nonpointe.

“What does that REALLY MEAN ? I’ve seen a lot of out of shape law-enforcement. The difference between passing your physical and acing it, huh?”  She’s teasing, a glimmer of humour in her eye. 

“ oh, we’re going with a LAZY COP joke, are we? — ha ha. ”   he knows she’s playing him.   “ if you’re planing to follow up with a donut joke, i’ll save you the trouble. ”

eyeloyalist.

              ❛ no – NO, dylan ! ❜

ANGER rises fast and sharp within him, overwhelming as it blocks out all other thoughts. he lashes out, hand catching a table of props and scattering them over the floor. footsteps land heavy as he paces, whirls on his leader, turns away again. hands run through his hair, grip it, pull, as he stares up at the ceiling. a deep, shuddering breath escapes him, struggling to calm, to find some sort of level center, but he feels out of control, restless, helpless.

              ❛ didn’t you ever THINK for one fucking second that you couldn’t find anything on me BECAUSE I DIDN’T WANT YOU TO ?! ❜

his voice is hoarse, and it cracks, and for the moment, he’s too angry to even devote a second of thought to it. he feels BETRAYED - betrayed by the one person he trusts most, by the person he’s confided in.

              ❛ all those questions you kept asking – it’s beause you already knew, wasn’t it ? did y’think i wouldn’t find out ? did y’think i wouldn’t KNOW ? no – ❜ he interrupted himself, shaking his head, smoldering dark eyes turning on the older man. ❛ what do you think you could even say ? ❜ he’d never listen again, anyway.

_{@eyeprotege liked ♞ !}

he watches the outburst, hands securely anchoring him to the crate behind him, every word coming out of jack’s mouth making him smaller and smaller. for the longest time, he manages to maintain his eyes in the other’s face, force himself to take in the wrath and sadness in him as his own personal punishment — it’s only once the table hits the floor that dylan can’t pretend to have enough pride to face this. lips press together, preventing him to say his defence when it’s so obvious jack’s not looking for an explanation.  “ i knew some of it. ”   fragments of data, dots that just needed to be numbered so he could complete the picture. the truth’s not going to do anything to calm the other down, but it’s the least amount of respect he can give.

face finally turns back to jack, dead terrified of meeting the other’s gaze.   “ jack, i’m SORRY. ”   it’s a lot more forceful than his earlier words, almost defensive despite how much dylan’s trying to press that tone down: jack’s wrong, but that doesn’t mean his anger is any less justified. and dylan is genuinely sorry, but not regretful, and that’s exactly what jack doesn’t want to hear right now.   “ i knew you’d wanted to reinvent yourself, you’re not the only one in this group with a made-up name, but i had to look into you. i had to know what you were running away from! ”   dylan is avoiding jack’s questions — yes, he had hoped jack wouldn’t find out, at least not before they’d past a point where it didn’t matter anymore — and trying desperately to get his point of view through in the hope jack would understand when he’s calmed down.

“ i never broke your trust, jack. ”   it’s a technicality: he couldn’t break what had not yet been given to him.   “ i just did what i HAD to to make any of this possible. ”

eyerevived.

          “I did it like you asked.”

“ no, there’s definitely something WRONG here. i’m standing here, and you can still see me, so i haven’t vanished in thin air. ”   a small jump on top of the contraption to prove his point: the trapdoor isn’t just stuck — it’s just not going to open.   “ you sure you got the wiring right? ”

“ they can’t hear you. or SEE you. ”

@sunridden  »  book based starter call  »  insurgent by veronica roth

hunterofapurpose.

The sudden sound of a man’s voice in her ear drew Cecilia out of whatever thought she was having about her cards. She wasn’t the best poker player, but she knew her way around a deck. Honestly, she didn’t even want to play but it was the only way to get close enough to her suspect. He was at the table to the right of hers, betting away money that he stole from his estranged wife. She was only spending as much as she had to, but luck seemed to be in her favor with how many chips she reeled in. That was, until the man ghosting over her shoulder whispered words of wisdom. ❝ Well, in that case I would rather get while the getting is good. ❞ She already had a horrible hand, one she could make something work with the right cards but with the warning she didn’t want to take any chances. She folded & withdrew from the game, starting to pile the chips into her handbag.❝ Thank you, but why did you help me? Seems out of place for an establishment of this… caliber.❞

shit.  a smile is flashed — wide and apologetic — to the other players on the table to distract from her timing: by ending the game immediately, she’s brought attention to him that doesn’t need to be there, and whatever roughing up they usually do to guys who count cards or otherwise ruin the game for them, dylan’s safe to presume is only gonna get worse if they realise he’s a fed.   “ sorry, fellas, we have a LUNCH we gotta be up for tomorrow. but hey, eleven o’clock, tomorrow, it’s double or nothing, right? ”   to further sell the idea they’re together despite barely interacting the whole night, he hands her a card he hopes looks enough like a hotel key to fool them for the five seconds it needs to before he starts walking out with her.   “ you want your key back? ”   a small nod he expects her to imitate without realising before finally bringing his volume down so their company can’t hear them anymore.   “ we’ll talk outside, just act along. ”

eyetraitor.

it feels, for a moment, like all the air has been ripped from danny’s lungs.  the facade of cool surety splinters harshly as dylan’s words wash over him, unbearably loud in spite of their actual volume.  between the look on dylan’s face and the tone of his voice and the way guilt settles deep in his own bones, danny has never hated himself as much as he has in this moment.  he shouldn’t have let this happen, shouldn’t have allowed anyone to gain leverage over him, shouldn’t have even gotten this attached in the first place.  every ounce of him just wants to stop, to pick up the phone and call merritt and tell him they have to call the whole thing off, they have to find another way, he wants to give in to the only good man who’s ever believed in him and explain  ——

instead though, he swallows hard and draws himself up, pulling for the indifferent arrogance that has never worked on dylan, because the alternative to doing so is unacceptable.  he’s done this to himself, and he’s not the only one who will pay if he doesn’t follow through.  the way his chest tightens like he’s about to cave in on himself and he has to swallow past traitorous emotion that threatens to close his throat is irrelevant now. 

“ i — ”  for the first time in years, danny doesn’t know what he means to say, i don’t want this.  i have to.  instead, he shakes his head just slightly, body tensing as if he’s already preparing to run.  “ i’m sorry dylan. ”

how did they keep ending up here? with dylan, holding shattered pieces of himself because he’s put his trust in a conman he’d decided to care for enough to choose blind faith over sense? he rejects danny’s apology as soon as it hits his ears — no, no, no, if you’re not sorry enough to not do this, you’re not sorry enough — but it’s enough to shake him, force him to take a step back, look away and cover the side of his face to prevent danny from seeing how close his expression is to meeting its breaking point. a deep breath, a promise to himself that he can let this out as soon as he’s out of here if he can just pretend like he’s still one complete man in front of daniel. he opens his eyes, slowly, carefully, and lowers his hand with the same caution before turning to almost face danny, eyes locked even if his body is still turned halfway to protect itself.

“ WHY? ”   dylan shouldn’t ask this: the amount of answers he can get for it that have the potential to make him hate himself are close to infinite, but some part of him that can’t let go of the love he feels for danny clings on to the hope that there’s something, anything the youngest atlas could say that would make him understand, make this all alright.  ( or at least, make watching him go easier. )   “ what’re you getting out of this? what was worth throwing this away? ”   there’s a pause and dylan tries to cover his meaning with a hand gesture around danny’s flat, but the meaning is already hanging in the air:  what was worth throwing me away?

@theciaanalyst / cont.

“ Then we need to turn the tables again - quickly. ” Voice firm and resolute, he’s almost doing enough to give the impression that their change in fortune hasn’t perturbed him — but  a n x i o u s  hands tugging at the knot of his tie disprove his bluff. Really, he ought to have a better poker face by now. There’s little that VEXES him more than losing the upper-hand in a case; particularly one that’s deemed important enough to require the combined efforts of the FBI and the CIA. Their drop back to being on the back foot in this chase has left the analyst reeling a little, but that’s never been cause enough to leave him resigned. If anything, it only fuels his determination. He knows little of Rhodes’ work ethics but the other man’s frustration - his declaration of their foolish slip up - gives him cause to believe he might be just as set on seeing the case through to a positive result. “ We can still pull this off, we just need to regroup. I…didn’t see things turning out this way - I’m sorry. ”

it’s conflicting, to be working on a whistleblower case — apparently, the only thing more important than the quiet war between fbi and cia that’s been going on for decades is putting people who want to the world to know the truth behind bars. it’s not the first time dylan’s working against his own morals, but the specific type of case they have in their hands is making this all the worse… just worse enough for him to sabotage it ever so slightly, enough for the people to leak their documents before they can be managed to get caught.   “ just SAVE your apologies, okay? ”  it could’ve been a permission to stop feeling sorry about it, but the tone with which he delivers make it sound more like he just doesn’t want to hear how sorry fletcher is. a small pang of guilt follows, quickly swallowed — if the younger man doesn’t put it on rhodes’s frustration with the case, dylan can always buy him a beer afterwards and apologise.   “ please tell me you have something before my boss gets here. ”