//𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 (Lee Christmas x Reader)

one.

"These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow."

-William Shakespeare

---

Trench Mauser was a successful businessman, and he had a bit of a hand in politics, too. He was responsible, straight forward, and a good guy to smoke a cigar with at the end of a long day at work. He could drink his weight in beer and still be sharp come the morning, could crack jokes like the rest of them despite his stony outward appearance, and he loved his daughter the way any father should love their daughter: with his entire being.

But Trench Mauser really did like to kill.

He liked the rain of gunfire storming around him. He liked the scent of mud and blood and sweat and gunfire and gasoline. He liked the sounds of explosions and automatic rifles firing shot after shot after shot.

He would never admit that he liked it. He would never admit that he liked to kill. But in his line of business, if you didn't like to kill- didn't like the chase- then you were going nowhere incredibly fast.

On days when he was younger and his daughter would test her limits with his nerves, he'd find himself wanting nothing more than to be in some jungle blackop-ing his way over enemy lines. Picky with her food after he already set the meal down? God, what he wouldn't give to be throwing a grenade into a tank at that very moment. Fighting because she got a bad grade on her report card? Damn, he'd love nothing more than to be running through an exploding compound. Catching her sneaking out with her no good friends getting piercings and talking to boys? Holy shit, he would do anything to be in deep cover in some desert ready to covertly assassinate a warlord.

Trench Mauser loved his daughter, but in the only way a mercenary knew how to love: with military precision and no goddamn nonsense. So maybe, at the end of the day, she was perfectly correct in holding a grudge against him. She didn't get timeouts, she got KP duty. She didn't get spankings, she got a mag full of bullets and the orders to shoot until the bullseye was unrecognizable. She wanted a normal life, but if she had a normal life, she wouldn't be where she was in that moment, having a helluva time.

She was in the jungle, sweating buckets with a rifle strapped across her chest and her bow loaded with an arrow clasped in a white-knuckled grip. Blood was dripping from her hairline- a combination of both her own and the guards she had taken out- and she moved quietly, stealthily along the forest floor. She raised that bow, the string gently caressing the dirty skin of her cheeks a she aimed.

Lee Christmas was toe-to-toe with the target of the month, and he was fighting a losing battle. He'd gotten shot in his vest at some point, and it had knocked the wind severely out of him. Still, he was fighting that guy because his life very well depended on it. He stumbled back with a grunt, gripping a slice that cut through his arm. When he looked back up, their target had an arrow through his eye and was gurgling as he collapsed down on the ground. Mission accomplished.

"Y/N!" He shouted, holding his arms out at his side, irritated.

"You're fucking welcome," you said, trudging out of the tree line, tucking your bow over your shoulder with the rest of your equipment.

Lee dropped his hands to his hips and chewed on the inside of his cheek, fighting the urge to wince as every breath teased the growing bruise on his stomach. He had a nice solid cut above his eye, dripping blood along the side of his face. You stopped a few feet in front of him and bit back a smirk as you looked him over.