( misc. | writing ) please, please tell me you know

[besiege]

i've got to let this go.

Never has the sky over London been as red as it is tonight. The fires are fierce and widespread, creeping from building to building, swallowing derelict wood like a drunk would down their vice. The chaos spilling through the city’s streets is worse than it has ever been, no longer contained by borders, only mindless lunacy and some apparent, deep seated desire to raise London to the ground. The rules have changed. Neutral ground has been stained with blood and any vague inkling of respect kingdoms might have had for each other seem to have been buried beneath the rubble of the once glorious city. From her dark perch on the sixth floor of an old, dreary looking office, Cat stares out across a landscape that no longer seems to sleep. At every waking moment of the day and the night there is noise. She can hear sirens, smashing, screams, all of them tangled with each other, simultaneous and endless. Her expression is as blank as a sheet of paper. No emotion touches her eyes, or furrows her brow. She has always created black holes of violence around herself, sucking in whatever unfortunate soul happens to be in her way, destroying them if she can, but she wonders if this black hole has grown a little too big. She wonders if it is the sort that sucks everything in and causes it all to destroy itself. She needs to move. Her body aches and the sleeve of her shirt is drenched in blood. Very little of it is her own. Her sense of direction has gone a little astray; the street below is not one that she recognises clearly. It is possible, Cat considers, that the street is one she might have patrolled every day, but it has been reduced to the sort of mess that even rats would be wary to crawl through. The street has been made uneven with craters from scatty bombs and every piece of debris imaginable. There is nothing left to recognise here. Few occasions give Cat cause to feel an uncomfortable shiver run up her spine. This is one of those occasions. She finally rises, stepping back from the window and slowing slinking out of the building, into the horribly cold air of a late October night. Her progress is not as quick as she would usually prefer. When she reaches a familiar patch of Tower Hamlets, it is nearing the morning, even though the streets are still soaked in blackness. She casts a tired glance back up at the sky in the distance. London is burning, more than it ever has before. Time does not stop for anyone here. Bodies move past her, give her wary nods, or ignore her, just as she ignores them. Sleep is no longer a necessity but an unfortunate stain on activities. Nothing can be done when you are asleep. No guard, no attack, nothing. Cat meanders through the contained madness of her kingdom – just a fractional section of the madness that is her city – looking for something and nothing all at once. Her head says she does not want to see anything, her eyes search desperately, but what they find is disappointing. She takes the route where she is more likely to find him. Cat knows his habits well enough, or at least so she thinks. She might not have forgotten his haunts, but she has certainly forgotten that she is not the only girl with eyes in the kingdom. In the murky light of a streetlamp, she sees Bass’ familiar shape, but she sees it wrapped around someone, pushing someone against the nearby wall in the heat of the moment. She doesn’t know who, she doesn’t care who, but the realisation slams into her like a brick to the chest. She remembers, now that she’s seen it. She isn’t the only girl in the world, and for a moment she hates herself more than she has ever hated anyone else for even remotely touching upon the idea that she could give herself to him. Again. Or that she could be angry with him for wanting someone else, when she has Fox. Fox. He is a lurking thought that follows her everywhere she goes. Bass lifts his head for a moment, his companion muttering something breathlessly to him, though he doesn’t hear. He doesn’t even listen, staring down the empty, dark street as the unsettling sensation of being watched slowly dissolves from his mind once again. He picks up where he left off, new hands snaking around his neck and pulling him closer as Cat makes her way from the scene, post-haste. The old apartment block is a mess of exposed wires, blood spattered stairwells and peeling paint, and for the first time in over eight years, Cat is intimidated by its height and the dark, heavy atmosphere that surrounds it. It is Fox’s atmosphere, the one that has enveloped him ever since she returned from Camden, ever since she pushed the domino over. Cat hates to think of herself as being so significant in the grand scheme of things, but she can’t deny that she set off the chain reaction. Everyone knows it. Everyone knows that it was Cat who gave King Foxhound the necessary means to start what might have been the worst war London had ever seen. They know, and they are torn between bloodlust and hatred. On the one hand, enough excitement to last them a lifetime. On the other hand, that lifetime has just been drastically shortened. Cat had not stopped to look upon the numerous covered bodies two streets away. Inside, she moves like water. Like very bizarre, upwards flowing water, but every corner that she rounds of every staircase is smooth and practiced. Every step is taken two by two. When she reaches the ninth floor, she is almost out of breath, her cheeks tinted pink, but she does not stop. She is acutely aware that if she stops, she might change her mind, she might have time to rethink and reassess, but she doesn’t want to give herself time to think clearly. She is fuelled by some unfathomable momentum, and it’s taking her towards a plain black door. As ever the door is unlocked, and Cat slides through it with barely enough time to knock – tap, tap, tap-tap – as she beelines from the entrance to the dimly lit sitting room. Fox is surrounded by crudely drawn maps and messily scribbled strategic suggestions, but Cat pushes them aside without a word, descending upon him before he even has time to lift his head to see her. Their eyes meet for a moment before she settles upon his lap, holding his face firmly between her hands to kiss him. His only response is to raise his hands a little with surprise, eyebrows shooting upwards, but he returns her kiss, and his hands move to hold her waist. Cat’s intent is clear enough from the urgency and the pressure of her lips on his, from the way her fingers slide down until they curl into the fabric of Fox’s clothes. He mutters something that is lost between their mouths and their bodies, and Cat is glad for that. She doesn’t want to hear it. Once Fox has peeled away her shirt (who cares about some stranger’s blood anyway?), it doesn’t take long for him to make a measured decision, hoisting Cat up as if she was feather light and taking her to the dark bedroom. He knows she prefers the darkness, where her scars and bruises can’t be seen. For someone as fearless and bold as Cat, it seems a strange worry, but he won’t contest it. He obediently keeps his hands to her hips, to her face and her waist, slowly slipping between her thighs as his mouth slides down to press kisses to her throat. Every moment sets Cat’s mind racing in all the wrong ways. Fox touches her with familiarity. He knows her body, he remembers it, and that’s more than she can say for herself. Her hands have turned nervous and experimental again, lost on the plane of his back and the line of his collarbone as she frantically tries to remember what this used to be like, but the shape of his body beneath her hands has somehow become foreign. She waits – she expects – to feel the ridiculous broadness of Bass’ shoulders, to rake her nails through his short cropped hair, but she doesn’t. It is Fox’s warm, low breath in her ear, the habitual lingering of his lips on the junction between her neck and shoulder. She stares resolutely up at the ceiling in the darkness. If she closes her eyes, all she sees is Bass. If she looks at Fox, all she can think of is the guilt gnawing at her insides, the desperate need to erase the time she spent with Bass, the useless hope that to have Fox touch her and feel her again would rid her of conflict. It doesn’t.