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peopleofthedas2010-12-16 02:02 am
bellaknoti) wrote in peopleofthedas2010-12-16 02:02 am
fanfic: Wings of the Storm Crow
Series: Wings of the Storm Crow
Title: Social Engineering (Chapter Seven)
Rating: AO
Pairing: Lily/Zevran
Summary: I invited my past to come back and play; now the question is whether or not it is worth it. I'm about to commit international forgery. Anything will be worth it, if it keeps him with me, if it keeps him safe.
if some of my slang in this chapter makes no sense to you, please say so.
The critical question is whether or not the person on my front porch is Stalker, or a scout. I wait, but there's no further sally. Stalemate. What next? I grip the chains tightly in my fist, then grab the scarf tails and yank my hat back toward me, catching it and putting it back where it belongs. Skulking along the end of the house, I circle from the other direction, and catch a shadow detaching itself from a clump of scrub, but it's heading in the wrong direction, back around the front of the house. I tuck the cigarette in the corner of my mouth and climb up to the roof, letting the chains loop down around my elbow. There's no one up here, which is good. I take a moment to finish my smoke, and crush it out on the sole of my boot. I silence my chains and creep along until I can get a vantage on the porch and look down.
There is a man, looking around the corner of the house, expecting me to come from behind it, instead of from above. From here, it's impossible to say whether it's Stalker or not; nothing but moonlight and shadows. I ease down to the porch roof; a ten foot drop is way preferable to fifteen. I sit on the edge, dangling my feet over the side, and quickly spool a length of chain between my hands. Whoever is standing there suddenly has a premonition, and looks up just as I’m about to push off. I go for it anyway as they scramble backward, landing heavily in a crouch.
But now they've darted around the corner again, and they know I’ve gone over the roof at least once. They're likely to stay there, being rabbity, and think that I’m gonna come 'round from the other side again. So I pelt loudly across the porch, then creep back and hide behind the table and chairs. The figure skulks past, going for my front door. At the last moment, I pop up and loop the chain 'round the guy's shoulders, tugging him off balance to throw him down on the boards. I turn with the chain as he goes down and leap on him, putting my boot on his chest and leaning forward into his face. The chains are tight in my fists as the man grunts from the impact of my weight.
I pull the chain again, transferring my grip so I can get my knife out of my boot, the right one, the one on his chest. I flip it open and show the blade and he stops struggling, at once. “Do I hafta cut you, or you gonna just tell me what you're doin' here?”
He laughs, and a slow smile spreads across my face. “You're downright hospitable,” he gasps, as I’m still crushing his chest.
I rise and hold out my hand. “You're gettin' rusty, Stalker. Time was, you'd never have fallen for a hat trick.” He takes it and I brace my legs, hauling him to his feet.
“Yeah, we're both gettin' old. I heard your chains.”
I shrug. “Not much use for it anymore; got out the game long ago, you know that.”
He laughs again. “Yet, here I am.”
I sigh, and nod. He hands me back my chain. “You got your knife?” I gesture toward the beach, where it had flown off into the darkness. He nods. “Right. Well. Come inside then, have some fuckin' coffee, yeah? Where's your bag?”
He blinks, and I smirk. Turns out his kit's under my porch, and then we head inside. Zev's sitting by the fire, and I turn that smirk on him. “Stalker, Zev. Zev, Stalker. Play nice.” I ditch my chain on the table and head for the kitchen for another mug while the men size each other up and try to determine whether they can take down the other. Dollars to doughnuts on Zev, obviously, but Stalker doesn't know that.
I set the cup down in front of him and sit next to Zev. “So,” I say, getting straight down to business. “Life for a life, yeah?” I fix him with a hard eye, and Stalker nods, once, knowing the score.
“Final square,” he says, and it's my turn to nod.
“Right. So here's the problem: Zev here has no papers of any kind. Nothing. So we gotta build him something that shows him as former military, maybe deep cover, special ops, something like that, so that when and if he does what he does, there aren't too many eyebrows raised. Not only that, but it's international; he's gotta come from Italy.”
He leans back, looking shocked, and I give him a hard eye. “You know what that's gonna take, Falcon? That's some hard time you're askin' for if things don't go all kings and aces for us, you realize.”
My lips thin. “You wanna try necromancy instead?” I ask, my voice going harsh.
He holds his hands up. “All right, all right, fuck, settle down. Didn't say I wasn't gonna help.” He turns his gaze on Zev, an appraising eye. “You know, you look familiar,” he says, after a moment.
Zev arches an eyebrow. “Oh? I am fairly certain we have never met.”
I tense. Shit. I never explained just exactly what Thedas is, to me, to this world. If Stalker spills at this point, I don't know how this is gonna play out. I jump in, no plan. “Look, let's just focus on what we gotta do, 'kay? We need to start with birth certificates, and put him in the system all over the map.”
Stalker sighs, and nods. He pulls out a laptop and sets it up, attaching a strange little printer to the side of it, and some odd-looking peripherals. His bootup sounds like a handshake, and I smile.
“56k, huh? Ghetto,” I comment, and he smirks.
“Yeah, got so's I missed the sound, once it became obsolete.”
I laugh. “Softie.” He laughs, too.
“Missed your face, bitch.”
“You too, fucker.”
We both smile, but it's sad, strained. He shakes his head and looks down. “Right, so, first thing, need photos.” He looks up, expectantly, and I shake my head.
“Scratch,” I say, and he curses.
“What the fuck you want me to do? What, he just fall out the sky?”
Zev and I exchange looks, and I look back at Stalker. “Yeah. Let's go with that.”
Stalker stares at me for a long time. “Fuck,” he says, at last. “You're fuckin' crazy.”
I wave a hand. “What, you forget that part? C'mon. Build it.”
“Medical records, at least? Dentist? Come on, Falcon, throw me a bone, here.”
I shake my head. “Got no bones to throw.”
“I'm completely faking this? You realize if he goes to the hospital, you're made, in that case, right? 'Cause I have to steal shit from other places?” I spread my hands. He sighs and shakes his head. “Okay, fuckin' fine. So, can't be from Italy, direct. Gotta have him from some place they don't have records yet. Maybe few places in the Amazon, out in the desert in Africa, y'know, maybe some place in India. Pick a spot, we'll start there.”
“Let's go with South America. Lots of war there, lots of people not documented at all. Say, orphanage.” He nods, his fingers already flying over the keys.
“Cambodia,” he puts in, and I nod.
“'Kay, then adoption.”
He sighs. “That's gonna be harder. Need two dead parents for that. Italy, you said?” I nod. “Why Italy?”
“He speaks Italian, native language. So, Italy.”
He arches an eyebrow at us. “What is it, amnesiac?”
I shake my head. “Wouldn't believe me if I told you. Leave it.”
He eyes Zev critically. “I swear I-- Right. Give me a name.”
I look at Zev. “You need an alias.”
“'Zev', you said, right? That's Hebrew. You Jewish?” Stalker asks, and I look back at him.
“No, but that's convenient,” I answer. “Go with that.”
“Right... Dead Italian Jewish adoptive parents. You're killin' me, Falcon. How old are you, guy?” Zev grins and I look at him. That's a really, really good question; I always wondered. He opens his mouth to say, but then Stalker interrupts him. “Wait, doesn't matter. Found a couple. You're thirty-eight.”
Zev looks at me and smirks. I arch an eyebrow. This question is not put to rest. I will wrest it out of him, one way or another. Eventually. Stalker opens his kit and pulls out a wooden box. He selects special papers out of it and runs it through his printer, followed by a lot more stuff. After about two hours, we've got a birth certificate and a set of adoption papers that show Zev having originated in Cambodia, adopted from an orphanage by the Morenos. “So that's your new last name: Moreno,” Stalker says, and I laugh at the irony.
Stalker rises and cracks his knuckles, stretches his back. “I need some more coffee. This is gonna take forever. You know we still gotta fake some medical records, put you in the military, then you need a passport. Maybe you can be officially dead.”
I shake my head. “Too many questions if he gets discovered here.”
Stalker shrugs. “Black ops, government doesn't say jack about you. They never heard of you. They call to check up on this guy, they're gonna get stonewalled, no matter which way they turn, no matter what we put in here anyway. Only thing is, we don't want Italy breathing down your neck, so it's gotta be perfect.” He yawns and heads out the door, leaving everything on the table. I follow and offer him an old clove. He smiles bitterly. “Still smoking Blacks?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Same pack. Didn't crack the plastic 'til tonight. Felt like blood money.”
He shakes his head, too, ruefully. “It was.”
I flip open my Zippo. “Here's to us, hard bitches to the end.”
“This one's for him,” Stalker says, lighting from the flame at the same time I do. We used to call that 'fucking', because we both had our smokes in the same flame at the same time, cigarettes being phallic and all. Two sticks in the heat. He leans back and coughs twice, and I look up at him. So much flooding back, so much. I see the tattoo on his neck, the little bird, and he looks down at me, sadly.
“Ancient history,” I say, reading his mind – always could.
He reaches up and touches my temple, the edge of the wing-tip, then lets his hand fall again. I shake my head. “You always said that,” he says, referring to my negation, and I sigh.
“Yet, I did everything for you.”
“Everything but perch.”
I drop my eyes. “Never forgave me that, huh.”
“Not hardly.”
“What'm I s'posed to do about it now? It's been over a decade.”
“I know you never married, Lily,” he says, and I look up sharply. He's never used my real name before, though I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he knows it. The look on his face makes me take a step back. Oh, fuck. This is the score? I need him to keep his head in the game, not be mooning after me, not with Zev right there, not with his life on the line, and if I say no, what happens then? Will he be so happy to help when he realizes that Zev's the reason I’d turn him down, that I’m not just helping out a friend?
“Stalker... we were kids,” I say, gently. “You had a thing for me, I had a thing for Doc, and Doc liked Grave, but Grave only loved his knives. We were dysfunctional. It was like Stockholm Syndrome; we only felt that way because we had to survive together. It didn't have anything to do with who we really were, what we really wanted.” I shake my head, looking down and grimacing. “It woulda been nothin' but a fling, all heartache and flames in the end, and you know it,” I say, softly. “Stop diggin' around in the graveyard, Stalker; those bones've been buried so long it's gonna spill blood to dig 'em up.”
“Falcon, you never called it in. There was no resting, no 'buried', not until we were square,” he says, suddenly invading my space, and I’m abruptly twelve years ago and four hundred miles away: Seattle in the dark, the night I left, and refused him his last request. I look up at him, that old tension humming right where we left it. “You still smell the same,” he says.
I open my mouth to speak and move to take a step back, but my boot hits the wall – nowhere to back to; amateur! – and Stalker leans down and kisses me. I squeak, the rush of a twelve-year-old denial making me hesitate, but I break away, stepping quickly to the side, and cover my mouth with my hand, looking at him, wide-eyed.
He sighs, making no move toward me. “You owe me one, you know.”
I swallow. I had said... long ago. If I live through this, I’ll kiss you for it. I still owe him, he's right. “C'mon,” I say, stubbing out the cigarette. I turn toward the door and hold it open for him.
We take our places in the living room again, and I am careful to remain neutral, now that I’m aware of what's at stake, here. Stalker gets back to work, which is a relief. Things are silent for a long time, while we all drink another cup of coffee and I start to pace again. Eventually, Stalker gives me his kit so I can set up an impromptu studio in the corner. I hang a cloth on the wall and set up his tripod and fancy damned camera.
Following Stalker's distracted instructions, I first take a photo of Zev as he is, then we change his shirt, unbraid and wet his hair to make it look darker, and longer, and take a second one with a slightly weaker strobe to the lights. The two pictures look so different from each other, I would believe they had been taken at different times. Third, we take his shirt off completely, I pull his hair back and wind it up into a bun, to get it out of his face, and Stalker tells him to look as serious as possible. The face he wears in that moment is chilling, and I suddenly see a very cold-blooded person in front of me. I swallow and take the picture.
I fold it all up and put it away, handing the camera back to Stalker, and then I go outside. My hands are shaking, and I light another cigarette. I pace back and forth, Falcon and Lily warring for dominance. I can't hold her, Falcon, not for long, not without actually being there, having some place to go, something to do. Stalker is unnerving me. Zev, with his silence, is unnerving me. Tommy being by today, unnerving all by itself. Too much in one day, too much in one night, too much this week. I shake my head, lengthening my stride, making myself keep Falcon on top.
Next thing I have to do is figure out a way to get Stalker out of here without him trying to pick up the threads of an old weaving that's come unravelled long since. By the time I come back inside, Stalker is printing up more documents, and we suddenly have a passport, immigration papers, a green card, an account with INS, a bank account in Zev's 'name', and proof that he was once in the military, in Italy, amongst other things. “The military documentation is gonna take more time,” Stalker remarks, draining another cup of coffee. “But the bones are there. Need a couple more hours to flesh that out, 'case anyone goes lookin' for it, but we're just about done here.”
I stare at him in shock. Six hours to create an entire life, the way Stalker does it. “Hack the planet,” I say, numbly, and he snorts. I pick up the page that Zev signed his new name to half a dozen times, for dissemination across many different documents. “How well is this going to hold up?”
Stalker shakes his head. “Should be okay. I buried it in the FBI and SISMI – that's like, Italian CIA, kinda – anyway, I put him in their records as being someone that was strictly black-ops activity; he's a former Folgore with the Italian army – shock troops, you know, paratroopers, front line men. Special training, like you said. Everything is marked as sealed files, so no one is gonna go prying into it, it's all like, cold case stuff, you know? Should be fine, long as you don't get yourself arrested, man.”
I shake my head. “I've got someone around here after me, and he might get dead.” Stalker looks at us, then says to me, “Then whatever happens to this guy, it's your fault, and it was self defence. Easy.” He chews his lip, looking at the screen. “Now, I got stuff coming for you, packages of things that you have to keep around, stuff that tells the story, you know, things like tags and patches, uniforms, records. You have no idea how much paper trail a person leaves behind in their life, Falcon, you really don't, especially not someone pushing forty like your friend over here. Make sure you read the file on his bio when it gets here. Memorize it; you gotta know it off by heart, guy,” he says to Zev.
“But... if stuff arrives here in the mail, doesn't that mean that it's got a trail on it?”
Stalker sneers, his voice dripping with disdain. “The mail? Really? What do you think I am, an amateur?”
I blush. “Okay, sorry; so tell me what's going on.”
He shakes his head. “Unmarked cars, personal deliveries, brown packages, no names save yours. Deliveries for Falcon Phoenix, a name that does not officially exist, known to very few. Good thing you didn't change it, like you planned, eh?”
I sigh. “I still kinda wish I did, but it's been better to leave it.” He looks at me for a long moment, over the screen of his laptop, then goes back to work. I go outside again, and Zev follows me. I lean against the railing, propping my hands on it, and looking at the ground. I suddenly feel exhausted, despite the two cups of coffee. I’m too old for this life.
I feel a hand at the small of my back and look up. Zev is calling me back to myself, and I can't come back, not yet. I stand up. “What this is, it is dangerous, yes?”
“Very,” I reply. “Most dangerous thing we could do, just about. It's the kind of thing we could all get killed for. Buried in a hole so deep no one'd ever know we were alive at all.” Grim conjectures about our life expectancies. I snort. Careful what you wish for, right.
“You do this for me.” His voice is strained, and I look him in the eye.
“We keep our heads down, don't make any sudden moves, no one will have a reason to look at us.” Then I realize, he's not talking about that, not exactly, and I touch my earring. “Anything,” I whisper. The front door opens and closes, and Stalker comes out.
“Got another one of those?” I toss him the pack.
“Keep 'em.”
He looks between us, Zev and me, and sudden understanding lights his face. A small, rueful smile plays about his lips, and he dips his head to light the smoke from his own flame. He takes a long drag, looking up at the sky for a moment, then looks back to us. “How long you been together?”
Zev and I exchange looks. “Two days,” I say, at exactly the moment that he says, “Two years.”
We look at each other again, and trade answers. Stalker laughs, and I say, hopelessly, “It's complicated.”
“Internet relationship, yeah?”
Hah. Close enough. “Something like that,” I say, shaking my head. Zev arches an eyebrow, and I turn my head, so my hair hides my face. “Later,” I mouth, and he nods. Oh, gods. I’m going to have to explain Dragon Age, next. And then... my fanfic. Oh... fuck me. I wonder what the girls on the journals would say if I just posted a photo of us with no explanation... I bust out laughing, and both the men look at me strangely. I wave them off. “Nothing, never mind.” I snort, trying to get a grip on myself. Too much, too quick. I’m gonna crack and go completely off my nut, I can see it now. And they'll all say, 'I don't know what happened, she used to be so sensible'. I shake my head. “Let's get this done, yeah?” I say to Stalker, and he nods.
Two more hours, and then he's heading for the door. He's sworn to keep an eye on his work, make sure we stay green over the next year or two. He's promised to watch for us trying to enter and exit the country to make sure that when we take our inevitable trip to Italy, we don't run into any snags. He stands on my porch, staring down at me, his bag over his shoulder.
“This is it,” he says, “Final square, Falcon.”
I know I owe him that kiss. I know I do. He'd let me slide on it, knowing there's something between Zev and I, now, and he's not the kind to step on that, but we both know: we'd think less of me, if I copped out like that. So I reach up and trace the little bird tattoo on the side of his neck, the one he swore up and down he hadn't got for me, but we all knew he had. I take my hat off and go up on my toes, wrapping my arms around his neck, and kiss him like I should've done, at least once, back then. He surprises me with how strongly he holds on to me, with his sudden intensity, and he startles a tear from my eye as I realize what Falcon had passed up with a crazy infatuation over a gay guy.
“Stalker, I’m sorry,” I whisper when he finally lets me down with clear reluctance.
“So am I,” he says, hoarsely. “I should have been with him.”
“Me too,” I say, choking on it. “We both let him down.”
“You showed your colours, though, when you did what you did for me, you know that, right? I always knew how you felt, even though you wouldn't say the words.”
“Couldn't,” I say, dropping my gaze. “Still can't. Never could.”
“But, you did, didn't you?”
I nod. “Enough to almost die for,” I say, looking up at him. I put my top hat on his head, knowing it will fit him, glad that it still does. “Square, Stalker,” I whisper, my fingertips sliding along his jaw before I finally let my hand drop.
He bows his head. “Yeah. Square.”
“Thank you.”
He flashes me that smirk, that leer, that take-your-chances smile. “Psh. I was never here,” he says, his old way of saying goodbye.
I cover my mouth with my fingers and watch him walk away.
Title: Social Engineering (Chapter Seven)
Rating: AO
Pairing: Lily/Zevran
Summary: I invited my past to come back and play; now the question is whether or not it is worth it. I'm about to commit international forgery. Anything will be worth it, if it keeps him with me, if it keeps him safe.
if some of my slang in this chapter makes no sense to you, please say so.
The critical question is whether or not the person on my front porch is Stalker, or a scout. I wait, but there's no further sally. Stalemate. What next? I grip the chains tightly in my fist, then grab the scarf tails and yank my hat back toward me, catching it and putting it back where it belongs. Skulking along the end of the house, I circle from the other direction, and catch a shadow detaching itself from a clump of scrub, but it's heading in the wrong direction, back around the front of the house. I tuck the cigarette in the corner of my mouth and climb up to the roof, letting the chains loop down around my elbow. There's no one up here, which is good. I take a moment to finish my smoke, and crush it out on the sole of my boot. I silence my chains and creep along until I can get a vantage on the porch and look down.
There is a man, looking around the corner of the house, expecting me to come from behind it, instead of from above. From here, it's impossible to say whether it's Stalker or not; nothing but moonlight and shadows. I ease down to the porch roof; a ten foot drop is way preferable to fifteen. I sit on the edge, dangling my feet over the side, and quickly spool a length of chain between my hands. Whoever is standing there suddenly has a premonition, and looks up just as I’m about to push off. I go for it anyway as they scramble backward, landing heavily in a crouch.
But now they've darted around the corner again, and they know I’ve gone over the roof at least once. They're likely to stay there, being rabbity, and think that I’m gonna come 'round from the other side again. So I pelt loudly across the porch, then creep back and hide behind the table and chairs. The figure skulks past, going for my front door. At the last moment, I pop up and loop the chain 'round the guy's shoulders, tugging him off balance to throw him down on the boards. I turn with the chain as he goes down and leap on him, putting my boot on his chest and leaning forward into his face. The chains are tight in my fists as the man grunts from the impact of my weight.
I pull the chain again, transferring my grip so I can get my knife out of my boot, the right one, the one on his chest. I flip it open and show the blade and he stops struggling, at once. “Do I hafta cut you, or you gonna just tell me what you're doin' here?”
He laughs, and a slow smile spreads across my face. “You're downright hospitable,” he gasps, as I’m still crushing his chest.
I rise and hold out my hand. “You're gettin' rusty, Stalker. Time was, you'd never have fallen for a hat trick.” He takes it and I brace my legs, hauling him to his feet.
“Yeah, we're both gettin' old. I heard your chains.”
I shrug. “Not much use for it anymore; got out the game long ago, you know that.”
He laughs again. “Yet, here I am.”
I sigh, and nod. He hands me back my chain. “You got your knife?” I gesture toward the beach, where it had flown off into the darkness. He nods. “Right. Well. Come inside then, have some fuckin' coffee, yeah? Where's your bag?”
He blinks, and I smirk. Turns out his kit's under my porch, and then we head inside. Zev's sitting by the fire, and I turn that smirk on him. “Stalker, Zev. Zev, Stalker. Play nice.” I ditch my chain on the table and head for the kitchen for another mug while the men size each other up and try to determine whether they can take down the other. Dollars to doughnuts on Zev, obviously, but Stalker doesn't know that.
I set the cup down in front of him and sit next to Zev. “So,” I say, getting straight down to business. “Life for a life, yeah?” I fix him with a hard eye, and Stalker nods, once, knowing the score.
“Final square,” he says, and it's my turn to nod.
“Right. So here's the problem: Zev here has no papers of any kind. Nothing. So we gotta build him something that shows him as former military, maybe deep cover, special ops, something like that, so that when and if he does what he does, there aren't too many eyebrows raised. Not only that, but it's international; he's gotta come from Italy.”
He leans back, looking shocked, and I give him a hard eye. “You know what that's gonna take, Falcon? That's some hard time you're askin' for if things don't go all kings and aces for us, you realize.”
My lips thin. “You wanna try necromancy instead?” I ask, my voice going harsh.
He holds his hands up. “All right, all right, fuck, settle down. Didn't say I wasn't gonna help.” He turns his gaze on Zev, an appraising eye. “You know, you look familiar,” he says, after a moment.
Zev arches an eyebrow. “Oh? I am fairly certain we have never met.”
I tense. Shit. I never explained just exactly what Thedas is, to me, to this world. If Stalker spills at this point, I don't know how this is gonna play out. I jump in, no plan. “Look, let's just focus on what we gotta do, 'kay? We need to start with birth certificates, and put him in the system all over the map.”
Stalker sighs, and nods. He pulls out a laptop and sets it up, attaching a strange little printer to the side of it, and some odd-looking peripherals. His bootup sounds like a handshake, and I smile.
“56k, huh? Ghetto,” I comment, and he smirks.
“Yeah, got so's I missed the sound, once it became obsolete.”
I laugh. “Softie.” He laughs, too.
“Missed your face, bitch.”
“You too, fucker.”
We both smile, but it's sad, strained. He shakes his head and looks down. “Right, so, first thing, need photos.” He looks up, expectantly, and I shake my head.
“Scratch,” I say, and he curses.
“What the fuck you want me to do? What, he just fall out the sky?”
Zev and I exchange looks, and I look back at Stalker. “Yeah. Let's go with that.”
Stalker stares at me for a long time. “Fuck,” he says, at last. “You're fuckin' crazy.”
I wave a hand. “What, you forget that part? C'mon. Build it.”
“Medical records, at least? Dentist? Come on, Falcon, throw me a bone, here.”
I shake my head. “Got no bones to throw.”
“I'm completely faking this? You realize if he goes to the hospital, you're made, in that case, right? 'Cause I have to steal shit from other places?” I spread my hands. He sighs and shakes his head. “Okay, fuckin' fine. So, can't be from Italy, direct. Gotta have him from some place they don't have records yet. Maybe few places in the Amazon, out in the desert in Africa, y'know, maybe some place in India. Pick a spot, we'll start there.”
“Let's go with South America. Lots of war there, lots of people not documented at all. Say, orphanage.” He nods, his fingers already flying over the keys.
“Cambodia,” he puts in, and I nod.
“'Kay, then adoption.”
He sighs. “That's gonna be harder. Need two dead parents for that. Italy, you said?” I nod. “Why Italy?”
“He speaks Italian, native language. So, Italy.”
He arches an eyebrow at us. “What is it, amnesiac?”
I shake my head. “Wouldn't believe me if I told you. Leave it.”
He eyes Zev critically. “I swear I-- Right. Give me a name.”
I look at Zev. “You need an alias.”
“'Zev', you said, right? That's Hebrew. You Jewish?” Stalker asks, and I look back at him.
“No, but that's convenient,” I answer. “Go with that.”
“Right... Dead Italian Jewish adoptive parents. You're killin' me, Falcon. How old are you, guy?” Zev grins and I look at him. That's a really, really good question; I always wondered. He opens his mouth to say, but then Stalker interrupts him. “Wait, doesn't matter. Found a couple. You're thirty-eight.”
Zev looks at me and smirks. I arch an eyebrow. This question is not put to rest. I will wrest it out of him, one way or another. Eventually. Stalker opens his kit and pulls out a wooden box. He selects special papers out of it and runs it through his printer, followed by a lot more stuff. After about two hours, we've got a birth certificate and a set of adoption papers that show Zev having originated in Cambodia, adopted from an orphanage by the Morenos. “So that's your new last name: Moreno,” Stalker says, and I laugh at the irony.
Stalker rises and cracks his knuckles, stretches his back. “I need some more coffee. This is gonna take forever. You know we still gotta fake some medical records, put you in the military, then you need a passport. Maybe you can be officially dead.”
I shake my head. “Too many questions if he gets discovered here.”
Stalker shrugs. “Black ops, government doesn't say jack about you. They never heard of you. They call to check up on this guy, they're gonna get stonewalled, no matter which way they turn, no matter what we put in here anyway. Only thing is, we don't want Italy breathing down your neck, so it's gotta be perfect.” He yawns and heads out the door, leaving everything on the table. I follow and offer him an old clove. He smiles bitterly. “Still smoking Blacks?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Same pack. Didn't crack the plastic 'til tonight. Felt like blood money.”
He shakes his head, too, ruefully. “It was.”
I flip open my Zippo. “Here's to us, hard bitches to the end.”
“This one's for him,” Stalker says, lighting from the flame at the same time I do. We used to call that 'fucking', because we both had our smokes in the same flame at the same time, cigarettes being phallic and all. Two sticks in the heat. He leans back and coughs twice, and I look up at him. So much flooding back, so much. I see the tattoo on his neck, the little bird, and he looks down at me, sadly.
“Ancient history,” I say, reading his mind – always could.
He reaches up and touches my temple, the edge of the wing-tip, then lets his hand fall again. I shake my head. “You always said that,” he says, referring to my negation, and I sigh.
“Yet, I did everything for you.”
“Everything but perch.”
I drop my eyes. “Never forgave me that, huh.”
“Not hardly.”
“What'm I s'posed to do about it now? It's been over a decade.”
“I know you never married, Lily,” he says, and I look up sharply. He's never used my real name before, though I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he knows it. The look on his face makes me take a step back. Oh, fuck. This is the score? I need him to keep his head in the game, not be mooning after me, not with Zev right there, not with his life on the line, and if I say no, what happens then? Will he be so happy to help when he realizes that Zev's the reason I’d turn him down, that I’m not just helping out a friend?
“Stalker... we were kids,” I say, gently. “You had a thing for me, I had a thing for Doc, and Doc liked Grave, but Grave only loved his knives. We were dysfunctional. It was like Stockholm Syndrome; we only felt that way because we had to survive together. It didn't have anything to do with who we really were, what we really wanted.” I shake my head, looking down and grimacing. “It woulda been nothin' but a fling, all heartache and flames in the end, and you know it,” I say, softly. “Stop diggin' around in the graveyard, Stalker; those bones've been buried so long it's gonna spill blood to dig 'em up.”
“Falcon, you never called it in. There was no resting, no 'buried', not until we were square,” he says, suddenly invading my space, and I’m abruptly twelve years ago and four hundred miles away: Seattle in the dark, the night I left, and refused him his last request. I look up at him, that old tension humming right where we left it. “You still smell the same,” he says.
I open my mouth to speak and move to take a step back, but my boot hits the wall – nowhere to back to; amateur! – and Stalker leans down and kisses me. I squeak, the rush of a twelve-year-old denial making me hesitate, but I break away, stepping quickly to the side, and cover my mouth with my hand, looking at him, wide-eyed.
He sighs, making no move toward me. “You owe me one, you know.”
I swallow. I had said... long ago. If I live through this, I’ll kiss you for it. I still owe him, he's right. “C'mon,” I say, stubbing out the cigarette. I turn toward the door and hold it open for him.
We take our places in the living room again, and I am careful to remain neutral, now that I’m aware of what's at stake, here. Stalker gets back to work, which is a relief. Things are silent for a long time, while we all drink another cup of coffee and I start to pace again. Eventually, Stalker gives me his kit so I can set up an impromptu studio in the corner. I hang a cloth on the wall and set up his tripod and fancy damned camera.
Following Stalker's distracted instructions, I first take a photo of Zev as he is, then we change his shirt, unbraid and wet his hair to make it look darker, and longer, and take a second one with a slightly weaker strobe to the lights. The two pictures look so different from each other, I would believe they had been taken at different times. Third, we take his shirt off completely, I pull his hair back and wind it up into a bun, to get it out of his face, and Stalker tells him to look as serious as possible. The face he wears in that moment is chilling, and I suddenly see a very cold-blooded person in front of me. I swallow and take the picture.
I fold it all up and put it away, handing the camera back to Stalker, and then I go outside. My hands are shaking, and I light another cigarette. I pace back and forth, Falcon and Lily warring for dominance. I can't hold her, Falcon, not for long, not without actually being there, having some place to go, something to do. Stalker is unnerving me. Zev, with his silence, is unnerving me. Tommy being by today, unnerving all by itself. Too much in one day, too much in one night, too much this week. I shake my head, lengthening my stride, making myself keep Falcon on top.
Next thing I have to do is figure out a way to get Stalker out of here without him trying to pick up the threads of an old weaving that's come unravelled long since. By the time I come back inside, Stalker is printing up more documents, and we suddenly have a passport, immigration papers, a green card, an account with INS, a bank account in Zev's 'name', and proof that he was once in the military, in Italy, amongst other things. “The military documentation is gonna take more time,” Stalker remarks, draining another cup of coffee. “But the bones are there. Need a couple more hours to flesh that out, 'case anyone goes lookin' for it, but we're just about done here.”
I stare at him in shock. Six hours to create an entire life, the way Stalker does it. “Hack the planet,” I say, numbly, and he snorts. I pick up the page that Zev signed his new name to half a dozen times, for dissemination across many different documents. “How well is this going to hold up?”
Stalker shakes his head. “Should be okay. I buried it in the FBI and SISMI – that's like, Italian CIA, kinda – anyway, I put him in their records as being someone that was strictly black-ops activity; he's a former Folgore with the Italian army – shock troops, you know, paratroopers, front line men. Special training, like you said. Everything is marked as sealed files, so no one is gonna go prying into it, it's all like, cold case stuff, you know? Should be fine, long as you don't get yourself arrested, man.”
I shake my head. “I've got someone around here after me, and he might get dead.” Stalker looks at us, then says to me, “Then whatever happens to this guy, it's your fault, and it was self defence. Easy.” He chews his lip, looking at the screen. “Now, I got stuff coming for you, packages of things that you have to keep around, stuff that tells the story, you know, things like tags and patches, uniforms, records. You have no idea how much paper trail a person leaves behind in their life, Falcon, you really don't, especially not someone pushing forty like your friend over here. Make sure you read the file on his bio when it gets here. Memorize it; you gotta know it off by heart, guy,” he says to Zev.
“But... if stuff arrives here in the mail, doesn't that mean that it's got a trail on it?”
Stalker sneers, his voice dripping with disdain. “The mail? Really? What do you think I am, an amateur?”
I blush. “Okay, sorry; so tell me what's going on.”
He shakes his head. “Unmarked cars, personal deliveries, brown packages, no names save yours. Deliveries for Falcon Phoenix, a name that does not officially exist, known to very few. Good thing you didn't change it, like you planned, eh?”
I sigh. “I still kinda wish I did, but it's been better to leave it.” He looks at me for a long moment, over the screen of his laptop, then goes back to work. I go outside again, and Zev follows me. I lean against the railing, propping my hands on it, and looking at the ground. I suddenly feel exhausted, despite the two cups of coffee. I’m too old for this life.
I feel a hand at the small of my back and look up. Zev is calling me back to myself, and I can't come back, not yet. I stand up. “What this is, it is dangerous, yes?”
“Very,” I reply. “Most dangerous thing we could do, just about. It's the kind of thing we could all get killed for. Buried in a hole so deep no one'd ever know we were alive at all.” Grim conjectures about our life expectancies. I snort. Careful what you wish for, right.
“You do this for me.” His voice is strained, and I look him in the eye.
“We keep our heads down, don't make any sudden moves, no one will have a reason to look at us.” Then I realize, he's not talking about that, not exactly, and I touch my earring. “Anything,” I whisper. The front door opens and closes, and Stalker comes out.
“Got another one of those?” I toss him the pack.
“Keep 'em.”
He looks between us, Zev and me, and sudden understanding lights his face. A small, rueful smile plays about his lips, and he dips his head to light the smoke from his own flame. He takes a long drag, looking up at the sky for a moment, then looks back to us. “How long you been together?”
Zev and I exchange looks. “Two days,” I say, at exactly the moment that he says, “Two years.”
We look at each other again, and trade answers. Stalker laughs, and I say, hopelessly, “It's complicated.”
“Internet relationship, yeah?”
Hah. Close enough. “Something like that,” I say, shaking my head. Zev arches an eyebrow, and I turn my head, so my hair hides my face. “Later,” I mouth, and he nods. Oh, gods. I’m going to have to explain Dragon Age, next. And then... my fanfic. Oh... fuck me. I wonder what the girls on the journals would say if I just posted a photo of us with no explanation... I bust out laughing, and both the men look at me strangely. I wave them off. “Nothing, never mind.” I snort, trying to get a grip on myself. Too much, too quick. I’m gonna crack and go completely off my nut, I can see it now. And they'll all say, 'I don't know what happened, she used to be so sensible'. I shake my head. “Let's get this done, yeah?” I say to Stalker, and he nods.
Two more hours, and then he's heading for the door. He's sworn to keep an eye on his work, make sure we stay green over the next year or two. He's promised to watch for us trying to enter and exit the country to make sure that when we take our inevitable trip to Italy, we don't run into any snags. He stands on my porch, staring down at me, his bag over his shoulder.
“This is it,” he says, “Final square, Falcon.”
I know I owe him that kiss. I know I do. He'd let me slide on it, knowing there's something between Zev and I, now, and he's not the kind to step on that, but we both know: we'd think less of me, if I copped out like that. So I reach up and trace the little bird tattoo on the side of his neck, the one he swore up and down he hadn't got for me, but we all knew he had. I take my hat off and go up on my toes, wrapping my arms around his neck, and kiss him like I should've done, at least once, back then. He surprises me with how strongly he holds on to me, with his sudden intensity, and he startles a tear from my eye as I realize what Falcon had passed up with a crazy infatuation over a gay guy.
“Stalker, I’m sorry,” I whisper when he finally lets me down with clear reluctance.
“So am I,” he says, hoarsely. “I should have been with him.”
“Me too,” I say, choking on it. “We both let him down.”
“You showed your colours, though, when you did what you did for me, you know that, right? I always knew how you felt, even though you wouldn't say the words.”
“Couldn't,” I say, dropping my gaze. “Still can't. Never could.”
“But, you did, didn't you?”
I nod. “Enough to almost die for,” I say, looking up at him. I put my top hat on his head, knowing it will fit him, glad that it still does. “Square, Stalker,” I whisper, my fingertips sliding along his jaw before I finally let my hand drop.
He bows his head. “Yeah. Square.”
“Thank you.”
He flashes me that smirk, that leer, that take-your-chances smile. “Psh. I was never here,” he says, his old way of saying goodbye.
I cover my mouth with my fingers and watch him walk away.
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What seems like ages ago, a friend and I started a Baldur's Gate fic with a similar premise, where two of the game characters end up in our world. One of the problems we ran into was the one you address here: the lack of documentation. It's hard, and I like the way you handled it, and also the way Zev responds when he realizes how dangerous this is.
Also? I wonder what the girls on the journals would say if I just posted a photo of us with no explanation... We'd demand to know why you were keeping him to yourself. ;)
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You'd share, wouldn't you, b? XD
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...
maybe...
XD
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>.>
i'll post pictures!
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But I have a feeling he has... Poor Zev! *squeezes Zev*
End of lulz: way to go, dear. The angst is both awesome and terrible; the first because it's so well written, the second because it sounds so real and painful...
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But I have a feeling he has... Poor Zev! *squeezes Zev*"
I think he'd probably get the idea though and I can't imagine that he'd be terribly upset, but we'll have to see :)
I can't wait to see how this continues and I just HAVE to know now how old Zev is! Don't let us hang in there for too long, that would be cruel :)
V.
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>.>
more monday. ^.^
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From what I've read so far it seems that he is a modified version of canon Zev, more your own interpretation of him (from the fics).
So, the concept of elves coming from the Nordic mythology (like the dwarfs), coined by writers like JRR Tolkien, then the concept of a video game and finally bits of your own fantasy. Wow - that's... a lot to take in.
On the other hand, he did seem to cope fairly well with having left his own world behind or it just takes a while to really settle.
Poor, poor Zev! Thankfully he has Lily, I'm sure she'll find a way :)
V.
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we'll be having The Conversation in the next chapter. ;)
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i was still in the frantic-edit phase. i'm... not so good at having a buffer.
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running into stalker again would be really painful. i could only hope it would go this well, truly.
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don't hide! *tacklehugs*
:D
thank you.
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That right there is a very powerful bit. Such restraint Zevran is showing, too. Lovely and intense.