Lewis Fic: Prophesy in Part
Aug. 27th, 2013 09:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kat_lair***
Title: Prophesy in Part
Author: Mistress Kat /![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kat_lair
Fandom: Lewis
Characters/Pairing: Lewis & Williams (OMC) (background pre-Hathaway/Lewis)
Genre: Dragon!AU, ‘missing scene’
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1,479
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
Summary: A ‘missing scene’ from between the penultimate and the last scenes of Snow After Fire. Lewis confronts Williams.
Excessively long author notes: So what happened is that I started writing a new ‘Dream of Dragons’ fic for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
lewis_challenge Summer Challenge 2013. And then I hit 5.5k on it and realised it still needed at least 2k of text except I had no idea how to set up the principal scene. At which point I switched tactics and wrote this (in two hours). Then today I realised I was supposed to post yesterday... I’m a winner /o\ Anyway, what’s the point of modding a challenge if you can’t change your posting date post hoc... Many thanks to margaret_r for a speedy beta and to pushkin666 for the handholding. Title is from 1 Corinthians 13: 9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
Lewis chooses to have this confrontation in the hotel where Williams and the other NDA agents are staying. Some – Williams most certainly – would say that makes him a coward; to have it out in a public place like that, a human dwelling no less and in human form. Lewis doesn’t care. Or he does, but not about what Williams or any of his cronies might think. He cares about limiting the damage. There’s already been a dead dragon, and a dead man, and for Williams only one of those counts but Lewis is determined not to add to the body count.
No matter how tempted he is to just go there and rip Williams’ head off.
Although, to be fair, that feeling is hardly new, nor is it unreturned.
The NDA agents are staying in a local Premier Inn, which surprises Lewis. It’s much less flash than he was expecting, certainly more low key than the places Williams used to stay before, and after, he joined the NDA. Something about it is making his shoulders tense and if he was in his proper form at the moment, Lewis knows his tail would be moving from side to side.
The dearly held fantasy of sinking his claws into Williams’ hide surfaces again but Lewis suppresses it, flashing his ID badge to the receptionist and getting the required room number with ease.
He takes the lift up to the fifth floor, studying his reflection in the mirror. He is always startled by just how old and worn he looks as a human; the thinning hair, the thickening waist, and the deep grooves of worry on his face speak of years beyond how he feels. Time doesn’t touch dragons the same way it does humans, but it doesn’t leave them behind either.
All things are mortal, even dragons. Lewis remembers that better than most of his kind.
A recorded voice informs him that he’s arrived to his destination, and Lewis steps out onto the bland hotel corridor.
A young female dragon is waiting for him. Her human form is petite but she stands her ground, arms crossed and jaw tilted defiantly. Lewis muses that if she was in her natural form, her wings would probably be spread for extra effect too. It would almost be amusing if it wasn’t so annoying right now.
“Sha’lah fien’e’dar,” Lewis says, which roughly translates to ‘greetings young one’. “I’m here to talk to Agent Williams.” He knows Williams’ real name of course but it’s doubtful that this child does.
“I am Agent Anna O’Connor,” the dragon says, visibly bristling about the reference to her age. She doesn’t offer her actual name for which Lewis is grateful. Tradition dictates that he should do the same in return and he has no interest in building that kind of connections with any new dragons.
“Agent Williams does not want to talk with anyone right now,” she adds.
“Well that makes two of us,” Lewis comments drily. “Believe me, I don’t particularly want to talk with anyone at the moment either, least of all him, but talk we shall.”
He circles around O’Connor and takes two steps toward Williams’ room when there is a hand at his elbow. Lewis’ composure snaps. “Girrah, young one!” He turns around, snarling. “You better not touch me again. I am your elder and I will pass.” He looms over O’Connor, using his height to his advantage. “My fight is not with you and I do not have the patience.” He lets his shape blur, just a little, until he can feel his face shifting; jaw pushing forward, teeth elongating.
“Enough!” Williams’ voice comes from the end of the corridor. “Stop scaring the children, Robbie. It’s bad form.”
“Can’t be any worse than killing suspects,” Lewis says but backs away from the wide-eyed O’Connor and stalks toward Williams. “We need to talk.”
“I was expecting you earlier,” Williams says, his voice mocking as he holds open the door to his room. “Busy calming down your blond ver’ie’l?”
“Hathaway isn’t a pet.” Lewis says angrily and then immediately regrets letting Williams goad him into revealing anything about his relationship with his sergeant. “And I’m not here to talk about him.”
“Well not directly,” Williams agrees. They’re standing at the either side of the small double room, Willams’ suitcase already packed and waiting in the middle of the floor. He doesn’t invite Lewis to sit and Lewis doesn’t expect it. The two of them got past playing at fake pleasantries decades ago, or at least Lewis did. Williams is the type to gain twisted pleasure from serving tea to people he hates and despises.
“But he is relevant,” Williams continues. “He could cause all sorts of... inconvenience, if he keeps poking his nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“Inconvenience?” Lewis asks. “A man is dead and you call that inconvenience?”
“No, I call that justice,” Williams answers, his calm exterior starting to crack now.
“Oh get off it! Webber’s death had nothing to do with Lisa. You didn’t give a damn about her, you didn’t even know her!”
“I didn’t need to! She was a dragon and that makes her worth a hundred Webbers!”
Lewis opens his mouth to shout back only to realise exactly what it is that Williams is doing. He’s trying to distract Lewis by dragging him into their old argument about humans and it’s working.
“Why did you kill Webber?” Lewis asks. “We had him, confession and all. There was no need to—”
“You know why,” Williams says. “You know why there was every need.”
Something cold and jagged twists in Lewis’ gut, something a lot like fear. This is not the answer he was hoping to hear, and really it says a lot when what he’d wished for was more of Williams’ ‘humans are inferior’ crap. Lewis shakes his head in denial. “It’s a myth,” he says. b was insane.”
“Sure.” Williams smiles. “But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t right.” He walks to the bed, opens up the laptop case resting there and pulls out a thin book. Its covers are scratched, like it’s not been particularly well looked after.
“Where did you get that?” Lewis breathes. As far as he knows the book should be in Avebury.
Williams ignores him. Instead he opens the first page and starts reading, the Dragonese flowing from his human tongue clumsy but perfectly understandable: “There will come a time of black seas and scorched earth, when the stars will wane and the old stones are turned to dust. And the children of the First Snake will save the mice so that their children may eat. More and more will wake, to seek warmth of the Sun that burns hotter and blood that spills quicker, to make way to the Great Wyrm who already stirs from his slumber.”
There is a knowing, a racial memory deep in his marrow, that settles over him. Lewis breaks out in cold sweat. “You’re insane,” he says, thinking: But so am I.
Williams doesn’t seem to hear him. He strokes the book almost reverently, packing it away. Lewis swallows. “Alright, so say that... That someone convinced Webber this was true, you obviously think it is... What did killing Webber achieve? You’re trying to... what? Stop people from knowing? Stop the prophecy from coming true?”
Williams lifts his head, staring at Lewis in genuine confusion. “How could I try to stop it?” he asks, head tilted curiously, his eyes changing colour and shape so rapidly it’s making Lewis queasy; dragon, human, dragon again. “Why would I?”
And it is then that Lewis understands the full, terrible extent of Williams’ motivation. True or not, he is not trying to prevent the prophecy from happening. He’s trying to ensure it.
And anyone getting in his way is likely to meet an end similar to that of Matt Webber.
“I don’t like you,” Williams says with no malice in is voice. “But you are a dragon. Your sergeant on the other hand...”
“Keep your claws off Hathaway,” Lewis says, unable and unwilling to keep the blatant threat out of his voice.
“Then keep your pet on a tight leash,” Williams counters. He shoulders his laptop bag and grabs his suitcase, stepping around Lewis. “Must be off now,” he adds, before opening the room door. “IPCC wants to interview me tomorrow.” With that, he walks out.
Lewis stares at the empty doorway for the longest time before following him out. The corridor is empty, Williams, O’Connor and the other NDA agents already gone. It is only a matter of time until the IPCC will contact him and Hathaway and Lewis will have to find a way to tell the truth that doesn’t draw attention to Williams’ motivations.
Because if he doesn’t, the two of them may draw the attention of something infinitely worse than Williams.
***
Title: Prophesy in Part
Author: Mistress Kat /
kat_lairFandom: Lewis
Characters/Pairing: Lewis & Williams (OMC) (background pre-Hathaway/Lewis)
Genre: Dragon!AU, ‘missing scene’
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1,479
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
Summary: A ‘missing scene’ from between the penultimate and the last scenes of Snow After Fire. Lewis confronts Williams.
Excessively long author notes: So what happened is that I started writing a new ‘Dream of Dragons’ fic for the
lewis_challenge Summer Challenge 2013. And then I hit 5.5k on it and realised it still needed at least 2k of text except I had no idea how to set up the principal scene. At which point I switched tactics and wrote this (in two hours). Then today I realised I was supposed to post yesterday... I’m a winner /o\ Anyway, what’s the point of modding a challenge if you can’t change your posting date post hoc... Many thanks to margaret_r for a speedy beta and to pushkin666 for the handholding. Title is from 1 Corinthians 13: 9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.Lewis chooses to have this confrontation in the hotel where Williams and the other NDA agents are staying. Some – Williams most certainly – would say that makes him a coward; to have it out in a public place like that, a human dwelling no less and in human form. Lewis doesn’t care. Or he does, but not about what Williams or any of his cronies might think. He cares about limiting the damage. There’s already been a dead dragon, and a dead man, and for Williams only one of those counts but Lewis is determined not to add to the body count.
No matter how tempted he is to just go there and rip Williams’ head off.
Although, to be fair, that feeling is hardly new, nor is it unreturned.
The NDA agents are staying in a local Premier Inn, which surprises Lewis. It’s much less flash than he was expecting, certainly more low key than the places Williams used to stay before, and after, he joined the NDA. Something about it is making his shoulders tense and if he was in his proper form at the moment, Lewis knows his tail would be moving from side to side.
The dearly held fantasy of sinking his claws into Williams’ hide surfaces again but Lewis suppresses it, flashing his ID badge to the receptionist and getting the required room number with ease.
He takes the lift up to the fifth floor, studying his reflection in the mirror. He is always startled by just how old and worn he looks as a human; the thinning hair, the thickening waist, and the deep grooves of worry on his face speak of years beyond how he feels. Time doesn’t touch dragons the same way it does humans, but it doesn’t leave them behind either.
All things are mortal, even dragons. Lewis remembers that better than most of his kind.
A recorded voice informs him that he’s arrived to his destination, and Lewis steps out onto the bland hotel corridor.
A young female dragon is waiting for him. Her human form is petite but she stands her ground, arms crossed and jaw tilted defiantly. Lewis muses that if she was in her natural form, her wings would probably be spread for extra effect too. It would almost be amusing if it wasn’t so annoying right now.
“Sha’lah fien’e’dar,” Lewis says, which roughly translates to ‘greetings young one’. “I’m here to talk to Agent Williams.” He knows Williams’ real name of course but it’s doubtful that this child does.
“I am Agent Anna O’Connor,” the dragon says, visibly bristling about the reference to her age. She doesn’t offer her actual name for which Lewis is grateful. Tradition dictates that he should do the same in return and he has no interest in building that kind of connections with any new dragons.
“Agent Williams does not want to talk with anyone right now,” she adds.
“Well that makes two of us,” Lewis comments drily. “Believe me, I don’t particularly want to talk with anyone at the moment either, least of all him, but talk we shall.”
He circles around O’Connor and takes two steps toward Williams’ room when there is a hand at his elbow. Lewis’ composure snaps. “Girrah, young one!” He turns around, snarling. “You better not touch me again. I am your elder and I will pass.” He looms over O’Connor, using his height to his advantage. “My fight is not with you and I do not have the patience.” He lets his shape blur, just a little, until he can feel his face shifting; jaw pushing forward, teeth elongating.
“Enough!” Williams’ voice comes from the end of the corridor. “Stop scaring the children, Robbie. It’s bad form.”
“Can’t be any worse than killing suspects,” Lewis says but backs away from the wide-eyed O’Connor and stalks toward Williams. “We need to talk.”
“I was expecting you earlier,” Williams says, his voice mocking as he holds open the door to his room. “Busy calming down your blond ver’ie’l?”
“Hathaway isn’t a pet.” Lewis says angrily and then immediately regrets letting Williams goad him into revealing anything about his relationship with his sergeant. “And I’m not here to talk about him.”
“Well not directly,” Williams agrees. They’re standing at the either side of the small double room, Willams’ suitcase already packed and waiting in the middle of the floor. He doesn’t invite Lewis to sit and Lewis doesn’t expect it. The two of them got past playing at fake pleasantries decades ago, or at least Lewis did. Williams is the type to gain twisted pleasure from serving tea to people he hates and despises.
“But he is relevant,” Williams continues. “He could cause all sorts of... inconvenience, if he keeps poking his nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“Inconvenience?” Lewis asks. “A man is dead and you call that inconvenience?”
“No, I call that justice,” Williams answers, his calm exterior starting to crack now.
“Oh get off it! Webber’s death had nothing to do with Lisa. You didn’t give a damn about her, you didn’t even know her!”
“I didn’t need to! She was a dragon and that makes her worth a hundred Webbers!”
Lewis opens his mouth to shout back only to realise exactly what it is that Williams is doing. He’s trying to distract Lewis by dragging him into their old argument about humans and it’s working.
“Why did you kill Webber?” Lewis asks. “We had him, confession and all. There was no need to—”
“You know why,” Williams says. “You know why there was every need.”
Something cold and jagged twists in Lewis’ gut, something a lot like fear. This is not the answer he was hoping to hear, and really it says a lot when what he’d wished for was more of Williams’ ‘humans are inferior’ crap. Lewis shakes his head in denial. “It’s a myth,” he says. b was insane.”
“Sure.” Williams smiles. “But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t right.” He walks to the bed, opens up the laptop case resting there and pulls out a thin book. Its covers are scratched, like it’s not been particularly well looked after.
“Where did you get that?” Lewis breathes. As far as he knows the book should be in Avebury.
Williams ignores him. Instead he opens the first page and starts reading, the Dragonese flowing from his human tongue clumsy but perfectly understandable: “There will come a time of black seas and scorched earth, when the stars will wane and the old stones are turned to dust. And the children of the First Snake will save the mice so that their children may eat. More and more will wake, to seek warmth of the Sun that burns hotter and blood that spills quicker, to make way to the Great Wyrm who already stirs from his slumber.”
There is a knowing, a racial memory deep in his marrow, that settles over him. Lewis breaks out in cold sweat. “You’re insane,” he says, thinking: But so am I.
Williams doesn’t seem to hear him. He strokes the book almost reverently, packing it away. Lewis swallows. “Alright, so say that... That someone convinced Webber this was true, you obviously think it is... What did killing Webber achieve? You’re trying to... what? Stop people from knowing? Stop the prophecy from coming true?”
Williams lifts his head, staring at Lewis in genuine confusion. “How could I try to stop it?” he asks, head tilted curiously, his eyes changing colour and shape so rapidly it’s making Lewis queasy; dragon, human, dragon again. “Why would I?”
And it is then that Lewis understands the full, terrible extent of Williams’ motivation. True or not, he is not trying to prevent the prophecy from happening. He’s trying to ensure it.
And anyone getting in his way is likely to meet an end similar to that of Matt Webber.
“I don’t like you,” Williams says with no malice in is voice. “But you are a dragon. Your sergeant on the other hand...”
“Keep your claws off Hathaway,” Lewis says, unable and unwilling to keep the blatant threat out of his voice.
“Then keep your pet on a tight leash,” Williams counters. He shoulders his laptop bag and grabs his suitcase, stepping around Lewis. “Must be off now,” he adds, before opening the room door. “IPCC wants to interview me tomorrow.” With that, he walks out.
Lewis stares at the empty doorway for the longest time before following him out. The corridor is empty, Williams, O’Connor and the other NDA agents already gone. It is only a matter of time until the IPCC will contact him and Hathaway and Lewis will have to find a way to tell the truth that doesn’t draw attention to Williams’ motivations.
Because if he doesn’t, the two of them may draw the attention of something infinitely worse than Williams.
***
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2013-08-28 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
on 2013-08-28 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2013-09-06 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2013-09-07 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
on 2013-11-03 06:09 pm (UTC)Incidentally, you use the American spelling of 'prophesy' and in Brit English that only applies to the verb - the noun is 'prophecy'. It doesn't normally matter, provided you're consistent, but as it's a Brit show (and you're not American)...
no subject
on 2013-11-03 07:50 pm (UTC)Huh! Live and learn, for some reason I thought the 'prophesy' form was the British spelling... goes to change it for the nouns! Thanks!