Work Text:
Jessalyn slips the red dress on, tying the knot behind her neck. It's covered in sequins, meant to draw the eyes of the men in the lounge while she sings on stage.
Her cobalt blue wings settle against her bare back, leaving just enough skin uncovered to tantalize.
Just another beautiful Songbird.
There are other Songbirds in the Lounge, singers and dancers to entertain the guests, though Jessalyn holds herself apart from them. This isn't the kind of establishment where one makes friends, especially with the competition.
For the most part.
"What do you think?" Lucille twirls in her yellow dress, chosen to match both her golden curls and her yellow and black wings.
Jessalyn smiles, more genuine than she usually is. "It suits you well."
She knows what kind of people run the Lounge, her brother is one of them after all. It's best to look the other way, just smile and look pretty; then maybe, just maybe, she can sweet talk her way into what she wants.
But Lucille is a softer kind of girl, not properly equipped for those kinds of games.
But they don't talk about that when together. Lucille prefers to preen her wings; Jessalyn doesn't really get why but it's nice to have an extra pair of hands.
Lucille is quieter than usual tonight, just humming softly to herself as she gently cleans her friend's feathers. She's one of the few that Jessalyn has trusted to touch her barn swallow (the boys loved to joke about that; she just smiled and imagined stabbing her pen knife into their throats) wings.
"Something on your mind, love?"
Lucille is quiet for a bit, soft fingers running along dark blue feathers. Then, "I heard some of the boys talking."
"The boys like to talk," Jessalyn dismisses. "It's best to ignore them."
Lucille doesn't say much more after that, but she does ask to stay the night. Jessalyn notes how she shakes a little when she holds her in her arms, wings folded protectively over her.
Things continue as normal, and Jessalyn almost forgets about what Lucille might have heard, until her friend disappears three days later.
It takes a week for the police to find Lucille's body in the nearby river. An accidental drowning, they call it.
But the other Songbirds whisper that her pretty goldfinch wings were removed, viciously cut off. The kind of ugliness done to send a message.
There's a hollow ache in her chest but there's no time for grief, so she settles for the cold chill of anger.
Jessalyn can guess what happened, and she's tired of looking the other way.
The private detective might almost be called attractive, if not for the several days worth of stubble and messy clothes. One of his wings, osprey she guesses by the pattern, clings close to his body, as if trying not to move it too much in fear of aggravating a healing bone. The bottle of alcohol tucked back on a side shelf suggests another kind of problem.
Jessalyn smokes, holding the small cigarette between two fingers, because it makes her look hot, because she's nervous.
"May I ask what your relationship with the victim is?"
She thinks of Lucille's bright smile, the soft green of her eyes, the jasmine perfume she liked to wear, her soft but firm hands, the way she sometimes snorted when she laughed which just made her laugh harder, the way her gold and black wings fluttered when she was excited, the nervous quiet last time they spoke.
She imagines her wingless corpse left to float in the river and it feels like there's a piece of iron in her throat.
"She was a close friend." Jessalyn sweetens her voice, leaning forward in her seat a little. "You'll help me, won't you?"
The detective hesitates but she sees when he relents; she knows how to make men want to please her.
She also knows that sending this Detective Reddington against the local Mafia might end with him dead. But it might be enough to deal with Lucille's killer.
And that sounds like a fair sacrifice to her.