[Izzy Montoya] [123 not me!]
[John Thornton] ((BAh!))
[Izzy Montoya] (s’what ya get for being slow, ole man. :) )
[John Thornton] The sound of dress shoes tapping with every step upon waxed linoleum floors resounds down the corridors in fits and spurts, the turns and dog legs bouncing the tapping at odd angles and strengths. Light filtered through open windows lining the hallway from the elevator and the stairs.
The taps stop as the shoes do, just before a door marked Homicide Division. A hazel eyed figure in a dark gray suit considers the people at the desks for a short time, before opening the door to the office. He starts in the door, with a nod to the receptionist by the door.
“Hello, detective.”
“Hello… I borrowed a file; I’d like to return it.”
“Oh, I can run it back for you.”
“No thanks… I know exactly where it belongs.”
John smiles the wan not-a-smile at the receptionist, his face felt wooden and fake. Then the hazel eyes swing to where the file cabinets set. He opens the appropriate door upon reaching them… His path taking him past a desk with a placard reading Detective Montoya in white letters.
After depositing the file into the cabinet, he turns… Slowing as he starts to walk out. Uncertain of what he would say, what he could say, after all that had happened so recently. A phone message telling him not to flip out, something about rumors… A surprise John knew he would not like.
He bends his knees, dropping down to her level while speaking… Apparently interested in the open file on the desk, to all outward appearances. His voice is barely a whisper.
“Izzy?”
[Izzy Montoya] His path takes him past her desk, and she closes her eyes. Of all the ones she has wanted to see the most – the man who’s returning a file is at the top of the list. Of all the reactions she feared the most – his is certainly in that place too. She had texted him right away, first, and begged patience. Begged that he not freakout – all the while some part of her tugged, and wanted to beg him to come see her, right away. But she knew better. She’s dealt with these people this Tribe, all her damn life. Until they prove they are right, they won’t. let. up.
Too bad for them, she’s just as fucking stubborn.
Izzy… His voice is soft, and he’s right there, and this is the part she dreaded. She doesn’t know what he’s heard – she does know she’s been the constant topic of conversation as every one of her team, every man she’s worked with, every woman she’s scraped her way to the top with, every person in the department is just begging for her to say. one. name. Yet she doesn’t. She won’t. She can’t. This goes beyond anything she’s had to do for years to keep the Veil from rending – and personally, she’d like to rip the fucker wide open, just for a little bit. Just. long. enough.
She lays her hand on his arm first, a silent plea, and then she lifts her head and turns to look at him. She looks, quite frankly, like shit. The swelling has gone down – but not all the way, but the bruising is fantastic to behold. Both eyes are black, her nose and across her cheekbones are splotched in a plethora of hues, her face a mass of cuts and bruises. She looks, quite frankly, like someone beat her face first into a brick wall. Repeatedly. Which is exactly what happened.
“Hey.”
[John Thornton] “Jesus…”
The receptionist, the others, make a point of busying themselves about their work; the overwhelming majority anywhere near close enough to hear had more or less ran when he went in the office. He’d received pleas by the score to visit her… Every manner of rumor and guess as to what had done that to her. Most suggested a jealous boyfriend was abusing her, asked if he knew who she was seeing, suggested he pay said boyfriend a visit.
His brothers would look the other way…
Good men, top men. Men who should know by now that isn’t how he operates. Still, they were at wits’ end. What else could they do?
Still… It was one thing to prepare oneself for the worst, yet another to see it before your very eyes. It was all John could do to school his expression to the untelling deadpan he showed the world. As if it would help…
His jaw was clenched tight, and something dark and ugly wormed its way through his mind behind his eyes. Such looks were those held by men about to do terrible things. Men who fully cognizant that what they were about to do is not justified by any law.
Men who knew that and would do them anyway.
He can’t speak. He can’t speak… Speech was too hard for the primitive, primal, most-basic urgings of his reptilian brain at seeing his partner so mangled.
[Izzy Montoya] There’s a flurry of sudden productivity all the way around, as if it gave them any semblance of privacy. Some share a nod, a knowing grim smile that speaks of satisfaction, knowing that something will finally get done. They have faith in John. No one can do this to his partner and live. No one. And the whole of them will simply turn their back, and let it happen.
Too bad Izzy, nor John, really have the ability to make them pay, to do anything but take it.
She see’s that look. She knows that look. she feels that way too. And her hand tightens on his arm, her fingers slide down to find his, to grasp his hand and hold tight – desperation tight.
Two words. “You can’t.”
She knows what hes thinking. How he thinks – because she thinks the same way…
[John Thornton] It’s a long, long time that John just stands there, his eyes focused on Izzy. It was acid in his veins to do nothing. Acid in his veins not to go kill the thing that did that to her now.
A beat, two… Then John begins to breathe again. Reason begins to assert dominance over base emotion… Though whatever dark thing flashes in those hazel depths remains, just beneath the surface. He continues to whisper, as his expression becomes anew the deadpan…
Though there was an edge to it. Something dark that just wouldn’t go away.
“I want to…”
Then, he gives her fingers a reassuring squeeze, his tone, his look again the rational gaze of the detective (mostly).
“I’ll fix it.”
[Izzy Montoya] She knows so intimately what he feels, what he wants to do. There’s a pulse in every cop that cannot stand to see someone get away with this, on anyone – that burns hatred bright when that person is one of their own. Cops have a longstanding brotherhood, and once you are in, you are in for life, and nothing takes precedence over that. Nothing.
Izzy’s just been doing it longer.
John never knew before what caused some of the horrors… that sometimes, they’re the good guys.
She stands, without letting go of his hand. Her hand still holds his tight, so tight, even with his reassuring squeeze, even with the way he can breathe again. “I want to, too.” A beat, after that admission, and then.. “Come on.”
A bid for privacy where there is none – she leads him to the break room. It’s windows are clear, and anyone can see them, anyone can come in, which means there’s no real privacy at all. And fuck Daniel – this IS work related. Finn is in there. A couple others too, but before she even utters the words, they’re grabbing their cups and magazines and headed for the door. Finn clasps John on the shoulder on the way by, and touches Izzy’s arm. She doesn’t say anything, and he vacates.
When they’re gone and the door closed, only then does she say it again. “You can’t, John. They’ve put their foot down for a while, butit won’t be forever. They can’t break me, no matter what they try. Just.. you have to let me handle this one. Especially after…”
[John Thornton] ((Paused for now))
[John Thornton] John watches her, his eyes narrowing as he shakes his head. He turns and starts to make coffee… something, anything to distract him from the shattered Izzy before him. From what he wants to do to the guy that did it to her.
He turns, and looks back at her, a paper cup of black coffee in hand.
“There has to be something I can do. Some way I can fix it… Maybe I should challenge the decision…
Maybe that’s something worth trying.”
He tries to turn it into a legal thing, so that anyone who happened to overhear would think he was discussing some pending litigation or some such. However, Izzy… If anyone, Izzy, would get his meaning.
Challenge… Right of combat…
[Izzy Montoya] He can’t look at her- he turns to make coffee, to gather his thoughts, and she gives up his hand reluctantly. She hops up to sit on the table, her fingers wrapped around the edges, gripping tight for a minute, until she forces herself to relax her grip.
She knows how he feels, how.. ineffective, how useless to make it better. “One of the restrictions is that I only see you for work purposes. Another, I’m to ‘stop whoring around’.” She goes to scrub her hand across her face, and catches herself just in time before she does, and instead runs her fingers through her hair, and lets it fall to hide her features again. “I’m not sure how to get out of this just yet – I’m playing along for now.” A smirk, as she glances up at him. “Mostly.”
[John Thornton] John just shakes his head, sighing deeply… He takes a sip of coffee, knuckling a tired back. “Here’s the part where you tell me I’m wrong and that slavery doesn’t exist anymore.”
His words are quiet, just above a whisper…
[Izzy Montoya] She wants too. She wants to tell him exactly that, while knowing that it’s exactly what she fights against, the fact that she will not be owned, that she is not a possession to be passed around at the will of some higher in rank – and being Kin, they’re ALL higher in rank.
Instead, she sighs, softly. “Commere.”
She can’t let any of them see her weak, she can’t let them see her break down, and she knows they’re watching. But in all this – in all of it, she just needs… something. Anything, to remind her who she is – and John is the sole person she trusts completely, the only who knows her to her very core, which is why, watched or not, she pulls him close, between her thighs, so that she can lay her head against his chest, feel his heartbeat under her fingertips. Only then… “They’re not all like this. Not all of them.”
But she can’t say that he’s wrong. Not right now.
[John Thornton] John abandons the coffee to the counter, going without question to Izzy and wrapping his arms around her. He smells of tobacco, he smells of gun oil… He smells like John. He sighs deeply, holding her close… Gentle and yet tight as he can.
“No…”
Bitterness, anger, and resentment boil up inside him, and it’s all he can do not to finish the sentiment.
But every one of them sees us as slaves.
Wordlessly, he strokes her hair for a time. Before he speaks again.
“I don’t care what happens to me… But this… has to stop.”
[Izzy Montoya] She slides her arms around him, holding him tight, and closing her eyes. She inhales deeply of his scent – gun oil and smoke and… he smells like John. His fingers in her hair causes a tremble to work through her lean frame, yet another reaction that belongs to him alone.
“I care what happens to you.”
So much history between them, so much unsaid, so much that was never said. Their bond is deeper than friendship, deeper than partners… unexplored yet it exists all the same. “I’ll figure a way out of it, I will. I just.. don’t know how just yet. Part of this punishment is his – that he learn control. If I can teach him more than that, to see that things are different, to see that I’m fuckin right in the way I feel and the way I work in this day and age… maybe it’ll be worth it.”
Maybe. They’re both Fenrir, and incredibly stubborn. “Just promise me… you won’t do anything stupid. I just can’t…”
[John Thornton] John smiles that wan not-a-smile, and shakes his head…
“Me? Do anything stupid?”
John sighs again, stroking her hair and rubbing her back. His voice carefully controlled…
“Izzy… What he’s asking for… What all does he want?”
John’s jaw tightens in anger, something dark flashes behind hazel eyes…
“Is he trying to make you sleep with him?”
In all the times, in all the myriad relationships, one night stands, or other sexual encounters Izzy’s ever had, John’s never judged. John’s never seemed emotional, or jealous… Even this doesn’t seem jealousy.
There’s more to it than that… As though the very idea were abhorrent, anathema to John’s very existence.
[Izzy Montoya] “Yes, you.” He’s as bad as she is, really, when it comes to stupid stunts. It’s part of who they are, and she says it with a soft chuckle.
Then he asks the hard questions, and she closes her eyes. “It’s to make me learn respect, hierarchy, or some shit. He’s forcing me to live at the brotherhood – though I..” she stops, and shakes her head.
“No – in fact, one of the Skald’s there with Kemp suggested a story of forced mating and he had a shitfit. Probably because he has someone back home, but I think he would have fought such an idea anyway. So no – in fact, he has dictated that I not have sex at all. You can IMAGINE how well I like that little bit… I already rebelled oncein that, and now I’m on complete lockdown at broho when not at work. Which is why I’m here 18 hours a day.”
She shakes her head, slightly. “I don’t know exactly what he expects. He wants me to become something I’m not. I won’t do that. He didn’t even… The rooms, John, they’re so…. small… and I flipped out, and was told I was weak. That I’d just get over it – but he did move the bed he made by the window. I still can only be there for a couple hours before I have to get out though… its…” A snort, a soft sigh. “Ridiculous.”
[John Thornton] John nods, just holding her close. Ultimately, he starts rocking gently back and forth, in a motion that would hearken back to someone rocking a child to console them. He gently shushs her… consolling her… Before whispering quietly.
“I have some No-Doze in my desk. It’s yours whenever you need it; just don’t start falling asleep while driving or anything. A car crash probably wouldn’t let you off any easier in their book.”
He smiles that wan not-a-smile, not really feeling it… The effect left somewhat wooden and forced. He continues rocking her though, and stroking her hair, and holding her close. When he speaks again, it’s in a quiet whisper, such that only she could hear.
“Also… If … When my time comes, you’ll get a package in your inter-office mail. Open it… But don’t do so until you know you’re alone. It’s important; and I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. But it’s something you need to hear.”
He sighs deeply, still stroking her hair. Fighting the urge for his hands to grow harsh and hard and ball into fists anew for what that son of a bitch has done to Izzy. His touch still light upon her back, he asks.
“Who did this? Who do you have to answer to?”
[Izzy Montoya] She nods, slightly, and lips curl into a slight smile. “Finn stands guard when I fall asleep on the couch over there. He doesn’t think I know. Makes him – makes them – feel like they’re doing something…” Having to explain all this to them in a way that protects him is the cruelest irony of all.
Her brow furrows slightly as he murmurs the bit about something that’ll arrive after his time comes, and she lifts her head to look up at him, searching his eyes for a long moment. Then she simply nods, and lays her head back against his chest, closing her eyes as she holds him tight.
“Daniel. He was raised in the old ways cut off from civilization – a lot of what I am he just doesn’t understand. I tried to make him see once… and was just told I was wrong. Now I refuse to speak to him at all.” but for the nightly interrogations, of course. “He’s got complete control in the eyes of the Nation. He answers only to Kemp.”
[John Thornton] John nods, considering… Rubbing her back and holding her.
“He lives at the Brotherhood?”
John breathes deeply, as hazel eyes flit to the window momentarily, to the gathered bunch outside pretending as best they can not to watch the scene. Maybe Finn was jealous. Maybe Finn new better than to be jealous. Maybe the others did too.
Whatever the case may be, one or all would find themselves admitting that John, for all his faults, obviously cares deeply for Izzy. That their bond, their friendship… It was the stuff that only someone whose partner meant more to them than their own well-being could understand. Maybe that’s why nobody even tries the closed door to the break room.
And why nobody would even think of saying anything to Izzy about it after the fact. John’s recent instability notwithstanding.
“Izzy… I have to ask you to do something. Something you won’t want me to ask…
But I have to. I’m sorry I have to ask this…”
[Izzy Montoya] She nods against his chest. She knows that there’s a group trying very hard to go unnoticed, watching without seeming too. Perhaps they hope John will get from her what they can’t – the name – not realizing that he already has, and that they still can’t do anything about it, that they won’t get the name from John either. Their duty is to protect the Nation, even when they don’t want to.
She wants to lean back, and look up at him, when he has something to ask her – but she knows how she looks, how much it pains them to see her face, how much… it becomes an exercise in patience, and futility. So finally she just murmurs softly…
“Ask…”
[John Thornton] “God, I know better…”
He clenches his jaw, and hugs Izzy tight… holding her against him, fully prepared for her to push him away at this.
“If what Daniel asks isn’t … Please… Do what he asks of you. For me.
I know… It isn’t fair. It isn’t right of me to ask this…
But I can’t let this happen and do nothing… I can’t …”
John sighs, and shakes his head, holding her… His expression perhaps more human than it has seemed in some time with his concern for her. For her well-being.
“If he… went too far… what I did before.
It would be nothing compared to what I would do then.”
[Izzy Montoya] She falls very. very. very. still. She’s held tight, and she doesn’t pull back, not at first, as she tries to work through what he’s asking her to do, what he really wants…
And then she just closes her eyes, hiding away her thoughts, hiding away what it does to hear him ask it of her… to ask this…
Finally, after a long, long span of silence where he might think she won’t answer at all. “One condition.”
[John Thornton] “Name it.”
He waits patiently, quietly… As narrowed hazel eyes turn to the unaware beat cop about to walk in on them. A look… Just the one.
The man shrugs and walks away.
[Izzy Montoya] She sighs, softly, and then pulls back, and look up at him, her fingers sliding along his sides, up to so that fingers rest over his chest again, feeling the beat of his heart under her fingertips.
She doesn’t hide anything from him. She never could – and his asking her to submit, to do whatever’s needed for however long it takes… hurts. His asking her to go against what she believes… hurts. Necessary or not, it hurts. “You can’t do anything stupid. Nothing. You can’t go after him, after them. You’re asking me to be what you fear we are anyway, for as long as it takes. That means you can’t do anything stupid – you’ll have to do your duty as I’ve done all these years. You’ll have to learn to find a compromise like I always have, though not as bad as I will have to now. Because if I do as you ask…”
She closes her eyes, briefly, and lowers her gaze, leaning forward so her head rests against his chest, and softly admits “I can’t lose you, too.”
[John Thornton] Now it’s John’s turn to be still. Hazel eyes turn distant as his teeth all but crack with pressure. It wasn’t easy… It was never easy. But nothing of worth ever was. He sighs deeply, thinks for a long time about it.
Then, quietly, he whispers.
“Okay…”
Inwardly, John finds himself hating himself for what he’s asked, hating himself worse for what he’s agreed to… Life was so much easier when you clung to fatalism. Life seemed much less complicated when you believed life and death didn’t matter where you were concerned.
He holds her a short time longer before speaking again, his fingers gently brushing her hair.
“I fear we may be gaining an audience… Your coworkers seem restless.”
[Izzy Montoya] He agrees, and she breathes a sigh of mingled relief and sadness for what they’ve both given up. All she can hope is that he doesn’t hate her for this, for staying his hand. She can withstand almost anything but that.
He mentions the audience, and she actually chuckles, her fingers sliding along his back as she holds him closer still. “They feel as helpless as we do… because I won’t tell them anything. Finn hovers like I’m a baby, even Vaaco came for a chat…”
She’s quiet for a little bit longer, before looking up at him with that little knowing smirk that’s so much more her than anything he’s seen today. “Then let’s give them a little show.” And with that, she slides her hands up, fingers caressing his jaw, before she pulls him down closer, to lay claim to his lips…
…their deal – sealed with a kiss.
[John Thornton] ((That looks like a good fade post tome. Thanks for the rp, Lessa))
[Izzy Montoya] (my pleasure, always!)
[snail] (*applause from peanut gallery*)