Tightrope (A Patron Prompt)
Fandom: ragehappy Ship: Jeremwood (Jeremy/Ryan) Words: 2k Tags: pre-fahc, soulmate au, violence tw, background character death
Summary: Ryan has a soulmate. He knows because of the bruises that keep appearing on his skin, bruises that are not his own.
For @armadil-lo! Thank you for your support <3
Read here on Ao3.
Many people wonder why the Vagabond wears a skull mask.
As they walk through the tight hallways, Ryan can clearly see the thought on his employer’s face. It’s in the flicker of his eyes as he looks back at the mercenary he hired, in the micro-expressions on his face. Theatrics, he probably assumes, to scare his enemies. His employer tells himself that to remain unaffected, even as a shiver races down his spine. Ryan watches him and his fellow bodyguards closely. They’re tense. Keeping their distance. All for the better, he supposes.
The truth is rather simpler.
Ryan takes up position in the back-right corner of the room they enter, surveying the inside with a quick glance. The pair his employer is meeting are sitting with their backs turned towards the door, observing the spectacle in front of them with bored miens. The woman’s hair is pulled back in a high top-knot, the man’s dark locks frame his face in a tousled, rough-and-tumble look, emphasized by his five-o’clock shadow. There’s two guards, one to either side of the couch. The woman beckons his employer forward without turning to look.
The pair of them are rumoured to be soulmates.
Soulmates are something of a scientific oddity. Many have tried to explain the metaphorical connection between two or more people, to quantify and qualify what makes someone a soulmate and why. There’s a lot of theories, and Ryan has read quite a few of them. The one thing they can all agree on is the undeniable fact that soulmates exist, and that there’s an easy way to test for it. Because, you see, any mark, any colour, any bruise will show up on your soulmate’s skin. Paint fades quickest - bruises linger.
Ryan’s soulmate has a bad habit of getting black eyes.
As such, the mask is very literally that, a mask. A mercenary that seems to be perpetually beat up, bearing lingering, visible bruises - employers tend to underestimate such a person, and more importantly, underpay. Before long, Ryan had to find a solution, since his soulmate didn’t seem inclined to let up on the regular discoloration. Under the dark mask, aided with dark paint around the eyes, no one could see the bruises. With time it build into his mythos, the untouchable Vagabond, harbinger of death.
“Please, join us,” the woman says, voice a pleasant lilt. Like silk hiding the steel of a dagger. “The fight appears almost over.”
In front of the couch is a long panorama window, separating the owners of the establishment from the raving, noisy crowd gathered for the spectacle. Inside the ring three combatants face off against each other. One hulking, bulked up man hits a short one straight across the face, snapping his head around. The third man quickly darts in, kicking the short man in the stomach, forcing him to keel over. What follows is a brutal beating as the two taller men team up against the shorter combatant, lying curled up on the mat.
Ryan averts his eyes, sickened by the display.
“He tried to betray us,” the man on the couch speaks up, voice a weird mix of nasal and gravelly. “Tried to run and tattle.”
The bulked up man picks the short one up from the floor, holds him up over his head, before flinging him out of the ring. The crowd roars loud enough to cause the window to vibrate. The woman crosses her hands over her knee.
“Just a reminder,” she says lightly, and his employer flinches visibly. “We don’t suffer fools lightly here.”
His employer glances nervously at the window and swallows. “I can see that,” he replies tightly.
The woman cocks her head, like an eagle eyeing its prey. “Do you,” she says dryly. She waves to one of her guards. “Bring Dooley up here. I think introductions are in order.”
The guard salutes her, “Yes, Ma’am,” and leaves quickly.
She turns to glance at the guards his employer brought with him, her gaze catching on Ryan.
“Well, now,” she purrs, standing up swiftly. She glides around the couch, nails trailing over his employer’s shoulders. “I see you brought a new face.”
His employer’s eyes flick between him and the woman. He licks his lips nervously. “Call it insurance. To ensure negotiations stay fair.”
“Negotiations?” the man on the couch says silkily. “Why, I dare say we have quite different expectations of where this is going.”
The woman watches Ryan, a small, secretive grin curling around her mouth.
His employer stands up slowly, hand dropping to his gun. “What are you-”
A shot, and his employer crumbles to the ground. Her grin widens.
“Like I said,” she purrs, taking a step back and turning to address his fellow mercenaries. “I don’t suffer fools lightly.”
There’s a shout as his fellow guards go for their guns, but the man on the couch and his guard are quicker to point theirs at them. Ryan stays perfectly still. The woman watches him intently.
“The infamous Vagabond,” she murmurs, dropping her gun. “Why, I didn’t expect to have the pleasure all so soon. Please,” she adds facetiously in an aside to the others, “do stop being stupid and drop your weapons.”
The bodyguards glance between themselves before lowering their guns. As if on cue, the door opens. Two men drag the bloodied fighter in and throw him in the middle of the room, before leaving and shutting the door behind them. Ryan watches from the corner of his eyes. They’ll be guarding the hallway, he assumes.
The woman steps forward, digging her heel into the wrist of the fighter. He cries out in pain, hoarse and pitiful. His colourful costume is ripped in pieces, flimsy gold and purple cloth shredded during the beating. Only the orange and purple helmet on his head appears intact. Small wonders.
“Perhaps we could come to an arrangement,” the woman continues as if she wasn’t interrupted in the first place. “Loyalty is easily bought, these days. But skills of your calibre - now those are hard to find.”
She steps past the downed fighter, poking at his leg with the toe of her shoe. An angry ring of red forms on his skin where she dug her heel in.
“We have work for the likes of you, Vagabond,” she states, sneering down at the beaten up man in disgust. “If you are interested, that is.”
Ryan nods cautiously. He isn’t stupid - his odds here aren’t great. His employer’s dead, he’s no longer getting paid for this. He’s at the pair’s mercy now. Showing off a traitor is a powerplay, proving there’s consequences of going against the leaders. At the same time it doesn’t feel like a place he wants to work at. He just knows better than to make that opinion known while in the belly of the beast. A glance at his fellow mercenaries shows them properly cowed by the theatrics.
“You two,” the man on the couch speaks up. He flicks his cigarette carelessly, the ashes falling onto the cushions. “Downstairs. I want you in the ring in the next hour.” He smirks. “Loser gets to live.”
The goons tense, exchanging startled looks. But when the ring leaders’ guard beckons them they follow him out of the door. Like sheep off to the slaughter.
The man on the floor whimpers. The woman scoffs in disgust.
“I’m sure we have much to discuss, Vagabond.” She kicks the downed man in the guts, rolling him over forcefully. “But perhaps in a different setting. I’ll have someone take the trash out-”
“I can do that,” Ryan offers impulsively. The woman glances up, surprise the first emotion showing through the cracks of the carefully crafted facade. She eyes him uncertainly, glancing back at the man on the couch, before turning to him again. Ryan stays still, muscles loose and ready to fight. This is his chance to get out of here before they trap him in a contract. Finally, the woman nods sharply.
“Fine. Take out the trash first. We can go through the minutiae of the agreement after he’s dead.”
Ryan waits until she steps back from the body, before kneeling down and hefting him over his shoulder. The guy is surprisingly heavy, and Ryan grunts as he carries him out and down the hallway under watchful eyes. One of the guards littering the building points him towards the back entrance, and they come out in a little alley. Ryan looks left and right, but no one’s out here. He lifts his hand as if to wipe the sweat off his brow, before remembering the mask.
There’s a red mark on his wrist, between the sleeve of his jacket and his leather glove. It’s round, like a penny maybe, and for a wild second he wonders if his soulmate is adding burn marks to their repertoire.
He doesn’t have much time to contemplate it, though, because the moment he starts walking deeper into the alleys, the man over his shoulder starts struggling. An elbow hits Ryan hard in the temple, a knee digs into his side, and Ryan has to twist out from under the fighter and drop him to the floor. The man lands with a grunt, just laying in the dirt for a moment, dazed.
His hand lies palm up, and there on the side of his wrist, the red mark from the woman’s heel.
Ryan stares. Then he glances down at his own wrist. Back to the stranger’s. Back to his own.
There’s no way, he thinks wildly.
But there’s an easy way to prove that. The man stares up at him, eyes flickering across the alleyway, calculating. Ryan pulls off the glove on the unmarked hand and pushes a finger under his mask. Gathering some of the black paint from around his eyes is easy. He pulls his finger back and smears it next to the angry red mark.
A streak of black appears on the stranger’s wrist and starts slowly fading to dark grey almost immediately.
“Fuck me,” the man groans, letting his head drop back to the gravel. Ryan eyes him critically. Then his gaze flicks back to the building they just left.
“We need to keep going,” he mutters, kneeling down next to the man who flinches. Ryan holds out his hand. “Can you walk?”
“Dunno,” the guy mumbles. He reaches out, fingers tracing carefully over the red mark on Ryan’s wrist. “Oh.”
“Yes, oh,” Ryan replies dryly. He wraps his arm around the man’s shoulder and pulls him up, holding him steady as he swayed. “Once we’re out of here, we need to have a talk about your abysmal habit of getting beat up.”
“Not really my choice,” his soulmate - his soulmate - grunts, leaning into Ryan’s side. He gingerly takes a step forward. “Could we start with names? That seems easier.”
“Sure,” Ryan chuckles. Together they make their way down the alley. With each step, his soulmate seems to regain confidence in his balance, leaning on him less. “I’m Ryan.”
“Jeremy,” the other introduces himself.
“Jeremy,” Ryan repeats slowly. He props his soulmate up against the wall, before peeking around the corner. All clear. “Let’s get you out of here and then you can tell me what the hell is up with that garish costume.”
“Hey!” Jeremy protests, but follows along gamely. “I happen to like purple!”
“Alright,” Ryan says agreeably. There’s an old car down the street they might be able to jack. “Doesn’t explain the orange though.”
“Okay, first of all, screw you,” Jeremy mutters, pointing a finger at him. “And second of all-”
By the end of the day, Ryan’s pretty sure his soulmate got hit in the head a couple times too often, but it’s eclipsed by the giddy feeling of knowing. Jeremy is funny and stubborn, and once he gets him out of the awful fighting costume, he doesn’t look half bad.
Maybe it’s not how it happens in the movies, but this is Ryan’s life. And Jeremy slots in perfectly.
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