Sweet As Honey (Five Hargreeves/The Umbrella Academy)

10

TW

Honey was sitting across from the Handler, who sat perched on the edge of her desk right in front of her. Her elegantly crossed legs nearly brushed her knees where she sat, feeling small and far too scrutinised for her liking.

Her arm was no longer bandaged up but the stitches were still in tact under her white shirt, itchy and aching terribly, as it had been for the last couple of days.

Honey had thought at first, when she wasn't immediately called into a meeting to talk about her fuck up, that perhaps the Handler didn't know and she had been given a break. That was swept out the window when she visited one of the nurses to check how it was healing.

About an hour later and there she was, sitting in her bosses office feeling like she was in trouble for something she didn't quite understand.

The conversation started amiably, almost normally - how she was, how the job had gone; Honey had been vague and kept most of the details to herself, although the more she talked, the longer the Handler's eagle eyes pierced through her soul, and the more her internal thoughts screamed at her that she already knew.

And Honey knew, of course, by the telltale upwards lift of her ruby painted lips that she knew.

And she could tell by how she stubbed out her cigarette stick onto the ashtray beside her thigh, watching the ashes disintegrate against the ornate glass, that she was not happy.

"How is it, sharing the workload with dear Number Five?" Her smooth, purring voice sent unwanted shivers across Honey's skin, and she could tell by the greedy look in her eye that the Handler wanted something from her.

Something she could not - would not - give.

Because Five Hargreeve's was a dick, yes, but she could never have imagined seeing him crumble under the guilt of the other night so blatantly. She had never imagined seen his hands, so adept at destroying, piece her skin back together as though she were glass and he held the glue.

Honey sat slightly bent forwards, shoulders slumped in on themselves as though to make herself smaller in the wooden seat. "I don't think he likes me very much." She told her evenly.

The woman laughed, eyes dancing with something she couldn't describe, and Honey could feel the harsh side of one of her crimson heels brushing against her shin. "Darling, you're adorable. How could anyone not like you?"

She didn't like the way it sounded coming from her mouth, not in that tone. She bristled in her chair and stayed quiet, eyed dropping down to her lap as she stiffly grasped her fingers so they didn't fidget and betray her.

"Anything else?" She asked the question like she already knew the answer, and it made her feel sick.

"He knows that I'm placed on the job to spy on him," she told her plainly. At this, the Handler raised an eyebrow but didn't comment, just listening. She hesitated. "He doesn't trust me because he knows about our meetings."

She smiled, then, a predatory gleam in her eye. "The talking part, or the other part?"

Honey lowered her gaze again, feeling trapped in her line of sight. "Talking." Her throat was dry. She struggled to swallow.

She hummed, uncrossing her legs to stand in front of her and Honey kept her gaze fixed on the floor as the slow, methodical tap of her shoes surrounded her, circling the chair she was in.

"Well, that certainly is a shame."

Honey felt one of her cold hands graze up her shoulder and play with the collar of her shirt, her freshly manicured nails like talons against her skin; she fought the urge to shrink away from her touch, like a mouse caught between the claws of a cat, toying with it's food.