@hyaloidic said: ❛ One must be cunning and wicked in this world. ❜
If anyone in this wide and terrible world really knows him--his motivations and reasons; his heart--Tao has no doubt it’s Asmee. Even more than Marcus, Asmee knows him. And it’s nights like this that prove it to him.
They’re sitting shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the woods, passing a fifth of vodka back and forth after filling in a deep, smoking grave that hadn’t been there earlier in the day. It’s quiet for a long time--the agreeable sort of silence you could sit in for hours and never grow tired off. And maybe they do just that. It’s easy to lose track of the time when there are more pressing matters in mind.
Asmee stands first, taking the bottle from Tao--who’d stopped passing it back an hour and a half ago--as she does so, and she offers him a hand; pulls him up; supports him as the crushing fatigue of his last mission sets in alongside his half-drunkeness.
She knows that he doesn’t do this for fun. She knows he’s not in it for the thrill of the kill, or the righteousness of fury. Unlike Marcus, Asmee can see past the role he’s built up to make this job tolerable to him. And while she’s never said as much, Tao knows that’s what’s kept her at his side when so many of the others--the original gang--had left him.
Before he can protest, Asmee’s pushing him into the passenger seat of the car, tucking his long legs inside the cab before pulling back just enough to look at him. She smooths an errant strand of hair from his face; lays a gentle kiss over his temple; says the words:
“One must be cunning and wicked in this world.”
This understanding she has for him, and for the life they live, is sacred to Tao. Sometimes, with so much blood on his hands, it’s the only thing that helps him sleep.














