armies;

[normajeaneproductions]

mugglestudiesrps‌:

For most people, the red Corvette symbolized freedom—an escape from the shackles of financial squalor and the ability to venture across miles of highway as far as the eye could see. A youthful Jack O’Brady could only daydream of such luxurious and yet now, with regality at his finger trips, he felt trapped in a glass house. Perhaps that’s why the League recruited him in the first place; his expertise could be taught to anyone with at least half a brain, but Jack had been plucked from rotten obscurity and transformed into a gilded gentleman. It was more than reverence; Jack owed everything to the League of Assassins, so much so that his life ceased to exist without it. 

When the valet drove off into the sunset, Jack felt a pang of relief and quickly reminded himself of tonight’s true purpose. After turning to face their destination, he extended an arm for his date. A wry smile played on his lips.

“Does it matter?”

The pair traipsed into an ornate atrium with architecture featuring a clear Art Deco influence, filled with lush palm trees and other exotic greenery. The endless chatter of patron busied the space as waiters flitted by, moving in a swift and orchestrated manner that resembled clockwork. One approached and led Jack and Connie to an open bistro table perfectly facing the stage—optimal location to view the gala’s other attendees as they arrived. 

“I’d like a martini, dirty; two olives. And let the lady get whatever she desires.”

No, it didn’t matter. Not normally, at least. Connie had been paraded around all of the hot spots in Miami, both reputable locations and dives only the shadiest of people had heard of. It didn’t matter whether they were regular patrons or new money in a new world. Normally, it was her job to play the dutiful and ignorant arm candy no matter where she went, and with who.

Tonight, for once, that wasn’t the case. Connie was off the clock; the last thing she wanted was to feel as though she was. And for that reason, she wanted to soak up as many details about her date as she could.

“I’ll have what he’s having,” Connie told the waiter, her eyes trained on Jack as she finally broke her silence. She waited for him to scurry away to say anything more. “Well?” she asked, expectation and irritation competing for top billing in her voice. “Do you come here often or not?”

[normajeaneproductions]

mugglestudiesrps‌:

God, she wanted to smash her fist against his face. Fortunately, the training facility included a boxing ring. Regan strode over the compartment and pulled out a pair of gloves, then walked over to Mason and pushed them forcefully into his chest. She raised her chin to meet his gaze. 

“Don’t pull your punches.”

Mason sniffed, the breath harsh and fiery in his nasal cavity as he sized his opponent up. Partner, he corrected mentally---although they would see how long that lasted. He let his gaze land on her eyes, the intensity of it as harsh and fiery in his mind as the breath he’d just taken in.

“Do I look like the type?”

[normajeaneproductions]

mugglestudiesrps‌:

“Then why don’t you go get your beauty rest. I’ll be better off here alone, anyway.”

“If you were better off alone, you’d be dead.”

Harsh words, but true ones. The league wasn’t one to let their people get out from under them, and for good reason. Singular agents were unheard of. If someone was to be repurposed after a failed mission or partnership -- something Mason was sure was the case with her, just as it was with him -- it was with a partner. Either that, or they were executed. Options? There weren’t any. Better off alone didn’t exist here.

“But if you’d rather, I can give Agent Three a call.”

[normajeaneproductions]

mugglestudiesrps‌:

So much for a friendly introduction, not that Regan put forth much effort into one anyway. She recoiled at the thought of working with Mason Nash—really, anyone else, for that matter. However, throughout her tenure at the agency, Regan learned when to pick her battles. This, regrettably, wasn’t one. 

“You know who I am,” she replied in a husky voice as she tossed the gym keys at him. Regan had an intense desire to skip pleasantries and arrive at a working relationship. She didn’t need to know about this man, nor did she care to ask. 

“You’re late.” 

Mason caught the keys in one fluid motion, barely sparing time to glare at the woman before he turned back towards the gym doors.

“I’ve been here all night. Trust me, you’re early.”

[normajeaneproductions]

mugglestudiesrps‌:

To everyone else within a hundred foot proximity, business as usual presented itself as the overall theme. At least, to everyone but Regan Adamopolous and the man striding toward her who she could only presume was Mason Nash, her new partner. She swallowed a large gulp of bitter black coffee and pushed aside memories from the months prior. 

Regan couldn’t recall the last time she fell asleep without being haunted by nightmares from that evening in Paris. Strokes of scarlet red pouring over white sheets, Peyton Grimes heaving for final breaths, whispering for Regan to abandon him. The chaos swirled inside her begging to erupt, but Regan had been given plenty of time to do so. Three months of it, in fact. Three months to mourn the death of her partner, a man who felt closer than every Adamopolous, and who sacrificed himself for her safety. 

Despite the time and solitude away from the organization, Regan hadn’t accepted reality—how could she? Seeing this man, her new partner, appear in front of her closed the previous chapter. It nearly made her sick. Regan inhaled slowly and relished in the soothing sensation of air curling into her lungs, then turned to her new partner. 

“Nash?”

What a long and painful 48 hours it had been. Mason stretched the muscle between his shoulder and his skull, wincing with every new millimeter of space he dared to put between the two. His entire back ached of old fire, the sort of dull soreness that reminded him he wasn’t as young as he used to be. Funny, Mason thought as he shuffled up the stairs in agony, that a rough night’s sleep (or lack of, in his case) on an unfamiliar mattress put him through more than a hand-to-hand combat session in the league’s gym.

He sighed at the thought---at many thoughts, actually, all tangled up together in the unraveled fabric that was his life. What a fucking life, Mason thought bitterly as he approached the gym doors.

He tugged. The doors shook.

They didn’t open.

Mason tugged again with an angry force that only made the doors rattle louder. With a frustrated growl, he knocked his fist against the door---not hard enough to break the glass, but just enough to deliver his dissatisfaction to the damn things. He turned around, leaning back against them in frustration---only just then noticing he wasn’t alone. Up the corridor stood a woman who looked just as lost as he did.

His new partner. Mason scowled.

Arms crossed, he approached her, nodding curtly at the sound of his name.

“Yeah. Who’re you?”

[normajeaneproductions]

nicoleoftheindies‌:

Once situated, Jack sped onward towards the bright orange sunset. The warm evening air rushed by, breezing through Jack’s chestnut hair. Moments like these made Jack O’Brady forget, if even for a moment, that his life would always be far more complicated than warm summer evenings, driving in a car with a beautiful woman. Nothing could ever be so simple. 

Jack look forward, the roar of the engine making it difficult to carry on a conversation. Within a few minutes, he pulled into their destination and an attendant greeted them immediately.

 Miami breezes, by Connie’s experience, were of a different breed than those found in the rest of the world. Thick with an all too specifically proportioned combination of humidity and possibility, both of which came and went at their own unpredictable leisure. As one such breeze swept through Connie’s hair, combing into it the tangles she has worked so hard to replace with curls, she found herself leaving into it rather than shying away. When opportunity came knocking, as one might say—and if Connie hadn’t already been confident about this particular opportunity, Jack’s Connie red Corvette had sealed the deal.

“Fancy,” she said plainly as they pulled into the valet line. Impressive though it was, this was the part she hated most. While the windows were down and the radio was turned full volume, it was easy for Connie to pretend they were just cruising. Easy to pretend they really were having a well deserved night out. Easy to pretend she was someone else entirely.

The valet, on the other hand, was their concierge to reality. Connie, to put it politely, didn’t appreciate that much. She stood beside Jack as she mournfully watched the Corvette roll away into the sunset without her. Then, she turned a resentful eye up at the extravagant architecture before them.

“Come here often?”

[normajeaneproductions]

mugglestudiesrps‌:

Wes arched a brow at the woman’s question, “She hopes for beer but asks for something like Corona Light.” He smiled wryly as he locked eyes with her, scanning the woman’s presence. She was undoubtedly striking and exuded confidence, which Wes appreciated. The wilting-flower personality types usually made for poor conversation, in his opinion. 

"Better than Corona Light,” Presley whined. She put her hands on her cheeks, as if they were burning with embarrassment (they weren’t). “I came here to learn.”

[normajeaneproductions]

“It’s a depressing way to go, when you think about it.” Jake frowned and stared down at the knot he was trying to tangle together out of his own fingers. This was why he tried not to think too much on what had come Before. He’d used to think it was the best policy when it came to his own path here, but as he’d come to know the others that had followed, he’d realized that it was even better advice when it came to them. The same was true of the boy that had arrived that morning; he couldn’t even bring himself to say the words out loud.

“I’m just trying to figure out a way to help him cope with it that doesn’t involve addressing what happened, but that’s just impossible, right?”

[normajeaneproductions]

annielandsbergwrites‌:

“Guys we have to go to this trip! Sister Mary won’t be there and everybody is going. I mean everybody.”

“I promise you it’s not the will, it’s the way.” Lorrin sighed deeply and stretched out her arms, rubbing half of her sweaty palms against the cuffs of her sleeves, and the other half against the surface of the lunch table. “I don’t know where I’m gonna come up with that kind of money, and in only two months.”

[normajeaneproductions]

mugglestudiesrps‌:

“We have an IPA on tap.”

Although Wes would be the first to say he didn’t typically work behind the bar at his own brewery, more often than not he found himself doing just that. It wasn’t as though he had to control every aspect of the business; after all, he hired smart employees for a reason, for them to use their brains and clear up bandwidth for him. Rather, he liked being hands-on and present, for both the brewery’s sake and the customers.

He faced the patron sitting in a bar stool and gestured to the taps. “It has hints of grapefruit. Pretty damn summery, if you ask me.”

Presley had always fancied herself a beer person---the sort that went with friends to breweries on the weekends, that could determine the make and model of any pint with just a small sip and pensive smack of her lips. She had always fancied herself that sort of person far off in the future, once she was in graduate school and schmoozing it up with other pretentious art students on the weekends, pretending with them that they were waiting for inspiration to actually strike, and not reliant on a last minute cocaine bender from a local drug dealer someone’s cousin was connected with the night before a project was due.

She had always fancied that she’d become sort of person, but graduate school and cocaine benders and the types of friends she would enjoy going to breweries with never actually came. And so when the bartender said hints of grapefruit, Presley stared at the tap with an empty face, trying to theorize what hints of grapefruit could mean in a beer.

“I was hoping for beer, not wine,” Presley said slowly. Finally, she met the bartender’s eyes, the expression she had now adopted just for the occasion shameless and fixed. “What do you have that improves on a Corona Light?”

[normajeaneproductions]

annielandsbergwrites‌:

Sometimes it felt like January’s whole life was nothing but a series of unfortunate decisions she’d made. Mistake after mistake, she always found herself in unpleasant situations. The worst part was, she’s never learnt no matter how many times she promised herself that she would. The last thing January remembered was snorting too much cocaine in the toilet, she also vaguely remembered getting in someone’s car and the rest was a giant blur. 

Now she was in ER, staring at her bloody clothes and crying. This wasn’t supposed to happen. 

“Can’t you guys just let me go?” She asked, wiping her tears with her single hand.

The inside of Cory’s veins began to itch, the telltale sign of irritation that paved the way for blood boiling anger. He gripped the bed’s railing firmly in his hands, moving it down the hall in perfect synchronization with the nurse on the other side.

“No,” Cory husked firmly, jaw clenched beneath gritted teeth like a foundation made stronger by precarious earthquakes. “We can’t just let you go.” Even if there times when he wanted that to be exactly what they did. Cory had taken an oath, one that he wasn’t going to go back on no matter how temping it might have been at times. His face hardened into a judgmental glare---and the ironic part was that he thought he was being perfectly neutral. “What the hell happened to you?”

[normajeaneproductions]

Wow, had it been one helluva night. Even for ER, on a full moon in Mercury retrograde, things had been hectic to say the least. And in spite of it all, Cory was on the final hour of his shift; that was all he needed to supply him with the second wind that would carry him through the drive home to his tidy apartment and eagerly waiting, well made bed.

Or so he thought. The moment they wheeled in another bed, laden with a groaning patient and bloodstained bandage, Cory felt every ounce of energy he had left drain from his body as it instead filled to the brim with sheer annoyance.

“I’m gonna need some help.”

[normajeaneproductions]

godfatherindependent‌:

“I thought that smell was rancid latte. Turns out it’s just you.”

The turn to face reality seemed to last an eternity. A whole host of faces the voice could have matched passed through Billie’s mind, each as unlikely as the one before it, one tactic of denial after the other. And yet, when Billie whirled around, only for her gaze to land on Liz, it seemed impossible that so many scenarios could have gone through her head in such a small space of time. She’d known it was Liz; she’d felt it was Liz; the panic she had tried to elongate had been several years’ worth. And as their eyes met, she realized that it wasn’t the panic of this moment in itself that she’d felt; it was panic at the uncertainty of what would happen next, now that their paths had finally entwined once again.

“Liz.”

[normajeaneproductions]

[normajeaneproductions]

nicoleoftheindies‌:

Jack led the pair out to the front of his hotel. A few minutes are relaying information to the valet attendant, the man drove up Jack’s Corvette. The shiny, red convertible made him feel almost regal, in a way. It was all gilded, though. The car wasn’t his, neither the expensive suit he wore, or the outlandish life he claimed. It was all on loan from the League, so to speak. 

But Connie didn’t need to know that. 

“Shall we?” Jack opened the passenger’s door. 

The languid demeanor Connie had upkept so well in those few moments of casual conversation evaporated at the site of Jack’s car. She pursed her lips speculatively. Cherry red was her color. It was too clean, too irresistible, too good to be true. Connie allowed her fingers to slide over the hood of the car, not neglecting the precise match of her perfectly manicured nails to the Corvette’s fresh coat of paint.

What would a bit of fun hurt so long as she was cautious?

“Oh, we shall.”

[askbethanysocs]

mugglestudieswrites:

“I thought you would prefer a fashionably late entrance.”

“Fashionably, yes, not embarrassingly.”

[askbethanysocs]

mugglestudieswrites:

“Are we running late yet, or do we need another conversation topic to stall with?”