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“Make it look good. Convincing.”
Viago whispers, voice bordering on quiet hysterics as Teia presses the tip of her dagger against his abdomen.
Well duh, Teia thinks. Of course she’s going to make it look good. She’d rather him not bleed out in this alleyway, mere blocks away from their target.
“Shh. I’m concentrating.” is what she actually says.
She’s picturing the arrangement of his organs, his fleshy insides, and the precise angle she can slip the thin blade between them without nicking anything important. She’s good, she knows she’s good. Her hands are steady, practiced things, but she still needs focus, and calm.
Viago, wriggling under her blade, is not helping.
She has him on the ground, braced and leaning back. It will minimize any kind of movement he might make in pain, which will risk opening the wound badly. They’re going for something that only looks lethal, not something that will actually kill him.
He’s trying to control his breathing but he can’t stop looking at her hand on the hilt, the gleam of the well maintained blade. His body jerks and twitches away in some sort of instinctual fear, or self preservation.
Teia musters up all the patience she can for him, and waits for him to settle himself.
The waiting seems to have the opposite effect, however, and he quickly gets impatient.
“Just do it, quickly!” He goes so far to even reach for her hand on the dagger like he might try and drive it into his body himself, and she has to quickly yank it out of his reach.
She slaps his hand away.
“Viago. Get a hold of yourself.” And at least he looks somewhat chastised at that.
They had agreed: Teia was the one who was more skilled and accurate with the blade, and so Viago would be their decoy. She was half tempted to stick the dagger in her own side and finish the contract herself, but reminded herself not to throw away well made plans on an impatient impulse.
Instead, she readjusts her grip, slipping her free arm under Viago’s shoulders to hold him steady. She shuffles a knee under his back, supporting his torso at a suitable angle for her to press the blade against once more.
His hands fly back to catch himself, but she supports his weight and holds him steady. It helps, she thinks, that despite his height he’s rather lithe.
Working together in Ventus as they have been for some months now has found them in all sorts of situations. Touch has become familiar: they catch each other, patch each other up when they fall down. But this is the first time that she has had the opportunity of him in her arms long enough to admire him there.
The sprawl of his long legs, the comfortable weight of him in her arms. The flush on his cheeks when she catches him admiring her back.
She presses the dagger with just enough pressure to dimple his shirt and remind him why he is in her arms in the first place, which is only a little hypocritical of her.
He squirms under the tip of her blade and whimpers. The sound comes out of him without his permission, and he turns bright red all the way to the tips of his ears.
Interesting, Teia thinks, and it gives her an idea.
She has many voices she puts on for men. This one is a little stern and a lot sultry. She leans in a little, gives him a playfully accusatory look, and asks him, “Are you seriously turned on right now?”
His eyes go wide, shoulders fly up to his ears and he freezes, exposed like a prey animal. It is the exact stillness she is looking for, and just as his mouth opens in protest, she slides the dagger smoothly into his torso, snug to the hilt.
She trusts him, or rather, trusts his training enough that he won't scream, but he does have to shove the gloved meat of his thumb into his mouth to muffle his cries. His eyes squeeze shut and his body seizes as he rides out the burning, searing, exquisite pain.
Teia lets go of the hilt immediately so as to not jostle it and open the wound further. His blood gushes out around the blade, soaking and ruining his shirt. She’s started his clock now and they have no time to linger. She soothes him somewhat absently as she plans their next steps.
“Okay, there there.” she pats his shoulder. “Hard part is over, here we go.” And he does then have to swallow down a genuine scream of pain when she sits him up, and then again when she pulls him to his feet.
He stumbles around on weak legs, but confirms with her that he’s still good when she checks him over to make sure he isn’t about to pass out.
“That was dirty.” he complains, practically pouting at her, which is surreal when paired with the sight of her dagger sticking out of his torso.
She just laughs. “I’ll kiss it better later, if you pull this off properly.”
He has enough blood left in his body to blush again at the idea of it.