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Basira doesn't sleep, not like she used to. Thoughts race. The dark creeps in. Another book requires her attention. More information is needed. It's soothing in a way that cop work never was, although she misses it.
Even if she had been asleep, the pounding on her flat door would have woken her up instantly. Years in the force had made her a light sleeper.
But she's not asleep. She's in the kitchen, at her table, three books open before her.
“Basira!”
Daisy is likely to wake the whole building at this rate, with the way her voice booms through the door and into the halls. She uses her police knock: heavy-handed and intimidating.
Basira leans back in her wooden chair, listening to its familiar creaks. She rubs her eyes, realizing only now that they burn with exhaustion. The knock comes again, and she sighs. “Alright, Daisy, hold on.”
Daisy not being a cop is perhaps the worst thing that could have happened to her, in Basira's opinion. But it's not like they can go back. They've burned those bridges.
She opens the front door to find Daisy digging her fingers into the frame, leaning in.
There's so much about Daisy that makes sense, knowing that she's part of a power involving hunting. She also thinks that since it was given a name, her drive is more intense, more brutal, more violent. Daisy is a hunter; she wants to kill.
“It's late.”
“Yeah, but you're up.”
She barges past Basira without an invite, helping herself to the fridge. The lines of her body are taut, and she breathes in pants. Is she excited, or anxious? She’s not even sure if there’s a difference anymore when it comes to Daisy.
Basira closes the door and locks it, feeling more satisfied as the click slides into place. It’s swallowed up by the pop and fizz of a beer being opened. Daisy is leaning against the fridge door when she joins her, but the bottle remains in her hand, fingers wrapped around the neck. Basira notices that her knuckles are white. She could snap the bottle and not even notice it.
She crosses her arms over her chest, leaning back against the counter top. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
There’s a clock in the kitchen. When she’s up reading, she lets it monotonous clicking soothe her. Now she looks over at it to check the time. Shit, when did it become past three in the morning? Has she really been up for over 24 hours?
She rubs her eyes.
“Nothing in the middle of the night? You can do better than that, Daisy,” she mutters.
Daisy finally brings the bottle to her mouth, brown glass resting against her lips. She doesn’t tilt it up. She doesn’t tilt her head back. She doesn’t drink. Her hand drops to her side again. There’s a light that bounces around in her eyes when her gaze lands on her face. It sends a chill down Basira’s spine.
That light is madness.
It’s not something she’s really seen before. Either because Daisy has tried to hide that from her, or because she’s getting worse. Her head cocks to the side. An uneasiness settles in the pit of her stomach, but the curiosity is almost just as bad.
“I miss you,” Daisy finally manages to say. It fills the stretch of silence that spread between them. “I know you’ve got this job and all, but I meant it when I asked you to come on a hunt with me.”
“I know you did.”
Her brow furrows, teeth baring. Does she know she does that sometimes when an answer doesn’t suit what she wants? It’s - attractive. Unnerving, but attractive.
“And?”
“There’s too much to do before--”
“Fuck the Unknowing, Basira!” This time, she does take a swig, draining it in half. “Before this, before Jon and the Institute.” Her nostrils flare. She finishes the beer. “We were good.”
There’s an ache in her chest over the outburst. They were good partners, before Basira had to duck out of the force and leave her behind. Before it all got too much for her. Before Daisy disappeared amidst a bloody trail. She presses her lips together, watching the way the bottle cracks when it’s slammed down on a counter next to the fridge. It doesn’t shatter, at least.
“Daisy, we’re still good.”
“Are we?”
No.
Probably not.
There are a lot of things in the way now that wasn’t just the job before and Daisy’s need to hide the darkest parts of the world from her. That had been annoying but - also attractive. It is a sad fact that everything about Daisy has been attractive since day one.
She doesn’t take her gaze off of Daisy, though, even when Daisy does her best to look elsewhere to fume with the occasional glance back in her direction.
They aren’t good now. She knows she’s bait for Elias to keep a tight leash on Daisy. She knows that every day brings her closer to an end that she never planned for. She knows that they are going to go into a dangerous situation, and they’ll probably die.
“I’m not going out with you right now, if that’s why you’re here,” Basira tells her. She points to the clock. It’s late, Daisy. She’s not going to hunt monsters right now.
“Will you? Just one more hunt?”
Basira doesn’t like to think of herself as a sappy romantic. It’s just not in her bones. So she doesn’t know why she says it, only that she knows she means it. “After the Unknowing.”
It’s holding a promise that she knows neither of them can commit to. She wants it to be an oath. We’ll come back, because we said so. We have something to do.
She knows that Daisy thinks of the idea with a thin layer of disgust. Her lip curls up, and those teeth come out again. But part of her is her normal self again, the way her eyes cool and land heavily on Basira, the flat affect of her voice.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard. We can go right now,” Daisy argues.
“No.” She pushes herself off of the counter and reaches for Daisy’s hands. Her skin is hot, on fire, like her blood is boiling. “I don’t have time.”
Her nails dig into the backs of Basira’s hands. “I don’t want to think about any of this.”
She sounds defeated, soft, broken. Basira’s lips part, words on the tip of her tongue, but she can’t remember if they’re supposed to be tired or comforting. She can’t remember because Daisy’s mouth is on hers, boiling and demanding. It’s like she can taste the lust of the Hunt on her lips, and it twists something inside of her that makes her want. She drops Daisy’s hands in favor of twisting her fingers into the fabric of her wrinkled shirt. Did she wear this yesterday? It looks like she was wearing it yesterday. Hot fingers slide over her neck, thumbs pressed to the sides of her jaw, fingers beneath her hijab. Careful, so careful to not disturb the fabric, her hair.
Even in a frenzy, Daisy remembers that one.
She presses her hips into Daisy’s until she’s pinned against the door of the fridge. “Stay,” she breathes into her mouth.
Daisy’s hands slide down her back, draw lightly over her hips until she grabs her hard by the belt loops and tugs her closer. Her fingers are already unbuttoning her jeans. “Hope you weren’t planning to sleep.”
“I never do.”
There’s not going to be an after. But she wishes that Daisy would have lied.