Their First Villain

Their First Villain

Secret Santa gift for @the-modern-typewriter Prompt: "Scary villain x hero in a Christmas setting of your [the writer's] choice. Could go spicy, could go whumpy, could go unexpectedly sweet!" Hope you like this! Merry Christmas!! 🎅🎁

“You recognised me,” the villain observes, his tone unnaturally flat. His face betrays no emotion.

“Kinda hard not to, with your…” – the hero tilts their head at where the villain’s magic continues to spread, coiling around their limbs and securely fixing them in place – “…snake thingies?”

The individual tendrils really do vaguely resemble snakes, although the magic in its entirety reminds them more of some writhing alien monster plant from an old Sci-fi B-movie whose title they cannot remember. It’s not a good comparison anyway. The movie hadn’t been scary at all.

They experimentally try to wrestle one of their arms free, but despite the magic’s apparent fluidity, the moment they push or pull in any direction, whatever give appeared to be there all but disappears and they can’t move a millimetre.

“Oh.” The villain’s eyes widen. “You can see it.”

“See it. Feel it. Didn’t expect it to be this hot.”

An awkward pause follows.

They are decidedly not blushing. It’s just warm. All of them is so warm now that the villain’s powers have moulded themselves around the hero like something liquid but alive. Wherever the tendrils touch bare skin – their ungloved hands and that area just above their ankles where their pants don’t quite meet the rims of their boots – the raw energy buzzes, prickles just short of stinging.

They’d been shivering just minutes ago in their much too thin poncho and the not seasonally appropriate Agency office uniform. Well, they still are shivering, just no longer from the cold.

Where the villain’s magic is fever-hot, his scrutiny runs icy.

“You can see it, but not fight it,” he muses. “How curious. The Agency must be understaffed to send their defenceless little office drones out into the field.”

The hero would be glaring if the villain weren’t underscoring the point by pulling his magic tighter with the mere flick of a finger. That small, anxious sound that escapes them in response brings a self-satisfied grin to the villain’s lips.

“It’s Christmas,” the hero says, once the magic has settled again.

The villain raises a brow.

“Most of the regulars are on holiday, Christmas being a time best spent with family … or so I’m told.”

“Yet you are working.”

“Don’t have anyone.” They aren’t technically without family just … Sometimes, family isn’t a place of refuge and welcome. Not a home to turn to for holiday celebrations or company. Some families fashion themselves exclusive clubs with strict rules that refuse or revoke memberships as they please. The hero forces some levity into their tone. “I have nowhere else to be today, so, I’m helping out here.”

The villain chuckles. “Helping is perhaps not what I would call that.”

“Hey, I did recognise you,” they say, defensively.

“And look where that got you.” His smile is sharper than before, meaner. “Am I your first villain? My heartfelt condolences.”

They don’t dignify that with an answer. But the answer is yes. The villains they watched being interrogated through one-way mirrors at HQ don't count.

“Pity,” the villain says with zero warmth, “that you couldn’t just look the other way. What is it with you people that you're always so eager to cause unnecessary conflict.”

“Reporting suspicious behaviour is kind of my job.” It comes out barely above a whisper and carries the distinct cadence of an apology.

“Ah yes, and my mere existence struck you as suspicious behaviour because …”

Admittedly, once they’d recognised the villain, they hadn’t taken the time to consider his appearance beyond the magic he’d been wearing around his shoulders like a particularly weaponizable scarf. The lack of a combat suit in favour of a sleek, dark coat over a woollen jumper and cargo joggers – either an outfit designed to blend in or just what the villain happens to like to wear when he isn’t working – hadn’t registered any more than the total absence of weaponry other than his powers. And while he could have hidden those better, it’s not like he could have simply left them at home.

There hadn’t been time to ponder. It had all happened so fast. Their eyes had met, and a moment later the hero had already been scrambling away from the crowd, past a stall selling mulled wine and into the nearest alley, where they’d scrolled through their contacts with stiff, unfeeling fingers. The villain had caught up with them before they’d managed to call for backup.

Their gaze darts to the remnants of their smashed phone, sprinkled across the muddy snow, mere metres away but entirely useless even if they could reach it.

What if the villain hadn’t had anything nefarious planned? What if the hero’s brain had naturally jumped to the most prejudiced conclusion all on its own?

Of course, it is unfair to treat his mere presence as if it is a crime. But the things he could do ...

They think about the parents with their cameras, filming their ice-skating children, the squealing toddlers on the merry-go-round, the nice old ladies selling tea out of the back of a car.

“You could be a danger to all those innocent people,” they defend their judgement.

“And you could be a danger to me,” the villain replies coolly. “Would be unwise, letting someone roam free who can pick me out of a crowd with a glance. Perhaps I should thank you for revealing yourself. Very ill-advised. But quite convenient. You were so obvious about it, too.”

He has crossed the distance between them while speaking. Close enough now to reach out and tuck an unruly strand of hair behind their ear with his cold, slender fingers. His other hand settles almost gently on their throat, atop the magic that has slivered around their neck at some point during the conversation.

The tip of a new tendril is in the process of worming its way lower, nestling into the collar of their shirt. It laps against the crook of their neck and they cringe away from the touch as much as the magic allows. It doesn’t hurt. It would be so much easier if it did. The touch is light; it kind of tickles and, given the overall direness of the situation, the hero really isn’t in the mood for that. Or, they shouldn’t be.

Unhelpfully, their traitorous mind supplies them with a thoroughly inappropriate image of what else someone who isn’t the enemy could be doing to them with magic such as this.

“Tell me,” the villain says as the power shifts upwards, tilting their chin back with the movement, so his nails can bite into the newly exposed skin below their jaw, “is there anything else troublesome about you, or is it just the eyes?”

He looks most pleased when their breath hitches despite their best efforts to remain stoic. His grip tightens. He’s studying them intently, staring at their eyes like those are priced gems he considers adding to his collection.

Maybe, underneath the mockery, he actually does consider them somewhat of a threat. If he didn’t, why would he be looking at them like that.

It’s stupid, truly and utterly stupid, to feel flattered. This is not respect, they know, just sharp, calculating consideration. His attention promises imminent danger, might turn lethal at any second. It’s not something they should revel in. Still, it feels good, too – being seen.

Has anyone ever really seen them before?

Or perhaps that is the lack of oxygen speaking.

They struggle to focus their vision but all the twinkling Christmas lights in the trees are starting to smudge into dull, red and golden blurs. Vertigo is clawing at them.

There is absolutely nothing they can do against the villain's grip. They're so pitifully out of their depth.

They think about their bland, only half-furnished two-room apartment; their first day at the Agency HQ; their nth day – no more eventful than the first – sitting at the exact same desk in the exact same office and working on the exact same old computer; their colleagues’ looks of pity when their 14th application for a transfer to field work is being denied and their boss tells them, in stern admonishment, that their skill sets just aren’t suited to solo missions. They think about her condescending smile when she finally does assign them the Christmas market job, clearly convinced the worst thing that could possibly happen here is people getting drunk enough on punch to start throwing punches.

They think of their first split-second impression of the villain as just another guy standing by the ice rink with a cup of something steaming in his hands and a mellow, unguarded smile curving his lips.

They hope this montage doesn’t count as their life flashing before their eyes. It’s way too sad a summary of their depressing lack of accomplishments.

They think, with equal parts age-old bitterness and new-found sarcastic vindication, about their colleagues’ infantile, unofficial, end-of-the-year office rankings where flashier heroes with more impressive abilities always receive titles such as most likely to hook up with a hot reporter or most epic battle or best one-liners.

Meanwhile, all the hero has to show for are three consecutive wins of least likely to die on the job.

Which might have been a reassuring sentiment if it weren’t so clearly code for “you’ll never be a real hero”. Real heroes risk their lives on the job all the time.

Well, look at them now!

Will their colleagues manage to come up with a new title for them in time, they wonder, if the villain kills them now, just a week before this year’s poll results will be released?

Most unexpected death has a nice ring to it.

They should be trembling in terror. Might have, if the villain’s magic weren’t encasing them so – tight but soft and deceptively warm, lulling them in. The sticky heat of it leaves them squirming, stuck in a confusing limbo between gooey not-quite-discomfort and hot-bath sluggishness.

They’re drifting. Until they’re not.

It’s impossible to discern how much time has passed or when exactly the villain has released them; but their thoughts are beginning to clear and their brain catches up to the fact that there is air in their lungs again, and that the breathless, hiccuping gasps uncontrollably tumbling out of their mouth aren’t sobs. It’s laughter.

“Are you enjoying this?” The villain sounds incredulous.

They shake their head. “I don’t know,” they manage, between hysterical giggles. “Maybe. Yes?”

“How did you know I wouldn’t kill you?”

“I didn’t.”

That startles a short laugh out of him.

“I’ve never” – they pant, still struggling for air – “felt this alive before.”

“That sounds ... unhealthy.”

There is a long pause in which the villain silently stares at them while they are more or less regaining control over their breathing.

“You wouldn’t get it,” they say then, perfectly aware they must seem most unhinged. “Bet you don't even know what boredom is. Because your life is fun. Mine is not. I practically live at my stupid job, and my stupid job doesn't even pay well. No one there gives a fuck about me. And nothing exciting ever happens. So can I please just have this one damn moment without being judged?”

The villain hums, low. “And here I thought we were ruining each other’s days.” He presses a hand to their forehead. “Did the heat fry your synapses?” he asks, sounding more amused than concerned. His other hand comes up to cup the nape of their neck, as if he can’t help but reach out. Just as they can’t help but lean into the cooling touch. His gaze drops, as if drawn, to their lips. “Or, are you just naturally this unusual?”

They can smell gingerbread and mulled wine on his breath.

“Are you going to kiss me?” they ask, because yes their synapses are definitely fried and they do not care about consequences, awkwardness, or sanity anymore.

“Would you like me to kiss you?”

“I’d certainly much rather be kissed than killed. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” he repeats, smirking. “But we've established I’m not about to kill you. And that wasn’t a yes.”

“It’s not a no either.”

“Not how consent works, darling.”

They scoff. “You didn’t ask for consent first when you strangled me five minutes ago.”

The villain laughs again, in genuine delight judging by how his magic ripples and purrs.

“Okay, fair enough,” he whispers, shifting so his lips almost brush theirs.

The kiss that follows is sweet, surprisingly chaste, and initiated by the hero.

“So, since you mentioned earlier you have nowhere else to be today,” the villain says, afterwards, mischief gleaming in his eyes. “Have you ever had the pleasure of being kidnapped?”

Pleasure, as it turns out over the course of the next few hours, is an understatement.

If anyone at the office were to find out what the hero has been up to during their first (and best) and possibly only solo field mission, not only are they guaranteed to get fired, their colleagues will also surely create an entirely new office ranking category in their honour:

First to be seduced by a supervillain.