Chapter Text
“YOU HAVEN’T ACTUALLY stated what you want.”
Kieran looks up from the kitchen sink as he finishes up washing the dishes, his hands moving to shut the running tap. “Huh?”
“The bet,” Lauren shrugs. She’s seated on the stool facing him, resting her chin on a hand while the other arm lays flat on the table. “You won the second bet, you get anything you want.”
Kieran dries his hands, before taking a seat on the chair opposite her. “Right,” he ponders on it for a while. “Okay, I thought of something.”
“Here you are, berating me for not giving much thought into my request, yet throwing one out in less than a minute.”
Kieran shrugs, smirking. “I’ve thought about it for a while, actually.” Not a lie. “I just wasn’t quite sure when to say it, but now’s as good a time as any, I suppose.”
Lauren regards him with deep curiosity. “What is it?”
“I want you… to hear me out.”
She raises an eyebrow, yet his expression remains solemn. “Out of all the things you could ask for, you ask for… an ear?”
“An uninterrupted communication, is what I’m asking for,” Kieran corrects. “I know you have a tendency to argue.”
“No, I do not,” Lauren scoffs.
“You literally just did.”
“Well, I have to argue that I don’t— gods, is this what Lukas felt like when you called him out for thinking about Lila?”
Kieran raises his brows in agreement. “Some things you just can’t get yourself out of,” he smirks cheekily.
“Fine,” she sulks. “I’ll hear you out… and give my arguments after.”
“I’d say no arguments, but I think that’s asking too much of you.”
“Indeed, that is. I’ll try not to, anyway. What is it?” What is it about that he doesn’t even want to hear her argument? She’s not sure she’s ready to hear it, but unfortunately it seems like she has no time to prepare for the truth.
Kieran’s face shifts to that of pensivity. He rests his arms on the table ahead of him, linking his hands together. “I know our circumstances are… horrible.”
Lauren is two seconds away from complaining, before remembering his request. She should honor it—after all, he won the bet fair and square, and he did honor her request, even if he’s not completely with the idea. She closes her mouth, nodding instead.
“I’ve hurt you,” Kieran states, soft but clear. “I don’t expect you to see me as anything less than monstrous, and you shouldn’t, because I’ve gone too far to be considered anything human. I know,” he adds hurriedly as he sees the shift in her expressions, ready to fire as always. “I know. You’ve been with me tonight, you’ve seen a decent side of me. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m a murderer, and that I’ve murdered so many people and deprived their families of them.”
Lauren swallows the words back down her gut. He’s not wrong. He never is.
“But I do want you to know…”
Lauren watches him intently. Kieran is rarely ever hesitant in his words, spare that one moment he apologized to her when they were locked in the janitor’s closet in the Carmine Camelia. She doesn’t think she can brace herself for another… raw and honest conversation, but she doesn’t really get a choice anymore. Her hand drops from her chin as she sits a little straighter, her fists clenching a little tighter.
“You helped me… a lot. And for that… I thank you.”
Lauren wants to argue that he’s probably helped her more than she does him. He’s been the one getting progress on their search, the one who’s been saving her life more often than not, even helping her in regards to her personal matters with Tim Sake. If anyone should be thanking anyone, it should be her thanking him, not the other way around.
But she doesn’t interrupt, as she’s promised. She finds that she doesn’t need to, because he clarifies right after: “I don’t mean it in the sense that you helped me in my progress in finding the leader.”
He stays silent for a while, and she watches as his Adam’s apple bob up and down. Clearly, whatever he’s saying is taking him as much effort as it takes for her to digest. Then, he says, “Just… Thank you, Lauren, for a lot of things. I don’t know what your real reasons are for this date, but whatever it is— I hope you’re not getting your hopes up.”
Lauren gives him a questioning look.
“Don’t… forget who I am, Lauren. Don’t mistake me for any other human.”
She hears her heart drop.
She probably should’ve seen it coming. She knows from his infrequent lies that, if there’s anyone who can’t ever forgive the Purple Hyacinth, it’s not Lauren Sinclair—it’s Kieran White himself.
Lauren lets out a shaky exhale, trying for a smile, but it wavers weakly. “You know, if Will is here, he’ll probably call you out on his logic bullshit.”
Kieran blinks. “Huh?”
“Your statements are contradictory. You tell me not to see you as human, but you’re showing me a side of you that’s… painfully human.”
For a moment, the world seems to slow down as she looks into his cerulean eyes, filled with so much emotion that it doesn’t feel like she’s looking at Kieran White himself, and yet, terribly him at the same time. Truly, she thinks, that when the two of them—the biggest set of contradictions to ever exist—are placed together, all sorts of things happen, and everything between them simply feels like a series of explosions.
Kieran mirrors her sad smile, and lets his gaze fall to his hands, where his fingers fiddle with each other. Then he recomposes himself, giving her a forced smirk.
“Okay, here’s a deal.”
“A deal?”
“Let’s try not to fall in love with each other.”
Lauren blinks, then a few more times. She lets out a speechless scoff. “I—now hold on a second. Let’s not even assume we’ll ever fall in love with each other to begin with,” she says with a disbelieving chuckle, eyes wide. She doesn’t quite understand why her heart is picking up the speed at which it pumps, to the point she’s sure even he can hear her heartbeat.
Kieran’s grin definitely does nothing to slow it down. “Sure, love. The way you speak of me, you make it sound like you’re already halfway there.”
“Says you, Mr. Kieran ‘you helped me a lot’ White.”
Kieran shrugs. “Which is why I’m offering the bet. First to fall, loses.”
“Gods, I can’t believe you,” Lauren exhales, pushing her hair back. “What will I even gain from this?”
“Well, y’know, if you win, there’s none of that moral dilemma that comes with loving an assassin, you can spare yourself the heartbreak when I eventually get myself killed, et cetera…”
Lauren wants to smirk, but the joke hits a little too close to home for her to even feel the mirth. “And if you win? What do you gain?”
Kieran lets out a soft smile, one she definitely hasn’t been expecting, and it tugs on her heartstrings even further. “I don’t know, one less detriment from being a ruthless murderer?”
“The truth, Kieran.”
“Was I lying?”
“The real truth.”
“Do you really want to know the truth?” Kieran challenges, an eyebrow raised. “You don’t want to bet to lose, will you?”
As always, he realizes earlier than she does—he knows that her knowing his true intentions will only make her have more pity for him, and that she’ll lose way faster if he keeps showing her that human side of his, the side that makes her want to like him—or even love him.
He’s right, as he is always.
She can’t love him.
And because Kieran White has a point—that they shouldn’t fall in love with each other, that they’re too impossible—that one is an assassin and the other is a police officer, that they cannot afford to love the other with all their heart without their mind giving them hell for it—she knows that his bet is for their own benefit, that it is best to go along with it, to fight her growing feelings for as long as she can.
He offers a hand, and she is taken back to all their previous deals under the moonlight.
Have any of them ever been a good idea? No, and this one will probably be the worst one yet. But Lauren Sinclair is never really good at making wise decisions to begin with, and she cannot deny the thrill that comes along the prospect of the bet.
She can’t love him.
She takes the hand. Electric sparks shoot up her nerves, and she familiarizes the feeling—this is something she’ll have to get used to, if she wants to win.
“So it begins, mon amour,” Kieran says softly, a playful smirk on his face—because this is meant to be a competition to them.
“So it begins, subordinate.”
And though by all logic, it makes complete sense for Lauren Sinclair to be confident in winning—because after all, how can she love the Purple Hyacinth?—no explanation can satisfy the urge to look away from his gaze, the feeling of fireworks in her gut, the clenching of the heart.
She can’t love him.
She thinks she can hear her heart trash against her ribcage in resistance, screaming otherwise.
Perhaps contradictions have always been better left unexplored to begin with.