Chapter Text
Lauren slid her mask up onto her forehead, watching in stunned silence as the medical team carried out a shrouded form on a stretcher. As they emerged from the warehouse, a hand dangled off the side, blood staining the top of the sheet near the figure’s head.
They’d done it. They had actually done it.
It wasn’t exactly how they had planned it, no. But the head of the snake had been cut off, one way or another.
Lauren nearly jumped out of her skin when Kym braced herself on her elbow, her expression just as haunted as Lauren’s. She hugged her arms to herself after a moment, chilled by more than simply the cold winter’s night.
“He’s dead,” Kym whispered, breath fogging in front of her. “The Leader is dead.” Her eyes flickered over to Will’s as he directed various officers to and fro. Her face was lit by waves of blue and red, and the wail of sirens filled the air as the warehouse transformed into a hive of activity. “I can’t believe Lune was actually able to find him.”
Lauren swallowed thickly, dimly aware of her various cuts and bruises from the evening’s events. She had initially infiltrated the warehouse with Kieran but had crept back out to rejoin her patrol unit when the moment was right in order to avoid suspicion. “I can’t believe it either,” she replied numbly, thinking of over two years’ worth of effort culminating in this evening’s events. She slid her mask back in place as Will strode over toward them.
“I’ll need you two at the south entrance to help process the other suspects involved,” Will told them over the sound of the barely controlled chaos around them. He ran a hand through his hair, and though he was the epitome of professionalism as always, Lauren could see the disturbed shadow ghosting over his features.
“Will,” Kym started, then corrected herself in light of their surroundings. “Lieutenant, he truly killed himself?” She released Lauren’s arm and clasped her hands behind her back in an effort to still their trembling.
Nodding shortly, Will looked out over the humming crowd of officers and emergency personnel that had flooded the scene. “Couldn’t face the prospect of prosecution, I suppose.”
Lauren nudged Kym lightly. “We should get to the south entrance, Kym.” Her feet shifted on the gravel below her, and she suppressed a wince at the bruise she knew must be blossoming on her shin by now.
Kym nodded and turned, sparing one last glance at Will as he reached out to squeeze her hand for the briefest of moments before returning to his own duties, his murmured word to her nearly drowned out by the sound of another siren signaling the arrival of additional personnel.
Lauren and Kym facilitated movement to and from the warehouse as dozens of Phantom Scythe members were detained and hauled away for questioning. Detective March and his team were also there, analyzing the scene at which the Leader was found dead by his own hand.
One of the detectives, Grace, brushed past Lauren in a flurry of activity, diving outside into the frosted air. “Grace?” Lauren asked. “What’s wrong?”
Grace’s dark ponytail whipped around her face as she turned and flashed a strained smile toward Lauren. “We just found a bunker with boxes and boxes of files. We have to get this information to the precinct. Who knows what we’ll find in there,” she answered, shaking her head slightly at the possibilities.
Good, they’d found it, Lauren thought. She and Kieran had purposefully cornered the Leader here at this site due to their intel that the largest group of what could be considered a concrete paper trail for the main PS operatives was held beneath the warehouse. This paperwork should include enough information to incarcerate the two suspected Apostles detained during the final part of their assault. The Apostles had largely already been taken care of, primarily due to vicious infighting rather than Lune’s intervention, and by the time they had cornered the Leader here, the only two not already incarcerated or dead were now in custody as well.
The night wore tiredly on, and when Lauren had concluded her duties, she was nearly bursting with impatience to leave and rendezvous with Kieran at the cave. Her shock had subsided and left her bereft, overwhelmed by the reality that the effort years in the making had finally been achieved. As soon as she heard Will say the words, “Get some rest, we have an early morning ahead of us,” Lauren tore off her mask and practically fled the scene with only a bemused Kym to note her hurried exit.
As she slapped her way rapidly through the trees, Lauren’s heart beat faster and faster in her chest as her emotions swung toward relief, toward the realization that they could both be free now. Adrenaline lent her strength despite her injuries and the lateness of the hour as she pressed forward.
With the sight of Kieran waiting for her, still in his dark clothing from their initial stealthy assault, all uncertainty vanished from her mind. His grin matched her own as her boots tapped across the stone floor toward him. Lauren burst into surprised laughter when he picked her up and swung her around once before quickly releasing her back down onto the floor.
“Sorry,” he apologized sheepishly, though the smile never left his face as he retreated away from her a few inches.
“It’s okay,” Lauren answered, still somewhat breathless as she regained her footing.
Kieran heaved a long sigh, rallying his composure. “Took you long enough,” he quipped after a moment, breaking the tension by turning toward the fire and sitting heavily onto a wooden chair. His cloak was already draped over the back of the chair, and he leaned back against it with a look of exhilaration still sweeping across his face.
“What did you expect? Think about all the Scythe members there we had to detain, not to mention the files from the bunker. It took awhile to get things under control,” Lauren replied as she strode over and sat across from him. The firelight danced across her features as she warmed her hands in front of it. “I just wish he hadn’t…”
Kieran grimaced. “I know. Let’s just say I was hoping to see him rot in prison for the next few decades.” He let out a deep breath, considering the sickening wastefulness of it all. He glanced toward his partner, expression worn but content as she stared into the fire blankly, and reassured himself that it had all been worth it. He could practically see the gears in her mind turning, considering all that needed to be done from here, but they both knew that their work was nearly complete.
His shoulder had been injured during the raid, and Kieran rubbed it absently as he considered the time. “We should stay here tonight. Too much activity out there, and it’s beyond late at this point.”
Lauren hummed in agreement, shucking off her jacket and placing it behind her. The two lingered in a subdued haze of elation for several minutes, each lost in their own musings about the culmination of all they had been striving to achieve.
At length, Lauren stood and stretched her arms carefully over her head, and Kieran could see a lurid bruise that had already bloomed on her side as her shirt rode up slightly. He felt the familiar flicker of something that arose when he spent too much time with his partner and pressed it down automatically.
Lauren crossed over and poured herself a glass of water, limbs suddenly feeling sluggish and heavy as the weight of the night crashed down onto her. Too sore for the wooden chair, she sat on the cot with her back to the wall it rested on, setting her glass on a small table at the foot of the bed. She slipped off her boots and drew her feet up to rest her arms over her tented knees, listening to the quiet crackling of the fire. The quiet of the cave after the cacophony of sound that had accompanied the rest of her night was a welcome respite.
“Not going to offer me any water?” Kieran asked with a teasing chuckle as he mirrored her actions and sat next to her on the cot, legs draped over the side as he leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.
He could hear the smirk in her voice as she answered, “Get it yourself, subordinate.” Lauren took a long sip of water, the cool liquid soothing her dry throat. She eyed Kieran out of the corner of her eye, bewildered about what to expect next. They had been so focused on reaching this point that they had never discussed or fully considered what happened after. They would still have some loose ends to tie up, of course, but what was in store for each of them when they had finished? Where could an ex-assassin go? Would he leave? This thought sent an inexplicable pang of fear throughout her chest.
Kieran peeked out from under his lashes, eyes opening a sliver as he noticed her gaze. “Your eyes are looking particularly pensive again, darling,” Kieran commented wryly as he gave her a sideways glance from where he rested his head against the cool stone.
“Tch.” Lauren set the water heavily down onto the table with a clunk. “I was just thinking about tying up the rest of the loose ends.” Recognizing her words as only partial truth, Kieran raised an eyebrow at her, saying nothing. Lauren sighed and added,” And I suppose I’m wondering what we do from here.” She draped her arms over her knees once more and rested her head on them, turned so she could face him.
Kieran shifted and the cot let out a soft creak, the dip bringing her toward him slightly. “Honestly, I never thought I’d live this long. I’m…not sure,” he admitted without meeting her eyes.
Lauren’s mouth suddenly felt dry despite the water she had been drinking. “Will you leave the city?” she asked after a moment’s hesitation.
Kieran sat forward, half-turning to look at her with a grin. “Oh, officer, would you miss me that much?”
Lauren refused to acknowledge the blush she knew was creeping into her cheeks. “Hush. You know I would,” she replied with a roll of her eyes, but then hesitated, studying his countenance. “You do know that, right? You’re- you’re my friend, Kieran,” she said haltingly, feeling awkward. “Somehow,” she added with a wink.
Lauren had yet to fully reconcile the unspeakable crimes of the Purple Hyacinth with the seemingly innocuous Kieran White sitting next to her right now. However, as their partnership endured for weeks and then months and now years, she had learned to recognize the mental spirals of self-loathing regret that bombarded him all too frequently, and these moments of humanity had gradually helped her see him as something much more than a cold-blooded assassin.
Kieran’s eyes widened slightly and he braced his elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “We’re friends, then?” The word felt utterly foreign on his tongue. He wasn’t sure he had even had a friend since he was a child, though his partnership with Lauren certainly seemed close.
He was brought back to the present by Lauren’s shoulder bumping into his playfully. “Of course we are,” she insisted, but her courage soon fled once more. “Right?”
Kieran angled his head to look back at her and considered their partnership over the last two years. While they had typically remained fairly professional unless he was teasing her at the precinct, spending vast amounts of time together risking your lives for a common cause had a way of binding people together in a unique way. “Right,” he confirmed as a slow smile crept across his face.
For the briefest of moments, he felt the desire to move closer to her. His impeccably crafted control slipped a fraction before he immediately worked to rein it back in. Having felt as though his entire life had been dictated down to the second, control was something Kieran desperately craved. The more he learned of it, however, the more he learned that control was almost always an illusion. The lightning in the sky, a fire consuming a weakened building, being doused in hot coffee by a stumbling server, the whisper of a soul leaving the body in the middle of the night, none of these things were truly under anyone’s control in the end.
Therefore, Kieran had endeavored to control the one thing he was capable of commanding; his own mind. No one else could tell him how to feel or react, and he fought to never allow anything to arise that might lead him to abandon the smallest portion of this restraint. His scarlet-haired partner had proven to be somewhat of a thorn in his side with regards to this effort, and so it was that as he rested next to her with the weight of the evening on their shoulders, he grasped for the slowly unraveling strands of his composure and tied them back together for the hundredth time.
All the same, he could not help but reply to her, eyes forward. “To answer your question, no, I’m not planning on going anywhere,” he murmured quietly.
—
Kym dragged her hands down her face dramatically and groaned. “Why did the Phantom Scythe raid have to happen in our district? The paperwork is unbelievable.” She eyed the towering stack of backlogged reports in front of her distastefully.
Lauren smiled into her cup of coffee, her pen never pausing its quiet scratching across the paper in front of her. She angled herself slightly so that the sunlight pouring through the windows no longer cast a shadow across her report.
“Shut up, Ladell. We’re all stuck doing the same work,” Lukas grumbled from the back of the room. His desk was hardly even visible from the copious amount of coffee cups littering the surface.
“What about you, White? Are they working you overtime as well?” Will asked, turning toward the far side of the room. Kieran was making a round through the patrol unit’s offices, collecting and dispensing files based on the requisitions of the day.
Kieran smiled, adjusting his glasses as he looked up from his cart. “Of course,” he answered smoothly. “Didn’t you see the crates of files they pulled out of there? Plenty of work to keep us busy.” He set aside a thick stack of file folders, straightening them meticulously before reaching for the next stack to be distributed. Crossing over to Lauren’s desk, he set the files on the edge, and she could see the corner of his mouth as it hovered on the brink of a smirk when he glanced at her. “Thankfully, I’m sure I’ll have Officer Sinclair to keep me company for these long hours.”
The fact that he had not lied was due to their partnership as Lune, though no one in the office was aware of this particular arrangement. Kieran’s endless teasing of the unassailable wall that was Lauren Sinclair’s love life was legendary in the precinct by now, which meant that practically no one even paid them any attention at this point.
Lauren’s eye roll was nearly audible. “Drop dead, Kieran,” she shot back immediately, straightening in her chair and forcing her attention back down to her paperwork.
Putting a hand to his chest, Kieran drew back as if wounded. “You don’t have to hide your true feelings for me, officer.
Everyone already knows how deeply you’ve fallen for me.”
He leaned against the front of her desk lightly, looking over at Kym as he gestured towards Lauren’s deadpan expression.
“See how the light reflects off her sunny disposition?”
Lauren groaned and folded over the top of her desk briefly. “Someone please give this archivist something else to do,” she complained as she balled up a piece of paper and threw it at him.
“If you still don’t want him, I’ll take him,” Kym chimed in with a laugh.
“Hey!” Will cried indignantly as his head shot up.
Kym’s laugh bubbled out even louder and she reached over to push her fist lightly against Will’s shoulder. “I’m only teasing. Don’t hurt yourself, handsome.”
They each froze at the sound of Lukas clearing his throat with irritation. “Does everyone remember this massive backlog of paperwork we have to deal with? Because if you don’t be quiet I will add another murder for you all to write up.”
Kieran held his hands up in surrender and moved toward the other side of the room with the various other patrol officers, though he couldn’t resist a wink over his shoulder at Lauren as he did so.
Lauren opened the top file on the stack Kieran had dropped off, fingers rasping over the paper as she shuffled through the first few notes. As she did so, a small slip of paper fell out, and she surreptitiously read the contents fleetingly when she recognized Kieran’s looping script. “Meet me at my apartment tomorrow night. We haven’t quite concluded our business.”
She glanced up over the top of the paper towards Kieran, seeing only his back as he exited the room. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Kym’s smug expression. “What?” Lauren asked irritably.
Kym drew herself up with a little wiggle. “I saw that,” she offered teasingly, trying and failing to keep her voice soft. Lauren and Kieran had quickly abandoned their fake dating alibi nearly two years ago now, but Kym still held out hope for them both to reconcile.
Lauren let out a noise of disgust and turned her face back toward her reports. “There’s nothing to see,” she griped.