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Paolo Sebastian f/w 2016-2017 couture
Part One - Cryptic Gifts lead to Unexpected Meetings
Happy Birthday S!!! As promised no-one dies. I swear. Part 1/2
Nanowrimo 2k15 Day 1 - Mickey Jones is my baby and I will write his POV even if it kills me.
When he first meets Ella Badeau, Mickey is 15 and she renders him speechless. Ella’s got her leather jacket wrapped around the shoulders of his cousin who’s been missing for six months and she’s got a protective glint in her eyes that makes Mickey fear for her enemies. He doesn’t know how she found Anna, and there’re blood stains on Ella’s knuckles and Anna is shaking. There’s more important things to be considered right now. He lets them in silently. The blonde stranger opens her mouth and a British accents spills over her lips, “Get her something warm to drink. She probably needs food too” Anna whispers something Mickey doesn’t catch but he sees the way Ella softens and draws Anna close, arm wrapping tight around her shoulders. “Yes, sweetheart. He’s real.” She says and Mickey freezes, fingers wrapped around a mug in the cupboard.
Anna is staring at him like she can’t believe he exists, and at this blonde like she’s a goddess. Mickey’s halfway to calling her one himself so he doesn’t blame her for that part. “Can I hug you?” He asks because everything he knows about trauma patients is to not startle them. Anna looks like she’s going to burst into tears so Ella gently pushes her in Mickey’s arms and the lanky teenager wraps his arms around her tightly. They’d told him to assume she was dead, having her in his arms is impossible. He doesn’t want to let go. The blonde clears her throat, and thrusts two steaming mugs towards the cousins.
“Sit” she commands, and Mickey leads them to the nearest couch. He doesn’t resist the urge and curls against his cousin’s side, he needs to hear her heartbeat right now. He needs the proof. The blonde is pulling various objects out of her bag. Mickey tries his best not to flinch at the sheer amount of weapons among them. She passes a dagger and a card to Anna. “Call this number whenever you need. I’ll be there” She turns to Mickey, “She’s going to need to see someone”
“Ella I’m okay” Anna speaks for the first time and brings a smile to both their faces. “I’ll be okay” she amends.
“You’ll be amazing” Ella corrects, smiling. Mickey thinks she might actually be an angel. But angels generally don’t carry pistols in their backpacks. “The dagger’s just for your own safety, every girl needs a weapon”
“I was thinking more like a Taser” Anna says and Mickey wonders where the cousin who loved horses went. He’s a little terrified of this one, who gets brought home by bloodstained friends and who’s too comfortable with weapons.
“Whatever suits you” Ella shrugs. And then she’s off. Passing him her number as she goes, “Call when you need my help, your cousin’s been an ally to me. That makes you one of my people now. So if you need let me know”
And then she’s gone into the night. When his parents get back from their weekend away and find him and Anna in the middle of Mario Cart battle, he leaves their British Guardian angel out of it.
It’s two months before he sees Ella again. He knows Anna’s been talking to her over the phone. His cousin is smiling more and more every day now and Mickey feels like maybe one day they could be normal again.
So while he’s on a school trip to Washington DC of course he gets involved in the largest hostage taking of the year. They’re mid-tour of the Smithsonian when men in dark suits and balaclavas carrying very large guns appear. His classmates panic and run, Mickey uses the chaos to slip out a door and runs up a stairwell till he’s in a quiet carpeted hallway and there’s no unlocked doors. With his luck that’s the moment two of the goons step out and spot him at once. He’s about to say hello to whatever comes after when a blonde blur comes charging out of the door beside him. Knives go flying past him and Ella Badeau tackles the largest guy to the ground. Mickey has never been so absolutely terrified in his life.
“Hey Mick!” She says, pistol-whipping the other guy with his own gun. “How’s school going?” She’s just as casual in the way she raises off the ground, dusts off her dark pants and wraps an arm around his shoulders.
“What are you doing here?” He manages
“I was on duty protecting the ambassador and his family,” She explains, gesturing to the frightened couple standing in the doorway, there’s a little girl behind them, she’s looking at Ella like she might be a goddess. Mickey thinks that might be a common reaction. “Sir, this man is one of our nations greatest allies, he must be protected along with your family,” She explains to the man in the grey suit.
The ambassador clearly thinks Mickey’s a little too young for that but Ella’s confidence is convincing. Ella touches her ear and Mickey sees the comm piece, thank god she’s working with someone official this time because when they get downstairs the rest of the gunmen are restrained, his classmates all unscathed and Ella’s managed to extract the name of who hired them to steal the hope diamond. The DC police arrive as Ella’s sitting him on a bench and pressing coffee into his hands. He wonders vaguely if he should worry about how hot drinks seem to be her answer to everything. Ella screams at the cops. The ambassador interrupts her when she switches in anger to French, taking over only slightly more diplomatically by calling them incompetent in more ways than Mickey can even process.
Ella’s fury at the cops delayed arrival is nothing compared to her fury at his teachers, for letting a teenage boy be left alone during a hostage taking. He tries to point out that he was the one who ran off. Ella shuts him up with a hand over his mouth. Mickey stays quiet, he knows how many knives she’s wearing. He’s exhausted so he curls his knees up and lays his head on her knee. She calms at the contact, and her fingers and combing through his hair, fair gentler than her voice.
“Who even are you?” his teacher demands.
“She’s my cousin” Mickey answers before Ella says something else and he can tell she’s shocked that he considers her family, her hand freezes in his hair, and maybe he’s overstepped the line.
“I’m his family” She hisses at them, and curls her fingers tight. Ella Badeau is a fucking Valkyrie if you’d ask Mickey Jones.
Mickey’s 16 and Ella’s the first person he tells he might be gay. She tells him she’s honoured that he trusts her like this, and Mickey thinks he can see tears in her eyes, she claims it’s a bad connection. Mickey knows it’s not when she tells him how proud she is, and a tear leaks out. He doesn’t say anything. The warrior goddess is proud of him. Ella’s approval is all he needs right now, to make things real. To make everything okay.
Mickey turns 17, he has his first boyfriend, he gets an incredibly sharp dagger lying on his bed one afternoon as well and there’s no prize for guessing who that’s from. Anna gets him a book on coding and Mickey loves the cousins who are basically his sisters, and the way that they’re training him. His first boyfriend thinks it’s hot that Mickey speaks French when he’s stressed, he assumes like many do that it’s romantic endearments slipping off his tongue. Mickey’s French is fouler than a sailor’s. It would be of course, since Ella’s the one teaching it to him over Skype.
His first boyfriend also thinks it’s hot that Mickey’s got pure lean muscle under his shirt from training with Anna at the guy. What his first boyfriend hates is that Mickey hates kissing him. It’s not that he doesn’t love him, well as much as any 17 year-old loves anyone, Mickey loves him. But when they’re getting hot and heavy, when he reaches under Mickey’s shirt, Mickey feels so uncomfortable that the whole thing ends very awkwardly and messily. Mickey’s first boyfriend accuses him of not being attracted to him and Mickey doesn’t have the right words to explain how he feels. Mickey’s first boyfriend calls him a freak and Mickey calls Ella.
It turns out she’s still in town, having placed the knife herself instead of using one of the misfit crew of orphans she seems to run in every city. She’s at his place in less than 20 minutes, through his window and holding him in arms in less than 60 seconds. She runs her fingers through his hair and comforts him. Mickey loves her as much as he’s ever loved anyone. She tells him about being ace, and how there’s nothing at all wrong with him. That he’s still her baby cousin. That he’s perfect. That she will always love him.
His first boyfriend’s car is found absolutely destroyed that night. The boy, trembling with fear apologizes to Mickey the following day, his eyes wide, like he sees something menacing hiding in the shadows behind Mickey. Like there’s a blonde devil hiding behind every corner waiting to kill him.
Ella Badeau is the reason Mickey joins the CIA. He likes to help people, like Ella’s helped him and all those others. He wants to be like her. He’s very much aware of that. Ella Badeau is his hero. He wants to be her sort of spy.
Mickey meets Alexander Brenin and Richard Parker early in his career, Parker’s grouchy but Mickey grows on people fast and he can tell the older agent likes him. Alex treats him like a baby brother from day one.
He’s running traces on every single codename he knows Ella’s ever used. He’s hacked into more than six countries’ security networks to make sure his cousin is okay. Ella goes rogue and Mickey can’t breathe when he sees the footage. He knows at once, in his heart of heart’s that Ella is the furthest thing from a traitor. Loyalty, as she’d once told him, is the most important thing in the world to her. And she’d never betray Luke and Ros, she’d never leave Morgan and Leo. She loved her country. She’d never betray them.
He’s not surprised to find Anna in his apartment that night. She’s going to go to war with Ella he knows it. He’d be there with them, if they’d ever allowed him to do that. He gets into an argument about it with Anna. He wants to fight, he owes Ella his life and he wants to help. Anna just smiles sadly at him. “I’ll call you soon I promise. I’ll keep her safe.”
Anna leaves him alone and Mickey feels like he can’t breathe. His apartment is suffocating with its quiet. He needs noise, people. Something that isn’t this quiet, this lack of knowing.
He doesn’t particularly like clubs. They’re full of people looking for sex but he can lose himself in the noise. Most people leave him alone when he tells them to. This one won’t leave. He won’t let go of Mickey’s arm and he’s seconds away from stabbing the guy with the dagger he always carries in his back pocket. “Look I don’t want to go with you” He’s warning the man.
That’s when someone else’s hands are there and pushing them apart. There’s a dark hair, thin figure between them, and he looks absolutely furious. “I think you should back off,” The guy advises and Mickey’s never seen anyone so beautiful.
“What business is it of yours?” The asshole asks.
The guy smiles and it’s all teeth, no warmth. “I think if you’re going to continue to ignore what my boyfriend politely asks you to do, then it’s my business” Mickey gasps in shock.
“He never mentioned a boyfriend”
“He shouldn’t have had to.” Mickey feels a rush of affection for this stranger. “You should have backed off when he fucking asked” And fuck that’s kind of hot, Mickey thinks as the guys pulls himself up to his full height, glittery eyes cold.
The asshole slinks off and the gorgeous man turns to him “I guess I should be thanking you?” he says, not everyone is that nice.
“I didn’t do it for thanks” The guy’s eyes flick up and down. Of course he could want the same thing the asshole wanted. Most people do. Mickey doesn’t trust strangers who aren’t Ella Badeau.
Mickey’s smile slips off his face “I’m sorry I’m not interes-“
“I didn’t mean it like that.” The guy looks annoyed at himself and Mickey knows his confusion is showing on his face. “I did it because it was the right thing to do, people shouldn’t just-“ he screws his face up like he doesn’t even like saying this. “If they’re not interested you need to back the fuck off”
Mickey likes this guy, “I’m Mickey” he introduces himself.
“Nik.” The handsome man, Nik’s smile is blinding. “So do you come here often?”
Mickey laughs. “No, I suppose that kind of showed”
The man grins like the devil himself would, and Mickey thinks of the dangerous looks he’s seen in Ella’s eyes so many times. “Welcome to the dark side handsome” he blushes at once.
“I’m not interested in any-“ He really doesn’t want Nik to get the wrong idea, he seems so nice. But then again so do so many people. “I mean I don’t like-“
“Sex” Nik’s still smiling. “I do. It’s no big deal” And Mickey feels such a surge of affection for this man, it shocks him. “Can I buy you a drink? No strings attached. I promise”
There’s something very calming about Nik and Mickey loves it. He agrees to the first drink. And to the second and the third and the cup of coffee that he gets offered at Nik’s apartment. Nik’s telling him hilarious stories and Mickey feels the world of spies, and double agents and all the danger Ella’s in (and now Anna) fall away. He can breathe. Nik’s arm is around his waist and he can breathe.
He falls asleep in a stranger’s bed for the first time in his life. When he wakes up he nearly reaches for his knife before he sees Nik leaning against the door holding coffee. “It’s alright handsome” the other man soothes and Mickey relaxes.
He ends up wearing Nik’s shirt to work and gets complimented on it by Alex. He blushes the same shade as the shirt but Alex doesn’t seem to notice.
He sends Anna a dossier of all the CIA agents that would probably react best to Ella’s status, as in shoot second and actually listen first. Brenin and Parker are at the top of his list.
Morgan Oliver dies two months after he starts dating Nik. The med student hugs him close and doesn’t pry. Nik’s good about not prying when Mickey needs his privacy. Mickey thinks sometimes that he’s in love.
It’s been four months and Alex has him tracking the number of some enemy he keeps running into. Mickey can’t help but feel a prickling at his neck while he does it. Nik wants him to meet his brother. It’s funny, he’s never seen Nik so nervous about something. The man moves with confidence in every stride but he seems scared about Mickey meeting the fabled Alexander. Mickey had originally thought it was about his gender, that Nik’s family weren’t as understanding as Ella and Anna.
Nik laughs when he tells him that. “My brother’s known about me from day one. No he can just be intense about people who date me. He’s protective and I don’t want him to scare you off handsome” Mickey wants to laugh at that because if Nik thinks his brother is going to be a challenge, Ella and Anna are going to be hell. So they set a date for dinner at Nik’s place with his brother.
Mickey’s already sleeping there every single night, being at home with the silence, with no word from his cousin is killing him. Nik is warmth, and light and Nik loves him. Mickey sleeps there every night for three weeks.
When he finally manages to get a hit on the number Alex gave him he’s excited. If he gets all this finished he can go home to Nik, he can get ready for the most important dinner of his life. Alex is already out the door with Mickey providing directions in his ear when Parker gets to his desk.
“What’s going on?” The older agent asks.
“We got a hit on that number” Mickey’s kind of proud, after all they’ve been waiting weeks for this.
“You found Ella?” Parker demands, pulling his headset on.
Mickey’s blood runs cold. “Wait Ella?” he asks, because god no this can’t be happening, it can’t be her. He can’t lead them to her. Please not her, he’s begging whatever exists, please not his guardian angel.
He hears Alex’s phone ring and then Ella’s voice is coming over his comm and he can’t breathe. He’s going into shock because Ella screams “The CIA is compromised” and he’s closing every hole he can find. He’ll bring their whole castle down, there’s something in there. He’s got to protect her. His eyes keep drifting back to the security feed where Ella stands, thinner than ever and is that Leo Bennett? His superior’s grabbed Mickey’s comm and he’s ordering Alex to shoot. Mickey’s fingers are flying across the keys.
He finds the bug the same minute, the drone opens fire on the café. Mickey screams. Or he tries to the sound gets tangled in his throat because everything on his screens is fire. Alex is thrown backwards by the explosion, but he’s on his feet again seconds later shouting something. Mickey doesn’t need to read his lips, the same word is on his tongue. He’s screaming for Ella Badeau the same as Mickey is.
Mickey doesn’t even bother giving an explanation when he leaves. He’s destroyed the bug, and all traces of it and sent something after wherever it came from that’ll fry their servers to kingdom come. He heads back to his apartment where Anna’s waiting, she wraps her arms around him just like when they were kids and just holds him while he sobs.
He calls Nik not long after that. He can’t meet Nik’s brother today. As it turns out Nik’s brother is in hospital, accident, his boyfriend says and Mickey understands the need to be with family. Nik doesn’t deserve someone who’d get their own family killed. He can’t see Nik right now, he can’t see the guy that cares for him. That treats him so gently, with such love. Mickey can’t really handle that right now.
He got Ella killed. He traced her. He didn’t notice a bug in his own system. He got her killed. Anna tries to tell him that it’s not his fault. He can’t hear that. It’s his fault. She’s dead and it’s all his fault. He eventually cries himself to sleep in Anna’s arms, she’s crying too. It’s the first time he’s seen her cry since the night Ella brought her home. He wishes he was sixteen again. That Ella was still a warrior goddess that no-one could touch. He couldn’t have killed a warrior goddess.
The next day Nik’s number flashes across his screen. He’s a little surprised, he’d assumed Nik would be with Alexander for the next few days, why would anyone want to talk to Mickey after all?
“This is a surprise” He greets his boyfriend. “I-“
“Mick?” The voice is rough. It sounds tired and Mickey feels all the air leave his lungs.
It isn’t possible. It isn’t possible. But there’s only one person in the world who calls him Mick. “Ella?!” He cries and he hears Anna throw the magazine aside and dash across the room.
“Ella?” She sounds as hopeful as he feels. They can’t trust this hope, what if she’s isn’t really back? What if even Ella Badeau can’t survive what Mickey did? What if even she can’t survive his betrayal?
Clearly it is Ella because the next words out of Anna’s mouth are “Ella Badeau tell me where you are right this second. I’m coming, we’re coming” Mickey has his jacket on before Anna’s finished talking. He throws her the keys to his car, she’s a better driver than he is under stress. It takes them a very tense half hour to cross town. They’re debating why Ella wouldn’t have come directly to them. Anna insists it has to do with this agent that’s been helping her, someone she’s referring to as CIA pretty boy. Mickey just wants to know how she’s alive.
If he’d been thinking about it, he should have realized when Nik’s number came up on his phone. But that thought got lost under the importance of the fact that Ella’s alive. They enter a building that Mickey has a key to, if he’d thought about it but Anna takes a different route and he can’t think of anything other than his blonde Valkyrie of a cousin.
Anna slams her palm against the door and the sounds of chatter on the other side die. The man who opens the door is not at all what Mickey was expecting. Because there is Nik. And this isn’t his apartment. There is Nik looking at Mickey like he’s grown a second head. “The fuck?” and yeah that sums up how Mickey feels.
Anna is ignoring all this “Where is she?” she demands and storms into the apartment. Mickey’s still staring at Nik, he can’t break their eye-contact. Nik’s doing that thing where he assesses people, he definitely knows Mickey hasn’t slept in a long time, that he’s been crying, that he can’t understand at all what Nik’s doing here.
“Don’t you dare do that again!” He hears his cousin shout and it all comes flouding back. Ella.
“I can explain- “ no he can’t, what’s Nik doing here? Is he one of Ella’s people? Since when? Is he a spy? If he’s a spy Mickey’s going to kill himself. That’s the sort of thing he should be able to notice. “I just” He can see Anna wrapped around Ella. “I need to-“ he feels sixteen again, scared he was going to die and needing to touch Ella. She’s always made the world stop spinning she can make things better. She’s alive and he needs to prove to her that he’d never betray her. “I need to” he looks at her and she looks exhausted and bruised but she’s alive.
He doesn’t know if she’s ever been more beautiful. She doesn’t seem to realize that Nik’s froze like as statue as she runs across the room to get to him. She takes Mickey’s face in both hands. “It’s okay” she says and his knees buckle. Nik reaches for him, the automatic desire to provide comfort that he’s used so many times in the past. Mickey start’s whispering the apologies and Nik freezes. Ella’s running her hands through his hair, like she did the day he came out, like she did when he thought he was going to die in a hostage taking. She’s there and she’s so real and Mickey can’t even breathe. She’s murmuring to him too “I’m here, I’m alright” she repeats it and Mickey feels her heart beat against his skin.
“I thought I killed you,” he confesses. Across the room Anna opens her mouth to argue, Parker, and when the fuck did Parker get here? Parker looks wretched and Nik looks like he’s going to cry. His boyfriend is reaching for him and while he doesn’t yet understand Nik’s role in all this and he’s pretty sure Nik doesn’t know his, he’s glad that his boyfriend is the sort who’d still try to comfort him after that confession.
Ella starts to giggle. That’s a new one on him. He’s seen her laughing, he’s seen her smiling, crying even. He’s never heard Ella Badeau giggle. “As if you could ever manage it, I’m so out of your league” she teases and that’s the Ella Badeau who was his hero. That’s the woman he’d die for. He gives a relieved laugh and tries to pull away. Ella drags him to the couch and settles them where she can see the door and still stroke his hair.
His cousin is talking to Parker as if they’ve met before. Mickey’s still whispering apologies and Ella’s still accepting them without hesitation. Nik is standing in the kitchen, chatting away on the phone. But Mickey can sense the tension rolling off him. Who is Nikolas Young? And Mickey honestly wants to kill the jealous part of his brain that demands to know who Nik’s on the phone to.
Maybe it’s his brother Alexander. Alexander? Oh shit. Alexander Brenin is Nikolas’s younger brother. Oh fucking shit. This is going to start an international war between Ella and Alex.
He’s just realized this when Alex himself arrives. He looks quite surprised to see Mickey and Anna there. Anna looks much less surprised though, he’s piecing together just how well his cousins know Parker and Alex at this point. Ros and Luke follow Alex through the door and Mickey has clearly lost the capability for surprise at this point.
He slinks away from the reunions to approach Nik in the kitchen. “Can I help?” Nik glares at him in response and maybe he deserves it. “I’m sorry.” He confesses honestly “I didn’t know you were that Nikolas”
“So you know my brother?” If Nik stirs any harder they’re all going to lose their dinner.
“I’m his quartermaster”
Nik puts the spoon down. “Jones?” Clearly he’s in the same situation Mickey’s in, too many names and now too few people attached to them. “Mickey Jones. Why the fuck didn’t I think of it?”
“I’m sorry I never told you I worked at the CIA. I was trying to protect you” he steps closer, he really needs to know that they can survive this. Nik is best part of his life and Mickey really doesn’t want to lose him. He also doesn’t want to know what kind of fight would break out if Ella tried to defend his honour this time.
“I understand” Nik says and Mickey wonders if it’s just one of those generic things people say. He bumps their hips together as he reaches for the plates. Mickey grins wide and bright, and Nik returns it. There’s still home. “There you go handsome!” he says as he passes the plate and Mickey sees Anna’s choked laugh.
“I take it if I hear any of this you’ll have to kill me, so I’m leaving.” Nik announces when everyone is fed. “Alex make sure she doesn’t damage those ribs” Several people chastise Ella for not telling them but Mickey’s watching Nik. “Ella darling, make sure you eat.” His eyes come to rest on Mickey like he’s asking permission to address him here. These are his colleagues and his family, they’ll find out eventually he gives a subtle nod. “Parker” he drops a wink at Mickey that everyone else interprets as addressed to the agent beside him. “Call me!” Nik’s eyes don’t leave Mickey’s. He nods again.
Can I stay with you tonight? He texts Nik under the table.
Of fucking course you idiot is the response he receives. Yeah they’re going to be alright.
May-be it’s the End (Spies Epilogue)
Here ends the story
This is the way a verse ends, not with a whimper but with a wedding
May-be it’s a fairytale (Day Five)*
Robin Hood AU? I have feelings about this legend, and those fucking dickheads that England had for kings.
May-be it's a fairytale (Day Four)
So i know it isn’t May anymore, but I’m sorry on the night I was meant to post this I had a little meltdown and after that thinking about writing was very stressful.
May-be it’s a fairytale (Day Three)
Again short scene, because I just wanted them happy
May-be it’s a fairytale (Day Two)
Sorry it’s a short scene again, I had a hard time coming up with inspiration for Ella as Snow White
May-be it’s a fairytale (Day One)
Here we go again. Ummmm have you seen Syfy’s Alice? (Go watch it it’s all on YouTube) this is basically an abbreviated version of that. It’s kind of just a scene though sorry
I’m in love with a fairytale even though it hurts
May-be it’s not my universe (Day Five)
This one requires knowledge of the 1986 movie Labyrinth staring David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly.
May-be it’s not my universe (Day Four)
Mutants?
May-be it’s not my universe (Day Three)*
Sorry (Kelly was mean to me)
May-be it’s not my universe (Day Two)
I heard y’all like Pacific Rim so yeah this happened
May-be it’s not my universe (Day One)
Can you say Hogwarts AU?
May-be it’s in the real world (Day Five)
Hello there