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qqueenofhades · 7 years

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the trash saga of flynn and lucy: xiii

i stayed up too late finishing this. is anyone surprised that i, the author of the super fine literature the trash saga of flynn and lucy, also make terrible choices? no, probably not. ao3 here.

The Salem Town Court of Oyer and Terminer (specially established to address the problem of rampant witchcraft, if Lucy recalls, and which will be disbanded in October over disapproval of the trials – not that that helps them at all right now) is held in a crowded, stuffy room, a row of bewigged and berobed justices seated behind an imposing mahogany table and a throng of eager citizens looking on from the stalls, tense and hungry for a conviction. The atmosphere is like nothing Lucy has remotely experienced: devouring, almost cannibalistic. These people are already convinced of their guilt, and they want them to suffer for it. Hanging or burning at the stake, doesn’t matter. As she and Flynn are manhandled into the docket, both in chains, Lucy tries to catch his eye, praying for one of his spectacular plans – she doesn’t want him to pull out a gun and shoot the entire citizenry of Salem, but she also isn’t in a position to be terribly picky. He might be in no mood to save his own skin, but is he going to drag her down with him? Is she going to have to figure this out all herself? From her limited knowledge of the trials, the suspects often get tried and convicted within the space of a single day, and hanged not long after that. They have no time.

The presiding magistrate bangs the gavel, and the session is brought to order. They are asked to speak and confirm their names for the court, at which Flynn gives them a look of utter disdain. “Holden Caulfield,” he drawls. “Why not?”

“It says here that your Christian name is Garcia Flynn.” The magistrate’s brow furrows at such an unusual and un-Puritan moniker. “Men of good character have attested as much to us. Are you denying their testimony, sir?”

“Men of good character? You mean Rittenhouse? The lot who have turned up recently and encouraged you to arrest all the slightly strange women you can find?” Flynn’s chains clink as he leans forward, and the judges tense. “And anyone else they want? No. No, those aren’t men of good character. But then, you batch of pitchfork-waving shitheads wouldn’t know that, would you? How many of the women have you killed already?”

There is a communal gasp at this extremely un-Puritan language, as by the sound of things from the stalls, several upstanding members of the community have had the vapors. The magistrate clutches his gavel as if Flynn might grow wings and fly shrieking into his face on the spot. “Do you, sir, unlawfully impede the justice done by this court in the name of – ”

“Justice?” Flynn sneers. “Justice? Any of you see any justice here? This is a sham, this is all a fucking sham, and you are on the wrong side of history, I promise you that. Nobody’s going to thank you for bravely clearing Salem of the menace of the witches. You’ll be remembered as a bunch of superstitious, hysterical dicks who murdered innocent women for nothing, and did it all waving a Bible and calling yourselves the champions of God. No wonder you and Rittenhouse are such best buddies. They like the same kind of thing. Probably told you everything you wanted to hear, that this time they’d make it a clean sweep. Didn’t they?”

It is not possible for anyone to make any response to this, they’re so stunned. It’s also clear that to their eyes, Flynn could not be more obviously possessed by the Devil if he actually had horns and a tail. He’s not wrong, and of course everyone has dreamed about getting to tell historical morons where to stick it, but said historical morons also have the power to order them executed more or less on the spot. John Rittenhouse and Carol Preston aren’t going to be able to stop this, even if they don’t want Lucy to die. Once a mob gets rolling, you stand between it and its target at your peril, and they will lose whatever tenuous control Rittenhouse has over the trials if they interfere. If they even know. Emma has probably planned this very carefully.

In any case, Lucy has absolutely no intention of being indebted to King Rittenhouse and her pathological liar of a mother for their deliverance, and she needs to think fast. She leans forward under Flynn’s arm, shooting him a warning look. “Saltonstall,” she blurts. “Colonel Nathaniel Saltonstall. Is he here?”

The jury rustles in surprise and disquiet. “And you are?”

“Hermione Granger.” Fine, Lucy thinks, let them try to burn an actual witch.

Flynn snorts, and she shoots him another look – Holden Caulfield does not have much room to critique anyone on their alibi choices. “Saltonstall,” she repeats. “He’s a justice on this court, isn’t he?”

“Col. Saltonstall served briefly among our number, yes,” the magistrate says stiffly. “But he resigned. Expressed dissatisfaction and disbelief about the legitimacy of the trials, or their necessity. As such, a decision was made that he was not suited to continue in his post.”

“The one man willing to stand up against you?” Flynn says scathingly. “No wonder.”

Lucy gives him a Jesus-Christ-don’t-ruin-this-for-us look, as this is the only idea she has and if it fails, they are about to be barbecue. She has no idea how to convince them to let her talk to Saltonstall, or even what she’d say to him if they do – he had (has) a reputation as a humane, fair, and principled man, but asking him to swallow the whole please-don’t-burn-us, we’re-from-the-future thing might be a bridge too far. Even trying might be the thing to convince him that maybe the witch hunters are onto something after all, and the trials get much worse. He’s the only man in Salem currently opposing them. If he gives his blessing instead. . .

That, however, is also a problem that they will have to work out once they’re so lucky as to have it. The jury is still eyeing her with deep skepticism and dislike. “Mistress Granger, how do you and Mr. Flynn know one another?”

“We’re. . .” Lucy hesitates. There is no good lie for this situation. She can’t get away with claiming they’ve never set eyes on each other in their lives, given that she was caught trying to rescue him from the stocks last night. Nobody is going to buy that they’re brother and sister, even aside from the different surnames. “He’s my. . . intended.”

Flynn shifts slightly at that, but – miraculously – does not say anything to disagree, perhaps because it’s hit him belatedly that they might need a little finesse at getting out of this. He folds his arms and rolls his eyes instead, because he can’t not be a jerk in some way, until Lucy thinks it’s probably too much to ask that they let her off on the grounds that being married to this man will be enough of a punishment. But since neither of them deny it, the jury is forced to record it for posterity. “And do either of you know Col. Saltonstall personally?”

“We’ve. . . heard of him. He’ll want to speak to us. I – ” Lucy remembers just in time that the Ivy League is still a few centuries off from being co-ed, misogyny, take a shot – “that is, Flynn knows him from Harvard College. We’re. . . friends of the family.”

The magistrate huffs, as these are clearly in his opinion very funny friends to be having, but he can’t quite take the risk that they’re not. The Saltonstalls will go on to be a prominent family in early American history: a governor of Connecticut, a captain in the Continental Navy during the Revolution, congressmen and politicians and businessmen, and Senator Leverett Saltonstall, who – keeping the family tradition of standing up alone to oppose witch hunts – was the only member of the Senate leadership to vote to censure Joe McCarthy for the Red Scare. Lucy wonders briefly if they’re Rittenhouse, as this would be just the kind of people that they want to recruit, but she also thinks that Rittenhouse would have its work cut out for it with the Saltonstalls, who can see directly through the candied promises to the rotten core of what they’re really offering. It occurs to her to wonder if that’s exactly what they are doing here, aside from the convenient side benefit of getting rid of Flynn. Get Nathaniel Saltonstall to capitulate, put aside his principles, condone the witch trials, or otherwise never establish the family legacy of defiance, and how many roads get smoothed for Rittenhouse in the future? A lot. The answer is a lot.

There is more muttering and glaring among the jury, but at last it is evidently and grudgingly decided that they cannot take the risk of hanging one of Saltonstall’s old school chums by accident. The court is sent for a recess, and a messenger dispatched to fetch the colonel, as Lucy and Flynn are allowed to retire to a small side chamber to await his arrival. Lucy hopes he doesn’t ask too many questions in advance and blow a hole in what is a flimsy ruse to start with. If he’s smart, he’ll cotton on to what they’re trying to do and pretend to know Flynn anyway, but that cannot be counted on. She shifts her weight, exhausted from the sleepless night, yawning in the summer sunlight; her wits feel muzzy and wandering. Which, given that they’re about the only thing that has a chance of saving their butts, is dangerous.

She can feel Flynn glancing at her, though he steadfastly looks away whenever she tries to catch his eye. She can’t tell if there is any guilt on his part, if he considers himself responsible for getting her into this mess when he is the only one who should have suffered for it, or he’s just angry – at her, at her mother, at all the Prestons, who are apparently positioned at the very heart of the one thing he wants to destroy more than anything else in the world. He seemed briefly willing to give it a go and escape with her last night, but that’s the thing with Flynn. You’re never sure what the fuck he’s thinking. She might just be fooling herself to think that after all this time (and all that) she should have a better read on him.

At last, there’s a cursory knock on the door, and a colonial gentleman in his early fifties, who must be Saltonstall, makes his entrance, clearly more than a little baffled. His eyes flick them up and down, and it does not take long, of course, for him to realize that he does not know them from Harvard. He is, however, canny enough to catch on, and he considers them for a moment, then shuts the door behind him. “Mr. Flynn and Mistress Granger?” The tone in his voice leaves it open to question whether he thinks those are their real names. “You wished to speak with me?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Lucy manages a gracious smile. “We’re. . .we, well, have somewhat run afoul of these. . . proceedings. We were hoping you might be able to straighten things out.”

“We’ve not met, have we?” He considers her with a look that makes her think of one of her favorite professors in undergrad. Whether that’s hopeful or not, she doesn’t know. “And you both are most evidently not from Salem. How did you know to ask for me?”

“Your, ah. Your reputation, of course. Since you resigned from the court – ”

“I was not aware that that was common knowledge outside the township. It was only a span of days ago, after they hanged Bridget Bishop.” His pale blue eyes are polite, but clearly skeptical. He’s not buying this. “And while I may object to these disgraceful goings-on, I should certainly be guilty of the sin of vanity myself to think I had a chance of stopping them. Such proceedings swiftly acquire a life of their own, Mistress. . . Granger. Surely you are most aware.”

Lucy hesitates. “All right,” she says. “My name is Lucy Preston. I was brought here by the people who recently arrived, the ones who call themselves Rittenhouse. I was trying to rescue this man here, after he was arrested and put into the stocks. But matters went wrong, and we were apprehended by Cotton Mather and his. . . followers, brought here for trial in the morning.”

“I see.” Saltonstall’s voice remains noncommittal. “How, still, did you know about me?”

“I – ah, I – ”

“We’re time travelers.” Flynn, as usual, is not in the mood for bullshit, or feeble cover stories. Lucy lets out a strangled noise and elbows him in the ribs, which he ignores. “She’s a historian at a university. She knows all about you and your descendants. And I’m guessing those other visitors have been trying very hard to convince you to drop your opposition to the trials, haven’t they? Whispering about some kind of grand and important future, if you join their cause?”

Saltonstall is (forgivably) floored over the first part of this statement, and Lucy spears Flynn with a look that is, she supposes, indeed rather wifely in its stern disapproval – even an intelligent and open-minded seventeenth-century man, especially one living directly in the middle of a witch hunt, is not about to blink, shrug, and go on his way with that. As usual, however, Flynn could give exactly half of a well-ripened fuck. Probably less, with the few days he’s been having. “Well?” he says grouchily, when Saltonstall doesn’t answer. “Isn’t that proof that I’m possessed by the Devil and should be executed on the spot? I don’t want you to miss your quorum here.”

Saltonstall’s mouth is still open. He shuts it. “I am unsure about demonic possession, sir,” he says – rather levelly, all things considered. “That is, however, a most remarkable statement.”

“Well?” Flynn repeats. “Your visitors. Is that what they’ve been saying or not?”

“I – yes, they have furthered propositions in that nature. They have a great deal to say about some sort of learned society they intend to found, and wish the Saltonstalls to be inaugural members. I am not terribly certain it is a wise investment.”

“It. . .” Lucy hesitates. “It’s not. A man may have approached you – his name is John Rittenhouse – and what he wants to do to America, it’s – ”

Saltonstall is puzzled. “You mean the colonies?”

“There’s going to be a war in about another hundred years,” Flynn says shortly. “You become a country. Some great-grandson of yours completely fucks up the Penobscot Expedition.”

Lucy steps very hard on his foot. The look he gives her can only be described as bite me. She is impressed (and slightly turned on) that he knows Commodore Dudley Saltonstall, who will indeed be dismissed in disgrace in 1779 for steering the fledgling American navy to its worst defeat until Pearl Harbor a hundred and sixty-two years later, but this is not the time. They are supposed to be recruiting this man’s help, not bombarding him with unflattering facts about his family’s future (and for that matter, telling him about it in the first place. That, however, is Flynn for you.)

Saltonstall opens his mouth again, decides that this is substantially beyond his pay grade in any case, and snaps it shut. “It may be prudent to make some inquiries,” he decides at last. “Until such time, I will have you removed to my home. After all, how could I refuse my hospitality to an old schooldays friend and his betrothed?”

This is clearly a bit of a pointed hint that he’s sticking his neck out for them when he doesn’t have to, and even Flynn gets it, though he glares. Then he swallows down his umbrage, nods stiffly, and takes Lucy’s arm. It takes a while to convince the jury and the disappointed spectators, but Saltonstall finally herds them out to where his carriage is waiting, which they climb into. Someone throws a rotten egg just as he shuts the door, and Lucy is reminded again of what he said. He is only one man, and these things have their own sentient, malevolent energy – this will become known as the byword for episodes of murderous public hysteria, after all. As long as they stay at his home, he himself will be in danger, accused of shielding practicing witches and/or the Devil Incarnate, and a mob might just break down the door to settle things. Getting him killed before his time would be a pretty poor way to repay the favor.

It’s a comparatively short ride through the streets to the Saltonstall residence, a handsome half-timbered, whitewashed house. They step down, Flynn giving Lucy a dutiful hand, and Saltonstall leads them inside, before nodding them up the stairs. Clearly, their presence here is to be kept quiet, and they reach a room at the end of the hall, with a door that can be barred. He says he’ll hopefully be back by evening, and that if they need anything, they can ring for the servants. He advises that it is not a good idea to go out onto the streets, and takes his leave.

When the door shuts behind him, both Flynn and Lucy blow out a slow, ragged breath, not quite daring to believe in their deliverance. The room is small but decently furnished, and Lucy sits – sinks, really – onto the bed as her legs abruptly stop working, seeing double with tiredness and wanting nothing so more as to crawl beneath the counterpane, shut the curtains, and sleep until the eighteenth century starts. Then she shakes herself, brushing her tousled hair out of her eyes. “I should – I should have a look at your gunshot wounds.”

“They’re fine, Lucy.” He doesn’t turn, still staring at the wall. “We have larger problems.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I can’t check on them.” Lucy gets to her feet and crosses the floor, reaching out – only for him to catch her wrists in one hand and hold her away from him, more or less gently but extremely stubbornly. It’s clear he is decidedly not in the mood to have her fuss over him, and while being cooped up in this small room like a tiger in a cramped zoo cage is doing absolutely nothing for his temper, Flynn’s preferred method of stress relief (i.e. going out and shooting the nearest member of Rittenhouse) is, as noted, out. Guess they have to improvise. “Are you sure I can’t – ”

“They’re fine,” Flynn repeats again, more brusquely, in case Lucy can’t see how Fine he is here now, thanks. “And even if not, it’s no concern of yours. You shouldn’t even be here.”

“Shouldn’t be here?” Lucy’s voice rises. “Because you’re the only one who gets to crash through time trying to save your loved ones, is that it? Even when that causes all the catastrophes that we’ve been trying so hard to – ”

Flynn stares at her as if she’s suddenly sprouted a second head, which confuses Lucy briefly – at least until it strikes. She wants to bite her tongue, or take it back somehow, but she can’t, and there it is, bare between them in the unpleasant silence. Flynn looks as if he’s been brained with a skillet, and Lucy almost wants to laugh, painful as it is. Almost wants to say it again, in case both of them are clearly thinking they misheard, or misspoke. But she didn’t mean to. It just. . . slipped out. And worse, she can’t deny it. Well, then. Well.

“You. . .” Flynn speaks at last, which is a pity, because anything he has to say is not likely to improve the situation. “Lucy, you. . .”

“I made a choice to come after you.” Lucy squares her shoulders and looks at him unflinchingly, much as she has to tilt her head back to do so. “I knew what I was risking, what had a possibility to go wrong. You’ve always known what I can do, when I put my mind to it.”

For half a moment, Flynn smiles, almost tenderly. As if to say he does at that, before he remembers to disagree with her about the rest of it. “Lucy, why would you be so abysmally stupid as to put yourself into Rittenhouse’s hands, to risk that bastard John doing God knows what with you, when you could just – ”

“Could just what?” Lucy shouts, finally provoked beyond all endurance by this man, this stupid, stupid man, and his award-winning obtuseness. “Just walk away? Forget about you? Pretend it didn’t matter? Pretend you didn’t? Because you know what, Garcia? I didn’t!”

Flynn flinches as if he’s touched a hot stove. Stares at her wildly for a long and excruciating moment, runs a hand through his hair, whirls away, and whirls back. “You should have!” he yells back. “You should have! Then you wouldn’t be here, all of this wouldn’t – do you think I want to watch you burn for my mistakes? I’m the only one who deserves to die! Not you!”

Lucy feels briefly as if she has been punched, though she isn’t even certain why. “Well,” she says. “You don’t get to make that call. You’re so used to living completely by yourself, keeping people around only if they’re materially useful and killing them when they’re not, you’ve lost track of any real or selfless or genuine human connection. You’re lonely and you’re sad and you’re broken, and you’ve gotten so used to living that way that you’ve convinced yourself it’s the only way you can, ever again. So you try as hard as you can to chase off anyone who might try to say otherwise, who might dig down into your hole and make you –”

“I’m not worth it!” Flynn spins, seizes some sort of knickknack off the sideboard, and launches it at the wall with considerable velocity, shattering it with a tinkle of breaking porcelain. It’s clearly going to be hard on the Saltonstalls’ possessions if he is allowed to be around them for much longer, and Lucy hopes the servants don’t come rushing up to investigate. “I’m not worth it, Lucy! I don’t know why you keep insisting on pretending that I am! I’m not! I’m nothing like you! The world’s not flower crowns and hand-holding! Not everyone deserves to be saved. Not everyone is secretly a good person deep down. I’m not. I don’t deserve it!”

Lucy is momentarily staggered. But she takes another step, even as they’re almost nose to nose, neither of them backing down. “I don’t believe that,” she says fiercely. “And you’re wrong, by the way. As usual. I don’t care whether ‘everyone’ deserves it or not. We’re talking about you. You deserve to be saved. And you don’t get to tell me whether or not I make that choice.”

Flynn continues to stare at her down his long nose, completely flabbergasted. Lucy is tired of his shit, and tired of dropping anvils on his oblivious head, and tired in general, exhausted, and no matter how brave a front she is putting up, she is very close to starting to cry and hiding under the quilts on the bed. Despite herself, her lip trembles. Would it kill him, would it actually, physically kill him, to not be so incredibly, obnoxiously Flynn for three goddamn seconds?

His eyes flash to her face, to the shine in her eyes, the quiver in her mouth. He was doubtless about to say something else to lower the IQ of the room, but this seems to make him forget it. He takes her chin in his hand, almost timidly thumbing at the tear escaping down her cheek, and Lucy is definitely going to punch him later, as he so richly also deserves, but she can’t work up the motivation right now. Instead, without a word, she all but collapses into his arms.

Flynn holds her tightly, engulfing her, as they sway on the spot. Then he scoops her up like a feather and carries her to the bed, setting her down on it, and Lucy clutches at his grubby jacket, pulling him down beside her. He resists momentarily, one last time, and then gives in, settling next to her and pulling her into the shield of his chest. She grips his arm, burying her face into his neck, shaking on silent, half-formed sobs, as he continues to rock her clumsily. He’s muttering under his breath in what she supposes is Croatian, small nothings that sound half like endearments, if it’s possible to imagine Flynn saying such things. She doesn’t care. She just doesn’t want to get up. She wants to stay here and sleep and drown.

At last, once she settles somewhat, she thinks he’ll get up, but he doesn’t. He continues to lie there, still as a tomb-carving, and she continues to hold onto him. The world is fragmenting at the edges, turning dark and soft, and Lucy can’t resist the thrall of sleep any longer. She plunges under like someone falling through the ice, into the dark water. Down and down and down.

She opens her eyes an unknown amount of time later, feeling both as thick as a concussed ox and a bit, slightly, possibly restored. Flynn’s weight is gone from beside her, leaving the covers rumpled, but as her vision clears, she sees him sitting on the chair in the corner, staring up at the ceiling as if he’s praying. His jacket is off and he’s in his shirtsleeves, collar unbuttoned, so that it catches in her throat to see him there in the late afternoon light. He doesn’t realize she’s awake, watching him from the bed. Whatever he’s saying to God, it’s simple and silent.

After a moment, he drops his gaze, looks around, and sees her. A wry half-smile curls his lips, and he beckons to a tin plate on the desk. “There’s food.”

Lucy recognizes this as an olive branch, and nods, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and examining what is on offer. It looks like bread, a cold chicken leg, an apple, and a cup of some strong home-brewed ale, which makes her cough slightly when she drinks it. It’s good, though, weighting a small warm ember in her belly, and she feels somewhat more revived when she finishes. “Is Saltonstall back yet?”

Flynn shrugs. “Don’t think so.”

“Is there any point in reminding you to try to avoid announcing that we’re time travelers to everyone we meet?”

He shrugs again. “I suppose you could remind me. Might stick one of these days.”

“You’re such an ass,” Lucy sighs, without much heat. They’re still looking at each other, the light rich and gold, and he gets up, facing her as if to say that if she wants to shout at him some more, he will obediently present himself for censure. It’s tempting, to be sure. She will likewise have to catch up these days. But what she does is cross the floorboards toward him, pause only briefly, then stand on her tiptoes, put her hand behind his head, pull him down, and kiss him.

Flynn jerks in surprise, as it was clear he was expecting a slap sooner than anything remotely like this. But he must, at last, be that bit tired of fighting too, because his hands are warm on her waist, his mouth quietly and generously giving to hers, and both of them make soft, involuntary sounds as they turn their heads and deepen it. He starts to kiss the corner of her lips, the side of her jaw, the underside of her chin, and then down her neck to her shoulder, untying the white collar of the Puritan dress she’s still wearing to get better access. He pulls at the laces of the dress itself, shrugging it down over her shoulders, and Lucy reaches up to help him. She needs this. She doesn’t even have to think twice.

Flynn buries his head into her chest, kissing and musing, and Lucy shudders as he takes a nipple delicately, toys it for a bit, then lets go, exploring lower. His hands cup and frame her waist, slide up her spine, circle her ribs, and get a good grip on her breasts, Lucy shivering again as his thumb circles the wetness left by his mouth. Then they slide back to her hips, he lifts her, and carries her back to the tousled bed, but with a clearly different intention this time. He puts her onto the quilt and crawls onto it after her, pushing her skirts up and draping her legs over his shoulders. Then, before Lucy can do much more than breathe a curse that’s half a prayer and grip his hair, he licks her, nips at her clit with just enough teeth to make her keen, and sets to his work.

Lucy wriggles and whines, trying to get one leg free to dig her heel into the bed for support, but he keeps a firm grip on her thighs, refusing to let her have any anchor apart from him. He slides his tongue inside her, tasting her, stubble rasping against her too-sensitive folds as he sets about a slow and thorough fucking, in and out, taking his time about each lick and bite. Garcia Flynn, for better or worse, does not half-ass anything, and especially not this, stopping here and there for a proper breath but otherwise keeping up the heat and intensity of it until she almost can’t stand it, worshiping at the altar of her body. As if God may or may not answer, but now, this, here, is the only place the sinner can kneel down and know that his prayer is heard.

Lucy twists again, heat surging in her belly and up to her head, as she reaches out to grip hold of the pillow in search of some way to reassure herself that she isn’t about to tip off the wildly spinning planet and into space. With the last of her rapidly dwindling capacity for finite thought, she devoutly hopes that Saltonstall does not choose this inopportune moment to make his re-entrance, but the door remains shut. Flynn might not stop even if he did. He continues to work until Lucy is sopping wet and trembling and whimpering, desperate and hungry for the release that he won’t quite give her. Instead he withdraws, sits up, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, dark-eyed with lust and slow with calculated consideration. She reaches for him. “Garcia – ”

Again, he doesn’t quite let her touch him, but in a softer way, less as if he’s trying to punish her and more as if he simply wants her to stop trying so hard for once, to let him be the one to make it up to her instead. He shifts up next to her, reaching for his belt, and shrugs his trousers and briefs down over his hips – not quite all the way off, as if aware they might still be interrupted. But as Lucy spreads her legs, and he moves on his knees over her, he slides a hand under the small of her back to lift her up toward him, entering her with a soft, roughing stroke. Fills her solidly and strongly, their foreheads brushing, mouths open, eyes half-closed. She squirms underneath him to give him the best angle, and after a moment, he slowly starts to move.

It stays like that, considered and deliberate, rather than tipping over into the usual heated frenzy of their couplings. As if they both drive each other unmercifully, know that they are both strong enough to take whatever the other can throw at them, but there can also be this tenderness too, this unspoken care, of piecing the broken cracks together. Lucy tightens around him, once and then again, pulling him further into her, her hands coming up to curl around his head, guiding his mouth back to hers. The kiss is slow and wet and soft as well, his nose staying nudged into the crook of her cheek, their bodies riding and rising and moving in time to the slowly lengthening strokes. Until he pulls her up against him, hard, tangles his hand in her hair, and brings them to a dazzling, silent, gasping release, pushing her other hand against the quilts and driving into her once and then again. He settles on her, knees to either side of her thighs, weight on his elbows, still inside her as he spills. There’s no sound except for their ragged breathing.

After a moment, Lucy rolls them over so she can lie atop him, practically curled on his chest, head under his chin, as he slips out of her but they remain closely entangled. She doesn’t say anything, just moves to kiss his cheek. There’s a saltiness there that isn’t sweat.

When they can hear voices downstairs, they hastily sit up and reconstitute their clothing, managing to get mostly unsuspicious-looking by the time there’s a knock on the door. Flynn opens it, to see a rather harassed Saltonstall on the other side. “I have done what I can, you have my oath, but the court has ordered your immediate recall. Come with me.”

This is an ominous proclamation, and Flynn and Lucy frown at each other as they follow him down the stairs and out to the waiting carriage. Their trip through the streets is quite a bit more eventful than last time, given the number of people waiting to throw things at it, and by the time they roll up before the public hall, Lucy doesn’t need any other indications that the tide has turned badly against them. It seems as if Rittenhouse (or most probably, Emma) has been working on the justices as well, encouraging them that if they start something as ridiculous as pardoning the accused, they’d have to let them all off, and then the witches might come back twice as strong as before. As they are led into the dim, stuffy, candlelit hall, and shouts start breaking out from the stalls, Lucy grimaces. Yeah. This is bad.

Saltonstall, to his great credit, insists on arguing in front of the jury that this is a terrible mistake, that there must be due process of law and the presentation of proper evidence. The jury is not interested in hearing it. They read off a laundry list of Flynn’s crimes that only Emma can have given them, judiciously edited so as not to make it apparent that all of these happened in the future, and as the shouts of “BURN HIM! BURN HIM!” get louder, the magistrate thumps his gavel. For gross and innumerable offenses, for general chaos and violence (well, they aren’t wrong, at least on that front), for un-Christian behavior, vices, and disposition, and fairly obvious service to Satan, Garcia Flynn is sentenced, effective immediately, to death by fire.

“No!” Lucy screams, kicking and struggling, as the mob surges forward to engulf both of them, manhandling them out the door and into the courtyard beyond, where – either expecting or hoping for this verdict – a stake and platform has been set up, strewn with bundles of oil-soaked hay. It’s not clear whether she was included by proxy in Flynn’s sentence, if they don’t care and figure they’ll burn the Devil’s wife along with him, or if this makes no difference at all. Saltonstall is bellowing about miscarriage of justice and murder for which may God have mercy on their souls, but no one is listening. Someone grabs Lucy by the hair, marching her forward, as she screams and Flynn starts tearing apart the crowd with his bare hands trying to get to her, as two brawny Puritans hang onto each arm and they have to get a third and fourth in there pronto to have any hope of subduing him. They’re dragged and hauled through the mud to the stake, slammed against it, and Lucy sobs in terror, trying to get hold of him, as their fingers momentarily catch and then are torn apart again. Someone punches Flynn in the face as he keeps fighting; he spits blood but doesn’t stop, knowing that this is for their lives. She can’t see a way out of this, nobody’s coming to save them, nobody’s going to –

“STOP!”

The scream rings out above the chaos of the courtyard, silencing even the unholy racket, and heads turn to see – Lucy thinks she must be dreaming – a white-faced Iris Flynn standing in the entrance to the courtyard. She is tall and dark and beautiful and dangerous in the torchlight, until it occurs to Lucy that if anyone is a genuine witch here, a woman whose wrath the Salemites should truly fear, it’s hers. Her cheekbones could cut glass, her eyes two dark pits, her hair loose on her shoulders. She looks like a demon and an angel all at once.

“Stop,” Iris repeats, taking a step and then another, as the crowd falls away, almost without its volition, to either side of her. She strides forward, skirts swirling, until she reaches the stake where Flynn and Lucy have been bound. “Untie them.”

The magistrate goggles, aghast at having his authority questioned by this subversive female, this very personification of the sins of Eve, a woman who has eaten the apple of knowledge and whose eyes are well and terribly opened. “I will not take orders from a – ”

Iris reaches into her dress and removes a modern handgun, a weapon the likes of which the late seventeenth century has never seen. She points it with rock-steady hands. “I said, untie them.”

Flynn and Lucy manage to exchange a wild glance, having obviously never expected salvation on this front, although Lucy supposes that Iris is only here on behalf of Rittenhouse, or rather her mother and John, making sure they don’t kill John’s valuable bride by accident along with the actual target. And yet, there is still a brief and terrible hope, a burning pride, in Flynn’s eyes as he stares at his daughter, some part of him still wanting to think she’s saving him because she’s seen the light somehow. He stops his hereto wild-animal struggle to get out of the ropes, waiting. The entire universe seems to dangle from a thread.

“Well?” Iris repeats. “Did I stammer?”

“I said, I will not – ”

Iris shoots the magistrate. She does not turn a single hair. Just points the gun, cocks it, and pulls the trigger, all in one smooth-as-silk motion that is downright terrifying. She is utterly and completely her father, for better or for worse, and there’s a communal gasp and outcries of shock as the magistrate goes down, dead before he hits the ground. Iris turns around with a smile sharp enough to draw blood, arms outstretched, daring them to come at her. Salem has met a real witch, and there is nothing they can remotely do about it. They are terrified.

When Iris jabs with the gun again, the two meatheads from earlier scuttle to the stake, unwind the ropes, and liberate Flynn and Lucy. Lucy goes to her knees, coughing and sucking air and crying, and Flynn immediately kneels next to her, putting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her tightly into him, then helping her down off the platform as she continues to cling to him. It’s clear that if Iris wants to take them back to Rittenhouse, they’re going to have to resist somehow, but her face turns vulnerable and uncertain as she looks at them. She opens her mouth as if to say something. “I. . .” she starts. “Daddy, I. . .”

“Don’t.” Flynn’s voice is quiet, but it shivers through all of them with the force of a freezing blade. “Iris, don’t. Don’t apologize to me. You have nothing to be sorry for, dragi. Not a single thing, do you hear me?”

Iris keeps looking at him. Her lip trembles. It’s clear that no matter how much Rittenhouse has managed to brainwash her, to convince her that they were the great white hope and that her father had unforgivably failed her, it was not strong enough to stop her fear and horror at seeing him about to be burned alive, if she had heard rumors and did her best to get here in the nick of time. “I – ” she starts, heaving a breath, before remembering where they are, and that they have to get out, that whatever spell she has cast won’t last forever. “We have to go.”

Flynn and Lucy follow closely behind her through the silent, stunned crowd, to the road beyond. She moves as if she doesn’t want to be observed, which makes Lucy wonder if she is in fact here for Rittenhouse after all. She doesn’t seem to be. They duck out and start to move fast – if Cotton Mather and his band of myrmidons are still hanging around hoping to nab more witches, their great escape could be over before it’s begun. Lucy is still shaking. Shock, she supposes; she’s had a lot of hair-raising shaves, but that feels like the closest she came to actually, truly dying. Flynn keeps a tight arm around her, keeping her pressed alongside him, as they follow Iris. Twist and turn and emerge through the city gate, until it strikes Lucy that Iris must be taking them to the Mothership. Is planning to get out of here – does she know how to pilot it? How far have they trained her to be their perfect weapon? Or –

“Stop!”

The same word, the same command, but it screeches all of them to a halt, as they whirl around to see John Rittenhouse himself, evidently just on his way back from said Mothership and not expecting in the least to run into his prisoners trying to escape (as they all are, no matter what he calls them). He jerks to a halt, staring at them. Just as before, when Lucy stopped Flynn from killing him, he’s unarmed. A man now, and the head of an ever-growing organization that has done everything terrible it can across centuries, but still.

Flynn, Lucy, and Iris remain where they are. Then Iris removes the gun again and points it at him. She says only, “Move.”

A goose walks over Lucy’s grave. By the tension in Flynn’s arm as it holds her against him, one might have walked over his as well.

“I don’t know what’s going on – Lucy, I’ve been worried, they said you’d been captured!” John looks at her entreatingly. “I didn’t intend – ”

“Oh?” Flynn growls. “Forgive me if I don’t believe that.”

“Come on. We can discuss this.” John remains where he is, hands up. “Iris, don’t do anything foolish. You know I’m fond of you, we can – ”

“Fond of me.” Iris repeats it tonelessly. She seems to be struggling very hard, the same as Flynn himself was when last pointing a gun at this man, though he was a boy then. Trying to reconcile all the lies she’s been fed by Rittenhouse with her own strength of character, her family trait to inherent and unyielding stubbornness, and hating these people with every fiber of her. This is it. Both the children grown up. The son of Rittenhouse’s founder, and the daughter of the man who has sworn to bring it down. One pointing a gun at the other. Everything hanging on it.

“Iris,” Flynn says at last, croakily. As if he can’t believe he’s advocating mercy for this man of all men, but doesn’t want to see his daughter take on the very sin he himself so nearly did. “Iris. Don’t.”

Her lips tighten further. Her finger curls. She’s thinking now, clearly. About what they’ve done. About what they’re still going to do. About how they tore her world, her family, her life, even her death, apart, and made her hate her own flesh and blood for it.

“Iris,” Lucy begs. Has no idea if she’s imploring a Flynn to spare John Rittenhouse, one more time, or to shoot him dead once and for all. “Iris, you – ”

“Please,” John says. Sounds almost like the boy he was. “Put the gun down, Iris. We’ve made mistakes, but we can still fix them. That’s the beauty of it, of this entire thing. Once you’re back to yourself, once you remember who you really are – ”

“I remember who I really am.”

And with that, Iris Flynn, Garcia and Lorena’s daughter, pulls the trigger.

#lucy x flynn #garcy #garcy ff #the trash saga of flynn and lucy

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