Work Text:
The rain came down in fine, silvery lines, tracing patterns against the café’s tall window. Outside the café, the street shimmered with puddles that glowed faintly under the flickering neon signs. A bus passed, its engine coughing, throwing up a spray of water that clung to everything it touched - the walls, the lampposts, the shoes of the few souls still wandering at this hour.
Langley watched them through the tall window, back straight on her chair with legs crossed. The mist that clung to the window was condensing to water droplets, now that the air was rapidly cooling. The city was dim, most of its lights swallowed by the blackout, leaving only the moon’s reflection scattered across the rain-slick world.
That same pale light spilled into the café, tinting everything in shades of soothing blue. Tables gleamed faintly, cups shone like dull pearls, and the air smelled of baked pastries and roasted coffee. Somewhere behind the ‘Employees Only’ door, the manager was audibly getting more frustrated for not getting the generator working in record time while the baristas went on with their work with all the enthusiasm of a person forced to work 8 hours daily on minimum wage.
Langley didn’t mind the darkness. Preferred it majority of times – helped block people’s view of her. She sipped what was left of her coffee, lukewarm and bitter, and let her mind wander to the pile of gifts in her office. One pile from her subordinates and another from the favor currying rats.
She could picture it without effort, her desk buried beneath ribbons and boxes, the faint scent of perfume clinging to expensive paper, the polite chaos of too many people trying too hard. Elaborated cards and letters wax poetic about her with their own names bold and highlighted, cause God-forbid she forgets who sent the latest selection of watches or the limited-edition golden pen.
Ah, the usual theatre.
But something tugged at her mind, the lack of one gift – the lack of that person. The one person who would drop by her office to awkwardly drop her present and wishes along with any random dessert she guessed Langley would like. The absence of her pricked more than it was supposed to, she tried to suppress it, such sentimentalities had no place in her life but, alas.
Just when the rain was trickling down to mere drizzle, the café door chimed. The noises outside sharpened as a tall woman entered inside, gracefully shaking the water from her umbrella and setting it away in the basket. Her blond hair caught the faint blue of the moonlight, turning it to pale silver.
Vautour Blue’s eyes caught on Langley’s corner almost immediately, and the faintest smile curved her lips.
“Miss Director,” she greets after crossing the room with unhurried steps, slipping in the seat opposite to her. “I hope, I haven’t been keeping you waiting.”
“It’s alright, I was enjoying the quiet night.” Langley tilted her head towards the window.
“Hmm, did not expect a power cut of such a big scale. But I suppose with the…events that have taken place, the impact was to be seen, And with the powers at play, this might have been anyone’s influence.”
So, this wasn’t a normal power cut after all, she quietly signaled the man sitting in the back, where the lights would have been scarce but now with the absence of it, he was perfectly blended with the darkness.
In the next moment, the door chimed again as the man swiftly made his way out. Vautour blue had noticed all this go down, a subtle smirk showing but did not say anything.
“Never received any news of your arrival before you contacted me saying you were already in my city. I suppose this detour of yours was not a planned one. Or were you planning to infiltrate my city?” The spymaster inquired, swirling the cold coffee.
Vautour bleu let out a laugh, “Of course, it wasn’t planned. Not when your chief had this brilliant idea of making me her courier three days before-“
She stopped herself mid-sentence, the waiter approached with a notepad in hand.
“Good evening, ma’am. May I take your order?”
And while the woman was conversing with the waiter, Langley’s hand stilled at the mention of chief. For a heartbeat, the only sound was the rain striking the glass. Then she blinked once, slow, as if recalibrating. The cup resumed its lazy turn between her fingers.
Langley used the interruption to draw a steady breath, lifting her cup to her lips though the coffee had long since gone cold. She began observing the lady in front of her. Vautour bleu was in different attire today, the colours muted in the darkness but no less captivating in their style. Then she noticed the small initial sewn at the cuff of the sleeve, the threaded design reflecting the moonlight back to her eyes.
GB
….well that’s interesting.
The waiter was just leaving when she looked up. Langley set her cup down with a faint clink.
“Tell me,” She began idly, her tone almost lazy, “how is the tailor at M.B.C.C. these days? Offering any….special services?”
Vautour bleu’s brows arched, and for just a second her eyes wandered to her sleeves. Then she laughed softly, shaking her head as she did. “You always did have an impeccable eye, Director. I should have known you’d notice.”
“It is in my job description, after all. Though, I’m surprised you’d wear someone else’s handiwork so… openly.”
The waiter came back and set down the cup, bowed slightly, and slipped away. Steam rose between them, a thin ribbon twisting in the cold air.
Her companion lifted the cup, hiding a smile behind the rim. “When the work is good, one should never hide it.”
“A fair point.” Langley leaned back in her seat. “And what about when the tailor is fond of her client?”
Blue eyes gleamed with that infuriating mix of intelligence and warmth. “Then perhaps the client enjoys being something to be fond of.”
Langley let out a quiet, amused hum, content to leave it there. For a flicker of a moment, Vautour bleu’s amusement softened into something quieter. Her gaze drifted to the window, watching the rain streak like threads of glass.
“I suppose,” she murmured, “when time steals years between you and your moitié, then no amount of intimacy seems enough.”
The rain tapped on the glass, softened to a steady rhythm. A chair scraped somewhere in the back of the café. The silence between them was filled with the faint clatter of distant cups and her phone pinged, probably the details her subordinate sent her but she didn’t glance at it.
“So,” she said, clicking her nail on the table. “The Chief sends me deliveries through smugglers now. How… creative of her.”
“Courier,” Vautour bleu corrected, her tone mild yet amused. “She was quite specific about that. Even paid me my fee.”
Langley let out a breath that was almost a scoff — soft, brief, but enough to make Vautour’s smile widen.
She leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, the faintest glimmer of something unreadable passing across her face - irritation, fondness, maybe both. Then, with a short, decisive motion, she straightened and tapped the table lightly with her fingertip.
“Well then,” the woman declared, her tone deceptively casual. “Let’s see what she sent.”
The merchant reached into her coat, pulling out a small, roughly wrapped package. The paper was coarse, folded unevenly, tied with a simple length of string as if whoever sent it tried for better appearance then gave up. It looked wildly out of place against the polished mahogany of the café table.
Langley studied it for a moment, her gaze unreadable. Then, with measured grace, she pulled the knot loose. The paper crackled faintly under her fingers, and the faintest scent of dust — old earth, stone — escaped into the air.
Inside lay something dark, indistinct in the blue moonlight. A small shape that caught the light only when she moved it.
For a moment, it was impossible to tell what it was, the shadows turned its surface liquid, swallowing the faint light. Langley tilted her head, fingertips brushing the object within, tracing the uneven edges of stone which was shaped like a droplet. It was cool, solid, strangely imperfect.
Then she felt a thin fold of paper tucked beside it. She plucked it free, the edge of the paper catching the light just as the café’s lamps flickered once, then blinked back to life with a low hum.
Warm light spilled over the room, the table, chasing away the blue gloom. And the gem in the box caught it instantly.
Emerald light rippled from within the black stone’s heart, shifting like something alive beneath its rough, unpolished surface. It was unrefined and yet gleamed, stubbornly, as though the stone itself had been waiting for this moment to breathe.
Langley stilled. The note remained in her hand, unopened for a few seconds longer than it should have been.
Across from her, Vautour bleu’s voice broke the quiet. “It’s called Crocodile’s Tear,” she said softly. “A rather fitting name, don’t you think, Black Crocodile?”
Of course.
Her lips parted just slightly, as though she might say something. But the words never came.
Instead, she unfolded the note. The handwriting was more crooked than usual, too hurried to complete the loops.
Saw this in a cave site and was reminded of you
I hope it’s something you don’t already have.
I wanted to be first regarding something in your life.
– Chief
Langley read the note again. And again but not more than that. Her thumb brushed over the ink, and she could almost imagine the Chief’s hand hovering there. The same hand now felt absurdly close despite the distance between them.
She exhaled softly through her nose, the smallest sound betraying her calm. Then set the note beside the gem. Watched the glossy ink of the note and the mesmerizing dance of colours in the gem.
Outside, the rain had raised to a downpour again, the drops threading together on the window until the world beyond seemed to ripple. Streetlights glowed through it, fractured and shifting, breaking into ribbons of green and red and gold that slid down the glass.
The café had returned to its usual rhythm, the faint scrape of chairs, a kettle whistling, muted laughter from another table. The ordinary hum of life went on, soft and distant, like music from another room. Everyone celebrating the end of the crisis that had gripped the city, not aware of the consequences, blood, tears, the sacrifices. Or perhaps they were just too apathetic to the suffering.
Langley sat very still. The cup near her hand had gone cold, its surface mirroring the ceiling’s pale lights in imperfect circles. In the end, Madeleine slid an old model burner phone to her.
“She wants to talk to you….” a quiet sigh was heard. “I must go, too many things have taken place and we all need to make preparations so as to not lose what’s important to us.”
She looked at Langley for a moment longer, really looked, and remembered what Chief had said once, her voice soft in the roar of General Augustus’s troops running around, about wishing someone genuine in Langley’s life, someone who could remind her of simpler things. How curious, despite being so different, they both had the same look in their eyes, of tiredness and of responsibility.
A faint smile curved her lips as she rose from her seat. “And Happy birthday, Langley,” she said softly, voice barely carrying over the murmur of rain. Langley didn’t look up. The words seemed to hang in the air for a breath too long before the door chimed softly behind the merchant’s departure.
Langley sat still for a long moment, then drew in a slow breath and closed her eyes. The faint scent of coffee and damp air filled her lungs. When she opened them again, her composure had settled back into place.
Then she reached for the cup, folded a few notes beneath it, and slipped the gem and note back into her coat pocket with practiced precision. The phone followed.
When she finally rose and stepped outside, the air was cool and sharp with rain. The clouds hung low, the air thick with petrichor and the hum of far-off traffic. The street was a mosaic of reflected light with its amber lamps shimmering on wet cobblestones, the muted glow of a tram sliding by in the distance.
Without turning her head, she lifted two fingers slightly - a small, practiced motion. Across the street, a shadow moved, acknowledging. Her men would wait.
Leaning against a stretch of dry wall under a narrow awning, she fished out a lady cigarette and flicked open her lighter. The flame caught and she brought it to her cigarette, inhaled, and exhaled a thin trail of smoke that curled upward, joining the breath of the rain.
Out of habit, she tilted the lighter slightly to her left. The old rhythm of offering a light, of meeting another’s hand halfway.
But there was no one beside her this time. Her hand just lingered in the air, waiting for the brush of fingers that never came. The flame licked the air and went out. The realization landed quietly, like rain against glass. She exhaled, snapped the lighter shut, and the sound felt more humiliating than it should have.
But then, from the corner of her eye, a flicker. A grey visage leaning against the wall beside her, cigarette between her teeth, that same tired, wry grin tugging at her mouth.
“Missing me that much, ma’am?”
The voice came soft, teasing, achingly real.
Langley turned sharply, but the space beside her was empty. The rain swallowed whatever memory or trick of light had conjured it. Only a faint curl of her own smoke lingered, twisting upward into the dark.
She stood there for a long moment, the cigarette burning low between her fingers. Then she straightened, pulled out the burner phone and hit dial the only number saved.
The call was picked up before the 3rd ring could even start.
“…..Mam? That you?” Chief’s voice on the line was rough, slightly distorted, a crackle of static and distance between them. And yet, she could hear the strain in the voice.
Langley exhaled, smoke coating her words, “You sound tired, chief.”
A soft scoff crackled through the line.
“Yeah, well, General Augustus has this charming habit of making trips to the strangest places for sightseeing purposes and dragging everyone with her,” The voice crackled through the line, followed by a short, exasperated sigh. “If you could even call it dragging, she just threw me in the car and drove off. For fucks sake, I haven’t even contacted Nightingale in 3 days about Hella’s condition.” she muttered, the irritation barely restrained even through the static.
Then, softer, after a beat:
“Still… I guess if not for that trip, I wouldn’t have found your birthday gift.”
“I received it. What I can’t quite fathom is why the Chief of MBCC was crawling through cave systems to begin with.”
There was a wry chuckle. “That,” Chief said, “would make two of us.”
Silence passed. Langley wondered if she could hear the rain on her side. She glanced at the visible end of the road, where the mist from the rain made it seem like fog had rolled in, and a sudden memory of when in her youth, she had once ran a drill in the frigid rain of December and caught hypothermia, flashed in her mind. Then licked her lips, feeling the forgotten awkwardness of a teen not knowing how to converse.
“What are you doing now?”
“Ah, just lit up a cigarette mam.”
Oh, and wasn’t that such a coincidence? Langley would be laughing if it weren’t for the sharp twist of something close to hysteria rising in her chest.
Chief continued, quieter now, “The skies are beautiful here, stars are scattered everywhere. Were the moon out, she would have shied away from these brilliant clusters.”
Her lips curved faintly. “Perhaps she did. Didn’t peg you for a romantic.”
“Now that’s a lie, I’m a romantic person and, please, you know that. I mean, you have spied on me enough to know that.”
A quiet hum from Langley. “Perhaps that too.” A pause, then, “It’s raining here.”
There was a pause on the other end and the sound of Chief exhaling smoke. It was in tandem with her.
Chief’s voice came through again. “Rain, huh? Lucky you, it was sweltering here all day. Enjoying it?”
“Just because you have a yearning to become one with the clouds-“
“Bah,” Chief cut in, amused, “as if you don’t like rain the same amount.”
“It’s meddlesome.” Langley said, tone clipped but faintly amused.
“Many things are, mam,’ the smile was audible in her voice and the fondness in the way those words were uttered made her next exhale come all shaky. This was not like her. She shouldn’t be encouraging it. But then why wasn’t she putting the phone down?
“Look past and try indulging in it. Remember the time, we got stranded with no signal and then it started raining and we had to take cover under the convenience store? Hah, after the work you had me do all day, that bench there felt like the most comfortable thing ever.”
“I remember alright, you started snoring the moment your head hit my shoulder.”
“I- What- I didn’t- I don’t snore. Excuse me, I don’t snore! Langley!”
The sound of Chief’s indignant voice spilled through the static, and despite herself, Langley felt the corners of her mouth tug upward. By the time Chief had finished sputtering, there was already a grin spreading across her face, wide and unguarded.
“Do you not remember wiping down my coat after drooling in your sleep?” That might have been cruel but now she was just having too much fun.
“You promised not to bring that up!”
And Langley laughed. An actual laugh, sharp and bright and alive. It startled her more than it should have, the sound echoing against the rain-slick street like something she hadn’t heard in some time. And to think the last time she laughed like this had also been with Chief. Perhaps that said or meant something but she was not going to process it.
On the other end, Chief’s laughter rose to meet hers, rough-edged and genuine, and just like that, the two of them were laughing together—caught in the same rhythm, egged on by each other’s amusement.
Eventually, it ebbed. The laughter thinned out, leaving only the soft hiss of the line and the rhythm of rain filling the quiet. Neither spoke. The rain continued. A car passed somewhere far down the road. Langley’s grip on the phone eased slightly, though she still hadn’t lowered it.
“Can I ask you something mam?” The question came through, but it was hesitant.
She hummed, closing her eyes again and leaning her head back against the wall. Her cigarette was almost finished, the stick getting smaller. Three puffs. Then she will have to cut the call and go back to work. She takes the first puff and puckers her lips to let out a smoke ring. Watch it travel across the short distance, fading as it did.
“Why did you let me go?”
The ring broke before it could fade into oblivion. For a long moment, she only stared at the dissolving wisp of smoke, the question echoing in her ear.
“…What?”
“When I came back from the coma,” Chief’s voice faltered for the first time, steady but small, “you told me I was no longer under your command. But you never said why.”
Silence. Langley didn’t know what to say. Her throat felt dry, her mind reaching for words that refused to form. The operative in her wanted to shut this down, to reprimand Chief how unprofessional this was, how sentiment clouded judgment. But another part, buried somewhere she no longer looked, wanted to tell her the truth.
Yet even that truth felt uncertain. The weight in her chest was unfamiliar, heavy, and she couldn’t name it. She wanted to lie just to make it stop - to hide behind the safety of control. But even that wouldn’t come easily.
She wanted to lie. She wanted to confess. In the end, she simply didn’t know what to say. And so, nothing was said.
“Remember when you said I was yours the first time we met?” Chief’s voice came again, quieter at first, as if she was afraid of hearing herself.
More words came though, trembling, control fraying with each breath. “Then why did you let me go? Why didn’t you keep me? I said you could use me however you wanted. Was that not enough?”
Her voice broke on the last word, half static, half something human and bleeding.
Langley closed her eyes. The cigarette burned out between her fingers, the faint smoke of singed leather coming through. She could hear the desperation leave, the sharp inhale Chief took as if she could swallow back what she’d just said. But it was too late.
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was heavy, thick with regret and too many spoken words that should’ve remained unsaid.
Was I not enough?
And with words that remained unsaid but not unheard.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean to— I—” Chief’s voice cut itself off before it could tremble further. From the other side came the faint, strangled sound of someone swallowing hard. Years of studying humans, unnecessarily, helped her recognize it as the noise of someone trying not to cry.
“Happy Birthday Langley. Goodnight.”
The line went dead with a soft beep.
Langley kept the phone pressed to her ear long after the tone had faded. Then, slowly, she lowered it. In a swift motion, she pulled out the sim, stashed the small chip, then crushed the phone in one hand and discarded it.
Her gaze fell to the cigarette burning low between her fingers. The ember flickered weakly before the rain snuffed it out, and she ground it beneath her boot. For some utterly illogical reason, the smear of soot on the slick asphalt reminded her of the black gem nestled securely in her coat's inner pocket. Once again, she didn’t know what to do with this connection.
Hah, just one more thing she didn’t understand today. There have been a lot of those lately. The feeling was strange, almost disorienting, and it reminded her of a time when she’d been far more naïve. The only difference being the absence of the paranoia, panic or dread that she used to feel.
Perhaps the person responsible for the confusion was the reason too.
Langley drew in a long breath, the rain painting her hair with silver. Made a note to visit the little mouse at MBCC. Then she turned toward the waiting car, the world resuming its rhythm around her.
It was time to get back to work.
It always was.