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— action.

[ailerons]

[ The hallway outside of her room. The door is closed perfectly shut, the doorknob unturned, not an atom out of place. It's only obvious in the hallway: a single poker chip from outside the manor, rimmed in bright yellow, lying flat against plush carpet. Ten grand, from one of the larger casinos on the strip.

Inside, Jake's on her bed. Like he belongs there, like he never left it. A dark henley and jeans, shoes kicked off, one arm pillowed behind his head, legs stretched out with his ankles crossed over one another. The other hand holding open a book against his stomach, the meat of his palm hiding the title as he reads. He holds it from the top, his middle finger splitting between the pages.

He grins at her the minute she enters. Bright, gleaming. He doesn't even so much as straighten. From a small gap in the curtains, a soft ray of sunlight blooms, catching against the necklace he wears. Gold band, linked through on a silver chain. ]

Hi, honey.

[ How long's it been since he saw her. Couple months, almost a year? No outside calls while he'd been locked up. Not a lot of ones before then, either. A postcard on her birthday, maybe; a call at Christmas, never from the same number. ]

[haggle]

( she knows the smell of a set-up. even robe-clad and sun-drunk, even sleepless, even spun sideways by melancholy, she can still sense it. because it reeks of late nights tucked into jake's neck, nicotine and aftershave. the rasp of stubble against her cheek, nodding off to the sound of his pencil scratches on stolen blueprints. a camera here, a blindspot there. whispers against the crown of her head about timing and getaways like a lullaby, security protocols turned into pillow talk. 

her toes nudge the landmine of that poker chip. ten grand's worth of fuck you. the first — and only — tell. a calling card only left behind when someone wants to get caught. she doesn't need to peel it off the floor to sense the tickle of a trap at her brainstem. she hears it in her skull, a gut instinct that's always sounded like jake's voice whenever she's about to walk into a bad fucking deal. don't step there, baby. don't agree to that. don't trust the man with the million-dollar smile and no fingerprints.

anora's private little secret: sometimes she does, anyway. just to see if he'll show up to save her.

she peels it from the floor. not because she wants to. because she isn't going to be a pussy intimidated by jake seresin's ghost. and if it's some asshole's idea of a joke, she'll brain them with the vase of dying roses on her nightstand.

the chip launches at his head, a flimsy bullet, the minute he opens his big fat mouth. gives her something to focus on, other than the stunned wobble in her chin, the fuck-you tears in her eyes that appear and burn up just as fast, the haunted hitch of breath at seeing something crawl out of the grave she thought she shoved it in. a casket packed away. here lies jake seresin's love for anora mikheeva.

no. it's stupid, so stupid, to think he's back for her. bigshot jake, always chasing something shinier than what he already has. even when it loved him back. )

Congrats, dickhead. You just earned Gecko his next fucking payout.

( as if she'd let richard bury him in a hole with the rest of her fuck-ups. she stumbles out of one stiletto, anyway, its purpose clear: reloaded ammunition, just in case she needs to take another shot. )

[ailerons]

[ The chip bounces off his temple, lands somewhere in the sheets that he's mussed up, and Jake laughs. It's a clean sound. A loud sound, with teeth and real amusement. He smiles at her and there's a spark of spearmint-green in it, gum snapped between the molars of a mouth that always needs to be occupied. Had been the same back then, too, trying to give up smoking. Folded, not even a few months later. A pack of Marlboro reds, classic American-flavored bullshit, now sitting open on her bedside table, right next to her dying roses. No ashtray in sight.

One of two habits Jake Seresin never could quite kick.

Lightly, the book he's reading falls forward, landing flat on his chest with a dull noise. Hardbound, embossed, the title clear now in both English and Russian: The Master and the Margarita. Love leaped out in front of us like a murderer in an alley leaping out of nowhere, and struck us both at once. Coup de fucking foudre. ]

Missed you too, Ani.

[ Always Ani, behind closed doors, as if he never gave up the right to say it. Stay with me, Ani. I love you, Ani. Marry me, Ani. Jake raises his hands in a gesture of surrender like it doesn't wear like a joke over him, all languid ease as he exhales a laugh, even with the threat of another thing thrown. Shakes his head as he straightens up against the headboard, but doesn't move to get out of her bed.

Finders keepers. Oldest rule in the book. He folds his fingers neatly together, patiently, and stares at her instead. His gaze travels from head to toe, then cuts to the fourth finger of her left hand. A weathervane that tells him the season, whether a diamond sits there or not. ]

You look good.

[ It come out plain. Happy. Conversational, as if this is all part of their routine, as he looks back into her face. ]

I like your robe.

[haggle]

( there it is. one last standing ovation to the tune of her center-stage heartbreak. it always was his favorite act. ani's lips tighten into a forced smile, eyes dull as backstage bulbs burned out, with the smooth abruptness of a quick costume change. becoming the woman who laughs along with her ruin like she hasn't been made the joke, all while the rest of the world plays her tragedies off like they're watching a fucking comedy.

the script flips. she skips her usual lines — doesn't give him the dignity of the familiar. shucks both shoes off, toes sinking into the shaggy velvet carpet like she's preparing herself for the next scene. one heartbreak closer to curtain call. showgirl-poised to take her bow. )

You think so? ( it floats up, soft and breathy. the kind of baby-voiced, ingénue performance that once earned her encores in smoky jazz bars. back when the act was fresh-faced and vibrant, and so was ani. now, it's just comfortable distance she sets between them. her stage voice, unreachable, center-light. jake, front-row again. ) Rehab glow, right?

( plain. unblinking. conversational, as if she isn't fitting herself into the role he's laid out for her, fluidly following his stage direction, with the aim of grating at him. ani slinks down the set dressing of her room. doesn't ask as she plucks a cigarette from the nightstand. lights it up to inhale deep, the way she used to smoke on fancy hotel balconies — cinematic in silk. like she was a breath you fall in love with just in time to get lung damage.

every single one of her fingers sits naked. the only sign she's being kept at all is in the bruised smudges of fingertips along the peach-skin of her thighs, visible through the window parting of her robe when she stretches out onto a chaise. a deliberate backstage glimpse, maybe. or just coincidence.

hard to say. ani makes everything look fluid, including the exhaled smoke she blows into jake's proximity, the slip into russian. low, satin. )

Wrong author for you, honey. You're Pushkin's type of guy, not Bulgakov's man.

(a modern eugene onegin in the making. what they are given doesn't take their fancy. they must have the forbidden fruit, or paradise will not be paradise for them. )

[ailerons]

[ A flicker. The way an image will skip during inclement weather and darker skies. The timbre of her voice, the one that's pretty and fawning — sweet with no bite, the promise of blood with no actual wound — and the muscle in his jaw jumps, like that churns at him more than anything she could throw his way. Unreachable, center-light. Jake, front-row again, watching her rehearse old material. Following his lead, like he doesn't fucking loathe it.

There's a sharpness in the way he throws the book off of him. It lands, closed, page lost, with a short bounce over the mattress. Jake sits up and rests his wrists on raised knees. A curl of hair falls in front of his face, the bend of his spine pushing forward, as if to inhale all her exhaled smoke better. As if to get a better glimpse at the passing marks of her thighs.

His lungs expand. In the next breath, Jake smiles back. As spearmint-vibrant and neutral as ever. His Russian smooth, practiced, accent refined under hours and hours of tutelage to a man he once thought of as a father: ]

They didn't exactly have the greatest collection in prison.

[ Rehab glow. Prison chic. One traded for the other, as if Jake doesn't know. As if he doesn't keep precise fucking detail of everybody he needs to know. The wound never shuts, that way — it always has salt in it. It always stays hot and open, exactly the same way he remembers her cunt. Can count on one hand the number of times he's been inside of someone else's, since.

Smoothly, he gets off her bed, closing the distance. Each step even and steady, like he's counting the measure between blindspots.

Eventually, he stands right next to her, there on the chaise. Bent elbow, his hand outstretched in front of her. The thick turn of his wrist, showing the bump of his veins, the delicate skin there. Jury's out, if he wants her hand or the smoke that's in it.

In English: ]

Think I should catch up on the classics?

[haggle]

( it's no small victory. to the outside eye: just a passing, uninspiring tic in his jaw. to ani's: jake's poker tell, an expression that could bluff the entire goddamn room, but faltered when she was the one dealing him a shitty hand. frustrated tension she's only witnessed when's up against a safe he can't crack, and ani? she's locked up vault-tight. all bolted shut with nothing worth stealing inside, anymore. not that he isn't trying, like there's something gold-lined and authentic behind the steel of her eyes.

the only thing left gleaming is her passing glint of petty satisfaction, quick as a sleight-of-hand. good, ani thinks. let him know how painful silence is when you're on the other end of it, stretching across weeks, breathing across months, waiting for any fucking sign of life. the least he owes her is an even score. he can pony up according to her house rules, bleed out the debt one drop at a time.

a film's still frame of disinterest, ani plucks at the satiny bow of her robe, without sparing a glance to jake's moving shadow across the room. like he's just part of the vintage furniture, an antique she couldn't part with. )

I wouldn't trust your thieving ass anywhere near the rare editions.

( sticky-fingers, yeah — but look how he left her. dog-earned, spine cracked, before she even exchanged hands. not a lot of worth left in the resell market, probably, despite how many men have tried to own her, more for the prestige than the contents. she's always looked best on the shelf of someone else's arm.

her leg stretches out, the curve of her calf lazily bumping forward. the slip of her robe down her shoulder is a pin-up billboard: a skintease dressed up in glamour, something that looks artfully photogenic on ani. not once do her eyes flicker to his hand. )

Start light. Euripides, maybe. Medea always reminded me of us.

( how do you destroy a man who wants your teeth in his throat? set yourself on fire and make them watch. tale as old as time. so, she doesn't blink. doesn't flinch. just presses the hissing end of the lit cigarette to the tender skin of her thigh, a vengeful fuck you. )

[ailerons]

I'm reformed, you know.

[ Droll. Dry. He can sell it better, if it's a panel of decision-makers and the officer theoretically in charge of his probation. Here, now, he doesn't much bother to. Who needs the feint? Not Jake, who knows what he is. Not Ani, who lets the air kiss her skin where her robe has left it. Giorgione's Venus, in the flesh, reclining but not sleeping; disaffected, unaffected. Not interested.

She's not looking at his hand, but Jake's looking right at her. She looks older, somehow. Part of him likes that, that he has something to compare it to. That he knows her different years. Her hand moves across her thigh and Jake doesn't look away — holds his breath, just for a second. Thinks selfishly, hopelessly, for a single heartbeat: You can't hate me that much.

Fingers that are so deft and sure suddenly turn blunt, shot through with urgency. He knocks her wrist away by grabbing onto it, thumb pressing hard into her tendons. Enough force that he tells himself he can feel it, the scrape of all those tiny, intricate bones in her wrist, grinding together in the ring of his grip. His own movements all messy and chase, as big a sign as a neon goddamn billboard. Panic from a thief — in any room beyond this one, it's an unforgivable crime. Throat clicking unevenly for a swallow, breathing knocked uneven. Every shiny, golden part of him, abruptly falling away. ]

Stop it.

[ A low tone, shot through anger and fury. It's spread all over, from his frown to his jaw to the tension that pulls everything about him taut. Jake's knee finds its place against the very edge of the chaise, his other foot still flat on the ground; he bears his weight down on her, pinning her hand closer to her chest. A cherry-red half-ember, nicotine holding vigil between them.

He steals that, too. Plucks it right from her grip, crushing it out on the cushion by her head, smearing ash into the fabric with a vindictive twist. His grip on her wrist is the one taking most of his weight. He grits out the words like they cost him, an echo of a snarl right against her teeth: ]

Don't fucking do that.

[ (He'll never be able to smoke Marlboros again.) ]

What the hell, Ani.

[haggle]

( that age-old saying comes to mind: actors make the best liars. as if even the most classically trained darlings can lie the way ani learned to, with jake seresin as mentor and muse. no one's ever cried as prettily or as convincingly on cue, or swanned their way past louvre security with a wink and a waistline just to fuck under the death of sardanapalus, hips bruising against delacroix's flames. the theater of becoming what the room wants to watch, learned on the lap of her first director.

her body doesn't jerk. her expression doesn't so much as twitch, a bluff at muscle control that always plays well from the mezzanine. what's always given ani away is this: the close-up shot, a lens on the eyes, a betrayal of breath. she blinks slow as a camera shutter, lashes catching the light just enough to shimmer — not with tears, but something closer to disbelief. a flash of eyes across his face, watching anger — fear? — short-circuit through his cocky, golden boy smirk.

ani's own poker tell: the plush kitten-curve to her mouth when she's been dealt a winning hand, pressed right into the heat of his snarl. not mocking, just privately pleased. because the scene hit its mark, and the bet paid off. another gamble made with all she has left on the table: flesh and pain. unflinching, she presses the fragile hollows of her wrists into his grip like she's starved for the contact, willing — wanting — to wear the imprint of his fingers like a bracelet, if it means he's still holding on. arches up, instinctive, like a cat in rumpled silk.

the ache sharpens, sings up her arms like applause in an empty theater. ghost-light devotion. ani's thigh twitches, a come-up of adrenaline from the sting, the cylinder bloom already reddening into something ugly. and still, the burn is his eyes runs hotter. )

Right. I forgot you got the monopoly on doin' stupid shit. That's your job.

( like she hasn't done stupider shit since he's been put away, death by a thousand cuts. as if her whole body isn't a ledger of bad decisions made in the dark with people who never looked at her like jake did. her free hand wraps around his, drags it down until his palm cups the wound, flesh to flesh. complicity, fingerprints on a crime scene. look at what you stopped. remember what you didn't.

plainly (painfully) honest: )

I just wanted to see what you would do. ( if you'd stop me. ani whispers, sandpapered, triumph still: ) Got you, motherfucker.

( three words that echo like the click of a safe she's cracked open. the score was never the wound, but the golden proof: you must still love me, you poor fucking bastard. )

[ailerons]

[ Something ugly slams clean into his features. Anger and fear crystallizes enough that it shows a large fissure: betrayal. The whole twisting, hurtful thing. Fitting, somehow, that he can count his life by the beats of that feeling, the people who chose to bleed him out like it was nothing. The man who raised him, and the woman he loves. Jesus, it all just sounds so goddamn Russian. Dostoyevsky would've killed him off three chapters ago. ]

Yeah. [ Jake's voice flattens. Gives away nothing but a sneer inside of it, trying to aim for cold and neutral and coming up short. The house always fucking wins; men don't. ] You really got me.

[ Mean. Harsh. He sinks lower into her, body almost completely bowed over hers. The denim of his knee pushing hard against the chaise's frame. The span of his hand around her wrist locks tight. Moves her arm out until it's by the side of her head, pressing the back of her hand right there, into the spot of cooling ash from the end of her (his) cigarette. Ever the director. Ever aware of the strings he can pluck and pull like passkeys and pokerchips.

His thumb brushes against the burn. Just once. It's an almost tender sweep, despite the hot touch to the heated injury her skin still carries. No relief. Just adrenaline, air, and something scalding. The kinder thing to do would be to loop her arms around his and carry her into the shower stall, to run the spray as cold as it can go to soothe the sting. To pull his hand away from where she's invited it.

Instead, he stays there. Despite the thrum in his biceps, the impossibly tight way he still holds onto her wrist, his other hand on her thigh, his head lowers. Slowly, and almost gently, until his forehead comes to rest right over her collarbones. So close that his lashes blink and they sweep across her skin, a series of short, inadvertent butterfly kisses. And it's there that he says it, words loose and honest in that dark space. Below the hollow of her throat, their bodies far apart, except for where he holds her like a bruising anchor. Lowly, a soft and angry and vicious secret: ]

What the hell happened to you.

[ Whatever that means. Whatever that could mean. What the hell happened to you while I was gone. What the hell happened to make you hate me. What the hell are you going to do with me, now that you know I still love you? ]

[haggle]

( isn't that the millionaire fucking dollar question. a headline rewritten so much she barely bleeds anymore, conditionally in love with her stardom: adored only when she's fucking or bleeding. forgotten when she isn't: a shelved project, the faded film reel of beauty that looks best in the soft-light focus of misery. she's heard it in the mouths of men more, loving with one hand and appraising with the other. horrified to realize they've bet their savings on a chipped diamond. leaked tapes, rehab stints, press poison, shining on command until collapsing. lowered market value. bad fucking investment, zero return. the shit she's done, the things she's swallowed, just to stay kept.

what the hell happened to you? like she broke herself, not the carelessness of a hundred different hands that passed her around. like she should be blamed for being left to fix herself, without any blueprint for where the goddamn broken pieces are meant to go. like it's all nervous breakdown, and not being let down.

she just didn't expect jake to be the one to ask next, the one man who should know the cost of sparkle, where he chased it into a cage: steel cuffs, iron bars. the prison they make for themselves, in pursuit of the unreachable. love's always been the prize, for ani — but he should know better than her that love's never safe, never free. that sometimes it fucks you raw, robs you blind, leaves you empty.

he might as well have dangled her under a jewelry loupe and called her defective. her wrist goes slack in his grip. marionette with its strings cut, the killing blow. a heavy curtain-fall of silence. her breath holds so long it feels like rebellion against living, lungs burning. a slow, off-screen death. it sounds like it, in her throat — desdemona's last gasp, othello's hands closing around her throat — when she murmurs, )

I grew up. ( old, champagne-flat: ) You missed it.

( in a world that didn't let it happen softly. get smart about it, get mean about it, get desperate about it. just get up when they knock you off the pedestal. keep climbing until they can't knock you down anymore. isn't that how it always goes? his hair tickles her chin just before her head lolls to the side. grateful he isn't looking at her anymore because she can feel it. the cruel, little spike of tears on her eyelashes. good thing she stopped crying on cue and learned to make it silent. )

If you don't like what you came back to, door's right fucking there. ( venom under velvet, defensive. hurt. ) Bet you already mapped the fastest way out, huh?

[ailerons]

[ If Jake focuses, he thinks he can hear her heartbeat. Through her sternum and into his skull and into his ears, on the other side of muscle and bone. The wintergreen in his mouth suddenly tastes like fucking nothing. He can feel the blood pound in his ears, and he can feel the way her wrist goes slack in his grip.

Wordlessly, his goes slack, too. Pulls back, but not entirely, until the curl of his fingers rests against her palm. Resting, but knowing better than to knit their fingers together. It's more brutal than any tripwire or any dead man's switch — the realization that there exists a world where he doesn't know what she wants from him anymore.

Jake shakes his head, and the movement looks like some kind of strange nuzzle. He says something, some noise, too quiet to hear. Maybe Fuck. Maybe Ani. Maybe I know, I'm sorry. It all leaves him. The brutality of his anger and the fear that sits in his gut — everything that sits behind neon and flash and all-night laughter, the parts of him custom-built for audience and leverage. His body unbows, softly retreating from her space. His head lifts, and his palm unfurls from her thigh.

They were happy, once. Weren't they? They were happy once, sharing coffee too late out on midnight hotel balconies. Him with a diamond band in his pocket. Gently, the pad of his thumb presses soft into the corner of her eye. It sweeps across the rise of her cheek, catching a tear along with it. ]

You're my wife. [ He doesn't say it like fact or boast. He says it hoarsely, hopelessly. ] I'm not going to quit on you, Ani.

[ For richer, for poorer. Sickness, health. Easy to say, maybe, for a man who's known for always doing the leaving. That's the kicker: how he does know the fastest way out. Tigers don't change their stripes, the house always wins, and thieves don't stop planning for one more tip of their hand.

Jake presses his mouth to her temple. A kiss, if it can be called anything like it. He ends up on the floor, sitting with his knees raised, his spine propped up painfully against the leg of the chaise, some crumpled shadow in iron rather than glinting gold. His back to her, he runs both palms through his hair. Exhales long, and low, and doesn't say anything at all, until: ]

Does it still hurt?

[ He's talking about the burn. ]

[haggle]

( yeah, he always was in love with impossible odds, her man who won't quit even when the going's good. the lock no one else had the skill to pick, the busted flush that would have any sane man folding, the woman who wouldn't let herself be caught. never could leave a job half-finished, either — ambition sunk so deep in his muscle tissue it survived prison's beatdown. not like ani, who watches in sinking silence, as the lost cause of her wears him down. the defeated hunch to his shoulders, the restless putter of his hands.

maybe it's just her, more warped and colder than any cell, impossible to escape from. how she kills what loves her slow, death-row devotion. her fuck-ups, like embry said.

she had made it a point not to imagine him behind ironwrought bars, her songbird in a cage. her bird of a feather, mirrored fates, even miles apart. a stack of half-written letters, perfumed and smudged, still sits folded into a hollowed belly of her anna karenina. unsent, afraid to fly across the silence. too much hope, too much hurt. but she sees it now: sunshine dying, golden-boy glow rusting. hates it, hypocritically. as if she didn't want him wrecked to match her hurt, just moments ago. just so he'd shut up and see her. just so he'd feel it.

the sound in her throat — some malformed laugh — chokes on saliva and tears. thick, watery. still perfectly pitched, somehow, like pain is just another familiar note in her register, all aria and breath control, staying pretty for an audience. she smudges a hand across her cheek, mascara streaked halfway to her jaw. )

Yeah, baby. It fucking hurts. ( it's just visible now, a translation made permanent. her fingers brush the welt, test the burn of her nerves, a hitch of an inhale. still finds it doesn't sting as much as how he's looked at her, like she's a stranger wearing her own face. like she's not what he wanted waiting at the end of that prison sentence. ) Always.

( she's not talking about the burn, not anymore. she slides down to the edge of the chaise, dangling legs a bracket around his body. her fingertips trip over his neck's vertebrae, skirt over his shoulder, down to his chest. spins the golden band dangled there between her fingers, still the best damn thing any of her paychecks ever bought. a working girl's vow, the blood-sweat-and-tears kind.

same as the wedding ring still tucked in her locked drawer, center stone carved out from a stolen le bleu de france, her hope in a diamond. )

Could still hurt worse.

( if you left. )

[ailerons]

[ Could still hurt worse. Jake laughs. No teeth, no gleam; the papery-rasp of something this close to catching alight. ]

You think?

[ He can tell she's crying. Hears it in her voice, has memorized the texture of it since that first time he heard it. Told himself he'd never be the reason it would ever crawl back to life. It's hard to tell, whether he's imagining it — whether it's the last time he'll ever be let in enough to hear her sound like this.

Silence stretches. The pads of her fingers skip over the back of his neck, climbs down the front of his shirt. A shudder works all over his frame. He doesn't bother to hide it, to open his mouth to distract from the rest: how easily he turns, almost like he wants to press into her wrist, replace that body-warmed band of gold with his jaw; how he curls his hand around her ankle, simply because that's the nearest part of her he can reach. He touches the spur of bone there the way marble fingers dig into flesh: a little desperately, wanting more than anything to freeze the feeling, this splinter in time. A moment he can't steal away and sink inside.

He expected her to write. Selfishly, recklessly. Mail call and three square meals and ten minutes of sun a day and still nothing, not even a signed photograph, a scented fuck you, a redacted letter. All that careful planning Jake built up within himself, in his life, and he never did send anything first, either. You snooze, you lose. Even kids know that fucking story. Nothing like a jumpsuit and cuffs to make you fall asleep at the wheel.

Except the once. A postcard from San Diego when he was nowhere near it, tourist chic, blue and white WISH YOU WERE HERE! stamped on the front. Scrawled on the back: Give 'em hell, honey. It arrived two days before her 24th. ]

How was your birthday?

[ Before she can pull away, change her mind, leave, his fingers catch at hers. Replacing her hold on the ring with his own hand, brushing his lips across the backs of her knuckles. Idly holding her hand up to eye-level. Like it's all domestic and affectionate curiosity, the way husbands look at their wives, studying the pedicure his pocket paid for. ]

I know I missed it.

cw: alcoholism

[haggle]

( it's good instinct — ani's fingers twitch like a runaway pickpocket caught mid-lift, guiltily snared in the act. expected, maybe; jake always saw the job through to the end, wrote his own luck, and ani — they both know she's always run, skipped ahead to the doom of act iii. forever convinced she could see the tragic plot twist coming, convinced she could outpace the heartbreak by leaving first. like she didn't just end up penning it herself, self-fulfilling prophecy.

she forces herself to sit in the uncertainty, this time. hand gently cuffed in his grip, willing prisoner taken in for examination. the shine of her polish is as manicured as ever, pink-gold shine like it costs too much to be sad, not a chip in place. underneath: a nasty habit of picking at her cuticles, scabs almost invisible beneath the lacquer. she stretches her index finger out. grazes whatever inch of his skin is in reach, a ghost's touch. her leg stretches limber, jake's fingertips as an anklet. settles her heel onto his thigh. )

It was a shitshow. FP and I got into it. Big goddamn surprise, right.

( flat. the way it only ever is when she's too tired to do anything but divorce herself from giving a fuck. because it had felt more tombstone than celebration. because he'd missed more than that. she's counted it the way he can count a ledger, the passage of time away in holidays, birthdays, marriages, divorces, orgasms. anniversaries spent in others bed. in waking up, and realizing the man across from you isn't the one you want to see on the pillow. hell, she's probably used as many bodies as they've used hers, an empty fucking blackhole for love. )

Told him to fuck off before the cake even came out. I guess he figured it'd be easier to drink me off his mind than try to fix whatever we fucked up.

( can't blame him, she thinks. it's hard to love a woman when there's always the spirit of some other guy haunting your bed, a third body between the both of you. shitty wife, shitty husband, explosive results. she bends down like a drooping flower, nose pressed to the crown of his head. inhales quietly. he still smells like home. still feels like it, a tune you don't forget. ani never misremembers the songs that matter.

she exhales, the breath tickling his scalp. )

Got to spend it solo, cleaning up the mess he made. Happy fuckin' birthday to me. ( she sniffles, soft, just the once. more reason for fp to resent her — it hadn't mattered. not when she'd had jake's postcard to fold and unfold so many times the ink blurred. ) I kept your postcard. Figured I'd cash it in someday for a real birthday present.

[ailerons]

[ A low hum, a noise that rumbles inside the barrel of his chest. Lightly, ]

Think I like him the least.

[ As if Jake's making passing commentary on something else entirely. Clothes. Shoes. One of many shades of a dress, a flight of fancy, and not the next man to hold her hand in public. Whatever he feels looking at candid photographs from four timezones away, the glossy sheen to her mouth seen in an interview on a tiny, staticky screen, shared rec space with other men just like him: it's never been jealousy. Too sharp and aching and pointed by half, to be something as common as envy.

Shaped like a comfort, his palm runs up her shin. (You didn't deserve that.) Mindless reflex, the way bodies jolt at alarm, the way green lights relax some pit in the stomach. Up to her knee and down again to her ankle, slow and meandering. He studies her nailbeds like there's something to be gleaned there, the memory of a habit knocking against his teeth. Unchanged, still. Anora Mikheeva's little splinters of self destruction. Maybe marrying him was just one of the first.

He squeezes her fingers in his. Her breath runs warm behind him. There's a reason it can't be like this all the time, pink and gold and warm and tired, a coat of color over the scabs they left behind in each other. He lets her hand go. ]

A real birthday present. [ And still, a part of him tethers. Will, always, until gravedirt. His head tips back to look at her, the round of his skull resting lightly against the plush softness of one of her thighs. The pinpricks of stubble scratching as his eyes alight, a familiar look settling back into his shoulders. Deftness. The start of a roll of the dice. She kept his postcard. ]

What, a new car? White picket fence?

[ Teasing. Gently testing the balance and weight, even though there's something almost real in there, too. If they were both different people. If history held a little less sway. ]

[haggle]

( her hand fumbles like a dropped bird from a perch, all broken wings. nothing to tether her to the air, nowhere soft to land. not poised, not elegant — just hopeless and lost, for a suspended moment in time. it feels pathetic, hovering her fingertips a breath too long, missing the natural stage cue that should come smoothly. he lets go of her. she acts like she isn't afraid he means it with finality. that it doesn't burn a hole of rejection into her, with the subtlety of a washed-up understudy fucking up the role she once knew beat for beat.

maybe she's just been out of the business of pretending with him for too long. maybe the return on royalties from that particular performance just aren't worth shit anymore. she looks down at the absent space like it might still tell her something. flutters her hand almost protectively back to herself, sliding it over where silk pools in the crease of her hip. )

Yeah, yeah. You're real funny, Goldilocks. Fuck off with that.

( a laugh churns out of her, quiet. not an honest one — it's ani's favorite decoy: that flirty, flighty sound when she wants something too badly to ask for it. when what's on offer tastes too much like hope. as if he hasn't always known the wistful gleam in her eye, hadn't seen her pause too long in front of degas' the dancers in blue that one time, hadn't acted like he could drop it in her lap over breakfast. like the only cost would be loving him back.

her head tips toward her shoulder, half-hidden behind a silky curtain of dark hair. not shy, because ani is never shy. but girlish, the softness of a secret romantic under all those thorns she's grown to survive. )

I'd give you two months before you get bored. ( of a life where the only thrill is her. she smiles. a sad, sepia-tinge of nostalgic. ) Sounds too fuckin' quiet. That ain't us.

( her eyelashes flutter, stealing a glance at him. it doesn't help that the sudden return of life to his eyes, like he's seeing a table worth betting on, makes her want to be stupid, be honest. doesn't help that the scratchy whisper of stubble makes her legs twitch, ticklish. a kinder burn that's left her skin red, before. her palm uselessly pushes at his cheek to save herself from her sighing, involuntary giggle, the thrill it sends up her thighs. )

Nah. I want somethin' one of a kind. Something you can't lift off some rich asshole's collection. ( she nibbles on her lip, scared he'll laugh. say no. her toes curl in his lap. she doesn't run, just leaves her cards facing him. ) So, what's the going rate on Jake Seresin these days? He still on the table, or is the birthday girl shit outta luck?

[ailerons]

[ Quiet, not an honest one, but Jake holds onto her laugh anyway. Answers it with a smile that he knows, in an instant, is too tender. That ain't us. Could be nice, he wants to say. Two months, pretending. Realizing at three that it isn't so bad. Remodeling the bathroom at seven. Never know until you try. Never know until we settle down, just you and me.

She saves him from doing something desperate. Pushing her fingers into his cheek, Jake miming biting at the air as she pulls them away. He huffs out the same laugh, less tender, more gold; his head lolls from the momentum and he takes the moment, just one, of closing his eyes, the side of his nose pressed a little awkwardly into the round of her knee.

There's a silence that chases that. It's a short silence but it still fills all the cracks and the fissures. It's not a laugh, not even close: just a quiet study. Of the lilt in her voice and the shape of her vowels and the way she says shit outta luck like he might be able to read her by that alone, some separate tell found only in audio from the source, not traveling through the wires on some late night phone call. Jake lets out a breath that's warm and close and he smiles, the broadness of it curling back, settling into his chest. ]

That all?

[ Not an I love you, still. But it's enough to live off of for a while.

A beat. Then: a twist, fully, long legs folding underneath until he's there all of a sudden, facing her. His palms rest against the edge of the chaise, but his thumbs sit right on the tops of her knees. From this angle, he can see bruises on her thighs. The red starburst of the new burn. Jake looks up at her from below and his eyes shine when he wets his bottom lip. His head tips to the left in an almost owlish movement, curious. Honest, when he doesn't mean to be: ]

Is that what you want?

[ Like she can say anything. The moon, the stars, every fucking name in this house. To never be touched again, to be touched all the time. The only cost is loving him back.

He lets out a playful click against his teeth. Replaces the cards, shuffles the deck: ]

Just might depend on what you want him to do.

[haggle]

( that all? like it's the simplest cipher to solve, a basic equation of the universe. like she could say she decided she wants the whole damn musee d'orsay next, and he would have it ribbon-wrapped and hand-delivered, just to grin and ask her again: that all? no sweat off his back. the most dangerous part of jake seresin isn't sly fingers, or a charm that could convince god himself to hand over the kingdom; it's the way he nurtures all the hopeful things inside of her she's left to rot, daring them to dream. sky's the limit, baby, if she would only ask. whatever the sun touches is hers for the taking. stop asking for the small shit, and start asking for everything.

maybe she could learn to. maybe there's a lifetime where she isn't stuck in the cage of her own want, bars welded from every time she's been told no, not you, too much, too late. jake's right there, dangling the key like it's a gift, not a gamble, not a risk. like love is a promise, and not some long-running con without a winner. a pull between her eyebrows, a crumpling of her expression, a wall bulldozed down. not because he's said the devastatingly wrong thing she's heard again, some played out song — because he's said the devastatingly right one.

stupid, to think he needs to offer that out. it sounds like an exit route to ani, last chance to return her gift with the receipt before it's officially hers: is that what you want? as if it didn't half-kill her to tell his dumb ass the first time. her chest hiccups, faint, around the breath she loosens. her fingers loop back into the chain around his neck again — less tender, now, when she gives it a sharp little tug. a reprimanding, just this side of possessive and heat, a statement of what the fuck do you think? without as many words.

her expression, by contrast: suitably fawny, deceptively doe-eyed. perfect costuming for: )

I could really use someone to do my taxes.

( coquettish, a playful feint — but only halfway. a beat, the sparkle dulling to seriousness. when she speaks again, it's the softest thing in the world. )

I got an impossible job for him. Big reward in it if he doesn't blow the whole thing.

( a trail off, fingertips scratching through his stubble, a knuckle rubbing over his jawline. slow, absent. )

Stay. Love me. Try not to fuck it up this time. Heard he used to be the only guy who could pull it off. You think he's still got it in him?

[ailerons]

[ Stay. Love her. Try not to fuck it up this time.

For a moment, he only looks up at her. There, on his knees, her fingers hooked back into the chain he wears like a collar and a promise and an oath. The golden spike of his lashes jumps, and Jake exhales, long and low and heavy. Expression unreadable, neutral, far away. He thinks back to that first glimpse of sun and cloud when he'd gotten out, a paper bag of all his old shit tucked under one arm, a hand cupped over his eyes as he'd blinked into wide open space. How blinding it had felt. How the impossible reach of his own ambition had clawed, violent and hopeful and heavy, right back into his skull. How the sky was the fucking limit, baby.

I never stopped, he wants to say. I never knew how to stop. I'll keep showing you that, as long as you let me.

Without agenda or motive, Jake smiles at her. An open, tender thing that hasn't seen daylight since she left. The press of his dimple against the turn of her knuckle. The words — better ones, more honest, more true than that first glimpse of sun — crawl up and up, touching the corners of his eyes, the way his mouth curves, the way his palms gently run up from her knees to her thighs. He says, simply: ]

I do.

[ Jake rises up on his knees. He leans into her, angling. He breathes in her exhales and lets himself, for now, for as long as he's here, be buoyed by the feeling. ]

I also hear, [ he says, slowly, faux-thoughtfully, ] that he's hung like a horse.

[ The skip of his fingers against her hair. The push and tuck of it as he cards it, a motion so immeasurably private and small, out of her eyes. Jake loves her. Her bitter edges, the way she moves in the dark; how there is a meanness in her body that kept her alive. It isn't doubt but honesty that makes his gaze drop, his head tip. He stops, for once, edging in all his tells: ]

You think we're going to get it right this time?

[ You think we're going to hurt each other all over again? ]

[haggle]

( not a forgery, this time, but the real one-of-a-kind thing: ani laughs. not the pretty, soft-lipped kind she polishes for the camera. that's all closed mouth and locked teeth, keeping it to herself. they can have the headlines, the heartbreak, but not this. never this. not the sound of her sun-drenched, bursting happiness. the kind that makes her squint, nose-crinkled, against its brightness. wide open spaces, first glimpse of a blinding sky, stepping out of a prison cell to smell salt and sky. dizzy with new freedom, fucked up with hope.

the shadows around her eyes burn away. in an instant, she looks younger. not the ghost of someone else. not quite a replication of who she used to be. close enough to be a rendition of a woman bet her panties against a cartier watch in monte carlo when he was just a stranger still, a wife who laughed and ran laps around hotel room furniture to make him catch her, a bride hearing i do at a quiet altar.

because of course he says it like it's another set of vows, like it's another ring sparkling in a box. in quick succession, she thinks: fuck, she wants to believe him again. fuck, maybe she already does. fuck, she's so completely fucked. she swats at his chest, a gentle shove, to keep from saying something desperate and stupid like i missed you every fucking day. )

God. ( she jingles out another laugh, breathier. ) I fucking hate you. You still say the dumbest shit.

( it sounds, suspiciously, like it translates to: god, i fucking love you. ani never was good at that language, less natural than even her bumpy french. there's room, now, for her to slide down from the chaise — settle comfortably into his lap. a familiar saddle. a roll of her eyes, all bravado, all long-suffering over having to humor him: right before it cracks into something softer, like a splinter catching on satin. )

I think we've gotta fight like hell to get it right. Don't let me tap out when it gets too hard. And you? Don't pull your Houdini bullshit. You're stickin' with me.

( she seals it with a kiss, if it can be called that, to his forehead. a promise, an i do, an you may kiss the bride conclusion to a vow. then, pirouetting away from her own nakedness, still restless when the truth gets too raw: )

So let's see if the ride's worth the trouble, cowboy. ( she lifts the body-warmed band to her mouth, lets it brush over her lip. exhales, the way he taught her to blow on dice — for good luck, baby. make the next one count. as mean as it is sweet, a little dare dangled between them: ) Put your fuckin' ring on.

[ailerons]

[ Call, response. His palms hook at her hips, pulling her close and flush with a firm tug. Like a nip at her jaw, or the kind of accusation that gets followed by a real, open kiss: You like that I'm a fucking dumbass. She's close and in his lap and he watches, through half-lidded eyes, the way the pretty bow of her mouth presses into the gold band. Anora Mikheeva, as sweet as she is mean. And she is so goddamn mean. His wife who laughs and writhes and loves and runs. His wife. His wife.

His hands catch at hers. Rolls his spine and curves his shoulders inward, in clear invitation for her to take the chain over his head. The grin on his face is smaller, flashing just for her. Marquise cut, clear as a bell:— ]

You just want me to fuck you while I'm wearing it.

[ As easy as following escape routes and paths to glory, his right palm sinks into the landscape at her back, just above her tailbone. His left unsnaps the chain; lets it unspool, snakelike metal flash, to disappear somewhere into her carpet.

The first time, he'd been blinded by it. All the sacred ways going back home centered him, to a place that felt permanent even when it wasn't; the loosening of pressure when he could turn off the light, roll over, and bury his nose into the soft crook of her throat. No more sirens, no more deadbolts. Houdini fucking bullshit. Practicing easy lifts, sleight of hand he'd known since he was barely fifteen, because the weight of something as simple as a ring threw him off his game.

He knows what it means, now. A thief takes what isn't his, expatriates, but a man stays. The gold band fits just as easily as it used to on his ring finger, and Jake grins wide. Doesn't show off the sight — just presses his left hand to the creamy-soft skin of her stomach, above her bellybutton, widening the gap of her robe. Feeling it, over seeing it. ]

I'll get you a new one, [ he says. Tells, intones, promises, because he never did ask what she did with hers. Angling in, he runs his mouth over her jaw, lips working over her skin when he murmurs, ] What do you want? Tereshchenko Blue? The Wittelsbach-Graff? [ A wick of a laugh. ] Botticelli? Klimt?

[ His hand skates up. Boyishly playful, teasing, brushing against her sides, light enough to almost be ticklish. An echo, softer: ]

You and me, huh?

[haggle]

( not liable to survive a lie detector: the uptick-jump of her pulse, an arrested inhale in her throat. busted and booked and bagged, evidence to serve on trial. ani smiles through it, anyway. sticky-sweet, shameless, a mugshot that says: i'd do it again. she might have denied it, made him sweat to extract the confession from her, if she'd missed him less. if he was only another failed audition for a husband in her bed, and not the real thing. the one she wrote her life around, even when he wasn't on set. a leading man she can't recast. )

You and me, baby. ( a practiced silhouette, her head tips to the side, dark hair sliding down the bared curve of her robe. femme fatale charm, right before the double-cross — innocent voice, bedroom eyes, dirty mouth, worse mind. she leans in, the big reveal: ) I want everyone to know you fuck me wearing it. That ain't a crime, officer.

( a good thief works in the shadows, lets the job speak for their reputation. he doesn't have the luxury of an anonymous identity anymore; ani never had one the minute she signed away her privacy. jake seresin, retired burglar. anora mikheeva, retired wife. until that one last irresistible job comes around. if he's going to wear that ring and mean it, she wants him caught in the act of loving her. let the whole goddamn world know what he stole. some men don't stay gone. some things don't need to stay hidden. sometimes, stepping into the spotlight ain't so bad, when you've finally got something worth showing off.

she never did have the same taste for subtlety that makes a good con artist.

punctuation, the question mark at the end of that sentence: she swirls her hips over his jeans. proof she still fucking owns him, proof she can still drive him crazy without lifting a finger. she giggles around a sigh, a shivering hum. equal parts siren song and girlish glee, like playing opposite him again is the most fun she’s had in years. )

Save 'em for the anniversary. ( her head moves with his mouth, distracted, squirming when callouses catch on her sides. letting him case the joint, look for new pathways, map the old ones. wondering, all the time, if she still feels like a blueprint he'd known blindfolded, if he has every one of her structural weaknesses memorized. ) Nothin' beats the originals.

( her first love. her first husband. her first ring. sentimental, sure. always. proven by her fingers plucking up his chain, wrapping it around her wrist until it's been repurposed. finders keepers. oldest trick in the book. )

How about a deal? ( a glint in her eye. high stakes, high drama. the way she's always loved to play, if he's her opponent. the way she knows he can never resist the thrill of a challenge, especially if the prize on the other end is worth the pursuit. ) I'll wear it if you can find it. First clue: it ain't far.

[ailerons]

[ His cock jumps. Hard. Twitching with a jerk of his hips, proof that she still fucking owns him, and Jake laughs with a strain in his throat and his fingers digging into her hip. Yeah — she does. Yeah — she still drives him fucking crazy. I'll wear it if you can find it, meaning that she kept it, like she kept the postcard, and the good memories, and the bad ones, and his lit up, ambitious, greedy fucking heart. Still and still and still and always.

He kisses her. Bruising, tender, both things all at once. His palm skips upward and over the ladder of her ribs, dragging hard-won calluses, right up to the underside of her breast. His thumb swipes at the soft swell of it. Tease, play, calling then raising: ]

You're making me work for it.

[ The kind of accusation that's approving, thick with the messy knot of attraction and desire and press of a denim zipper that might not be so comfortable in a couple of minutes. Playfully, he returns the glint in her eye with one of his own. It's all the warning before he rolls them, a strong thigh between her legs. His shoulders rolling as he crowds her into the floor. No other way to say Game on, honey. No other way except to bend his head and kiss her cheek. Chaste and slow and hiding a smile, her hair tickling his nose, smelling like smoke and cherries and too-early walks on the broadwalk. ]

How about here? [ X marks the spot, however it goes. Jake's mouth trails lower to the join of her shoulder. ] Or here? [ Lower and lower again: her collarbones, the spot between them, the place of her knitted sternum, between the valley of her breasts.

A beat. A hard stop, as his head stays bowed, his brows pushing together in thorough motion. And then, distractedly, blithely, as if he's only just remembered, a mouth that never shut up but a brain that was clocking in overtime as he looks up: ]

Locked drawer?

[ He snooped, before she found him here. Obviously, obviously, but didn't pick open the lock. Wary of time, wary of distance. Wary of what she might find sacred in a life where she didn't need him anymore. His face splits into another wide grin. ]

I thought that was where you kept your favorite vibrator.

[haggle]

( obvious spots for a secret. a locked drawer. the little tripwires of her neve-endings, the parts of her body where her sighs still live and breathe, pressure points that arch under his sweeping thumb, the clasps where she comes unlatched prettily. old hiding places he used to love. still does — she can feel it in the kiss-swollen pout of her mouth, an insecurity kissed right out of her along with her oxygen. wary of time, wary of distance, wary of what rusts in absence.

she nips back a pearly smile. not a tease, not a play — just the giddy shimmer that comes with making her own invaluable find: she must still feel, taste, sound like home. not so broken or reshaped that his body has forgotten how to want her. too wanted to ever go forgotten again.

he still tastes like her favorite oral fixations: spearmint, nicotine, jake. if one wasn't in her mouth back then, another always was, anora mikheeva's holy trinity of filthy habits. her tongue flicks out, drags him up by the hair to chase the flavor again. gripped too tight, like he might disappear if he travels too far down her body.

the rest of him is as familiar as it isn't — ridges of new muscle her fingertips slide over, trespassing underneath the hem of his henley. prison-strong, made hardier behind bars. her heart tightens. not arousal. not not arousal. it's an ache closer to remorse. for things she's missed. showing up to the trial, but not the pen pal letters, conjugal visits, one-a-day phone calls. what she might've gotten to see play out, if she hadn't been so fucking scared. )

Uh huh.

( dealer's choice what it's agreement to, dripping off her tongue like caramel. melted into something sweet, distracted. probably his guess. probably his observation of the obvious: you're making me work for it, as if she's ever let him have it easy. probably the solid press of his thigh between hers, her own squeezing a bracket around it. dragging herself against him in slow, syrupy glides, cunt to muscle, rough denim to lace. indulgent, unrushed, unconsciously — like a lazy sunday morning, soft warmth, nowhere else to be. she laughs a beat late, like she's only just now paying attention. )

That vibrator's 24K, sweetheart. Show some respect. ( trick of the trade he taught her: sometimes the obvious is so obvious, it's missed. other tricks of the trade: the well-made false bottom to that drawer, ani's matryoshka doll of secrets. treasure worth hiding well, even if it meant nothing to anyone but her. a sound chimes out of her, wound-up like a music box. lyrically closer to a whine, eyes hazy, dare and hint both: ) Second clue? Try goin' lower. Ain't the first time you're gonna have to talk your way into somethin' tight.

[ailerons]

[ Conversationally, ]

Personal best is four minutes.

[ Like she doesn't know. Like it wasn't with her, fucked up from jetlag and starving at 2am, convincing a local restaurant to stay open just a little longer. She rocks herself against his thigh and Jake hums, tightening, pushing up, giving back, letting her take it; he looks down at her with an expression impossibly open and tender, like she isn't grinding over his jeans. His girl. His mean, mouthy, soulmate of a girl.

His left hand finds her first. A palm wrapping over her throat, a signal more than an attempt at a squeeze. He kisses her again, filthy and warm and open-mouthed. Spearmint sugar and spit and gum, passed from his mouth to hers. Jake grins, as blinding as fucking lights when he pulls away, mimes a lazy mockery of a salute, and drags himself lower. The rasp of lips and stubble against her breasts, her ribs, her belly; the glint of teeth as he bites into intricate lace, tugging her panties off with his thumbs and his mouth. Show and fucking tell.

He shoulders in between her legs. Right there, on the floor, palms cupping her hips. His cheek knocks softly into her knee and he kisses her everywhere but the small, swollen aftermark of her burn.

Doesn't avoid pressing his mouth right over her bruises. Not the way boyfriends say sorry in arguments, not the way husbands apologize for forgotten anniversaries — but the acknowledgement, instead. That it happened. That it all happened, in the dark, lying beside someone else in silk-soft sheets, while Jake stared up at cinderblock ceilings and thought about what he'd written behind a priceless painting in Saltburnt with bold, inky Cyrillic. Defacing the joy of a Fragonard because it was the next best thing to the back of a napkin. Five words, the vows that had come first before the practiced ones later: I'll take care of you. ]

Thought about you all the time, Ani.

[ He murmurs it into the softness of her thigh. Easy enough, to think he might just be talking about sex. That he's talking about that first moment when he puts his mouth over her, leisurely and wet and syrup-slow. That he's talking about the way his lashes jump, then close, the grunt before he tugs her closer, indulgent but needy, wanting to know if her thighs still shake the same. If she still tastes the same when he hungrily maps her open with his lips and his tongue and a finger, slick and easy, to give her something to clench down on. ]