fic: Trace
May. 28th, 2015 01:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bonnefoisTitle: Trace
Series: TF2
Character/Pairing: Spy/Scout's mother
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A spy had to be alert at all times, and be ready to accept all pain that came with his job.
Wordcount: 870
Author's note: this was part of researching this fascinating subject. Follows The Ghost Family and
Due to the subject matter, it's gory.
1969.
Spy always kept leather gloves at the ready. Straight from the finest artisans of Paris, leather so sleek and elegant that few would suspect the roughness beneath. Steel beneath silk, as the saying went. He kept almost as many spares as his suits; the job was ever so hard on his clothes, but he refused to stoop to the level of looking like a common laborer as he plied his dirty trade.
His mask stayed securely in place, his poison and smoke always at the ready. A cyanide pill hidden in a sleeve of his immaculately made suits, a knife always ready to twist into someone else's back.
He could disappear for several moments, but it was still remarkably hard to completely erase every trace of him. Footprints could be disguised, his teeth cut out and replaced with false ones, perfect to hold poison or tiny secrets. But fingerprints? Those were far more difficult.
Acid, lacerations, grafting, or chopping them off entirely, down to the bone. Even then, there were cases of people identified with palm prints, or on the skin that grew back. A spy had to be alert at all times, and be ready to accept all pain that came with his job. Bones broken, limbs cut off, flayings, bamboo shoved up fingernails. These were all common staples of spies not good enough. In his trade, there was no making mistakes. Only success or ignominy and a horrific death.
Few people had ever seen him without his gloves. The skin had healed that white shards no longer showed through the skin. He'd been thorough. Soaked in water, acid and stripped to bone. If asked, he wouldn't say the truth. It was the second most painful thing to happen to him. Acid and knives were little in comparison to two families lost. One to the occupation of France, another to the job, growing up far away in the shadows of Boston.
*
He'd slipped her into his smoking room many times. If Miss Pauling knew, she hadn't blackmailed him yet. She looked in place in her blue silk gown, a queen among mahogany. With only dim firelight, not even a flash camera could capture traces of them.
A spy always found home in the shadows.
There was one and only one exception. The mask stayed on, the name was kept hidden. But the gloves were pulled off, sometimes between kisses, or a bite to his shoulder. If she couldn't gain his secrets, she'd leave her mark on him, and claim him as her own again and again in stolen moments.
"Your hands are always so rough," she said.
She gently kissed the rough skin of his palm, but only once. He'd lost all sensation there, burned away until he couldn't even feel pain. Not even every new time he had to shed his skin with burns, acid or whatever else he could find to keep himself alive. But she never believed him. As she shouldn't; he was a professional liar, after all.
That didn't stop her wonderings. The questions turned sweet between kisses for every scrap of himself he would give.
"You get in an accident? Maybe save someone from a burning building?"
Her mouth lingered at his thumb, her breath ghosting over his skin. She moved up to push his mask up just a little.
"I'm not half as heroic," he said.
"I beg to differ," she said.
"You're playing dangerously, and asking questions I cannot answer," Spy said.
Her thumb lingered at his chin, rubbing that little bit of secret, that exposed flesh.
"I know," she said. "That's half the fun."
Sometimes he let her have harmless things. Dapper Gentleman, the magazine he read, or Brie, his favorite cheese. Even these one day might be a betrayal, might lead someone to him.
But he'd already gotten this far. He'd tried to leave before, but he never got far before he returned. Like a drug, the calm of her presence, her kiss. He couldn't slough off the skin of his heart as easily as his fingertips.
"So many secrets. I always did like my men dangerous, and a little bad, but never heartless." She pulled the cigarette from his mouth and took a drag.
"But, these secrets, I'll keep them safe, and they'll be all mine," she said.
"There are those who would take that knowledge from you by force," he said.
She laughed at that. "Good luck getting past my boys. Not even you can get past Scout. He was convinced there was a smoking ghost hangin' around in the kitchen."
His little game. Teasing his child with the only way he could, invisible. He could only kiss her in the dark, could only watch his son grow up from afar.
When he touched her, he left no trace. But sometimes, oh sometimes, he wished he could.
Series: TF2
Character/Pairing: Spy/Scout's mother
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A spy had to be alert at all times, and be ready to accept all pain that came with his job.
Wordcount: 870
Author's note: this was part of researching this fascinating subject. Follows The Ghost Family and
Due to the subject matter, it's gory.
1969.
Spy always kept leather gloves at the ready. Straight from the finest artisans of Paris, leather so sleek and elegant that few would suspect the roughness beneath. Steel beneath silk, as the saying went. He kept almost as many spares as his suits; the job was ever so hard on his clothes, but he refused to stoop to the level of looking like a common laborer as he plied his dirty trade.
His mask stayed securely in place, his poison and smoke always at the ready. A cyanide pill hidden in a sleeve of his immaculately made suits, a knife always ready to twist into someone else's back.
He could disappear for several moments, but it was still remarkably hard to completely erase every trace of him. Footprints could be disguised, his teeth cut out and replaced with false ones, perfect to hold poison or tiny secrets. But fingerprints? Those were far more difficult.
Acid, lacerations, grafting, or chopping them off entirely, down to the bone. Even then, there were cases of people identified with palm prints, or on the skin that grew back. A spy had to be alert at all times, and be ready to accept all pain that came with his job. Bones broken, limbs cut off, flayings, bamboo shoved up fingernails. These were all common staples of spies not good enough. In his trade, there was no making mistakes. Only success or ignominy and a horrific death.
Few people had ever seen him without his gloves. The skin had healed that white shards no longer showed through the skin. He'd been thorough. Soaked in water, acid and stripped to bone. If asked, he wouldn't say the truth. It was the second most painful thing to happen to him. Acid and knives were little in comparison to two families lost. One to the occupation of France, another to the job, growing up far away in the shadows of Boston.
*
He'd slipped her into his smoking room many times. If Miss Pauling knew, she hadn't blackmailed him yet. She looked in place in her blue silk gown, a queen among mahogany. With only dim firelight, not even a flash camera could capture traces of them.
A spy always found home in the shadows.
There was one and only one exception. The mask stayed on, the name was kept hidden. But the gloves were pulled off, sometimes between kisses, or a bite to his shoulder. If she couldn't gain his secrets, she'd leave her mark on him, and claim him as her own again and again in stolen moments.
"Your hands are always so rough," she said.
She gently kissed the rough skin of his palm, but only once. He'd lost all sensation there, burned away until he couldn't even feel pain. Not even every new time he had to shed his skin with burns, acid or whatever else he could find to keep himself alive. But she never believed him. As she shouldn't; he was a professional liar, after all.
That didn't stop her wonderings. The questions turned sweet between kisses for every scrap of himself he would give.
"You get in an accident? Maybe save someone from a burning building?"
Her mouth lingered at his thumb, her breath ghosting over his skin. She moved up to push his mask up just a little.
"I'm not half as heroic," he said.
"I beg to differ," she said.
"You're playing dangerously, and asking questions I cannot answer," Spy said.
Her thumb lingered at his chin, rubbing that little bit of secret, that exposed flesh.
"I know," she said. "That's half the fun."
Sometimes he let her have harmless things. Dapper Gentleman, the magazine he read, or Brie, his favorite cheese. Even these one day might be a betrayal, might lead someone to him.
But he'd already gotten this far. He'd tried to leave before, but he never got far before he returned. Like a drug, the calm of her presence, her kiss. He couldn't slough off the skin of his heart as easily as his fingertips.
"So many secrets. I always did like my men dangerous, and a little bad, but never heartless." She pulled the cigarette from his mouth and took a drag.
"But, these secrets, I'll keep them safe, and they'll be all mine," she said.
"There are those who would take that knowledge from you by force," he said.
She laughed at that. "Good luck getting past my boys. Not even you can get past Scout. He was convinced there was a smoking ghost hangin' around in the kitchen."
His little game. Teasing his child with the only way he could, invisible. He could only kiss her in the dark, could only watch his son grow up from afar.
When he touched her, he left no trace. But sometimes, oh sometimes, he wished he could.
