Work Text:
The air is frigid – as night air usually is, tempered by the tease of spring in the throngs of final winter, starlight clinging onto wisps of clouds in shy glimmers, the moon waxing poetic in its lonesome, peering through windows and curtains. The wind is still, quiet, but within, in the hearth where her body is a furnace, manufactured air laps through the blades of a fan that sputters itself through life. Its modified body is mangled, molded into something that it is not, a timer attached somewhere, in the glide of its neck, and a whip connected to a mechanism that functions as some sort of ticking time bomb. A recipe for chaos – that’s what she said when the leather hit her on the sole of her feet on a Wednesday when the rain was pattering gently outside his windows, and six in the morning boasted something gruesome and grey.
The alarm, the time bomb, this recipe, this maneggiare of chaos, however, is not the trill that rouses him from the furnace of her skin, and arms that wrapped around him like a vise. It shakes the apartment awake – an annoying thing that reverberates from one ear to another, that makes itself known like a sore thumb sticking in the midst of a crowd. He huffs – a quiet profanity, a prayer, something as he burrows himself further into the sheets, despondent about sleep that is now fleeting, irritation crawling on his skin like spiders. She shifts, like the tide, quiet at first and unrelenting before she crests and springs up, surfacing, a chagrin she buries in the way she poises her expression – ever the neutral minx.
Franky feels her arms withdraw, a shameful thing as the phone continues to trill, as it continues to demand – answer me, answer me, answer me. He opens one eye open, her lilac hair a short waterfall flowing shy above her shoulders, tousled, sticking to her cheek in wayward tendrils, leaving one eye for the beholder. He peers at her – a deer in the headlights, though the fawn is squandered so quickly by frustration he feels through the tips of his fingers. He gives the clock a glance – two in the morning.
“You should get that,” she mumbles, sleep addled, but alert, thighs peering from the duvet they shared, taut, glimmering under the slant of moonlight and he thinks, how did he get so damn lucky?
He grumbles something, and then he is moving, swaying his hips, tossing his leg off the side of the bed. “Probably just Twilight asking to babysit,” he says, hopes not as he walks towards the desk and relieves the phone from its unending shrill. “Hello? It’s two in the goddamn morning.”
He hears an intake of breath, and imagines the other running his fingers through his blond hair. Franky frowns – deeper. “I know, I know. I will make this quick,” Twilight sounds just as harrowed as he does, and somewhere, in the background there is sniffling – Franky’s fully awake now.
“What’s going on?” He asks, his tone measured, making note of Yor’s sobs in the background and the sternness in Twilight’s tone – has something happened to Anya? Fiona throws him an inquiring look, and Franky turns partially to shrug his shoulders.
He hears Twilight sigh once again, and then there is rustling and – Yor, it’s okay, it’s okay; I’m handling it, darling, okay? Okay? “Do you know where I can buy pickles at this time of the night that has been fermented for at least, I don’t know,” he pauses, and Franky hears Yor sniffle – ten months, darling – and then, “ten months?”
Franky blinks – perplexed, then indignant. “Dude, what the fuck,” he says through to his teeth, and Fiona furrows her brows. “It’s two in the fucking morning and you’re asking me this?” It’s rhetoric, expressive, and he hears another bout of crying.
He hears Twilight’s footfalls, and Franky knows he is balancing his weight, juggling it from one foot to another. “Come on, man – I’m serious.”
Franky presses the heel of his hand in his throbbing eyes, exhales loudly, and then, “what the fuck are you cooking?”
“I’m not cooking anything – come on now,” a curse escapes Twilight’s lips, and then he is stepping away from the phone. Franky hears him soothe Yor, and he knows – oh how he fucking knows what the hell is going on here.
“There’s a place,” he relents, and there’s a shit-eating grin on his face, stretching from one corner to the other. Fiona throws him a quizzical look, and he shakes his head and mouths a promise for later. “Are you writing this down? There’s a place close to your apartment – it’s a bit shady, considering no one cooks or buys anything at two in the morning. It’s Sal’s down by the second avenue.”
“Okay, okay,” Twilight replies, and there is actual gratitude in his tone apart from panic. Somewhere, another whisper comes through, and Franky hears Twilight again step away from the phone. “Do you think they also have cherries?”
Franky pauses, rubs the palm of his hand on his mouth, his frown deepening further. “Seriously man, what the hell are you cooking?”
“I’m not cooking anything – just come on, it’s – it’s,” – say the line, Agent Twilight – “For the mission.” Like a well-oiled machine – this dumbass.
Franky shakes his head, just as Fiona rises to sit closer to him. He momentarily distracts himself with the shimmer of her legs, letting the weight of his shoulders roll off. She catches on and playfully nudges his knee. “Of course, it is.” He exhales, pinches the bridge of his nose. “They have cherries.”
“Great! Great! Thanks,” and then the line is dead, the dial tone a haunting thing that he saves himself from hearing further as he slams the receiver. He then runs his hands over his face knowing that sleep will now evade him.
And he was having a great dream, too.
Fiona tilts her head to the side, then places a hand on his forearm. “What was that about?”
“Man called about pickles and cherries – said it was for the mission,” he grumbles, leaning into her touch. “For the mission, my ass.”
The next times they happen, they are no longer phone calls. They become tasks – jarring tasks that feel like grocery lists thrown haphazardly, on an odd and unending whim. He has collected lists of them, stacks of papers – written in crayon, on a torn sheet of paper with a drying pen’s ink, scribbled on a prescription pad in hurried cursive using a pencil with dying led, and then in morse code on a radio he intercepted.
It has become a problem – this grocery list of his that made no sense, no rhyme nor reason, forcing Franky out of his cigarette stand too many times than he can count. It expounded from ingredients to specific pastries, then to odd meals that are unheard of, but actually exist, then came poisons or mild ones at that, and every time he dared ask, Twilight would deflect. For the mission, he would say, looking neutral, so shameless, so goddamn smug.
He wanted to ask, wanted to complain, but Twilight is as quick as his name is, and he does not linger for too long to get anything out of him. He is always on a roll – a side mission, he reasons, and then that Yor would not want him to linger for too long, so long (never mind it is a fake marriage, and she is his fake wife) or that she is expecting to be picked up at City Hall. He has an inkling about it, a guess that he has only ran through with himself, and he wants to put his money on it, he does, but couldn’t – there wasn’t much evidence apart from these field trips he has been taking.
“Why does your Papa keep asking me to buy these things? What are you asking him, huh, you little gremlin?” He asks the bright eyed, pink haired little lady beside him, who has been crouched on the coffee table, drawing her heart out.
Franky peers over her shoulder to see, but she moves so quickly as though she had read his mind. Huh, it’s not like he could make out anything with the boxes she has drawn.
“Don’t be mean, Unkie Scruffy,” she says, her emeralds eyes boring into his, that smirk on her face that is always so unnerving. “Am not askin’ him anythin’.”
“Then why does he keep asking me to buy all this stuff?” Franky presses on, decides to stretch his hand to ruffle her pink hair. She makes a face, and then she is giggling, which elicits laughter from him, too.
"Mi-shun,” she says, and then blinks as though she caught herself saying something she should not be. Huh. “Uh, I mean, he sends you in uh, mi-shuns like Bondman!”
And Franky does not want to buy it – not really, not when she said it so seriously, but he decides to let it go. He’s probably looking into it too much, so much. Anya rises from her seat and walks over to him, and then she is ruffling his hair, and patting it. “There, there,”
“Hey, I’m not upset, kid,” he says, but he makes no move to extricate her hand from his hair and just pouts. “I’m just wondering. I do get tired, you know.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” Twilight suddenly says as he and Yor emerge from the door, something so suspicious in the way that they are acting.
Franky squints his eyes at them, a question written in his irises as he takes note of the way they position themselves so closely towards one another, and how different Yor looks. It almost seems like there is a halo around her, he thinks. He watches them, watches Twilight place his hand on her hip, but not before minutely, and affectionately brushing her stomach. The movement is so small, that he knows, the gesture will be missed by a normal eye, but he catches it nonetheless. There is something different there, and he knows, oh how he knows how this is related to his little trips.
Anya fixes him a look, tilts her head and then she is pushing him to stand up. “Hey, what gives?”
“Time for Unkie Scruffy to go home – bye bye,” she says, sing song, hands pulling at his sleeves before Bond comes along to help her in this little feat.
“I looked after you all day and this is the thanks I get?” He complains, but he is rising to his full height nonetheless. He supposes he can go home and see if Fiona is free, but still, it hurts. “You’re just like your father.”
“Anya is thankful, but Anya wants her Mama and Papa now,” she replies, pushes at his legs until he is by the door. There’s a secret there, he knows, something they are keeping from him. “Goodbye, Unkie Scruffy.”
“Wait, hold on,” he says, misses the panicked look Anya throws her mother before running to her side. “Your Papa still has to pay me,” he grumbles, gestures his palm up that Twilight frowns at.
“It’s just money to you, isn’t it?” Twilight asks, feigned disgust as he places a wad of cash on his hand that he decides to count immediately. Not out of lack of trust, but out of habit, and also to unnerve Twilight. “Did you get what I asked you to buy?”
Franky does not spare him a glance, mentally counting how many he can save up for a date with Fiona tonight. He still has to make up for waking her up at two in the morning in several separate occasions, courtesy of Twilight. He purses his lips, then tilts his head to the side to gesture at the refrigerator. “It’s in there,” he finally replies, cutting the wad in half – one for date night, the other for this project he is working on.
Twilight nods, following his line of sight before glancing at Yor with a softened expression. “Great; thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Franky states as he moves to make an exit, half his body already out then pauses. “But seriously, man, what the hell are you cooking?”
“Goodbye, Franky.” The door is shut, and – tch, underappreciated again.
He hauls the sack of yams, followed by jars of pickled garlic on the cigarette stand with an unreadable expression, the scent taking him out as he shuffles farther where he can. Twilight stands expectantly behind the stand, his face not giving away anything as he scrutinizes everything before him as though he is checking something on an imaginary list. Franky studies him – sees the shadow underneath the blue of his eyes, the creases on the corners of his lips, the furrow on his brows, and the tautness of his shoulders. There is something there, he knows, and he has an inkling it is related to this unusual grocery list he throws at him every single day.
“Is this whole thing for an odd project that Anya has at Eden?” Franky decides to ask when Twilight’s silence becomes unnerving, when it seems like he is about to send him to another trip outside of Berlint to – he doesn’t know – buy watermelons that are a month away from ripening at some farmland – whatever idiotic field trip he comes up with.
“No,” Twilight simply replies as he takes the jar of pickled garlic in his hands, studies the script written underneath it – probably the manufactured and best before dates. “This is wrong. I told you the ones that were manufactured in March, and then expiring next year, specifically.” He scolds, and Franky feels like a child admonished.
Franky flusters then frowns, eyes wide as he slams his fist against the stand and rattles his abandoned mug of coffee. The caffeine splashes on one of the newspapers he had been reading, a brown blot settling on Joanna’s face – Fiona would appreciate that. “I’m an informant not your shopping boy, and I could not find what you asked for – they said those don’t exist.”
“They do,” Twilight laments, cards his fingers through his hair as he paces. The sun hits his face, and the sunshine highlights the lines marring his expression and a new scar on his hairline – in this light, Twilight looks decades older than he is. What the hell happened to this man?
“They don’t,” he says, tone monotonous and firm as he grabs one bottle and inspects the date himself. “What’s the matter with these ones? It’s not like the dates make a difference – they are still edible, I think; well, not to a vampire.” He purses his lips, then makes a face – a vampire, and him then.
Twilight’s jaw ticks as he places the jar back with a jostle. The cigarette stand creaks, and Franky’s frown deepens. “There is a difference,” he says, and then he is pacing again and again and again. It’s driving Franky insane. “What the hell am I going to do with a dozen bottles of pickled garlic with the wrong dates? Yor’s not going to eat these and I – “
“ – Yor’s pregnant, isn’t she?”
Twilight sputters – like a car that has forgotten how to start, an engine barely having enough fuel to operate – and then he is looking at Franky with eyes as wide as saucers, panic in his face. It’s comical, really. Franky watches his comrade run his fingers through his hair then pace again, and again, and again.
“Stop pacing, Papa,” he quips, and the look Twilight gives him is withering.
Twilight tugs at his hair, then whispers a profanity under his breath. “She is. It’s for the mission. Anya asked for a sibling – “
“ – Oh, cut the crap, what the hell.” Franky waves him away, almost slams the jar against Twilight’s head if only it wasn’t a bad idea.
“Okay, fine,” Twilight concedes, presses his palms against the stand, and Franky pities him really, but he is also happy. “We decided to have another kid.”
“You are aware that after Strix, you are bound to leave them, right?” He says with the tilt of his head, and there’s that sadness, too.
Twilight looks back at him, then somewhere, anywhere before he is facing Franky again with a soft smile on his face. “I get to keep them. I asked Handler.”
Huh – well, that’s a development, Franky thinks, placing his hand under his chin. “Congratulations then?” He echoes, and he means it, he really does; he has known Twilight for so long that he wishes, that Roland, that little boy before his many identities gets to have something permanent, something he can hold dear. “What happened to your forehead then? Is that something Yor did when you could not get her what she wanted?”
Twilight shakes his head then sighs again. There’s genuine happiness there, and also mirth – he looks human. “One of Yor’s colleagues attacked me when he heard.”
“Christ, I didn’t know City Hall has very violent and obsessive freaks,” he whistles, and Twilight is shaking his head again.
“No,” Twilight waves his hand, then leans in as though to unveil the truth clandestinely. “Her co-workers from the Garden.”
“The Garden,” he pauses, and then – “You’re fucking with me.”
“I’m not,” he raises both hands, but maintains the distance. “She is Thorn Princess.”
“You are telling me that you got the Garden’s top assassin knocked up, and out of commission?”
“Sylvia asked the same thing,” Twilight says, and Franky searches his face for any hint of a jest and finds nothing but sincerity – well then.
“Unbelievable,” Franky shakes his head, curses underneath his breath. “Completely unbelievable – Yor’s an assassin, and you got her pregnant, and she allowed you.”
Twilight blinks at him, squints his eyes. “What the hell does that mean?”
Franky gestures to him from head and to toe with an unimpressed expression. “Well, you’re you.” Twilight rolls his eyes, and Franky snickers as thumbs one jar. “Hm, I guess it explains the weird shit you are asking me to buy – you still have to pay for these though, Papa bear.”
“Oh, screw you,”
“Mm, that’s not very father of the year of you,” Franky chastises, and he knows, oh how he knows, there will be plenty more of lists he would have to carry on.
At least now, he would do so willingly.