens-- but still. She didn’t have time for this. But someone decided to make her prefect in her fifth year-- on that note, had McGonagall been smoking too much? Maybe turning into a cat all the time had made her as whimsical as a feline, clearly not concerned with the emotional health of Hufflepuff younglings. (It wasn’t like it wasn’t known that Maisie was the resident Hufflepuff mother bear-- more bear than mother, really, begrudgingly taking first years under her wing and guiding them through many a problem while complaining the whole way through. McGonagall was probably still self-fiving herself for that decision.) Either way, by the time they had thanked her and rushed back to the castle, her cigarette had turned to ash with little to no enjoyment on her part-- I deserve this, she thought, moving to light another with a lighter she had grabbed before coming her for the last year. 

Damn. Her last year in Hogwarts, huh?

Her eyes lifted to the rings on either side of the Quidditch field and she sighed, wondering where the hell she’d go after this. Home had always been an old couch in the Hufflepuff common room, Fang running up and down her folded arms as though it was a race track, her sister only two minutes away in the Ravenclaw tower doing something brilliant with her time.

“Shit,” she muttered as the wave of nostalgia hit her, taking a deeper pull of her cigarette before releasing the smoke into the cool evening air.

Soft, twinkling music. Adorably arranged stop-motion, a talking snowman, goodwill to all.

Katya isn’t buying it. 

They are cute films. They are, and she really does appreciate that. Katya just feels inexplicably resentful towards the fat man in the red suit, towards the rest of these conformists who now grovel back to Rudolph after ostracizing his differences only days before. 

She smirks into her drink.  

“-But if I were him-” She gestures to the brightly-nosed reindeer. “-I would have let Santa and his stupid Christmas rot.”

How strange this is. It feels a bit like whiplash, the stress of the wedding and now this uneasy mundanity. 

athena had spent way too much of her life in strip clubs for one reason or another, female or male, her sexuality meant both managed to put heat between her thighs and a smile on her lips... but this did not have her in the mood. with the kidnappers still at large and a wedding turning into life or death, the enjoyment was rapidly fading from what was supposed to be a fun time. 

and it was supposed to be fun. she was in a sexy blue dress, she had downed a few shots at her apartment to get nice and warm and loose... and this was a girls’ night. anything could happen, she could take home whoever she wanted. it was fun and easy and casual...

and she had knots the size of penguin eggs in her shoulders and was gripping her bourbon  while training her eyes on the dancers, the wedding party, the bride... who would want to do her harm? who would want to call off the wedding? who woul-

“watch it!” she hissed, her drink nearly spilling as someone passed a little too close... her expression shifted when she noted who it was, the familiarity untensing her muscles just a bit. “oh, it’s you.”

Sabina: Where are you?

Sabina: We need to talk.

There was an opening ━ one of the guards seemed to have sipped a few too many glasses of the complementary drinks, and was currently being chat up by an equally drunk guest. Her fingers moved into the gesture to call over Madison and Sebastian when her communication suddenly comes alive with the message that they were not alone here. She spots one of the other crew’s members not far away seconds after ━ and knew that this place was likely crawling with them. 

“Fuck,” She cursed under her breath, as she heard similar statements from her earpiece. Her first instinct was to grab Madison and get the hell out of there, but she needed information. “Fucking fuck.” 

A few old men standing nearby shot a look at her cursing, and she raised a challenging eyebrow towards them. Say something about it, I dare you. When they finally looked away, Maisie turned around, dress swirling over the floor ━ and damn near stumbled into a familiar face.

“One hell of a party, wouldn’t you agree? Just a little too crowded for my tastes.”