Imagine Being Saved by Jake Lockley:
A/N: This was actually inspired by another Moon Knight piece that Iâm working on. In that piece, thereâs a lot of backstory lead-up thatâs making it kind of wordy, so I figured Iâd just... write the backstory as well. So, hereâs the start of another accidental series, lol. This is the first time Iâm writing Jake Lockley and I donât know a whole lot about him, so sorry if heâs a little ooc. Also, my Spanish is not the best because Iâve only taken a couple classes, and I took some help from Google, so sorry if itâs rough. Luckily, I donât use it too much, lol.
You worked for an organization that traveled around the world buying and trading for artifacts, usually from museums and black markets, in order to return them to their rightful lands. This meant you lived a fairly mobile life, practically living out of hotels, basing your operation out of whatever buildings would lend you the space, and working with new individualsâaside from you superiors and the few permanent members on your teamâduring almost every job. Still, you enjoyed your job, as hectic and sometimes dangerous as it was, and youâve always said that you wouldnât change it for the world.
âWell,â you grunted as you pried open a crate, âexcept for maybe now.â
Alarms were blaring alongside flashing red lights throughout the office building that you were working in, indicating that someone had broken in. You would have been grateful for the alarms if it hadnât been for the fact that you had already heard the breaking of glass and muffled voices a few rooms over before they had started. Now they were just giving you a headache as you wriggled the crate lid free, revealing a load of packing material.Â
âPerfect to hide in.â You set the piece of wood aside and began shoveling the various artifacts and important documents that you had gathered into the crate, apologizing to them for the mistreatment as you went. Any smart person would have probably booked it as soon as there were signs of a break-in, especially if they were the only person working that night, but you were more stubborn than smart. You cared too much about your work to let some lousy black market thieves put you back several months of progress. You had scurried around the room where you had been preparing a set of artifacts for shipping and grabbed as many as you could to hide in the old crate that was going to be disposed of.
You were finishing covering the items with the packing material when you heard the handle of your officeâs door jiggle. With that being your only escape route, you found no other choice than to join the your work in the rotting crate. You quickly patted your pockets to make sure your phone was on your person to call the police, then you armed yourself with a stone statue of the Egyptian god Sekhmet. You apologized to her for using her as a weapon in the near future before jumping into the crate. Luckily, the area that you were working in was large enough where you still had time to cover yourself with the crateâs lid before the assailants could get to you.
You knew from the muffled conversation you had heard earlier that there was more than one robber but you could tell more easily now that there was only a few; unfortunately, the blood pumping in your ears made it hard to understand what they were saying as they began rummaging around the room. Despite getting poked and prodded by statues and helmets, you shimmied further down into the crate in hopes of hiding yourself under the paper packaging. A dim light suddenly caught caught your eye in the process and you turned your head slightly to a gap between the crateâs slats. Clutching Sekhmet closer with one hand and gingerly fishing around for your phone with the other, you tried to peek through the opening.
There wasnât much to see other than shifting shadows and black clothes. You caught a pant leg here, a large gloved hand there, but nothing that would help you describe the robbers to the cops. Still, between your own labored breaths the thievesâ destroying your workplace, you managed to make out a word or two. It sounded like all of the peopleâthe ones you were currently sharing a space with, at leastâhad deep, masculine voices and they sounded frustrated over not being able to find much. You had done your hiding job well.
Then, in a lull of movement, one of them said, âHey, what about that junk in the back corner?â
Your heart dropped into your stomach. You grabbed your phone as quickly as you could without causing too much noiseâat least the alarms helped with maskingâand tried to keep an eye on the approaching figure through your peephole. You just managed to free your phone, which luckily had its brightness turned down, and were struggling to unlock it with one hand when a slam echoed through the room. It took you several moments for your heart to start up again and for you to register that it was the officeâs door being knocked open rather than your immediate incoming death.
âWell,â a new, much louder voice called out, âwhat do we have here?â
Whoever it was, they took the attention of your hiding spot long enough for you get into your phone. Busy pulling up the dialpad, you werenât focused on the crack in the crate slats but you could hear confused exclamations from the initial group of thieves as they focused elsewhere. There were the sounds of clacking that you assumed was them readying their weapons followed by hurried footsteps. You took a moment to feel bad for whoever walked in trying to play hero but then decided it was better them than you.
You expected to hear a scuffle and gunshots, which you did in the moments following. What you didnât expect was some eerily cheerfully spoken Spanish in response. Your focus on your phone began to wane as your morbid curiosity got the better of you, especially when a weighty thud sounded after a particularly loud gunshot. You were sure that the dropped body had been the newcomer, only to be shocked further when you heard a chuckle that sounded more like them than your artifact thieves. Another shot sounded and another thud followed.
You couldnât help being drawn to what was going on outside of your hiding place. You were a curious person and research was the nature of your job. It was only natural for your phone to be forgotten as you squirmed closer to the opening in the crate to see better, which allowed you a fuzzy glimpse of the scene.
The view was mostly blocked by the back of the last assailant. They were dressed head-to-toe in black, although you could see in the gap between their vest and ski mask a line of pale skin. To your surprise, their hands were in the air and, as close as they were to you now, you could see them shaking. You strained to hear and heard them whimpering.
âLook, man, Iâm sorry,â they whined. âIâ I was just following orders. Let me go andâ and I wonât say a word, I swear. Thereâs nothing here anyway, take what you want!â
âHereâs the thing, amigoââ the newcomer started, and you caught a glimpse of tan skin and a hat when the final robber shifted. He didnât finish the sentence until heâd already fired his gun, though, and the robberâs body dropped to the floor. ââyouâre in my way.â
Without another body standing in the way, you could see the loner more clearly. He wore a bomber-style jacket over a collared shirt and driving gloves, and you caught a gloved hand slipping a handgun into the jacketâs pocket. You spotted curls of black hair poking out from under a flat cap as he looked around, as well as dark eyes and a jawline that could probably cut a diamond.
Well thatâs⌠a weird detail to notice on a psycho killer person, you thought. Despite the mental scolding, you found your gaze lingering far longer than necessary on the curve of the manâs grimacing mouth, the outline of his shoulders and back as he turned. He really was quite attractive. Okay, down, bad, no.
The man wandered in and out of your sight as he examined the office space. The way he walked reminded you of a big cat on the prowl, his movements careful and measured and ready for action. He seemed to be looking for somethingâ other thieves, perhaps? Then he stopped a few feet away from your crate, gaze slowly rolling over it and the other materials around it. His eyes found the gap you were peering out of and then he was staring directly at you.
You froze under the intensity of his stare and, for some ungodly reason, found yourself blushing. As much as your brain willed your body to do something, anything, your corporeal prison refused to move, even as the man stepped closer and closer. His body blocked the gap, leaving you in complete darkness and your blood running cold as it washed over you. You only managed to move when a creak groaned above you but it was only to turn your head and watch, quite dumbly, as gloved fingers moved appeared around the uneven edges of the crateâs lid and lifted it away. He tossed the lid aside and leaned over the opening, and there you were, a deer frozen in the headlights of a man who had just killed three people minutes prior.
It was silent as you and the killer looked on at each other. The air around you was thick like fog and chilly like it too, causing goosebumps to rise on the skin of your arms. You still held the Sekhmet statue but couldnât bring yourself to throw it; instead you clutched it like a child holding clinging to a teddy bear, the sharp edges digging into your skin. Your other hand still held your phone but it was locked once more and all your fingers could manage was fidgeting helplessly around it. You mentally cursed yourself for knowing as little self-defense as you did despite your work. Now there was a murderer standing above you and you had no idea what he was going to do.
He raised a hand, the hand that been holding a gun moments earlier. You sucked in a breath.Â
He gave you a ârelaxâ motion before leaning further over you and carefully prying your fingers free from the Sekhmet statue.
âYouâre bleeding on an ancient artifact,â he mumbled as he removed the statue from your grasp and sat it somewhere outside of the crate. His voice was much quieter now, albeit still gruff in a way that made a warm tingle cut through the cold as it danced its way through your body.
Okay, Iâm officially the crazy one, you decided but you still couldnât stop focusing on the gentleness of his touch. Now that he was closerâanother thing to revel in despite the obvious dangerâyou noticed that the robbers must have gotten a couple of hits in before the shooting started and they went down; the manâs bottom lip was split and bleeding, and one of his cheeks was swelling with a purplish tint.
Now your body moved but it was once again without your brainâs permission. For some reason, you were compelled to say something to him, and what your mouth came up with was, âYouâre bleeding⌠from your face.â
The man blinked, then raised a hand to his face. He checked his cheek first and after confirming that there was no broken skin, he moved onto his lips. A thumb brushed against the bottom one, followed by his tongue, and you probably would have been caught staring at his mouth had he not taken a glance over his shoulder afterwards.
âYeah,â he said after a moment, more to himself than to you. He slipped into Spanish as he touched his cheek again and winced. âEl hombre escuĂĄlido tenĂa un fuerte gancho de izquierda.â
âThat was good Spanish.â But my English continues to deteriorate, apparently.
He smirked when he looked back at you, offering a flash of white teeth and making you sweat in the process. âGracias, lo hablo con fluidez.â
âCool,â was your dumbfounded response, âI studied in college. Latin, too. Arabic. German. Greek. Helps with the job. And I liked learning more than I liked being around other people.â
You found yourself relaxing a bit, enough to wriggle around in your wooden confinement. You fidgeted your fingers as you moved your arms and flinched. Looking down, you saw that what the stranger said had been right. You had gripped the Sekhmet statue so tightly that its sharper parts had cut into your skin, leaving blood beading on your skin.
The man still standing above you looked at your hand as well before his eyes found your face again. âCan you get out by yourself?â
It finally registered with you that you probably looked like a mess, tangled up in yourself in a rotting box of packing paper. You quickly sat up to fix yourselfâ Too quickly, because you headbutted your companion in the process. The man spun away from you with a yell, followed by a string of expletives.Â
âOh my god, Iâm so sorry!â You scrambled your way out of the crate and trailed after him as he held his nose. You were careful to avoid the bodies around you, which would have been a lot more jarring if you werenât focused on making sure the well-mannered murderer of them was okay. He tried to wave you away with his other hand and kept stepping away as you got closer, causing your reaching hands to graze his back, his shoulder, his chest instead. âI promise I didnât do that on purpose!â
âItâs⌠fine,â he grunted back, his voice now slightly nasally voice from pinching his nose. âItâs fine. Just⌠give me a minute.â
You had noticed the blood, though, so there was no stopping you from catching his arm to properly check on him. Before you could really think about what you were doing, you caught the manâs jaw in your uninjured hand and leaned in close to inspect the damage. You handled him gently, carefully turning his head from one side to the other as you eyed his nose and used your other handâand part of your jacket sleeveâto dab at the blood.
âWell,â you said after a few moments, âit doesnât look broken. So thatâs good.â
âWhat a relief,â the stranger said. The tinge in his voice said he didnât care much either way.Â
It wasnât until he spoke and his breath landed on your lips that you realized just how close you had gotten to him. You backed away from him, only to trip over a nearby corpse. You floundered around, physically and mentally, but before you could land on a dead body, the man caught you with one hand secured your waist while the other steadied one of your waving arms. He turned with you in a seconds-long, bloody waltz as he helped you avoid the body. As a result, you ended up being tugged further into the office, near where your desk was. Reminded of the danger at hand, you may have been worried, but then the memory of a first-aid kit in your desk overtook it.
âThank you,â you said quickly. You parted from him and slipped around the other side of the desk to dig around in the largest of the drawers. âHang on.â
The man looked at his hands and flexed them like he wasnât sure what had just happened either; it was nice to see that you werenât the only awkward one. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and looked around while he waited for you, the thought that you might be searching for a weapon not occurring to him in the slightest.Â
It didnât really occur to you either, even had your hands found a stapler and a pyramid-shaped paperweight. You were honed in on the first-aid kit, which you pulled from the back of the drawer and tossed on the desktop triumphantly. You popped it open and grabbed a rag, which you offered to the man for his nose. Once he took it, you grabbed some hand sanitizer and bandages and fixed up your hand, wincing at the mild sting but your mind to focused on your stranger to spend too much time worrying about yourself.Â
Seemingly out of nowhere, he said, âI should probably get you to the police.â
That drew your attention. You quirked an uneasy eyebrow at him. âThatâs weird, coming from the man who killed three people.â
Unphased, he tossed a thumb over his shoulder. âIâm a cab driver? I saw the robbery at a stoplight.â
You looked past him, through the window at the far end of your office. Sure enough, you saw a bright yellow cab with its lights still on sitting outside. You turned your attention back to the man with a squint. âA cab driver with a gun?â
âPassengers can get weird.â
âA cab driver with a gun and the skills to take down three black market guys with more guns?â
âPassengers can get really weird.â
You were torn. One the hand, all things considered, this guy did seem like he wanted to help. Heâd had plenty of opportunities to kidnap or kill you if that was what heâd wanted to do. On the other hand, though, you couldnât get over the feeling that he wasnât telling you everything.
âOffering to take me to a police station feels like trying to get me to a secondary location,â you said slowly. You then immediately wanted to kick yourself because why would you tell a possible kidnapper that?
The man blinked at you, still relatively unbothered. âI mean⌠Cab driver. Itâs kind of my job. But fair enoughâŚâ He trailed off and his gaze trailed downward. Your cheeks grew warm as his eyes danced across your body. Then he looked at up at you, a smirk playing at his lips. âDoctor.â
He was looking at the name tag. Of course he was. Your face and neck still felt hot, this time from embarrassment, as you turned away from him to fiddle with your phone again. You unlocked it and dialed for the police, got a woman to take your case. After you explained who you were, where you were, and what had happenedâminus some key, handsome detailsâshe told you that police would be on their way. You finished the call and gave the stranger intensely watching you a smug look.
âThere, problem solved.â You pocketed your phone and turned your attention back to the first-aid kit. You dug out some painkillers, a cooling pack, and another rag before giving the man a wave to come closer. âNow come here.â
He didn't argue. Joining you on your side of the desk a moment later, he leaned on the desk before you gestured for him to sit in the nearby chair instead. He did so silently and you leaned on the desk instead, trading him the cooling pack for the now bloodied rag that he still held. After activating the pack, he held it to his swollen cheek while you grabbed a water bottle from the first-aid kit and poured some of its contents on the new rag.
When you turned back to him, he nodded past you. "What's that?"
You took a quick look before turning your attention back to him. You wiped your suddenly clammy hands on your pants before taking his jaw in your hand again to tilt his head up. Tingles danced on your fingertips and in your belly as you ran the wet rag over his split lip, carefully scrubbing the blood away. "Egyptian tablet of some kind, but it's a fake. We found it during a black market search, one of my newer people bought it without consulting me first. Gotta be careful with black market stuff, lots of copies."
The man nodded along, and his tongue poked out to instinctively chase the wetness on his lips. You nudged his head back a bit to swipe the blood that had reached his chin and neck; you could have sworn you felt the pulse in his quicken but you were quick to dismiss it. Your out-of-nowhere attraction to this questionable man was already a lot but having him sit nestled between your legs while you cleaned his wounds had to be making you imagine things.
His eyes still lingered on the tablet as you worked. "Why do you still have it if it's fake?"
You shrugged. "Haven't gotten to tossing it yet. It was supposed to go with that rotting crate and the stuff with it but then⌠the universe had different ideas for me, clearly."
"The universe wanted you to be cleaning up a dirty taxi driver surrounded by a couple of bodies? Sounds like a bad joke." He had an amused twinkle in his eyes. Whether it was because you had slipped up and said fate brought him to you or it was just the morbid enjoyment he had had earlier when fighting returning, you weren't sure. Either way, his smile made a new wave of goosebumps grace your entire body.Â
You wiped the rag over his nose a little carelessly to keep him from noticing, which seemed to work. He flinched and pulled away from you with a mild glare. You offered him a playful raise of your brow and the glare turned into a scowl before he leaned back into your waiting hand, grumbling under his breath.
You finished cleaning up the blood and tossed the rag aside. You took a better look at his nose now that it wasn't bleeding and confirmed what you had said earlier; you hadnât headbutted him hard enough to break anything. While checking, you felt compelled to run a gentle, probably-more-affectionate-than-it-should-have-been finger down the bridge of his nose. You thought you saw his eyes flutter at the touch but you had no time to reassure yourself about it because then they were focused on the stone tablet again.
You perked up a bit. "You into Egyptology?"
The man shook his head. "Not personally. I know a guy or three, though."
He nodded a bit and turned gaze back to you as you set the rag aside and grabbed the pill bottle to shake a couple of painkillers into your hand. You offered them and the rest of the water bottle to him with a smile and after an assessing look that you weren't sure was completely serious or not, he took the pills and popped them in his mouth. You cleaned up the bloodied rags and first-aid kit as he took the painkillers.
"So you just throw stuff like that away?" He asked when he was finished and you saw his eyes trained on the tablet yet again.Â
You wondered if something more drew him to the object as you nodded. "I mean, not like throw it away, throw it away. Usually we'll, like, destroy it or something. So they're not found and resold again. Sometimes we'll keep them for research purposes. Sometimes they go to the police but that particular job went a little hairy and they got called in pretty early."
The man nodded again, still staring intensely at the engraved stone. "It might make a⌠decent decor piece or something. For a place."
You sat back on your hands and grinned. "Why? Want it for your most special Egyptology buddy?"
He turned his powerful gaze on you before pushing back the chair and standing up. You were caught off guard by just how close he was to you standing up, especially with the way you were sitting leaned back with your legs spread. You werenât sure if it was intentional when he leaned further into your space still. Then he offered you a somewhat darker grin of his own and you suddenly felt like he was an animal on the hunt again, every move calculated. He knew exactly what he was doing.
"QuizĂĄs," he said simply, a teasing Maybe in Spanish. Then he moved away from you altogether to look out the window. While you released a labored breath, the playful energy faded as blue joined the red alarm lights in dancing across his face.
"Shit," you hissed as you jumped to your feet, "cops. Um."
The man looked irritated now. He scolded himself under his breath but still loud enough for you to make it out, "Should have parked somewhere else. There goes my car."
You found yourself dancing in place as you thought. You snapped your fingers and an idea arose and shook a finger gun at him. "Two rooms to the left there's a hallway that leads to the bathrooms. There's a fire exit at the end of it. You can hang around until I distract them, then pretend you came out of the drug store on the corner or something."
The man raised an eyebrow at you. "Are you helping me get away with murder?"
Your face twisted into a disapproving look and you shook your head. "No, but you did save my life, and also chose not to kill or kidnap me, soâŚ" You trailed off as your eyes settled on the tablet on your desk. You tried to weigh the pros and cons of giving it up to a stranger but when muffled voices became audible outside, you opted for just shoving it at him. "Consider it thanks."
The man stared at you for a few moments before taking the tablet and tucking it under his arm, hiding it underneath his jacket. "I wasn't going to kill you."
"Well, how was I supposed to know?" The voices continued to get closer, so you ushered your companion out of your office and towards the fire exit hallway. As you went, you offered him a restless shrug. "A promise then."
"You will continue to not want to kill me," you replied simply.
He chuckled. "Okay. Deal."
The two of you reached the hallway and you shooed him the first few steps down it. Your heart ached watching him leave and you were positive this time that you saw him hesitating as well.
Then he turned and headed to leave. You stopped him with a wordless holler and blushed as he turned back with raised eyebrows.
"Um, also," you stammered, "I will, uh, see you again. As. Part of the promise."
You felt the blush reach your ears as he smirked at you. The front door to the office building opened and he began backing his way to the fire exit. Before he spun around and disappeared from the building, he offered you a tip of his flat cap and said, "Jake Lockley. Call and request my cab sometime."
"Oh, okay," you said softly after him. âBye, Jake Lockley.â You waved as the door shut and continued to stare in bewilderment of the nightâs events for a few moments after.
A police officer called out for you on the opposite side of the building. You collected your thoughts, crafted a story that you hoped would cover up Jakeâs presence, and headed back the way you came to meet them.
