writing? on this blog??? it's more likely than you think!
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The back of Winn’s head slammed into the wall, and if it weren’t for the hand around his neck, pressing in on his windpipe, he would have slumped to the ground. He choked on blood, reaching up to grab Rembrandt’s wrist. Winn fought for breath from the pressure on his throat and the coppery taste filling his mouth from where he bit his tongue.
“I cannot begin to explain how much I hate you,” Rembrandt whispered, leaning in. He didn’t so much as flinch as Winn dug his fingernails into his wrist. When Winn finally had the presence of mind enough to scrabble at Rembrandt’s face, Rembrandt just grabbed his forearm and shoved Winn’s arm against the wall. Then he slammed a knee up between Winn’s knees.
Like this, Rembrandt didn’t have the leverage he needed to really strangle Winn to death. He slackened off just a little, just to listen to the bastard piece of shit whimper and wheeze for breath.
The bar was empty. Rembrandt reached over to grab one of the bottles from the countertop, taking a quick swig. “I told you to fucking listen to me, Yale.”
Winn coughed as Rembrandt let up the pressure a little more. “You were takin’ too long,” he mumbled. Rembrandt felt Winn’s shaking hand brush against his leg, probably towards his pocket, and kneed him again, making Winn yelp.
“I was doing things the right way,” Rembrandt hissed. “Which gets results. Unlike you.”
“You were just drinking,” Winn sneered, though his voice was a thin, strained whine from pain. He’d at least stopped trying to pick Rembrandt’s pocket. “Not even the good shit -”
His words choked off as Rembrandt jammed the opening of the bottle between Winn’s teeth, tipping it upwards until Winn was choking from the blood, the liquor, and Rembrandt’s weight still crushed against his throat. He struggled weakly; when Rembrandt felt Winn’s hands slip off his wrist, he pulled the bottle away.
Winn retched, or tried to. “Fuck,” he gasped weakly, after a few moments. Rembrandt’s hand and sleeve were covered in blood and spittle and tears. He’d make Winn clean it out later. Coughing, Winn managed, “Let me go -”
Rembrandt slammed the now-empty bottle against the bar, making Winn jump as the end of it shattered, leaving the jag-ended neck in his hand. “I’m over this,” he warned Winn in a low voice. “I don’t need your help to get this done, no matter what they said.”
“Leggo, then.”
Rembrandt snorted. “Not fucking likely,” he told Winn. He pressed the sharp glass under Winn’s jaw, just above his own hand, and not particularly caring about if he cut himself or not. “If I do, you’ll just fuck it up even more.”
Winn went still under the threat to his jugular, fear flashing in his green eyes. But then that fear faded, and, in spite of everything, he grinned.
Rembrandt hated that grin.
“You - You can’t kill me,” Winn rasped shakily, pressing the back of his hand against Rembrandt’s wrist, a casual (relatively) attempt at brushing the bottle away.
Rembrandt’s lip curled, and then he jammed his knee into Winn’s groin for the third time. Winn yelped, scrabbling at Rembrandt’s wrist.
“Can’t believe you even have enough balls to feel that,” Rembrandt seethed, pressing his weight against Winn to keep him pinned against the wall, before the asshole could slither his way free. He shifted, moving his hand from Winn’s throat, but only to replace it with his forearm, and used his hand to grip the collar of Winn’s shirt, working it up just enough to bare a sliver of skin around the other man’s waist.
He trailed the jagged ends of the broken glass along Winn’s stomach, watching him shiver at the feeling. “No one’s here to stop me, Winn.”
Winn laughed - or tried to, anyway. It was a thin, scraping sort of weak ha-ha. “They’ll know,” he managed, still trying to speak through the pressure against his throat. “‘M tagged, ‘member?”
Rembrandt had almost forgotten. He glanced down, the device around Winn’s wrist masquerading as a Fitbit, but also tracking Winn’s position along with his pulse. Rembrandt, of course, didn’t have one - he wasn’t the flight risk, here.
He also, unfortunately, wasn’t the one constantly in danger of getting killed. He was in danger of revealing that part of himself to the damn feds, though, every second that he spent in Winn’s company.
Tragically, though, Winn was right. Rembrandt stared him down a moment longer, sliding the glass upwards, until he could feel the ridges of Winn’s ribs.
Then he pressed in.
“Ah - fuck!” Winn started struggling again, bucking against Rembrandt as a fresh wave of tears welled up in his eyes. “Shit - Remy!” His voice broke, as Rembrandt dug the glass in, and then twisted.
He could hear and feel the glass twist and break in Winn’s ribs, under the fresh new sobbing and pleading. “S-Stop, fuck, please - pleasepleaseplease -”
“You got into a barfight,” Rembrandt said, his voice cold and flat. He leaned in, his words whispering against Winn’s ear as he spoke. He ground the glass in even more, as far as he possibly could, as Winn’s words broke off into a pained whine that kept climbing in pitch. “We didn’t find out what we needed. I had to pull your ass out of the fire.”
He let off the pressure a little, only to shift the bottle a bit higher up, to a new spot, and then dig in again. “That’s what you’ll tell them. Do you understand?”
“Mikey,” Winn gasped. With a snarl, Rembrandt stabbed him again.
“Do you understand.”
“Yes!” Winn’s voice broke as he squirmed, trying his best to wriggle away from the broken glass - most of which was now embedded and broken off in his side at this point. “Please!”
After a moment longer, Rembrandt finally leaned back, taking his arm away from Winn’s throat. Without the support, Winn slid down the wall, trying to breathe and sob both at the same time.
Rembrandt stared down at the pathetic heap for a moment longer, then tossed the bottle into the trash. “You don’t look like you’ve been in a bar fight,” he said casually, and kicked Winn in the face. The heel of his shoe cut the skin in a satisfying semicircle under Winn’s eye, and he rolled his eyes at the fresh wave of cursing and crying. Rembrandt used the toe of his shoe to ruck Winn’s shirt up again, until he could see the blood streaming from the crushed glass. He pressed his shoe right on the spot, until Winn writhed underneath the pressure.
“You never call me Mikey again,” Rembrandt said quietly. He waited until he thought he’d heard some sort of concession in the midst of Winn’s sobbing and whining, then continued, “You follow my plans from here on out. Understood?”
He cocked his head. He’d barely heard it, but he knew Winn well enough by now to know that he’d just said fuck you instead of the more proper yes, sir.
Rembrandt brought his foot down sharply, and this time he heard more than just glass snap and crackle under his heel. “What was that?”
This time, Winn’s whimpering was unintelligible. That was good enough for Rembrandt. He straightened up, finding a cloth napkin off the countertop to wipe as much of the blood from his hands that he could. “I’ll call your handler in,” he said blandly, already turning away to leave Winn huddled there at the base of the bar. “Fuck this up again, Winn, and I will kill you, feds be damned.”
OH OH HOOOO
i love that winn can never keep his mouth shut hhhhhhah
