In Retrospect
an excerpt (or half cooked idea lmao)
you’ve been biding your time, have used less than savory methods to gather your resources but your freedom is within your grasp, the light just about breaking across the surface. well, you’re not entirely sure light would be synonymous with the notorious man you have yet to enlist the help of. but you need him, light or shadow, haloed or horned, you need clint flood for this to work. you need your husband to die and you know that if anyone will have you widowed, it will be clint flood.
pairing: clint flood x f!reader wc: 2586 tags: mentions of food, food consumption, unspecified age-gap, reader is married, pos husband anyways (not clint), use of “kid” thrice, conspiracy to murder, uhh i can't think of any more, author wrote this on a whim and shredding nerves a/n: hi so idk what this is but it's been burning away at my brain since watching freaky tales but i am Struggling with execution so have This for now lmao
-diners, dickheads and desperation
“I don’t know about this, kid.” Clint says, casually sprawled back into the booth across from you, his hand toying with the fries in the plate before him. You scowl, indignation scorching throughout your body, your throat raw from the burn of it. Kid, he calls you. You feel nothing like a kid, not with the dirty work of your hands to get to this point, not with the inky black stains that blot out bits and pieces of the horrors you’d been at the hands of thanks to your husband.
It’s an insult, but not in the manner he most certainly intends. You’d give anything to feel like a kid, you’d willingly pull the wool over your own eyes, choose the bliss of ignorance. But you cannot because choosing ignorance, giving into the naivety would put you on death’s doorstep. No, you’ll give into childish whims once you are free, but for now you have to push through.
“My marriage certificate would dictate that I am not a kid, but feel free to refer to me like that after you’ve agreed to help me and do away with that title.”
Clint snorts, eyes falling shut briefly before they open slowly to meet your gaze, “I’m not adopting you after killing your husband.”
You lean in, forearms pressing into the nylon table cover and sticking there uncomfortably but it doesn’t deter you, “I’ll take that statement to mean you’re going to do it.”
“No.”
You want to scream, the shriek already climbing up your throat like acid reflux but you clench down on your teeth, eyes turning steely despite the desperation now turning to panic. You need this, your freedom hinges on this infuriating man across from you agreeing, or all the things you have done up until this point will be for naught. That thought alone makes you nauseous, the filth that clings to the tatters of your soul finding no fruition, no reasoning but to mar. Dried blood caked beneath your nails, oxidised and hardened and ungiving no matter how hard you scrub.
Unconsciously, your hands ball the transparent table cover, the pliability of it folding between your fingers. Clint’s eyes lazily track down your figure to settle on them but nothing in his expression changes, not a hint to be found on where his mind takes him.
His lips smack, the two grooves between his eyebrows deepening before he quirks his head in a move that reads predatory, a jungle cat sniffing out its prey and spinning a slow, tantalizing game. “How do you know that killing him will free you? Are you so sure this is the answer to all your problems?”
A broken, flat and raspy laugh leaves your lips as you feel yourself sink into a cold hollowness, reeled back until reality feels out of your grasp. There, your mind clicks play on the tape and the last three years of your farce of a marriage barrages into your senses to assault you anew. You’re stuck at cross roads; clawing your way back to your body to answer Clint or staying there and refortifying the animosity that has poisoned you day by day.
“I want him dead and gone. What proceeds will be dealt with when it happens, but I don’t give a shit about anything but that man with a bullet hole between his eyebrows and brain matter colouring the floor beneath him.” He huffs, dropping the fry he had between his pointer and thumb and rests his hand alongside his plate as he shakes his head at you, “That mind of yours sure paints the prettiest pictures, huh?”
The smile that slashes across your lips is cold, the sharpened blade of a dagger cutting it sharp, “With all the time and incentive I’ve had, I’ve become very creative.”
Clint studies you for a moment before a hefty sigh expands his broad chest and then deflates until the little nursery rhyme dances across the forefront of your mind. A huff and a puff and the man before you is certainly a wolf to blow a house down, only this little piggy is all but begging for it. “Fuck,” he cusses sharply, and then his hand clutches his forehead, fingers massaging at his temples as he closes his eyes and takes another deep breath.
“Look sweetheart,” he starts, face pinched as he looks for the words and the order they’re meant to fall into, “this is going to take more than just your money and pretty, pleading face to pull off. What you’re talking about is more complicated than tailing the guy and killin’ him.”
Your tongue slowly glides across your teeth, shoulders rolling with the anger that builds, stacking higher with each of his words. It’s hard to tell if he’s purposely being condescending or if it just comes awfully natural to him to be a complete dick. You’re heavily leaning to the latter as your gaze deadpans on him. “Mr Flood-” you start but he raises his palm to stop you with a grimace, “Clint, none of that formal shit, it makes this feel even worse.”
You raise an eyebrow at that, unsure how precisely to comprehend his words but you push it aside and concede, “Clint, I’ve been under the man’s thumb for three years. I’m really fucking aware that it’s not going to be simple. If it was, I would have done it myself. I’m not sitting across from you, kicking my legs with my hands beneath my thighs and asking you to do something for me like a spoiled brat.” You exhale sharply, head whipping to the door you had kept a periodical watch of before looking back into his face.
Hair combed back but the waves rebelling against the product just enough to tell of how unruly it can be, the scar beneath his right eye somehow feels integral to his features, not standing out but just prominent enough for you to mark the location. The brown eyes that track you with slow blinks seem depthless and belie just how dangerous he can be. When you briefly flit your eyes to his patchy, short beard and mustache, you notice how chapped his lips are and it tempts you to get the man some lip balm but you bat away the thought quickly. Your eyes swing up quickly and all your muscles harden to prepare for your next words.
“The only simple part of this entire thing is a straight answer from you, and I need it now. Yes or no.”
Silence clings to your skin like stale sweat and you pull your tongue from the roof of your mouth as the man remains unmoving.
“This isn’t my business any longer. I left that world a long time ago. I have a daughter to worry about.” The guilt is brittle and prickly on your skin and your eyes dip just for a second as you remember that very monumental detail. It had almost stopped you from approaching him to start but then you felt yourself dying, breaths coming slower and your supposed husband’s hands pressing down harder onto your windpipe and survival mode told you this was the only way.
“I know that. If I had other avenues, I would have left you alone, but I don’t. You’re the only option I have left of survival.” The vulnerability of that admission makes you scowl down at the table, ready to push off of your seat and leave all together but Clint clears his throat and you slowly raise your head again.
“I want half now and the rest when the job is done. I’ll need time to think how exactly I’ll go about this, we meet up again once I have my plan.” He says flatly, arms crossing over his chest, hands tucked beneath armpits as he levels you with a hard look.
The corner of your mouth twitches downward and you think, considering carefully. You’d barely managed this meeting, eyes still darting to the door and occasionally to the windows tables away. You don’t know if you can pull it off all over again. “The deposit is yours, but meeting up again…-”
“Communication? You have a secure number I can reach you on?” He interrupts, and there’s something harsher to the lines of his face, the back of his hand scrubbing at his jaw. You’d pin it down as impatience—a fair and sound presumption—but something about it feels other. It’s like the slow grind to hitting rock, all pretenses scraped away so roughly and leaving nerves raw, exposed. It’s almost a volatile thing on his face, and you feel yourself carefully considering your response.
“I’m not sure. I haven’t given him a reason to watch me closely in a while and I’m sure that has him suspicious so I’d rather not take the chance.” Your eyes watch him cautiously, that jungle cat pushing against his skin, hackles raised and you rely on your periphery to mark all your exits.
Clint grunts, head swooping to the windows and you see the thoughts plunder through him. It’s a wayward thought, but it pesters you with each micro expression, the turn and twist of his body, just how everything about the man is so unmistakably rugged. “I’m assuming you’ve marked their shifts? Found the weakest link?”
You nod once, sniffing indignantly, “I spent over a year cracking at this one. The others didn’t last longer than four months.” You don’t elaborate on why, that ugly twisting at your innards and threatening to push your food back up. Clint doesn’t comment on that, only mimics your nod and then that hand’s fingers are drumming next to his plate. The tempo of it builds and your eyes lock onto those fingers, the rhythm thudding between your ears and you’re tempted to stab your fork through his hand to stop it.
Fuck, you need out, the violence within you seeping through the smallest of cracks and you can’t afford rash and stupid actions soiling your escape. So you clench down on your molars and force yourself to focus on the lyrics of the Tears For Fears song playing throughout the diner.
Of course the focal point is some deranged twist on love. So you roll your eyes and press your shoulder blades back into the hard cushion of the booth and then you wait ever so impatiently.
Clint lifts his hips, hand reaching into his pocket and rifling before he pulls free a crumpled flyer of some sort. He turns it over and then gestures for a waitress, asking to borrow their pen before he begins scrawling something on the red paper. He hands the pen back with a casual thanks and then roughly slides the flyer to your end of the table.
When you pick it up, you glance over the digits with furrowed brows, lips parting in argument before he does that fucking thing again where he raises his palm and silences you. Part of you questions why you concede to the bombastic gesture, but you flippantly chalk it up to being desperate for his help. It does nothing to contain the magma state of your anger, teeth on the verge of cracking at the sordid pressure of you biting down on them.
He points to the flyer, licking at his lips before he grunts out, “Let it ring twice before hanging up. We’ll meet back here within 24 hours of your call. We’ll change the location and manner of reaching out again at the next meeting. It’s not all that secure but it’s the best we can work with right now.”
There is so much to argue against, fear riding hard at you as you stare down at the phone number, but you can’t supply an alternative. And it pisses you off that he’s right. So you sigh, eyes sweeping the space for a clock before you’re dropping the envelope you had in your pocket to the floor and skillfully kicking it against his boot. “The deposit. I have to leave soon.”
He makes no move to retrieve it or even set his heavy foot down on it. No, instead of acknowledging it, Clint’s eyes fall to your plate, the burger untouched, about half your portion of chips remaining and the sweltering glass of ice tea. “A waste,” he carps with a disgusted shake of his head. Your patience snaps in half and then ultimately turns to dust with the impact as you push roughly from the table, slapping cash onto the surface before you glower down at him.
“A pleasure doing business with you,” you say sourly before you turn on your heels and leave with that same pounding in your head, red flyer crumpled into a tight ball within your fist and before you push through the doors, you’re shoving it into your pocket. You don’t spare a single look back despite the searing heat of his eyes on the back of your neck, something that has you rolling your shoulders to ward off the accompanying goosebumps enveloping your arms. You need to reach the department store Quinton left you at and quickly, and with the anger burning through your blood, you speed walk. The emotion does well with being converted into the excess energy you need.
With short huffs of air, hair sticking to your tacky forehead, your feet finally slow down, a slight burn in your calves as you reach the strip mall. The pumping between your ears is no less incessant than it was in the presence of Clint and it’s something you hadn’t straggled down in your expectations before meeting the man. You’ve been banking on it being a cold, detached, business-like transaction, even if the thought alone gives you the prickling start of a morality crisis. Maybe it was cruel of you to think the man wouldn’t bat an eyelash at your request, if not cruel, naive, but fuck did interacting with him tighten your skin against your skeleton, like an inhale degrees too sharp for your lungs.
As you grab at mindless articles of closing and breeze into the fitting room, your scowl deepens, hand grabbing and almost ripping the privacy curtain as you pull it over the rails with an unneeded intensity. Your eyes cut to your reflection in the mirror and you deflate slowly, an untied balloon’s neck, pinched tightly between two fingers that for a morbid flash are thick, meaty and a small tattoo sits parallel to the flattened latex. Your expression darkens, eyes something like the void that threatens the edges of you, and you’re so obviously tired despite the effort you’ve put in to look put together, pretty, uppity even. It all falls flat in your reflection and you cannot tell if it's your subjectivity bleeding into the conclusion or if you’re far enough from your body to be entirely objective.
Whether here or there, you exhale sharply and give yourself a small metaphorical apt on the back. You’ve done it, not only made successful contact with the man, but instilled his…services. Even if the man is a prick. You scoff to yourself as you unceremoniously undress yourself, shrugging your clothes to the bench beneath the short rail. As you try on the items you picked blindly, you conclude one thing with absolute certainty. Clint Flood has achieved one thing, hastening you into seeing Heath into a casket and being done with his presence. The presence of both your husband and his murderer.