Chapter Text
“So, how was it again that you said you’d met?” Evie pours the first cups of tea between the two of you.
“I didn’t.” You reply, staring out the train’s window at an impressively busy station.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I didn’t say how we’d met,” you repeat. It’s not a story you’ve told anyone yet. Though, you suppose his sister would be the first to hear it.
“Ah, my mistake. Indulge me though, won’t you?” She leans back into her armchair and gets cozy, sipping gently, silently.
You grasp your own cup and think a moment. “Where even to begin?”
-✩-
The official first time you met the Frye twins had been under the usual circumstances. Evie had made polite introductions while stating that Henry Green had recommended your shop for clothing of “special” qualities. Henry, and what few Assassins would dare come to London, were tentatively welcome in your shop for their needs as long as trouble didn’t follow. The money was simply too good to turn down.
And the way she had tried to drop hints without outright saying that she and her brother were Assassins was almost cute. Almost.
But through her introduction, that name was oddly familiar… You’d definitely heard it somewhere and it rang with unpleasant sensations from head to toe.
Frye.
It wasn't until you caught sight of Jacob entering your shop just after his sister, stopping in his tracks and staring wide-eyed for a moment before that easy-going smirk found his lips that you remembered exactly who he was.
“Ah, so this is where you come to hide, blue shoes? Good to know.”
Ugh, that name again.
Embarrassed fury roils inside you at him being in close quarters again. At recalling his face, his voice, and that same smile that’d been pressed so close to you before.
Yes, each part of him was unbearably familiar due to the unofficial first time you had met Jacob Frye.
And those circumstances had been most unpleasant.
-✩-
“Jacob, please, listen.”
“I am, Freddie, I am. But let’s have it once more from the top.” He gives his Sergeant friend a warm smile.
The ever-busy officer huffs a breath and begins. “The culprit we’re after is a young woman, average height and build, but beyond that we're not sure. Some reports say she's blonde. Others, brunette. But what we do know is that she —”
“Freddie," the Assasin interrupts. "Is that really the best you've got?"
The Sergeant stares to the side for a moment before giving a short shrug.
“You realize you’ve just described a third of London.”
“Yes, I know, we have scant details. But that’s just it! This woman can’t be caught! No one gets a good look at her, where she goes, or what her transport is.”
Jacob rolls his eyes dramatically. “Then how do you expe—”
“But,” Frederick interrupts, voice hushing low. “We do have one vital clue.”
“Well, don’t hold me in suspense, Freddie.”
“She always wears…" The officer leans in close, as though dropping the secret of the century."A pair of blue shoes.”
“Blue shoes?” Jacob asks disbelievingly. “With a blue shoe beacon, you’d think your officers would be able to follow.”
Before Frederick can respond to the almost-personal jab, Jacob is on his feet and pulling up his hood.
“Nothing to worry about, Freddie. I’ll catch your elusive… what is she wanted for, again?”
Frederick clears his throat, swallows hard. “Ah, erm… Dismemberment of male appendages.”
“Christ, Freddie.” Jacob flinches, subconsciously placing a protective hand near his crotch. "Has the station even been reporting this?"
“We're trying to keep this low profile, Jacob. It’s—it’s not good. Each of her victims are too shocked from blood loss, pain, and... well, shock to recall details. What’s more frightening is that… she drops them off at the hospital after sewing them back up. She's not out to kill, Jacob. She's out to torture.”
“She doesn’t happen to go after dashingly handsome Assassins, does she?”
“Think you’d be more than a match for her — Assassin prowess and all. But she does have a pattern here. Her victims all have previous records of being sex offenders. But even with that, we can’t track her.”
Jacob shudders in his coat, steeling himself through the unpleasant shiver in his bones. “Right. Young lady. Sneaky. Blue shoes. Should be easy enough. Wish me luck, Freddie.”
“Good luck, Jacob. And remember, better to come back with blue balls than none at all.”
Jacob scoffs. “Terrible, Freddie. Really, just awful.”
-✩-
For the most part, the market has been uneventful. Boring, even. Everything is either overpriced or such poor quality that you needn't bother getting out of bed for the trip. But you’ve a profit to make and, in order to do that, you need supplies.
Just as you’re turning away to try another shop in this busy district, you hear a soft ruffle of clothing and feel your arm snatched up and wrenched tightly behind your back.
“Ow! Ow, ow ow!” You raise yourself to the tips of your toes to keep your shoulder from popping out of its socket. “Augh, stop that!”
“Do be quiet. No need to make a fuss.” You hear the words, raspy and low and eerily calm in your ear as the grip loosens just enough to take the edge off.
A chilled shiver licks up your spine and you’re given no time to recover — the figure behind you pushes you to walking in a direction he chooses. His firm grip on your arm, though, has you wincing as you walk.
“Gah, that hurts! What do you want?”
“I want you to hush now. Please.” He replies softly, uninterested in your protests, but keeping a painful grip to keep you quiet and compliant.
There’d been rumors in about venturing too far into the market district. Rumors you’d heard but refused to believe. Tales that people could be carted off to a terrible fate with no one to notice, no one to care even in a square this large and busy.
Now, you’re beginning to rethink those rumors. And you’ve no intention of fading into one.
You still your footsteps and your would-be captor bumps into your back just as you start to pull your arm in his grasp. The hand on your wrist twists to an angle painful enough to have you cry out, momentarily attracting attention the man behind you would rather avoid.
“I suggest you stop struggling.” He hisses low, easing some of his hold.
“I only struggled because you’re hurting me!” You hiss back.
You feel the hand tense, ready to twist again and you brace for it, clenching your eyes.
But the pain doesn’t come.
“Fair point,” he says. “But you hardly have the right to complain when you inflict pain on others.”
“I — what did I do?! I was just shopping!”
“Shopping for more instruments of torture. We're onto your little schemes. And you'll be paying for your crimes soon enough.” Jacob punctuates the end of his sentence with another shudder, still a bit shaken at recalling the information he'd been told.
“What the hell are you on about? Are you insane?” You ask, attempting to look over your shoulder to at least see the man who is potentially leading you to your end. He turns your head forward brusquely and keeps you moving.
You are dead, oh-so-dead. This crazed man is going to cart you off somewhere and kill you. Probably eat your corpse, too. He certainly could be a cannibal — not that you've ever seen or know what one looks like. But with trepidation and fear rising in your stomach in equal parts, you barely notice him steering you toward the street.
“Playing dumb to save your skin? Cute, blue shoes, but it won’t save you. Bit of a pity — I expected more.” The two of you cross the street with your silently pleading stares attracting no one's attention. “Ah, there’s our ride now.”
"What do my damned shoes have to do with anything?!" Horrified, you look up, expecting to see a cab full of his cannibal friends with hungry looks and scowls. Instead, it’s just a normal cab. No cannibals (that you can see) and nothing out of the ordinary.
Your captor opens the cab door with a gloved hand and roughly shoves you inside.
“Sit tight, we’ll have you at your new home soon.” He says as he swiftly climbs onto the cab to take the reins. There’s barely time to right yourself up from the floor before you’re thrown back against the seat as the horse whinnies and speeds off.
“Y-you’re a crazed man!” You call from the shaking floor of the carriage, still trying to get up.
“I'm the crazy one? Rich coming from a lady who cuts off balls for entertainment. You should stay down and stay quiet unless you want a bumpy ride to jail?”
“Bumpier than this already is?!” You call out, your voice punctuated by stutters and vibrations that almost have you biting your tongue. Finally, you latch onto the inner cab door handle and pull yourself up to sit. “You’re crazy and you drive like shit!”
He tsks his tongue loudly and you look up, catching his gaze through the viewing window. “Should have stayed on the floor.”
“What are you —” Your body gets thrown forward as the cab comes to a horseshoe-skidding halt, the unimpressed whinnies of the horse overshadow your own pained groans.
“Aw, I’m sorry about that, love.”
“You damn well know you’re not!”
“Not you,” He starts, clicking his tongue and reins before speeding off again. “I’m sorry to scare you like that, sweet thing. Who’s a good horsie? You are.”
Unbelievable.
Here you are, prone on the floor of the cab, nursing your pained body and he’s more concerned about the damn horse.
You’ll have to think quickly to get out of this — out of the hands of this madman. There are places to be, things to do, and goals yet completed. Death at the hands of this fool is not an option.
Unfortunately, the opportunity to jump out has come and gone. There’s no way you wouldn’t get yourself severely injured or even killed trying to flee at this galloping speed. The only other option may be to simply wait.
He’s a strong man — to that you’ve already seen. He’s a good head taller than you as well from the way his breath his your ear. And that means chances are he’s heavier than you, too.
Great.
You rest your head against the floor of the cab. He’s got the strength, weight, and height advantage over you... but there may be something you can do.
Some five or so minutes come and go with that man blathering on honeyed words of encouragement to his horse. You, however, elect to spend them in silence to cement your plan. There will only be one chance at this and you can’t mess this up. He's big, strong, tall, and probably damned fast. But he's seems overconfident. You can work with that.
“Ah, there you are, Freddie!" You can practically hear your captor's smile as he speaks with his accomplice. "You won’t believe the catch of the day.”
“M-Mr. Frye!" Frederick hops down from his own prisoner cab, eagerly awaiting the opposite cab to come to a stop. "Found her already, have you? I knew I could count on you.”
Those words chill your blood cold. They were targeting you?
Where fear remained content to bubble, it now roils into something far more energized. Far more furious. If these sods want a piece of you, whether to fight or to eat, they wouldn’t be getting it.
You take your place in the cab, coiled low and ready to strike.
“Yes, I’d say don’t give your boys a raise anytime soon, Freddie. This one wasn’t exactly hard.”
“Excellent to hear, Mr. Frye. But, please, allow us to take it from here.”
That second voice sounds almost familiar, but in your heated state of panic and rage, you’re willing to ignore it to make one last attempt at freedom. You wait for it. Just a bit longer...
Bootsteps approaching on loose rock and soil.
That man’s voice coming ever closer.
The squeaking of a handle and loosening of a latch.
“All right, now, miss. You’d best come quietly or —”
The instant the door begins to swing open, you kick out with both feet hard. Prone on your back and grasping the seats for leverage adds enough explosive force that whoever was on the other side of the door hits the ground with a hard thud and groan.
You have to move. Now!
The first step out of the cabin is the shakiest. The second has you steadied and balanced, ready to run. It’s the third that you feel an arm snaking about your waist, lightning quick, hoisting you off the ground and into the air. With the ringing of metal on metal in your ears as a concealed blade snaps out close to your neck.
“Steady now,” your captor warns.
An Assassin? Just perfect...
You’d had vague suspicions before, but with there being so scant few in all of London you’d never imagined one to be here after you. Quite the opposite, in fact. It’s a wonder the man isn’t a Templar.
“W-wait, Jacob!” Comes a coughing, breathless voice. “That’s — that’s not her.”
Just a moment, you do recognize that voice. Hidden blade or not, you crane your head to see who’s speaking.
Poor Frederick pulls himself up out of the dust, apparently your kick had been a powerful one. He coughs off some dust and debris and shuts the cabin door to bring himself into full view. He looks a mess, and as much as you’d like to praise yourself for downing an officer with a single kick, you’re still stuck in the arms of Frederick’s hired Assassin and the blade he wields.
“You’re sure, Freddie? She’s got blue shoes and everyth—”
“I’m sure, Mr. Frye! Please, put her down this instant!”
He does so, retracting his blade, and dropping you to your feet unceremoniously. There’s a moment spent between the two of you — you and this Jacob Frye — where you eye him with cautious rage before you turn your attention back to Frederick.
Frederick Abberline.
Sergeant of Metropolitan Police within London.
The man with whom you had personally drafted a contract for the creation, repair, and sale of police uniforms at an incredibly low price. Simply because he was a good man trying to do good in the world.
And now here he is, acting out in suspicious ways unbecoming of an officer. Hiring an Assassin to do his work for him. Poorly, at that.
You march up to him and he removes his hat, looking every bit apologetic. It doesn’t save him from a swift hit to the shoulder.
“Frederick! I can’t believe you!” You shout in disbelief, pounding his shoulder once more. And several times more to punctuate your sentence. “Frederick! Abberline! Did you hire this — this goon to kidnap me?!”
“I-If you’d just give me a moment to — it’s not quite how it — please, a thousand pardons, I simply —” The poor man can barely get in a word from your half-thrown, but quite enraged hits.
“Looks to be a case of mistaken identity, ma'am. No need to murder the Sergeant.” The voice of your would-be cannibal, would-be captor, would-be errand boy of Frederick’s speaks.
“YOU.” You turn to him just as he raises his hands in mock surrender. “You — you don’t talk to me, don’t touch to me, don’t even look at me!”
He chuckles softly and nods. “Yes, ma’am.”
It’s that look on his face, that smile on his lips and quirk of his brow, that screams he is a man who gets away with much more than he should. He’s confident, bordering on arrogant. And you narrow your gaze at him.
He narrows his gaze in return, canting his head just slightly. “Anything else, ma’am?”
If he’s waiting for a reply, you don’t give him one. Instead, you turn your attention back to Frederick and allow him a moment to explain. He explains the culprit they seek and the condition of her victims. It's a frightfully nasty topic about a vicious woman, for sure.
But it's not you. Definitely, not you.
Though, there is something about watching Frederick tiptoe around the topic of Jacob, often times referring to the Assassin as a “specialist” instead of what he truly is. Surely, Frederick would know the looks, talents, and missions of Assassins. But he seems content to have you excluded for the informative loop you've been within all along. And you play the unwitting commoner as he finishes his explanation.
“Shoes." You say plainly, glancing at your feet. "This whole ordeal started over shoes?”
“Y—yes, ma’am.” Frederick’s hands are starting to turn rubbed shades of red from wringing the rim of his hat so much. Poor man looks ready to turn over in his grave.
“That's unfortunate, Frede — Mr. Abberline,” you start, trying to cool some of your annoyance. “But I trust that this won’t be happening again?”
“No, ma’am.” This is what the Sergeant has been reduced to — yes ma’ams and no ma’ams.
“Good. Then have your errand boy escort me back to the square. Without the theatrics and threats this time, if you please.” There’s still work to be done and orders to fill. Your schedule was already looking full without this colossal delay.
And, with some gentle pleading from Frederick, Jacob climbs onto the cab. Frederick helps you inside and speaks through the door-side window.
“I-I trust this won’t hurt our current relations? The department is very fond of the uniforms your shop makes, ma’am.”
“No, Mr. Abberline. None of the services provided to you will be any less than they've always been.” You offer the nervous man a gentle smile that soon fades with your next warning. “But I caution you to be wary of who you hire, Sergeant.”
If he has a reply, you don’t hear it. Jacob and his favored horse set the cab in motion and head back to the market square. It’s a short ride, blessedly smooth, and almost pleasant as you have time (and silence) to think.
An Assassin you haven’t yet heard about is in London?
Normally, Henry gives you you notification of these things — makes it much easier to prep your workload for additional Assassin clothes to be made. After all, any Assassin who stops through usually visits Green in his shop for valuable information he can provide and Henry usually tosses about a recommendation to see you.
But perhaps this man is unexpected company even to Henry? Or an Assassin unable to make ends meet who hires himself out for odd jobs?
No, that can’t be right.
But if he’s not Green’s guest and not here for services… Why is he here at all? Working with police to clean up the streets of London...
A flash of a idea crosses your mind, gracing your lips thoughtful smirk. Perhaps the city will be seeing a new field agent after going without Assassin care for so long.
With a nickering snort, the cabin comes to a halt and bounces softly as Jacob hops down. He approaches the door handle, but you swiftly opt to let yourself out. The both of you nearly bump into each other as the door swings open and you exit. There are no pardons or apologies or even a quip from him, though.
He does, however, place a hand over his eyes and grins.
You furrow your brow and call over the roar of sellers and buyers in the market nearby. “What are you doing?”
“You don’t recall, ma’am? You asked me not to talk to you, touch you, or even look at you.” He peeks out from under his hand playfully, making sure you catch his vision before he covers his sight again. "Ma'am."
Great, a playful Assassin. A sighing groan escapes your chest as you close the door.
“While you do that, please send word to Frederick to keep an eye out for the shops that sell dyed shoes or dyes. Blue shoes won’t last long in this city and will need to be meticulously cleaned or colored again.”
You should know. These shoes are rarely taken out of the closet save for days you want to impress, but since that opportunity has been blown away…
“And the reason you didn’t tell him yourself?” He asks behind his closed-off vision. Even with his hand partially blocking, you can make out that scarred brow raising quizzically. “You seem to know each other just fine.”
“You’re his errand boy, aren’t you?” You note the smile fading from his lips. “Do as you’re told, Mr. Frye.”
His lips part as you begin to walk away, no doubt ready to blast back with a clever retort.
“Ah, and do say hello to Mr. Green for me, won’t you? Tell him he’s welcome by any time.”
That gets his attention. The playful hand drops and the look of concentration on his face is apparent. His secret is exposed and he looks about, trying to track your movements in the bustling crowds. He won’t find you, though. Not until later. Much, much later.
When he and his sister waltz into your shop with requests of their own.
-✩-
“You kicked poor Frederick?” Evie strains the word, trying to hide her amusement behind the rim of her teacup.
“Wha — I thought I was going to be murdered and chopped up and eaten, Evie!”
There’s a burst of giggles between the two of you, with your teacups held out to keep from spilling. And before Evie can reply, a familiar voice carries in from the window you’d been staring out of not long ago.
“To be fair,” Jacob says, leaning in on the windowsill with his chin resting on an upturned palm. “I have done at least one of those things to you.” He raises his arms to lift and pull himself into the opening feet first as though he’d done it a thousand times prior.
His sister scoffs, reaching for her drink. “And just how long have you felt the need to eavesdrop, you sneak?”
“Right around the very beginning.” He strides across the train car and makes himself comfortable on the couch beside you, wrapping his arm around your shoulder. A bit too comfortable given his sister is sitting a few feet away. “I’ve told Agnes we’re ready to go. And your darling Greenie is in the next car waiting for you to go over some documents.”
“Yes, I know. We were waiting for you before we left,” she points out and places down her cup. “Thank you for the story, though. It’s always… amusing seeing my dear brother in someone else’s eyes.”
“Pleasure’s mine, Evie.” You say back to her as she exits the car to join her much-preferred company. Jacob’s gaze follows his sister out before resting back on you.
“Did you have to tell her the whole story?” He shifts around you, turning you to lie against him more than sitting beside him.
It’s a comforting gesture that you don’t mind. Ever since those first few nights spent together, he’s been showing a more affectionate side of himself. And finding yourself laying here with him, your head in his lap with one of his hands rubbing slow circles in your hair while the other remains content to lie across your stomach, you breathe out soft relief.
“I’ve nothing to hide from Evie." You tilt your head against his lap and catch his gaze. "We’ve come a long way, wouldn’t you say?”
“Mmmn,” comes a contented purr of a reply. “I sound so brash and reckless when you tell it, though.”
“You are brash and reckless,” your response earns you a gentle pinch of your nose closed, distorting your voice. “Ah, excuse me, I meant to say you are a clever and capable man, both in and out of bed.”
That’s the ticket. Your nose is released and he leans forward to meet you halfway for a chuckling kiss. “That’s more like it.”