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caffeineivore · 7 years

Text

Margarita

Fic, written for @nelwynp‘s nuptials. Part of... not quite a series, as the stories are not precisely related to each other, but... we can call it a series. Senshi/shitennou, AU Angst, Crime, Drinks. Depending on my motivation/level of laziness, I may or may not hunt up and post up the other fics in this... “series”.

The Blood Pact

I am not perfect.

I am sometimes selfish. Occasionally self destructive.

And prone to very brief, yet severe, spells of sadness.

But I would fight until every bone in my body was broken to protect you.

That's a promise.

--- Beau Taplin

*-*

Nondescript jeans, straight-leg and medium wash, ancient Adidas, and a green University of Miami sweatshirt, autumn-leaf-auburn curls poking out underneath the hood. Marisa Cruz's dossier states that she's a recent grad, who'd attended on a basketball scholarship and turned twenty-two only a month ago, but right now, her hands are clenched in her lap, knuckles white, and if she bites her lower lip any harder, she'd draw blood. She has the height and statuesque build of an athlete, but that only emphasizes her fragility as she sits bolt-upright across from him as the small airplane makes its way from Florida towards Washington, DC. Nico can't blame her, though, for the silence or the nerves. This particular flight is never a happy one for any who make it.

“Want something to eat, or drink?”

“No. No, thank you.” Marisa's fists clench even tighter. The shadows underneath her green eyes are bruise-purple as she raises her gaze briefly to his face, a grimacing smile upon her own. “I hate flying.”

Nico doesn't see the point of mincing words, but returns her forced smile with an uncharacteristically-gentle one of his own. “I'll stock you up on Dramamine, then. Unfortunately, you're going to have to get used to this.”

She sighs and closes her eyes, a shuddering breath escaping. “I'm going to have to get used to a lot of things.”

A new home, a new phone number and email address, a new name on a new driver's license and a new social security number. Twenty-four-hour protection. Waking up sweating and screaming, gunshots echoing in her subconscious, the blood-spattered faces of her parents frozen in death, branded to the insides of her eyelids. A single tear tracks its way down one pale cheek, almost as though she has yet to completely cry herself dry.

Nico tucks the dossier away and reaches the short distance across to lay one hand on her tightly balled ones, and keeps it there until he feels her fingers relax-- roughly ten seconds before the plane begins its descent.

*-*

Marisa Cruz attends the orientation for joining the Witness Protection Program with a stoic face as the details of her new life are explained to her. She will relocate and enroll in grad-level classes in a completely different field than her undergraduate studies. At no point is she to contact any of her old friends and any remaining family members. In time, she will be expected to testify against the drug cartel boss who had murdered her parents, after which she will disappear.

It's all old hat to Nico, but something about her-- fragile and solitary and intrepid as a wild rose blooming amidst a mess of thorns-- stirs an undefinable feeling of tenderness that he's certainly not accustomed to feeling. Later, they sit in the windowless room, drinking cokes from a vending machine, and he smiles at her.

“Pick a name that's going to be easy for you to remember. Some people like to use their same initials.”

She finishes her soft drink. The highly-identifying University of Miami sweatshirt is gone, and one pink tank top strap slips down her shoulder as she wings the empty can into the wastebasket across the room with impressive accuracy. Nico's eyes trace the graceful movement for a moment, but then meets her emerald gaze.

“My grandmother's name was Marcela, though my grandfather always called her Marcelita. I think I can go with that. Marcelita Cross. Maybe Lita for short. Will that do?”

“Perfect. Lita Cross, my name is Nico Hernandez, the US Marshal assigned to your protection.” His big hand swallows her smaller one, and finally, finally, she cracks a faint smile over their clasped hands. “It's nice to meet you.”

*-*

Despite the Dramamine, Marisa Cruz-- now Lita Cross, is still tense and white-knuckled in the seat across from him during the flight out of Washington, so Nico fills the silence with his own words.

“So, what did you go to school for? Aside from basketball, obviously.”

“Electrical Engineering, if you'll believe it. I was gonna go work in Silicon Valley like all the cool kids, retire by the age of thirty-five with a gazillion dollars, or something.” There's a hint of an ironic smile on her lips, and that's better than nothing, so Nico smiles back.

“Eh, it's overrated. I'm from California, originally, and the cost of living is outrageous out there. When I came out to Virginia at the start of my career and got my first apartment-- a decently sized one-bedroom, too, in Crystal City-- I almost wept with joy. My apartment in Cali was about the size of a shoebox, and the rent was triple.” His smile widens and he adds a cheeky wink. “Naturally, being a shallow asshole, I do miss the beaches. And burritos. And In-N-Out.”

“Where did you go to school, then?”

“Stanford. I was an athletic scholarship kid, too,” he reaches over and takes her hands, gently pries her fists open. “Track and field, though. Mainly, it was cool because I can say that I went to the same school as Dana Scully from the X-Files, who holds the distinction of being the first woman I loved. Aside from my mother and sisters, that is. I think I have a weakness for tomboyish redheads.”

She rolls her eyes, but her fingers relax fractionally in his as the sunlight streaming in through the airplane window glows golden against her ruddy hair.

*-*

Lita Cross attends a different school than Marisa Cruz had, and lives in a cozy two-bedroom apartment on campus with a roommate whom all of her new female classmates have agreed upon as man-candy of the best tall-dark-and-handsome variety. She has no social media of any kind. She's enrolled in the culinary arts program, and wears her bark-brown hair in a ladylike ponytail and knee-length dresses that show off beautifully toned, tanned legs. She's friendly enough with the other students and is known to like flowers and chick flicks.

The nightmares wake her up more often than not in the beginning, and in the first, agonizing weeks, several times a week, she'd shoot up in her bed, cold sweat matting her hair in dark streaks to her neck and a scream choking in her throat, shivering despite the southern warmth as a large male body bursts into her room and silently holds her as she sobs, dark eyes bleak and sympathetic and endlessly patient as they wait for her to finally drop from exhaustion. She sleeps with the lights on and feels ironically ashamed at the taxpayer dollars that went, every month, towards her astronomical electric bill.

It is about a month and a half into their acquaintance that Nico hits upon a solution.

A few nights a week, always during the wee small hours, the two of them go to the twenty-four-hour gym an hour's drive off-campus and play an exhilarating and sweaty hour of one-on-one basketball in a deserted indoor court, with nothing but the fluorescent lights overhead bearing witness. They always get home at roughly three in the morning, and then follow up the basketball with a kickboxing lesson in the living room, and then, more often than not, scrambled eggs hastily devoured over the kitchen counter before they'd had the chance to cool down from smoking. These nights would always be before days that she didn't have any morning classes, and it would be approaching dawn when both of them would finally crash, fully dressed, in her bed out of sheer exhaustion.

Eventually, in an organic, unplanned progression, he sort of abandons his own bedroom altogether. It's not sexual-- they're always dressed and nobody's hands wander. She just sleeps better with a warm, muscular, protective body lying in between her and the bedroom door.

In the locked drawer of the nightstand on her side of that bed is the one photograph of her parents that she was allowed to keep. He pretends not to know that it's there and always looks away when she takes it out.

In the locked drawer of the nightstand on his side of that bed is a loaded Glock 22. She pretends not to know that it's there and always looks away when he takes it out.

*-*

Lita finds herself enjoying culinary school more than she thought she would. The long hours on her feet don't faze her, and she finds it a rather fascinating duality of precision and creativity. She often brings home leftovers and experiments of all kinds, some more successful than others. Nico democratically and enthusiastically demolishes all of them, but has an especial fondness for desserts, particularly cookies.

“I don't know why you're not like, six hundred pounds,” she teases him one evening, as they watch a football game on TV and he plows his way through a generous serving of coq au vin and half a dozen chocolate macarons. There's a crumb by his mouth, and she reaches across the couch to swipe at it just as the game cuts to halftime and commercials. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him set down his plate, and then his hand-- large, tanned, surprisingly elegant despite the roughness of his fingers, snags her wrist, his touch warm and achingly gentle.

“Exercise and good clean living,” Nico says lightly. “PT for the job is no joke, at least to the guy who trained me. Guy by the name of Elias Priest. Had one of those faces and smiles like a Catholic saint, but appearances can be deceiving, you know?”

She traces her fingertip over the crumb by his mouth, and his skin is warm like the air in a Thanksgiving kitchen. Stubble is coming in, brushing his chin and jaw with sand-papery dark brown. He's a man's man and loves sports and documentaries and napping on the couch, but he listens to everything she says-- her fears, her memories both happy and horrible, her pet peeves and stupid things she's seen on the internet-- like his investment in her life extends far beyond keeping her breathing until the court date. He had taught her how to throw a punch and use a taser, and holds her in her sleep, even though she keeps the lights on and tosses and turns. She doesn't realize that she's leaned forward until suddenly she can count every one of his eyelashes, which have no right to be as long and dark as they are, but he's the one to bend his head. Firm lips brush against her hair, then press against her forehead, and she's sure that she's blushing wildly despite the innocuousness of the touch. It's not where she'd like it to be, the sudden thought occurs to her, though she'd never, ever admit that aloud. He smells like chocolate and her girly-smelling fabric softener, though it's incredibly different on him.

The game on TV is well into the third quarter before she manages to turn her attention back to it, but somehow, that hand around her wrist doesn't leave, and his fingers entwine with hers.

*-*

The driver's license bearing the name Marcelita Cross is issued by the State of Georgia as opposed to Florida, and states that the bearer's birthday is the 12th of May, so the fifth of December that year dawns uneventfully like any other day. Lita comes home to the distinctive grinding sound of the blender whirring away in the kitchen, and curiously goes to investigate.

Nico smiles as she walks in, even as he pours something pale green and frothy into two cocktail glasses rimmed with salt. “All in all, we can say this is just another day, yeah?” He has a dimple in his right cheek but not his left when he grins, and there's a small gift box somewhat clumsily wrapped in floral gift-wrap on the counter next to a grocery-store bouquet of flowers in a plain white vase. “I made margaritas. They're the only girly drink I know how to make, I'm afraid-- I'm more of a beer kind of guy.”

Shocked green eyes meet his dark ones, and her breath catches in her throat. Wordlessly, she reaches for the drink, but her cheeks flush even before she takes a sip, and her fingers tremble as they carefully unwrap the box. Nestled inside against snow-white satin is a pair of earrings shaped like pink rosebuds. She puts them on, and smiles tremulously at the gleam of approval in Nico's eyes. She drains her glass and half of a second one before she finds the courage to step closer to him-- Nico-the-protector is so much easier to understand than Nico-the-closest-friend-and-more-- but when she leans up to press her lips against that solitary dimple and he wraps his strong arms around her like it's the simplest thing in the world, it's the most perfect thing she's felt.

And yet, in some strange and subtle way, it seems to herald yet another change in her life. A quickening thrill. Elation and despair intertwined. The warmth of his body cradling hers and the dread of the trial, set to begin in a month.

A beginning. An end. The beginning of the end.

It's as though Nico feels it too, though, because all of the sudden, he sets down his barely-touched drink with a quiet clack and she feels him bury his face in her hair, and his breath is hot but not quite even against her neck.

“Do you know, I've been doing this for quite some time? Most people who go into witness protection are criminals who turn informant. Kind of sleazy types-- the villain who helps the good guys bring down the bigger villain, if you will.” He pulls back just enough to look into her eyes, and the shine in them, so different from the numb flatness of their first meeting, causes his breath to hitch. “Not like you. No one's ever been like you.”

There's no good that can come out of this conversation-- it ends with a one-way plane ticket to some small town in Wisconsin that she's never even heard of before, where the name Marisa Cruz means nothing to anybody, and life will go on, perhaps peacefully and uneventfully but in sepia-toned anonymity and solitude. All at once, for the first time in months, her eyes fill with tears, and she burrows back into his arms as they start falling. He rubs her back and rocks gently and there's probably something ridiculously incongruous about the tableau-- fruity tropical drinks on a cheap Formica counter, a jewelry box, a weeping young woman with copper roots showing under her tousled brunette hair, a dark-haired man holding her protectively, a gun holstered at his side. And maybe it's because she presses her wet cheek against his stubbly one, close enough that he can taste tequila and lime on her breath, or maybe it's because her hands are clenched white-knuckled again, this time around fistfuls of his shirt, and he knows that in the morning there will be dark-purple shadows underneath her eyes again, but a moment later they're kissing, devouring each other, and he sinks his grip into her hair and she sinks hers into his heart and both of their mouths taste like salt—margarita and tears.

Nico pulls back first, and his eyes blaze like dark fire as he stares down at her. “We can't, not like this.” His voice sounds as though he'd swallowed something a lot rougher than citrusy cocktail, and in his eyes, Lita reads an echo of her own despair. “I'm falling in love with you, but I can't compromise your safety. If something were to happen to you, it would kill me.” His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows, his chest rises as he takes a ragged breath. “I'll come back for you, though. Someday, when you're safe, and this is all over. I swear that, on my life.”

The day's date means absolutely nothing, according to all of Marcelita Cross's documents, but a birthday is a year older and wiser, no matter what anyone says. And so she nods, slowly, gingerly, with the meticulous care of someone trying not to break. She leans up, and when her lips meet his this time they're soft and sweet and slow as a requiem. They don't break apart until they need to breathe, and then, deliberately, she finishes her second drink and his, letting the alcohol cushion the blow to come.

She's dimly aware of him carrying her to bed, then lying down next to her, holding her close under the covers. But she wakes up the next morning alone, and when she walks into the living room, there's a different marshal. A sharp-eyed blonde with a pixie crop who introduces herself as Harper Tennyson and whose sardonic smirk doesn't at all resemble Nico's smile. But at least Harper asks no questions, and lets her cry herself to sleep in peace that night.

She doesn't see or hear from Nico again, not when the trial is finally over, not when she completes her culinary program, not when she gets that one-way plane ticket. But at the oddest times in the subsequent years, she'd receive a dozen pink roses from the local florist. They match her favourite earrings perfectly.

*-*

The town of Menomonie, Wisconsin, dawns cold and snowy on the fifth of December, and Lita Cross quietly bids farewell to her coworkers at the restaurant where she'd been working for the past six months as the pastry chef and makes the short trek to the local neighbourhood bar. It's a quiet weekday night, and she seats herself at a small table in the back, content to watch a basketball game in silent progress on the TV screens.

Marisa Cruz would have turned twenty-seven today, had she still existed.

A cheery cocktail waitress walks over to her table, and sets down a pale green drink in a distinctive glass, and Lita's head snaps up in surprise.

“I didn't order anything.”

“Oh, it's from that gentleman over there. He said to tell you he really likes your earrings.” The waitress gestures a broad back at the other side of the bar, sculpted shoulders brushed with dark hair slightly too long, and as Lita watches, wide-eyed, everything else around them seems to stand still as he turns around, one dimple in his right cheek as he slowly walks over. He's wearing a black pea coat and jeans and looks nothing like a US marshal as he reaches her table, but it's the same warm hands, the same smile, and when he wraps his fingers around hers, it's like everything slowly falling into place with the same quiet loveliness as the snow outside.

“What are you doing here?” Lita manages to ask in a surprisingly steady voice. Her testimony at the trial of the cartel kingpin years ago had resulted in a conviction and she had been out of true danger for quite some time, but just now, she felt brave enough to take on the whole wide world.

“I moved out here a few months ago. You know why I'm here,” Nico tips her face up, staring at her as though unable to get his fill of her face. His stubbly cheek presses against her smooth one as he whispers into her ear. “Happy birthday, love.”

She picks up the glass that the waitress had left on the table and takes a sip, tasting icy, salty-sweetness on her tongue, and clenches her fingers around fistfuls of his coat, and grins. “Do I get a present?”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small, clumsily-wrapped jewelry box in floral paper, and the hint of nerves in his eyes gives away precisely what might be in the box. “Why don't you open it and see?”

#fanfiction #sailor moon #senshi/shitennou #fanfic #M/N #nelwynp

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