Chapter Text
Twilight grunted as his back hit the unforgiving ground, the wind knocked out of him. His legs automatically moved to kick up and fend off his attacker but the body on top of him was solid, unmoving, not unlike attacking a brick wall.
He gritted his teeth. It was too dark to see anything but based on his assailant’s smaller figure and the brush of a dress’s fabric against his person, he could guess they were female. Somebody highly trained. He wished there was light to see clearer and get a better look but all there was was the moonlight casting shadows from a nearby window.
As a last resort, he twisted harshly to the side, trying to dislodge the woman off him but she didn’t so much as move an inch. He blew a frustrated breath. She remained silent and perhaps that set him off worse, made him more agitated, to the point where he threw caution to the wind and crashed his head against hers — a last resort to disorient her and give him a chance at escaping. But it was as if he hadn’t moved at all because she sat still, her labored breathing the only thing he could hear. Or maybe it was his own. He couldn’t tell. He was too busy dislodging the stars in his vision.
Damn it, he cursed silently. This wasn’t part of the plan. Being caught while conducting a last minute mission wasn’t on his to-do list. All he had to do was make sure a high ranking Ostanian diplomat received the correct report file. The original—the one he was slipping out of the study’s drawer—had been tampered with, the faulty information inside could’ve caused astronomical consequences had it been passed on unseen.
Twilight had spent the last four hours staking out Jefferson Davies’—the diplomat’s—home. The security was top notch. Three guards in the front and four in the back, and even two roaming around inside the house while the rest of the family, a wife and three kids, spent dinner together before retiring to bed. He had hoped to slip in the home earlier but his window of opportunity was small and he determined it was best to wait longer, now, under the cover of darkness while a guard in the back had been distracted by a cigarette break to not notice Twilight slipping inside behind him.
Breaking into the study was easy, the lock picking child’s play to his years of experience. He had no problems opening the drawer and exchanging the faulty report for the real one, slipping the fake into his pocket, but before he had a chance to even close the desk drawer, a weight had fallen on top of him. Their fight had lasted seconds—if one could even call it a fight with how easily he'd been overpowered—but Twilight had never been so out of breath as he had then.
He half heartedly wiggled his hands and was unsurprised when his attacker only tightened her grip in response. Twilight couldn’t help but be mildly impressed by how she only needed one hand to hold his wrists above his head. If the circumstances had been different, he would’ve been asking for strength training tips.
Twilight narrowed his eyes. His brain was in overdrive trying to figure out multiple solutions and which ones would allow him the best chance to escape. He ignored the remnants of a headache from his last attempt, his forehead would be red for the next day or two. It would be interesting trying to explain that to Yor and Anya when he saw them next.
If he saw them. Twilight was not known for his optimism but neither was he pessimistic, instead he preferred to be realistic and realistically, there was a good chance he would not be making it out of here alive.
His breath hitched when he felt something sharp tickle his right cheek. It didn’t have that familiar edge like a knife but he was unable to place what else it could be—perhaps an ice pick. An odd weapon but he’d give points for being unique, sometimes he got tired of the same old knives and guns used over and over, change was good now and then.
Twilight swallowed, sweat pooling at his temples. Pretending to be indifferent about someone with inhuman strength holding him down and holding an ice pick to his face was not helping him. He was good at compartmentalizing when he had to but this wasn’t the time.
They’d been locked in their position for at least a minute but still, whoever this woman was, made no move to finish the job and kill him. He should be thankful. Instead he was confused. The time for some villainous monologue like some of his adversaries preferred had passed. He waited for her to demand information from him but she never did. She hadn’t spoken the whole time. Twilight hadn’t said a word either, stubbornly not letting himself break the silence first.
Eventually though, logic dictated he talk, if he could get any information that can help him or delay her long enough to give him an opening could be important.
“Is it too late to ask for an introduction?” Loid asked in a rasp, his voice nearly unrecognizable to his own ears. The woman on top of him stiffened and he raised an eyebrow in the darkness despite knowing the action was pointless. “Considering you’re sitting on me, I mean. I don’t usually like women so forward without at least knowing their name.”
He received no reply which he considered rude. What happened to the days of introducing yourself to your victim before slashing their throat?
Still, his breathing stuttered when something softer replaced the weapon that had been pointed at his face. A feather light touch tickled his cheek and it took him a moment to place the sensation of fingertips dancing across his skin. It was unexpected, the touch, and so he startled minutely but it was enough for the hand to pause and the pressure on his hands to tighten slightly—a warning.
Outrageously, he found himself closing his eyes when a slender finger traced his nose before moving to hover over his eyes. Goosebumps rose throughout his body and a bemused horrified feeling washed over him.
What is going on, he thought furiously in a panic. Why is she touching me and why am I responding like this? Why am I not fighting her off? Why am I… why am I not scared?
He didn’t sense any ill intent from his attacker. Before, just a minute ago, there had been a deadly and terrifying aura radiating from her that left no question to what her motives were. Her grip had originally been painful, almost crushing his wrists from the force, but it had loosened some. Not to where he’d be able to snatch out of them in a surprise escape but enough that it no longer hurt. And the hand currently tracing the left side of his face felt—comforting.
It left his mind reeling. One moment he had felt his oncoming death in her touch and in the next his body wanted to yield to it. His mind screamed to be on guard and so he remained stiff and unresponsive as the woman continued her journey on his face but it was another story with the rest of him that wanted to sink into her hold.
What sort of psychological torture was this? He had never been a victim of it before. The method must be new—a new kind of seduction technique aimed to disarm their opponent. It made sense. It was working.
Except it didn’t make sense. She already had him under her. She had the upper hand with him at her mercy. Unless it gave her some sick pleasure to treat her victims like this—but he didn’t think so.
He wished he could see in the darkness, gain any insight from his attacker’s face and see what expression she was wearing. He could be wrong, she could be salivating in glee from his discomfort and he wouldn’t know. Having his eyes open was no different from closing them and while he prided himself on his ability to use his other senses when sight wasn’t an option, he was at a loss here.
His thoughts froze still when fingertips trailed lower to his chin, an index finger lightly trailing across and mapping the shape of the bottom of his face out. It was incredibly intimate. So intimate that he couldn’t help but respond with his whole body shuddering at contact. His reaction surprised her and she stopped, strangely making him empty, but after a moment, when nothing more happened, she continued.
It was conflicting to want her to continue and at the same time throw her off of him. He had no idea how long he laid there with her touching him, the seconds feeling like hours, with nothing being heard except the blood rushing in his ears and him occasionally swallowing.
Finally, a word was uttered from her lips, full of hesitance and horror.
“...Loid?”
His body locked up immediately at the name. It wasn’t his, not the one he'd been born with, and yet it was his name that had been said.
He recognized that voice. He recognized it.
“...Yor?”
His attacker, the woman strong enough to incapacitate him with one hand, was his wife.
His eyes widened as the realization hit him like a tsunami, and he felt himself drowning within it.
He couldn’t see her. He couldn’t see her face—he needed to see.
Her hold on him had slackened completely by shock and he wasted no time throwing her off of him, darting for the nearby study lamp on the desk. The room illuminated with a dim yellow light but it was enough for Loid to see Yor across the room.
He swallowed harshly. It was Yor. There was no mistaking her familiar dark hair or her ever glowing ruby red eyes. She looked similar to how he was feeling—stunned.
How could this be? The woman before him—the one holding sharp golden stilettos with practiced ease—that couldn’t be the same Yor who stammered and blushed when she tripped and fell onto him last week. He was having such a hard time reconciling the two images in his mind that he stared unblinkingly at her.
“Who are you?”