Bryan Beneventi is a wayward Marine stuck in a life-debt to the man who pulled him out of prison. With nothing left on Earth, he’s commanded to fulfill his life-debt by accompanying Maddox out to Pandora to participate in the clandestine Avatar program. However, he makes the fatal mistake of falling for the tsakarem of one of the Na’vi clans. Caught between the love and kinship in his Avatar body and the devotion of duty in his human body, Bryan must decide which world he will fight for and where he truly belongs.
thank you so much for everything you did for the debris fandom. i can't put it into words. so much work over so much time. you have so much passion in you. so much skill and potential and love. i hope it always stays with you.
Her bloød is not her own. It’s a bubbling, boiling scarlet brine tainted by her father and his betrayal. Finola can feel it slither and seethe beneath her skin, not wholly her own yet neither its own. No, rather, it’s some unholy cocktail turned bitter by the man who gave it to her, trapped within her veins, unable to escape.
Her own father is a traitor. To his country, to Orbital, and to her. His own daughter. The daughter he raised, who he loved and guided, who just got him back. Finola just got him back. She spent months grieving, feebly tried to keep it together at his funeral, desperately tried to keep her and Dee Dee together only to loose her too to some aimless life, spent countless nights unable to sleep yet unable to find peace, her eyes tear-stained and her mind dead, sinking into her bed. She spent months slowly, achingly building herself back up after loosing the one parent she had left, crawled her way back to work in his shadow, chased by his name muttered in conversation and his photos left on desktops and walls.
Then, as though it were a miracle, George had returned. He was alive. Finola had wanted to disregard it, she couldn’t go through the wrenching pain of grief again if it were a lie. But it was true, in the end, as she found him in an Influx base. Barely alive. Brought back from the dead. Forced to work for an organization known to inflict harm and death. There had been such a lift in her heart, free of the weight that had sunken it beneath waters, hoisting her off her feet, her father is alive! He’s alive!
Except that was the lie. Her father wasn’t alive. No, he had died six months ago in the waters off some European coast. All that is left is the hollow shell of George, deprived of its heart and barely a brain, a marionette for the will of Influx as he orchestrates its endeavors with the Debris.
Finola’s heart still crackles from where George had fractured it, driving a spike into the center the moment he had revealed his allegiance. Her father, who had always had hope for the Debris and its use as a force for good, now not just cooperating with but leading an enemy faction. His argument in its favor had raked against her ears like the infested claws of a wild beast, shredding himself and her heart further and further. She can still feel the ghostly caress of those cronies’ hands pinning her arms, grabbing her chin, forcibly handling her, bending her to their will.
Because she’s nothing but George’s daughter, right? Even when she had tried to tell George that, kneeled down among the shatters of her heart, ripped apart by the betrayal of her own father, he ignored her. All she has ever been is George’s daughter, a title she had once been proud in but now feels only disgust for it like acid in the back of her throat, snared beneath an immovable shadow.
It’s all Orbital sees as well. Finola can feel it. Hears it in the whispers. Sees it in the split-second glances her way.
Isn’t that George Jones’ daughter? The guy who betrayed us? How trustworthy is she? Do you think she’s a mole? Poor girl.
She sees it most in Maddox’s eyes. They had been hauled to his office immediately after the quarry incident and demanded penitence for their actions. Bryan had, just as immediately, come to their defense like some valiant knight, able to argue his way into minimal punishment. But Finola could still spot it in Maddox’s eyes. The ever so hightened alertness, the oh so mild kiss of disgust. To him, she’s nothing more than George’s daughter. Not a person in her own right.
There’s another layer to it though. A second skin of disregard. One that whispers, she isn’t a threat. It’s a bit more subtle, but it’s there. Finola’s been aware of it since day one. She had spotted it instantly in Maddox the first day they met. Even Bryan crept close to it once, in New York, ‘I doubted you could do this job’.
They never say it directly, never offer reasons why, but Finola could guess. She’s too soft. Wears her heart on her sleeve. She’s too kind. Too forgiving. She doesn’t have enough experience. She’s a woman. She’s just George’s daughter.
Just George’s daughter.
Her bloød boils beneath her skin, searing hot as it floods her veins, burning her alive from the inside out. Her legacy has never been hers, only an extension of her father’s, who is now a traitor that has tainted their family’s name. She wants it back. Her name. Her legacy. Her autonomy. Her bloød. It’s hers. Not George’s. Hers.
That truly, in the end, is what makes Finola decide to go rogue. Not just the betrayal of her father but the inability of everyone around her to separate her from him, clumping her into George Jones’ daughter. She’s a trained government agent with a Master’s in astrophysics. She has more than enough in her name, she just has to make it known.
So, on a night spent in a hotel room as they struggle to conclude a mission, Finola rises from bed, packs her things, and slips out the door. Not because she can’t do this job, but because she can, and she can do it better.
Debris fic. More Bryan instropection. A sort of alternate take on 1.12 that focuses more on emotions.
Grime coats his skin, caked on dust and dirt and blood, on splattered on his forehead, smeared on his cheek, embedded beneath his fingernails. His uniform is too hot, too scratchy, too baggy, has always been, and the gun in his hand too heavy. The heart in his chest too scattered and weighty to keep. It’s buried too, the same time she is, left to waste beneath the world.
Mariel stands before him. Clean, pristine, almost lucent in all the wrong ways, illuminated by a harshened light that comes from nowhere, like some generated figment of his imagination. But here, a foot from her grave, a half mile from base, gunpowder and copper staining his nose, it’s all an illusion. Bryan is quite suddenly aware of how he hasn’t been here in a long, long time.
Yet as he faces down Mariel, blank eyes of a puppet with no soul, all he can feel is blankness himself, hollow with the lack of understanding, almost hurt by it. His heart is bleeding, but the artery is cut from his head, like he’s watching it bleed rather than feeling it. So he has to ask, desperate, raspy;
“Why?”
She asks with him. Almost like she mocks him. And that, of all things, is what makes the first fracture in the dam that conceals what he should be feeling, the first spark of anger licking through. It’s quelled only as she reaches out to him, and staring at that hand, no other option before him, his stomach shredded, his heart buried, all sense of his internal self hollow and gone, Bryan reaches out as well.
But before they can touch, his heart stops, his body jolts, his vision turns white, and all of a sudden he is flung up out of his seat, back in the real world, back in Orbital, that dam fracturing an inch further.
***
The Debris is taunting him, Bryan thinks, in the darkened halls of a malfunctioning Orbital building. It’s laughing at him, for his failures, for his sufferings, for the fact that he is still alive through it all. It wants him, he thinks, wants him like how it took Kieran and Mariel and enthralled the techs. Wants him like a lab rat for whatever database of humanity it’s trying to build, intriguing by the old, scarred-up little rat refusing to die, always failing yet refusing to let life take him nor himself take his own life, returning again and again like a pest.
He deserves it, part of him whispers, this odd sort of reckoning as he sees her behind the techs, a buried girl unearthed to haunt him, her memory zombified just like his heart, taunting him. The lights flickering on and off just to spook him, to play with his patience and courage like a little puppet, to pull his strings until they snap, taunting him. The chair, the one Mariel had died in, appearing for a split second, taunting him, remember?
And then Mariel, herself, standing there, so real. And still blank, eyes glazed over and soulless, nothing but a suit of flesh for the Debris to dress itself in. Yet still, staring at her, there is something that draws him. Her appearance untouched from last time, the all-knowing presence of the Debris, her hand stretching outward. Whatever it is, Bryan doesn’t know, he only aware of this all-encompassing desperation to know
“Why?”
She says it with him, like she’s mocking him, and that is the last blow that the dam over his feelings can take as it crumples beneath the strike of her mockery. Anger floods into place, a burning, seething rage as the question rings in his head why? She doesn’t get to ask that question. Only he.
Bryan shouts, “Why?”
Why did she show him that memory? Why is the Debris interested in him?
But as his rage billows in his gut, surges through his veins, churns white-hot beneath his skin, it’s more than just now. It’s Why did she have to die? It’s Why couldn’t he have died instead? It’s Why didn’t she listen to me? Why didn’t anyone stop her? Why didn’t I stop her? Why did this have to happen to her? Why did this happen to me?
The silence that follows is putrid.
Fate never answers, because it’s never really been there in the first place. It was just chance that had him sent to Afghanistan. A roll of the dice that had him stationed in Surobi. By coincidence that he met Asalah. By accident that she died. By accident that he didn’t.
He thought he had come to terms with it. Made silence with it. Patted it down until it was tolerable enough to live with. Yet having the Debris resurface it all again, not just in the memories it forces him to relive but in the flashbacks that followed him home, the nightmares that jolted him awake, the alertness that drains his body, Bryan is met with wrenching grief and a desperate, clueless anger.
Why him?
Why?
He knows it was by chance and choice and fate, that he had no control over it, but that’s far from a satisfying answer. It’s never been enough, such a bland explanation, such an empty reasoning as to why, even now, he suffers. He can’t live a day without pain or fear or panic or disillusionment, floating half-conscious of his own body because it’s too uncomfortable to exist wholly, always a little bit tired because he’s forgotten what it’s like to get a good night’s sleep, some sore popping up everyday because of how rigorous that instinctual need to be alert has become, his heart shredded and torn with grief and guilt that he can only bury lest it kill him, and that’s all because of happenstance?
Bull-fucking-shit.
A girl is dead. Gone. All because of chance.
There is nothing in that but emptiness.
Mariel reaches out her hand to him, and glancing at her, yet not quite questioning it, too furious to think right, Bryan takes it.
Because the Debris wants to understand him.
Bryan cries out, a mangled shout of fiery fury, and breaks away from Mariel. There had been, for a split second, a sense of compassion. The Debris just wants to understand him. But it has been at the cost of his own stability and his own health.
Sacrificing him just so they could understand him? Making him relive the worst years of his life just so they could understand him? Resurfacing every putrid feeling, every bit of guilt, every bit of grief, every bit of anger, every bit of heart remaining, that he had buried for his own survival, just to ‘get to know him’?
Bryan sneers at Mariel, because all he can see when he looks at her is the Debris, the Debris and Afghanistan and guns and blood and dead eyes on a dead girl and a grieving grandfather and camouflage uniforms made crusty by dirt and vile taste of MREs and the rancid stank of oil and copper and rotten flesh, and it bubbles up his chest, surges through his throat, staring life in the face as he bellows out
“Fuck you!”
His chest heaves beneath his breath, but like a flood breaking through, he can’t stop, shouting at the top of his lungs
“Fuck you for everything you’re doing! Fuck you for bringing me back here! Fuck you for the panic attacks and nightmares! Fuck you for killing Asalah! Fuck you for everything you’ve taken from me! Fuck you for everything i will never get back!”
Sleepless nights he will never get again. Discarded meals he will never eat again. Painlessness he will never feel again. Faces he will never see again. Voices he will never hear again. Peace he will never find again. Youth he will never get back. All gone. Zapped. Like a snap of his fingers. And for what? To have it all played again in front of his face like it’s evening entertainment?
He lost his youth to a war that he never even fully understood. He lost his body and brain because of one decision he made as a teenager. And maybe there is something that has come of it, even just one person he helped, but right now, staring Mariel down, having the worst of it spat back at him, all Bryan can feel is contempt and pure, unadulterated fury.
Then, like a cut string, he crumbles as the fury melts into grief, as the shouting disintegrates into tears.
He’s tired. He’s so fucking tired. His body is sore. His head hurts. His heart aches.
All he wants is to sleep. To sleep for a long enough time that he isn’t so tired anymore, and maybe, if it can be spared, a little less pain.
The tile is cold on his knees but his tears are hot on his face, blubbering out against his will that’s been shattered on the ground.
And suddenly Bryan is aware that’s he’s alone.
Mariel has left.
So all he does is cry, because it’s all he can do. Shout and cry and sleep it off, because he will never get any of it back.
Debris fic. Bryan introspection New Year’s Edition.
It’s New Year’s Eve. The Kazemis’ house swarms with agents and techs and scientists and everything in between, trickling in from Orbital, piling themselves into the living room, meandering along the snack buffet, roving between people and pets. Bryan is the corner, is always in the corner because that’s where he’s safe, back against the wall, no one behind him, everyone in front of him, everyone where he can see. No one to catch him off guard. He’s got some buff, untouched drink in a candy red cup, some beer he grabbed just to hold something, to give his hands something to do, something to center himself on. Beer from that shitty gas station just down the street in a candy red cup just like last year. At least it’s something.
Tonight, though, is mildly pleasant. That’s the best way to put it, standing against the wall and watching the party, beer untouched, always untouched in a crowd like this (inebriation terrifies him, the lack of autonomy, the lessened reaction time, the lessened awareness). Maddox, Tom, Muntz, Alvin, and Lester all throng together in the dinning room, dispersed in various seats that are always being taken and then left and then taken, murmuring between each other things that Bryan’s too far away to hear. There’s one window in the dinning room, and two ways out into the adjoining rooms.
Kazemi and Claire and April have taken to the buffet of snacks spread out among the kitchen (one window above the kitchen sink), chatting as the pick and sniff and judge and taste. Bryan learns a lot being the fly on the wall, every conversation drifting his way, drawn to every little movement. Like how Rachel’s husband wants to get another cat, how Claire’s thinking about going back to college though for what yet she isn’t sure, and how April had the absolute funniest run in with this random stranger in a coffee shop a couple days ago that was such a coincidence.
The front door is clear. Bryan can sprint to it in an instant, that or one of the windows on either side of it. A roar of laughter snatches his eyes to the living room, where Finola and Hamid and Reed and Brandt dip and weave and shimmy and shake as they dance to the music, a collection of drinks in hand. Finola has wine, Bryan thinks, spotting the bulbous glass half-full with the sort of quartz-like color of white wine. They’re in front of the tv, which Bryan is near, against the living room wall, as it bubbles out song after song, songs that are light and groovy, dancing music with a base that rumbles in his chest. But it’s okay tonight. He can tune it out. He has the energy to spare.
He really is mindless tonight, isn’t he? All base instinct, absorbed in the vibrancy before him as Niels and Grace and Gibson come in from the backyard (one door out, two more windows), making some loud comment about how they were freezing their tits off and then promptly going for the alcohol. It’s as much as his brain can process right now, the music and the murmuring, the movement and momentum, but it’s not too much, lingering right at the perfect capacity, consuming his conscious yet not shredding it.
Kazemi hands out champagne flutes, and Bryan just watches her, watches as she weaves between people, making comments as she disperses the drinks. He takes his with a quiet thank you, voice cut, drowned out as the party consumes him, too invaded with what goes on to be much of a conversation. It bubbles, the champagne, a pale gold liquor that mutters to him in a cold, clear glass. His knees are starting to hurt with how long he’s been standing, and tomorrow morning he knows he’s going to wake up a being of nothing but bruise, but that’s tomorrow. Tonight, Finola is walking up to him, a soft smile on her face, her wine glass traded out for the champagne flute.
“How are you doing?” She asks.
Bryan returns that smile, soft and gentle and endeared, because she’s the only one who ever asks. The only one who tries to understand instead of taking the first assumption their brain sputters out. The only one who he isn’t terrified to exist with.
“I’m okay,” He says, “Just hanging out.”
Because that’s the only way he can really put it, isn’t it? Not actively engaging but passively enjoying, watching the people around him, as Kazemi’s catch jumps up onto the kitchen island, and listening, listening as someone shouts out ‘fifteen seconds’.
Finola nods and then the countdown starts, someone shouting out a ‘ten’ and then ‘nine’ as more people join in, ‘eight’ as the entire party catches on, ‘seven’ as it echoes through the living room, ‘six’ as it rattles the house, and then Finola joins in too
“Five!”
And suddenly, Bryan is still.
New Year’s Eve. In five seconds, this year will end, gone to the grave, tucked away for eternity, nothing but a memory as they’re thrust into the next year, only one year, so fleeting. Weren’t they just here celebrating the previous New Year? Or what that two years ago? Or three? Are years really this short?
“Four!”
Time starts to blur after a while. After his brain is rattled by IEDs, after gunshots and shouting chase him down, after the sun beats down on his back for hours and burns his skin, after dust and blood stain his skin, no wash enough, not even now, still slick and warm beneath his fingers. Time starts to loose meaning after the nights spent as days in a land he can only remember, as a car backfires and suddenly there are bullets shooting at him, as he starts to loose touch with himself, floating through life partially out of his own body because if he’s too conscious of it then there’s too much pain, too much freedom for his brain, too much input from the world, too much, too much, too much.
And now he’s going to loose another year.
“Three!”
But at least he got the year.
Asalah didn’t.
Carlotta Orlov didn’t.
Kieran Vandeburg didn’t.
Those farmers from Nebraska didn’t.
Kurt and Clara Cox didn’t.
Luke and Liam Packard didn’t.
George Jones didn’t.
And suddenly the room feels so much more empty than it should, because now Bryan’s aware of just how many aren’t here. Even Asalah, who’s haunted him for years now, painted in his nightmares, clinging to his wrist, hidden in his pocket. Even she still stings, the world around him just a little colder and little more empty than it should be. She should be here, not him, standing in the light as they cry out for the New Year. But then again, this isn’t the first New Year she’s missed. Nor will it be the last. Bryan can only hope that she’s helping the others get through it too, the agony of missing New Year’s as they reside in a place where time doesn’t exist. Or maybe they’re fast asleep, unaware of time at all.
How peaceful that would be. To be so unaware of time. Of the seasons changing. Of how it reminds him of every thing he’s lost, every thing he’s failed, every thing he could never live up to. At least then the pain would stop.
“Two!”
Finola bumps his shoulder.
The world may be a little colder, but it isn’t cold. Maybe a little emptier, but not empty. Not when she stands beside him, the light of the sun itself, beaming at him with freckled cheeks and beautiful eyes. He’s not so alone, as much as his brain tries to trick him into thinking he is, not so isolated, not with Finola here, like glue to keep his feet tacked to the ground and head on his shoulders and brain in the present.
Bryan turns to the party as a whole, the people packed into the living room, shouting together, glasses raised, his coworkers alight as they creep steadily closer to the New Year. And staring at the party, staring at the future, there is a sort of lift off his chest. A sort of acceptance, dare he say a spark of hope. Yeah. Hope. Because he’s not alone. For the first time in a long time, he’s not alone, and staring into the not yet told abyss of the future, he’s not scared. He’s almost excited.
He made it another year. He survived another year, even when all odds were stacked against him. He survived another year through the hell of the Debris. Survived another year even when his PTSD never thought he could, even after the days spent in bed sick and hurting because of how raw it’s worn his body, even after the hospital trips and Orbital scans and blood given to the Debris. He survived another year. So it’s not so sour as it had been the year before. The year before, his survival meant nothing, just that he was continuing, a cog in the machine, just going through the motions until he couldn’t. But it means something this year, in this moment, after months spent across country to contain the Debris, after months spent fighting to bounce back from injuries and missions gone wrong, after months spent with Finola, the closest friend he’s had in years, the only person who means something to him.
For once his survival matters.
“One!”
Bryan looks at Finola, so beautiful, and maybe he didn’t just survive. Maybe he did a little more than that, because she’s gazing at him, bright-eyed, beaming, beautiful. Maybe she’s the hope he feels now, heart fluttering in his chest, the future an abyss for them to carve into shape together.
So he joins in this time
“Happy New Year!”
Bryan leans in close and snakes his arm around her waist, holding her gaze, asking,
“May I?”
Finola’s beaming smile turns into a toothy grin, and then her arm is around his neck, and then her lips are on his, pressing into him, slipping into place, warm and soft and everything he had hoped she would be. She parts, but her arms are still around his neck, over his shoulders, gazing into his eyes, and hers are so brown, so beautifully brown like gemstones.
“Happy New Year, Bryan,” She says.
And then he hears it, sung among the crowd, floating above their heads. Auld Lang Syne. And as it floats, ringing out through the room, Bryan sees someone leave, some one in dark blue and gray worn pale by wind and wear. Asalah. She doesn’t turn to look at him. Just leaves quietly, slipping out and away, no more to say, no more to do, just leaving into the bliss of a tranquil night, where she joins with several others. A little boy. A few people dirtied up and sweaty from a long day’s work. A couple strolling down the street. Two brothers bumping each other’s shoulders. An older man who hobbles his way on.
Bryan just watches them, quiet, passive, accepting as he bids them one last goodbye, one final tear, one final farewell.
Auld lang syne.
And then he lets them be, lets them on their way, lets them rest. The road splits here, where Bryan must go a different way, where it continues on for him, where must keep going even if it’s not so fair, and he returns to Finola.
He grins, “Happy New Year, Finola.”
And for once, for once Bryan means it, because for once, for once the New Year means something for him. A mark of achievement. A mark that he’s survived. That he’s alive, still human and still moving. For once the New Year matters. For once he matters.
October and November have been chaotic as shit for me so here’s some silly little fan art I never completely got done. First three are just pinterest photos I though were funny and the the fourth is a redo of the kids of Debris I started prob over a year ago and never finished lol
Debris fic. No set time. Fake dating turns into ‘uh oh I have feelings for you’ with a good sprig of jealousy.
They’ve been assigned to play a couple. It’s the only thing that registers in Bryan’s mind as he browses through a selection of blazers. Orbital has given them an undercover mission this time, feigning to be a couple interested in a mafia market for Debris. The main goal is to observe and report, to see which pieces are being sold, who purchases them, and find where they end up. Though there is an unspoken secondary endeavor to see if Influx will show.
It makes him nervous, the unpredictability of it all. There are so many ways this could go wrong, and so many more ways him or Finola could end up injured or kidnapped or just otherwise fucked over. And of course he’d do anything to keep them both safe, but he’s only one man. He glances over to Finola as she glimpses through dresses. He doesn’t think he could recover if he lost her. She’s wedged her way too deeply into his life.
Finola trails over his way, asking, “Has anything grabbed your interest?”
Bryan sighs quietly. “Not really.”
He’s never been a big fan of shopping, not with stores always feeling cramped and the scrape metal hangers against metal poles always making his skin crawl. He’s tried his best to look through the suits, genuinely wanting something that will flatter him, but everything he’s seen has passed by his eyes in a blur, not really processing anything. They all start to bleed together at some point, muted tones and same shape.
“What if we matched?” Finola suggests, “I’ve seen a few dresses I like, so why don’t we decide on a color and go from there? You’ve always looked handsomest in green.”
“Which means that’s what people expect,” Bryan counters, “The point is to blend in. I’d bet most of the attendees will be wearing black.”
“We should have a little bit of fun with it,” Finola says, “How often do we get to do these things? I want to make tomorrow tonight at least somewhat special.”
She blinks at him with her sweet doe eyes, an innocent plea upon her face, and Bryan realizes very quickly that he has no choice but to agree.
“Alright,” He murmurs.
It’s a grumble, but a half-assed one that’s undermined by the smile that peaks onto his lips and Finola’s own victorious grin. She flips through the selection of blazers saying,
“I’ve got a dress in mind for myself, so now - ah-ha!”
She pulls out a black silken blazer that’s patterned with silver paisleys that bend and shine beneath the light, a silver napkin tucked into its breast pocket to match. It’s more showy than Bryan tends to go for, but he has to admit that it appeals to him. However -
“Can I see your dress?” He asks.
With a nod, Finola hands him the blazer, dips back among the clothing racks, and pops out a moment later with a black dress made of a material that sparkles beneath the light. Its corseted, but that’s all he can really tell as it hangs limp from a hanger, not much of a form to it without a body to wear it. Still, it seems nice, though there’s no silver on it.
“They don’t match pattern wise,” He comments.
Finola hums, glancing back through the blazers until she pulls another black jacket from the selection, made out of the same glittering material.
“I’ve got silver jewelry to go with mine, so if we get you a silver tie, handkerchief, and maybe some tassels or chains here and there we could make it work.”
She looks to him for his approval, a hopeful gleam in her eye, something excited. It makes him smile.
“Sure,” He says, “I trust you.”
***
When Bryan sees Finola that night, he freezes, mouth falling ajar as he soaks in the sight of her. She is utter beauty, her shimmering black dress dripping down the curves of her body, a low, corseted top and a slit on one of her thighs. She’s paired it wonderfully with silver jewelry that gleams in such away that she appears ethereal, his eyes caught in particular on her necklace which slinks around her neck and down the center of her chest.
Finola pauses too, something that clicks in Bryan’s head as he snaps back into the moment. Her eyes rove his form with a small, appreciative smile, his shimmering black suit cut just right, thing silver chains drained across his tie, dangling sliver lapel decor matching her necklace.
Finola inches closer and adjusts his collar, smoothing out his lapels.
“You’re perfect,” She says.
Bryan can’t help his smile. “I think you’re saying that to the wrong person,” He jokes. He takes her hand, gently pulling her closer to him, his other hand caressing her arm, ghosting the curve of her hip, “You’re beautiful beyond words.”
Her rosy cheeks bunch beneath a bashful smile.
“Shall we, Mr. Hodak?” She asks.
It’s an alias, one chosen out of a selection of randomized names partly known within the realm of black markets. Whoever the real Hodak guy is is nameless, faceless, and voiceless, giving them the perfect opportunity to sneak in unnoticed.
Bryan offers her his hand. “We shall, Ms. Haliday.”
***
The mafia market has set up in the chilly stone cellar of some elaborate estate in the New England countryside, though with the bodies that rove through it, glistening and glittering in formal gowns and three-piece suits of all sorts, it’s warmer than it would be empty. Pieces of Debris have been posted around the room on pedestals beneath glass cases like works of air, a brief description of their abilities and where they were plucked from inscribed on golden plaques like labels.
They begin together, linked arm in arm as they rove among the on-show Debris, and Finola has to admit that it’s rather pleasant even if all she’s intended to be is more of an accessory than anything else. Arm tucked within Bryan’s, she could never be upset with a situation like this. Especially not when he was done up in suit well-cut to fit him just right, a bit too tight in all the right spots. She’s knows Bryan’s handsome, but seeing him dressed up spurs some new feeling, a slightly hotter feeling, somewhere inside her.
With one particular piece of Debris, large and at hip-level, Finola slink’s out of Bryan’s arm to get herself a good view of the hunk. It’s the biggest one on display, about as long and wide as her torso, and though she’s technically not supposed to indulge in her science-inclined train of thought, she can’t help her curiosity.
But of course, the moment that she parts from Bryan, someone is there to fill her space.
A shorter woman, shorter than them both, with straight blonde hair that curtains her face in a way that could easily turn coy, and a salmon dress that dips low in the chest and back. Stern, elegant, coiled, like a snake. Finola caught her look their way earlier, yet had made nothing of it even as the looks the woman gave rubbed her the wrong way. Apparently, she should’ve trusted her gut.
“Finding everything alright?” She asks, and though Finola’s close enough to be spoken to, the woman directs her intention to Bryan.
The moment she hears the voice, Finola’s attention shifts, a careful ear and a careful eye spared to keep track of the two of them. Again, the woman rubs her the wrong way, and perhaps it’s the woman’s flirtatious intent, but Finola can’t help the instinct that there’s a little more too it.
Bryan, of course, doesn’t recognize it.
He nods, giving her a short, simple, “Yes.”
The woman raises an eyebrow, which Bryan also doesn’t notice with his eyes on the Debris, and tries again when he gives her nothing more.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” She asks, thumbing her glass of champagne, “The Debris. Alien technology sent here to be used by humanity.”
Bryan, eyes still on the Debris, murmurs, “Or to destroy it. Can’t tell which yet.”
The woman chuckles, soft and fake and sparking a lick of anger in Finola’s gut particularly when it draws Bryan’s eyes up to her, wide with cluelessness.
“Of course the handsome man has a pessimistic heart,” The woman says, “Otherwise, you’d be too perfect.”
There’s a heat brought to Finola’s cheeks, one that burns, and she abandons all attempts to listening casually in favor of rejoining Bryan. At least he’s finally recognized the woman’s attention, quietly rearing back in his shock as her flirting is made clear, and in her relief Finola spots him sober up with minute distain.
Still, she wants this, her stomach churning in simmering anger watching this woman flirt with her ma - Bryan. Watching with woman flirt with Bryan. The couple thing is an alias, she has to remind herself. But they are partners, and that’s enough of a claim for her.
“Then you must’ve never had him in bed,” Finola says, sliding up to Bryan’s side, “I’d say that’s too perfect.”
Maybe a strong start, but watching the woman freeze as ill-hidden disgust wrinkles her face is so delicious. And Bryan, to her surprise, rolls unquestioningly with it. As her hand rests on his shoulder, his arm wraps around her waist, pulling her in to his chest. And it makes her heart flutter, such an odd feeling, though certainly not the first with Bryan. She’s had her fluttery hearts before, all because of Bryan, but this one is different. This time -
Oh.
Oh.
She loves him.
Fuck.
“Ma’am,” Bryan says, gesturing at the woman, but his eyes are interlocked with Finola’s. He looks at her like she’s everything tender standing right before him, his sage colored eyes glimmering and soft and her cheeks heat again, though this time it’s pleasant. This time it’s warm, “This is my woman, Ms. Halliday.”
Again, damnit, her heart flutters. Twice within just a few minutes, because she’s his woman. His partner. And maybe it’s all just a rouse, but in this moment it feels so real, Bryan gazing down at her like she’s everything precious.
“Ms. Halliday?” The woman asks.
Yet neither of them spare a glance to her, too enraptured to break away.
Bryan says, “Sorry if I led you in the wrong direction, ma’am, but I have no intention of finding someone else. I have my happiness right here.”
Finola’s can’t help the smile that breaks onto her face, and as the woman walks away with a tired sigh, Finola sways into Bryan. The tips of their noses brush, hovering close together, and she can feel his breath ghost her lips. Can feel him so close, the hand on her waist creeping down to rest at the small of her back.
“Jealous much?” Bryan teases.
That snaps her from her trance, yet still she’s aware of how close they are, her hand on his chest and his on her back.
“Perhaps,” Finola murmurs, offering a grin.
“Never took you as the type,” Bryan says.
“Well,” She pauses for just a second, a mere second as she almost thinks yet doesn’t, letting her words fall freely, “When you have a handsome partner you adore, you can’t help but want to keep him for yourself.”
Even through the teasing grin he gives her, Finola still spots the pinkish tinge of a blush to his cheeks, and it feels like some delicious prize to make Bryan blush this time around. He makes to say something, mouth partly opened, but the quickly nearing chatter of people makes him pause.
Right. They’re still in public.
“We should continue,” Bryan says, however, his hand doesn’t move from her back. He merely shifts her forward facing, guiding them onward to browse through another section of Debris.
***
Bryan can’t get himself to part from Finola no matter what he tries. Though the pink of his blush has faded, the heat of it still lingers in his cheeks as well as the warm, fuzzy feeling in his chest that had come with him. He hadn’t thought himself susceptible to such light, fluffy feelings, but watching Finola cut in and chase away that other woman, and not only admit to being jealous but stating that she wanted him for herself, had completely erased any sense of internal composure. That last bit especially, a heat even now as he thinks on it again, Finola’s want to have him for herself.
As far as he’s concerned, she can have him wherever for however long in whatever way. Though that’s sort of their relationship already, isn’t it? Considering Bryan has no other person so important to him in his life.
He keeps his hand on Finola’s lower back, both to guide her and to revel in the warmth of her touch. Admittedly, he’s lost his focus on the Debris as his eyes keep drawing back to her, and the people around them too.
Bryan’s been on a heightened watch since their run in with that woman, though why, he can’t quite name it. She had left him with a feeling of wrongness, as though something minute was wrong, like a misprint in a pattern. However, he tries to keep a bit of an open mind. Perhaps it was just that woman. Perhaps it was her attempt to flirt. Perhaps it’s his unease in an environment such as this.
As they come to the edge of the on-display Debris pieces, they find a rather lavish lounge of velvet and glass, and a bar to the side stocked with liquor so fine it take Bryan months to pay for on his salary. But what nabs his attention is the half dozen men among the center of the lounge, spread about a seating area of two couches and two armchairs talk amongst each other. Though he’s not sure who all of the participants are, Bryan’s fairly certain that the man leading the conversation - about his height, about his age, brindled hair, pallid complexion, stern looking - is the host of this evening.
Bryan glances at Finola, looking for her approval to approach, and receives a nod in response as she tucks her hand into his elbow.
Lifting his chin ever so and puffing out his chest, an attempt to present himself in a regal manner, Bryan approaches the group. He feels Finola shift as well, letting herself loosen up and bowing against him, fixing herself to appear as merely arm candy.
“Gentlemen,” Bryan greets.
The six of them glance his way, yet no greeting is offered, and there is a moment of quiet as Bryan sees them all thinking. Then something clicks and the host of the evening rises from his seat.
“Ah!” He exclaims, treading over to Bryan “You must be Mr. Hodak, the assassin. Supposedly.”
He offers a cheeky grin to the small group with his ‘supposedly’, and returns to the two of them. His hand moves with the intend to offer it, but it stops before it can rise as the host’s eyes find Finola, taking in her form as though he’s starving.
“And who’s this?” He asks.
Bryan can hear the intrigue so plain in his voice, just as obvious as Finola hanging off of his arm, not the host’s. Yet it remains, and as the host drinks her in, Bryan can feel resentment twist in his gut, a hateful heat taking to his cheeks.
“My woman. Ms. Halliday,” Bryan states.
Okay, so maybe a little strong, but watching this man trying to devour Finola with his eyes insights a rage so visceral that Bryan can’t help but dive nose first into his protective inclination. Finola is his partner, both under alias and out of it. Not the host’s. His.
Yet still, the host takes her hand, kissing her knuckles, “How wonderful to meet such a fine woman.”
Finola smiles at him, but Bryan is certain it’s fake, to bunched in the cheeks and the giggle that comes with it like the sound of plastic. Still, it brings a heat to his face, his jaw clenching to keep himself from spouting something irredeemable. Yet the host is entirely unaware as he straightens himself and releases her hand, a small, self-satisfied smirk upon his face. What rage-inducing audacity. Bryan wants nothing more than to smack that smirk of his face.
“I am Ciaran Cassius, my dear,” He says, “Why don’t you join us? The both of you.”
Though it’s the last thing Bryan could ever want, he nods his head, reminding himself that he is here under an alias with a specific goal to reach and a job to be done.
“That sounds splendid,” Bryan bites out.
Ciaran gestures for them to take a seat, and as Bryan maneuvers them to take one of the armchairs, he feels Finola brush his arm with her hand, a light, soothing rub that wordlessly urges him to ease.
“Jealous much?” She teases in a whisper only for him.
But he can’t ease, not in a place like this, and certainly not with Ciaran’s intrigue in his partner, eyes following her like a hawk to prey. It makes Bryan’s skin crawl, both in its acuteness and its hunger.
So when he takes his seat in the armchair, Bryan urges Finola down too, letting her settle on his lap. She drapes around him unhesitatingly, almost seemingly pleased, her legs hanging over his, her arm curled around his shoulders, a hand toying with his tie, and her breath against his neck. He’s suddenly very aware of how hot her body his against hers, and just how delicious it feels to hold her so closely, his hand settling on her lower thigh, and they’re perfect here, because she is close, she is safe, he can protect her here, he can hold her here, beautiful and perfect and -
Oh.
Oh.
He loves her.
Shit.
Immediately, that rage-induced heat in his cheeks turns into a balmy warmth that tingles throughout his body. Of course he loves her. She the one person who matters to him. The one person he’d be willing to give everything up for. And of course he had to realize that with her on top of him, something that strengthens the warmth in his chest and cheeks, the thought of her on top of him.
Focus.
There’s a strain in Ciaran’s jaw and a pinch to his smirk that derives Bryan oh so much pleasure, and with a new winds of satisfaction, he lets his hand on Finola’s lower thigh sink into its hold, just one minute shift upward. And though he can’t see it, Bryan swears he can feel Finola’s smile against his neck.
“Why don’t we talk Debris, hm?” Ciaran suggests, an irritated strain in his voice.
With common agreement, another one of the gentlemen speaks up, going on about a recent gain from Russia. By the sounds of it, he’s one of the suppliers of the night, several of the on-display Debris offered proudly from his collection.
However, all Bryan is aware of is Ciaran and Finola, only half-attentive of the conversation between the group. Ciaran is watching them both, unashamedly, eyes particularly on Finola as he laps up her beauty. And Finola only drapes herself further around Bryan, her lips trailing softly, slowly to the junction of his jaw. Bryan can feel every little inch she makes, the brush of her lips prickling his skin, burning him in her wake, her breath searing.
He shivers when her kiss lands just beneath his jaw, and the hand on her leg ever so momentarily tightens. He swears he hears her breath catch, and is even certain as Finola’s sweltering breath whispers into his ear,
“Move your hand higher.”
Bryan has to bite down the grin that wants to take to his face as he slides his hand down her thigh, creeping up to her mid-thigh, letting his hand sing toward the inner face. And of course he has to grace at Ciaran, who’s attempts to be flirtatious evaporate instantly as they’re replaced with thinly-veiled vexation.
Bryan allows himself a small grin to Ciaran. That’s right. My woman.
“Mr. Hodak,” Ciaran asks abruptly, just a little to quickly after another gentleman finished, “Have you any Debris?”
“No,” Bryan says, “I retrieve them, not sell them. I find it makes the bigger buck.”
“Ah, what makes you so certain?” Ciaran says, too certain that he’s found a fault as he rises from his seat, moseying over their way, “Debris can sell from upward of a million with the right piece and right crowd. You would want to deprive such a stunning woman of such luxury, would you?”
Ciaran meanders around the side of their armchair, reaching out gently to brush aside Finola’s hair, yet Bryan catches that hand before it can make contact. He opens his mouth to speak, thoughtless words that would certainly be a threat, yet Finola’s giggle makes him stop.
“Oh, darling,” She coos, her voice silky smooth as her head rises, eyes meeting Bryan’s, so close that their noses brush, “Mr. Hodak deprives me of nothing.”
Finola devours him into an all-consuming kiss, and immediately Bryan releases Ciaran’s hand, instead cupping the side of her face as their lips press together. It’s bruising in its force, desperation locking them together as the heat in his cheeks spill over, his other hand creeping further up her thigh to hold her in place. Her hand toys with the nape of his neck, cinching around a few stray locks which commands his head back and mouth open, and she takes it greedily, her tongue tangling into his.
And Bryan gives into her like putty in a sculptor’s hands, his body aflame as Finola devours him, such an addictive taste that he bends to whatever she wishes of him.
They part, much to his disappointment, but looking into her gleaming umber eyes, there is such a heat within them that Bryan’s cheeks flush anew. Finola wants him, and Bryan wants her to use him until she’s satisfied, enamored by the woman atop him. They’re panting, breathless from their kiss, so soothing to an ache he never knew he had, and their intermingling pants are so tasty.
“Then,” Ciaran says, the cut in of his voice jolting Bryan from his trance, “perhaps I oughta show you two to the private rooms in the back.”
Yes, Bryan thinks, perhaps he should, the first thing he’s ever agreed with Ciaran on. They could do well in a private room, Finola’s gaze still upon him, glittering and hot, and Bryan can only swallow, that head traveling down through his body. He wants her in every way she’ll have him.
“Perhaps you ought to,” Finola murmurs.
To Bryan’s dismay, she rises from his lap, leaving him cold in the armchair. But she’s quick to grab his hand and tug him up after her, tying him close to her. His other hand finds the small of her back, guiding them along as he bites his growing grin.
Ciaran takes them into a hall that trails through the back of the building, leading them to one of the many doors that dot it, but has he opens it, Bryan hesitates. His skin crawls again, suddenly, sharply cold, and something has to be wrong, jolted from his love-crazed head, because Ciaran was just seething over them. So why do this?
It has to be a trap.
Yet Bryan’s too slow to move as Ciaran yanks Finola from his grasp, pinning her against his chest as his arms cross over her front, her wrists seized in his hands. How dare he. Bryan jolts himself forward, but something heavy strikes him on the head, careening him backward and suddenly he’s on the floor, head throbbing and vision spinning.
Though blurry, he sees a head of blonde hair appear above him, the woman from before.
“You really should do better, Agent Beneventi,” She says.
Then her foot rises and comes down upon his head swiftly, knocking him out.
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