The Terror of Mayfair

Sebastian Moran. Thirty-two years old, sniper, ex-Colonel in the SAS. That's all you need to know. [Independent RP blog; will roleplay with anyone. FC is Richard Armitage. I don't claim to own any images posted.]

[lieutenantralston]

...Ready For It? ~ sarah, christine & andreas

“Well, at the very least she’s good,” Andreas says as the patrons of The Gaslight roar their approval, and Sarah’s set comes to a close.

Christine shrugs, though of course he’s right. She finds herself wishing that she could erase the events of the last twenty four hours and sneak backstage like a normal girl, nervous but excited to try and get Sarah’s number. She wishes she’d never met Sarah at all. But if wishes were fishes – well. She sighs and gets to her feet, trying to distract herself from that train of thought. “Do you have to dress like a librarian?” she whispers to Andreas as they begin their trek through the crowd and to the back of The Gaslight. With the denim jacket and skirt, she had attempted to blend in. “Why do you do it?”

Andreas grins and pokes her side, ignoring the scowl they both know she doesn’t mean. “To irritate you,” he says easily. “Though I fear that sacred duty now belongs to someone else.”

Christine’s stomach twists at the reminder that, if all works out, it won’t be the three of them anymore. And she knows she’s lucky that she gets to attend this meeting with Andreas by her side, not Tessa. Tessa, who had listened to the story and looked at them and said, I trust you. Like it’s that easy. Like their world wouldn’t crack open if this fledgling partnership with Sarah Moran went to shit.

Making it past the bouncer is easy because, for once, they’re not lying when they tell him that they’re expected. He leads them to the back and demands that they wait while he checks in with Sarah. They’re quiet at first, looking around the tiny meeting room/storage. It isn’t terrible. Andreas reads the posters while Christine leans against the chair, watching him. Finally, she says, “We could do bigger jobs if we had four.” He makes a sound like he agrees, so she adds, “But she could also be the worst thing that’s ever happened to us.” Though what she means, of course, is, she could be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.

“We’re not in the business of good things happening to us, Christine,” Andreas says. He looks up, then sees the door, and his face changes imperceptibly. “Hello,” he says, polite and amiable as ever. “Good to see you again.”

[seb--moran]

Sarah’s nervous. It’s a standard gig at a club she’s played a dozen times, and yet before the show, she’s downright nauseous at the thought of what’s going to come directly afterwards. Hell, she’s nauseous at the thought of what might not happen directly afterwards. She’s nauseous at the memory of what happened last night–not about the scene with Christine and Andreas, but about what happened after they left. Her father literally in tears for the first time since her mother’s death, and Sarah herself turning on the waterworks and lying directly to his face. I really missed Mum tonight. I just wanted to get something of hers from the closet to remind me. And then I came in here, and Gertie was–she was just gone, Dad. It takes a special kind of balls to invoke the memory of your dead mother to cover your own arse for having been party to a 35 million dollar robbery from your own father. Sarah utterly despises herself.

But she also knows it had been necessary, knows that she would make the same choice again in a heartbeat–and that knowledge is enough to steady her and give her something to hang onto as she goes out on stage and puts on a show. The lights are too blinding for Sarah to be able to make out individual faces in the crowd, but that doesn’t stop her from straining her eyes in between songs to look for Christine and Andreas. Sophie shoots her a look, one that superficially reads, what’s wrong with you, you freak?; Sarah knows her cousin well enough to recognise the levels of concern lurking just below the surface, but she shakes her head and pushes forward. There’ll be time enough for explanations later.

Nauseous or not, she’s utterly relieved when the bouncer bangs on her dressing room door to announce that her guests have arrived and are waiting for her. Sarah pulls her leather jacket tighter around her like a shield as she walks down the grimy hallway to the utility room. She can hear murmured conversation on the other side of the door, but does not allow herself the luxury of pausing to eavesdrop before she slips inside. Sarah nods in the direction of Andreas’ smile, nods to Christine. Cool. Businesslike. Professional. “Thanks for meeting me here. Not the greatest of settings, I realise, but at least it’s discrete.” She stuffs her hands in her pockets and leans back against the door: partly for her own comfort, partly as a security policy. “I made contact with the buyer I had in mind. He’s highly motivated. Interested in setting up a meeting.”

[lieutenantralston]

Andreas looks a bit taken aback, though he recovers quickly. “Straight to business,” he comments, smiling again. In the dingy light of the club, he looks less like a dorky librarian and more like he belongs. Christine watches him invite Sarah to sit with a gesture at the table, and realizes that belonging is a con just like multi-million dollar theft. She realizes that’s never told her where he learned this particular sleight of hand; she wonders how much they all still have to learn from each other.

“I realize that we haven’t had time to discuss this when we met last night,” Andreas is saying. “But there aren’t just two of us on this operation. If we come to an agreement, you’ll meet our friend Tessa, of course. She was…unavailable tonight.”

Christine bites her lip to hold back a laugh, and rolls her eyes at him good-naturedly. “She’s dealing with storage for Gertie,” she tells Sarah. Somehow she even managed to maintain a straight face. “So. You’re still serious about this.”

[seb--moran]

Sarah slips her hand down to lock the door from the inside before she moves forward to accept the seat Andreas offered. She does wonder, slightly, at how at ease with this situation he manages to seem. There is no rulebook here, no set terms of engagement--and yet, Andreas is playing this as coolly as a cucumber. It reassures her that she hasn’t hitched her wagon to a complete and utter train-wreck. “Tessa?” she asks, furrowing her brow slightly. “Where was she last night? I don’t understand. A big job like that, why not have all hands on deck?”

She suppresses a smile at hearing Christine unironically use the name ‘Gertie’; the only giveaway is the slight twitch at the corner of her mouth. “And assuming this isn’t a front for a cult or a pyramid scheme, yes. I’m very much still serious. I mean, I don’t expect you to trust me right away, I know that would be unreasonable. But give me a chance to prove myself. I can do anything. Learn anything. Be anything.” Sarah knows how arrogant her confidence can sound, but she also knows, down to the very marrow in her bones, that she can back up every one of her claims. “And listen. If I let you down, you have every right to slit my throat and walk away. But I won’t let you down. I won’t.” 

[lieutenantralston]

...Ready For It? ~ sarah, christine & andreas

“Well, at the very least she’s good,” Andreas says as the patrons of The Gaslight roar their approval, and Sarah’s set comes to a close.

Christine shrugs, though of course he’s right. She finds herself wishing that she could erase the events of the last twenty four hours and sneak backstage like a normal girl, nervous but excited to try and get Sarah’s number. She wishes she’d never met Sarah at all. But if wishes were fishes – well. She sighs and gets to her feet, trying to distract herself from that train of thought. “Do you have to dress like a librarian?” she whispers to Andreas as they begin their trek through the crowd and to the back of The Gaslight. With the denim jacket and skirt, she had attempted to blend in. “Why do you do it?”

Andreas grins and pokes her side, ignoring the scowl they both know she doesn’t mean. “To irritate you,” he says easily. “Though I fear that sacred duty now belongs to someone else.”

Christine’s stomach twists at the reminder that, if all works out, it won’t be the three of them anymore. And she knows she’s lucky that she gets to attend this meeting with Andreas by her side, not Tessa. Tessa, who had listened to the story and looked at them and said, I trust you. Like it’s that easy. Like their world wouldn’t crack open if this fledgling partnership with Sarah Moran went to shit.

Making it past the bouncer is easy because, for once, they’re not lying when they tell him that they’re expected. He leads them to the back and demands that they wait while he checks in with Sarah. They’re quiet at first, looking around the tiny meeting room/storage. It isn’t terrible. Andreas reads the posters while Christine leans against the chair, watching him. Finally, she says, “We could do bigger jobs if we had four.” He makes a sound like he agrees, so she adds, “But she could also be the worst thing that’s ever happened to us.” Though what she means, of course, is, she could be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.

“We’re not in the business of good things happening to us, Christine,” Andreas says. He looks up, then sees the door, and his face changes imperceptibly. “Hello,” he says, polite and amiable as ever. “Good to see you again.”

[seb--moran]

Sarah’s nervous. It’s a standard gig at a club she’s played a dozen times, and yet before the show, she’s downright nauseous at the thought of what’s going to come directly afterwards. Hell, she’s nauseous at the thought of what might not happen directly afterwards. She’s nauseous at the memory of what happened last night--not about the scene with Christine and Andreas, but about what happened after they left. Her father literally in tears for the first time since her mother’s death, and Sarah herself turning on the waterworks and lying directly to his face. I really missed Mum tonight. I just wanted to get something of hers from the closet to remind me. And then I came in here, and Gertie was--she was just gone, Dad. It takes a special kind of balls to invoke the memory of your dead mother to cover your own arse for having been party to a 35 million dollar robbery from your own father. Sarah utterly despises herself.

But she also knows it had been necessary, knows that she would make the same choice again in a heartbeat--and that knowledge is enough to steady her and give her something to hang onto as she goes out on stage and puts on a show. The lights are too blinding for Sarah to be able to make out individual faces in the crowd, but that doesn’t stop her from straining her eyes in between songs to look for Christine and Andreas. Sophie shoots her a look, one that superficially reads, what’s wrong with you, you freak?; Sarah knows her cousin well enough to recognise the levels of concern lurking just below the surface, but she shakes her head and pushes forward. There’ll be time enough for explanations later.

Nauseous or not, she’s utterly relieved when the bouncer bangs on her dressing room door to announce that her guests have arrived and are waiting for her. Sarah pulls her leather jacket tighter around her like a shield as she walks down the grimy hallway to the utility room. She can hear murmured conversation on the other side of the door, but does not allow herself the luxury of pausing to eavesdrop before she slips inside. Sarah nods in the direction of Andreas’ smile, nods to Christine. Cool. Businesslike. Professional. “Thanks for meeting me here. Not the greatest of settings, I realise, but at least it’s discrete.” She stuffs her hands in her pockets and leans back against the door: partly for her own comfort, partly as a security policy. “I made contact with the buyer I had in mind. He’s highly motivated. Interested in setting up a meeting.”

[seb--moran]

blank space ~ sarah & christine

[seb--moran]

“Whoever you are, do you really have time to be having this discussion right now?” Sarah shoots back, her tongue as smooth and quick as ever. She, too, had been playing a role on the veranda; the seductress act is a familiar mask of hers, honed to perfection through years of pursuing pretty faces and flashing eyes. But it isn’t her, any more than Tina was Christine. But this here, now–the girl standing completely exposed and baldly unashamed, her cheeks still flushed with laughter and a glint of steel in her eye, seizing on what she wants and stubbornly refusing to let go–is the real Sarah Moran. “The guests are going to be leaving soon, and you need to get out of here. Fast.” 

Sarah brushes past Christine to go over to Hugo’s closet. It’s a large walk-in affair, but Sarah keeps the door open and half an eye on Christine for the three seconds she rummages around. She emerges with a crisp white button-up; judging from the size and cut, there is no way it belongs to Hugo. Sarah wastes no time, however, in pulling on Amelia Moran’s shirt, her fingers flying through the buttons. “I’ll show you how to escape through the tunnels. It’s the quickest way off the property, and nobody–literally nobody–ever uses them but me. It’s the perfect escape route.” Sarah pulls her long hair out from where it’s trapped under the collar and lets it tumble down her back. She fixes Christine with a steady look; her tone makes it clear that she isn’t interested in negotiation. “But I want in. That’s my price.”

[lieutenantralston]

Christine almost laughs. “Right,” she says, and swings the painting over her shoulder. Her tools disappear into the pockets of her slacks. She hauls up the frame and rests it against the wall, out of the way. Her internal clock whispers, seven minutes. “Or maybe you’re about to lead me into the arms of the security that your father has stationed outside.” She lifts an eyebrow. “You think I don’t have an escape route? That one might be my fault, I suppose – I did tell you that I’m no good at sneaking around.”

The tricky thing is this: Christine knows that Sarah is serious. She knows this because the look in her eyes in the same that Christine had seen in the mirror after she watched Tessa skirt around a camera’s blind spot and disappear into thin air on the security feed; after Andreas unrolled the blueprints to Penthurst and said, you’re right, he’s got a Rembrandt and you’re going to get it out. It’s the same thing that will keep Christine tethered to job after job, theft after theft, even though she can walk away from it after tonight.

“You know,” she says, and this time there not a hint of flirtation or coyness in her tone. She want Sarah to see that for once, she isn’t lying. “I was going to say that if you’re going to join a thieves’ ring then you should do it for the right reasons instead of just because you’re reckless or bored or want something more than your family can offer. But there is never a right reason. Ever. Maybe I was more right than I thought when I said everyone needs to be rescued.” She walks closer until they’re face to face, and cocks her head to the side. “Go on, Sarah, lead the way. But I’m only saying this now so that I can say I told you so later: this isn’t freedom.”

[seb--moran]

“Whatever escape route you have is rubbish,” Sarah says matter-of-factly. “There is twice the number of security here tonight as normal, and they aren’t following the usual rota. Every ground-level exit from the property is being manned, and the camera feeds are being looped into a control room. Whatever you planned will never work.” But not for nothing did Sarah cut her teeth as a teenager sneaking past every safety measure her father could throw at her. “Text your getaway driver. You have one, don’t you? Tell her to meet us by the junction of Dartford and Faldon. It’s about a five minute drive east of here.” 

Sarah quirks an eyebrow at her, and it’s a look that speaks volumes–she doesn’t bother dignifying Christine’s little speech with a verbal reply, but she manages to make her response crystal clear all the same. But time’s a-wasting, and so she turns on her heel and leads the way out. The entrance to the tunnels is conveniently close to hand; removing the fake backing to a broom closet down the hallway is all it takes. Sarah leads the way into the darkness fearlessly, moving silently and confidently, only occasionally throwing glances over her shoulder to make sure Christine is still following her. 

The tunnels of Penthurst are a Byzantine network, snaking hidden corridors throughout the entire house–and also extending out through the surrounding parkland, finally ending in the midst of the woods, not far from the road junction she’d told Christine. Sarah has been playing in this network of tunnels since earliest childhood; she knows them like the back of her hand. Hugo regularly forgets the tunnels even exist, while Alec has, to the best of Sarah’s knowledge, never even been down there. The dark underbelly of Penthurst is where she rules supreme.

[lieutenantralston]

It’s utterly infuriating that Sarah’s guidance saves time and minimizes risk. As they sneak around the property, Christine grimaces and thinks of catacombs. She would have loved to grow up here and explore as a kid, but it’s far less charming when its safety relies on a reckless rich girl with a chip on her shoulder that Christine hasn’t figured out yet. She pauses as Sarah rounds a corner before her, and shoots off a text to Andreas with the street intersection that Sarah had specified. Then, after a brief hesitation, she texts, the plan is shot but stay cool.

Her phone remains silent until they’re almost at the meeting point. The response is simply a frowny-face emoji. And then, barely ten seconds after they arrive, a dark green Sedan pulls up. The driver side window rolls down, and reveals a smiling Andreas. With his glasses, cable knit sweater, and apologetic smile, he looks like a harmless student out for a drive in unfamiliar countryside. “Pardon, ladies,” he says politely, “would you direct me to the nearest main road?”

Christine sighs and wordlessly opens the back door, ignoring the icy look Andreas sends her as she ignores the charade. “Hey,” she says. “Sarah, meet Andreas Rogers. Andreas,” she soldiers on, ignoring the half-choked noise of recognition as Andreas is introduced to their guest. “This is Sarah Moran. Sarah wants in,” she tells him, rolling her eyes. “Don’t you, Sarah?”

[seb--moran]

Sarah isn’t sure what she’d pictured the getaway car to look like, but a boring green sedan certainly isn’t it. If she’s joining this group, job number one will be to update the vehicle to something just a bit more…stylish. But then the window rolls down, and there’s Andreas, looking like some kind of nerdy hipster fantasy she didn’t even know she had. Well, at least he doesn’t need updating, is her first, irrelevant thought, before she internally groans and wonders at the magnificent cruelty of the universe. To encounter both Christine and Andreas–two of the most obnoxiously attractive people in the world–in the same evening, and together! It’s like Christmas and birthday have come all at once, but Sarah’s had no time to prepare herself, and now the enjoyment is slipping through her fingers like grains of sand. Play it cool, she cautions herself, and steadies herself with a deep breath.

Her cheeks are darkly flushed even before Christine speaks. “Fuck off, ‘Tina’.” The air quotes around the name are magnificently emphasized with cutting sarcasm. “Give me some respect, I did just save your arse back there.” The unspoken implication is that Sarah could still reverse her decision and turn them in; now that she’s seen their car, she can even give their license number to the police. But Sarah decides that she doesn’t need to issue that particular threat verbally; she knows it’ll be hanging heavily on their minds as is. She approaches Andreas’ driver side and leans down to speak to him more directly, her voice low. Maybe he’ll be more reasonable. “Your friend can fill you in on the details, but the three of us need to meet, and soon, to make plans. I’m playing a gig in the city tomorrow night. The Gaslight in Brixton. I’ll be wrapping up by 11. Drop in for the last half hour of the set, and then come backstage.” 

[lieutenantralston]

A pause hangs tense and heavy over the group as Andreas regards Sarah over the top of his glasses. Christine keeps her gaze firmly on where her fingers are gripping the passenger door, but she doesn’t have to see him to know that he won’t respond until she gives an indication of how she wants this to play out. It should be a given, but the rush of relief that she feels at that realization is a surprise. Whatever Andreas thinks about Sarah, whatever he may feel at the clusterfuck that this job has become in Christine’s hands, he’s one of the most loyal people Christine has ever known. When they re-group with Tessa, she has no doubt that she’ll hear what he has to say. But right now, Sarah’s arrogant dismissal of Christine has not endeared her to Andreas. For the first time all night, Christine has backup.

She closes her eyes briefly, then looks up at Sarah over the hood of the car. “Thank you,” she says, so sincere that it’s obvious she can’t mean it; “for saving my arse back there. Which would have been unnecessary had you not created that problem by walking in. Good thing you led me out here to a getaway car.” She bites her tongue before she does anything ill-advised, like threaten Sarah by reminding her that they’re alone at the edge of the property and her scream might send the guard running, but will they get here in time? By the look Andreas shoots her, he knows what she’s thinking.

Christine wonders what her mama would say if she were here. Probably advise her to look for the bright side. So, the bright side: Sarah may be reckless and arrogant, but she’s obviously shrewd. And if she’s willing to let them get away with her father’s prized possession, she must want this really, really badly. That’s something Christine can use later. So she sighs and holds out her hand for Sarah to shake, no pretense, just business. “Christine Ralston,” she says. “That’s my name.”

From the driver’s seat, Andreas finally smiles the dimpled grin that’s earned him a 20% discount on the pastries from the old lady down the street, which is the reason Christine and Tessa have delegated food provision duties to him. “We’ll be there,” he tells Sarah.

[seb--moran]

Sarah watches the dynamic between the two of them carefully, her sharp eyes picking up on a myriad of small clues in their body language and the looks they exchange. The key takeaway is that she will try to play Christine and Andreas against each other at her own peril. They will need to be handled as a solitary unit--at least until Sarah has managed to establish herself as a player in her own right. She files the information away for future reference, and shakes Christine’s hand; her grip is firm, but not aggressive. “Nice to meet you, Christine. Let’s agree to put everything else from earlier tonight behind us, yeah?” The Moran social training is a formidable force, and Sarah’s olive branch sounds entirely sincere. But the more she thinks about it, the more used she feels by how Christine had treated her earlier in the evening. She had been forced into being an unwitting accomplice in this robbery long before she’d walked in on Christine stuffing Gertie into a tube. Sarah blames herself for having had a weak point to be exploited--but Christ, she hates the fact that Christine had the nerve to exploit it in the first place. “Just take care of Gertie, yeah?”

She returns Andreas’ heart-stopping smile with one of her own, and tries not to think about what it would be like to kiss that smile off his face altogether. “See you tomorrow night. I have a tab at the pub--feel free to use it.” She straightens up, realising all of a sudden that she has literally no idea how to end this social situation. What’s the appropriate way to say goodbye to these people? Sarah doesn’t think there is one. So she just turns and melts away into the darkness, moving silently back into the forest to make her clandestine return to Penthurst. She has a half-formed plan of how to break the news of Gertie’s abduction back at the house--and she doesn’t have any time to waste.

[seb--moran]

blank space ~ sarah & christine

[seb--moran]

“Whoever you are, do you really have time to be having this discussion right now?” Sarah shoots back, her tongue as smooth and quick as ever. She, too, had been playing a role on the veranda; the seductress act is a familiar mask of hers, honed to perfection through years of pursuing pretty faces and flashing eyes. But it isn’t her, any more than Tina was Christine. But this here, now–the girl standing completely exposed and baldly unashamed, her cheeks still flushed with laughter and a glint of steel in her eye, seizing on what she wants and stubbornly refusing to let go–is the real Sarah Moran. “The guests are going to be leaving soon, and you need to get out of here. Fast.” 

Sarah brushes past Christine to go over to Hugo’s closet. It’s a large walk-in affair, but Sarah keeps the door open and half an eye on Christine for the three seconds she rummages around. She emerges with a crisp white button-up; judging from the size and cut, there is no way it belongs to Hugo. Sarah wastes no time, however, in pulling on Amelia Moran’s shirt, her fingers flying through the buttons. “I’ll show you how to escape through the tunnels. It’s the quickest way off the property, and nobody–literally nobody–ever uses them but me. It’s the perfect escape route.” Sarah pulls her long hair out from where it’s trapped under the collar and lets it tumble down her back. She fixes Christine with a steady look; her tone makes it clear that she isn’t interested in negotiation. “But I want in. That’s my price.”

[lieutenantralston]

Christine almost laughs. “Right,” she says, and swings the painting over her shoulder. Her tools disappear into the pockets of her slacks. She hauls up the frame and rests it against the wall, out of the way. Her internal clock whispers, seven minutes. “Or maybe you’re about to lead me into the arms of the security that your father has stationed outside.” She lifts an eyebrow. “You think I don’t have an escape route? That one might be my fault, I suppose – I did tell you that I’m no good at sneaking around.”

The tricky thing is this: Christine knows that Sarah is serious. She knows this because the look in her eyes in the same that Christine had seen in the mirror after she watched Tessa skirt around a camera’s blind spot and disappear into thin air on the security feed; after Andreas unrolled the blueprints to Penthurst and said, you’re right, he’s got a Rembrandt and you’re going to get it out. It’s the same thing that will keep Christine tethered to job after job, theft after theft, even though she can walk away from it after tonight.

“You know,” she says, and this time there not a hint of flirtation or coyness in her tone. She want Sarah to see that for once, she isn’t lying. “I was going to say that if you’re going to join a thieves’ ring then you should do it for the right reasons instead of just because you’re reckless or bored or want something more than your family can offer. But there is never a right reason. Ever. Maybe I was more right than I thought when I said everyone needs to be rescued.” She walks closer until they’re face to face, and cocks her head to the side. “Go on, Sarah, lead the way. But I’m only saying this now so that I can say I told you so later: this isn’t freedom.”

[seb--moran]

“Whatever escape route you have is rubbish,” Sarah says matter-of-factly. “There is twice the number of security here tonight as normal, and they aren’t following the usual rota. Every ground-level exit from the property is being manned, and the camera feeds are being looped into a control room. Whatever you planned will never work.” But not for nothing did Sarah cut her teeth as a teenager sneaking past every safety measure her father could throw at her. “Text your getaway driver. You have one, don’t you? Tell her to meet us by the junction of Dartford and Faldon. It’s about a five minute drive east of here.” 

Sarah quirks an eyebrow at her, and it’s a look that speaks volumes–she doesn’t bother dignifying Christine’s little speech with a verbal reply, but she manages to make her response crystal clear all the same. But time’s a-wasting, and so she turns on her heel and leads the way out. The entrance to the tunnels is conveniently close to hand; removing the fake backing to a broom closet down the hallway is all it takes. Sarah leads the way into the darkness fearlessly, moving silently and confidently, only occasionally throwing glances over her shoulder to make sure Christine is still following her. 

The tunnels of Penthurst are a Byzantine network, snaking hidden corridors throughout the entire house–and also extending out through the surrounding parkland, finally ending in the midst of the woods, not far from the road junction she’d told Christine. Sarah has been playing in this network of tunnels since earliest childhood; she knows them like the back of her hand. Hugo regularly forgets the tunnels even exist, while Alec has, to the best of Sarah’s knowledge, never even been down there. The dark underbelly of Penthurst is where she rules supreme.

[lieutenantralston]

It’s utterly infuriating that Sarah’s guidance saves time and minimizes risk. As they sneak around the property, Christine grimaces and thinks of catacombs. She would have loved to grow up here and explore as a kid, but it’s far less charming when its safety relies on a reckless rich girl with a chip on her shoulder that Christine hasn’t figured out yet. She pauses as Sarah rounds a corner before her, and shoots off a text to Andreas with the street intersection that Sarah had specified. Then, after a brief hesitation, she texts, the plan is shot but stay cool.

Her phone remains silent until they’re almost at the meeting point. The response is simply a frowny-face emoji. And then, barely ten seconds after they arrive, a dark green Sedan pulls up. The driver side window rolls down, and reveals a smiling Andreas. With his glasses, cable knit sweater, and apologetic smile, he looks like a harmless student out for a drive in unfamiliar countryside. “Pardon, ladies,” he says politely, “would you direct me to the nearest main road?”

Christine sighs and wordlessly opens the back door, ignoring the icy look Andreas sends her as she ignores the charade. “Hey,” she says. “Sarah, meet Andreas Rogers. Andreas,” she soldiers on, ignoring the half-choked noise of recognition as Andreas is introduced to their guest. “This is Sarah Moran. Sarah wants in,” she tells him, rolling her eyes. “Don’t you, Sarah?”

[seb--moran]

Sarah isn’t sure what she’d pictured the getaway car to look like, but a boring green sedan certainly isn’t it. If she’s joining this group, job number one will be to update the vehicle to something just a bit more...stylish. But then the window rolls down, and there’s Andreas, looking like some kind of nerdy hipster fantasy she didn’t even know she had. Well, at least he doesn’t need updating, is her first, irrelevant thought, before she internally groans and wonders at the magnificent cruelty of the universe. To encounter both Christine and Andreas--two of the most obnoxiously attractive people in the world--in the same evening, and together! It’s like Christmas and birthday have come all at once, but Sarah’s had no time to prepare herself, and now the enjoyment is slipping through her fingers like grains of sand. Play it cool, she cautions herself, and steadies herself with a deep breath.

Her cheeks are darkly flushed even before Christine speaks. “Fuck off, ‘Tina’.” The air quotes around the name are magnificently emphasized with cutting sarcasm. “Give me some respect, I did just save your arse back there.” The unspoken implication is that Sarah could still reverse her decision and turn them in; now that she’s seen their car, she can even give their license number to the police. But Sarah decides that she doesn’t need to issue that particular threat verbally; she knows it’ll be hanging heavily on their minds as is. She approaches Andreas’ driver side and leans down to speak to him more directly, her voice low. Maybe he’ll be more reasonable. “Your friend can fill you in on the details, but the three of us need to meet, and soon, to make plans. I’m playing a gig in the city tomorrow night. The Gaslight in Brixton. I’ll be wrapping up by 11. Drop in for the last half hour of the set, and then come backstage.” 

[unusualrussia]

Nizhny Novgorod. Photo by Kocheshkov Alexander.

[seb--moran]

blank space ~ sarah & christine

[seb--moran]

“Whoever you are, do you really have time to be having this discussion right now?” Sarah shoots back, her tongue as smooth and quick as ever. She, too, had been playing a role on the veranda; the seductress act is a familiar mask of hers, honed to perfection through years of pursuing pretty faces and flashing eyes. But it isn’t her, any more than Tina was Christine. But this here, now–the girl standing completely exposed and baldly unashamed, her cheeks still flushed with laughter and a glint of steel in her eye, seizing on what she wants and stubbornly refusing to let go–is the real Sarah Moran. “The guests are going to be leaving soon, and you need to get out of here. Fast.” 

Sarah brushes past Christine to go over to Hugo’s closet. It’s a large walk-in affair, but Sarah keeps the door open and half an eye on Christine for the three seconds she rummages around. She emerges with a crisp white button-up; judging from the size and cut, there is no way it belongs to Hugo. Sarah wastes no time, however, in pulling on Amelia Moran’s shirt, her fingers flying through the buttons. “I’ll show you how to escape through the tunnels. It’s the quickest way off the property, and nobody–literally nobody–ever uses them but me. It’s the perfect escape route.” Sarah pulls her long hair out from where it’s trapped under the collar and lets it tumble down her back. She fixes Christine with a steady look; her tone makes it clear that she isn’t interested in negotiation. “But I want in. That’s my price.”

[lieutenantralston]

Christine almost laughs. “Right,” she says, and swings the painting over her shoulder. Her tools disappear into the pockets of her slacks. She hauls up the frame and rests it against the wall, out of the way. Her internal clock whispers, seven minutes. “Or maybe you’re about to lead me into the arms of the security that your father has stationed outside.” She lifts an eyebrow. “You think I don’t have an escape route? That one might be my fault, I suppose – I did tell you that I’m no good at sneaking around.”

The tricky thing is this: Christine knows that Sarah is serious. She knows this because the look in her eyes in the same that Christine had seen in the mirror after she watched Tessa skirt around a camera’s blind spot and disappear into thin air on the security feed; after Andreas unrolled the blueprints to Penthurst and said, you’re right, he’s got a Rembrandt and you’re going to get it out. It’s the same thing that will keep Christine tethered to job after job, theft after theft, even though she can walk away from it after tonight.

“You know,” she says, and this time there not a hint of flirtation or coyness in her tone. She want Sarah to see that for once, she isn’t lying. “I was going to say that if you’re going to join a thieves’ ring then you should do it for the right reasons instead of just because you’re reckless or bored or want something more than your family can offer. But there is never a right reason. Ever. Maybe I was more right than I thought when I said everyone needs to be rescued.” She walks closer until they’re face to face, and cocks her head to the side. “Go on, Sarah, lead the way. But I’m only saying this now so that I can say I told you so later: this isn’t freedom.”

[seb--moran]

“Whatever escape route you have is rubbish,” Sarah says matter-of-factly. “There is twice the number of security here tonight as normal, and they aren’t following the usual rota. Every ground-level exit from the property is being manned, and the camera feeds are being looped into a control room. Whatever you planned will never work.” But not for nothing did Sarah cut her teeth as a teenager sneaking past every safety measure her father could throw at her. “Text your getaway driver. You have one, don’t you? Tell her to meet us by the junction of Dartford and Faldon. It’s about a five minute drive east of here.” 

Sarah quirks an eyebrow at her, and it’s a look that speaks volumes--she doesn’t bother dignifying Christine’s little speech with a verbal reply, but she manages to make her response crystal clear all the same. But time’s a-wasting, and so she turns on her heel and leads the way out. The entrance to the tunnels is conveniently close to hand; removing the fake backing to a broom closet down the hallway is all it takes. Sarah leads the way into the darkness fearlessly, moving silently and confidently, only occasionally throwing glances over her shoulder to make sure Christine is still following her. 

The tunnels of Penthurst are a Byzantine network, snaking hidden corridors throughout the entire house--and also extending out through the surrounding parkland, finally ending in the midst of the woods, not far from the road junction she’d told Christine. Sarah has been playing in this network of tunnels since earliest childhood; she knows them like the back of her hand. Hugo regularly forgets the tunnels even exist, while Alec has, to the best of Sarah’s knowledge, never even been down there. The dark underbelly of Penthurst is where she rules supreme.

[seb--moran]

blank space ~ sarah & christine

[seb--moran]

“Whoever you are, do you really have time to be having this discussion right now?” Sarah shoots back, her tongue as smooth and quick as ever. She, too, had been playing a role on the veranda; the seductress act is a familiar mask of hers, honed to perfection through years of pursuing pretty faces and flashing eyes. But it isn’t her, any more than Tina was Christine. But this here, now--the girl standing completely exposed and baldly unashamed, her cheeks still flushed with laughter and a glint of steel in her eye, seizing on what she wants and stubbornly refusing to let go--is the real Sarah Moran. “The guests are going to be leaving soon, and you need to get out of here. Fast.” 

Sarah brushes past Christine to go over to Hugo’s closet. It’s a large walk-in affair, but Sarah keeps the door open and half an eye on Christine for the three seconds she rummages around. She emerges with a crisp white button-up; judging from the size and cut, there is no way it belongs to Hugo. Sarah wastes no time, however, in pulling on Amelia Moran’s shirt, her fingers flying through the buttons. “I’ll show you how to escape through the tunnels. It’s the quickest way off the property, and nobody--literally nobody--ever uses them but me. It’s the perfect escape route.” Sarah pulls her long hair out from where it’s trapped under the collar and lets it tumble down her back. She fixes Christine with a steady look; her tone makes it clear that she isn’t interested in negotiation. “But I want in. That’s my price.”

[seb--moran]

blank space ~ sarah & christine

[lieutenantralston]

Like a total idiot, Christine feels her face warm and knows that she’s flushing. Maybe in the dark it won’t be so noticeable. Maybe Sarah will graciously ignore how obvious it is that Christine is surprised but thrilled at the forwardness. Longingly, she thinks about what she would do if this were real – if she really had snuck in, if she could have drunk that flute of bellini that Sarah had offered earlier, if she could say, no let’s go up right now, if, if.

“The servants,” she echoed, not distracted enough to forgo a spike of irritation. “Sure, Sarah. Half an hour.” She squeezes Sarah’s shoulder lightly, and takes a step in the direction of the party. She pictures the layout of the house, mentally tracing her path, already knowing that the sound of the party will mask the creaking of the unfamiliar floorboards. The first time she’d done this, her palms had been sweating and she’d almost worried herself sick before she even began. Now, at the one job where it truly matters, all she feels is anticipation. She glances back at Sarah and allows it to show on her face, just briefly. In the near-dark, Sarah looks like a painting herself. If Christine were luckier, this is the painting she’d be stealing instead of leaving behind. “Keep the lace,” she adds, still flushed and grinning. “Something tells me you don’t wear it often, and it’ll be such a special night.”

[seb--moran]

It’s times like these that Sarah thanks God that she adores women as much as she does. How dull it must be to be straight! And go an entire life without appreciating the loveliness of the flush on Christine’s face, or the incomparable perfection of the curve of her jaw! God, she loves being young. “I don’t think you’re ready for me in lace yet, darling,” she drawls, just barely managing to reign in the grin that threatens to overtake her. “But don’t worry. I think you’ll like what you see.” And with that, Sarah slips away, down the veranda steps, off into the darkness. It’ll be a longer path to get back to her own room, but it’s all about the dramatic exits.

Sarah makes it up to the attics in record time, though, and immediately sets about getting ready for a seduction. She decides against inviting Christine into her actual bedroom–that is soft and sacred ground, full of the detritus of childhood and adolescence, a holy of holies reserved only for the most trusted few. But she has a perfectly serviceable living room, conveniently outfitted with a low and wide couch pilfered from elsewhere in the house that will meet their needs perfectly well. She gives herself ten minutes to scramble around and tidy up the living room, removing personal effects and straightening the stacks of books and papers. She takes a look at her watch and swears at how the time is flying, and flies into her bedroom to get changed into something suitable for a seduction. Sarah doesn’t want to be obvious, doesn’t want to be too overtly sexy–lingerie is out the window, of course–ugh. A scramble-brained thought strikes her as she’s halfway dressed, and she strides back out of the bedroom in only her bra and a pair of leggings to investigate. A cursory look in her makeshift liquor cabinet confirms her worst fears, and she audibly groans. Why doesn’t her life always work out perfectly?

But Christine will be up here any minute now, so Sarah simply doesn’t have time to waste. There’s a trap-door in the floor of the attics that will allow Sarah to drop directly down onto the family floor below–and from there, it’s just a matter of a few steps to Hugo’s bedroom and the well-stocked liquor cabinet there. Okay. Alright. Change of plans, but still workable. All will be well, after all. She casts a look down at her own state of undress, but shrugs it off. The residential quarters of Penthurst are always absolutely abandoned and silent as the graves on the nights when Hugo entertains. The odds of anyone encountering her dressed like this are effectively nil–and with the clock running out, Sarah is more than prepared to face those odds.

She carefully opens the trap-door and silently jumps down onto the plush carpet several feet below, landing cat-like with a practiced grace that can only suggest she has done this many times before. Sarah pads along down the hallway with her bare feet, moving quickly and silently and praying, just praying, that she’ll make it back upstairs in time to at least throw on a shirt before Christine arrives. She finally reaches Hugo’s bedroom and throws the door open without a second thought–but really, all the second thoughts in the world could not have prepared her for the sight that greeted her within the room.

[lieutenantralston]

The first time Christine had pulled a job, it had been with Tessa’s voice in her ear saying, timing is everything. She’d made Christine plan her every move, map it out breath by breath, then practice it all like a dance. What’s the use of knowing the guard’s rotation when you don’t know what time it is? she’d asked, relentless. It’s all luck and timing, so you better make damn sure that you have the timing down.

When Christine turned to Sarah and said, “half an hour,” what she meant was: it will take me half an hour to pull off a robbery that’s worth thirty million, half an hour to get from here to Hugo Moran’s bedroom and then disappear into the darkness - half an hour to walk out the doors of Penthurst just as Sarah is expecting her to appear in its attic. By the time Sarah grows bored enough to go looking for her, Christine will be five kilometers away, making herself comfortable in the passenger seat of Andreas’ car. 

So Christine counts breaths as she hunts her prize: five minutes to slip around the back to the kitchen’s entrance, three minutes to take the narrow stairway that would typically lead to the guest rooms but has been undergoing remodeling last week, then 3 minutes to skirt a couple of women whispering by the library and slip into the family’s sleeping quarters. Five minutes to creep into Hugo’s bedroom, shutting the close softly behind her.

Two minutes to stare at A Woman Seated Before a Dutch Stove, sketched in 1658 by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, and currently hanging in all it’s glory directly across from Hugo Moran’s bed.

Having spent the past three weeks studying this work almost around the clock, Christine knows it better than half the experts in the world. She can tell at a glance that it’s the real thing, knows the two-three-five pattern of the folds on the woman’s nightcap, and even the origin and likely craftsman of the stove behind her. It’s well done and ridiculously expensive, though one of Rembrandt’s lesser known works. Yet as she stands there, Christine can’t imagine going to sleep each night with the Woman watching over her. Somehow the most difficult part of tonight is budgeting only two minutes to come to terms with the fact that a grown man has lived, slept, and likely had sex with his now-departed wife in a bed that lovingly faces an image of an elderly woman warming her exposed breasts by the fire. 

Christine tries not to think about it as she takes it down and dismantles the frame (three minutes), then sets to work gingerly detaching the canvas. It’s long, consuming labor, and it’s the reason that she’d been sent here and not Tessa or Andreas – Tessa is a better liar and Andreas is a better thief, but Christine has a natural knack for feeling out each thread of canvas and dried stroke of paint. She alone can take the canvas from its mount and roll it up with almost no trauma to the work. She alone is capable of leaving no trace not only on the crime scene, but on the crime itself.

She is snapping the Woman into the thin, cylindrical carrying case, just as the door opens. 

Christine is so shocked by Sarah’s appearance that it doesn’t immediately register that she’s been caught. The frame lies in pieces by Christine’s kneeling form, the wall is conspicuously bare behind her, and she’s staring wide-eyed at where Sarah stands only slightly more dressed and significantly more surprised than the Woman on the picture that Christine is so obviously stealing. “Well,” she manages weakly. “You certainly know how to make an entrance.”

[seb--moran]

“What happened to Gertie?” is the first dumbfounded thing Sarah manages to blurt out, her eyebrows furrowed and her brain working a thousand miles a minute. Hugo Moran loves this painting more than life itself. It is his pride and his joy. He named the painting, for Christ’s sake! He says goodnight to the old woman and her saggy breasts every night! He speaks about her at the dinner table! In her father’s mind, Gertie enjoys a status akin to a beloved family pet; to Alec and Sarah both, with their artistic sensibilities honed by a number of waspish comments from their mother over the years, Gertie is an abomination and ammunition to prove that their father is a walking caricature.

But even so, Sarah’s first instinct is to dive to Hugo’s bedside and slam the panic button concealed into his night-stand; once she sounds the alarm, she will have security storming into the room in two to three minutes. But judging by just how far along in the robbery Christine has gotten, she doesn’t have two to three minutes to wait.

So what are the alternatives? Sarah can stop her herself, of course; she is strong, fast, and downright dangerously well-trained in self-defense. But Christine seems so harmless, kneeling there on the floor–and anyways, this is Gertie; is losing Gertie really the worst thing? Sarah knows for a fact the painting has been recently re-insured for 35 million; her father will not lose a single penny off this theft.  Maybe the family should just count itself lucky that Christine is doing them all a service and severing Hugo’s umbilical connection to Gertie.

But then her eyes land on the dismantled frame lying on the floor, and the reality of what Christine has done hits her again, and she lets out a single, unamused–but not unimpressed–laugh. “Not bad for half an hour’s work. And I mean, bravo.” Her eyebrows furrow just a little deeper. “But what are you planning on doing with Gertie?” She isn’t even thinking about how patently ridiculous the name is. “You can never resell her on the open market; it’s too distinctive. Everyone will know it’s a theft.”

[lieutenantralston]

Christine sees the quick, almost imperceptible flicker of Sarah’s eyes to night-stand, and remembers the house’s alarm system with a sinking feeling. She knows that disabling the alarms would have cost her time and resources that would elevate the risk to an unacceptable degree. She knows that her plan was smart, that the chances of her getting caught here were almost negligible; as she slowly shifts off her knees and to her heels in preparation of moving quickly should she need to, Christine knows that this, at least, has little to do with her sloppiness. 

Here, too, Tessa was right: Christine had done due diligence on timing, but Lady Luck has abandoned her tonight.

“Hugo named it?” she asks, stunned. “He hung it in his bedroom and then named it? What the fuck?” She tells herself to get a grip and inhales slowly. Not taking her eyes off Sarah, she starts picking through escape routes: knock her out and run? Rely on the element of surprise and just book it out the window? “Look, I’m sorry, but do you seriously expect me to tell you what I’m planning on doing with this? People don’t typically steal artwork to sell it at open auction, no.” 

She glances at Sarah’s state of undress briefly, and wonders what she’d done to deserve this. Well, technically she does engage in property theft quite frequently. But other than that. Then a horrifying thought occurs to her: “Wait, are you dressed like this because you knew I was going to steal the Rembrandt? Is this your idea of a joke?”

[seb--moran]

“Gertie’s not an it,” Sarah corrects automatically, still dumbfounded and not even sure why she’s bothering to explain it. “She’s Gertie. He’s loved her since he was a kid. She’s like an old family friend.” Oh God, now she sounds as crazy as Hugo. “Look, I’m not going to weep at Gertie going out the window. But I do want to know what you’re planning on doing with her.” Sarah might hate Gertie, but there is some very small part of her that knows how much her father values the damn thing. And if she’s going to be letting Gertie out of the house, she needs to be able to lie to Hugo with a straight face and a clear conscience. In other words: Gertie needs to go to a good home.

Sarah just freezes for a split second and looks at Christine, as if unable to quite believe what she’s just heard. But then the first giggle slips out, and then another, and then in a matter of just a few seconds, Sarah is nearly doubled-over with laughter. She instinctively clasps a hand to her mouth to smother the sound, but there is no way to hide the gleeful mirth that is wracking her entire body. “You–you thought I was coming down here with my tits out to ironically catch you red-handed?” Another breathless peal of laughter. “Oh my God. This is the best fucking day of my life.” She’s wiping tears from the corners of her eyes as she straightens up and tries to calm herself with a deep breath haggard from laughter. “Even if you did insinuate that my tits are as saggy as Gertie’s.” That sets Sarah off yet again.

[lieutenantralston]

Christine finishes locking the Rembrandt into the case, and tries to process this. The information about Hugo Moran’s intimate relationship with the artwork leaves her utterly speechless. She watches Sarah’s laugh, and doesn’t even try to hide the existential horror from her face. “I have a buyer,” she tells Sarah, terse and bewildered. “She doesn’t care that it’s stolen and she doesn’t plan on displaying it – she just wants the real thing.”

Slowly, she gets to her feet and frowns. It still isn’t clear why Sarah decided to appear in her father’s room in this state when she should have been waiting for Christine in the attic, but they’re both equally thrown by finding each other here. And if Christine is honest? Getting caught by a half-clothed Sarah does rank higher on Christine’s list of things that she’d like to experience than getting caught by a fully-clothed Sarah. “You’re not going to call for help?” she asks. With the shock of the situation receding, she sounds almost curious.

[seb--moran]

Christine’s seriousness goes some way towards sobering Sarah up--but she’ll swear until the day she dies that the attack of giggles had deprived her brain of oxygen, which impaired her thinking skills, which led her to her next comment. “I can get you another buyer,” she offers suddenly, slightly surprising even herself. She doesn’t know why she’s doing this; she has no expectations of getting anything out of this. But something deep within her is pushing her forward. Christine and her theft has opened a door to a whole new world of danger and opportunity; Sarah doesn’t know yet what’s really in that world, but she knows, on an instinctive gut level, that she wants in. “He’s a private collector. Very sensitive to the need for secrecy, and with an unlimited budget. And a bidding war will only drive your price up, won’t it?” The surprise is wearing off now, and her sharp business acumen setting in. “The painting’s most recent valuation was 35 million. If we manage the bidding war properly, and set the two buyers up properly against each other, we can drive up your profit well above market value.”

[seb--moran]

blank space ~ sarah & christine

[lieutenantralston]

Like a total idiot, Christine feels her face warm and knows that she’s flushing. Maybe in the dark it won’t be so noticeable. Maybe Sarah will graciously ignore how obvious it is that Christine is surprised but thrilled at the forwardness. Longingly, she thinks about what she would do if this were real – if she really had snuck in, if she could have drunk that flute of bellini that Sarah had offered earlier, if she could say, no let’s go up right now, if, if.

“The servants,” she echoed, not distracted enough to forgo a spike of irritation. “Sure, Sarah. Half an hour.” She squeezes Sarah’s shoulder lightly, and takes a step in the direction of the party. She pictures the layout of the house, mentally tracing her path, already knowing that the sound of the party will mask the creaking of the unfamiliar floorboards. The first time she’d done this, her palms had been sweating and she’d almost worried herself sick before she even began. Now, at the one job where it truly matters, all she feels is anticipation. She glances back at Sarah and allows it to show on her face, just briefly. In the near-dark, Sarah looks like a painting herself. If Christine were luckier, this is the painting she’d be stealing instead of leaving behind. “Keep the lace,” she adds, still flushed and grinning. “Something tells me you don’t wear it often, and it’ll be such a special night.”

[seb--moran]

It’s times like these that Sarah thanks God that she adores women as much as she does. How dull it must be to be straight! And go an entire life without appreciating the loveliness of the flush on Christine’s face, or the incomparable perfection of the curve of her jaw! God, she loves being young. “I don’t think you’re ready for me in lace yet, darling,” she drawls, just barely managing to reign in the grin that threatens to overtake her. “But don’t worry. I think you’ll like what you see.” And with that, Sarah slips away, down the veranda steps, off into the darkness. It’ll be a longer path to get back to her own room, but it’s all about the dramatic exits.

Sarah makes it up to the attics in record time, though, and immediately sets about getting ready for a seduction. She decides against inviting Christine into her actual bedroom–that is soft and sacred ground, full of the detritus of childhood and adolescence, a holy of holies reserved only for the most trusted few. But she has a perfectly serviceable living room, conveniently outfitted with a low and wide couch pilfered from elsewhere in the house that will meet their needs perfectly well. She gives herself ten minutes to scramble around and tidy up the living room, removing personal effects and straightening the stacks of books and papers. She takes a look at her watch and swears at how the time is flying, and flies into her bedroom to get changed into something suitable for a seduction. Sarah doesn’t want to be obvious, doesn’t want to be too overtly sexy–lingerie is out the window, of course–ugh. A scramble-brained thought strikes her as she’s halfway dressed, and she strides back out of the bedroom in only her bra and a pair of leggings to investigate. A cursory look in her makeshift liquor cabinet confirms her worst fears, and she audibly groans. Why doesn’t her life always work out perfectly?

But Christine will be up here any minute now, so Sarah simply doesn’t have time to waste. There’s a trap-door in the floor of the attics that will allow Sarah to drop directly down onto the family floor below–and from there, it’s just a matter of a few steps to Hugo’s bedroom and the well-stocked liquor cabinet there. Okay. Alright. Change of plans, but still workable. All will be well, after all. She casts a look down at her own state of undress, but shrugs it off. The residential quarters of Penthurst are always absolutely abandoned and silent as the graves on the nights when Hugo entertains. The odds of anyone encountering her dressed like this are effectively nil–and with the clock running out, Sarah is more than prepared to face those odds.

She carefully opens the trap-door and silently jumps down onto the plush carpet several feet below, landing cat-like with a practiced grace that can only suggest she has done this many times before. Sarah pads along down the hallway with her bare feet, moving quickly and silently and praying, just praying, that she’ll make it back upstairs in time to at least throw on a shirt before Christine arrives. She finally reaches Hugo’s bedroom and throws the door open without a second thought–but really, all the second thoughts in the world could not have prepared her for the sight that greeted her within the room.

[lieutenantralston]

The first time Christine had pulled a job, it had been with Tessa’s voice in her ear saying, timing is everything. She’d made Christine plan her every move, map it out breath by breath, then practice it all like a dance. What’s the use of knowing the guard’s rotation when you don’t know what time it is? she’d asked, relentless. It’s all luck and timing, so you better make damn sure that you have the timing down.

When Christine turned to Sarah and said, “half an hour,” what she meant was: it will take me half an hour to pull off a robbery that’s worth thirty million, half an hour to get from here to Hugo Moran’s bedroom and then disappear into the darkness - half an hour to walk out the doors of Penthurst just as Sarah is expecting her to appear in its attic. By the time Sarah grows bored enough to go looking for her, Christine will be five kilometers away, making herself comfortable in the passenger seat of Andreas’ car. 

So Christine counts breaths as she hunts her prize: five minutes to slip around the back to the kitchen’s entrance, three minutes to take the narrow stairway that would typically lead to the guest rooms but has been undergoing remodeling last week, then 3 minutes to skirt a couple of women whispering by the library and slip into the family’s sleeping quarters. Five minutes to creep into Hugo’s bedroom, shutting the close softly behind her.

Two minutes to stare at A Woman Seated Before a Dutch Stove, sketched in 1658 by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, and currently hanging in all it’s glory directly across from Hugo Moran’s bed.

Having spent the past three weeks studying this work almost around the clock, Christine knows it better than half the experts in the world. She can tell at a glance that it’s the real thing, knows the two-three-five pattern of the folds on the woman’s nightcap, and even the origin and likely craftsman of the stove behind her. It’s well done and ridiculously expensive, though one of Rembrandt’s lesser known works. Yet as she stands there, Christine can’t imagine going to sleep each night with the Woman watching over her. Somehow the most difficult part of tonight is budgeting only two minutes to come to terms with the fact that a grown man has lived, slept, and likely had sex with his now-departed wife in a bed that lovingly faces an image of an elderly woman warming her exposed breasts by the fire. 

Christine tries not to think about it as she takes it down and dismantles the frame (three minutes), then sets to work gingerly detaching the canvas. It’s long, consuming labor, and it’s the reason that she’d been sent here and not Tessa or Andreas – Tessa is a better liar and Andreas is a better thief, but Christine has a natural knack for feeling out each thread of canvas and dried stroke of paint. She alone can take the canvas from its mount and roll it up with almost no trauma to the work. She alone is capable of leaving no trace not only on the crime scene, but on the crime itself.

She is snapping the Woman into the thin, cylindrical carrying case, just as the door opens. 

Christine is so shocked by Sarah’s appearance that it doesn’t immediately register that she’s been caught. The frame lies in pieces by Christine’s kneeling form, the wall is conspicuously bare behind her, and she’s staring wide-eyed at where Sarah stands only slightly more dressed and significantly more surprised than the Woman on the picture that Christine is so obviously stealing. “Well,” she manages weakly. “You certainly know how to make an entrance.”

[seb--moran]

“What happened to Gertie?” is the first dumbfounded thing Sarah manages to blurt out, her eyebrows furrowed and her brain working a thousand miles a minute. Hugo Moran loves this painting more than life itself. It is his pride and his joy. He named the painting, for Christ’s sake! He says goodnight to the old woman and her saggy breasts every night! He speaks about her at the dinner table! In her father’s mind, Gertie enjoys a status akin to a beloved family pet; to Alec and Sarah both, with their artistic sensibilities honed by a number of waspish comments from their mother over the years, Gertie is an abomination and ammunition to prove that their father is a walking caricature.

But even so, Sarah’s first instinct is to dive to Hugo’s bedside and slam the panic button concealed into his night-stand; once she sounds the alarm, she will have security storming into the room in two to three minutes. But judging by just how far along in the robbery Christine has gotten, she doesn’t have two to three minutes to wait.

So what are the alternatives? Sarah can stop her herself, of course; she is strong, fast, and downright dangerously well-trained in self-defense. But Christine seems so harmless, kneeling there on the floor–and anyways, this is Gertie; is losing Gertie really the worst thing? Sarah knows for a fact the painting has been recently re-insured for 35 million; her father will not lose a single penny off this theft.  Maybe the family should just count itself lucky that Christine is doing them all a service and severing Hugo’s umbilical connection to Gertie.

But then her eyes land on the dismantled frame lying on the floor, and the reality of what Christine has done hits her again, and she lets out a single, unamused–but not unimpressed–laugh. “Not bad for half an hour’s work. And I mean, bravo.” Her eyebrows furrow just a little deeper. “But what are you planning on doing with Gertie?” She isn’t even thinking about how patently ridiculous the name is. “You can never resell her on the open market; it’s too distinctive. Everyone will know it’s a theft.”

[lieutenantralston]

Christine sees the quick, almost imperceptible flicker of Sarah’s eyes to night-stand, and remembers the house’s alarm system with a sinking feeling. She knows that disabling the alarms would have cost her time and resources that would elevate the risk to an unacceptable degree. She knows that her plan was smart, that the chances of her getting caught here were almost negligible; as she slowly shifts off her knees and to her heels in preparation of moving quickly should she need to, Christine knows that this, at least, has little to do with her sloppiness. 

Here, too, Tessa was right: Christine had done due diligence on timing, but Lady Luck has abandoned her tonight.

“Hugo named it?” she asks, stunned. “He hung it in his bedroom and then named it? What the fuck?” She tells herself to get a grip and inhales slowly. Not taking her eyes off Sarah, she starts picking through escape routes: knock her out and run? Rely on the element of surprise and just book it out the window? “Look, I’m sorry, but do you seriously expect me to tell you what I’m planning on doing with this? People don’t typically steal artwork to sell it at open auction, no.” 

She glances at Sarah’s state of undress briefly, and wonders what she’d done to deserve this. Well, technically she does engage in property theft quite frequently. But other than that. Then a horrifying thought occurs to her: “Wait, are you dressed like this because you knew I was going to steal the Rembrandt? Is this your idea of a joke?”

[seb--moran]

“Gertie’s not an it,” Sarah corrects automatically, still dumbfounded and not even sure why she’s bothering to explain it. “She’s Gertie. He’s loved her since he was a kid. She’s like an old family friend.” Oh God, now she sounds as crazy as Hugo. “Look, I’m not going to weep at Gertie going out the window. But I do want to know what you’re planning on doing with her.” Sarah might hate Gertie, but there is some very small part of her that knows how much her father values the damn thing. And if she’s going to be letting Gertie out of the house, she needs to be able to lie to Hugo with a straight face and a clear conscience. In other words: Gertie needs to go to a good home.

Sarah just freezes for a split second and looks at Christine, as if unable to quite believe what she’s just heard. But then the first giggle slips out, and then another, and then in a matter of just a few seconds, Sarah is nearly doubled-over with laughter. She instinctively clasps a hand to her mouth to smother the sound, but there is no way to hide the gleeful mirth that is wracking her entire body. “You--you thought I was coming down here with my tits out to ironically catch you red-handed?” Another breathless peal of laughter. “Oh my God. This is the best fucking day of my life.” She’s wiping tears from the corners of her eyes as she straightens up and tries to calm herself with a deep breath haggard from laughter. “Even if you did insinuate that my tits are as saggy as Gertie’s.” That sets Sarah off yet again.

[lieutenantralston]

it be like that

[lieutenantralston]

hugo moran when sarah is just living her life

[seb--moran]

blank space ~ sarah & christine

[lieutenantralston]

Like a total idiot, Christine feels her face warm and knows that she’s flushing. Maybe in the dark it won’t be so noticeable. Maybe Sarah will graciously ignore how obvious it is that Christine is surprised but thrilled at the forwardness. Longingly, she thinks about what she would do if this were real – if she really had snuck in, if she could have drunk that flute of bellini that Sarah had offered earlier, if she could say, no let’s go up right now, if, if.

“The servants,” she echoed, not distracted enough to forgo a spike of irritation. “Sure, Sarah. Half an hour.” She squeezes Sarah’s shoulder lightly, and takes a step in the direction of the party. She pictures the layout of the house, mentally tracing her path, already knowing that the sound of the party will mask the creaking of the unfamiliar floorboards. The first time she’d done this, her palms had been sweating and she’d almost worried herself sick before she even began. Now, at the one job where it truly matters, all she feels is anticipation. She glances back at Sarah and allows it to show on her face, just briefly. In the near-dark, Sarah looks like a painting herself. If Christine were luckier, this is the painting she’d be stealing instead of leaving behind. “Keep the lace,” she adds, still flushed and grinning. “Something tells me you don’t wear it often, and it’ll be such a special night.”

[seb--moran]

It’s times like these that Sarah thanks God that she adores women as much as she does. How dull it must be to be straight! And go an entire life without appreciating the loveliness of the flush on Christine’s face, or the incomparable perfection of the curve of her jaw! God, she loves being young. “I don’t think you’re ready for me in lace yet, darling,” she drawls, just barely managing to reign in the grin that threatens to overtake her. “But don’t worry. I think you’ll like what you see.” And with that, Sarah slips away, down the veranda steps, off into the darkness. It’ll be a longer path to get back to her own room, but it’s all about the dramatic exits.

Sarah makes it up to the attics in record time, though, and immediately sets about getting ready for a seduction. She decides against inviting Christine into her actual bedroom–that is soft and sacred ground, full of the detritus of childhood and adolescence, a holy of holies reserved only for the most trusted few. But she has a perfectly serviceable living room, conveniently outfitted with a low and wide couch pilfered from elsewhere in the house that will meet their needs perfectly well. She gives herself ten minutes to scramble around and tidy up the living room, removing personal effects and straightening the stacks of books and papers. She takes a look at her watch and swears at how the time is flying, and flies into her bedroom to get changed into something suitable for a seduction. Sarah doesn’t want to be obvious, doesn’t want to be too overtly sexy–lingerie is out the window, of course–ugh. A scramble-brained thought strikes her as she’s halfway dressed, and she strides back out of the bedroom in only her bra and a pair of leggings to investigate. A cursory look in her makeshift liquor cabinet confirms her worst fears, and she audibly groans. Why doesn’t her life always work out perfectly?

But Christine will be up here any minute now, so Sarah simply doesn’t have time to waste. There’s a trap-door in the floor of the attics that will allow Sarah to drop directly down onto the family floor below–and from there, it’s just a matter of a few steps to Hugo’s bedroom and the well-stocked liquor cabinet there. Okay. Alright. Change of plans, but still workable. All will be well, after all. She casts a look down at her own state of undress, but shrugs it off. The residential quarters of Penthurst are always absolutely abandoned and silent as the graves on the nights when Hugo entertains. The odds of anyone encountering her dressed like this are effectively nil–and with the clock running out, Sarah is more than prepared to face those odds.

She carefully opens the trap-door and silently jumps down onto the plush carpet several feet below, landing cat-like with a practiced grace that can only suggest she has done this many times before. Sarah pads along down the hallway with her bare feet, moving quickly and silently and praying, just praying, that she’ll make it back upstairs in time to at least throw on a shirt before Christine arrives. She finally reaches Hugo’s bedroom and throws the door open without a second thought–but really, all the second thoughts in the world could not have prepared her for the sight that greeted her within the room.

[lieutenantralston]

The first time Christine had pulled a job, it had been with Tessa’s voice in her ear saying, timing is everything. She’d made Christine plan her every move, map it out breath by breath, then practice it all like a dance. What’s the use of knowing the guard’s rotation when you don’t know what time it is? she’d asked, relentless. It’s all luck and timing, so you better make damn sure that you have the timing down.

When Christine turned to Sarah and said, “half an hour,” what she meant was: it will take me half an hour to pull off a robbery that’s worth thirty million, half an hour to get from here to Hugo Moran’s bedroom and then disappear into the darkness - half an hour to walk out the doors of Penthurst just as Sarah is expecting her to appear in its attic. By the time Sarah grows bored enough to go looking for her, Christine will be five kilometers away, making herself comfortable in the passenger seat of Andreas’ car. 

So Christine counts breaths as she hunts her prize: five minutes to slip around the back to the kitchen’s entrance, three minutes to take the narrow stairway that would typically lead to the guest rooms but has been undergoing remodeling last week, then 3 minutes to skirt a couple of women whispering by the library and slip into the family’s sleeping quarters. Five minutes to creep into Hugo’s bedroom, shutting the close softly behind her.

Two minutes to stare at A Woman Seated Before a Dutch Stove, sketched in 1658 by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, and currently hanging in all it’s glory directly across from Hugo Moran’s bed.

Having spent the past three weeks studying this work almost around the clock, Christine knows it better than half the experts in the world. She can tell at a glance that it’s the real thing, knows the two-three-five pattern of the folds on the woman’s nightcap, and even the origin and likely craftsman of the stove behind her. It’s well done and ridiculously expensive, though one of Rembrandt’s lesser known works. Yet as she stands there, Christine can’t imagine going to sleep each night with the Woman watching over her. Somehow the most difficult part of tonight is budgeting only two minutes to come to terms with the fact that a grown man has lived, slept, and likely had sex with his now-departed wife in a bed that lovingly faces an image of an elderly woman warming her exposed breasts by the fire. 

Christine tries not to think about it as she takes it down and dismantles the frame (three minutes), then sets to work gingerly detaching the canvas. It’s long, consuming labor, and it’s the reason that she’d been sent here and not Tessa or Andreas – Tessa is a better liar and Andreas is a better thief, but Christine has a natural knack for feeling out each thread of canvas and dried stroke of paint. She alone can take the canvas from its mount and roll it up with almost no trauma to the work. She alone is capable of leaving no trace not only on the crime scene, but on the crime itself.

She is snapping the Woman into the thin, cylindrical carrying case, just as the door opens. 

Christine is so shocked by Sarah’s appearance that it doesn’t immediately register that she’s been caught. The frame lies in pieces by Christine’s kneeling form, the wall is conspicuously bare behind her, and she’s staring wide-eyed at where Sarah stands only slightly more dressed and significantly more surprised than the Woman on the picture that Christine is so obviously stealing. “Well,” she manages weakly. “You certainly know how to make an entrance.”

[seb--moran]

“What happened to Gertie?” is the first dumbfounded thing Sarah manages to blurt out, her eyebrows furrowed and her brain working a thousand miles a minute. Hugo Moran loves this painting more than life itself. It is his pride and his joy. He named the painting, for Christ’s sake! He says goodnight to the old woman and her saggy breasts every night! He speaks about her at the dinner table! In her father’s mind, Gertie enjoys a status akin to a beloved family pet; to Alec and Sarah both, with their artistic sensibilities honed by a number of waspish comments from their mother over the years, Gertie is an abomination and ammunition to prove that their father is a walking caricature.

But even so, Sarah’s first instinct is to dive to Hugo’s bedside and slam the panic button concealed into his night-stand; once she sounds the alarm, she will have security storming into the room in two to three minutes. But judging by just how far along in the robbery Christine has gotten, she doesn’t have two to three minutes to wait.

So what are the alternatives? Sarah can stop her herself, of course; she is strong, fast, and downright dangerously well-trained in self-defense. But Christine seems so harmless, kneeling there on the floor--and anyways, this is Gertie; is losing Gertie really the worst thing? Sarah knows for a fact the painting has been recently re-insured for 35 million; her father will not lose a single penny off this theft.  Maybe the family should just count itself lucky that Christine is doing them all a service and severing Hugo’s umbilical connection to Gertie.

But then her eyes land on the dismantled frame lying on the floor, and the reality of what Christine has done hits her again, and she lets out a single, unamused--but not unimpressed--laugh. “Not bad for half an hour’s work. And I mean, bravo.” Her eyebrows furrow just a little deeper. “But what are you planning on doing with Gertie?” She isn’t even thinking about how patently ridiculous the name is. “You can never resell her on the open market; it’s too distinctive. Everyone will know it’s a theft.”

[seb--moran]

blank space ~ sarah & christine

[lieutenantralston]

Like a total idiot, Christine feels her face warm and knows that she’s flushing. Maybe in the dark it won’t be so noticeable. Maybe Sarah will graciously ignore how obvious it is that Christine is surprised but thrilled at the forwardness. Longingly, she thinks about what she would do if this were real – if she really had snuck in, if she could have drunk that flute of bellini that Sarah had offered earlier, if she could say, no let’s go up right now, if, if.

“The servants,” she echoed, not distracted enough to forgo a spike of irritation. “Sure, Sarah. Half an hour.” She squeezes Sarah’s shoulder lightly, and takes a step in the direction of the party. She pictures the layout of the house, mentally tracing her path, already knowing that the sound of the party will mask the creaking of the unfamiliar floorboards. The first time she’d done this, her palms had been sweating and she’d almost worried herself sick before she even began. Now, at the one job where it truly matters, all she feels is anticipation. She glances back at Sarah and allows it to show on her face, just briefly. In the near-dark, Sarah looks like a painting herself. If Christine were luckier, this is the painting she’d be stealing instead of leaving behind. “Keep the lace,” she adds, still flushed and grinning. “Something tells me you don’t wear it often, and it’ll be such a special night.”

[seb--moran]

It’s times like these that Sarah thanks God that she adores women as much as she does. How dull it must be to be straight! And go an entire life without appreciating the loveliness of the flush on Christine’s face, or the incomparable perfection of the curve of her jaw! God, she loves being young. “I don’t think you’re ready for me in lace yet, darling,” she drawls, just barely managing to reign in the grin that threatens to overtake her. “But don’t worry. I think you’ll like what you see.” And with that, Sarah slips away, down the veranda steps, off into the darkness. It’ll be a longer path to get back to her own room, but it’s all about the dramatic exits.

Sarah makes it up to the attics in record time, though, and immediately sets about getting ready for a seduction. She decides against inviting Christine into her actual bedroom--that is soft and sacred ground, full of the detritus of childhood and adolescence, a holy of holies reserved only for the most trusted few. But she has a perfectly serviceable living room, conveniently outfitted with a low and wide couch pilfered from elsewhere in the house that will meet their needs perfectly well. She gives herself ten minutes to scramble around and tidy up the living room, removing personal effects and straightening the stacks of books and papers. She takes a look at her watch and swears at how the time is flying, and flies into her bedroom to get changed into something suitable for a seduction. Sarah doesn’t want to be obvious, doesn’t want to be too overtly sexy--lingerie is out the window, of course--ugh. A scramble-brained thought strikes her as she’s halfway dressed, and she strides back out of the bedroom in only her bra and a pair of leggings to investigate. A cursory look in her makeshift liquor cabinet confirms her worst fears, and she audibly groans. Why doesn’t her life always work out perfectly?

But Christine will be up here any minute now, so Sarah simply doesn’t have time to waste. There’s a trap-door in the floor of the attics that will allow Sarah to drop directly down onto the family floor below--and from there, it’s just a matter of a few steps to Hugo’s bedroom and the well-stocked liquor cabinet there. Okay. Alright. Change of plans, but still workable. All will be well, after all. She casts a look down at her own state of undress, but shrugs it off. The residential quarters of Penthurst are always absolutely abandoned and silent as the graves on the nights when Hugo entertains. The odds of anyone encountering her dressed like this are effectively nil--and with the clock running out, Sarah is more than prepared to face those odds.

She carefully opens the trap-door and silently jumps down onto the plush carpet several feet below, landing cat-like with a practiced grace that can only suggest she has done this many times before. Sarah pads along down the hallway with her bare feet, moving quickly and silently and praying, just praying, that she’ll make it back upstairs in time to at least throw on a shirt before Christine arrives. She finally reaches Hugo’s bedroom and throws the door open without a second thought--but really, all the second thoughts in the world could not have prepared her for the sight that greeted her within the room.

[ebluntsource]

[seb--moran]

blank space ~ sarah & christine

[lieutenantralston]

Christine wonders which part of the fairy tale is the one where she robs the dragon. She tries to hold back her grin at the thought and fails. “Maybe this isn’t that kind of story,” she says in that airy tone from earlier, handing Sarah the truth and thrilling at it. “Maybe I’m Robin Hood, or a poor pauper from the street who couldn’t afford a suit of armor.” 

She makes her way to the railing, charmed by the view in spite of herself. The fairy lights turn the details of the garden to a blur, but the roses bloom fresh and vibrant in the evening air. She turns her back on them and hauls herself up to sit on the railing, hands planted on either side of her for balance. Her slacks will be wrinkled beyond hope, but she can live with that. This way she has a view of both the door to the party and Sarah, framed by the golden light of the inside. It looks like a halo; Christine’s heart gives kick. “Maybe,” she says. “You’re going to have to save me.”

[seb--moran]

There’s something so wonderfully fresh and artless about Christine; Sarah can’t help but be ridiculously charmed by it. “If you couldn’t afford a suit of armour, you’ve only to ask. I’ve got several collecting dust in a closet somewhere.” Also collecting dust in a closet is Sarah’s tuxedo–a nicely-tailored number that, looking at the ease with which Christine sits on the railing in her slacks, Sarah very much wishes she’d worn tonight. She bitterly regrets her wardrobe choices as she comes forward to join Christine at the railing, resting her bare elbows on the rough stone and looking out into the delicately-perfumed night. Christ, she hates this garden. “Save you?” she repeats, just a little incredulously, swiping a side-eyed look up at Christine. “That’d be the day. I’m not opposed to playing the hero, of course. But you don’t strike me as a woman who needs saving. Am I wrong?”

[lieutenantralston]

Christine shrugs. “Everyone needs saving from something.” As though compelled, she looks up in the direction of Hugo Moran’s bedroom. She can almost see the Rembrandt through the walls, generating its own heat like a living thing. That million-dollar painting is her Prince Charming. This is the last job she needs before she can afford university tuition and a comfortable flat in the city, big dreams and little comforts.

She drags her gaze away to glance at Sarah, and allows herself to admit another truth: this is the last job she needs, but it’s the first in a long series of jobs that she wants.

She shifts her hand, just barely, and presses the length of her arm against Sarah’s on the railing. “Earlier you asked me if I was any good at sneaking away. Where would you have liked to go?”

[seb--moran]

Sarah follows Christine’s eyes as they significantly trail up the side of the house, and given the timing, she realises, in that instant, that Tina must know who she is. Everyone needs saving from something–and Sarah needs saving from this Palladian hellhole of wealth, privilege and good taste. Well, no matter. It would have been fun to moonlight as someone else, but she can do that easily enough at Oxford. Tonight, she’ll own herself as a Moran.

She smiles coyly up at Christine; under her sooty lashes, there’s clear interest written in her eyes. “I mean, there are any number of places I’d love to take you. But as for tonight…I was thinking about my bedroom upstairs.” Sarah gestures generally up to the attics of the house with a slight flick of her head. “We can…relax a little. Get comfortable. Get to know each other better. What do you say?” 

[lieutenantralston]

When Christine remembers this moment later, she knows she’ll be embarrassed. She’ll have to admit that Tessa Bishop, in all her brutal fastidiousness, was right: Christine may be charming and pretty and quieter than almost any other thief, but she’s sloppy. She needs a partner, someone to watch her back, Andreas had defended her when Tessa delivered this verdict. Tessa had only scoffed. What she needs is to keep her wits about her and learn to work around her own fuck-ups instead of being surprised by them.

“Your bedroom?” Christine blurts out. “You mean, you live here?” She gives a weak, surprised laugh and considers her options: she can reject the invitation and raise suspicion about why Sarah’s living arrangements were the reason for her sudden change of heart. She can accept and deal with the tricky issue of slipping away from Sarah long enough to rob her blind.

Belatedly, she thinks, oh. Sarah Moran. Hugo’s daughter. She looks at Sarah intently and thinks, I’m robbing you. She wonders if Sarah had ever lost anything close in worth to thirty three million dollars. “How many girls have fallen for that line? You know, Hugo Moran is in there,” she nods in the direction of the party, then leans in and lowers her voice. “There’s no way he won’t notice us sneaking upstairs. Unless you’ve got a secret passageway to your room like a princess?” Show me an escape route.

[seb--moran]

That weak, surprised laugh of Christine’s actually hurts Sarah. Not enough for her to do anything about it, but just a dull ache that blossoms in her chest and reminds her, once again, of the interminable millstone around her neck. She does not, strictly speaking, need this, she reminds herself as she straightens up from her perch on the railing and looks at Christine head-on. It isn’t a game to catch Tanya anymore–but Sarah can easily find fulfillment there should Tina prove to be a disappointment. “I don’t live here full-time, of course.” She quirks an eyebrow at Christine, and there’s something just a bit different about her manner now. Less loose, less flirty. She has not retreated fully behind the infamous Moran reserve, but the warning shot has been fired. “Not even on uni breaks, really. But it’s normal for students to keep a bedroom at their parents’ house, isn’t it? It’s hardly like the old bastard needs the space himself.” She laughs a little herself, but it’s missing the light, girlish quality of earlier in the evening. “Never mind, Tina. Forget I mentioned it, yeah? If the thought of sneaking upstairs under old Hugo’s nose freaks you out, I think the rest of it is probably a non-starter.”

[lieutenantralston]

Christine is reaching out before she knows it, just barely stopping her hand before it makes contact with Sarah’s shoulder. After a moment of letting it hang in the air, still, she drops it back to the railing. She shouldn’t be disappointed, but she is. Disappointed that she let herself get this far, that they hadn’t gone further before it fell apart; and, frankly, disappointed that the pretty rich girl is so quick to pack her bags and sulk at the slightest hint of not getting what she wants.

“I’m sorry I’m not the diversion you hoped for, Miss Moran,” she says, in the honey sweet way that she’d learned from her mother. “Guess I’m not the toy you hoped to find and dangle in front of your father as a petty disobedience.” It hurts more than she expected, to find herself the tool of Sarah’s rebellion. Christine feels a brief stab of vicious gladness that, no matter what Sarah thinks, she will sneak upstairs past Hugo later tonight, and sneak out just as easily. She’ll leave with something that’s worth  thirty million, even though it isn’t Sarah’s kiss.

[seb--moran]

Christine is so close to touching Sarah that she swears she can feel the warmth of the other girl’s hand radiating out onto her bare shoulder–but they never make actual contact, and Sarah realises afresh, with a lurch in her stomach, that this is a woman to tread carefully around. Penthurst is a den of vipers, and she can’t afford to lose her head here in unfamiliar territory for a moment. Even over someone as damnably attractive as Christine. 

“Petty disobedience? Jesus Christ. I’m twenty-two years old, love, we’re well past that.” She snorts incredulously–an unladylike sound–and withdraws a cigarette and a lighter from a cleverly concealed pocket of her dress. The smoke will cling to the fabric, she knows–but that’s why God invented high-end dry-cleaners. She lights up, keeping an eye on Christine the entire time. “Let’s get a few things clear. I’ve no interest in you as a toy, Tina. And I couldn’t care less what my father thinks. But I also have far too much self-respect to get tangled up with someone who’s intimidated by him. By all of this.” She uses the lit end of her cigarette to gesture around her. “Your laugh just then–you found out who I was, and you panicked. Realised you’d maybe bit off more than you could chew. Am I wrong?”

[lieutenantralston]

“No,” Christine says immediately. “You’re not wrong.” She gives a sharp, self-deprecating smile. “I don’t know your father, Sarah. I don’t know you. But you’re the one who dragged me onto a secluded veranda when he started approaching, you’re the one who wanted to sneak around.” 

She watches the smoke rise from the tip of Sarah’s cigarette for a moment, fingers itching. It’s a nasty habit from her teenage years that she’s trying to leave behind, but what the hell. She holds out her hand again, this time in question. “May I?”

[seb--moran]

“Maybe. But not because I’m ashamed.” Sarah gladly hands over the cigarette to let Christine have a drag; she usually only smokes socially these days, but she gives herself a free pass to revert to being a chimney when she’s around Hugo. Her hands now free, she sighs heavily, and briefly covers her eyes with her fingers. “It’s your first time here, you don’t know what he’s like.” She lets her hands drop. “But you’ve got to understand, Hugo is like the King Midas of shit. Everything he touches turns to shit. Put yourself in my shoes. What could possibly be less sexy than having Hugo as a great hulking heteronormative bat waiting to throw an eligible bachelor at you the second things seem to be going well?” She laughs a bit, the wry, bitter laugh of experience. “Turns out that just talking about Hugo is pretty unsexy too, mind.”

[lieutenantralston]

Christine accepts the cigarette gratefully, and notes that she doesn’t…enjoy it. It sits comfortably in her fingers, and the smoke is familiar in her mouth, but there is no rush of doing something cool and forbidden. She wonders why she does it when it’ll probably kill her one day, then packs away the thought.

“And here I thought I picked the sexiest spot in town,” Christine says. “All the hot and heavy action of the House of Lords, eighty-year-old socialites, and people who consider owning horses a hobby.” She licks her lips and holds out the cigarette to Sarah. “Which one of those are you? If it’s the eighty-year-old socialite then I have to say: you’re pulling off that dress remarkably well.”

[seb--moran]

Sarah isn’t so dishonest with herself that she can’t admit that she enjoys the sight of Christine with a cigarette in her fingers. Sue her; she’s a simple woman with simple tastes. An attractive girl in a suit with a cigarette is enough to send a short-circuit to any self-respecting woman’s brain. But then, it’s over, and the cigarette is back in Sarah’s hand, and the only thing she can really think about now is the fact that she actually likes this dress, flimsy and delicate though the lacy detailing is, and can she really trust the dry-cleaners not to rip it? She drops the cigarette and stamps it out without a second further thought. If the lace on this dress is going to be ripped, it had better be in pursuit of something much more fun than a solitary cigarette on the veranda.

“You’ve caught me,” she deadpans. “It’s amazing how perfect genes and unlimited cash will stop the aging process dead in its tracks. I’ll give this for old Hugo: between me and my brother, he does know how to make obnoxiously beautiful children.” She rolls her eyes, as if to show just how little of a hoot she gives about this nonsense. “I’m here as a command performance. A friend of mine wanted to network with a few of the guests, so I figured I could put up with this all for an evening if it got her through the door.” She sighs. “And then she had the gall to go and actually try networking with judges. Can you imagine? Abandoning the likes of me–” she pauses, looking down for dramatic effect at the admittedly impressive figure she cuts, “for some dirty old bastard in a wig? Unthinkable.”

[lieutenantralston]

Christine smiles, sharing a private joke with herself. “Future financial security is a marvelous motivator, and dirty old bastards in wigs tend to be helpful in that regard.” They certainly are when you steal from them to gain that financial security, for instance. 

“I happen to think,” she continued slowly. “that if your friend is forced to spend an evening without you by her side, then that’s a fitting punishment for abandoning you in the first place.” A laugh so loud that it’s almost rude floats into the veranda from the party, and Christine pauses. She flicks her gaze down to her watch, and realizes with dismay that the show needs to get on the road if she plans to make it out with that pesky Rembrandt. Quick on the heels of this realization, another follows: if she manages to re-invite herself to Sarah’s bedroom, there will be no time to linger there and sneak out without running into serious risk.

Before she can think twice about it, Christine is reaching for Sarah under guise of needing her help as she slips from the railing. She lets her hand linger on Sarah’s shoulder and leans in, conspirational. Her thumb traces the outline of the lace as she talks, as though she doesn’t realize she’s doing it. Her grin says otherwise. “Look, I’ve got to meet the person that I came here with, let him know that I’m okay.” It’s only technically a lie – she does have to check in with Andreas when she gets to the painting. The key is not to arouse suspicion now. Sarah is clever, which is as attractive as it is inconvenient at this point. “If I sneak away now, will you meet me in about half an hour?”

[seb--moran]

Finally, someone who understands that Sarah’s time and attention is not to be trifled with. She hums in approval over Christine’s words, a pleased, low hum from deep in the back of her throat; it could, at only a faint stretch, be called a purr. That rudely-loud laugh happens to be coming from a thoroughly inebriated Lucy, but Sarah barely even notices her sister-in-law’s boorishness, because with Christine’s fingers lightly tracing the outline of the lace, Sarah’s soul has officially ascended to lesbian heaven. Or rather, it certainly will be later this evening. Oh, fuck it. She gives into impulse and leans in to press a soft, lingering kiss to Christine’s lips in reply. Sarah doesn’t let it last for too long, though, before she moves to whisper in the other woman’s ear. “I’ll just go slip into something more comfortable, if you don’t mind.” She pulls back and flashes a radiant smile. “And once you’ve fobbed off your mate, find one of the servants and ask them to direct you to the north attics. Tell them I cleared it, and they’ll show you the way.”

[seb--moran]

blank space ~ sarah & christine

[lieutenantralston]

Christine wonders which part of the fairy tale is the one where she robs the dragon. She tries to hold back her grin at the thought and fails. “Maybe this isn’t that kind of story,” she says in that airy tone from earlier, handing Sarah the truth and thrilling at it. “Maybe I’m Robin Hood, or a poor pauper from the street who couldn’t afford a suit of armor.” 

She makes her way to the railing, charmed by the view in spite of herself. The fairy lights turn the details of the garden to a blur, but the roses bloom fresh and vibrant in the evening air. She turns her back on them and hauls herself up to sit on the railing, hands planted on either side of her for balance. Her slacks will be wrinkled beyond hope, but she can live with that. This way she has a view of both the door to the party and Sarah, framed by the golden light of the inside. It looks like a halo; Christine’s heart gives kick. “Maybe,” she says. “You’re going to have to save me.”

[seb--moran]

There’s something so wonderfully fresh and artless about Christine; Sarah can’t help but be ridiculously charmed by it. “If you couldn’t afford a suit of armour, you’ve only to ask. I’ve got several collecting dust in a closet somewhere.” Also collecting dust in a closet is Sarah’s tuxedo–a nicely-tailored number that, looking at the ease with which Christine sits on the railing in her slacks, Sarah very much wishes she’d worn tonight. She bitterly regrets her wardrobe choices as she comes forward to join Christine at the railing, resting her bare elbows on the rough stone and looking out into the delicately-perfumed night. Christ, she hates this garden. “Save you?” she repeats, just a little incredulously, swiping a side-eyed look up at Christine. “That’d be the day. I’m not opposed to playing the hero, of course. But you don’t strike me as a woman who needs saving. Am I wrong?”

[lieutenantralston]

Christine shrugs. “Everyone needs saving from something.” As though compelled, she looks up in the direction of Hugo Moran’s bedroom. She can almost see the Rembrandt through the walls, generating its own heat like a living thing. That million-dollar painting is her Prince Charming. This is the last job she needs before she can afford university tuition and a comfortable flat in the city, big dreams and little comforts.

She drags her gaze away to glance at Sarah, and allows herself to admit another truth: this is the last job she needs, but it’s the first in a long series of jobs that she wants.

She shifts her hand, just barely, and presses the length of her arm against Sarah’s on the railing. “Earlier you asked me if I was any good at sneaking away. Where would you have liked to go?”

[seb--moran]

Sarah follows Christine’s eyes as they significantly trail up the side of the house, and given the timing, she realises, in that instant, that Tina must know who she is. Everyone needs saving from something–and Sarah needs saving from this Palladian hellhole of wealth, privilege and good taste. Well, no matter. It would have been fun to moonlight as someone else, but she can do that easily enough at Oxford. Tonight, she’ll own herself as a Moran.

She smiles coyly up at Christine; under her sooty lashes, there’s clear interest written in her eyes. “I mean, there are any number of places I’d love to take you. But as for tonight…I was thinking about my bedroom upstairs.” Sarah gestures generally up to the attics of the house with a slight flick of her head. “We can…relax a little. Get comfortable. Get to know each other better. What do you say?” 

[lieutenantralston]

When Christine remembers this moment later, she knows she’ll be embarrassed. She’ll have to admit that Tessa Bishop, in all her brutal fastidiousness, was right: Christine may be charming and pretty and quieter than almost any other thief, but she’s sloppy. She needs a partner, someone to watch her back, Andreas had defended her when Tessa delivered this verdict. Tessa had only scoffed. What she needs is to keep her wits about her and learn to work around her own fuck-ups instead of being surprised by them.

“Your bedroom?” Christine blurts out. “You mean, you live here?” She gives a weak, surprised laugh and considers her options: she can reject the invitation and raise suspicion about why Sarah’s living arrangements were the reason for her sudden change of heart. She can accept and deal with the tricky issue of slipping away from Sarah long enough to rob her blind.

Belatedly, she thinks, oh. Sarah Moran. Hugo’s daughter. She looks at Sarah intently and thinks, I’m robbing you. She wonders if Sarah had ever lost anything close in worth to thirty three million dollars. “How many girls have fallen for that line? You know, Hugo Moran is in there,” she nods in the direction of the party, then leans in and lowers her voice. “There’s no way he won’t notice us sneaking upstairs. Unless you’ve got a secret passageway to your room like a princess?” Show me an escape route.

[seb--moran]

That weak, surprised laugh of Christine’s actually hurts Sarah. Not enough for her to do anything about it, but just a dull ache that blossoms in her chest and reminds her, once again, of the interminable millstone around her neck. She does not, strictly speaking, need this, she reminds herself as she straightens up from her perch on the railing and looks at Christine head-on. It isn’t a game to catch Tanya anymore–but Sarah can easily find fulfillment there should Tina prove to be a disappointment. “I don’t live here full-time, of course.” She quirks an eyebrow at Christine, and there’s something just a bit different about her manner now. Less loose, less flirty. She has not retreated fully behind the infamous Moran reserve, but the warning shot has been fired. “Not even on uni breaks, really. But it’s normal for students to keep a bedroom at their parents’ house, isn’t it? It’s hardly like the old bastard needs the space himself.” She laughs a little herself, but it’s missing the light, girlish quality of earlier in the evening. “Never mind, Tina. Forget I mentioned it, yeah? If the thought of sneaking upstairs under old Hugo’s nose freaks you out, I think the rest of it is probably a non-starter.”

[lieutenantralston]

Christine is reaching out before she knows it, just barely stopping her hand before it makes contact with Sarah’s shoulder. After a moment of letting it hang in the air, still, she drops it back to the railing. She shouldn’t be disappointed, but she is. Disappointed that she let herself get this far, that they hadn’t gone further before it fell apart; and, frankly, disappointed that the pretty rich girl is so quick to pack her bags and sulk at the slightest hint of not getting what she wants.

“I’m sorry I’m not the diversion you hoped for, Miss Moran,” she says, in the honey sweet way that she’d learned from her mother. “Guess I’m not the toy you hoped to find and dangle in front of your father as a petty disobedience.” It hurts more than she expected, to find herself the tool of Sarah’s rebellion. Christine feels a brief stab of vicious gladness that, no matter what Sarah thinks, she will sneak upstairs past Hugo later tonight, and sneak out just as easily. She’ll leave with something that’s worth  thirty million, even though it isn’t Sarah’s kiss.

[seb--moran]

Christine is so close to touching Sarah that she swears she can feel the warmth of the other girl’s hand radiating out onto her bare shoulder–but they never make actual contact, and Sarah realises afresh, with a lurch in her stomach, that this is a woman to tread carefully around. Penthurst is a den of vipers, and she can’t afford to lose her head here in unfamiliar territory for a moment. Even over someone as damnably attractive as Christine. 

“Petty disobedience? Jesus Christ. I’m twenty-two years old, love, we’re well past that.” She snorts incredulously–an unladylike sound–and withdraws a cigarette and a lighter from a cleverly concealed pocket of her dress. The smoke will cling to the fabric, she knows–but that’s why God invented high-end dry-cleaners. She lights up, keeping an eye on Christine the entire time. “Let’s get a few things clear. I’ve no interest in you as a toy, Tina. And I couldn’t care less what my father thinks. But I also have far too much self-respect to get tangled up with someone who’s intimidated by him. By all of this.” She uses the lit end of her cigarette to gesture around her. “Your laugh just then–you found out who I was, and you panicked. Realised you’d maybe bit off more than you could chew. Am I wrong?”

[lieutenantralston]

“No,” Christine says immediately. “You’re not wrong.” She gives a sharp, self-deprecating smile. “I don’t know your father, Sarah. I don’t know you. But you’re the one who dragged me onto a secluded veranda when he started approaching, you’re the one who wanted to sneak around.” 

She watches the smoke rise from the tip of Sarah’s cigarette for a moment, fingers itching. It’s a nasty habit from her teenage years that she’s trying to leave behind, but what the hell. She holds out her hand again, this time in question. “May I?”

[seb--moran]

“Maybe. But not because I’m ashamed.” Sarah gladly hands over the cigarette to let Christine have a drag; she usually only smokes socially these days, but she gives herself a free pass to revert to being a chimney when she’s around Hugo. Her hands now free, she sighs heavily, and briefly covers her eyes with her fingers. “It’s your first time here, you don’t know what he’s like.” She lets her hands drop. “But you’ve got to understand, Hugo is like the King Midas of shit. Everything he touches turns to shit. Put yourself in my shoes. What could possibly be less sexy than having Hugo as a great hulking heteronormative bat waiting to throw an eligible bachelor at you the second things seem to be going well?” She laughs a bit, the wry, bitter laugh of experience. “Turns out that just talking about Hugo is pretty unsexy too, mind.”

[lieutenantralston]

Christine accepts the cigarette gratefully, and notes that she doesn’t…enjoy it. It sits comfortably in her fingers, and the smoke is familiar in her mouth, but there is no rush of doing something cool and forbidden. She wonders why she does it when it’ll probably kill her one day, then packs away the thought.

“And here I thought I picked the sexiest spot in town,” Christine says. “All the hot and heavy action of the House of Lords, eighty-year-old socialites, and people who consider owning horses a hobby.” She licks her lips and holds out the cigarette to Sarah. “Which one of those are you? If it’s the eighty-year-old socialite then I have to say: you’re pulling off that dress remarkably well.”

[seb--moran]

Sarah isn’t so dishonest with herself that she can’t admit that she enjoys the sight of Christine with a cigarette in her fingers. Sue her; she’s a simple woman with simple tastes. An attractive girl in a suit with a cigarette is enough to send a short-circuit to any self-respecting woman’s brain. But then, it’s over, and the cigarette is back in Sarah’s hand, and the only thing she can really think about now is the fact that she actually likes this dress, flimsy and delicate though the lacy detailing is, and can she really trust the dry-cleaners not to rip it? She drops the cigarette and stamps it out without a second further thought. If the lace on this dress is going to be ripped, it had better be in pursuit of something much more fun than a solitary cigarette on the veranda.

“You’ve caught me,” she deadpans. “It’s amazing how perfect genes and unlimited cash will stop the aging process dead in its tracks. I’ll give this for old Hugo: between me and my brother, he does know how to make obnoxiously beautiful children.” She rolls her eyes, as if to show just how little of a hoot she gives about this nonsense. “I’m here as a command performance. A friend of mine wanted to network with a few of the guests, so I figured I could put up with this all for an evening if it got her through the door.” She sighs. “And then she had the gall to go and actually try networking with judges. Can you imagine? Abandoning the likes of me--” she pauses, looking down for dramatic effect at the admittedly impressive figure she cuts, “for some dirty old bastard in a wig? Unthinkable.”

[seb--moran]

blank space ~ sarah & christine

[lieutenantralston]

Christine wonders which part of the fairy tale is the one where she robs the dragon. She tries to hold back her grin at the thought and fails. “Maybe this isn’t that kind of story,” she says in that airy tone from earlier, handing Sarah the truth and thrilling at it. “Maybe I’m Robin Hood, or a poor pauper from the street who couldn’t afford a suit of armor.” 

She makes her way to the railing, charmed by the view in spite of herself. The fairy lights turn the details of the garden to a blur, but the roses bloom fresh and vibrant in the evening air. She turns her back on them and hauls herself up to sit on the railing, hands planted on either side of her for balance. Her slacks will be wrinkled beyond hope, but she can live with that. This way she has a view of both the door to the party and Sarah, framed by the golden light of the inside. It looks like a halo; Christine’s heart gives kick. “Maybe,” she says. “You’re going to have to save me.”

[seb--moran]

There’s something so wonderfully fresh and artless about Christine; Sarah can’t help but be ridiculously charmed by it. “If you couldn’t afford a suit of armour, you’ve only to ask. I’ve got several collecting dust in a closet somewhere.” Also collecting dust in a closet is Sarah’s tuxedo–a nicely-tailored number that, looking at the ease with which Christine sits on the railing in her slacks, Sarah very much wishes she’d worn tonight. She bitterly regrets her wardrobe choices as she comes forward to join Christine at the railing, resting her bare elbows on the rough stone and looking out into the delicately-perfumed night. Christ, she hates this garden. “Save you?” she repeats, just a little incredulously, swiping a side-eyed look up at Christine. “That’d be the day. I’m not opposed to playing the hero, of course. But you don’t strike me as a woman who needs saving. Am I wrong?”

[lieutenantralston]

Christine shrugs. “Everyone needs saving from something.” As though compelled, she looks up in the direction of Hugo Moran’s bedroom. She can almost see the Rembrandt through the walls, generating its own heat like a living thing. That million-dollar painting is her Prince Charming. This is the last job she needs before she can afford university tuition and a comfortable flat in the city, big dreams and little comforts.

She drags her gaze away to glance at Sarah, and allows herself to admit another truth: this is the last job she needs, but it’s the first in a long series of jobs that she wants.

She shifts her hand, just barely, and presses the length of her arm against Sarah’s on the railing. “Earlier you asked me if I was any good at sneaking away. Where would you have liked to go?”

[seb--moran]

Sarah follows Christine’s eyes as they significantly trail up the side of the house, and given the timing, she realises, in that instant, that Tina must know who she is. Everyone needs saving from something–and Sarah needs saving from this Palladian hellhole of wealth, privilege and good taste. Well, no matter. It would have been fun to moonlight as someone else, but she can do that easily enough at Oxford. Tonight, she’ll own herself as a Moran.

She smiles coyly up at Christine; under her sooty lashes, there’s clear interest written in her eyes. “I mean, there are any number of places I’d love to take you. But as for tonight…I was thinking about my bedroom upstairs.” Sarah gestures generally up to the attics of the house with a slight flick of her head. “We can…relax a little. Get comfortable. Get to know each other better. What do you say?” 

[lieutenantralston]

When Christine remembers this moment later, she knows she’ll be embarrassed. She’ll have to admit that Tessa Bishop, in all her brutal fastidiousness, was right: Christine may be charming and pretty and quieter than almost any other thief, but she’s sloppy. She needs a partner, someone to watch her back, Andreas had defended her when Tessa delivered this verdict. Tessa had only scoffed. What she needs is to keep her wits about her and learn to work around her own fuck-ups instead of being surprised by them.

“Your bedroom?” Christine blurts out. “You mean, you live here?” She gives a weak, surprised laugh and considers her options: she can reject the invitation and raise suspicion about why Sarah’s living arrangements were the reason for her sudden change of heart. She can accept and deal with the tricky issue of slipping away from Sarah long enough to rob her blind.

Belatedly, she thinks, oh. Sarah Moran. Hugo’s daughter. She looks at Sarah intently and thinks, I’m robbing you. She wonders if Sarah had ever lost anything close in worth to thirty three million dollars. “How many girls have fallen for that line? You know, Hugo Moran is in there,” she nods in the direction of the party, then leans in and lowers her voice. “There’s no way he won’t notice us sneaking upstairs. Unless you’ve got a secret passageway to your room like a princess?” Show me an escape route.

[seb--moran]

That weak, surprised laugh of Christine’s actually hurts Sarah. Not enough for her to do anything about it, but just a dull ache that blossoms in her chest and reminds her, once again, of the interminable millstone around her neck. She does not, strictly speaking, need this, she reminds herself as she straightens up from her perch on the railing and looks at Christine head-on. It isn’t a game to catch Tanya anymore–but Sarah can easily find fulfillment there should Tina prove to be a disappointment. “I don’t live here full-time, of course.” She quirks an eyebrow at Christine, and there’s something just a bit different about her manner now. Less loose, less flirty. She has not retreated fully behind the infamous Moran reserve, but the warning shot has been fired. “Not even on uni breaks, really. But it’s normal for students to keep a bedroom at their parents’ house, isn’t it? It’s hardly like the old bastard needs the space himself.” She laughs a little herself, but it’s missing the light, girlish quality of earlier in the evening. “Never mind, Tina. Forget I mentioned it, yeah? If the thought of sneaking upstairs under old Hugo’s nose freaks you out, I think the rest of it is probably a non-starter.”

[lieutenantralston]

Christine is reaching out before she knows it, just barely stopping her hand before it makes contact with Sarah’s shoulder. After a moment of letting it hang in the air, still, she drops it back to the railing. She shouldn’t be disappointed, but she is. Disappointed that she let herself get this far, that they hadn’t gone further before it fell apart; and, frankly, disappointed that the pretty rich girl is so quick to pack her bags and sulk at the slightest hint of not getting what she wants.

“I’m sorry I’m not the diversion you hoped for, Miss Moran,” she says, in the honey sweet way that she’d learned from her mother. “Guess I’m not the toy you hoped to find and dangle in front of your father as a petty disobedience.” It hurts more than she expected, to find herself the tool of Sarah’s rebellion. Christine feels a brief stab of vicious gladness that, no matter what Sarah thinks, she will sneak upstairs past Hugo later tonight, and sneak out just as easily. She’ll leave with something that’s worth  thirty million, even though it isn’t Sarah’s kiss.

[seb--moran]

Christine is so close to touching Sarah that she swears she can feel the warmth of the other girl’s hand radiating out onto her bare shoulder–but they never make actual contact, and Sarah realises afresh, with a lurch in her stomach, that this is a woman to tread carefully around. Penthurst is a den of vipers, and she can’t afford to lose her head here in unfamiliar territory for a moment. Even over someone as damnably attractive as Christine. 

“Petty disobedience? Jesus Christ. I’m twenty-two years old, love, we’re well past that.” She snorts incredulously–an unladylike sound–and withdraws a cigarette and a lighter from a cleverly concealed pocket of her dress. The smoke will cling to the fabric, she knows–but that’s why God invented high-end dry-cleaners. She lights up, keeping an eye on Christine the entire time. “Let’s get a few things clear. I’ve no interest in you as a toy, Tina. And I couldn’t care less what my father thinks. But I also have far too much self-respect to get tangled up with someone who’s intimidated by him. By all of this.” She uses the lit end of her cigarette to gesture around her. “Your laugh just then–you found out who I was, and you panicked. Realised you’d maybe bit off more than you could chew. Am I wrong?”

[lieutenantralston]

“No,” Christine says immediately. “You’re not wrong.” She gives a sharp, self-deprecating smile. “I don’t know your father, Sarah. I don’t know you. But you’re the one who dragged me onto a secluded veranda when he started approaching, you’re the one who wanted to sneak around.” 

She watches the smoke rise from the tip of Sarah’s cigarette for a moment, fingers itching. It’s a nasty habit from her teenage years that she’s trying to leave behind, but what the hell. She holds out her hand again, this time in question. “May I?”

[seb--moran]

“Maybe. But not because I’m ashamed.” Sarah gladly hands over the cigarette to let Christine have a drag; she usually only smokes socially these days, but she gives herself a free pass to revert to being a chimney when she’s around Hugo. Her hands now free, she sighs heavily, and briefly covers her eyes with her fingers. “It’s your first time here, you don’t know what he’s like.” She lets her hands drop. “But you’ve got to understand, Hugo is like the King Midas of shit. Everything he touches turns to shit. Put yourself in my shoes. What could possibly be less sexy than having Hugo as a great hulking heteronormative bat waiting to throw an eligible bachelor at you the second things seem to be going well?” She laughs a bit, the wry, bitter laugh of experience. “Turns out that just talking about Hugo is pretty unsexy too, mind.”