#agent rebecca | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sysba · 1 year

Text

untitled twc drabble

this has no title because the doc where i drafted it is just called "mommy issues" and it says all you need to know about it. told @night-triumphantt edith would say something to rebecca after that book 3 birthday flashback/convo so here it is, unfiltered unedited brainrot happy sunday i love siblings<3 i love hating rebecca<3

Edith’s eyes are fixed on the same spot even after Kiara leaves, a scowl so deep one would guess the door personally insulted her; in the busy aftermath of the mission no one seems to notice her troubled look, or the subtle shake of her shoulders as she folds her arms impossibly tight.

She swallows once. Then again.

It’s been like this ever since she’s started working with Unit Bravo: she’s been biting her tongue, pushing down words that would’ve darted out of her before and hit their bullseye. Instead she’s been stuck with this acrid taste in her mouth, uncharacteristically docile as she ends unborn conversations and walks away before the hellos.

And that’s what her every instinct is telling her to do now, too. Say nothing, walk away. It’s the smart choice, the self-preserving one. But when it comes to her sister she can’t afford to do damage control.

“You don’t listen to her.” It’s out of her mouth before she can think twice of it, her tone clipped and decisive.

She hasn’t yelled, has not even raised her voice, but she feels like she might have. Everyone stops, sensing the shift in the air.

Rebecca is frozen on the spot, looking right at Edith like she just threw ice water on her. Like she knew the accusation was directed at her.

Unit Bravo glances between them in confusion, but nobody speaks. Edith doesn’t even spare a quick look their way, all of her focus on Rebecca. She steels herself.

Too late to go back now.

“You never listen to her.” She doesn’t have to say Kiara’s name to see Rebecca’s unyielding features soften, settling into hurt. “She told you she was hurt, and you made it about yourself.”

Again. That last word hangs between them, unspoken and unforgiving.

Rebecca frowns. “That was not my intention.”

“It never is, no,” Edith sighs through her nose, shoulders falling a bit.

Tiring, so tiring… She wants to do this for Kiara, stand up for her because she won’t, but it’s as if every cutting word she aims at Rebecca is shot back at her.

She hugs herself tighter, the blood on her tongue feeling almost as sickening as her next words. “You remember organising a kids’ birthday party and feeling guilty about having to miss it. What I remember is a seven-year-old kid in a dress too big for her, trying not cry in front of all of her friends after you left. Even saved you a slice of cake that she knew was gonna get thrown away. She was staring up at me with those giant weepy eyes and I couldn’t do shit about it.”

“Edith…” Rebecca’s tone is soft, regretful, and it’s but a water drop on a pyre. “That wasn’t your responsibility.”

“Then why’d you leave me to pick up your slack, huh?” Edith snaps, then reins herself in when she notices the way Nate is looking at her. “Whatever, that’s not what I–” Her jaw clenches briefly as she looks away.

That’s not what she wants to talk about, it doesn’t matter. She’s glad Kiara isn’t here right now, lest she think she resents her. Truth is, taking care of her sister was never something Edith did just because there was no one else. It was a choice, one that she hasn’t stopped making (because having to choose, she would always choose Kiara).

But telling Rebecca where she went wrong as a mother somewhat means reminding her she has two kids, something Edith is not all too keen on doing. It’s the same as throwing a grenade and then stand there, waiting for the shrapnel to tear into you.

Right now I’d pick the fucking grenade.

Edith’s lips purse as she meets Rebecca’s gaze again. “Two days later, at school, one of Kiara’s classmates made fun of her. Said ‘not even her mom cared about her birthday.’ I threw my lunch at him during break and got sent to the principal, so they called you. You didn’t show up there either,” she adds the last part with a smirk so venomous Rebecca almost recoils.

It’s true, though. Rebecca was too busy at work that day, so she had sent a sitter instead. And then grounded Edith for “using her hands and not her words”... as if a cold cheeseburger hurled at your head would hurt as bad as a punch.

Rebecca fidgets on the spot, the few wrinkles on her face more evident as her brow furrows in guilt. Edith can sense the apology before it comes.

“I am–”

“Don’t.” She doesn’t need any of this from her mother, doesn’t need her to be sorry. It’s too late for the two of them, anyway.

But maybe there’s something they can both fix.

“That’s not why I’m telling you. You get that, right?”

Edith’s gaze pierces through Rebecca, who faces it bravely this time. Eventually she nods, lips pursed and poise stiff.

“I’ll do better. I want to be better… for her.”

Edith smiles at that. It’s bittersweet, and not all that trustful, but it’s there.

Maybe there is something the two of them have in common, after all.

#twc fic #twc detective #mywritings #edith blake #kiara kingston #kiara & edith #agent rebecca #am normal about them [lies intensify]#myposts

37 notes · View notes

lykegenia · 1 year

Text

Like Glitter And Gold Ch.10

Fandom: The Wayhaven Chronicles Characters/Pairings: Nate x f!Detective, Unit Bravo, Rebecca Warnings: Mild thalassophobia I guess?

Read on AO3

Back at the warehouse, Adam is still adamantly refusing to believe Russell was killed for anything other than being a selkie.

“It is still possible this was a Trapper kidnapping gone wrong,” he insists.

There’s a groan around the library as the rest of Unit Bravo, settled on various pieces of furniture for the debrief, voice their collective opinion.

“We’ve patrolled both nights and found nothing,” Mason growls, an unlit cigarette between his lips.

“Martin Johnston said there was only one attacker,” Leah adds. Of them all, she’s the only one out of place, keeping a careful distance from Nate. With the memory of their argument still a hot itch across the back of her neck, sitting in his embrace like nothing’s wrong grates on her nerves – but at the same time, she can’t sit elsewhere because it’ll only sting more, and worse, everyone else will clock the reason for the weird tension in the room. So instead, she sticks to a compromise: she paces.

Felix is watching her with worried eyes. “Leah has a point, oh glorious leader,” he points out. “Trappers swarm like rats.”

“It is looking more likely that Russell being a supernatural was incidental to his death.”

At that, even Rebecca siding against him, Adam straightens from his lean against the mantelpiece, ruffled like a cold pigeon. “So what’s the answer, then?”

“We’re still missing pieces.” Leah turns, paces in the other direction. “The text to Russell’s phone, the sunken treasure…”

“And now an affair between the victim and one of the suspects.”

“At least Walter Greene seems less likely now,” Rebecca offers. “It would have complicated things.”

Leah has to bite down on the inside of her cheek to keep her retort at bay. Even in the little time she’s known about the supernatural, the Agency has taken care to craft an illusion of control, smashed apartments and rogue vampire killers bustled out of sight lest any of the messy edges be noticed. It’s hardly a surprise, considering Rebecca’s love of composure, of practicality.

The vampires tense, and she lets the thought go.

“Is there anything about this woman in that secret diary?” Mason asks after an awkward moment. “Her name surrounded by little love hearts, maybe?”

Nate carefully doesn’t look at Leah. “He mentions her, though not by name. He… he thought it was a soulmate bond.”

Instantly, the energy in the room shifts. Mason curses, Adam and Felix both go still, and even Rebecca’s hands curl into fists on her knees.

Completely at a loss, Leah chooses to focus on Unit Bravo’s leader. “What just happened?”

“A soulmate bond is… powerful.” It’s Rebecca who answers, suddenly hunched and brittle on the edge of the armchair she’s perched in. “It’s possible for two souls to find each other, and when they do they bind together. They don’t… complete each other necessarily – they’re whole on their own – but once the bond is made, a separation is… unpleasant.”

“You’re telling me soulmates are real?”

“Here we stand,” Adam points out, “and you’ve seen werewolves and fae.”

“Yeah, but…” Leah tears her gaze away from this new, unsettling vision of her mother. “You’re real, I’ve seen what you can do. You’re not some ephemeral concept that exists to sell Valentine’s Day cards. Besides,” she adds, pacing again, “are you sure? She said it was just a fling – she broke it off.”

“Could she have been lying?” Felix asks, anxious.

“She was lying about her husband not knowing about the affair, I’ll tell you that.” She shrugs. “Is it possible it was just a one-way thing?”

Nate is frowning at the carpet. “If their souls were bonded, they should both have felt it.”

“Sometimes there’s more than two in a bond, but never less,” Felix explains, then waves a hand as if the whole subject is an annoying fly he intends to swat away. “Enough about that. If you’ve finished reading that journal, Natey, do you know where the treasure is?”

Leah’s phone buzzes in her pocket and she turns away before she can hear his reply.

“Are you sitting down?” Tina asks on the other end of the line, before she can even manage a greeting. “You’re going to want to sit down.”

“Is this about the husband?” Behind her, four pairs of supernatural ears perk up.

“You bet it is. For starters, he has a record. Drunk and Disorderlies – four of them.”

She frowns. “I don’t remember arresting him.”

“Before our time.” Tina’s shrug is almost palpable. “Reele was the arresting officer. But that’s not important. The real kicker is that the text Russell got just before he died came from his phone.”

Leah goes still; she’s always found it strange how often one detail can suddenly shift the whole perspective on a case, the way lighting a face from a different angle can reveal a whole new identity.

“Do you want backup?” Tina asks.

She glances over her shoulder. Unit Bravo is already rising, waiting for her instructions, having clearly heard every word. “I think I’m good for backup.”

“Oh I see how it is,” comes the dry response. “Don’t need me anymore now you’ve got Unit Boyband to do your backing vocals, do you?”

“Tina…”

She knows they can hear her – she’s having far too much fun with it. There’s going to have to be a conversation about that.

“I’ll get the fanciest suite prepared for our guest in the meantime, shall I?” she asks, as a peace offering.

Leah nods. “Complete with bubble bath and pillow mints? I’ll call you when we’ve got him.”

She clicks off the call and can’t help a smile at the mix of incredulity and affront that faces her across the room.

“Unit Boyband?” Felix whines. “That’s not fair.”

“We do not provide ‘backing vocals’,” Adam adds in a peeved voice.

Mason grins. “I know some vocals that –”

“Please don’t finish that sentence,” Nate grinds out, covering his embarrassment with a hand.

“Will someone please explain what’s going on?”

Ignoring the heat in her own cheeks – because she absolutely knew where Mason’s comment was going – Leah turns to her mother. “Stanley Harris sent the text that led Russell into the ambush that killed him.”

Rebecca’s eyes widen. “The Agency will want to know. Excuse me.”

The others are still gathered around as she leaves, all eager for the chase.

“Are we all going?”

“If this man killed a supernatural, better safe than sorry,” Mason points out, having already tucked his cigarette back out of sight. He leads the way out of the library with Felix fast on his heels, all but bouncing at the prospect of a real, human arrest. Even Adam seems tenser than usual, though he spares a flat glance for Leah’s hopeful expression and tosses the SUV’s keys once in his palm.

Before she can retort, a gentle hand brushes against her wrist to halt her in the doorway.

“Leah…”

Her fingers curl around Nate’s, though she’s too much of a coward to look upwards into his face. “We have to go.”

“I know,” he murmurs. “But once this is over… will we talk?”

“We haven’t really done that yet, have we?” She sighs, bites her lip. “Sometimes… trying to figure out what you –”

“I meant what I said at the carnival.”

He’s stepped close enough that to see him she’d have to tilt her head all the way back, expose her throat and the way her cheeks flame at the memory of the Ferris wheel. Of course, he can read her pulse regardless, and the bright flood of adrenaline through her veins, hear the slight catch in her breath as his fingertips reach up for the edge of her jaw.

“I still want to focus on the case,” she manages, though she sways forward. In between one heartbeat and the next, her eyes slip closed. “For now.”

“Of course.”

His hand falls away. The loss of his presence hits like a blast of icy air, but it gives her space enough to lead the way after the others before anyone comes looking.

“We’ll be questioning him at the Agency, not the station,” Adam announces as the sat nav tells them to take the final turn along the boatyard track. His knuckles are white enough on the steering wheel to suggest he’s expecting a fight, and there’s a flicker of a glance sideways to gauge Leah’s expression. “Regardless of whether Seakirk was killed because he was a selkie, the killer saw him without his Veil. We need to see how much he knows.”

“And then you’ll make it all go away, right?” A huff blows through her cheeks, her boot taps in the footwell. “Just like Murphy.”

With an uncomfortable cough, his hands readjust their perfect nine-and-three position on the steering wheel, while in the back seat the silence deepens at the reminder.

“It’s for the best,” Adam rallies. “There would be panic if people knew. We’ve seen it before.”

“I get it,” she snaps. “The intelligence of a crowd is the intelligence of its biggest idiot divided by the number of people in it – but I don’t have to like it. Just don’t break any Geneva Conventions where I can see you.”

It’s petulant to hunch down in the seat but she does it anyway, bearing the jolt of the suspension as the rough silhouettes of birch and pine flash past the window. Eventually the view opens out as the terrain switches from forest to scrubby lakeshore, and the track ends in the concrete facing of the guest car park. The chainlink gates are padlocked shut, the yard deserted.

“Well that doesn’t seem promising,” Felix comments, leaning through the gap between the front seats.

Adam lets out a rumble of agreement. “Nate?”

“On it.”

The flash of movement is too quick for Leah’s eyes to catch before there’s a ping of snapping metal and the grind of rusty hinges, with Nate stepping back to wave the SUV through. Even before it crunches to a halt on the gravel, Felix and Mason pile out and speed off to check the perimeter.

“There’s no one in the shed!” Nate calls a moment later.

“Not along the shore either,” Mason confirms.

“Something isn’t right,” Adam grumbles. A deep scowl creases his forehead as he joins the others on the foreshore, the green eyes beneath scanning for whatever must be out of place. As ever, the gulls jeer in the air above, their flight an effortless slice through the wind churning up the water beyond the little bay.

“Russell’s boat is missing,” Leah notices, and turns to Nate. “Isn’t that where it was moored?”

“It was.” He frowns. “You don’t think Stanley is –?”

“He must be after the treasure!” Felix cries.

“How would he even know where it is?” Mason scoffs, though he, too, is looking out over the water, one hand shading against the glare. “We’re the ones with the journal, aren’t we?”

“Nate?”

“The second-to-last entry says Russell found it,” comes the hesitant reply. “But I don’t see how… wait.” He jerks his head round to the shed. “The GPS readouts. Stanley must be tracing them back to the wreck site.”

Adam hummed. “You said there was diving equipment on board?”

Taking in the vastness of the lake, it’s not the salvage they need to worry about. The problem is the far shore, the craggy miles of coves and wooded inlets where someone on the run might drive a boat into hiding and then lose themselves in the endless stretch of hills beyond. Even with supernatural senses, Stanley might make it halfway across the country before they even found the start of his trail.

“Does anyone know how to drive a boat?” Leah asks.

“We don’t need a boat.” At her confused look, the corner of Adam’s mouth twists into his equivalent of a smirk. “We can catch him on foot.”

“How the…” Her gaze alights on Nate, hunched and shifting his weight, and it clicks. “You mean on the water? You can walk on water?”

Mason grins. “We can move fast enough not to sink.”

“Of course you can,” she says weakly. “Why not? That’s still only about the fifth weirdest revelation this week.”

A moment later there’s a commiserating pat on her back as Felix hands Nate a pair of binoculars from the SUV’s equipment store. Ahead, Adam pushes aside the security gate to the dock with the ease of a child crushing eggshells, before leading the way to the edge of the dock.

“Check comms,” he orders.

“I see the boat,” Nate says, his expression hidden behind the binoculars.

He points to a white speck bobbing in the distance, and an instant late both he and Leah are soaked by a plume of spray as the rest of Unit Bravo blink and take off like comets across the surface of the water. An instant later she has to grab at Nate’s arm as the ripples assail the pontoon and throw it upwards, slapping hollowly on the boards and against the hulls of the vessels moored closer to the shore.

“Are you alright?” he asks, as the waves subside into the fizz of innocent, foamy bubbles.

She takes in the tightness at the corners of his eyes, but nods. “Glad to see you kept your sea legs. Can you see what’s happening?”

“Yes,” he says, squinting through the binoculars again. “They’ve reached the boat. Adam is being his usual charming self.” A pause. “They’ve gone inside the cabin, I can’t see anymore.”

There’s noise coming over the comms though. A clatter and the smash of a lock; heavy footfalls. Someone yells, and then there’s a muffled thump, followed by the voice of their suspect, shrill and thick with fear.

“How did you get… You’re like him, aren’t you?”

“We have no desire to hurt you, Mr Harris.” Adam, low and even, probably with his palms spread wide, blocking the doorway with his huge frame as he waits for an opening.

“Stay back!”

“Mr Harris –”

“No! You can’t have it – I’ll shoot, I swear I will!”

Shit.

“He’s got a gun,” Leah hisses, turning to Nate.

His jaw clenches. “I should be over there.”

“No.” She touches his arm again, more gently this time, and turns his face towards her with the other hand. “Adding another person now won’t help.”

“But I –”

“It’s not your fault,” she interrupts, firm. “Let the others handle it.”

Her heart skips at the way he leans into her palm, how the line between his brows softens and the corner of his mouth lifts as he drinks her in. So many colours reflect in the wistful brown of his eyes.

“Uh, guys? Guys?”

Nate shakes himself and straightens, pushes the button to activate the comms. “We read you Felix.”

“You know we’re still in the middle of a case, right?” the younger vampire teases. “There’ll be plenty of time for longing gazes later.”

“We weren’t –” Nate bites off a sigh. “What’s the situation over there?”

“If you two lovebirds had been listening, you’d know everything’s under control. Mason found the controls for the submarine thingy – it’s already at the bottom.”

“Has he found anything?” Leah asks, far too quickly for nonchalance.

“Lots of mud,” Mason grunts. “Thought there’d be more fish.”

Nate licks his lips. “Is there any sign of the wreck? Can you see it?”

“Hang on –”

Felix’s voice drops away to an indistinct mutter, leaving silence in his wake until Leah’s pocket starts buzzing, the echo of the call clear over the audio. He waves when she swipes to accept the call, his grin bright in the dim light of the cabin.

“Thought I’d cut out the middleman,” he explains, before turning the camera towards a grainy image of the bottom of the lake. Some kind of frondy weed drifts in the foreground, but most of the screen is taken up by an expanse of illuminated grey-brown muck, and beyond the arc of the ROV’s lights, a halo of almost absolute dark.

As Leah tilts her phone to let Nate see, the view shifts, the undulations of the lakebed broken by smaller lumps of hazy matter that cast black shadows behind them. An eerie, expectant silence accompanies the drift of disturbed silt, and even exposed to a brusque wind and the cry of gulls above, it’s far too easy to imagine being down there, with the cold, crushing void, the weight of the water a prison with no escape. When Nate presses closer, his hand anchored to her waist, she slips her fingers between his and pulls his arm further around, eager for the barrier of his warmth.

“Wait, what’s that –” he starts. “Turn around.”

Obediently, the ROV swivels on the end of its tether.

“Go forward.”

Mason still hasn’t entirely figured out the controls. Some part of the sub hits the bottom hard enough to scare up a cloud of debris that blocks the camera, but as they wait for it to clear, breaths held, slowly the unnaturally straight edge of something coalesces out of the gloom.

“Is that a… crate?” Felix checks. “That’s not very exciting.”

Mason huffs. “People put things in crates, dummy.”

“I knew that.”

The crate’s size is hard to tell without anything to give it scale, but the wood it’s made from seems almost like new, solid, with only the thick layer of mud settled on top to show how long ago it was lost. As Mason carefully directs the ROV around to the other side, the torchlight reflects off the jagged edges of what must be another crate a little way away, this one fractured, its boards opened at harsh angles like the ribs of a carcass picked clean. Something glints where its guts should be.

“That looks like glass,” Leah murmurs.

“Not gold?” Felix checks. “Jewels?”

“Get closer,” Nate says.

Mason is behind the camera, but his eye roll is obvious. “Aye-aye, captain.”

A few fragments are scattered about, glittering like stars revealed by a rolling-back of cloud where the ROV has passed over the stillness of the lakebed, still sharp, and still recognisable.

“So much for sunken treasure, it’s just a load of old bottles,” Felix complains, as the broken neck of one comes into focus, the top still sealed with cork and wax.

But Nate is tense as a wire at Leah’s side. “People put things in bottles,” he says.

“Valuable things?”

“Look.”

Nestled in the bottom corner of the broken crate, another bottle rests on its side, the label faded but the smoky-dark glass is intact, spotless, sheltered even from the drift of time.

“What is it?” Leah asks, because Nate’s eyes have blown wide and his lips have parted in something akin to rapture.

“It’s whisky,” he manages, hoarse. “Century-old, perfectly preserved whisky. If that crate is intact, it’ll be worth… I don’t care to guess how much.”

Dazed, she turns back to the unremarkable image, the small fortune illuminated in the depths of the lake. For something with such an unremarkable appearance, it makes one hell of a motive.

#the wayhaven chronicles #twc #wayhaven fic #wayhaven fanfic #nate sewell #adam du mortain #felix hauville #agent mason #agent rebecca #nate sewell x f!detective #nate sewell x detective #detective leah kingston

8 notes · View notes