It Comes Down to This
It was so late by the time Connor got to Rhiannon's apartment that it was early, the first weak rays of dawn starting to turn the sky a light pinkish orange. He was exhausted. He was hungry. He stank. He was also still furious, his steps stiff-legged as he moved down the street past the silent stores and parked cars.

He checked the street when he reached the Slayer's building, found it empty, started up the stairs to her door. He didn't even know what he intended to do when he got there, if he wanted to talk or yell or fight or what. He could still smell the tear gas clinging to his clothes, and he coughed at the top of the stairs and spat over the railing to clear his mouth of some of the aftertaste. Then again, wishing he had some water.

When he felt like most of a human being, the Destroyer rapped on the door sharply with his knuckles, which were still bruised. Was she even home?

No.

When the striking force of his sore fist hit the door, Rhiannon was still a block away on foot. The clothes on her body were a modified version of an Agent’s riot uniform—an undershirt and tactical pants tucked into heavy boots. She had stripped off the thermal shirt and coat earlier, and unless the odors of small-time chemical warfare and smoke could be laundered out, she didn’t plan to put them back on. A low bun of dark hair was still tied at the base of her neck.

The neighborhood where Rhiannon lived was empty, an industrial area that had died off and attempted to revitalize itself with loft-style apartments that never took off. She could walk the streets nearest her place for blocks and not see another human being after dark. Connor stuck out like a sore thumb.

She drummed her fingers against a brick building. There was only one reason he’d be there, and she knew it without having to start a conversation. He wanted to know for sure if she’d been part of that raid, and maybe he wanted to exercise a little aggression if he found out she was.

“You pissed?” she asked, coming up the sidewalk.

He heard her before he saw her, the street so quiet that her footsteps reached his ears even before he turned to see her approaching. Bloodshot blue eyes searched the brunette's face, and Connor started back down the stairs, the heavy rubber soles of his boots making hollow sounds on the metal steps. He smelled like he'd been rolling in rotten eggs. But that didn't keep him from recognizing, once he got close enough, that she smelled the same way. The Destroyer's mouth tightened.

"There is no word for how I feel," he said in a rough, sleep-deprived voice. "They almost had me. Hell, they almost had Julie. I think I broke some guy's jaw." He held up both hands as he got closer, displaying his purpling knuckles.

"How much warning did you have?" he asked Rhiannon, his voice rising. "An hour? Two? Enough time to maybe warn somebody?" His shoulders had already gone taut from his inner tension, and he planted his feet on the concrete sidewalk once he reached it. "You have fun on your first clean-up job?"

Rhiannon’s voice was deadpan, but her eyes were becoming very dark. “Tons.”

Oh, she got the drift. An organization was hardly a prime target for hate; it was much more satisfying and efficient to narrow it down to a person who could represent it, be its face. Since Rhiannon was the only badge-holder he knew, she got the dubious honor of serving as the poster child for Project Integration.

“You’re going to make an ass of yourself if you say one more thing,” she said, struggling to keep the acid out of her voice, and to tamp down the words that were climbing the back of her throat—tiny, quick-handed demons that originated in a dark place in her heart.

“I already know you’re half the man I thought, if you can believe I’d sit on a warning like that.” Why was it that Whistler had known, the instant he saw the government identification, that there was no way on god’s green earth Rhiannon would’ve done it, if her arms weren’t tied and broken behind her back? Why was it that Joseph could still kiss her on the mouth, even after she accidentally hit him and nearly hauled him off to prison?

But Connor could stand here – after they’d fought side by side, over and again – and still believe she’d keep a raid like that to herself.

It made her sick. It made her insides boil and her teeth grind.

He has no idea who I am. If he pushes me, he’s going to find out.

Connor could feel his upper lip pulling back, skinning away from his teeth, and his left hand closed in a fist. This was his old companion Betrayal, coming home to sit on his shoulder like one of Odin's eagles, or maybe like the predator bird who ate Prometheus' liver on a daily basis, only to have the organ grow back for the next day's feast. The part of him that wanted to believe Rhiannon, that needed to have faith in her righteousness, had been bound and gagged by the familiar feeling of being kicked in the balls when he wasn't looking. It had happened too many times before.

"You planning to hit me?" he goaded, wishing she would. Punches never lied, and they didn't say one thing and mean another. If he didn't hit her first, that was.

"Maybe you should." Calmer-voiced now, even if his insides were twisting and twining around themselves like agitated snakes. He'd fought with her, but not against her. She was heavier and more compact, but he had some reach on her. Connor went up on his toes a little, his knees popping slightly.

"If you're half the person I thought you were, you'll hit me as hard as you can." Sweaty, tired, livid, the Destroyer planted his feet, willing her to take the first shot. She thought she knew him? She didn't know anything.

She could find out, though.

“Oh, man.” The brunette’s jaw shifted and she looked away from him, and the smile that pulled at her mouth wasn’t a happy one. It was an outward expression of the disbelief she felt, a humorless laugh bubbling to the surface. A mocking voice in her head reminded Rhiannon that she would always be the girl who got burned when she gave too much of herself. The peeling away of everything and everyone she tried to hold close was inevitable.

If he was bouncing on his toes, then she was coiling up, her muscles awakening as her brain fired off impulses. Saying, ’Strike first. Shut him up before he says that you’re worthless to him. You’ll never recover.’

If she hit him hard, what good would it do? It couldn’t convince Connor that she was on his side, that she loved him far too much to stick a knife in his back. Still, no one would ever convince the Slayer that her emotions weren’t destined to become a physical thing. Right now they hammered at her ribcage and shuddered in her bones, desperate for a way out, and for her to claw the accusations out of Connor’s eyes. You don’t see me.

“I know why you’re doing this. Sometimes you’re so obvious,” Rhiannon told him, and her eyes flooded. “It’s too bad I’m not.”

Thwack.

Her back-handed fist struck the Destroyer across his cheekbone with the speed of a threatened snake. It was a veritable bitch-slip, but it landed with zero regard for his safety or her amount of strength. Rhiannon had a reputation for being a ferocious fighter, and he deserved nothing less than the tour de force.

The sound of flesh against flesh was very loud in the silence of the pre-dawn, and Connor's ears rang as he went stumbling backwards to slam into a van that was parked at the curb. The door handle dug into the small of his back, and the Destroyer struggled to regain his balance as he worked his jaw. The entire lower half of his face felt like he'd been stung by bees, and he rubbed a hand over his cheeks and then his mouth.

"Alright. Game on."

He used the vehicle to push off of, launched himself at Rhiannon as though he meant to leave skid marks on the concrete. His body plowed into hers, and he looped a fist into her stomach without pulling it. Then higher, thumping against her ribcage with a hand that already hurt.

He'd have cried if he could, but there was too much rage, blinding him. He had wondered once why this was his life, why this always happened. Maybe he should stop wondering.

It was as if Connor's fist had made it all the way to her lungs and gotten stuck. The air erupted from them, choking her. At least she knew he wasn't fucking around.

Rhiannon stumbled back on her heels. A small spaced opened up between them, but not even a room would've been large enough to hold the look she gave him. This Slayer was a creature of guts and grit; she ran on instinct over technique. She didn't finesse a fight, she stuck with killing blows, like a diesel truck shifting into overdrive. It was always personal. That mindset gave birth to a mutinous expression.

She dropped low, spun and swept out his legs, for the sole purpose of making him feel his back on the ground.

"Are you happy now? Am I a bad guy now?" Rhiannon's boot kicked at his ribcage. In her mind, she only saw her goal: his body launching into the nearest solid object.

"Oh, fuck off," Connor grated through clenched teeth. His shirt had rucked up in the back when he'd fallen, and his flesh stung from the scraping it took against the concrete. He grabbed Rhiannon's foot when she kicked at him, likely saving his ribs from being broken. "You knew what you were doing. Don't blame me for what you did."

His hands slid higher, to the Slayer's calf, and he twisted to try and throw her off balance. He pulled himself halfway up, crouching there in his own small space of the world. He'd never been much for finesse either. He went with power, not tactics.

He brought his hands up again, circled two steps to the left, then darted in to throw a right cross at the Slayer's jaw. He was so mad at her he couldn't breathe.

Already unsteady on her feet, it came as no surprise when Connor's knuckles popped her on the jaw. The boy had a mean right cross. Anyone other than a Slayer would've been knocked unconscious. The torque spun her away from him. She stumbled to regroup and tripped over the curb, where the sidewalk rubbed her palms raw.

A distant part of Rhiannon begged herself to stay down. To not do this. It wasn't like sparring with Whistler, where a couple of punches and a hair pull would be enough to slake their anger. If they really let themselves go, Rhiannon and Connor would do serious damage to one another. In a twisted way, it was like punching a reflection and having it hit back.

But that protesting voice was very weak, and Rhiannon's pride much louder. The corner of her mouth was bleeding. She thumbed it away.

"Don't blame me for not being your goddamn hero!" she yelled. The brunette charged at him full bear. She thrust her shoulder into his diaphragm like a linebacker. Literally propelling him off the ground.

It was like being run down by a garbage truck, and Connor had to fight to breathe as he staggered backwards with Rhiannon right up in his face. Adrenaline dumped itself into his bloodstream to make up for the lack of oxygen, and he laced his fingers together and brought his hands down on the Slayer's back between her shoulderblades. "Get off me, goddamn you," he snarled. "I never asked for you to be my hero." Despite his fury, the sneer was in full effect as he spat the word, bringing his palms to rest on the Slayer's shoulders and giving her a shove.

He hadn't realized it until then, but she'd split his lip with that slap, and he touched his tongue to the blood and found it as coppery as ever. His narrow chest was heaving, his lungs still trying to pull in more air, and he lifted his fists up again, a boxer's pose.

"I asked for you to be my friend, you moron," he said, emphasizing the word despite not being able to draw a full breath. "I don't know why that's such a foreign concept for people. It's like I'm not speaking English or something."

He was waiting for her to come at him again, his thigh muscles twitching with the urge to storm towards her. If this didn't stop, one of them might end up in the hospital.

He didn't care.

The Destroyer moved in, swinging hard with that same right fist. He hadn't fought with someone who could keep up in a long time. It was actually kind of... refreshing.

It felt like her spine was out of alignment. The place between her shoulder blades ached, and dimly she wondered if he'd done some actual injury. Rhiannon ducked beneath his fist and felt its wake rustle the hairs on her head. She rebounded and threw a left hook. "Please. I'm the one with social problems?" The air whistled in and out of her lungs. Sweat moistened the hairs that strayed out of her bun and stuck them to her neck.

She kept her fists in the air and stayed on her toes. Ready for him. She looked him up and down.

"Tell me the rules, Connor. Tell me who I'm supposed to sacrifice, just to keep my ass from being Federal property. If they threaten Julie," the name dripped from Rhiannon's mouth like acid, "If they tell you they'll wipe her off the face of the planet... will you be this fucking smug?" She was angry enough to kill him. The Slayer whirled around and gave him her worst, a spinning heel kick that could knock a city bus into next Tuesday.

Smug. Smug? Seriously?

Connor barely managed to dodge the kick, and his sweaty hair obscured his vision as he plowed forward, his gangly scarecrow's frame slamming into Rhiannon's more solid one as he body-checked her. His left hand tangled into the fabric of her shirt near the collar as they fell, and his right was still a fist, the knuckles white.

"You make your own decisions, remember?" he said, half-mocking, half-crying as something within snapped. Something emotional rather than physical, and he added, "You make your own decisions and you don't apologize." He would not weep in front of her, would not shame himself.

"I never asked you for anything except for your friendship. Not for protection, not to save me from anything, nothing. Just for friendship and honesty."

He wanted to hit her some more, to make this hurt go away, and the tears were so close he could taste them right along with his blood. Every time he thought he'd gotten past it, there it was, laughing in his face.

"I never asked you to sacrifice anything, Rhiannon Lee. Not even your damned stiff-necked pride."

Rhiannon saw red.

This was the way to strip her raw. To put her on her back and make the girl brawl her way out. The Destroyer didn't get the significance.

The Slayer's chest was heaving huge puffs of air. She clamped a hand over his fist, squeezing it hard enough to crack the finger bones and bring the punch to submission before it even took off. Rhiannon's other hand went to Connor's throat. The tips of her fingernails dug in sharply. "I made a choice!" she shouted, leaning up into his face. "I made a choice for the people I love, not for strangers, not for me, for them. I made the choice to save a life. She's just a baby!"

Now the flood in her eyes threatened to roll out. Rhiannon shoved at his neck, holding him at bay. "I know what betrayal looks like. You're not the only one. This isn't it!"

Connor felt his index finger break, and he cursed in a voice that sounded nothing like himself. His free hand grabbed for Rhiannon's wrist, and he squeezed, the grip merciless.

'I made the choice to save a life. She's just a baby!'

It cut through the red haze somehow, sliced it right down the middle as cleanly as a scalpel, and two fat tears escaped to roll down his cheeks before he could stop them. He forced the rest of them back, breathing convulsively.

"Who?" Fresh sweat ran down the sides of his face and then down his neck to disappear beneath the collar of his shirt. The morning was cold, and the moisture left him chilled. The muscles in his back twitched.

"Who?" He was almost whispering now, trying to stuff it all back in as he leaned towards Rhiannon. "Whose life?"

Maybe it would make sense now. He wanted it to make sense, and the believing part of him started to struggle inside its bonds. Then again, that had always been his downfall before, wanting to believe. "Then what is it? If it's not what it looks like, then what is it?"

"Jennie!" she screamed at him, nose to nose.

Connor's fingers dug into the space between her wrist bones. The sensation sent a rod of agony up and down Rhiannon's arm. She loosened her fingers and twisted, trying to break his deathgrip. When that didn't work, she made a guttural noise, and it was like shards of glass scraping over her vocal chords. "She's a slayer, she's fifteen years old, she patrols on rollerskates for christ's sake! They will kill her. Am I speaking English now?"

A fat, salty drop of his tears or sweat plunked onto her face. She squeezed her eyes shut. "They push all the right buttons," she said. Not letting go of Connor's throat, not yet. If he was a demon, Rhiannon would've gone for her knife and slashed open his jugular. This time though, she knocked her forehead against Connor's. It wasn't hard enough to be a head-butt, but it was definitely intended to get through his thick skull. "Are you listening? I almost arrested Joseph last night. I had him halfway into a pair of cuffs before I realized who he was. This is wrecking me. So go to hell with your guilt trip."

Rhiannon let her head hit the pavement. Why hadn't she told him before? Because she hated sounding like a victim. Because it seemed better to let Connor think signing up was her choice than to let him think she'd been cowed. And maybe part of her wanted to test Connor -- to see just how much he trusted her -- but he failed. "Don't look at me." Rhiannon put her palm over his face and pushed him.

He was still holding on to her wrist, but only because she hadn't let go of his throat yet. They'd formed a Pieta of sorts there on the deserted street, him leaning over her and her glaring back. In his head, he could see it suddenly, a girl of no more than fourteen, a kid, tying the laces on her skates before heading out for patrol. The skates were a bright, blazing pink, and another sweat-infused tear escaped to roll down his cheek. He tried to relax his grip, at least he thought he did, but his hand refused to budge.

"Who the hell's Joseph?" He sounded a little more human now, coming back to himself from the rings of Saturn or wherever it was he'd been.There seemed to be more air in the world, and he inhaled it cautiously, past the pain of his ribs. He barely felt her forehead crack against his.

He was still looking at her, though, despite her trying to push his face away from hers. Looking into her, past whatever wall she'd been keeping around herself and to the part of her that was just like him. The lower half of his face was still a little numb.

The Destroyer's fingers began to release their punishing hold, relaxing a fraction at the time. Watching the Slayer's eyes, looking past the warrior and seeing the person within. Seeing her.

Pink skates. Pink skates and probably dyed hair, some impossible color that existed nowhere in nature. Connor was still watching Rhiannon's face, letting her have his eyes and all the confusion they contained. "They told you they'd kill her?"

Since he wasn't looking away, Rhiannon stared back. The eyes on her could speak volumes, deep brown and somehow glossy beneath their dark brows. They weren't just windows into her soul. When she let a person see in, they were a full-fledged observation deck. Connor was getting a very good look. "Agent Sparrow," she said. "He found me at work. I said no at first. He mentioned some things I've done, things I swear no one could know, and he threatened people, but I thought, they can take care of themselves. Then he said Jennie. He asked if I paid attention to newspapers... and did I read the stories about missing girls? Didn't I know how easy it'd be for her name to be there, too?"

Rhiannon rubbed her lips together, and it hurt from where Connor hit her. "You can say whatever you want, about her being a Slayer. But I don't care. She's... Everything I'm not. Everything I never was. A little girl with turquoise braces."

Feeling naked for a reason she couldn't define, Rhiannon closed her eyes. It seemed to her that she couldn't remember touching Connor when it wasn't during a fight. Passing a weapon or running into each other. The two of them didn't give any outward impression of being the touching kind. Jerking roughly, she got her wrist back and flexed the numbness from her fingers.

She realized she hadn't answered his other question. "Joseph is my boyfriend."

Jennie. It even sounded like a little girl's name, and Connor chewed on his bottom lip as Rhiannon yanked her hand out of his grasp. She probably had a family, a nice one that cared about her. Made sure she went to school and didn't stay up too late. Turquoise braces? The Destroyer made an undefinable noise.

"I didn't know you had a boyfriend," he said, still looking at Rhiannon and working his jaw a little before going back to chewing on his lower lip. Then again, he'd never asked, maybe because he didn't want to know and maybe because he felt like the Slayer would tell him to mind his own business. If they didn't touch unless it was by accident, they didn't share much either.

He realized he was still kind of hunkered over her, and he retreated a little, enough so they could both sit if they wanted. He pulled his shirt up in the back, the fingers of one hand moving over abraded flesh. It stung, and he stopped with a wince, letting the fabric obscure the small injury again. There was more light now, and he looked up into the cloudless sky.

He lowered his rump onto the curb, still not entirely letting his eyes leave the brunette's face. Fatigue and hunger, which had been with him since before the meeting, were making their presence known even more strongly now, and he rubbed his grainy eyes before remembering that she'd broken one of his fingers. He tried to flex it, but it refused to cooperate. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Now that they had separated, Rhiannon gingerly sat up. The length of her spine felt like a zipper that had gotten off track. It seemed a very real possibility that she'd snap like a twig. "I don't know."

That was a lie. Drawing her knees closer created a barrier between them. Truthfully, she both hated that and needed it. She reached back and tugged her hair out of its knot, deciding how much to tell. She knew why, but she didn't know the why behind the why. Like why it should matter so much. "I didn't want you to see that I could cave. I wanted you to think I made the choice. And..."

Where are my cigarettes?

She fumbled, but her pockets were empty. The coat, they were in the coat.

Rhiannon pulled her legs indian-style. Her hands dropped in the middle. "Deep down I wanted you to see through me," she confessed. "But you didn't." She kept still, wanting to shrug that off but too tired. Rhiannon turned her head and looked down the street, into the nothing where it became rail yard. "You hit hard," she said. Not just with fists.

He held still too, looking at the van she'd shoved him into before. The side of it was now sporting a dent that looked suspiciously like his back. His index finger was starting to send distress signals. "You're a pretty good slugger yourself." Meaning it the same way she did.

He waited, listening to the early-morning sounds as the world continued to wake up. Somewhere, a single bird chirped. "I didn't look hard enough," he said, making the confession because she'd told him something she didn't want to and that meant he had to do the same. "You do make your own decisions most of the time. Like with Tristan. And with Elfleda. I guess I thought..." No, that was wrong, he hadn't guessed anything. "...I thought you were just running under your own steam like always."

There was more silence, and his bottom lip was going to start bleeding if he didn't quit worrying it like that. "You told Joseph. You must have. And Whistler, although you probably didn't even have to. But not me."

More silence. He wished he had a soda. It would have given him something to do with his hands, if nothing else. He picked at the frayed lace of one shoe. "I mean, I get it, I guess," he said, and saying it hurt, because he was telling her something painful, how much it mattered to him that they were friends. "The whole boyfriend....thing. Whatever." He darted a look in her direction, looked away just as quickly. "You could have told me. I would have listened. It's not okay to say I'm half a man when you didn't give me a chance to be a whole one."

That got Rhiannon's attention.

"No." She shook her head, an awkward movement, as if her neck was too stiff to accomplish it. "You're more than..." She struggled, the Slayer's brain tumbling over words. "You're more than you think. To me." It wasn't about only trusting her boyfriend, or about any particular, sensible reason why she should hold Connor to a higher standard of behavior. It was just that on some deep-rooted level, she had been begging this person, this gorgeous fighter who was her friend, to see her heart.

"You're right, I should have told you. It wasn't fair." Rhiannon looked at him. She couln't believe how stupid she had been. To have let Connor walk around, thinking she was an enemy, the knife in his fucking back. To have made him deal with that 'reality'. In his eyes, Rhiannon would've seen so much hurt that was familiar, if she'd stopped testing him and just looked.

Oh god you ignorant, selfish bitch.

Her eyes and throat burned. "Connor, I want you to know that I won't ever turn my back on you. I know it would take an insane amount of courage for you to accept that. Maybe you won't ever. But that doesn't make it a lie." Rhiannon got up and started to cut around him, sore and aching, but desperate to get into her loft before the floodgates broke. "I love you, okay?"

It might not have been fair, but she didn't want to give him a chance to answer.

Jackass, Connor thought, and it was directed at both of them. Her for not telling him the thing she should have told him, and himself for not looking at her properly when she'd avoided the truth. He'd have known, if he had only looked. He picked at his shoelace with one hand, the one with the broken finger closing into a helpless fist.

"You're the best friend I've got," he said, looking down at the pavement even as he said it loud enough for the Slayer to hear. "And I guess I love you too, even if...even if I'm stupid about it sometimes. I say the wrong things a lot. I do the wrong things even more often. Like when I said you'd picked sides. That was..."

He stopped talking because his throat was closing up, and the knuckles of his undamaged hand scrubbed at his eyes. "The only thing I can say now is that you're my friend and that I want you back. If that's all right with you."

He couldn't look up, couldn't check to see if she was still there. If she was gone, he'd let her stay gone. Neither of them were any good at this. "I love you, too."

Rhiannon chewed the sore corner of her lip. Focusing on his back from where she stood, the Destroyer seemed unbelievably narrow between the shoulders for how much weight they carried, and how much he kept on the inside. In a line of thought that didn’t make sense, she imagined being able to reach down deep into him with arm and fingers, just to find out how far he went.

Kneeling down behind him, she wrapped her arms around his chest and leaned her forehead against the back of his skull. It was a simple thing just to breathe for a moment and hold her friend, but it spoke in ways Rhiannon found difficult.

“I haven’t left you.” The Slayer pressed a kiss to his hair. “Never will.”

And he believed her. Heard her words and the heart behind them, and he believed her. He wrapped both hands around the Slayer's forearm, leaning back the tiniest bit to let her support him. The last of his tension had finally sweated itself out through his pores, and he just sat there and breathed. His shoulders slumped.

"Good. I don't know where I'd find someone else to put up with me." They were going to have to move soon. Deserted street or not, it was dawn, and there would be traffic as people started for work. "I'm hungry," Connor said, and his stomach growled as if to punctuate the sentiment. "I can buy us breakfast if you want."

“We could always let the government pay for it,” she said, with a voice too exhausted to carry off the joke. “It’s the least they can do.”

Summoning enough energy to straighten her legs, Rhiannon stood up and carried him up with her. “C’mon.” Relinquishing the physical contact, she licked her swollen lip and wiped away the dried blood with her thumb. “Maybe the waitress will feel bad and lone us some ice.”

Putting one foot in front of the other, she began to walk in the direction from which they’d both come.

He got up from the curb as if he were a hundred years old, feeling every ache and bruise he'd earned in the last ten minutes and not really minding them. Falling into step beside the Slayer, he gingerly tested his finger. It was going to need a splint, definitely. He'd tell any nosy folks that he'd slammed it in a door.

Meanwhile, there would be breakfast. With his best friend.




[Edited to Add Content]