The Comfort Of Eyes And Hands

Canon Hub » Black Diamond Billions Hub » The Comfort Of Eyes And Hands

A triple agent of the G.O.C. and Chaos Insurgency meets Iris Darke in London and ends up with more than they bargained for.

Anorrack & xexnoncores & asininestars

This article contains additional CWs for: discussions of homophobia and anti-lesbian slurs.
The Comfort of Eyes And Hands Anorrack and xexnoncores with art by AsinineStars

⚠️ content warning ↑

March 4th, 2021

London fucking sucks.

The back of Sage's neck crawls from the pressure of unseen observers. Being watched makes their brain rattle, especially in a city so compact. Leering, judgmental eyes belonging to critics with secret thoughts and spies with secret motives, double- and triple-agents alike—you never know who someone is in a place like this, especially if they aren't right in front of you.

And with video recordings, they never have to be.

There are cameras everywhere for those who know where to look. Closed-circuit gargoyles hidden under the eaves of rooftops. Triclopean phones leering from the hands of passersby. Even the odd spyware nestled in the crook of some techie's glasses, an idiot with too much money and too little sense to not film their first date.

God, Sage hates Europe. Everything is decrepit and feels like it’s about to come undone. All this supposedly grand world history, rich culture and fashion, and yet it’s shrouded in cold and gray. Half of the continent doesn’t even see more than a few months of good weather—who cares about walkable cities when you need three layers of stiff clothes to go outside?

But that's probably the exact reason why their contact picked London.

The person that Sage is meeting—they’ve only heard them in whispers throughout the Coalition, but they’ve run through every iteration of their person. Snooty, rich types that thought the world revolved around them, whose duty to humanity often involved only a boardroom.

Aristocrats…

No, this was far worse.

Aristocrats were one thing, but Marshall, Carter, and Dark Ltd. was another.

Just a little while longer, and you’ll be back in Puerto Rico, they tell themself as they open a glass door.

Ten years away was far too long.

A small bell rings. The scent of fancy tea and raspberry scones wafts into their nose unbidden. A flash-drive weighs heavily in their pocket; they sit in a corner booth of the cafe, sipping a purchased cup, taste not matching the price by half. The prickling on the back of their neck lessens, but only so much. They’re still an oiled spring, ready to cut and run at the drop of a pin—

What am I even doing here?

Great time to be having second thoughts. They took PTO for the first time after their double-agent detail, only to spend the week vomiting from nightmares they barely comprehended. Then, when they asked their boss for a second week off, he made some choice remarks about needing Sage quite badly but being forced to oblige them for their service.

They had to bite their tongue at that, not wanting to push the envelope of what other nagging might have been awaiting them for indulging in gained privileges. Why were they the only one at work who encountered that, anyway?

But it doesn’t matter. None of that does. All of that will go away soon, whenever their goddamn contact gets here.

They think to themselves what kind of kebab they want to get as soon as they skitter out of here, a thought terminated by a large shadow stretching towards them from across the hallway.

“—table here, Madam,” the manager says, bowing as if he knows the woman about to sit.

…Wait, woman?

Sage straightens their posture as someone tall sits down before them. Her hair is as black as her suit and briefcase, her skin as white as alabaster. Two blue eyes quickly peel themselves out from a ducked view before a cigar case comes out; the room seems to stop as she cuts off the end and cooks exposed tobacco without a lighter, sparks flying from a snap of her fingers.

A puff of cedar-smelling smoke roils in her mouth as she studies Sage, and Sage studies her in turn.

This…is unexpected.

This…is Darke? Iris Darke?

Sage doesn't have to look close to detect the signs of wealth that leak from the woman's pores. The soft lighting of the restaurant seems to curve around her face in defiance of physics like a gravitational lens, highlighting a skin routine that most definitely costs a small country's GDP. Her features are the perfect of near-perfect, rather than the off-putting structure of too-perfect cosmetic surgery.

Yet for all the hallmarks of the feminine that were present, their visibility is subdued, dampened, as if there by obligation only. Darke’s suit is cut like a man's, the underclothes more dress-shirt than blouse. For as rounded her jaw is, it’s still visible, not slimmed down or surgically cut in any way. Her black hair is also swept extremely close to her head, as if the mere idea of it brushing her neck repulsed her.

And her musculature…not even expensive fabric can hide broad shoulders or chiseled arms.

Sage stares for a bit too long before Darke makes eye contact and extends out a hand.

“Iris. Iris Darke.”

Sage does not reply back. Iris’s handshake is firm.

Yes, this has to be her. Heiress incarnate and billionaire brat, with an appetite for nothing except that which comes off silver spoons and a patience that was never, ever to be tested…at least, according to her casefile.

Sage never had access to that. Not on the Darkes. They had been sealed for a while now, but they did hear whispers, rumors—

And yet somehow, it’s all paltry compared to the real thing.

Iris’s stare is imperious. Not intentionally, most likely. Just the difference in social strata between seller and buyer was one so vast that it could be measured in astronomical units. Born into wealth so grand, it was impossible for even the richest above the Veil to compete—just thinking about the numbers involved makes Sage’s head swim.

It would only be natural for her to look down on them anyway, not counting what was likely forty centimeters in height at minimum. The diamonds on her cuff are probably worth more than Sage's entire salary twenty times over—former salary, now.

The table shakes as Iris slides her briefcase onto polished marble. Heavy and hefty, the dark briefcase is unwieldy. Unfit for a woman of her status, but befitting one of her stature.

Sage stares at her shoulders.

Iris pulls out some papers, and lightly clears her throat. "Let me see it."

Her voice is deep, resonant, tinged with a bit of slick huskiness. It's a very expensive tone, one they can tell she spent a lot of time training to sound like her perfectly natural range.

Sage digs into their pocket and withdraws the flash-drive, bulky and dense at its edges. It’s a Eurtec design, capable of holding two hundred terabytes in a wafer the length of a thumb. Iris reveals a laptop from a hidden pocket in her briefcase, and plucks the flash-drive from Sage's grasp to plug it into a silver port.

Minutes go by, the booth silent save for her stout fingers tapping on the keyboard. Sage swallows spit that tastes like anticipation, trepidation—but soon goes down like nothing at all.

With a single wordless nod of approval, Iris reaches into her pocket and places another flash-drive on the table, thicker and shorter than the first, with the spiral pattern of a thumbprint visible on the flat.

"As agreed, fifty million USD in a Swiss account. The encryption is unlocked by your living thumbprint. Spend it wisely."

Sage takes the second flash-drive. With the deal done, their spring uncoils, and they stand to leave. Their few precious seconds of victory are spent eyes wide, thinking of freedom from the Coalition, from obligations, from work, from themself, until—

They can’t move.

"What are you doing?” Sage asks with a forced, flat tone to their voice.

Iris does not look up from her laptop as her hand grips Sage's arm through the polyester of their trench coat.

"Sit. There is one more thing I need from you."

Sage’s breath catches at the top of their throat, but ultimately, they obey. They can see the little fangs peeking from Iris’s mouth.

She leans forward, and this time Sage is able to get a better look at her. Despite everything, her face holds so many pleasing angles and curves—her jawline is smooth, her eyes are free of underbags—and her pupils, shark-like, have a spark of what seems to be…. curiosity.

Not good. Stop looking at the merchandise.

But they suppose it won't take much to play along for a bit longer.

Iris's question is short. "Why?"

Sage waits for a follow-up from her.

Nothing. Iris simply looks at them expectantly. Her crystal blue eyes are placid, unwrinkled, carefully kept blank and expressionless.

…Is that it?

Sage opens their mouth to respond, but soon closes it wordlessly. What a blunt question. What steeled blatancy. It cuts through the chaff and chatter of how-you-dos and hello-theres with such grace that it could have been the start of a musical waltz.

For such a conversational hammer-blow it was…refreshing. Invigorating?

And thus, all of their thoughts coalesce into titillation for just a single movement.

Maybe Sage is too deep in the rat races, but that’s how they really feel. Their old job—the G.O.C. was cluttered and bureaucratic, a thousand accountants, agents, and administrators from a hundred competing organizations jockeying for position and funding and attention—positively Randian. Machiavellian, when you started climbing up the ladder. Cooler-talk is recorded and used against you. After-hour work-meets are scrutinized for anything that could put you on your manager's shit-list. Something bad enough that can be edited or misconstrued could get your ass sent to Pluto, or worse, Texas. Endless knots of committees and commissions and worthless do-nothing special investigative bodies that spend more man-hours on scrums than on actual operations of worth.

They weren’t even a mage. Just an environmental analyst.

At least, until five years ago.

“Being a double-agent is an opportunity for promotion,” their boss’s supervising manager had told them. “Difficult, but I know it’ll give you plenty to send back home to your family.”

The Chaos Insurgency cell the G.O.C. had dropped them into was an orthogonal hell. A different tune in the same key. Cryptic sages huffing retired Soviet de-icing chemicals mingled with burnt-out geniuses plotting hundred-step plans to bring the end of all things. An ant’s nest of paranoia and deceit. Every question was a riddle with fifteen meanings, every conversation a maze of death-traps where a single misplaced clause could kill you and your next of kin in a heartbeat. Entire operations were mole-hunts, year-long goose-chases, loyalty exercises, and attempting to gather any kind of clean data made you instantly a target for someone’s premonitions.

They didn’t even know what they were doing it for, by the end. Allegedly, to find the leader, the Engineer, but they never manifested. Sage knew they never would.

They were done with the whole thing. It was a manic break the night they decided to defect, albeit not a stupid one. Impulsivity was not on their radar, no, they had always had everything at least a little bit ready for if they needed to do this, for when everything was just too much. A falta de pan se come galletas,¹ as their mother used to say.

Sage chews their cheek for a moment. Best to respond to bluntness with bluntness. “I’m tired of it all. I don’t like lying, and I don’t like being misled. If I’m getting out of this, if I’m taking care of my parents and pulling out of the web of lies I built for myself and others, what’s the harm in making a little money on the side?”

Iris’s lips quirk. A hint of glinting ivory behind orchid pink. “You could end up with an icepick through your spine, or ricin in your chamomile.”

Sage pushes away their empty cup. “Hopefully with fifty million, I’ll be able to avoid those inconveniences.”

“But you’re not certain.”

“Hard to be in this line of work, Ms. Darke.”

“Touché.”

Sage’s eyes flit over Iris. Reassesses her slightly. The air still feels full of knives.

“Since that question wasn’t covered under my fee, and that data is worth more than fifty mil, now I’ll ask a question. Why are you interested in my reasons for leaving?”

There, a twitch. A sharp canine pokes over her lip, bloody red under enamel. “And yet you quickly accepted that price. But I’ll answer regardless. I’m interested in you. You interest me.”

“I’m a dime a dozen behind the Veil these days, hardly what someone would call a unique piece.”

Her head cocks, ever so slightly. A strand of raven hair slides out of its perfect place to caress her brow. Sage finds it charming, though only because it’s making her look sloppy. It gives a real mistake to her face. “What do you think of my company? My work? Why sell to us rather than to others?”

Sage narrows their eyes. A request for a review? “I don’t particularly care for it, one way or another. Your money spends as well as anyone else's, and your company was the first to respond to my offer. I didn’t wait for any other—”

“Liar.”

Sage stiffens. Their voice trails off, and their chest tightens.

“Your employers would kill you for this. High treason is one thing, but treason for my company is something else entirely.” She’s correct on that. Marshall, Carter, and Dark Ltd. were enemy number one in the eyes of the Coalition for their brazenness, their ruthlessness, and worst of all—operating on European turf like they owned the place.

Iris finishes her statement with a drag of her cigar. It’s now when Sage notices nobody else is in the cafe. “You could have gone the route of treason while at least keeping your head. You'd be held in a European prison for the rest of your days, but still preferable than the alternative. Why us?”

Nothing. Nothing comes out of their mouth. They already told the truth, and the fact it’s not enough for her—there were rumors that the Darkes were cannibals, and it seems like Iris has the teeth to back it up.

“Why do you care?” They say it practiced, strait-laced, stonily neutral. Like they were learning English in class again.

“Why did you meet me here today?” Her lip twitches. “Why not use an intermediary, why expose yourself?”

Is she making fun of them here?

Sage takes a deep breath and stands. Iris’s cologne is stinking up the place now, a heavy cloud of ugly stench clogging up their nostrils. Choking. They’ve had enough of her judging them.

They move to leave but she grabs their hand again faster than they react.

“Listen—”

“Tell me,” Iris says plainly. So austere as to be threatening. Her tone of voice is eager to strip back everything and wind into an interrogation, and Sage’s heartbeat quickens.

Her stare is like that of those they saw while undercover. Chaos Insurgency members unable to trust anyone else, their eyes crazed and backed up by magitech guns that could damn your soul to simulated hell for thousands of years before spitting you back up again. Less-than-lethal made worse-than-lethal.

Sage nearly jerks away, tempted by the idea of dislocating their thumb to slip from the hold until Iris backs off first and lets go. Iris relents, letting go to stand up.

“You knew the worth of your data,” she says gruffly. “You knew enough about it not to entrust its transport to anyone else.”

They cock their head as Iris leans down and whispers in their ear, as if any person would dare peek in on their conversation, lest she tear them to pieces. Their spine tingles as her words come out like iron.

“You are honest. You are dependable. You do not draw attention to yourself. You are also one of the most intelligent people I have met in a while, since you managed to obtain what you did. Any one of those qualities is foreign to the spheres in which I travel, and yet you do all of them without effort. In other words, even though you say spies like you are a dime a dozen, in my experience,” Iris folds her hands together. Long, delicate fingers interweaving. “In my world, there are no people quite like you.”

Sage goes stone-still. They can barely feel their own body. “What do you want from me?”

Iris stands up straight, glancing back to the numbers on her laptop. “While the files you procured are more than enough, I am not entirely satisfied with their contents. There are references to files I don’t know. Projects I haven’t heard of, many of the dates cited being recent. These particular files are in relation to my family and our work, and I’m curious to see the full scope of the G.O.C.’s interest in us, as well as the data they may hold on us. It would be understandable for you to say no, but you would be more than compensated for your efforts.” She added that last sentence absently, as if to short circuit any further questions.

Sage bites their lip. They can’t afford to risk it. They hadn’t scoped out the possibility of actually returning. They hadn’t even booked a return ticket, never planning on looking back. Fifty million was a lot. Safely invested, that was enough for three retirement pensions, medical treatment, and luxury besides. It was more than enough.

But…something within the offer moved them. Nurtured paranoia warred against natural risk-taking. They were a good poker player, and both traits suited them fine in their line of work, but the two traits together made them a compulsive gambler and card-counter.

What would another hit be, really?

Sage mulls the proposition over for far too long. They think of the dull, gray offices they never wanted to see again, their stupid boss’s face with his horrid, poorly trimmed mustache. The risk of being caught.

If anything happens to Sage, their parents would be fine and safe, back in the Caribbean with a Swiss bank account in their name. Anything taken now is just free cash on the table.

Their response is quiet.

“…I’ll do it.”

Iris smiles, then, unexpectedly. A wide, fanged smile, perfectly trained muscles and unwrinkled skin contorting into deep crow’s feet and dimples. “Wonderful. Same place, same time?”

Two oiled, coiled springs release, and both parties stand to face each other, leaving the cup drained by both of all but tea leaves.

Sage holds out a hand, which is taken in by Iris’s own, a cool, soft, alabaster palm much larger than their own. Iris's hand gently couches theirs, a delicate grasp. Something about it is calming, even though it shouldn’t be.

“Of course.”

A flight to the Hague. Customs check, pig-eyed officer squinting as he compares Sage's passport to their face. Back to their job, the warren offices under the Peace Palace, full of asbestos and linoleum and secrets. The mandatory coghaz-scan, mandatory viral swab, mandatory drug/geas/hypnosis/polygraph special to verify they hadn't been subverted during their two weeks of leave. They are quite thorough, though not very good.

Sage has been subverted for quite some time now already.

They pretend things are normal, for a bit. Back in the cubicle, back in their chair, back into petty office politics. First they have to face the mounting piles of paperwork that accumulated before they had even left for London, then they could get down to the real work.

Sage has to get past the keylogger, they can't allow any trail to lead back to their deceit, at least not easily. Operate solely through hyperlinks, redirects, minimal keyboard usage. Resize the screen resolution, so click-mapping doesn't function. The tracking software is fifteen years old by now, it's not that intelligent. But it never hurts to be thorough.

Time to collect the documents. Procure the thumb-drive, palming it from a coworker's stash. Work nights on the main project, grimace at the sarcastic quips as others pass by on their way out the door. How could they suspect someone for being a workaholic? They're just another faceless office drone.

Slowly, over weeks, they build a file, as many tenuously related to the job as they can to defuse suspicion if they draw it. Slowly, ever slowly, the terabytes fill. Documents, audio files, photographs. Loose threads of data, intersecting points of people of interest, organizations, classified projects. SIGINT, HUMINT, OCCINT, evidence of late-night stakeouts and phonetaps and scrying. Sage links together a web of disparate, fragmented information and weaves it into one cohesive whole, custom-tooled for their buyer's pleasure.

Just as the G.O.C. did to MC&D, so will Sage do to them. The spy gives, and the informant takes.

They talk with their mom on the phone, loudly and often. Lie through teeth about how lovely London was, and how she must go sometime. She’s living with their dad, early-onset Alzheimer’s—she’s just recovering from bowel cancer. It would be just lovely. A gift to herself for making it through a dark and scary tunnel.

They are all things Sage has to do to line up the dominoes, to keep suspicion low when they slink back to their boss. So they can beg for just a little more time off with their mother, so they can lay a hand on his thigh and blink twice for yes, leaning forward ever so slightly, the top buttons on their shirt undone. They closed the blinds so that no one can see, though everyone knows, or at least can guess.

Sage wipes their lips with a napkin as they text their contact the date.

Soon they'll be free.

They just need a little more time.

June 1st, 2021

Summer does not improve Sage's opinion on London.

Still oppressive and overcast, it rains the same. It’s the same dour buildings on dour streets with dour people inside. Boring, gray, and dull.

Incredible these little boring people had the imagination to try and conquer the world. No wonder it didn't last long.

Same gauche restaurant, same expensive chamomile. Nobody is there, not even the server who brings them in. They sit more comfortably in their seat, expecting the same routine as before. The comfort sets Sage on edge. It's dangerous to fall prey to routine.

Still, they can't help themself from letting out an exhale from relief when Iris's shadow falls over them. Same briefcase, same close-cropped hair, even the same suit. Comforting routine.

"I trust you had a satisfactory flight?"

Sage snorts. "With a hundred terabytes in my carry-on? Of course not."

Iris gives them a tight, small smile. "I expected nothing less."

"Then why ask?"

"I thought it best to try and settle your nerves. For someone who did time with the Insurgency, you are less than sure of yourself."

Sage sips the chamomile. "You don't know me at all, then."

Iris studies them, an unseen force tugging her lip further upwards. "Quite."

Routine. Iris's thick briefcase shakes the table, droplets of chamomile spattering Sage's napkin. Her laptop is extracted, the thumb-drive plugged in, Iris looks over the data closely.

"There are some duplicates here from the previous batch."

"Had to cover my tracks somehow. Lower my threat profile, didn't want them putting together the pieces too early."

"How many of these files are duplicates or otherwise irrelevant?"

"Couldn't be more than a terabyte total. Less than one percent."

The blue light from the computer illuminates Iris's face from below, reflecting off her alabaster skin like rippling water underneath a sunbathing naiad. She glances at Sage, and nods. "I suppose that's good enough."

"It is."

Iris's lips quirk. "This is new. Did the cat catching your tongue last time finally run?"

"You're becoming a known quantity to me, Ms. Darke. You're less of an unknown than in our first meeting."

Iris closes the laptop. "Really? Then let that be your own miserable mistake."

Sage doesn’t flinch, though their fingers clench under the table. Why try their luck? What are they doing? All this cloak-and-dagger just to get exsanguinated in the worst restaurant of the worst city on the continent?

“I just put together a dossier on the movements of yourself and the junior executives of your firm, complete with logged incident reports, crime scene photos, and witness debriefings, much more besides. Pictures from Macao, Singapore, New York. I think I have a good idea how confident I should be."

Iris's eyes widen by a fraction. Right eyebrow arches. "Yet you still agreed to meet with me again."

Sage examines her closely. Iris's eyes are dilated, expanding to nearly meet her sclera. Her hands are so strong they could break the table between them and snap Sage's neck with little effort. Intellectually, Sage knows that the thing in front of them is something other, something near inhuman, whether it be because of wealth, magic, or something even more alien and inimical to life—intellectually, they know they should be afraid.

But over the loud thudding of their heart, over the rush of blood to their ears, as they stare at her looming over them in size and power and money, they find little inside them that can be mustered to care. Something’s won out over their hardened, well-worn paranoia, and all they can do is casually shrug.

"It was the only way to get my money."

Iris holds their gaze for an agonizingly long time before dropping it. "As good enough of an excuse as any, perhaps."

The swap is conducted, as routine. One thumb-drive is exchanged for another. Sage's net worth is doubled, and the Darkes' knowledge of G.O.C. surveillance has increased by half. Iris closes the lid of her brief case, but pauses before adjusting the clasps.

"You work as an analyst, correct? The only job that makes sense, given the trove of data you have access to."

Sage frowns. Here she goes, asking more questions with a clear checkmate in her grasp. They play along, all the same. "Environmental analyst. Sort through leads, tips, curated in-house info to construct actionable intel. Not a very flashy secret government job."

"Mm, true enough, but where would we be if not for people like you?"

Sage's lips quirk. "Dead in a ditch behind the Iron Curtain, most likely. Perhaps in prison through hotheadedness and womanizing. My suitcase isn't exactly rigged with tear gas or explosives."

"Ah, fan of Connery's run, are you?"

They roll their eyes. "The Cold War provided for a more interesting backdrop than anything that came after, I think. Back when Britain could properly pretend it was anything more than a damper Cayman Islands."

Iris's brow arches, her hands falling away from the briefcase to steeple on the table. "And what's so bad about Britain?"

Sage thinks of their home again. British and the Spanish—to them, in history, they were the same. "Wouldn't be my first pick for my dream home, let's leave it at that."

Her head cocks, icy blue eyes locked on Sage's own. She found her opening. "And where would your dream home be?"

Sage finds their left hand unconsciously flexing beneath the table, and they sandwich it between their thighs to stop. "Does it matter? The deal is done."

Iris raises her chin, unaccustomed to not getting her way in all things. "The deal isn't done until one of us walks away. We're still talking, aren't we? Still sitting at the proverbial and literal table?"

"Last time I tried walking away without your permission, you nearly broke my arm and hand. Do I have your permission now?"

Iris's eyes narrow. "What if I say that you don't?"

Sage grits their teeth. Rich brat. "I would say in return that it would be extremely rude, considering we have established a professional rapport. Anything less than proper courtesy would be a mark on your family's reputation. Wouldn't it be?"

Iris’s features rearrange into something resembling reproachment. "Of course it would be. I would be silly to do otherwise."

Sage searches her face for the endgame. "You want me to stay here at the table, to keep negotiating. I have something you want, but it's not more data. You want to hire me full-time, is that it?"

Silence.

To her credit, Iris doesn’t bat an eye. “It would be in your best interest. Fifty million, while it may mean a great deal to you, isn’t worth much on the global market. Once they find out about your treachery, you are posed to have angered not only the majority of the secret societies in the world, but the forces opposing them as well. Under our employ, we’d be able to shelter you from the coming storm. Shelter your parents as well, if you so desire.”

Sage bites their tongue. “Ms. Darke, you’re under the impression I’m trustworthy. But I just sold you the secrets of a former employer, which I stole on behest of yet another. Can you really trust a triple agent? Haven’t I shown I’m unreliable?”

“Would an unreliable triple agent want to remind their mark that they were unreliable?”

Sage finds themself at a loss, staring at the mate on the board. The spring coils tighter. So hard it may as well be ready to break. “Ms. Darke—”

“Iris.”

Sage pauses. “Iris.”

They swirl the name in their mouth. Tasting it. The name was, as its owner, richer than the scent of all the chamomile and gold-flaked scones and Java beans of that long-forgotten bakery combined. “Was this always your goal, here? Offering me a job?”

Iris is serious now, tooth-filled smirk vanishing. “Oh no, of course not, we’ve only just met scant months ago. But you impressed me.” She straightens her back, as if suddenly reminded how she was leaning over the table. Posture training, maybe. Iris is bad at it if so. "You have been offered the same paltry sum twice, and not only did you obtain it for us without subterfuge or shortchange, you did it at great cost to yourself. You appear to be relatively honest, moderately intelligent, and remarkably calm in the face of paranormal threats. Most notably, me."

"Oh, so talking to you without shaking in my boots was just another test? Seems easy enough to pass," Sage says, lying through their teeth.

Those files confirmed it. The Darkes indeed liked to cut their teeth on human bones. Forensics matched bite marks in a Brazilian penthouse to Iris.

Iris bares her own in a smirk, sharpened canine digging into supple lip. "You'd be surprised."

Sage swallows, rotating their cup of chamomile on its plate. "Selling to you and working for you are different things, you know."

Iris nods. She glances down at the cup, into its slowly swirling contents. "Our employees are very happy where they are. Many rescued from predicaments similar to yourself."

Sage thinks on that word. Rescued. Surely Iris is not generous—the devil is always in the details one was missing.

Iris brings her long, steepled fingers up to her chin, her plush lips pursed, mulling over her next words before delivering them on a silver platter. "But… if that doesn't sway you, would a trial run suffice?"

Sage cocks their head, eyes narrow. "How do you mean?"

"Six months. You work for me for six months. You wouldn't be a temp, and you wouldn't be an intern. For all intents and purposes, you would be considered a full-time contractor for the duration of your stay with us," a sly glance. "Including benefits and per diem. All expenses paid, black card."

Honeypot. A sick, twisted honeypot, with the queen bee as a lure. Sage hates themself for considering it. "Representative of the actual job?"

"Of course. Working for us has its benefits, you know. Our retention rate is sky-high."

"Hope they packed parachutes for the inevitable fall."

"Don't worry, the parachutes are golden." Her black tongue is barbed and quick.

Iris leans forward, her dense bulk making the suffering table groan. “I just want you to know that if we had to protect you from your former employers, cash would be no object. After all—” Iris further bites her lip, her smirk widening again to an unprofessional, girly grin. “While you might not be certain in your line of work, we are able to be very certain in ours.”

Sage's face is a mask. Out of the frying pan, into a roaring furnace full of black, Darke coals. They think about Puerto Rico. About the warm sun, the countryside, the chatter of their parents over the licking flames of a bonfire. They think about spitting sparks spiraling aloft by smoke until they join the stars in the sky.

They think about G.O.C. wetwork assassins plugging their parents' ears with lead, chatter dying over sizzling embers. They swallow. "I would need specific guarantees."

Iris nods, and opens her briefcase to rummage around inside it once more. "Of course. I had our lawyers draft up a tentative contract last week. Now, you'll want to pay attention to subsections B and C…"

A spring snaps, and their chest tightens.

November 7th, 2021

Six months melt away under the Darkes and their employ.

Data, data, oh so much data.

Bought, sold, loaned, stolen, borrowed, leased. Data of all kinds, of all formats. Long nights bathed in blue light, sifting through the terabytes like a prospector panning for gold. Straining, filtering, centrifuging data until nuggets of worth are unearthed. Difficult enough work as it is, even without the needling of the customers, and the weight of their deadlines hanging above like the Sword of Damocles, gilded with gold.

The timetables of the ultra-wealthy are not to be messed with. Whether they be petulant manchildren, drugged-up business partners, or ogling, leering, nepotistic financiers, they demanded mountains be moved and be moved ahead of schedule.

All of their customers looked for environmental data near impossible to find. Sage had to dig through it all until their digital hands bled, through any source MC&D had access to (which consisted of most). Horrible, awful, illegal things. So much oil spilled, so many different planes of existence polluted by mining operations. So much insecticide leaking into the fae kingdoms, so many forever chemicals killing the last of the dryads.

Long hours and short deadlines push them into overdrive, make them work late to satisfy the needs of the people who would not give a single shit about them. Sage was burning out, burning up, and burning through the last dregs of midnight oil in the tank.

They haven't felt this alive in years.

Horrible, awful, illegal things, sure, but they are new things, they are varied, they are exciting. Not just the stale SIGINT of the GOC, the sins and the vices of the rich were as diverse as any person's, perhaps moreso. It was people-watching at a level they had never dreamed of. They were peeking into conversations recorded via concealed lapel mic, watching earth move under people whose wealth controlled vast machines. They were witnessing the world collapse in on itself at an astonishing rate, magic helping it along just as much as it was trying to heal torched fields.

They are burning out, but the heat feels fantastic.

02:34 in the morning. They’re just about to sleep when something catches their eyes in the haze of shitty coffee and insomniac delirium. They pause, their hand, still on the laptop lid about to close.

Wait a minute…

They follow the spreadsheets. One number off on one leads to another, sample after sample, measurement after measurement. What looks to be a floating point error spirals and grows and compounds, pennies on the dollar bloating to billions in losses. Soon, they’re trailing contractors Iris hired, from Brazil to Scotland to Elfame, and—

Oh shit.

03:55. They throw on the best clothes they can quickly put on and bolt out the door.

Iris is either going to kill me for this, or she’s going to love me, they think as they get into a black car. The Darkes have cabbies on speed-dial everywhere. It’s something they’ve gotten used to now.

Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. For the love of God, who knows how much time we have left—

The car brakes to a halt and Sage finds themselves blitzing out of it like their feet were on fire. Like someone was about to jump them. Their spring is coiled tightly now, creaking and groaning as their heavy footsteps wind up the stairs to Iris’s penthouse—the elevator was too slow.

Please be here. She was supposedly staying in London for a few more days before she had to head out to Hong Kong. They had the dates right, yeah?

Sage raps on the door, hopping from foot to foot, frazzled and shaking. The numbers are wrong, the numbers are so wrong. "Iris!” they hiss, as if anyone else was up on this floor or even up at this hour. “Iris! Open up, please!"

Silence. Then footsteps. Sage holds their breath as a low, cold voice oozes from under the door, thick with mucus and sleep. "Can it not wait until morning?"

Sage grits their teeth. "No, it can't! Hurry up and open the door!"

They hear the dull padding of more footsteps, and soon the door swings open.

What do billionaires wear to bed? What Sage imagines Iris wearing at nearly four in the morning is something like lingerie, something like lithe, thin gossamer cascading down her chest and stomach. It is going to be sheer, it is going to be black, it is going to be modest yet not at all, it is going to be worth more than some country’s navies. It is going to be something she spent a meticulous effort getting into, something so brazen and not their style that they are going to nearly vomit upon seeing it.

That’s not what happens.

"What is it?"

What?

Iris is wearing nothing close to a nightgown, or pajamas, or lingerie, or anything resembling something an heiress whose net worth couldn’t be calculated might be expected to wear. Her outfit is boyish in a way which wears her ragged, macho in a way Sage thinks…fits her? But simultaneously she wears it so standoffish that she looks made for a bull-fight. Or to throw something. At Sage.

"Are those… basketball shorts?"

Iris appears dully bemused by their reaction. "Yes? What of it?"

Sage attempts to recover, stuttering as they stare. "Um— You're dressed very… casually."

Iris looks down at herself, and snorts. "Function triumphs over fashion.”

Sage also notes the distinct lack of a bra. Not that Iris had anything going on in the chest department, but now that they think about it harder, she probably wasn’t too fond of anything which made her look like that. God only knows when Sage was deciding how they wanted to dress themselves, the question was to bind or not to bind their own tits.

…But a proper businesswoman would never consider such a thing.

A proper businesswoman also doesn’t…

“I see."

A pregnant pause holds firm in the air like London smog wafting over the Channel. "I don't imagine that is why you woke me at such a dark hour?"

Sage shakes their head firmly, trying to clear the smog from between their ears. "No. No! No, not at all." They pause again, trying to grasp at the words that would explain their presence, but losing them in the misty tendrils clogging their thoughts.

They cough, and go for the simplest answer. "May I come in, then?"

Iris cocks her head, but obliges, turning her body to allow Sage ingress.

The penthouse is elaborate and decadent, fitting for a place with a view of the London skyline. The curtains over the gable windows are parted, letting the sparkling light of the unsleeping city illuminate the living room. Warm amber streetlight paints the high ceiling and walls, cross-hatched by the negative space of the windows' grilles. A grandfather clock stands imposingly in the corner, the pendulum slicing with hypnotic, metronomic frequency.

Iris sprawls onto a fine leather couch, easily taking up the entire length of the furnishing with her size. Sage sits on a loveseat opposite her, their laptop already in hand.

She runs a hand through her clipped hair, suppressing another deep, lengthy yawn. "Do make this quick. I have some things I must accomplish today, and I need my beauty sleep."

Sage is slow to respond, staring at the plunging neckline of Iris's tank top. Her red shorts have ridden up her thighs, and Sage swears they can see a hint of boxer-briefs underneath.

They shake their head and come to. "Yes, of course. Right. So…”

Deep breath. They show her the laptop’s screen.

“Blitzel Inc. Major contractor you hired out. They’re currently working on an oil deposit beneath one of the Ways to Elfame.”

Iris nods her head. “Yes, I know them. What, are they forging numbers?”

Sage can’t decide whether to shake their head or not. “Based on what should be their actual measurements, it looks like if they keep at their current operational pace, they’ll flood half of the realm with a spill. Because they’re operating on a trans-planar thaumic seam. There is a leyline running straight through the drill site into the heart of Elfame.”

Iris is quiet.

Sage swallows dry spit. “They’ve not been telling you this it looks like, because it means they’d have to change drilling direction and get a lower yield.”

“And that means they’d be off target for what I need them to do,” Iris says.

“Precisely,” Sage says as if they’re confident in anything they just said. “They have been fiddling with the numbers, trying to make them work out in their favor, but their costs are off what they should be at this point. They have been slacking on PPE, LIDAR scans, and other essentials in an effort to cut costs as they try to shore up the existing deposit to prevent a spill, but it’s not enough. It will leak sooner or later and flooding the fairies’ realm means—”

“It means Ortellica and that bitch Wei will gripe and moan at me until I fix it. And we’ll lose billions from the fairies and their allies in the meantime. God, I can’t believe they…”

Iris's rant devolves into frustrated mutterings and curses as she takes the laptop and runs through the data. Sage sits quietly, waiting for her to finish.

Once she’s done, Sage slips their laptop into their bag, and moves to stand. "You can take care of this?”

She nods, her ugly grimace quickly smoothes out into unwrinkled, emotionless marble again. “It’ll take me all week, but yes. I should be able to.”

Sage breathes a sigh of relief. Something unwinds within them.

“I should be going back to it, then. I won't be wasting any more of your time with this, you clearly need the sleep."

They almost make it to the doorway before they hear a rustling behind them, the heavy padding of footsteps, fast to catch them. A familiar, firm grip encloses itself around Sage's arm, and a familiar low voice speaks. "Wait."

Sage looks back and up, to match gaze with Iris looming over them. She is a dark shadow, backlit by the streetlights, coloring her skin with warm, supple tones. Iris stares into Sage's eyes without blinking, snakelike pupils dilated wide.

She pauses before speaking again. The clock ticks onward. Iris rolls her jaw and purses her lips, as if struggling to put the words together in the right order. But when she next speaks, the words come out smooth and confident. "Would you care to relax on the balcony with me? Before you retire to your room?"

She wants something. What it is, Sage cannot tell. Her Adam's apple bobs, her left eye twitches. More tells than Sage has observed in all their months of working with her. And they don't know what they mean.

But she wants something, and they look her up and down in this unguarded, nearly naked (in their eyes) state of hers, and let their mind roam.

A moth to flame, a mammal to pitch tar. The spring doesn’t know whether it is being crushed or freed.

Sage thinks of what Iris would be compared to every woman they’d ever kissed, if she wasn’t so spectacularly rich, wasn’t so spectacularly devilish, wasn’t so spectacularly pointed and in need of being in control all the time. The casefiles talked a lot of the Darkes killing people who slighted them.

But she’s not spectacular in the light. She’s mundane. Human, even. Even with the iron grip around Sage's arm.

"Of course."

Sage leans over the balcony of the penthouse, marveling at the skyline. The skyscrapers across London are a set of glowing spears thrust and twisted into the gut of heaven, bleeding divine light over the sky.

In their hand swirls a frosted glass of brandy, one worth more than their significant base salary, much too expensive to rest in their own liquor cabinet. But the taste is worth every penny. They feel, rather than see, Iris beside them, the smell of cedar and campfire wafting on sweet smoke as she lights a cigar, the expensive kind that she likes so much. There wasn’t anything special to mark the occasion, nothing more than the usual affair.

Sage speaks. “We’re in town for two more days.”

Iris stares at the skyline with a burning intensity until she looks up to Sage. “That is when your contract is up, if I recall.” She is trying to be polite in not looking at them, trying to make the conversation not seem like an interrogation. They appreciate the attempt.

“So it is.”

Iris exhales smoke. “Do you have any thoughts?

Sage’s mind skitters, cataloging the myriad, blurred memories over the months in her service. It is difficult to put them into perspective, especially right now. It's all a memory slurry of locales and data-packages and clients, far too much to view in its totality. “I will have to think about it.”

“Hm.” Iris is unsatisfied with the answer. She takes a large drag of her cigar, a fine thing wrapped in hand-pressed paper and packaged in gold foil. The scent is heavy and deep, and it wraps around Sage’s head and squeezes it gently. Seventy-thirty on whether she will press further.

“Have you not had enough time to think?” Seventy it is.

Sage sighs. “I need to process it. I’m not used to these things like you are.”

They can tell Iris bites her lips, her husky voice twisting as it comes out between them. “I’m sure there are things that you know that I could barely begin to comprehend, so that is fair.”

Prophecies soaked in chemicals and lethal purity tests. Yes there are. “I guess I should thank you, Iris. It’s been an interesting time working with you.”

“I should say the same. You have been a steadier companion than most. I will be… disappointed to see you go.”

Sage risks a glance over to her. They see her face, dappled with moonlight from above and streetlight from below, her skin shimmering with a menagerie of orange and silver hues. A puff of smoke escapes her scarlet lips, and crowns her head like a blurred halo. A black tongue shifts and rolls behind the battlements of those long canines, and Iris’s eyes flicker to meet their own. A small smile plays upon those lips. “If you choose not to renew your contract, of course.”

“If.”

She nods, returning her steely gaze to the sky. “Yes, if.”

They stand on the balcony, watching the twinkling of the London landscape unrolled before them. Sage sips from the glass of brandy in hand, the drink the same rich color as their skin. The minutes roll languidly by, and they watch in silence as the world strolls on below them. They are surprised to find that the drink in their hand has long been drained, the bottom of their cup sticky and dry. The faint whistling wind carries away the worst of the smells of London, and brings with it the faint smell of tree litter, of soil, of the last vestiges of green before the frost. Standing above it all, immersed within its center, Sage can admit London almost seems… pleasant, from this perspective. It's only a slightly better look than what the tart has on the street, but… it is one that Sage could possibly get used to.

Why does that scare them so?

In the distance a church clock-tower chimes the hour, in sync with the grandfather clock indoors, startling them both. The spring uncoils and Sage sighs. They're disappointed, in some odd way. They had distantly hoped that Iris's offer had been more than just plain spoken words. “I better head back to my room. There is still labor yet left to wring out of me for the little time we have left together. I'm sure you want to make the most of it.”

Iris’s face is unreadable. “Of course.” She stubs out the cigar, only half-smoked, and stands, towering over Sage, having to crouch to fit under the short European balcony door.

Sage can feel Iris walking behind them, can hear the creaking of the polished wood floor with each step. The brandy on their breath mixes with the cedar campfire smoke and swirls around their nose and brain, an intoxicating scent, an alluring scent, squeezing and massaging Sage’s brain in time with the alcohol in their bloodstream.

They think of Iris, her lips, tongue and teeth, her hips, height and weight. Their heart beats faster, temples break a sweat.

Don't be an idiot.

They think that as they go back to their affairs. Their parents were set for life. Their tracks were covered, life insurance paid for and will up-to-date. There was no harm, no risk involved. Why not take something for themself, a severance package of their own?

Sage Garcia Rivera-Flores, what the actual hell are you thinking?

The errant thought on the balcony balloons and swells, gorging on the taste of liquor and smell of tobacco until it is all they can think of. They think of their supervisor, their old boss, their first one in the G.O.C., his hand down their pants and his halitosis in their ear.

Is that really what they want their last touch to be? Without even trying to aim higher?

They’ll be dead meat soon, even if their contract renews. No way even someone like Iris can keep up the charade forever.

Sage stops short of the door, and turns to look up at her beside them, neck crooked. 5’5 and 6’8 makes for awkward conversations in close quarters. There is little room left in their mind for caution. “Iris, could I ask a favor, before I go?”

They think of how banal this situation is, how subdued it is compared to their usual quarry. Compared to a good gay bar, where the women were plenty and the music was so loud they could hardly hear themselves.

(That was back before the Insurgency. Before going out in public gave them a nauseating panic about if someone was going to stick a bayonet in their face, or lob a fireball at them.)

Iris’s eyes narrow, ever so slightly. This was something that Sage had never dared said to her, it was new. “Depends on the request.”

Sage takes a breath, then another. Heart jack-hammering their sternum to powder. Her thumbs breaking their ribs, her fangs sinking into their neck. No harm, really. They've gotten all they needed. All they wanted.

All but one thing.

I think after all this time, I’m allowed to take home one trophy.

One trophy. One thing. They don’t imagine it hard to make a thing out of Iris here and now, when she’s so exposed. Knowing her prissy self, she’d probably enjoy it.

They swallow and lick their lips, tasting the brandy one last time.

“Before I go, could I kiss you goodnight?”

Silence.

Even the ticking of the grandfather clock seems to stop. The quiet is complete and total. Stifling and choking.

It nearly kills them until they watch with deep brown eyes Iris’s own widening to show full whites.

“…What?”

The silence ticks on, unthinkably, agonizingly slow. Sage’s nails dig furrows into their palm, and Iris’s eyes bore into theirs. It’s nearly unbearable.

“You heard me,” is all they can reply. Their tone is like steel, but their nerve is anything but.

A strange sound arises, short, arrhythmic bursts of bassy notes. Sage realizes that it’s Iris, choking. Her eyes are wide, not out of anger, but of surprise and confusion. “E-Excuse me?”

Sage's mind staggers to a halt, reaching the endpoint in its projected thought processes. This is not how they expected this to go. They expected to be dead by this point, their painful brazenness rewarded with blood and viscera. They take a steady breath, and press on, flying by the seat of their pants, trusting the alcohol to supply the words for them.

“Is it an unreasonable request?”

Iris sputters, breath hitching in on itself. She pulls away, her face reddening quickly amidst small gasps of air, her eyes still wide as saucers. She looks away from Sage, black tongue darting, but more sheepishly than they expected.

Sage takes a half-step back to the door, just in case they need to run. Not like it’ll be any use.

A second longer of silence, and Iris nods in assent, a quick, hasty jerk of the head. “…Y-yes. Alright, then.”

God, she is blushing. So bright and red she might as well be a precious ruby, ready to crack. Sage’s balcony-thought bubble pops, and in its place rises a growing, greedy thirst. The way that Iris crumbles at that slight request…

They have an epiphany. The way Iris moves, looks at them—she’s taken aback. Unsure of what to do with herself. She looks liable to melt, to fracture, to burn up in the spark of a flame. The way she bites her nail looking at Sage is something filled with desire, but with no knowledge of how to achieve it.

Oh my god, she’s a virgin. Their jaw finally slacks. This woman with more money than God is an actual fucking virgin.

The idea is preposterous in their mind, up until they consider everything about her again. Until they consider her position, her status, her body. She may have suffered the same kind of stares as they did with their coworkers, masculinity presenting itself in a ‘female’ body.

She was the brazen one here then, doing that at the top of the world. Nobody could tell her no, but Sage can’t imagine it makes people like her.

Have you been called a dyke before, Iris?

Slowly, carefully, delicately, one of their hands reaches to lightly push her against the wall. Iris bends down like a dog to meet their height, her hair sliding down blue wallpaper in thin knifed slivers.

Their hands wander up to caress, grabbing the straps of her wife-beater. They pull down in an implacable, inexorable way that meets little resistance; Iris meekly complies with Sage’s unspoken command, their faces closer than ever before, sweet smoke still lingering on Iris’s breath, sour brandy on Sage’s own, the scents intersecting and intermingling and melding in the middle where the currents of their lungs meet.

The kiss is deep, and long. Sage feels like they’re eating smoke as their lips touch Iris’s fangs; they’d have it no other way.

So meek at first, she becomes eager and ravenous. Clumsily but with great intent, Iris grabs their hips and pulls them closer to her.

They kiss again, and Sage wonders if it’s her first time for that too. Not just a first kiss, but a second.

Emboldened by the feedback, they press deeper into Iris, venturing a tongue inside of her mouth. Iris shudders, and muffled by their lips, unbidden and unwanted, a whimper bubbles up in her throat, a delicious whine pouring out. Her tongue responds in kind, brushing against Sage’s in an eager, inexperienced way, mashing the blackened muscle against Sage’s, folding around it, sucking it deeper into her mouth so she could feel it inside her.

They break again. Sage finds a hand had wrapped around the back of Iris’s head, weaving fingers into her short hair and making it messy.

She looks good like this. Normal, natural, a beautiful woman.

Their other hand, their right hand, caresses Iris’s hip, her thigh. Their lips move to Iris’s cheek, her neck. They softly bite, whispering a silent, unspoken question as their fingers brush her inner thigh, tracing circles on the fabric of her shorts, tracing promises, suggestions.

Iris moans in a hoarse whisper, full of vocal fry. “Please…” Her legs are trembling, ever so slightly. Her heartbeat outpaces Sage’s own.

Sage’s lips move close to Iris’s ear, whispering into the alabaster conch. “Really, Iris? Do you want to go somewhere more comfortable?”

Iris whimpers, actually whimpers. Her hands frantically, fecklessly paw at Sage’s rumpled trenchcoat, fumbling with the buttons so she can get to more of Sage’s bare skin.

It still surprises them she can be like this. Crumble like this. For as brutal and sadistic Iris is, never have they seen her like this, feckless and weak and needy. Sage doubts anyone has seen her quite like this.

They do not wonder why, though they take a perverse pleasure in the idea.

All that net worth, all those stocks and bonds and trusts, the weight of an empire on a single woman, it all so easily came crashing down with a single delicate touch and kiss, bringing her with it to her knees. A woman atop a peak of power and wealth, coming down from the mountaintop to put on a private show, just for them. Sage feels flushed and damp with power and excitement and lust. To have such a notable woman wrapped around their little finger…

Sage takes Iris by the shirt again, and gently leads her backwards into the bedroom. They let her keep fidgeting with their top on the way. With their dress-shirt unbuttoned, they tease Iris a bit, slowly inching the fabric down their shoulders, their arms.

Sage switches hands on the wife-beater so they can shrug their bra all the way off before sitting on the bed, Iris standing before them, gawking. Iris’s eyes are focused on Sage’s chest, their exposed bra, the expanse of near-bare breasts. Slit-pupils dilate to max as Iris runs her long, soft fingers along Sage’s skin, feeling the gentle curves of their body. Iris’s touch feels electric, but Sage tries their best not to show it. Not when their position on her is this advantageous.

Sage pulls her shirt again, closer, until Iris is at wide-eyed-level. “Would you like me to remove my bra, Ms. Darke?”

Iris stares wordlessly at them, looking down at her own chest before staring at Sage’s.

Another whimper from the back of Iris’s throat, from somewhere primal. Sage bites their lip, failing to suppress a wicked smile. “Care to use your words, miss?”

The words come out of Iris in a burst of spice-scented air. “Please. Yes, please.”

God, it’s so easy.

A small part of Sage’s brain thinks that this must be an act, that this is a fetish for Iris, acting the innocent girl before cannibalizing her prey. Human praying mantis. But no, that wasn’t in Iris’s playbook, from what Sage knows, from what Sage has read of her.

Sage releases their grip on Iris, and reaches back to undo their bra hooks. Those snake eyes follow their every move, watching, staring, leering, for though that may be too strong of a word, the gaze definitely feels lecherous. Sage tries to keep themself from enjoying the look too much. They didn’t want to get used to it.

But they also notice Iris looking down again at her own chest. She still hasn’t taken all of her clothes off yet.

The bra comes down, and Iris comes in. Her hands come in, touching, feeling, kneading, her manicured nails like claws biting into Sage’s chest. Iris’s tongue snakes out to lick her lips, her dilated pupils like pools of night taken from the sky and set in sapphire, and Sage can almost imagine her as a pampered cat, finally allowed to play with its favorite toy. They try not to think about that too hard. They are wet enough already.

“Having fun?”

Iris says nothing. Sage breaks the silence to finally grab her top off and throw it to the side.

Iris tenses. She purses her lips together and tries to cover her chest like she’s just been humiliated.

“Let me see,” Sage demands, quietly. Gently. Enough to coax her out of…whatever is going on with her, they don’t want to think about it. They see it so plainly on her face, the fact her breasts are more like pecs than anything else, but they don’t mind.

Iris obeys, flopping down on the bed as Sage finally gets to have a good look at what they knew was there the entire time.

They need her now like they need water.

Sage moves in close, between Iris's legs, holds Iris's hands, and presses them to their chest, letting her feel their heartbeat, their pulse thrumming, their blood humming. Sitting on the bed, Iris is eye-level to Sage, no need to crane their neck anymore. Iris licks her lips again. Sage wonders if she had enough to eat today.

They distract Iris by pushing her down, a small muffled whimper of surprise emanating from somewhere among the valleys of silk and mountains of down across the topography of the California King. Sage moves onto the bed, on top of Iris, and straddles her, looking down upon her with a perspective they very much enjoy, especially knowing nobody else has had this. Iris looks up to them with wide expectant eyes, her raven hair spread across the blankets like a blackened saintly halo, her mouth parted just enough for Sage to catch a glimpse of fang under the London moonlight.

God, she is so beautiful.

Sage leans down for another kiss, gentler, kinder. They hold Iris’s head, kissing her lips, her cheek, neck, collarbone. They can still smell the bonfire and cedar on her skin, in her clothes. Sage takes a deep breath, taking in the scent through her mouth, breathing in Iris.

Iris is gasping for air, her skin darkened to a violent crimson from a ruddy blush. She claws at her own shorts, as if hyperventilating. She looks so innocent, has such a lack of guile. Like a schoolgirl on prom night.

“Do you want these off, Iris?”

Another whimper. “Y-yes.”

Sage kisses Iris on the cheek. Around their little finger. “As you wish.”

Sage unties Iris’s drawstring, and slowly pulls it apart, the nylon softly hissing against the fabric. They finger the hem, running their curled index along its inside edge, the feeling of their cold nail making Iris shiver. Pale and trembling, like a fawn lost in the woods, Sage just wants to devour her, eat her up until there's nothing left.

The anticipation builds to a crescendo as they savagely tear the shorts from Iris along with her silken boxers, exposing those toned, white thighs and the pearlescent wetness hidden between. Iris twitches, her legs attempt to cross to hide her slit, but Sage has none of that, and holds Iris’s thighs to the bed.

“Calm yourself. This isn’t going to hurt.”

Iris chokes out a childish mewl. “Promise?”

Sage nods, and looks down.

Iris's pubes are carefully trimmed, tended and pruned and grown in a thick mat. They lean closer in and breathe in, the aroma thick and heavy, mingling with the rest of the scents already hanging within their head like a dense fog-bank of spice and sex.

Iris squirms, her clitoral hood receding to expose her stiffening, pink clitoris, quivering and inviting. Sage begins to salivate. They want Iris. They want to taste her. They lean closer still, their hot breath brushing the bundle of nerves making Iris whine and buck, muscles tensing and flexing against the skin, but Sage holds on tight, forcing them against the bed again, spreading them. She won't get away so easily. God, so close…

Their head darts in to seal the deal. Sage presses their face against Iris, nose grinding against her clit, and tastes her.

The taste is better than the scent ever could have been.

Sage adjusts, moving away from the delicious slick slit, and begins to lick Iris’s trembling, quivering clit. They roll it around their tongue, tease it, suck it, spell out their name on the hood, writing in invisible ink on Iris, marking her as theirs. Sage holds on tight, feeling her muscled thighs as they go along, pushing themself deeper in, nails digging into Iris’s marble skin, marks of purple crescents on a blank pale canvas.

Iris responds positively to this treatment, a performance review given in unintelligible moans and whines.

Iris grinds against Sage’s face, drumming her feet on the mattress as Sage takes care of her. As Sage becomes her first. As the world narrows and bends and lenses around the penthouse suite until they're the only people to matter or exist.

Her voice, so steady and calm in every other setting, whether in a board room or under fire or conducting a faustian multilateral trade agreement, is now broken, keening, stuttering, needy, fumbling with words she hasn't had trouble with since grade school. Iris has to resort to monosyllabic utterances to get her point across.

“S-sage. Go-o-od, Sage. Please. Please. More.”

Sage grins into Iris’s cunt. That, they can gladly provide.

Their mouth is slick with Iris’s juices and their own saliva, dripping, soaking, leaking. God she is so wet. Sage renews their attack on Iris’s clit more aggressively with their tongue, coming from all angles, trying to make her come.

The spring tightens, metal creaking, muscle stiffening. “More. More.”

Sage releases their death-grip on Iris’s thigh and reaches up with their hand, spreading Iris’s lips with two fingers, tracing and dragging a fingernail against her labia, slowly circling around the minora, brushing against her inner thigh. They blow the faintest puff of air on Iris’s clit in the most momentary of breaks on their relentless barrage.

The spring compresses and deforms, shaking from the tension. A tight spiral, wound ever inward, towards a single, inescapable point.

With their tongue still teasing her clit, Sage’s middle finger penetrates Iris, immersing it up to the first knuckle. Sage can feel Iris’s tightness, can feel Iris’s warmth. Sage can feel her squeeze and strangle their finger, pelvic muscles trying to push them out, trying to push out the foreign object buried inside of her, trying to ward off this sensation that is so new and strange and wonderful. Sage acquiesces, withdrawing their finger until only the tip brushes Iris’s entrance.

She moans, a sound one part relief and two parts disappointment. Her hands release their stranglehold on the blankets, so sure that the hard part is over. Sage smiles, their lips dripping spit and wetness, and plunges two fingers back inside, up to the base of their knuckle, their thumb on her clit and their other hand still teasing the minora and inner thighs, poking and prodding at Iris like one of her hidden experiments, seeing what makes her tick, seeing what makes her twitch. Seeing what makes her come.

Another whimper from the bedspread, this one resolved to form itself into a coherent sentence. “Sage… please, may I… may I?” Failing, of course.

The pressure builds, the pressure rises and grows and expands, a cresting wave, a ticking bomb, a spring tensed to its maximum extent, heat building in its coils as more and more force is applied, as more and more potential energy is packed into one small area, focused and steady and unrelenting, not allowing the spring to unwind until Sage permits it.

The stimulation is so much for Iris, it's too much. Iris is too pent up, too surprised, it escalated far too fast for her to keep up. She can't stand it any longer.

“Please.”

Sage ponders for a moment, and considers the sadistic schadenfreude they could extract from tormenting their soon-to-be-former employer.

“You may.”

The spring unwinds. The timer reaches zero. The wave comes crashing down.

Iris climaxes.

Her body seizes, her thighs clamp down on Sage’s head, her hands tear through the sheets like paper, and above all she cries out in ecstasy as the orgasmic waves reverberate through her body like the vibrations of a ringing bell, a crystal-clear sound crashing against the shores of her body, bouncing, exploding, blooming, a thousand other descriptors each and all failing to describe the intense sensation of body-wracking pleasure that suffuses every atom of her being.

They remain like that together, frozen in their positions, breathing heavily, sweating, covered in each other’s fluids. The scent of sex hangs heavy and heady in the air, they might need to open a window before long, but not now. They both want this moment to last, just for a little bit longer, in each other’s embrace, feeling each other’s warmth against their own, feeling the wet and the slime and the damp, knowing that each caused the other. A small slice of heaven in a thirty square meter package.

Sage is the first to move, slowly rising from their position, kneeling and worshiping between Iris’s legs. The fabric on their knees was going to be worn after tonight, but that was of little concern right now. They lick the lubricant from their lips, and cock an eyebrow, looking to Iris.

“Is there anything else you require?”

Iris’s head rolls on the mattress without lifting, until she has eye contact with Sage. The doe-eyed look of innocence and awe fades away, replaced by the returning, steely-eyed gaze more befitting someone of her class, eyes narrowed to slits and pupils still further, a spark of a newly-awoken hunger dwelling deep within those thin pools of starless black.

When Iris next speaks, it again is monosyllabic. Not because she is overwhelmed with pleasure, but because there is nothing else to be said.

“More.”

Sage smiles. “As you wish.”

And so it begins again.

Something is burning.

Sage jumps out of bed. Their heart pounds as they lurch and grab their clothes.

…No, something is cooking.

Bacon?

They sit back down in the bed.

Their head spins as they examine their surroundings. Trenchcoat here, blouse there, boxer briefs on the other side. It’s an unsightly mess in their eyes, so they start gathering things up like a pecking hen until they hear footsteps.

…

They don’t arrive. Sage breathes again.

Now, they can finally think.

What the actual shit is wrong with you?

Nearly biting their own tongue off, they hurriedly throw on last night’s clothes, trying not to be horrified at the time. It's near noon, now. That the air keeps smelling like breakfast. They’ve got nowhere to be, sure, but they need to be nowhere fast. Find the exit, map your escape route, find exfil, it’s all according to plan, it can all still go according to plan, it—

“Are you hungry?”

Iris’s voice startles them so badly they trip on their own two feet.

“Oh my goodness! Are you okay?”

When she bends down to help them up, they swat her away. Not on purpose, not with malice, but just—just—

“Fuck!”

Sage stands up straight without a word. Iris watches them with wide eyes and a slightly slacked jaw.

“…I’m fine,” they tell her as they look over the London skyline in daylight and think it prettier than they did yesterday, than they knew they were capable of.

“Are you sure?” Iris cocks her head to the side so sweetly, eyes blinking fast as Sage runs a hand through their own hair to get it out of their face.

“Yes,” they reply coldly, shuddering as they stumble over to the door. A wicked headache throbs down their head and neck as they suck in air, clearing their throat. Too much alcohol. Too little water. Too little thinking. Stupid.

“That was fun—” they begin, swallow, and begin again. “But I have to go now. Bye.”

They barely manage to open the door before Iris practically lunges at them.

“What— Wait, you’re going? Already?”

Sage nods. “Yep. Please move out of the way.”

Iris moves in front of the door now. She’s got on casual clothes, jeans and a blue men’s shirt. Aggravatingly attractive.

“I—No, at least let me treat you to breakfast first.”

Sage firmly shakes their head. The panic is gripping their throat, though they try not to show it. “And have someone see us? Spying on us through the glass with a scope? Listening to sweet nothings with a laser mic? No, that won’t work. Please, move Iris.”

They watch with their breath held as Iris stands up tall and keeps the door shut.

“No. Eat breakfast with me, please.”

“Do you really think saying please is going to change my mind at all?”

“It’s good manners!”

Sage takes a step back. “And I am your employee. What we did wasn’t—”

“Do I look like I care about ethics, Ms. Flores?”

Silence. Sage stares at Iris like she’s sprouted five heads, which, admittedly, if she did, would be more pleasant than whatever was going on right now.

“Do not call me ‘miss’, thank you.”

Iris’s voice cools. “…Huh?”

Sage exhales, finally pushing her out of the way and prying the door open. They expect to be grabbed, and Iris fulfills that expectation just like they knew she would, except—

They wait. They wait as Iris pulls them back before letting them go, her eyes welling with small tears.

“…Do you really have to go?”

Don’t ask the question. Don’t get involved. Don’t ask her why she’s—she’s—

“Why are you crying?”

Iris stiffens, her muscles rigid and rough as stone. She releases her grip, and wipes her tears without a word. Almost like she didn’t want to be seen being weak, she stands up straighter and adjusts her posture into that of a businesswoman’s, but it doesn’t help things. It doesn’t hide her quivering lip, her quickened breathing, the diamonds falling down her cheeks now.

“…You can leave now.”

Sage's head tells them to get out. Their heart tells them to at least tend to her wounds, especially after they just plowed through her with zero regards to what would happen afterwards.

This is all your fault, dumbass.

Sage sighs and grits their teeth, turning around. “…No, at least tell me why you’re crying first. If this is the last we see of each other, I’d rather it not be like this.”

Iris wipes her eyes, clicking her tongue as she struggles to breath and get words out. Sage tries not to let this wear them down, but they can feel it slowly, slowly, crawling down their back.

Winds the spring up again.

“…You were…” She sniffles. “You were so nice to me.”

Sage slumps against the wall. “We had sex.”

“And nobody’s ever…ever…”

“I know you were a virgin, Iris.”

Iris blinks and her face flares red. Much more the Iris of the bedroom than of the boardroom, now. “That was obvious?”

“Yes. It was.”

“Is…The other thing obvious too?”

Sage stiffens. “The…other thing?”

Iris makes a vague, uncertain gesture.

"You have it similar to me. The…”

She looks down at the floor again and grimaces, clenching a quivering fist.

“…We both look like men, don’t we?”

Sage stops. They stop, eyes wide, not out of shock, but a kind of baffled revelation.

Yes, Iris, they want to say. Yes, we both look like men, that’s what a butch is. Have you ever heard of that? Did your mom ever teach you about them growing up? Teach you to point and laugh at them, at the tomboys who hate their hair and chest and the nothing between their legs?

But that’s not what they say. They see something hideously lonely in Iris’s eyes, horrendously cavernous and gaping, a chasm of experience drowned by cash until it wasn’t visible anymore, the edges chafed raw by wealth and expectations. Hidden like it was never there at all, except yes it was, here it was. Here was Sage, here was Iris.

Here was someone, and here was an heiress.

"You never met anyone like yourself growing up?” Sage asks.

Iris shakes her head. “Mother put me through finishing school. All the girls had beautiful long hair there, and I know when they grew up, they must have been very pretty too. I’m…”

She pauses.

“…My suits fit me just fine. But I’m not particularly nice to look at.”

“I don’t think that’s the case,” Sage says quietly, looking at her. Up and down, up and down, up and down. A picture began to crystalize in their head.

Iris smiles flatly, wiping tears from her eyes again. “Well, now you know why I want to keep you around.”

Sage shrugs. “You could pay literally anyone to be with you. Why choose me?”

Iris mimics them back. “I don’t want to pay someone for…that. Men do that. Real men. I’m…I’m…no. I won’t.”

She huffs and looks at them. A finger twitches forward, tail commanding the dog to wag, as if it means for her to approach Sage, to close the distance. They back up, the narrow hallway reminding them of the catacombs the Insurgency had them prowling around in, looking for old bombs.

“…Is it alright to say I love you?”

Silence.

“It would be rather rushed,” Sage replies, trying to keep their voice even.

Iris folds her arms and tries to smile. The porcelain face is cracked and shattered, raw emotion oozing through the cracks. “It would be true, as inflamed of a passion as it is.”

Sage smiles weakly. “Guess that’s my fault, huh?”

Iris flattens her grin into another grimace, pursing her lips into a line. They can only laugh at this, strain a laugh as they begin to leave this time, hopefully for good.

“Wait.”

“Let me go, Iris,” they tell her flatly. “My contract is almost up. It’s best we part ways, and never speak of this again.”

“But I—I can protect you—”

Sage snorts. “From what? I’m going to go live my life now. My parents are all set up, my siblings are all out living their dreams—whatever hell happens to me, I…I know it won’t reach them. You guaranteed that.”

Iris’s eyes shine. They glisten wet with glassy tears.

“…Someone wanted you gone,” she says quietly, approaching them again. Sage does nothing at this except stare at the floor.

“Hah, yeah, I can imagine. Someone must have really wanted me gone from the Coalition so badly they must have… Must have…”

Iris grabs their hand again, and this time they don’t resist. Their eyes are wide, hazy, cast to the floor in a downpour of thoughts and realizations, hauntings and unknowables.

“You had no training prior to your double-agent detail, did you?”

Sage gasps, looking back at her. “I had a year of training. I was an analyst for almost half a decade.”

“The Coalition knows better than that. There are people who spend their entire decades, entire lives, training to be spies. What made you so special as to fast-track all of that?”

Sage shakes their head, gnashing their teeth as they look up at her. “What are you saying? Why are you bringing this up now? Are you doubting me? Doubting my capabilities and the information I brought you?”

Iris responds by letting them go, but only for a moment before Sage finds themself hugged so tightly they can barely breath.

“N-no, of course not. No. But… it's not right. That's not what is supposed to happen. It must have been on purpose. Someone wanted to get rid of you. Bored of you. Your boss, his boss, whoever—I know people like you, Sage. The world thinks of people like you as…”

She lets the hug go and they stumble backwards without her support, dazed. Confused. The revelations of their livelihood and their rat boss’s dick in their mouth finally making some sense.

“…Disposable.”

Iris says this word with a great deal of intensity.

Sage responds back with nothing, their own heartbeat thrumming in their ears as the numbness washes over them and they slowly descend into emotional catatonia.

Same shit as it always was. Their boss never asked them what happened when they came back, why they suddenly gained a thousand-yard stare. Never seemed to care. Almost seemed disappointed with that deep sigh, those choice remarks.

So many dead bodies, so many corpses…

The Insurgency taught them in a world of magic and miracles, there was no shortage of creative ways to kill someone.

Their tone is icy, stinging. "So what are you saying? That your love is going to fix that? Fix the past, make me feel wanted by others who never cared?”

But Iris steels herself and puts a foot forward.

“I’m not that naive. All I know is that when you walk out of that door, when your contract is up two days from now and we make the preparations to send you home…you’ll be dead within a month, and I’ll never know why.”

Never know why?

"And that scares you? Me, dying.” Sage tried not to get attached, tried their best to stay aloof, to stay distant, to focus on the money. Now, the money is attached to them. God.

Iris's supple lips firm into a thin white line. “Yes. You’re the only person who has ever made me feel… made me feel real. Like a real woman.”

Sage tenses at that, the stress winding their spring like an oiled key. But the spring doesn't turn. It’s long bounced by now, snapped back and undone itself for the sake of itself, because there was nothing else to do. No further boundary to push.

But yet, somehow…

They turn away from her. Just for a second. Just to hear themselves breathing, to reassure themself they’re alive, and well. That this isn’t a dream, or some kind of twisted nightmare. This just…is.

“You must know I’m not very easy to love. My mother always called me difficult growing up.”

“Does she not see you for who you are? For the beautiful wo- beautiful person you are?”

Sage shrugs. “Still calls me something I don’t go by anymore. I got my legal documents changed and everything and just…”

They shake their head, wondering how she managed to pull that out of them.

“Do you really think we’re going to work, Iris? Really, truly, in your mind, do you see us working out? Just from this one night?”

Iris’s eyes light up with passion. They burn brighter than any kind of flame, and Sage turns away from her heat.

“Cut that smile out, this is serious.”

“And I’m serious, Sage. Stay with me. Let me cook you breakfast. Let me prove it to you. Prove myself to you. Please.”

Please.

That word, again. So drenched in manners, and yet she says it with all the selfishness in the world. Rich with need and glazed with thirst. Like Sage is the last drop of water in the Sahara.

Sage hates how much it tempts them. They could get used to that tone, that wealth, that extravagance of a woman like Iris on their arm.

They have paid their dues. They have done their job, fulfilled their services to the letter. If someone was going to be selfish, why not have it be them for once?

It’s such a dirty thought, but they know there’s no escaping this. There’s no escaping Iris’s gravity, her offer, this proposal, written out in informal ink and sealed with a kiss.

They were doomed as soon as they went to collect their trophy. The game can only end one way.

Though really, this should all be called luck. The system moving in their favor for once.

“Okay."

Some more words try to come out but they scatter along an axis of meaningless drivel, hopeless platitudes which they know won’t save them or make up for the sins they’ll commit attached to her hip.

But that doesn’t seem to matter to her when she approaches them and gently cups their cheek. She moves her hands down their neck in pure, liquid motion, flawless and gentle and sweet and merciful. Her breath still smelled of brandy.

They kiss tenderly, slowly, all of those things which are good and pure. Sage is shaking the entire time, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t need to matter. Nothing needs to matter at this moment. Nothing.

Iris is the one to break contact, to stare into Sage's warm eyes, stroking their cheek with a loving touch. A hand washed clean, but a touch that still stains. All of her atrocities, all of the blood and money she’s burned—means something darker than sin. They were holding a monster, and being held in turn.

“What can I make for you?” Iris asks kindly.

Sage looks to the floor.

“Whatever you think is best,” they reply simply.

‡ Licensing / Citation

page revision: 13, last edited: 09 Jun 2026 12:10

Edit Rate (+45) Tags Discuss (35) History Files Print Site tools + Options

SCP Foundation

Secure, Contain, Protect

March 4th, 2021

June 1st, 2021

November 7th, 2021