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ohforficsake · 2 months

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The Margay: Chapter 9

Memorize it. Destroy it.

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Summary: Santiago recruits Frankie to contract for a covert agency that pairs them with danger in more ways than one. A series of one-shot snippets taking place during and around missions.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x Sniper!OFC

Word Count: ~4.7K

WARNINGS: I'm going to go ahead and flag this chapter as Dark!Frankie / Potential triggers herein for verbal and physical abuse (extreme jealously, manhandling, pinning against a wall, facial bruising, borderline choking), brief mention of self harm/suicidal ideation / Please read with care.

Rating: Explicit 18+ / language / crass mention of sexual acts / mentions of drug use / Minors DNI

A/N: Frankie breaks something.

Finally getting one of these up in time for Frankie Friday. This chapter. Whew this chapter. It came to me months ago. Something that makes you put everything down so you can transcribe this thing from wherever it’s coming from.

chapter moodboard if you're interested

Divider by @cafekitsune!

“Why are you draggin’ me to this, couldn’t you have found someone else?

“I already told you,” Santiago fiddles with his bowtie in a car window reflection. “It’s a favor to the guy who got us this gig in the first place. Needs bodies in the room for this fundraiser. Davis is covering the donation, it’s the fucking least we could do.”

“You coulda brought some girl.”

“Yeah, but I like you on my arm,” Santi quips with a pout and Fish flips him a choice finger.

The room is filled from marble wall to marble wall with standard Washington DC fixtures. The low din of conversation punctuated with the occasional chime of laugher and clink of glass. Diamonds glitter in the low golden light under massive, equally scintillating chandeliers.

Francisco can't help but scan the room as he trails Pope to the nearest proffered tray of champagne glasses, fingers absent-mindedly wrapping around one when it's placed in his hand.

And it's Frankie who sees her first at a distance. Sheathed in a flowing column of white. Black hair is blown out into loose curls that fall down to the middle of her back, face lit up in a laugh.

When she rocks on her feet he notices that her arm is wrapped around a man’s bicep.

Frankie drains the rest of his champagne, slamming the glass down on a hightop table before Pope catches the crook of his elbow and cuts off his path to her.

“Don’t.”

“Who the fuck is that.”

“The senator who sponsored this thing? That’s his son.”

“That doesn’t make it better, Pope.”

Audrey hanging off the arm of some spoiled fuckin’ rich kid.

Not that he’s a kid, he’s got a few years on Frankie at least.

But a senator’s son?

Audrey.

His Audrey.

Audrey who he’s seen covered in engine grease, cuddling stray cats, trekking through the jungle covered in sweat and blood.

Audrey who warms his bed and angles big green eyes up at him with his spend still coating her thighs.

His Audrey.

She’s clearly playing a game.

She’s on a job.

Undercover.

She’s not herself.

And she catches him staring heat at her from across the room.

A million watts of light spark across her features and she waves them over.

“Francisco. Behave.” Pope spikes him a warning.

When they weave through bodies to make it to her she greets each with kisses on both cheeks, grip falling subtly to Frankie’s arm as her last kiss lingers.

“Let me introduce you," she says to the man, "this is Santiago Garcia and Francisco Morales. The boys who’ve been helping me out down there. The Major is, one of my oldest friends.”

“I should thank you both for keeping her safe,” the Major grins. He’s got a California accent and the tan to match.

She gives them his name but Frankie doesn’t hear it. He’s too busy sizing the man up. Guy’s got three? Four inches in height on him at least. Dark black curls, a face that’s weathered enough to betray that he’s never really worked a desk job. Even Frankie can admit he’s handsome. Roman nose, strong brow. But his eyes startle Frankie the most.

They’re the same color as Audrey’s.

The exact same shade of green. The effect of it is stunning when they both meet Frankie’s gaze.

And Catfish can’t get the flash his brain conjures of the two of them tangled in white sheets out from behind his eyelids.

“You look beautiful tonight, Aud,” Pope charms in an attempt to distract from Fish’s tangible simmering.

“I can clean up okay if I have to,” she winks, untangling her arm from this man’s.

“So what is it that you do?” Frankie cuts in, just this side of prickly.

“Marine engineer,” he says, swallowing a mouthful of champagne. “Which is a pretentious way of saying that I spend my days on boats looking for sunken treasure.”

It is an oversimplification at its finest. Because like the three of them, he’s done his fair share of greasing the cogs that keep the world running smoothly.

And like the three of them, he’s greased them with blood.

“I think we could all use refills," Audrey clears her throat, "Frankie, would you be my extra set of hands?”

“‘Course,” he doesn’t realize he grits it out.

Like spitting slivers of glass.

He flattens one broad palm across the small of her back and guides her in front of him in the direction of the bar. He follows close behind, eyes searing into the back of her skull.

The tattoo on her shoulder taunts him where it peeks out from under the seams of her sleeveless dress.

On display for anyone to see.

When they reach the bar, Frankie slots in behind her, the panes of his chest finding her back.

Audrey presses against him with a hum.

She’s nearly his height in heels and he doesn’t have to bend now to whisper in her ear. “A man more dangerous than me?”

“A friend with a Messerschmitt,” she turns to face him, running her hand over his stomach under his jacket.

And he revels in her touch before betraying the way it soothes.

“You fuck all of your friends?”

Frankie can tell there’s history between them that involves more than clunky warplanes and tinkering with old cars and it bubbles up like bile spat out in needless cruelty.

“Only the ones who know what Messerschmitts are,” she tosses back in kind, her tone level in direct defiance of what’s clawing at the back of her throat.

She turns around again as the bartender approaches and Frankie steps back a hair, breaking contact with her form.

It makes her seethe.

She hands Frankie three glasses of tequila with lime, balanced easily in generous hands, before she sweeps a gin martini off of the bar and leads him back to where Santiago and the man are laughing about something.

Fish hands Santi and glass holds the other out for Audrey, but she sips from the martini without breaking his stare and Frankie instead has to hand it over to the other man.

Messerschmitt. Since Frankie can’t remember his name.

They toast, what a pleasure to meet, happy you boys are keeping Audrey company out there.

Company.

“Fish, the Major is a pilot, he was Air Force.”

“In my youth,” the man quips.

“I’ve heard,” he drains his glass and doesn’t attempt to continue down the path what Santi has forged for him.

And so the two of them carry the conversation alone, Frankie staring daggers at Audrey who shoots him the occasional searing glance every time she plucks an olive from the golden skewer in her drink.

A hush falls over the crowd as vainglorious speeches start up.

But Frankie's ears are ringing.

Audrey makes it through one speech before excusing herself to the restroom with a soft hand on Santi’s elbow, and a brush on Messerschmitt’s cuff.

She doesn’t need to alert Frankie because Frankie’s been watching her every move.

He waits five minutes before slipping away in the same direction.

They’re about to pass each other in the hallway when Frankie’s hand shoots out for her bicep, a glance over his shoulder to be sure no one is looking before dragging and shoving roughly to pin her against the wall.

“So is this what you do, when you’re not with me? Fuck senators’ sons?”

“The fact that he’s a senator's son is honestly the most unfortunate thing about him. And what we do is not my being with you. It’s my job.” She presses something soft into his hand. “That’s for you. If you want it.”

Frankie stuffs whatever it is into his jacket pocket and continues.

“And is this part of your job? Hanging off the arms of handsome men in fancy rooms?” He runs his palms down her bare arms before they settle on her hips.

“Sometimes. But I don’t frequent these in my downtime. This is a favor.”

“A favor. To him.”

“Yes.”

“So you don’t make a habit of this? Being this charming.”

“Aw you really think so?” She snarks and Frankie’s hands on her hips slam her back against the wall.

“You like it, don’t you. All of these eyes on you. Driving me insane.” His fingers brush a curl from her cheek. “Don’t play coy, I see how they look at you. Do you beg them for it, Audrey?”

“They look at me because I’m a novelty in this room, Frankie.”

And she’s not wrong. She’s a lithe beautiful thing with rich bronze skin in a room of wives and mistresses the same shade of blonde caked in the same shade of orange. She moves through a sea of hungry eyes with comfort precisely because she doesn’t give a fuck about the other men in this room.

Not even really about Messerschmitt. Not now that he’s here.

“You mean you don’t work your way into their beds? Let them fuck you until you’re screaming?”

She scoffs a “no” and Frankie listens but doesn’t hear.

“Is it their money? Their expensive whiskey and the thread count of their sheets that makes you come?”

His hand skates up over her chest, fingers feather-light over the skin of her collarbone that peeks out from under the high neck of her dress.

“Because there’s no way their cocks are satisfying you. That room is rife with overcompensation.”

Everything to this point has been some twisted form of foreplay.

But Frankie tips.

His hand moves to her neck now, the broad span of it making easy work of fitting around her throat.

Because some part of him believes this. Believes that Messerschmitt has had her and would have had her tonight if Santi hadn’t dragged him here and it makes him wonder how many others.

He needs to know how many others.

Frankie's eyes are blown dark, logic is abandoned in a brain fogged with jealousy. Skin thrumming with possession.

And it’s out before he can catch it.

“How many of them have had you, Audrey?” Rumbled through low registers of his voice.

He uses his index finger to roughly angle her face back to him from where she’s glanced back into the room.

“How many of them have seen you fall apart? Hmm? How many of them have left you shaking?”

His body holds her against the wall, thighs pressed to hers, his elbow jammed painfully in the sparse space between them where he holds her.

And Audrey just watches, gaze angled down her nose.

Amused.

Frankie’s a man in a trance as he runs the pad of his thumb over the lush of her bottom lip, hot breath following its path.

“Have they seen the way your mouth falls open when you clench around them? Do they know that you can see these little fucking teeth when you do,” he snarls it, sliding his thumb over her top incisors before slipping it farther to slide over her tongue.

He tastes of lime and ozone.

“How many of them have come in this pretty little mouth, Audrey?” Frankie presses down with his thumb to open it wider.

She could bite down. She could box his ears and take out an eardrum or both. She could throw a knee into his crotch.

She could scream.

She’s not going to.

Not yet.

But she could.

He adjusts his grip and his middle finger and thumb dig painfully into the space at the hinge of her jaw and he gives her head a small shake, voice dripping with condescension. “Do you swallow for them, or is that just for me?”

And it should frighten her. The way her sweet soft Frankie has gone dark.

The way he’s a hair’s breadth away from squeezing down on her pulse.

The way he could crush her jaw with the strength of his hand alone.

But this?

This is always there.

Churning under the surface until it heats enough to boil.

It's what she loves about him.

“Do you let them come inside you too? Let them empty their balls into your hot little cunt and leave you dripping?” He shifts one leg to the outside of hers to press her further into the wall with his body.

And it should terrify her, this being caged in, his fingers jammed hard into her mandible as he spits and seethes with equal parts disdain and infatuation.

“Do they fill you up like I do? With as much as I do?”

The hard line of Frankie’s cock pressed against her hip telegraphs unyielding, sick pleasure.

“Do they fuck you better than I do, Audrey?”

“There is no ‘they’ Frankie.”

“Oh? Well then. Does that man. Out there. Fuck you. Better than I do.” His arm twitches with each sentence, moving her head with it.

She should be ashamed of how wet she is.

“Would you let him come down your throat the way that you let me?”

And she doesn’t dare give him the satisfaction of the truth.

“I know he doesn’t eat you out the way that I do. Doesn’t make you come on his face.” He presses his nose to her cheek, breathing in the scent of her. “I can tell.”

“But I bet he’d still give it to you. If you wanted him to.”

He doesn’t realize that he’s growling with every breath.

“I don’t want...”

“But would he. Fuck you.”

“Yes.”

And Frankie’s nostrils flare and a breath hisses through his teeth.

His hold on her tightens.

“Yeah, I bet he would. Because you’re a fuckin’ toy. A pretty little plaything to be used when the need strikes and then…” he trails off. “He’d fuck you but he wouldn’t keep you.”

“Yeah—" he growls.

"I wouldn’t either.”

And Frankie says it because he’s frothing with impotence at what he doesn’t have to offer.

Any one of these men could give her the world.

They paid $14K just to stand in this room.

But Frankie wouldn’t keep her because Frankie doesn’t deserve her.

And Frankie makes it her fault.

Lashing out at her for the way she consumes him.

And all of this. This is trying to prove himself with his body where the rest of him falls short.

Because it’s all he knows.

The Delta who gave his body to the Stars and Stripes in search of validity and purpose and a place in this world.

And those colors chewed him up and spat him out tasting like a bad back and a coke problem.

But he’s taken it too far now.

Still gripping hard at her jaw.

And her scorpion’s tongue delivers a barb that sticks right in the spot in his brain where he’s regretted it every moment of his existence since that night.

“You going to strangle me again, Francisco?”

The antidote to his fever.

“No,” the grip on her loosens.

The fight drains through the soles of his feet and back to the earth to be transmuted into something that doesn’t destroy.

He breathes without snarling.

And rests his forehead against hers before taking half a step back.

And she tips her face to hover her lips over his but neither of them move any farther.

They just breathe.

Looking like lovers to anyone who is watching.

She brushes a hand over the napkin slipped into his jacket pocket. “Memorize it. Or don’t. But destroy it either way.”

And Audrey slips from between him and the wall.

Frankie doesn’t move to turn around, instead bracing his forearm against wallpaper, listening to her heels on marble as she returns to the bathroom.

“And Frankie,” she calls over her shoulder, staving off the shattering of her voice. “Please be nice.”

He snorts as he spins and leans heavy against drywall, head thudding backwards. He scrubs a palm down his face and breathes deep, trying to bring himself back to even.

Trying to stave off the panic winding around his organs.

Threatening to constrict.

He has no idea what just happened.

Frantic fingers scramble for the thing in his pocket.

A napkin that he unfolds.

An address in Alexandria.

Her address.

He storms off to the gents and into a stall, mentally repeating the numbers and letters until it’s ingrained before he drops it in the toilet bowl. Blue ink bleeds into something illegible before he flushes it away.

His stomach turns and for a moment he thinks tequila is going to follow it.

Frankie breathes in hard through his nose and out with a hiss, storming out of the stall to splash cold water into his face.

He prays he hasn’t left a bruise.

_____

“You good?” Santi whispers when Audrey slips in beside him.

“Yeah, do I look fine?”

He gives her a quick once-over. “Physically, yes. Spiritually?” Pope tips his glass of tequila towards her hand and she drains it as applause breaks out at the end of another speech.

“He okay?”

“Dunno.”

Santiago casts a look over his shoulder towards the bathrooms.

“Come, let me get you another,” he gently presses an open palm to Audrey's elbow, leading her to the bar.

“Gin and soda.” Santi knows her and joins. “Two."

Santi knows the two of them well enough to hit on what just happened. "That really spun him up, huh?”

“Never meant to. I’ve known the Major for over twenty years, I came as a favor. He’s one of the few people on earth who knows what I actually do.”

“It’s not a fucking crime to be comfortable around someone," she adds in a soft voice. "I had no idea you were going to be here.”

“Sort of a favor on our end as well.” Santiago slips a tip into the glass jar as the bartender slides over two drinks.

Audrey swallows a sip, letting the ice cold liquid chill her burning stomach.

“I was fucking happy when I saw you both.”

And she sounds like she's about to fracture.

“Hey.”

Santi’s eyes are soft, heavy-lidded as is his way when he’s sincere.

“He’s an idiot when it comes to this.”

She scoffs and takes another sip.

“I’m gonna beat the shit out of him.”

“That’s very kind Santi, but I can do it myself.”

“You sure you’re okay?”

“No.”

“Yeah, your jaw is starting to bruise.”

“Fuck,” and she adjusts her hair to fall where Frankie’s fingers were with Pope calmly directing her movements.

To anyone else they’re making conversation.

But to anyone who knows, Pope is fuming and Audrey’s a frayed nerve.

And Messerschmitt knows and Messerschmitt would kill for her, but only if she says the word.

And she doesn’t.

“Let’s get you some food, yeah?”

“Yeah.” She has no appetite but she takes the arm Santi offers because he’s the only person Frankie won’t murder tonight and he guides her towards the nearest waiter with a tray of canapés.

For the first time in the two years that he’s known her, Santi realizes that Audrey can’t take care of herself right now.

She’s unfocused, eyes darting around the room with none of their usual calculated discernment.

Big, liquid things. Fighting the threat of overflow.

Whatever the fuck Frankie just said.

He broke her.

And so Santiago spends the rest of the night putting his body between her and Fish, and Fish knows that Santi knows something, the shame of it heating the tips of Frankie’s ears.

Audrey doesn’t stick around long after speeches are through.

She takes her leave after wrapping Santiago in a grateful embrace, kissing Messerschmitt on the cheek, and squeezing Frankie’s arm.

He can tell that was for appearances’ sake and he knows better than to follow right after her.

In the end he plays well in the sandbox. So well, in fact that he strikes up a conversation with the Major. They talk of helicopters and Immelmann maneuvers and they bore Santiago enough that he abandons them for a pretty blonde at the bar.

And Catfish shakes Messerschmitt’s hand when he leaves.

But he still doesn’t know his name.

_____

Frankie crawls back to her at midnight like a shamed thing with his tail between his legs.

She opens the door to find his hands stuffed in his pockets, doe eyes back on full display.

And Audrey wishes she hadn’t handed him that napkin.

But she also wishes for the confirmation that he offers now.

That they’re going to be okay.

In their own, fucked up kind of way.

She invites him inside without saying a word and he doesn’t reach out for her as he steps into darkness.

City lights filter in through large windows, but a candle on the coffee table is the only thing lighting his way.

She’s just been sitting in the dark.

And he stands in her home that he can’t see, somewhere between her living room and her kitchen, watching her move from the bar to the fridge and back again, still clad in her white evening gown.

Like a ghost in the night.

She hands him tequila and scoops the dregs of her martini off of the coffee table, downing it before heading for the sink.

He catches her arm on the way, holding her on the tips of his fingers, waiting for her to move.

She stops but doesn’t lean in.

“I’m sorry.” Frankie whispers.

And the candlelight catches in her eyes when she looks to him.

For my jealously. For what I said. The questions I asked.

For insinuating that you’re a whore.

But instead “I’m sorry” is all he repeats on a sigh as he lets her go and to his surprise she reaches to wrap an arm around his neck, pressing her body to his, burying her face in his collar.

It takes him a moment before he holds her back, biceps squeezing around her ribs.

And feeling bursts from his chest with a sob.

“I’m sorry, cariño, I’m sorry,” he kisses against her hairline, seeking forgiveness in her mouth.

“I’m going to take a shower,” is all he gets in return. “Alone.”

And she leaves Frankie standing backlit by city light, looking for all the world like a man-shaped void in her home.

Frankie thinks he should leave.

He wants desperately to run from this pain of his own creation, slip into drink in his own hotel room and pass out on the floor.

It can’t be that hard to find coke in DC.

And the thought scares him enough to make him stay.

He forces himself to move on legs of lead to collapse on her couch, screwing the heels of his palms into his eyes, listening to water against tile where she’s left the bathroom door open.

Audrey returns to him in a black linen robe, wet hair smelling of white flowers.

Darkness unfurls into night-blooming florals.

The same darkness that dry-rots him from the inside out, leaving nothing but a cloud of cheap blow behind every time something collapses.

And her manicured feet enter Frankie’s frame of view, but he doesn’t look up until she kneels down, reaching her hand to cup his scruffy jaw and tip his face to hers.

He’s crying.

She thumbs one tear from his cheek before it’s replaced with another.

Frankie engulfs her hand with his, turning to press a kiss to her palm.

“We don’t work here, Francisco.”

And she skates around her issue to get to the heart of their issue.

She’ll deal with herself later.

What they have doesn’t belong here.

In city lights, where people wear diamonds and Rolexes. Where mistresses and wives are the ones making deals to keep everything running smoothly.

Here where she moves with practiced ease.

Here where he’s lost in words that don’t mean what they say and smiles that lash instead of soothe.

Where the air draws cruel things from his throat.

“I know.”

They never intended to bring it here.

“Forgive me.” He whispers.

Forgive me the delusion.

“Forgive me, Audrey.”

Forgive me my words.

“Forgive me,” panted against her mouth, foreheads pressed flush.

Forgive me and show me you still care.

Because I don’t.

Not about my body, not about my soul, and I might damn them both tonight if you don’t forgive me.

But he’s still asking on his behalf.

“Audrey, please. Please,” he sobs.

I don’t know why I’m like this.

I don’t know where else to go.

Take me back. To before I bruised.

Bruises that blossom on her jaw now in low light.

But bruises were how they started.

And she takes his hands in her own and leads him to her bedroom where she strips layers from him. Rids him of wool and cotton and lays him in linen sheets.

She fits against his back, arm around a chest that can’t find steady breath. Audrey presses kisses to the back of his neck. Strokes his hair until sleep briefly takes him.

Like the warm body that she is.

And in the night he finds her, heated palms on her stomach, pulling her weight to rest on his hips but she peels his fingers from her skin and rolls back to her side of the bed.

He knows why he came here.

To fix what he’s done but he doesn’t know where to start sewing up the damage.

He ripped too deep.

And Frankie doesn’t know what else to do but offer his body and allow her to take what she needs.

To allow himself to be a body for her to use after his words and his fingers implied she was the same.

And she knows none of it’s true but she can’t help but feel it.

The love she doesn’t know how to give.

The family she’ll never have because she knows nothing more than how to bring death into the world.

But from where Frankie lies, tonight what she needs isn’t him.

And it brings a fresh, heaving wave of regret to crash through his chest.

_____

“I was engaged once,” she offers hours later as the blue beginnings of dawn start to light the room because she knows Frankie is still awake behind her.

“To him?”

“To a man more dangerous than you.”

“What h— what happened?”

“We were playing house in a home that was never ours.”

“We’re brutal things. Where he tries now to atone for his sins, I lean into them. We were never set up to work.”

“What does he do.”

And she doesn’t answer that particular question when she starts again.

“He was a Delta too, once upon a time.”

“What was his name?”

“Spencer.”

And it’s like a gift. Frankie knew of a Spencer who had made rank before him. Knew of the whispers that spread like wildfire through barracks of a ghost of a man who could do the impossible and he wonders if they’re one and the same.

Not unlike the woman in his arms.

“And now?”

“Sometimes we find each other on nights that get too dark. Sometimes we save one another.”

Lives and souls.

“But most times we’re nothing more than memories and whispered wishes in each other’s general directions. Each one of us hoping the other is still alive.”

“He would take you back?”

And Frankie doesn’t understand his fixation on this question, because she’s not his and never claimed to be.

But pieces of her live in the hearts and beds of other men and he desperately wants all of her for himself.

A wildcat in a cage.

A taxidermied husk with glass eyes.

A pelt to drape himself in.

He doesn’t ever ask if she would have them.

“Everyone would take me back, Frankie,” she pulls the duvet up to her ear.

“Because I’m always the one who leaves.”

“Will you leave me?”

It hangs in the air. Unanswered.

And he knows now.

She will leave.

And he will be another man who holds another piece of her.

And she will continue giving away whatever pieces of her that men will take.

Until there’s nothing left.

Nothing but murmured whispers of a ghost.

And pieces of her memory.

_____

When daylight comes, Frankie blinks hard at where sunrise streams through sheers.

Reaching out for warmth before dread blooms in his chest.

Audrey’s gone.

It’s her house and she’s gone.

And he bolts from the bed, searching for signs that she’ll return.

But he finds no note, no text, no sign.

Audrey’s left him.

_____

Author's Post Script: Messerschmitt and Spencer are actual characters that I've borrowed to play with for a moment, all credit to their original owners. Feel free to slide your guesses into my DMs if you're so inclined. Or just want to chat after all of that.

Taglist: @harriedandharassed @missladym1981 @sarcasm-theotherwhitemeat @toomanytookas @spookyxsam

Also again taking the risk to tag some lovely folks who have shown interest in this here little story. As always, please do let me know if you'd prefer not to be tagged:

@tinytinymenace @legendary-pink-dot @for-a-longlongtime @theshensei @iamskyereads @la-vie-est-une-fleur29 @soft-persephone @julesonrecord @criticalarchitecture @oliveksmoked @jessthebaker @tanzthompson @youandmeand5bucks @ems-chaos-corner @thethirstwivesclub @76bookworm76 @tuquoquebrute

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#tw: verbal abuse #tw: physical abuse #tw: mentions of self-harm #tw: suicidal thoughts #frankie morales #santiago garcia #triple frontier fanfiction #pedro pascal character fanfiction #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal #the margay #ohforficsake

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