RECOIL&GRACE

"Is it bright where you are? Have the people changed? Does it make you happy you're so strange?" Beckett Murphy. Thirty-Two. Rozanov.

[haleroth-blog]

With an unfaithful, testing curiosity delicate on the air, a juniper gaze rears back to look upon nothing in particular. Unspokenly, a Rothschild, too, begins to wonder if the efforts made in their hunt are in vain, pointless. What is one woman, with a hazardous acquisition of her wants, in the face of an empire? Insignificant, he thinks. Though, this faint pensiveness accented by hands tucked away into the pockets of his blazer ( an equally fanciful variation of green ) and undirected sight of a thoughtless bastard can become cause for alarm: careful now, watch how the vacant one thinks!

Doesn’t everyone knows that golden boys have no need for reflection?

An ironic grin is coaxed by the thought ( another one as it goes ), an Oxford heel swiveling as he turns down a tangle of catacombs, a hand warmer rolled in his grasp all the while. After all, Roman winters, courtesy of Christian martyrs, are unforgiving as they go — an onslaught of cold embellished by delicate snows. Too, by the vaporous, cloud forming breath of a young man as he stumbles upon the laborer of an imperium. 

“The air’s rather stale down here, don’t you think?”

[beckmurphy-blog]

He hopes he gets to shoot someone, before all is said and done. It’s the only thing that could made all of this—this running about with their thumbs up their asses while someone deliberately mocks them—worthwhile.

Beckett can’t tell one cup from another. A discerning taste in art has never been among the assets he brings to the society. (Though, in actuality, his taste is more discerning, or at least more exclusive, than most—he hates it all.) So, while the other thieves flock to the catacombs like lambs to the slaughter, fish in a barrel, Beckett stands, and Beckett guards.

The frustration is palpable. In the game of cat-and-mouse, they’re never meant to be the mice. And yet, here they are, sifting through piles upon piles of goblets, looking for some golden needle in a massive underground haystack.

There’s a part of Beckett, a part that he won’t admit to, that does not like the catacombs. He was reared in open air—the vast emptiness of the desert, an endless expanse of sky. If there is a part of him that’s uncomfortable, he’s long since grown used to pushing it down in favor of doing his job. If there is a part of him that’s uncomfortable, it doesn’t show—save for, perhaps, the tight fold of his arms across his chest, and the ready vitriol he has for anyone unfortunate enough to speak to him.

“Worse than stale, now that you’ve added your whining to it.”

[julietblake-deactivated20161226]

Egos were often the biggest downfalls of the leading characters in a play. From Macbeth to Caesar, ambition fed off their corrupted souls until realism snatched it away without coming back for seconds. In more ways than one, the man before her appeared to be no different. She recognizes him from a couple society functions that were thrown as of late, where he usually strolled around like a lone rogue enveloped into a tiny letter sincerely signed arrogance. 

Unlike most thieves, he doesn’t seem to care for the money or glory engraved in their profession. Perhaps that would be admirable if she was a less materialistic person.

“Touché.” For a second, she allowed the stranger to believe their discussion has drawn to a close. Slipping into the chair adjacent to him, though, it’s made clear this battle round only just began. “In that case, I’m guessing you believe all Olympians had a god complex?”

Somehow, Juliet ignored the urge to roll her eyes at his crass display. “Oh, I don’t know,” she hummed, resting a palm onto her cheek as though the remark was actually an issue to ponder over. “Maybe it was your total lack of enthusiasm.” 

[beckmurphy-blog]

She takes a seat, and Beckett recognizes it for what it is: an invitation to some kind of war of words, verbal sparring that he has little time or patience for. It’s not his preferred arena: he likes fights where someone’s bloodied at the end, fights where someone doesn’t walk away. He likes things with stakes. This is nothing. A passing diversion, if only it were amusing enough to actually be entertaining.

As it is, there’s only one way this conversation could possibly looking up: and that’s if this is her idea of foreplay.

Beckett doesn’t have a golden tongue. Beckett doesn’t even have a sharp wit. His words are more like clubs, blunt and heavy, and he lets them fall: “No, I believe that the jerk-off that named himself after a God and used it as his calling card to murder an entire family for their treasures has a god complex."

He pauses, and it’s like the cocking of a gun, a necessary action that proceeds the pulling of a trigger. “You think you’re really smart, don’t you?”

[vrac-musique-blog]

Visit Original Link

[beckmurphy-blog]

I said yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah You'll never make a saint of me

[mancandykings]

[silasbeauregod-blog]

The air of The Victorian surely spoke to the gentlemanly mirage Silas Beauregard wore as a skin; had it been owned by anyone else, perhaps he’d have long ago made himself a regular patron. But it wasn’t. No, he held nothing but a firm respect, and the biting jealousy that so naturally accompanied it, for Francis Villiers — it was the risk of running into any of the man’s stroke-inducing children that had him seeking out his evening brandy on neutral ground.

Tonight, for the sake of the heist, he had no such freedom of choice.

The bark of butchered Latin drew his attention, echoing through the dimly lit chambers, the speaker’s accent so unrefined Silas’s own back straightened in contrast, holding himself up while the other man’s own tongue brought him so many pegs downwards. Swirling the contents of a crystal tumbler in his right hand, he sat himself down, eyes piercing the pair of feet propped up on the table. 

Dieu, so much as breathing the same air as Beckett nauseated him. 

“It’s Latin for Thief of Justice, actually,” he hummed, a friendly smile spread across his lips — one so carefully hiding the forked tongue that flicked behind straight teeth and the appearance of an attempt at camaraderie, as if by some grace of the gods that dirty little rodent deserved to call a Beauregard an acquaintance, never mind a friend. “I dabbled in the lost languages in my years at Harvard,” he went on, pausing as he allowed the weight of the school’s prestige to hang in the air. “I don’t suppose they teach Latin where you’re from, do they?”

[beckmurphy-blog]

As if he needed something to hate more than the Victorian’s decor, a Heist brat appears as if on-fucking-cue to remind him that the only thing worse than places like this are the people that frequent them. Filled up with swaggering self-importance, like underneath all the fancy clothes and the noxious cologne they don’t all bleed the same as Beck. 

(And, if there were any doubts, Beckett would be happy to show him. If Beckett is the one to teach a lesson, it leaves a scar behind. It isn’t readily forgotten.

Though, if it came down to it, they wouldn’t bleed the same. This squalling infant would bleed, and Beckett wouldn’t bleed at all. Who would be the better man then?)

The little prince in front of him isn’t the only one that can wield a weighty pause. Beck lets the moment stretch long, and longer still, until— 

“Oh, wow.”

The syllables are slow, they stretch out in front of him like the endless horizon over the desert where he was from. It had taught him how deadly empty space could be. This emptiness is filled up with disdain, but it could just as easily turn into something else. The glass in his hands? A weapon. The bar to his front? The same. He wonders when the last time this place saw a good brawl was. (If ever.)

“Too bad your fancy school didn’t teach you how to tell when someone doesn’t give a fuck. Real pity, that is.”

[julietblake-deactivated20161226]

“Close, but no cigar.” Juliet refrained from correcting him that the title was Italian, not entirely sure if his satirizing translation had been deliberate. With a golden mane paired alongside a nonchalant exterior that basically screamed your typical bad boy troupe, it wouldn’t surprise her if he shot back that the question was rhetorical. Highly predictable, but there was also a chance she was wrong. 

Leaning against the edge of the table, her gaze searched the lodge for nothing in particular –just preferring not to look directly at the stranger as she told him what she knew. “Hermes was a Greek god who tricked others for his own amusement. No god complex, unfortunately.” God of Thieves was pretty fitting for the Victorian, where more than a dozen criminals lurked within the shadows, ready to spring into action at their sovereign’s tiniest instruction to prey upon unsuspecting patrons.

She loved it.

Eventually turning back to him, her head titled to the side with inquisitiveness. “Not a big mythology person, are you?” It wasn’t her favorite topic in high school either, but she wouldn’t reveal that yet.

[beckmurphy-blog]

Everyone’s a fucking genius. Everyone likes to show off what they know. And maybe Beckett’s just as guilty of that, except for one critical difference—what he knows is actually useful. Beckett knows death: he knows infinite ways to cause it, and near-miraculous ways of avoiding it. And, when he comes to his work, he chooses efficiency over showy flourishes. The woman in front of him knows things (useless things) and she’s appeared at Beck’s elbow to flaunt them.

But he isn’t impressed, so it’s really just kind of masturbatory. The only one she’s pleased with her dazzling display of knowledge is herself. 

“Au contraire,” he offers, just as drawling and butchered, a rebuttal that’s almost cheerful in its obnoxiousness. “We’re talking about a man who gave himself that name, so a god complex seems like exactly what we’re talking about. The small dick, though, is just a wild guess.”

He throws what remains of his drink back, taking an ice cube along with his last swallow. Open-mouthed, he rolls it along his teeth, from one cheek to another, until it’s out of the way enough for him to deadpan: “What gave it away?”

[estelasalvarez-blog]

“First off, it’s Italian, not Latin.”

She enjoyed how brute he is – savored the blut pain of a dull knife against flesh of his razor words. Estela appreciated everything that diverged from soft; in reality, she found beauty in everything people would rather not look at.

Beckett was just a living example of that. Where everyone would rather not stare, she made sure that he would catch her eye; they tended to not disturb his waters, and Estela, sliding on the spot beside him, just wanted to make another turmoil. “Hermes is the god of thieves. So, while I understand you’d think of small penises and god complexes, it’s something much simpler – only Thief of Justice.”

[beckmurphy-blog]

How predictable. How precise all these thieves are, how they love traditions and drama and naming things. Naming cons, often with references to books he’s never read or mythology he’s never learned, so that he never finds them helpful, only annoying. Naming themselves with self-given titles: Masterming, Magpie, Thief Lord, Thief of Justice.

Beckett Murphy never existed. Beck could have left that name behind long ago and picked up a new one. He could have named himself whatever the fuck he wanted, but he kept his name because it was his. He’d rather take his name and make it feared, rather than pick some other name designed to instill fear. The fear came from his deeds, and not the name he put to them. 

She seems proud of herself. Perfectly-painted lips curling themselves into a smug smile. He takes a long sip of his dwindling drink and, once he’s swallowed, he yawns, mouth opening wide enough to give her view of his molars, to make his boredom and his disdain known.

“Do I look like I wanted a language lesson? And besides, I think I liked mine better.”

[beckmurphy-blog]

WASHINGTON, DC ⇢ LONDON

[beckmurphy-blog]

There is little about The Victorian that suits him. He doesn’t do this kind of sighing-nostalgia for a bygone era. He doesn’t do nostalgia, full stop. But the heist moves apace, and the heist makes demands, the heist requires his presence for some kind of strategy meeting that he spent most of with his feet propped rudely up on a table, a toothpick hanging out of one corner of his mouth. 

He’d wheedled a free drink out of it, though, and maybe that’s the only reason that he’s still here.

(When they do more than talk and actually act, though, he’ll be much more obliging. With how annoying the thieves, their employer, and their employer’s dearly departed children seem to be, he’s hoping that this one will end with a bullet in at least one person’s head, end with some kind of bloodshed. )

“Hermes Della Giustizia” He says, drawing the syllables out. They do not sound elegant in his accent, nothing really does. The heaping helping of disdain he adds, though, certainly doesn’t help. “What is that, Latin for ‘small dick and a god complex?’”

[beckmurphy-blog]

LONDON ⇢ WASHINGTON, DC

[beckmurphy-blog]

It isn’t even midnight yet, and already Beckett has had enough Villiers superiority to last him through to next New Year. 

Beckett has lived his life with only a few things he values: his reputation, and the weapons that helped him build and maintain it. Fast cars and loose women? They were plentiful distractions, the only indulgences he really needed. And yet, in all his travels, he’s met enough of this sort: those that think they’re better than him, just because they have expensive useless shit to hang on their walls, a bigger collection of cufflinks, a posh fucking accent.

He’d rather call a spade a spade, he’d rather wear his colors proudly. He doesn’t need two faces to show to the world, one for day and one for night, he thinks the one he’s got is perfectly pretty enough. 

The Aristocrats, The Bankers, The Real Estate Moguls. Those cover identities have no intrinsic value beyond what aid they might bring to a job. They’re no better than the mafiosi they look down their noses at, they’re no better than Beckett, the lone mercenary. In fact, they’re worse. Beckett has chosen to make his bed with Rozanovs: the Diamond industry has always been steeped in blood and has made no effort to hide it. It suits him: he’d already shot many a man over diamonds before ever meeting Alexei Rozanov.

The laser grid disappears before his mental countdown runs out, leaving him standing where he was when they appeared: still just a little bit too close to the ugly painting that started this all. She moves towards him and then past with a whisper of silk, and he bares his teeth at her for his goodbye, his voice pitched louder to carry as she sashays away. In this, his convict accent is a help instead of a hindrance: it cuts through all the other voices that sound exactly like hers. 

“I’ll see you there, sweetheart, or did you forget that you’re a criminal too?”

[tatrisalol-blog]

She laughs, and it echoes, it reverberates like she’s a god and this is her cathedral. In a way, it is. The girl of many faces wears her own most rarely, but when she does it’s a significant moment, a grand occasion: homecoming. The bird returns to the nest, and when she does she wears a necklace of all her stolen commodities, travel passports and ticket nubs from theatres, trinkets from venues where insight is sight, where she plays in the shadows and then becomes the shadow. 

She was Evangeline Villiers. And who was he? Some half-arsed interloper in this world which she had been born into? Bedraggled, reckless, foreign? She gauges the weight of the wallet in her hand, slipped from his person with the barely perceptible brush of silk against suit. 

“Maybe.” Her smile mocks. “But sweetheart - ” and she throws his petname back at him, voice carried by the halls, disembodied from the dark-clad figure who now passes a luminescent vase, who now drops the leather package neatly into its confines with a satisfying clunk, “ - I’m a criminal that doesn’t get caught.” 

[beckmurphy-blog]

FIN.

[bjork1997]

Visit Original Link

[beckmurphy-blog]

Baby, I can't stay, you got to roll me And call me the tumblin' dice

[whiskeybishop]

She barely registered Gin’s shocked cry, too caught up in getting Beck away, getting the picture into his head that he is not wanted, not now, not ever. It wasn’t until her sister’s hand was on her arm, tugging her away, that the noise of the party and the presence of the people surrounding them flooded back into her senses. It was as if everything had tunneled until all she could see was Beck - his hand on Gin’s arm, his head bent towards hers - and only one word thrummed through her body - protect.

“He’s the problem, Gin, can’t you see that?” She barely had a chance to reply to Gin before Beckett was back in her space, smirking down at the two of them as if he was in control, as if this were the most amusing moment of the night. It infuriated her. “You have no right to call me that,” Whiskey growled, stepping closer to him, hand itching to slap the self-satisfied look off of his face. Decorum, she reminded herself - now was not the place and time for this. Almost as if he expected her movements, he stepped forward as well - but leaned forward like he had just been with Gin a moment ago, as if the exchange of their bodies meant nothing to him. She bit back revulsion, stopping herself from stepping back, moving as far away from his predatory galnce as she could. She wouldn’t give him the high ground.

“Oh, fuck you, Beckett,” she replied. “Take your fucking fantasy and shove it up your ass, and while you’re doing that, leave my sister the fuck alone.” It wasn’t the most elegant way of putting it, but she was wound too tight to find better words. “I don’t want you anywhere near her.”

[ginxbishop]

Two adversaries circled each other, spitting insults. Looking into her sister’s eyes, Gin only saw venom. Genuine hate, distaste and disgust. Looking back into Beckett’s, she saw someone who wanted to play - who saw her sister’s fire and enjoyed it. Where she sat, it was clear as day that the two were simply winding each other up. Anna pushed Beckett away, he called her Annabelle. She told him to screw himself - he invited her closer. He’s just mad at being interrupted. But so was she.  

“Hey, don’t call her that.” That sentence was directed towards Beckett - knowing he was picking at her sisters insecurities. And despite being blinded by desire, she was still in control of her mind enough to know that was not okay. She was the only one who got to call her sister Annabelle, the only one who had known what their life was like before - a million years ago back when Anna’s world had been, for lack of words, completely and utter shit. Beck didn’t get to comment on that. There were hundreds of things she might have overlooked and forgiven him for - things she would continue to do as time unfolded - but hurt her sister wasn’t one of them. She would deal with her. They were Bishop sisters. Their shit was their own. “It’s not cool Beck.”

That hardly meant she forgave her sister for stepping in just as she was about to secure her position on his arm. Anyone who knew their history could understand why Anna protected her so, a mother lion circling her cub. Anna had saved her. Anna had saved them both. And everyday, they continued to save each other. But this wasn’t Texas. Their Father was years in the ground and she was no longer the eighteen year old girl who had never left Texas. Years had passed them by in the blink of an eye. No longer were they solely relying on each other. They had friends, they had a crew, a family carved outside of blood. And Gin had Beck (well, hypothetically). Hypothetical could quickly become reality. should you want it enough. Biting down on her lip, Gin drew blood as she swallowed her words. “Anna - come on. It’s just a bit of fun.” Anna had already embarrassed enough, now she would struggle to regain what little composure she could manage.

Sensing the situation needed to diffuse rapidly, Gin tugged at her sister’s arms. “Come on.” How odd it felt, to be the one to talk her sister down instead of the person egging her on towards new heights. To Beck, she looked back, eyes haunted with regret. “Maybe we’ll run into each other later.” Laced together, maybe sounded a lot like certainty.

[beckmurphy-blog]

Look at them closing ranks: it’s as adorable as it is annoying. Beckett had a shitty childhood, full of corporeal punishment and extreme elements, the desert and its inhabitants both seemingly working together to kill him. And did you see him naming himself after alcohol and hissing and spitting whenever anyone called him by the name given to him at birth? No.  

A name is just that: a name. It doesn’t mean anything besides whatever meaning you subscribe to it. And Beckett, predictably, gives his no meaning at all. It’s just a collection of words and syllables that make up the idea of a man, nothing more. It can’t hurt him. Why the hell should it? It’s just noise. 

But Annabelle, no matter how rough and calloused she likes to pretend she is, is covered in those kind of easy buttons. If she wants to stand toe-to-toe with him, it isn’t his fault for pushing them—it’s hers for having them. Maybe she should pick her battles more wisely.

So now he has both sisters glaring at him, like he’s committed some unspeakable evil. Granted, Whiskey had been looking at him like that before her name had even left his lips. But then Gin joins the fray and he’s the outsider, Gin chastising him like he’s some misbehaving pet instead of something feral. It’s cute, too, that she thinks she can do that. But she’ll learn soon enough.

“See you later, Bishop,” he says, as Gin takes Whiskey by the arm to tug her away, making sure he lets his gaze linger on each of them before they’re out of sight.

[tatrisalol-blog]

If there was anything that Evie lost her head over, it was inconvenience. She had inherited her mother’s colours and her father’s impatience, and they served against each other in the worst of moments - one a cover, the other the steam which threatened to crack it. It was unbelievable, coming home from half a year abroad to deal with this shit before she’d even kissed Zephora on the cheek, taken Francis fondly by the arm. Unbelievable, and yet entirely to be expected. What was life, let alone that of a Villiers, without its trials? 

With a well-cultivated dexterity, Evie weaves through the lights, increasingly irate despite the ease with which she navigates the maze of reds. There was a time in which Francis would put her through the Villiers security systems again and again; drilling, training. To understand the enemy, one has to play in their shoes; to defeat the obstacle, first understand the obstacle. Even so, the man’s quips only fuel her building irritation, until finally, goaded on by his taunting threats; she reaches the small metal box hidden cleverly on the flipside of a false embellishment carved into the ornate walls. 

Quickly, now, or I’ll get bored and do it anyway.

“Will you shut up?” A snap, acrid and sharp. Beneath this roof she doesn’t have to feign anything. “Son of a bitch.” 

Pressing one thumb against the fingerprint scanner while the other deciphers the mess of numbers, combinations, and series which floats through her ever-expanding bank of memory, after a moment of quick tapping and retapping, it is with a loud finality that she slams the detail back into place, the hall reverted to its cold regalia in a span measurable by milliseconds. The calm has barely just settled when she’s already gliding towards him in her dark lace, eyes-narrowed. “Well, that was fun.” The sardonic comma of her smile is more of a knife’s edge, hospitalitytinged with hostility. “Now,” and she passes him, the slight breeze pressing against her satin skirts like a caress. “Why don’t you scurry back to the rathole where you came from? I think we used to call it New South Wales.” Another few steps and she’s through an arched doorway leading towards the ballroom, her words a passing breath. “A convict colony.” 

[beckmurphy-blog]

It isn’t even midnight yet, and already Beckett has had enough Villiers superiority to last him through to next New Year. 

Beckett has lived his life with only a few things he values: his reputation, and the weapons that helped him build and maintain it. Fast cars and loose women? They were plentiful distractions, the only indulgences he really needed. And yet, in all his travels, he’s met enough of this sort: those that think they’re better than him, just because they have expensive useless shit to hang on their walls, a bigger collection of cufflinks, a posh fucking accent.

He’d rather call a spade a spade, he’d rather wear his colors proudly. He doesn’t need two faces to show to the world, one for day and one for night, he thinks the one he’s got is perfectly pretty enough. 

The Aristocrats, The Bankers, The Real Estate Moguls. Those cover identities have no intrinsic value beyond what aid they might bring to a job. They’re no better than the mafiosi they look down their noses at, they’re no better than Beckett, the lone mercenary. In fact, they’re worse. Beckett has chosen to make his bed with Rozanovs: the Diamond industry has always been steeped in blood and has made no effort to hide it. It suits him: he’d already shot many a man over diamonds before ever meeting Alexei Rozanov.

The laser grid disappears before his mental countdown runs out, leaving him standing where he was when they appeared: still just a little bit too close to the ugly painting that started this all. She moves towards him and then past with a whisper of silk, and he bares his teeth at her for his goodbye, his voice pitched louder to carry as she sashays away. In this, his convict accent is a help instead of a hindrance: it cuts through all the other voices that sound exactly like hers. 

“I’ll see you there, sweetheart, or did you forget that you’re a criminal too?”

[miloxmh-blog]

He listened to her story, to her quivering voice, to her horrible tragedy. Milo knew what loss felt like but not at that level, not in that way. Murder, he believed, was the way of the weak willed, the way of the coward and the slow minded, a last resort for the desperate and unintelligent. No treasure was comparable to a human life, no heist was worth the blood of a person, let alone five. As horrid as the late Mr. Sommer sounded, Milo couldn’t find it in himself to approve of his life being taken away. 

And then she worded her threat. I will tell the world who you are. A name was all she had but if Francis Villiers fell, the whole crew would fall with him, the whole heist society would crumble. They were a castle made on pillars of sand and this woman was an unforgiving ocean.

The colour left Milo’s face as he held on tighter to the cold stone beneath his fingers, leaning closer to the edge, eager to see what would happen next. “Just say yes.” He whispered, fear clear in his voice but the master minds fell silent and dread set on the pit of his stomach, a weight pulling him down, making him feel sick. 

They couldn’t deny her what she wanted, not after what she had threatened to do. Milo had fallen from grace once before, he had seen what happened when a name was dragged through the mud, when crimes came to the daylight when they were meant to stay in the shadows. It would be a horrible show to watch, to see them all fall from their pedestals, stripped from their silk gowns and their vaults filled with treasures and gold. “Don’t….” He whispered as the patron was dragged away. Couldn’t they see it? How they were in no place to say no? They were only kidding themselves by weighing their options. 

He wanted to yell at them, even if it was not his place to give an opinion. He was not about to let them ruin everything he had worked for, everything he had sacrificed. He had given up so much to give Rosie the life he deserved. They had promised a future and now…Now they could take it all away if they said no.

“What are they yapping about?” He said, a desperate edge to his tone that was unusual on him, normally always polite and sweet, kind and gentle. “They have to say they’ll do it! They have to agree to her terms!” He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to quiet his voice, push away his uneasiness. “We can’t let her ruin us.”

[beckmurphy-blog]

Other people’s tragedies roll off of Beckett like water. So do their threats.

He is a shadow, he is a ghost: he has no identity save for fake ones he’s created for himself. He is unlike so many others in the Heist Society, who wear many faces, building civilized veneers over their criminal underbellies. There is nothing of him to expose that he doesn’t already wear proudly. 

And he is not tied to them: if it is ever a sinking ship, he will be the first to go. He has contacts the world over from lives he’s lived and jobs he’s done before falling in with the Rozanovs. If he ever needed to, he would let a fairer wind take him away, and he wouldn’t pause to say goodbye.

And no one’s asking his opinion, but the best course of action is the simplest: with her husband her children dead, no one would question it if she, too, were to meet an ignoble end. He isn’t blinded to her threat by the treasures she’s used to bait the hook. She chose to threaten them when her money would have sufficed. What’s more important than a goblet or a locket or a fuckin’ desk is that rumors don’t spread, because that would surely be the beginning of end.

If anyone else hears that the so-called Thief Lord bows before threats, then he’s lost his kingdom already. 

He’ll give Francis Villiers the benefit of the doubt, for now. Perhaps he plans only to acquire her treasures now and kill her afterward. But if she walks away from this job alive and able to brag of how she brought an entire society to its knees, then maybe this operation is too soft for Beckett after all. 

As if on cue, there’s sniveling from his right side, the stench of fear punching through the other buzzing murmurs. Beckett curls his lip. “If you have to be this pathetic, do you have to do it where everyone else can hear?”

[tatrisalol-blog]

“Jesus Christ.”

There are very few things that truly take Evangeline Villiers by surprise, and in a span of three seconds, the blonde-haired greaser and his unruly quiff transform her from cavalier conwoman to astounded English girl - her nose wrinkles in something akin to disgust, eyebrows furrowing in disbelief as she watches the spectacle unfold. 

Vaguely, she hears an insistent beeping begin in the precise moment after tongue meets canvas. One red laser point appears on the gilded frame itself, and then as if the state-of-the-art security system is mirroring her own bafflement, a network of bright, hyper-concentrated lights begin to crisscross the hall, each beam hitting another hidden mirror, and another — until at last, they stand in the midst of a metaphorical minefield, albeit unscathed.

She hasn’t yet seen him, but Evie very innately and very immediately knows that her father will not be amused if his impeccable ball is interrupted by a thick-headed stranger and an ear-screeching alarm. She throws up her arms in a universal gesture of frustration, avoiding a trigger by a mere millimetre. Everything big starts small; and now she starts to pick her way towards the security box with murder in her eyes to prevent something manageable from getting out of hand. 

“Who the fuck invited you? You’re a damn pain in the arse.” 

[beckmurphy-blog]

“Whoops,” he says, voice flat, completely devoid of inflection. The lasers spring into existence around him, but he isn’t afraid. He doesn’t care about the threatened alarm. He’s not trying to steal anything. In fact, he’s hardly even impressed: the best alarms are silent, letting the would-be thieves think they’ve gotten away with it, up until the moment they’re apprehended. This is just showing off. 

“Take care of that, would you, Princess? I’d hate to ruin the party.” Counter to his words, however, his hand raises, fingertips playing just a hairs-breadth away from the arcing red line, suggesting that, in fact, he would actually like nothing more. 

Aside from the open bar, something that has ceased to be notable since joining the ranks of a class of criminals that defined themselves by their wealth and supposed class rather than the amount of blood that they’ve spilled, this party has had little in the way of entertainment to offer him. A bored Beckett is a phenomenon as common as it is unfortunate for anyone who might get caught in his crossfire. And now, thanks to an ugly painting and an annoying Villiers, he’s stumbled into something more entertaining than the more typical brawl.

“Quickly, now, or I’ll get bored and do it anyway.”

[beckmurphy-blog]

Got on my dead man's suit and my smilin' skull ring My lucky graveyard boots and song to sing I got a song to sing, keep me out of the cold And I'll meet you further on up the road