Laurent St. Pierre.

32 | French Organization | Loyalist They had just been kids; children with too much time, too much money and parents who paid too little attention to realize they had a taste for danger.

[laurentstpierre]

Claudia, Charlene, Aurelie

F: CharleneM: Aurélie (A WORLD WHERE OLIVER DOESN’T EXIST OKAY)K: Claudia ;____;

[laurentstpierre]

Maya, Gracie , Jenifer

F: JeniferM: GracieK: Maya

[laurentstpierre]

FMK: Kira, Yuliya, Sofia

F: SofiaM: Yuliya (hey bae xoxo)K: Kira (though if it was possible to kill both her and Sofia, he’d pick that)

[laurentstpierre]

I hate you.

[laurentstpierre]

How's it going in The Basement?

YEAH. WELL. 

Fuck you guys.

[laurentstpierre]

If my face looks different, i have not had plastic surgery, i just lost weight... and something to do with japanese potatoes... If your face looks different its because I beat it about a bit because you dun fucked up or at least displeased me cos what the fuck where the fuck... #Kate would never talk like this.

WHY AM I LAUGHING SO HARD.

[laurentstpierre]

penelopedusautoir:

She had known it would hurt; she just never knew it would hurt this much. In the beginning, she believed this would be good for him. Say her peace and apologize and then leave Launceston. Except, like the last years between them, nothing had gone to plan. In debt to the St. Clair family she stayed to make sure her hotel thrived. She waited till it was the right time to tell him but every time there was a moment, one like they once had, it was taken away as quickly as it came. 

Her mind told her to look away from him and turn around. She had been naive when she first came to the city but it and time made her grow. It made her stand taller and gave her the support that she had needed. “I didn’t know.” These words would be the first of her coming to terms with the pain she caused him. Finally saying it out loud instead of in her head.

“When I first came here I thought that an apology would make things right….Better than what it was.” She had gone through this before. Left everything on the table and waited for the reply that never came. It was the first time her heart was ever truly broken. The love never given by her parents was just the practice round. His was real and it was fatal. “Do you remember when you came to my home when I was pregnant? You might have chalked it up to a dream or a nightmare. You came to my home drunk and told me that you loved me. For a moment, I believed that you meant it. That we could have a chance again. A single moment. Enough time for my throat to tighten and for my heart to race. When you regained some level of consciousness it went away. I looked down at you and the image of us was gone again.” Her thumb ran against her fingers as she continued. “I called your sister that night. Asked her to come over when you passed out so I could help put you in her car so you wouldn’t have to wake up in my home. So you wouldn’t have to say that you never remembered what you said. When you were incarcerated I wrote to you every day. I wrote of your family, mine, when I would visit and what we would do when you got out.” She did pause this time as the memories came back. The feeling of once more being alone and unloved. 

“I should have known then that you never wanted to be with me. Should have but I didn’t. It took one attempt after another to see you in prison and a written letter that stated that all my mail would not be received but rather returned that you stopped caring for me. That night with the lighter was just another blow to an already broken thing. I didn’t even get together with Michel until a few months before you came back.” Her hands clenched and unclenched as she continued to keep eye contact with him, something that was becoming increasingly harder with every word of her confession. 

“I came to say that I love you. That I never stopped while you were away. I know what I did hurt you. During that time, I needed to be loved. You knew my home life and I let that consume me. That need for love. To love and be loved. Funny thing is I never needed it when I was with you. I knew I always had it. I was safe. I didn’t question it. What you needed was-is important to me. It is why I tried to keep my distant. Why I began dating again and tried to keep as far away from any French dealings. Easier said than done for the latter. I love you and it is okay if you don’t love me back. I love you so it is why I am leaving. Neither of us should go through this hating one another and then being able to stand one another. We both deserve a life unchained from past wrongs. I forgive you, Laurent. I hope some day you can forgive me.”  

What the fuck was happening?

When he’d left his Harlow townhouse to embark on what would inevitably be his ‘last hurrah,’ Laurent had anticipated the night would end in a shit-show. Go out with a bang, he’d told himself. Perhaps, at least, Vixen will remember. But this? Paths drawn together to tease a taste of further agony, instead of landing him in the lap of a familiar dancer one last time? How many times did they have to keep scratching open old wounds?

Of course he remembered the night in question. Laurent St. Pierre was one of those cursed few able to recall almost all of his drunken escapades, which, rather unfortunately for him, also tended to be the only instances in which the feelings he’d spent a lifetime burying beneath a failing facade of strength, surfaced. Surely she knew as well as anybody how close to physically incapable he was of being open. With anyone, herself included. Laurent St. Pierre had perfected the art of not discussing the things that needed to be discussed.

He couldn’t.

But it didn’t mean that the things he said weren’t true.

It didn’t mean he didn’t love her.

“Elle, I never got them. Your letters. Any of them...” Finally he spoke. And, for the first time in an age, none of the frustration that weighed heavy in his voice was directed towards her. The Frenchman got to his feet, and much in the same way as her, refused to break eye-contact. How could she have honestly believed that he would have turned his back on the only thing that had mattered to him? The one thing that could have made the eight years in which his soul had instead spent rotting, manageable. “They never even told me you’d written.”

The further details he’d recently learned of—along with betrayal more extensive than he could ever have imagined—were not the kind that needed to be shared with her. Michel was a problem dealt with, and Laurent had already loathed the cockroach enough for the both of them. Maybe she’d sleep easier with the misunderstanding it was a mistake of the prison, instead of a direct intervention from the one who had been utterly responsible for their undoing.

Everything beautiful they’d ever built had been twisted and marred by Michel’s filthy fucking hands, and Laurent could only imagine the smirk he wore when he’d finally coaxed her to his side.

But now was not the time to be angry. Michel had paid for his sins, and now Laurent was here, paying for his own.

Her pain still hurt him. He was beginning to realize it always would.

“Do you know how much easier those eight years would have been if I’d thought you were still out there waiting for me? That you still gave a fuck? Thought about me half as much as I did about you?” It was still an alternative that hurt his fucking chest to contemplate, but he was coming to terms with it now: It wasn’t her fault. “I didn’t know you’d sent the letters. I thought you’d turned your back on me. I thought my sentence was an embarrassment for you, just like it had been for my family.” The Frenchman approached her slowly, as though scared she might bolt. “But whilst I might know that now, I didn’t then. Hating you was easier than missing you. Way fucking easier.”

The movement of her hands hadn’t gone unnoticed. He reached out and tenderly took a hold of her wrist. Whatever was left after his selfishness was warring with a rarely explored conscience. Why was he doing this now? He was going, never coming back. Laurent had made his bed with the Russians, and would be more than content to lie in it when the time came. For Oliver. For Aurélie. For himself...

“I remember what I said to you, and I fucking meant it, because I never stopped loving you either,” he echoed her own words, closing what was left of the gap between them with a gentle tug at her wrist. It was a final act of selfishness. After years of pain, had he not earned it? The right to say fuck it all, and find unfamiliar solace in honesty with not only her, but himself, too?

Laurent’s free hand took to her face; carefully, and in a way it hadn’t done since Paris. He couldn’t help himself, lust and longing hard to deny when overshadowed by the knowledge he wouldn’t have to live with their consequences. He’d missed her. He took count of a face he hadn’t forgotten, and never would. Before he had time to convince himself—in a comparably sober state to the last time they’d talked—that it was a bad idea, he’d pressed his lips to hers.

In a few days, he’d be gone.

Now he was left wondering. In their last moments together, was it really fair to deny her the same ease of hating him, instead of missing him?

[laurentstpierre]

Btw, haven't seen you in a hot second. Miss you whiskey buddy 🙃 just take care of yourself so I can have another glass with you soon, okay?

[laurentstpierre]

Do you think oregano is just spicy basil? This is important and I need to know. 😅😅😅

YOU GUYS HAD ONE JOB.

[laurentstpierre]

[text] Feel like drowning. Want to make it alcohol? OOH this is my bridge toll sympathy drinkathy card.

[laurentstpierre]

Thanks for making dumb decisions on other people's behalf. Yes, this isn't anon.

He loved his bro. He wanted him to be happy! Oliver has things to live for. He didn’t. Just accept it. ♥

[laurentstpierre]

[text] Did our periods sync up? You're wearing a bitchface. Don't turn around.

[laurentstpierre]

Meet any nice people in The Basement?

[laurentstpierre]

[sofia-plushenko]

Do Not Go Gentle (Flashback) | Sofia & Laurent

[laurentstpierre]

sofia-kurylenko:

She had to admit, even as she looked around the dingy building, its appearance resembling a place she was forced to reside in what seemed like an eternity ago, she breathed an audible sigh of relief. He was alone, and the expression on his face, although clear that he was trying to hide it, indicated that there was no one lurking, no one hiding, no one waiting. It was just the two of them, and by the look on the Frenchman’s face, he was trying to hide his emotions just as she was. His voice sounded just as foreign as hers had… perhaps it was the space itself that caused the sounds to be interpreted as so unfamiliar. Or, maybe it was the two of them themselves.

Laurent St. Pierre and Sofia Kurylenko weren’t exactly two people anyone would imagine meeting at all, let alone in a place like this. And that was what the two of them were betting on.

The Russian watched as he pulled the cigarettes from his pocket, wondering if it was just her own imagination, or if his hands were really trembling. She was quiet for a moment, having only tried smoking once or twice when she’d been in high school. God, had that been long ago…

The brunette wondered, for a fleeting moment, if he expected her to refuse his offer, yet Sofia was in no position to. She reached for the cigarette in the next moment, a grateful nod accompanying the gesture. It felt sinful, with how responsible she’d become in the last few years, yet the Russian was positive that anyone in her position would need the nicotine. 

Laurent’s words filled the abandoned space as he pulled the lighter from his pocket, lighting her cigarette before his own. She inhaled only slightly at first, the smoke filling her lungs something she was far from accustomed to. It took her a moment to fight the rising sensation to cough, the burn in her throat threatening to overwhelm her, yet she exhaled in the next moment, his words still reverberating in her mind. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” she tried to sound sure of herself, although the phrase didn’t sound as she would’ve liked. A moment of quiet settled between the two as the cigarettes burned, the smoke beginning to settle around the pair, before she spoke again, somewhat surprising the Frenchman.

“Aurélie used to be one of my closest friends,” her voice was slow, thoughtful. “My family ruined that relationship, what they’ve done…” she paused, taking another drag before she spoke again. “I can’t sit around and do nothing anymore. We’ve had our differences, she and I, but I don’t want her to suffer at their hands. She doesn’t deserve that… none of us do.”

Laurent cared little about her reasons for complying.

In fact, it took conscious effort not to roll his eyes as he took to his cigarette, the brunette reeling off her explanations as though any of it mattered. Laurent couldn’t help but wonder whether whatever she’d once felt for Aurélie weighed half as heavy in her mind as the things she was being offered in return. The protection promised for not only herself, but her young son, too. Maybe she said the words to make herself feel better. Look better.

Was she at least convincing one of them? 

“Better late than never,” he reasoned, slipping his lighter back into his pocket casually. Finally taking a stand against her family, that was... “I’m sure the others that came before her are very grateful for your service.”

It baffled him as to why it had taken so long to spark a reaction from her. The Russians had been the literal fucking scum of Launceston since he’d arrived in the Hell hole, and she seemed anything but, even if he hated to admit it...but still, this was the extent that had to be reached for her to do something about it? Them locking up an innocent young woman in their basement like a God damned animal? 

To Laurent, anyone that hung on to that sinking ship for as long as she had—family or otherwise—deserved to go the fuck down with the wreckage.

Only he needed leverage. Lucky for some.

It took the pain of letting the cigarette burn for too long to wake him from his thoughts. He shook it off quickly, before turning back to her. “You know we’re going to have to make this look realistic, right?”

[laurentstpierre]

Au Revoir, Asshole | Self Para.

Vixen’s dim, violet haze cast a long shadow behind the well cut suit. The expert swiftness with which he moved through the crowd proved not a single inch of the place was unknown to him. A scantily clad dancer crossed to the left. Perhaps, under different circumstances, he’d have reciprocated the looks she offered.

Instead, the Frenchman’s fingers clenched and unclenched in a repetitive motion, the tight leather of his gloves creaking in perfect rhythm with the club’s bass line.

Their usual table awaited him, but tonight would offer a different type of satisfaction.

There, sat Michel Chevalier; surrounded by women, specifically Vixens, and boasting the posture of a man who believed he was the King of all he fucking surveyed. Only he wasn’t a king. He was a traitorous piece of shit on levels even Laurent—a man who had spent the best part of eight years finding new ways to loathe him—couldn’t have fathomed.

Michel hadn’t just left his friend to take the heat for their criminal bullshit. He’d orchestrated the whole fucking outcome to wind up rid of a man who had done nothing but look out for him.

“It was all a set up. The bastard arranged the whole thing.”

Not something he’d expected to hear from an old friend of his, the Sixième, back home.

The idea that his hatred for Michel could not possibly be more intense was decimated in that moment. Being a coward was one thing—but this was on a whole other level from which there was no redemption. In that short journey from The Vault where he’d received the call, to the place where he knew the little fucking rat would be swinging his dick around, all Laurent could think about was how much he wished he’d watched him burn back in Paris.

Laurent St. Pierre did not plan on making the same mistake twice.

The platinum hair of Delphine was apparent from across the room, but only when he was within earshot of that little prick and his entourage did he notice the others. One specific other, held reluctantly against him by a weighty arm.

It appeared Michel still desired to take everything from him.

Alerted by one of his companions, Michel finally looked up to see Laurent hovering some way behind him. The typically smug smirk he offered made it hard not to rip the little bastard’s face off in front of a club full of people. Finally, his gloved hands stilled.

“Well, look who it is!” Michel sang, his grip purposefully tightening around the Vixen.

Now, Claudia was looking at him, too. The sheer relief apparent as Laurent’s eyes caught hers told him everything he needed. He didn’t say anything. He barely managed to nudge his head in the direction of the exit, he was so fucking pissed. That little fucker just had to put his hands on everything he cared about. It was a God damn game to him, wasn’t it?

Claudia stood up, but Michel grabbed at her as she tried to leave.

“I paid. You stay,” he said coldly.

The brunette snatched her arm from his grip, offering a scowl. “Vaffanculo.”

Containing himself in that moment felt like an impossibility, but somehow, whilst she remained, he managed to stop himself from reaching over for a glass bottle, smashing it against Michel’s head, and repeatedly puncturing his throat with the jagged remains until someone physically stopped him.

Claudia stopped just in front of him. Her face was painted with concern. She gave his gloved hand a gentle squeeze, before pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I’ll see you when you get home...”

Laurent was grateful she hadn’t asked him to leave. Hadn’t told him to refrain from doing anything stupid, even though it was apparent, given the now suffocating atmosphere, that things would likely go downhill quickly from here. The Frenchman’s eyes followed as she disappeared into the crowd without another word.

“What’s the matter, Rent? Jealous?”

Elle’s annoying fucking nickname coming out of his shitty mouth was enough to make his stomach turn.

Claudia finally reached the doorway, and he watched her like a hawk until she finally disappeared through it.

“It’s a bit late for that,” Michel continued, lifting his tumbler for a drink. “I already fucked her.”

And then he snapped.

Laurent closed the gap between them in the blink of an eye. Grabbed a handful of his hair and slammed his head against the table in front, once, twice. Three times; each blow more forceful than the last. Some of the Vixens recoiled as the violent assault on the Frenchman—and, by association, table—sent their drinks flying. They stayed quiet. None scarpered. A few of the loyalists stood up in surprise, but did nothing to help Chevalier.

It was easy to take advantage of the weaker man’s stupefied state, lifting him to his feet by his suit jacket and forcing him to face him. It wasn’t until he moved his grip to Michel’s throat anybody attempted to intervene.

“St. Pierre, come on...” The loyalist already looked like he’d been scolded for the interruption.

As he fought the extreme urge to crush the pathetic throat he held, Laurent glared back at the man who spoke. A single finger jabbed in his direction. “You shut your fucking mouth.”

And he did.

Nobody followed as Laurent dragged the piece of shit from the club. The crowds parted like the Red Sea, but not even the security guards made moves to stop the assault. Laurent wondered whether it was because he was already leaving, because they hated the fuck out of Michel as much as everybody else, or simply because all the money and favours the French threw Vixen security’s way was finally paying dividends.

“You always were an idiot,” Michel spluttered, struggling to give voice to his insults as he finally began to fight back against his old friend.

“Stop talking.” Laurent squeezed harder.

Almost as soon as they stepped out into the street, Laurent felt the familiar sensation of a fist colliding with his face. It appeared Michel had finally mustered up enough strength to fight back. Laurent faltered for a moment; suddenly his grip was empty.

Michel should have fucking ran. Instead, he still stood as though he was undefeatable. What the hell could have possibly been running through his tiny mind?

“You can’t touch me, Laurent.” Michel reached for his tie, trying, but failing, to cover the fact he was clearly in pain. “Do you have any idea what she’d do to you if she found out?”

Margaux St. Clair. Of course, the pathetic waste of oxygen used her as a safety net...

“It doesn’t really matter what she’d do to me if she found out. It’s not going to stop what I’m going to do to you now.”

Perhaps Margaux should have taught her little prodigy how to throw a real punch. As Laurent returned one of his own, hand retracting in pain shortly afterwards, Michel fell to the floor in a semi-conscious heap. A particularly enjoyable sight. It was ironic. Once upon a time, on the many occasions when Michel picked fights he couldn’t win, Laurent would have been the one to finish them. Now he was handing out a shattered jaw to the man he once protected.

“It’s all right,” Laurent assured the crowd that was starting to gather. Rather unconvincingly. “He had a little too much to drink.”

Thank God the car that was supposed to be waiting pulled up just in time.

There were only a few loyalists he trusted with this. Even fewer that he would put at risk of Margaux’s repercussions should she find out what they had been a part of.

When they finally pulled up to the dead-quiet alleyway adjacent to Istra, all three of the Frenchman clambered out of the car. One of the bigger loyalists made short work of dragging Michel’s weakened frame out by his hair, and dropping him somewhere near one of the trashcans.

Laurent dismissed the others, and, once again, verbal silence descended as he cracked the knuckles that he fully intended to use to fuck him up beyond recognition.

“Is this still about her?” Michel finally spoke up, voice gravelly. “Get the fuck over it, Laurent. This is pathetic.”

Really? He was going to go there?

Once again, Michel was hoisted to his feet by the superior strength. Laurent slammed him into the wall with such force, he wouldn’t have been surprised if a few ribs had suffered from the contact.

The fact he thought he was entitled to any explanation at all elicited a cold laugh from Laurent. Did he really think that’s all this was? Petty fucking jealousy? Losing Pénélope had hurt in ways he was still incapable of explaining without enough liquor in him to kill a normal adult, but that didn’t mean it had been the only thing that had hurt.

Laurent pulled out his gun. Fuck beating the shit out of him. That momentary flash of fear in Michel’s eyes was something he was determined to hold on to forever.

“You took everything from me! My family, my job, my best fucking friend...”

“Bullshit, Laurent! You hated your family as much as I hated mine!” He was breathless. “And as soon as you hit the big leagues, you stopped giving a shit about your so-called best fucking friend.”

“What, so you put me away for eight fucking years?!” There was no hope of containing the anger now. It was pouring out of him; hands shaking, knuckles white as he gripped at the gun with fresh desperation.

“I didn’t know it would be that long!” He bellowed back, but Laurent didn’t hear him.

“Eight fucking years as the rich, pretty boy, Michel.” By this time, Laurent was practically stabbing the muzzle of the gun into his forehead. God, he just wanted to hurt him. Make him bleed. Cause him an inch of the pain he’d dished out without apology. Had he pushed any harder, he’d have broken skin. Laurent’s voice lowered, but he still spat out each syllable with such venom he may as well have been screaming at him. “Do you have any idea what they did to me in there?”

And there it was.

The first glimmer of humanity he’d seen in his dead eyes for over a decade. The uncomfortable edge of remorse, perhaps? Regret that he had thrown the only person who had ever really cared about him under the bus?

If he was expecting it to save him, he was wrong.

Too little, too late.

“Laur—“

“No. Fuck you.”

The deafeningly close gunshot rang out a split second later. Laurent let the corpse fall to the floor like the utter trash it was.

Everything felt like it had slowed down, despite the adrenaline coursing through him.

Point-blank range was a messy, heat-of-the-moment business, and he soon found himself reaching up to wipe away some of the blood that threatened his vision. Laurent wasn’t sorry. He felt no remorse. Relief, on the other hand...well, relief was plentiful. It was done. It sure as fuck wouldn’t change what Michel had done, but it didn’t matter.

He was gone.

Did that make him just as bad as the bastard he’d just shot?

“Laurent,” one of his loyalists finally interrupted his head-splitting thoughts, grabbing at his jacket. “Come on. We’ve got to get out of here. Someone will have heard this.”

One of the loyalists went to pick up Michel.

“Leave him. A dead man found outside of Istra will do wonders for their business.”

Laurent’s barely audible voice shook.

“Dying doesn’t have to be the only decent thing he does today...”

[laurentstpierre]

@Laurent [text]

Ronnie: I know I may be annoying, but not annoying enough that you wouldn't have at least texted me to tell me Aurélie was safe.

Ronnie: Especially after promising me that you would.

Ronnie: You should really stop making promises that you don't intend on keeping.