aoiremart:

He heard a sound.

It rang right through his mind, sharp as a knife and equally painful, but lasted just for a moment, too brief for him to correctly process it.

The sound left an unpleasant sensation in him, one Jack could, oddly enough, perceive with more than just his hearing.

It was in his mouth, sour and unpalatable.

It was in his paws, a tingle that made his fingers twitch unconsciously.

And… it was in his eyes, a picture which refused to come into focus for at least two full seconds. “What…”, he murmured, as the shimmering feeling vibrating in his whole essence slowly poured into wary, almost unsteady words, “What are you doing here, Walker?”

Cynthia was looking at him, not making a sound nor moving a single inch of her soft, beautiful body as she stood next to the window. The distances between them felt nullified by the way her amber eyes were focusing on him, piercing through his figure like pointy darts.

He felt nullified, and only pride prevented him from beating a retreat.

That, and the fact he was in his own office. “I believe I asked you a question”, he inquired, trying to sound firmer. “I would appreciate…”.

“I don’t care what you appreciate”. She suddenly spoke, with a voice that Jack had never heard coming from her; it filled the air around them, saturated every inch of him with subtle, mute anger. “We need to talk, Savage.”

“Not now, I’m afraid. I have a plane leaving for Mosca in four hours”, was his dry reply as he moved towards the desk, every single one of his steps feeling as heavy as ever. He dared not make eye contact with her a second time – the first had caught him unprepared and been enough to give him the shivers. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

“I’m not planning to make this conversation last for that long”. Jack felt her glare all over his body and soul as she pronounced those bitter words. “But I’m also not planning to let you get away from this.”

“I believe you’re mistaking something, Walker. There’s nothing I’m getting away from in the first place.”

“Is that so?” Cynthia asked, but it sounded like an accusation, more than an actual question. “I beg to differ, Mr. Savage.”

“Beg all you want, but it won’t change the facts”. He now was in front of his desk, trying to remember what item he was supposed to pick from the drawer.

But it was hard, because his thoughts kept squirming out of his control every time he tried to focus on something that wasn’t Cynthia Walker’s existence.

Cynthia Walker, in his office.

Cynthia Walker, armed – maybe literally – with anything but good intentions.

And he knew why, but chose to confine that awareness in the deepest recesses of his heart as Cynthia retorted sharply: “You just can’t live without that condescension of yours, right?” A hint of frustration painted that question in rhetoric, a rhetoric that scraped the hare’s ears, making something inside of him bleed. “You’ve always been like this: Haughty… full of yourself, and insensitive.”

“… Is that why you’re here, Walker?” Jack asked, as the first sliver of his heart pitifully crumbled under the blows of her verbal aggression, “To insult me?”

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