prompt: (Trick) Something wicked this way comes… but oh no, he's hot.
Fíli hated himself so much in that moment, it made Azog’s career-long pursuit to see Fíli burn in Hell look paltry in comparison. He knew – k n e w – he shouldn’t have turned his back on the creature for a millisecond; had heard all the street lore and learned enough in the Academy about trading and imprintingand all the other fancy terminology, that he had a pretty decent grasp on an arsenal of hypotheticals.
Except that Fíli was exhausted beyond measure after a particularly gruesome, four a.m. shoot out that proceeded too many hours cramped into the fucking puny, department issued microcar. What amounts to the front end of Fíli’s personal sedan because the whole world’s gone green, and the COP thought it’d be a great way to sway public opinion in their favor.
Let Fíli tell you, it hadn’t fucken worked.
What’s more, Fíli’d been on shift for, going on, twenty-four hours without so much as ten minutes to himself – chasing leads and gathering evidence – that he was sure he stunk. He’d stripped down to the white tee he wore under his button-down, stained yellow under the pits and around the collar from a day’s worth of grease and sweat.
His button-down had been shoved under the lid of the dumpster behind the building, the left arm completely red-brown and stiff with semi-dried blood. His leather jacket was in equally poor condition, but it hung stubbornly on the back of his desk chair, shedding the stench of copper and sulfur and a day and night’s accumulation of stale BO.
At the desk behind his, Lickspittle stared darkly at Fíli’s jacket while he typed up his incident report, face purple and eyes watering.
Fíli hoped Lickspittle would choke on it.
His arm hurt, the skin around his stitches tight and pulling, and Fíli was in dire need of a week’s sleep. That case had taken everything he had and more. Bard, too, was swaying on his feet, eyes sunken and bloodshot, hair stringy, shirt wet in patches at the neck, shoulders, and upper back from the water he’d splashed over himself as soon as they’d stumbled back from the scene.
So, yeah, Fíli hated himself to the point of wanting to start his entire life over, but he figured it was pretty fucken justified.
He stood in the door a few seconds more, long enough to take a burning sip of the precinct's backwash coffee and feel it travel down his throat to his stomach, and then moved with as much purpose and authority as he could muster at seven a.m. on no sleep and considerably less brain function. It took a helluva lot of effort not to acknowledge what had occurred in the interrogation room after he’d stepped out.
Like he said, Fíli knew what it meant to be imprinted on by a Harlequin after what references called “transference”. But it was an entirely different thing to read about it in training and to experience it firsthand. For fuck’s sake, Fíli couldn’t even be certain that the creature in front of him wasn’t somehow a different one altogether.
The creature grinned at Fíli as Fíli dragged his chair back, the sound loud in the otherwise silent room, and took a seat across from them. All cheeks and crinkly eyes – now a warm, rich brown that reminded Fíli of cozy autumns under knit blankets, toes curled into fuzzy socks and the taste of spiced apple pie.
The eyes weren’t the only thing transformed, the creature had gone and done all of themselves at once, not bothering to consider that Fíli had swallowed enough magical horseshit for one case and was unequivocally done.
Chestnut hair spun into artfully windswept waves that fell to their newly broad, square shoulders. The shape of their face had gone from something almost indecipherably androgynous to overtly masculine, jaw sharp and soft simultaneously and bristled with dark stubble. Long, straight nose, heavy brows, features that could be as severe as they were sweet.
They shuffled closer to the edge of their seat, dropping their shackled arms onto the table between them and Fíli. Automatically, at the sound of the clattering chains, Fíli’s gaze flicked down. Thick, furry forearms replaced what had been bare white and mannequin-like. They tracked Fíli’s face for something they’d obviously found, their grin spreading, giddy and devastating.
Fíli’s heart thudded against his ribcage. He clenched his sweaty palms and cleared his throat.
It was the coffee, he told himself.
“Do you like it?” The creature asked, nudging their nose at Fíli, seeming to wiggle like a happy puppy though they hardly moved. Even their voice had changed.
Fíli coughed, sipped more coffee, pressed his lower lip between his teeth and released it with a sticky pop. When he glanced back at the creature, their eyes were trained on Fíli’s mouth, gone whiskey-smoke and heavy. Fíli felt his skin prickle and throat dry in response.
Fucking. Harlequins.
“You do, don’t you.” The creature said, dropping back into a slouch with a triumphant look in on their face. “I felt it as soon as you let me in.” They continued, stare boring into Fíli’s. Suddenly, their posture took on a sultry, sort of liquid grace that roused images of leather and velvet and sin in Fíli’s mind. “You want me like this,” The creature breathed, tilted their head back to expose their throat and moaned.
Instantly, Fíli was on his feet, chair flying backward with a clamour, and he smacked the metal table with his palms. His coffee spilled, paper cup rolling over the edge and plopping onto the floor.
“Enough!” He yelled, because Jesus Christ, even if the thing did, maybe, kind of embody all of Fíli’s sexual fantasies combined, they were still responsible for shooting an officer. After everyone had been cuffed. On the reasoning that the officer was a dick and didn’t need his big toe to survive.
The creature laughed, a bright thing, tinged crimson with mischief. “What’re you going to do? Throw me in jail?” They shook their head and tsked, “You know you’re not allowed to.”
Fíli leaned in and through gritted teeth said, “I can after forty-eight hours of this bullshit—” he flapped a hand between them, “And I will.”
“You won’t.” The creature said as if it were already decided and rose like a dancer, meeting Fíli over the middle of the table.
“What makes you think so?” Fíli challenged.
The chains clinked as the creature brought their hands down to support themselves, hinged toward Fíli so they could whisper in his ear, lips grazing against the sensitive shell as they spoke, “In forty-eight hours, you’ll be in love with me.” They eased back with a nip to Fíli’s lobe, resettled in their chair, sweet-as-pie smile tilted across their lips.
Fíli snorted incredulously. “I don’t think so.”
That he had to excuse himself to douse his head under cold water for five minutes was probably not the best way to prove the creature wrong, so sue him.
He couldn’t wait for the whole nightmare to be over and done with.
