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seiberwingTitle: House DeMasque
Fandom: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Pairing/characters: Desiree Delite/Ron Delite, Desiree DeLite/Mask*DeMasque
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: The Ace Attorney series and all related characters and settings belong to Capcom.
Summary: How can a mild-mannered sweetheart and roguish master thief possibly be the same person? Desiree isn't quite sure, but she's intent on finding out.
Warnings: Implied sex, criminal behavior
Author’s Note: I did this on a prompt from the PW Kink Meme, hence it being a bit chopp from being done in bits and pieces. Dessie and Ron are quite possibly the only canonical happy and (mostly) stable couple in the entire game series, and when the opportunity for a bit of identity fuck came paired with that fluff I fell in love with the pairing.
Desiree had lied when she said she’d hated criminals. She liked bad boys—the leather, the fast cars, the greased back hair, the giant middle finger to authority. The problem was that all of her bad boys had also been bad people and she really did hate bad people. Desiree almost inevitably wound up with her heart broken, her car dented, her bank account empty, and someone else sleeping with her man. Desiree was done with bad boys.
Ron DeLite was the perfect good boy, but that still left her displeased. Ronnie was noble, honorable, faithful, gentle, sweet, everything you wanted in a husband and a puppy dog. It wasn’t that Desiree didn’t love him, it was just that…for all his virtues, Ronnie was a little boring. Their security business was doing well enough and Desiree was trying to cut down on the expensive spending sprees, but she found herself taking more late-night high-speed motorcycle drives down the highway rather than stay in bed next to Ron and try to pretend that she found it comfortable. Ron, in seeming response, kept excusing himself to work late and sleep on the couch rather than return to a bed that was nearly empty. They hadn’t slept together in ten days. They hadn’t had sex in three months.
It said a lot about the current state of affairs that when Desiree came back from another midnight ride and found the couch empty, her first desperate thought was ‘he’s left me’.
He hadn’t, or if he had he hadn’t taken so much as his wallet and he’d done it on foot. Desiree wrapped herself in an old afghan and sat in the kitchen to wait, listening nervously to the slow ticking of the clock. When she heard a soft clatter in the next room she nearly screamed.
Ron didn’t come in through the window. Ron was a good boy, and good boys used the door. Desiree slipped a butcher knife from the knife block and crept to the doorway, afghan still wrapped around her shoulders. By the light of the moon and the less romantic light of the streetlamp outside their apartment she could see the silhouette of a man crouching between the curtains.
The silhouette had a floppy hat.
Oh, Ron. Ronnie. Not again. We don’t need the money that badly.
Desiree watched silently as Mask*DeMasque, gentleman thief, climbed through their living room window. DeMasque’s dramatic security camera shots rarely caught him below the waist, and only now as DeMasque slid in through her parted window could she see just how well those tight white pants clung to his elegant legs.
Ron moved like a rabbit, quick and jerking with eagerness or fear. Mask*DeMasque moved like a dancer. If he’d been climbing in any other window Desiree might have expected him of being one of the many “DeMasque II” thieves who’d nearly gotten them in a lot of trouble before they’d come up with plausible alibis.
DeMasque laid his thief bag out on the coffee table, tenderly unwrapping it to reveal several plastic bags full of bundled cash. He regarded them silently, patted one, then doffed his hat and laid it to one side. The glass panes across the eyeholes of his mask hid his eyes, and the shadows concealed his mouth—Desiree wondered what he was thinking.
DeMasque removed his jacket, then slowly began unbuttoning his shirt. He kept his back to Desiree but she could see the way his hands were moving before he shrugged his shoulders and let it fall back to expose the pale skin of his torso to the moonlight. Despite his soft face he was quite well-built, lithe rather than skinny.
Desiree squirmed, and experienced a sudden urge to feel those taut muscles under her hands.
Ron had never been particularly given to eroticism. He certainly appreciated when Desiree tried something new in the bedroom but Desiree had never managed to make him do more than excitedly squeak in appreciation. Watching him reluctantly strip in the half-light of their apartment living room was one of the hottest things she’d ever seen him do. He was so shameless about it, so vulnerable and yet so powerful at the same time.
Desiree laid down her knife as DeMasque removed his scarlet thigh boots, giving her yet another angle from which to admire the thief’s legs. What rooftops had he been crossing tonight, what masterful security system had he evaded to come home with his precious prize? Just the thought of him gleefully smirking as he outran a host of bumbling guards made her skin tingle.
Even after DeMasque peeled his tight pants away and was left standing in nothing but his mask and his underwear he still carried an air of drama about him. Desiree bit her lip as DeMasque kneeled, set his hands to the sides of his head and pulled his face away. He turned the mask over and stared at it, then tucked it delicately into the bundle before wrapping it up.
Ron stayed kneeling for a moment, as if in mourning. When he stood there was none of DeMasque left, just an awkward little man who made sure the window was locked and closed the curtains before any passing moths could see his nakedness. Ron reached for his pajamas, left bundled underneath the coffee table and Desiree quietly crept back to bed, wondering just what she was supposed to do.
*****
“No, I’m fine, Dessie. Work just keeps me up a bit, you know?” Ron rubbed his darkened eye sockets and tried to smile for his wife.
“Do you want to borrow some sleeping pills tonight? I don’t want you getting sick.” Desiree grinned back and felt her heart starting to crack. They were down to this, sneaking around behind each others’ backs and making fake smiles the next morning.
“No, I’m all right,” Ron said, shuffling the papers on his desk and not quite meeting her eyes.
Then he was going out again. Desiree bit back a nasty comment and rerouted the conversation to their latest security contract. She’d gone over their bank records the next morning. They weren’t anywhere near the pit they’d been at when Ron had begun his thefts. There also weren’t any suspiciously large deposits in their account, the ones that Ron had explained away as ‘job bonuses’ last time. Ron was definitely stealing, but the money didn’t seem to show up anywhere in their records.
“You know I love you, right, Ronnie? No matter what you do?”
Ron looked up, all nervous fawn in the headlights. There was nothing of DeMasque in his eyes, just that sad little look that made her heart melt every time she thought of yelling at him. “Is something wrong, Dessie? I really don’t want anything to be wrong, I know we haven’t been talking much lately—”
“Ron! Ron. It’s okay. I just thought I’d say it. So you knew.” She ran her hands over his thick hair and kissed his forehead. It would be okay. Whatever was driving Ron to become Mask*DeMasque once more, she was going to put a stop to it. Even if…she found DeMasque more intriguing than her husband.
Desiree went to bed early that night, citing a headache. She waited until she heard the sound of shuffling in the living room and then snuck out, her bare feet light on the apartment’s cheap carpeting.
Ron had already put on the mask in the time it took her to cross the room. He dressed far more quickly than he stripped, sweeping his grand coat around his shoulders like a superhero might don a cape. Desiree could see the way he stood up a bit straighter than Ron did, the way every movement was confident and sure. Desiree couldn’t bear to interrupt him until he brushed back the feathers on his cavalier hat and made for the window.
“Hey.” Desiree had nearly called Mask*DeMasque’s name. She hadn’t thought of calling Ron’s.
DeMasque froze at the window, slowly turning to look over one epauletted shoulder. “Desiree?” he asked hesitantly. “I—”
“Where’s the money coming from, and where’s it going? It’s not going to us, I looked.” Odd, how that felt like the main problem. The rest of it, the mask, the costume, the heisting, Desiree almost felt bad putting a stop to it.
“It’s going to the Cohdopian War Orphans Fund. I…wouldn’t have felt right keeping it, given the circumstances.” Ron didn’t talk like that. DeMasque didn’t talk, he pronounced, every word delivered as if to an audience.
“What circumstances? You stealing it, you mean?” Desiree accused, even as she felt her heart softening towards him.
“That and the source.” DeMasque gestured to his thief bag. “It’s drug money. One of the facilities we contracted with has connections with several drug dealers.” A faint smirk danced across DeMasque’s lips. “I’ve been picking off their safe deposit boxes one by one. But…” He bowed his head before Desiree. “But I admit my weakness. The allure of the hunt was too much, I thought if only I could channel it into altruistic endeavors I might be able to sate myself in secret, but…I am sorry Desiree, my beloved. I have betrayed you yet again.”
He moved his hand to take the mask off, and Desiree stepped up to grab his wrist before he could break the illusion. “More a…Robin Hood than a petty thief, yeah?” she said quietly.
“You could say that,” DeMasque lifted his head and tilted it, tone thoughtful She couldn’t see past the reflective panes across his eyes, but he was smiling. An unrepentant criminal, ashamed of his behavior even as he gloried in his conquests.
“That’s sort of sweet. Noble, really. It’d be more immoral to let them keep their money.”
“That was how I saw it,” DeMasque answered, and even with his face covered she could see the way his spirits were raising. “But…they’ve been cracking down. I was going out tonight for reconnaissance, as things stand my next target is nearly impossible to handle alone.”
Poor little thief. “Alone?” she asked, tone turning thoughtful. “What about with a partner?”
DeMasque gasped, and even that managed to be dramatic. His gloved fingers touched her face delicately. “Oh, Desiree,” he cooed. “To have you by my side as we run across the rooftops under the starlit skies…it would be my greatest fantasy fulfilled.”
“I’m not. Y’know. Much of a runner. I’m more of a biker chick.” Why was she the flustered one now?
“Still, your help might turn the tide to our advantage. I’ll go look over their security system again, this time with your presence in mind. Not that you aren’t constantly in my thoughts.” He pressed a soft kiss to her cheek, the cold hardness of his mask clashing with the warmth of his lips. “DeMasque shall return,” he whispered fondly. He turned and leapt from the window without looking. Desiree’s heart didn’t start beating again until he caught the fire escape on the next building and clambered up it like an elegant spider. The force of the impact barely ruffled the feathers in his hat.
DeMasque paused at the edge of the roof and threw a salute back at her, then ran off into the darkness. Desiree backed up and hit the wall, grinning giddily.
She’d never swooned before. It was a hell of a thrill.
*****
Ron’s eyes were still owlish the next day, but they were bright and full of excitement. Desiree handled the morning paperwork and phone calls while Ron worked on ‘their project’. She caught him darting out the window several times before lunch—the other window, the one leading to their fire escape. DeMasque flew, Ron DeLite took the stairs.
“Okay, it’s done,” he finally called, hanging upside down from the next floor’s platform. “Come up and see.”
Across the entire expanse of their roof, Ron had chalked out a crude map of the route between their building and the target. On their neighboring building (he showed her, as she gingerly picked her away across a piece of plywood he’d left down for a bridge) he’d done a building plan sketch.
“This is…really something, Ron,” Desiree murmured as he walked her through the route, shuffling about roller pucks labeled with M and D. The biggest issue, Ron had decided, was the electronic security system. By himself he could never evade it, but if Desiree could shut down portions of it for just as long as it took him to bypass that portion he could make it through. After that they could escape from the building via the rooftops, which had jumps that Ron assured her would be easy even for a novice freerunner. The final leg of their trip would be from the roof to the metro bridge via a zipline Ron had put in the night before, stretched near a power line to avoid detection.
“The timing’ll be pretty close during the infiltration, you’ll have less than a minute for margin of error, but I’m pretty sure I can make it through if we’re synced up. If you still want in, I mean, you can always back out—”
Desiree cut off Ron’s inevitable downward spiral into awkwardness. “No, I can. Plan’s great, you’re surprising me. I thought Atmey did all the setups for your robberies.” It had been her original envisioning of Mask*DeMasque after the trial, nothing but Luke Atmey’s puppet. A more fitting role for her passive little Ronnie.
“Well, he did. Those plans, I mean. But I’ve done this sort of thing before, I did it back in college with my parkour buddies. Jeff was the ringleader but we came up with the plans together.”
“Raid?”
“We used to break into places all the time. Just for fun, you know, we didn’t actually steal anything.” Ron shrugged, embarrassed by his reckless youth. “We just wanted to see if we could.”
“You never told me.”
“I didn’t…think you’d be interested.” Ron coughed and stepped back to regard his impromptu model. “Because it was illegal and I know how much you hate criminals.”
“I think, for Mask*DeMasque, I can make an exception.” Desiree kissed his cheek and shuffled the D puck around the roof again. “How did you get down here? You can’t get that far downtown just walking on buildings, it would take all day.”
“I ride on the metro. That late at night there’s nobody there but drunks, hobos, and teenagers.” Desiree couldn’t help but snicker at the image of the noble thief seated politely in a train, bag and hat in his lap. It explained how he’d gotten out of the house without taking the car and waking her up.
Desiree patted his shoulder. “I’ll drive you next time, deary. DeMasque deserves better.”
“Oh! Oh, and that was the other thing. I was just wondering if, as long as it’s all right with you, it’s just that I have a few designs up and...” He peered up at her, eyes filled with cautious hope, and squeaked out a soft “Would you like a costume?”
Oh hell yes.
The next week was gleeful in its urgency. Desiree took her laptop and lunch up to the roof to watch Ron drill the practice course he’d built himself. Not as DeMasque, of course, that would get the costume all sweaty, but watching Ron leap and tumble with his shirt off ensured that Desiree didn’t get much work done. For herself, she worked over a mockup of the security system switchboard, timing herself until she could do it with the barest margin of error. It wasn’t a very dramatic duty, but it meant the difference between a lot of rich orphans and a dead husband.
Anticipation made them twitchy, but the tension that had filled their relationship had dissipated. Ron only held one secret back from her now, and she knew why he kept ducking into their office with double handfuls of gold braid and pins clenched in his teeth. He didn’t let her see the costume until the morning before the heist, when he laid it out before her on the living room couch like a wedding dress
“Oh, Ron. It’s…gorgeous.”
Ron pressed his hands together and bit his lip nervously as Desiree slipped off her clothes and began awkwardly putting his creation on. She’d expected a greater feminization of the DeMasque design, maybe some plunging cleavage or a high skirt where her counterpart had those deliciously tight pants. Without her inside it you could barely tell it was supposed to be a for a woman.
“Is it comfortable? Can you move enough in it?” Ron asked with a slight squirm. “I don’t know if I got the measurements quite right….”
“Fits great.” Desiree flexed one arm. The design wasn’t completely identical to Mask*DeMasque’s. The coat was shorter and contoured to fit the curve of her hips, and where Mask*DeMasque’s costume was green hers was red—no, scarlet. Great thieves wore scarlet. The shirt beneath was Ron’s vibrant emerald and the gold decorations down the front were slightly slimmer. The hat was also scarlet, a tricorn companion to Ron’s floppy cavalier with a DeMasque pin and two wild feathers sticking out of the band, and fit Desiree’s head perfectly.
It wasn’t until Desiree put the mask on that she understood why Ron hadn’t designed the costume to display more than her lips. It covered almost every part of her, like a second skin. A full-body mask. Just as nothing was left of timid, squeaking Ron when he put his costume on, so hers left nothing of Mrs. Desiree DeLite.
“You look…you’re great, Desiree,” Ron stammered, staring at her in utter adoration.
“No. Not Desiree” She turned and looked at her back in the mirror, watching herself smile through the gap in the mask. “Call me Charade*DeMasque.”
*****
By the light of the full moon—had to be full, of course—Desiree pulled her red racer into a alley two blocks down from their target. Her head was buzzing, and Ron had a nervous grin on his face.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Dessie?” he asked, wringing his hands over the bag in his lap.
Desiree grabbed Charade’s mask and held it up before her face. “Let’s do this, Ronny.”
They dressed on opposite sides of the car, Desiree sneaking peeks at Ron as he transformed himself back into the magnificent Mask*DeMasque. It was like watching a magic trick. When he came back around the car he was walking tall and confident with the thief bag over his shoulder.
DeMasque touched her cheek, then delicately adjusted her tricorn. “You look ravishing, my dear Charade,” he whispered tenderly.
Desiree giggled. “Well, you made the costume,” she said, patting her shirt down. “Of course it’s great.” She didn’t feel like Charade as much as Desiree dressed up as Charade. Perhaps one grew into the role.
“But a thief’s garb is nothing without a thief to fill it.” DeMasque’s hand traced down her face and toyed briefly with her epaulettes. “I can hardly wait to have them see you by my side.” It didn’t really feel like thievery. More like an adventure in the name of charity. Desiree was starting to understand why Ron must have done this without a single thought to profit, they hadn’t even done anything yet and she was giddy.
DeMasque took two steps onto the hood of her car, then leapt and caught the bottom of the fire escape. He twisted himself upside down, managing the trick without losing his hat (so that was why he attached it to the fabric of the mask’s cowl) and let the ladder quietly slide down to let her up.
“I’ll get better at this,” she promised as she clattered up the steps, following the wind-light DeMasque.
“You’re a novice, my dear, I can hardly expect you to have talents that took me years to develop.” His voice was soft but amused, and he didn’t sound in the least out of breath as he pulled her up to the top of the building and then set off at a light jog across the rooftops. It wasn’t as hard as it looked, DeMasque had set up several bridges of dark planks and plywood that were just sturdy enough to hold her weight. In the night, they were almost invisible until you came up to them. The pair ran on, DeMasque quietly laughing and Desiree nearly giggling until they came to the firmly bolted maintenance door above their target.
DeMasque elegantly fell to his knees and began picking the lock.
“And you have the card, Charade?” he asked, shifting to let the streetlamps illuminate his work. Desiree felt in her coat pocket and pulled out an envelope containing the newest version of DeMasque’s calling card. Instead of one smiling broach it was two, one behind the other, and Ron had reworked some of the border decorations to add a red tinge.
“Wonderful.” The door clicked open and DeMasque took it from her fingers. The glass over his eyes reflected pale starlight at her. “Then you to your task, and I to mine, and we shall meet again under the bright moon,” he murmured, clasping one of her hands to his chest.
“Be careful, Mask,” Desiree said, putting her hand on his shoulder and trying to be Charade as much as she could. She’d never managed drama by intent.
“Good luck, my dearest. I trust you.” He pressed a quick kiss to her ear and danced away across the roof, disappearing over the edge. Desiree skittered down the stairs, blindly following the route Ron had given her to get around the security cameras. She had to force herself to keep moving every time she heard voices, trusting DeMasque that the guard patrols wouldn’t come near her path, feeling more terrified at thrilled at a slow crawl than she did racing 120 miles an hour down the highway.
The maintenance panel matched Ron’s diagram almost exactly. Desiree stuck the timer on the wall and watched it tick down until the exact moment when DeMasque should be in position. It was down to timing now, each of them would have no idea exactly what the other would be doing. Absolute trust. Desiree did her part down to the exact second, picturing what DeMasque must be up to while she flicked switches and twisted wires in a silent room on the other side of the building. He could be captured by now and she wouldn’t know about it.
When the final wire was replaced it almost felt like an anti-climax. Desiree sat back on her heels and closed up the panel, listening worriedly for the sound of alarms.
Footsteps, down the hall, quick to match the pounding of Desiree’s heart. She didn’t relax until she heard impish laughter and Mask*DeMasque came running to pull her to her feet. “Well done, my love!” He pulled her in for a scorching kiss in the grandest romance novel fashion. “They’re on our heels, come, we’ll lead them a merry chase!” He pressed the filled thief bag into her hands and she threw it over her shoulder as they ran up the stairs.
“Who’s after us?” Desiree threw a panicked glance back over her shoulder. She could see the flickering of flashlights and someone was yelling incomprehensible orders of a vague ‘get them!’ nature.
“The guards,” DeMasque clutched her hand and pulled her along behind him. “They’ve found my card and now they shall see our triumphant escape!”
“Wait, you planned for this?” Desiree squawked, nearly stumbling.
“Of course!” DeMasque charged up the stairs to courteously hold the door for her. He was quite sure he was winking behind his mask. “The escape is the most important part of the heist, it would be a shame if we had no witnesses.”
Oh, Ron. DeMasque. Whoever you are in there.
Desiree was all for running, but DeMasque insisted upon waiting atop an A/C unit with his hands on his hips until the guards made it up the stairs. They had to find him in the right pose, and Desiree would look so regal leaning against it with folded arms, wouldn’t she?
“The House of DeMasque thanks you for your generous contribution, my friends!” he cried defiantly, offering them a deep bow before leaping off and dancing along the chimneys to the next rooftop . He moved like a dancer, a fighter, a flitting faerie creature. Desiree kept running and forced herself not to look back.
They cleared the mock bridges between buildings, only pausing to knock them away before the guards could twist them to their own purposes. On Desiree’s shoulder the filled thief bag seemed to weigh nothing, so spurred on was she by fear and excitement. The end of their route left them standing at the edge of a restaurant, backlit by a gaudy neon sign that hid the zipline DeMasque had laid out earlier.
Their pursuers halted at the edge of the opposite building, futilely yelling, “Stop right there, Mask*DeMasque!”
And DeMasque did stop, but only to pause dramatically with one hand upraised. Desiree realized a moment later that she was supposed to join in, and belatedly scrambled next to him to mimic his pose.
“Haha!” DeMasque cried again, the constant smug performer. “The profits of your foul deeds come to naught before the cunning of Mask—”
“And Charade*DeMasque!” his partner chimed in, spreading one arm wide. The drama was infectious and Charade felt the mask closing around her, turning her into her chosen role.
“Yes! With our combined skill and wit no door is barred, no safe is locked, no prize is safe from our thieving fingers!” DeMasque abruptly dropped his voice and whispered, “Arms ‘round my neck, beloved.” Charade obeyed instantly, letting the thief bag dangle against his back. Beneath the clamor of the guards she could hear the rising rumble of an approaching train from the opposite bridge.
He got there…on the subway. On the subway. Oh god no. Oh god yes. Charade’s arms tightened and she burst out into spontaneous cackling. DeMasque met her an octave lower and their voices echoed through the night as the train grew closer.
“Better luck next time, gentlemen!” she shouted, finding herself unable to stop laughing. “We shall meet again—“
“--at the next full moon!” finished DeMasque gleefully, and he threw himself backwards with a triumphant “Haha!”. There was a split second of air rushing past their embracing forms before DeMasque’s arm snapped out and caught the edge of the train car. He braced both his feet on the roof and clung to Charade with his other hand. He shouted something that was lost in the roar of the train and Charade buried her face in his collar.
This was better than fast cars or bikes. She was completely helpless, at the mercy of the twisting speeding train and only kept safe by the wiry frame of her lover. Charade laughed and saw DeMasque laugh as well when they darted through a tunnel that only cleared their heads by a foot. He gave her a sharp squeeze with his fingers, alerting to her an oncoming stop, and when the train slowed enough for safety they leapt as one onto the roof above the platform.
Her heart was racing, her knuckles white around the thief bag, her legs trembling from the impact on the metal roof. When DeMasque turned to face her with the moonlight backing his silhouette Charade backed him into one of the ironwork decorations and forced them both to their knees.
“You’re amazing,” she whispered. Their mouthpieces clattered together as she smothered her helpless gasps between his lips.
“No,” DeMasque answered between passionate kisses, running gentle fingers down her back. “We’re amazing.”
The masks stayed on. Her gloved fingers delved inside his pants but made no gesture to remove them, his hands racked across the gold braid on her chest and clutched desperately at her shoulders. His cries were as soft and delicate as his kisses and her joyful screams were smothered by his high collar. When he came she saw his mouth work soundlessly, casting about for a name before finally resorting to a desperate “I love you, I love you!” and she could only answer back an ecstatic “Yes!”.
The trains came and went, and the anonymous populace wandered oblivious below the tangled pair. She raised her head and finally removed her mask, wiping the sweat from her face as her mussed hair tumbled down around her shoulders. Her partner touched his hand to his own face, questioning, and Desiree delicately peeled it away from his face.
“You’re wonderful,” she said, and kissed his nose—the midway point between Ron’s adoring eyes and DeMasque’s daring smirk.
Fandom: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Pairing/characters: Desiree Delite/Ron Delite, Desiree DeLite/Mask*DeMasque
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: The Ace Attorney series and all related characters and settings belong to Capcom.
Summary: How can a mild-mannered sweetheart and roguish master thief possibly be the same person? Desiree isn't quite sure, but she's intent on finding out.
Warnings: Implied sex, criminal behavior
Author’s Note: I did this on a prompt from the PW Kink Meme, hence it being a bit chopp from being done in bits and pieces. Dessie and Ron are quite possibly the only canonical happy and (mostly) stable couple in the entire game series, and when the opportunity for a bit of identity fuck came paired with that fluff I fell in love with the pairing.
Desiree had lied when she said she’d hated criminals. She liked bad boys—the leather, the fast cars, the greased back hair, the giant middle finger to authority. The problem was that all of her bad boys had also been bad people and she really did hate bad people. Desiree almost inevitably wound up with her heart broken, her car dented, her bank account empty, and someone else sleeping with her man. Desiree was done with bad boys.
Ron DeLite was the perfect good boy, but that still left her displeased. Ronnie was noble, honorable, faithful, gentle, sweet, everything you wanted in a husband and a puppy dog. It wasn’t that Desiree didn’t love him, it was just that…for all his virtues, Ronnie was a little boring. Their security business was doing well enough and Desiree was trying to cut down on the expensive spending sprees, but she found herself taking more late-night high-speed motorcycle drives down the highway rather than stay in bed next to Ron and try to pretend that she found it comfortable. Ron, in seeming response, kept excusing himself to work late and sleep on the couch rather than return to a bed that was nearly empty. They hadn’t slept together in ten days. They hadn’t had sex in three months.
It said a lot about the current state of affairs that when Desiree came back from another midnight ride and found the couch empty, her first desperate thought was ‘he’s left me’.
He hadn’t, or if he had he hadn’t taken so much as his wallet and he’d done it on foot. Desiree wrapped herself in an old afghan and sat in the kitchen to wait, listening nervously to the slow ticking of the clock. When she heard a soft clatter in the next room she nearly screamed.
Ron didn’t come in through the window. Ron was a good boy, and good boys used the door. Desiree slipped a butcher knife from the knife block and crept to the doorway, afghan still wrapped around her shoulders. By the light of the moon and the less romantic light of the streetlamp outside their apartment she could see the silhouette of a man crouching between the curtains.
The silhouette had a floppy hat.
Oh, Ron. Ronnie. Not again. We don’t need the money that badly.
Desiree watched silently as Mask*DeMasque, gentleman thief, climbed through their living room window. DeMasque’s dramatic security camera shots rarely caught him below the waist, and only now as DeMasque slid in through her parted window could she see just how well those tight white pants clung to his elegant legs.
Ron moved like a rabbit, quick and jerking with eagerness or fear. Mask*DeMasque moved like a dancer. If he’d been climbing in any other window Desiree might have expected him of being one of the many “DeMasque II” thieves who’d nearly gotten them in a lot of trouble before they’d come up with plausible alibis.
DeMasque laid his thief bag out on the coffee table, tenderly unwrapping it to reveal several plastic bags full of bundled cash. He regarded them silently, patted one, then doffed his hat and laid it to one side. The glass panes across the eyeholes of his mask hid his eyes, and the shadows concealed his mouth—Desiree wondered what he was thinking.
DeMasque removed his jacket, then slowly began unbuttoning his shirt. He kept his back to Desiree but she could see the way his hands were moving before he shrugged his shoulders and let it fall back to expose the pale skin of his torso to the moonlight. Despite his soft face he was quite well-built, lithe rather than skinny.
Desiree squirmed, and experienced a sudden urge to feel those taut muscles under her hands.
Ron had never been particularly given to eroticism. He certainly appreciated when Desiree tried something new in the bedroom but Desiree had never managed to make him do more than excitedly squeak in appreciation. Watching him reluctantly strip in the half-light of their apartment living room was one of the hottest things she’d ever seen him do. He was so shameless about it, so vulnerable and yet so powerful at the same time.
Desiree laid down her knife as DeMasque removed his scarlet thigh boots, giving her yet another angle from which to admire the thief’s legs. What rooftops had he been crossing tonight, what masterful security system had he evaded to come home with his precious prize? Just the thought of him gleefully smirking as he outran a host of bumbling guards made her skin tingle.
Even after DeMasque peeled his tight pants away and was left standing in nothing but his mask and his underwear he still carried an air of drama about him. Desiree bit her lip as DeMasque kneeled, set his hands to the sides of his head and pulled his face away. He turned the mask over and stared at it, then tucked it delicately into the bundle before wrapping it up.
Ron stayed kneeling for a moment, as if in mourning. When he stood there was none of DeMasque left, just an awkward little man who made sure the window was locked and closed the curtains before any passing moths could see his nakedness. Ron reached for his pajamas, left bundled underneath the coffee table and Desiree quietly crept back to bed, wondering just what she was supposed to do.
*****
“No, I’m fine, Dessie. Work just keeps me up a bit, you know?” Ron rubbed his darkened eye sockets and tried to smile for his wife.
“Do you want to borrow some sleeping pills tonight? I don’t want you getting sick.” Desiree grinned back and felt her heart starting to crack. They were down to this, sneaking around behind each others’ backs and making fake smiles the next morning.
“No, I’m all right,” Ron said, shuffling the papers on his desk and not quite meeting her eyes.
Then he was going out again. Desiree bit back a nasty comment and rerouted the conversation to their latest security contract. She’d gone over their bank records the next morning. They weren’t anywhere near the pit they’d been at when Ron had begun his thefts. There also weren’t any suspiciously large deposits in their account, the ones that Ron had explained away as ‘job bonuses’ last time. Ron was definitely stealing, but the money didn’t seem to show up anywhere in their records.
“You know I love you, right, Ronnie? No matter what you do?”
Ron looked up, all nervous fawn in the headlights. There was nothing of DeMasque in his eyes, just that sad little look that made her heart melt every time she thought of yelling at him. “Is something wrong, Dessie? I really don’t want anything to be wrong, I know we haven’t been talking much lately—”
“Ron! Ron. It’s okay. I just thought I’d say it. So you knew.” She ran her hands over his thick hair and kissed his forehead. It would be okay. Whatever was driving Ron to become Mask*DeMasque once more, she was going to put a stop to it. Even if…she found DeMasque more intriguing than her husband.
Desiree went to bed early that night, citing a headache. She waited until she heard the sound of shuffling in the living room and then snuck out, her bare feet light on the apartment’s cheap carpeting.
Ron had already put on the mask in the time it took her to cross the room. He dressed far more quickly than he stripped, sweeping his grand coat around his shoulders like a superhero might don a cape. Desiree could see the way he stood up a bit straighter than Ron did, the way every movement was confident and sure. Desiree couldn’t bear to interrupt him until he brushed back the feathers on his cavalier hat and made for the window.
“Hey.” Desiree had nearly called Mask*DeMasque’s name. She hadn’t thought of calling Ron’s.
DeMasque froze at the window, slowly turning to look over one epauletted shoulder. “Desiree?” he asked hesitantly. “I—”
“Where’s the money coming from, and where’s it going? It’s not going to us, I looked.” Odd, how that felt like the main problem. The rest of it, the mask, the costume, the heisting, Desiree almost felt bad putting a stop to it.
“It’s going to the Cohdopian War Orphans Fund. I…wouldn’t have felt right keeping it, given the circumstances.” Ron didn’t talk like that. DeMasque didn’t talk, he pronounced, every word delivered as if to an audience.
“What circumstances? You stealing it, you mean?” Desiree accused, even as she felt her heart softening towards him.
“That and the source.” DeMasque gestured to his thief bag. “It’s drug money. One of the facilities we contracted with has connections with several drug dealers.” A faint smirk danced across DeMasque’s lips. “I’ve been picking off their safe deposit boxes one by one. But…” He bowed his head before Desiree. “But I admit my weakness. The allure of the hunt was too much, I thought if only I could channel it into altruistic endeavors I might be able to sate myself in secret, but…I am sorry Desiree, my beloved. I have betrayed you yet again.”
He moved his hand to take the mask off, and Desiree stepped up to grab his wrist before he could break the illusion. “More a…Robin Hood than a petty thief, yeah?” she said quietly.
“You could say that,” DeMasque lifted his head and tilted it, tone thoughtful She couldn’t see past the reflective panes across his eyes, but he was smiling. An unrepentant criminal, ashamed of his behavior even as he gloried in his conquests.
“That’s sort of sweet. Noble, really. It’d be more immoral to let them keep their money.”
“That was how I saw it,” DeMasque answered, and even with his face covered she could see the way his spirits were raising. “But…they’ve been cracking down. I was going out tonight for reconnaissance, as things stand my next target is nearly impossible to handle alone.”
Poor little thief. “Alone?” she asked, tone turning thoughtful. “What about with a partner?”
DeMasque gasped, and even that managed to be dramatic. His gloved fingers touched her face delicately. “Oh, Desiree,” he cooed. “To have you by my side as we run across the rooftops under the starlit skies…it would be my greatest fantasy fulfilled.”
“I’m not. Y’know. Much of a runner. I’m more of a biker chick.” Why was she the flustered one now?
“Still, your help might turn the tide to our advantage. I’ll go look over their security system again, this time with your presence in mind. Not that you aren’t constantly in my thoughts.” He pressed a soft kiss to her cheek, the cold hardness of his mask clashing with the warmth of his lips. “DeMasque shall return,” he whispered fondly. He turned and leapt from the window without looking. Desiree’s heart didn’t start beating again until he caught the fire escape on the next building and clambered up it like an elegant spider. The force of the impact barely ruffled the feathers in his hat.
DeMasque paused at the edge of the roof and threw a salute back at her, then ran off into the darkness. Desiree backed up and hit the wall, grinning giddily.
She’d never swooned before. It was a hell of a thrill.
*****
Ron’s eyes were still owlish the next day, but they were bright and full of excitement. Desiree handled the morning paperwork and phone calls while Ron worked on ‘their project’. She caught him darting out the window several times before lunch—the other window, the one leading to their fire escape. DeMasque flew, Ron DeLite took the stairs.
“Okay, it’s done,” he finally called, hanging upside down from the next floor’s platform. “Come up and see.”
Across the entire expanse of their roof, Ron had chalked out a crude map of the route between their building and the target. On their neighboring building (he showed her, as she gingerly picked her away across a piece of plywood he’d left down for a bridge) he’d done a building plan sketch.
“This is…really something, Ron,” Desiree murmured as he walked her through the route, shuffling about roller pucks labeled with M and D. The biggest issue, Ron had decided, was the electronic security system. By himself he could never evade it, but if Desiree could shut down portions of it for just as long as it took him to bypass that portion he could make it through. After that they could escape from the building via the rooftops, which had jumps that Ron assured her would be easy even for a novice freerunner. The final leg of their trip would be from the roof to the metro bridge via a zipline Ron had put in the night before, stretched near a power line to avoid detection.
“The timing’ll be pretty close during the infiltration, you’ll have less than a minute for margin of error, but I’m pretty sure I can make it through if we’re synced up. If you still want in, I mean, you can always back out—”
Desiree cut off Ron’s inevitable downward spiral into awkwardness. “No, I can. Plan’s great, you’re surprising me. I thought Atmey did all the setups for your robberies.” It had been her original envisioning of Mask*DeMasque after the trial, nothing but Luke Atmey’s puppet. A more fitting role for her passive little Ronnie.
“Well, he did. Those plans, I mean. But I’ve done this sort of thing before, I did it back in college with my parkour buddies. Jeff was the ringleader but we came up with the plans together.”
“Raid?”
“We used to break into places all the time. Just for fun, you know, we didn’t actually steal anything.” Ron shrugged, embarrassed by his reckless youth. “We just wanted to see if we could.”
“You never told me.”
“I didn’t…think you’d be interested.” Ron coughed and stepped back to regard his impromptu model. “Because it was illegal and I know how much you hate criminals.”
“I think, for Mask*DeMasque, I can make an exception.” Desiree kissed his cheek and shuffled the D puck around the roof again. “How did you get down here? You can’t get that far downtown just walking on buildings, it would take all day.”
“I ride on the metro. That late at night there’s nobody there but drunks, hobos, and teenagers.” Desiree couldn’t help but snicker at the image of the noble thief seated politely in a train, bag and hat in his lap. It explained how he’d gotten out of the house without taking the car and waking her up.
Desiree patted his shoulder. “I’ll drive you next time, deary. DeMasque deserves better.”
“Oh! Oh, and that was the other thing. I was just wondering if, as long as it’s all right with you, it’s just that I have a few designs up and...” He peered up at her, eyes filled with cautious hope, and squeaked out a soft “Would you like a costume?”
Oh hell yes.
The next week was gleeful in its urgency. Desiree took her laptop and lunch up to the roof to watch Ron drill the practice course he’d built himself. Not as DeMasque, of course, that would get the costume all sweaty, but watching Ron leap and tumble with his shirt off ensured that Desiree didn’t get much work done. For herself, she worked over a mockup of the security system switchboard, timing herself until she could do it with the barest margin of error. It wasn’t a very dramatic duty, but it meant the difference between a lot of rich orphans and a dead husband.
Anticipation made them twitchy, but the tension that had filled their relationship had dissipated. Ron only held one secret back from her now, and she knew why he kept ducking into their office with double handfuls of gold braid and pins clenched in his teeth. He didn’t let her see the costume until the morning before the heist, when he laid it out before her on the living room couch like a wedding dress
“Oh, Ron. It’s…gorgeous.”
Ron pressed his hands together and bit his lip nervously as Desiree slipped off her clothes and began awkwardly putting his creation on. She’d expected a greater feminization of the DeMasque design, maybe some plunging cleavage or a high skirt where her counterpart had those deliciously tight pants. Without her inside it you could barely tell it was supposed to be a for a woman.
“Is it comfortable? Can you move enough in it?” Ron asked with a slight squirm. “I don’t know if I got the measurements quite right….”
“Fits great.” Desiree flexed one arm. The design wasn’t completely identical to Mask*DeMasque’s. The coat was shorter and contoured to fit the curve of her hips, and where Mask*DeMasque’s costume was green hers was red—no, scarlet. Great thieves wore scarlet. The shirt beneath was Ron’s vibrant emerald and the gold decorations down the front were slightly slimmer. The hat was also scarlet, a tricorn companion to Ron’s floppy cavalier with a DeMasque pin and two wild feathers sticking out of the band, and fit Desiree’s head perfectly.
It wasn’t until Desiree put the mask on that she understood why Ron hadn’t designed the costume to display more than her lips. It covered almost every part of her, like a second skin. A full-body mask. Just as nothing was left of timid, squeaking Ron when he put his costume on, so hers left nothing of Mrs. Desiree DeLite.
“You look…you’re great, Desiree,” Ron stammered, staring at her in utter adoration.
“No. Not Desiree” She turned and looked at her back in the mirror, watching herself smile through the gap in the mask. “Call me Charade*DeMasque.”
*****
By the light of the full moon—had to be full, of course—Desiree pulled her red racer into a alley two blocks down from their target. Her head was buzzing, and Ron had a nervous grin on his face.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Dessie?” he asked, wringing his hands over the bag in his lap.
Desiree grabbed Charade’s mask and held it up before her face. “Let’s do this, Ronny.”
They dressed on opposite sides of the car, Desiree sneaking peeks at Ron as he transformed himself back into the magnificent Mask*DeMasque. It was like watching a magic trick. When he came back around the car he was walking tall and confident with the thief bag over his shoulder.
DeMasque touched her cheek, then delicately adjusted her tricorn. “You look ravishing, my dear Charade,” he whispered tenderly.
Desiree giggled. “Well, you made the costume,” she said, patting her shirt down. “Of course it’s great.” She didn’t feel like Charade as much as Desiree dressed up as Charade. Perhaps one grew into the role.
“But a thief’s garb is nothing without a thief to fill it.” DeMasque’s hand traced down her face and toyed briefly with her epaulettes. “I can hardly wait to have them see you by my side.” It didn’t really feel like thievery. More like an adventure in the name of charity. Desiree was starting to understand why Ron must have done this without a single thought to profit, they hadn’t even done anything yet and she was giddy.
DeMasque took two steps onto the hood of her car, then leapt and caught the bottom of the fire escape. He twisted himself upside down, managing the trick without losing his hat (so that was why he attached it to the fabric of the mask’s cowl) and let the ladder quietly slide down to let her up.
“I’ll get better at this,” she promised as she clattered up the steps, following the wind-light DeMasque.
“You’re a novice, my dear, I can hardly expect you to have talents that took me years to develop.” His voice was soft but amused, and he didn’t sound in the least out of breath as he pulled her up to the top of the building and then set off at a light jog across the rooftops. It wasn’t as hard as it looked, DeMasque had set up several bridges of dark planks and plywood that were just sturdy enough to hold her weight. In the night, they were almost invisible until you came up to them. The pair ran on, DeMasque quietly laughing and Desiree nearly giggling until they came to the firmly bolted maintenance door above their target.
DeMasque elegantly fell to his knees and began picking the lock.
“And you have the card, Charade?” he asked, shifting to let the streetlamps illuminate his work. Desiree felt in her coat pocket and pulled out an envelope containing the newest version of DeMasque’s calling card. Instead of one smiling broach it was two, one behind the other, and Ron had reworked some of the border decorations to add a red tinge.
“Wonderful.” The door clicked open and DeMasque took it from her fingers. The glass over his eyes reflected pale starlight at her. “Then you to your task, and I to mine, and we shall meet again under the bright moon,” he murmured, clasping one of her hands to his chest.
“Be careful, Mask,” Desiree said, putting her hand on his shoulder and trying to be Charade as much as she could. She’d never managed drama by intent.
“Good luck, my dearest. I trust you.” He pressed a quick kiss to her ear and danced away across the roof, disappearing over the edge. Desiree skittered down the stairs, blindly following the route Ron had given her to get around the security cameras. She had to force herself to keep moving every time she heard voices, trusting DeMasque that the guard patrols wouldn’t come near her path, feeling more terrified at thrilled at a slow crawl than she did racing 120 miles an hour down the highway.
The maintenance panel matched Ron’s diagram almost exactly. Desiree stuck the timer on the wall and watched it tick down until the exact moment when DeMasque should be in position. It was down to timing now, each of them would have no idea exactly what the other would be doing. Absolute trust. Desiree did her part down to the exact second, picturing what DeMasque must be up to while she flicked switches and twisted wires in a silent room on the other side of the building. He could be captured by now and she wouldn’t know about it.
When the final wire was replaced it almost felt like an anti-climax. Desiree sat back on her heels and closed up the panel, listening worriedly for the sound of alarms.
Footsteps, down the hall, quick to match the pounding of Desiree’s heart. She didn’t relax until she heard impish laughter and Mask*DeMasque came running to pull her to her feet. “Well done, my love!” He pulled her in for a scorching kiss in the grandest romance novel fashion. “They’re on our heels, come, we’ll lead them a merry chase!” He pressed the filled thief bag into her hands and she threw it over her shoulder as they ran up the stairs.
“Who’s after us?” Desiree threw a panicked glance back over her shoulder. She could see the flickering of flashlights and someone was yelling incomprehensible orders of a vague ‘get them!’ nature.
“The guards,” DeMasque clutched her hand and pulled her along behind him. “They’ve found my card and now they shall see our triumphant escape!”
“Wait, you planned for this?” Desiree squawked, nearly stumbling.
“Of course!” DeMasque charged up the stairs to courteously hold the door for her. He was quite sure he was winking behind his mask. “The escape is the most important part of the heist, it would be a shame if we had no witnesses.”
Oh, Ron. DeMasque. Whoever you are in there.
Desiree was all for running, but DeMasque insisted upon waiting atop an A/C unit with his hands on his hips until the guards made it up the stairs. They had to find him in the right pose, and Desiree would look so regal leaning against it with folded arms, wouldn’t she?
“The House of DeMasque thanks you for your generous contribution, my friends!” he cried defiantly, offering them a deep bow before leaping off and dancing along the chimneys to the next rooftop . He moved like a dancer, a fighter, a flitting faerie creature. Desiree kept running and forced herself not to look back.
They cleared the mock bridges between buildings, only pausing to knock them away before the guards could twist them to their own purposes. On Desiree’s shoulder the filled thief bag seemed to weigh nothing, so spurred on was she by fear and excitement. The end of their route left them standing at the edge of a restaurant, backlit by a gaudy neon sign that hid the zipline DeMasque had laid out earlier.
Their pursuers halted at the edge of the opposite building, futilely yelling, “Stop right there, Mask*DeMasque!”
And DeMasque did stop, but only to pause dramatically with one hand upraised. Desiree realized a moment later that she was supposed to join in, and belatedly scrambled next to him to mimic his pose.
“Haha!” DeMasque cried again, the constant smug performer. “The profits of your foul deeds come to naught before the cunning of Mask—”
“And Charade*DeMasque!” his partner chimed in, spreading one arm wide. The drama was infectious and Charade felt the mask closing around her, turning her into her chosen role.
“Yes! With our combined skill and wit no door is barred, no safe is locked, no prize is safe from our thieving fingers!” DeMasque abruptly dropped his voice and whispered, “Arms ‘round my neck, beloved.” Charade obeyed instantly, letting the thief bag dangle against his back. Beneath the clamor of the guards she could hear the rising rumble of an approaching train from the opposite bridge.
He got there…on the subway. On the subway. Oh god no. Oh god yes. Charade’s arms tightened and she burst out into spontaneous cackling. DeMasque met her an octave lower and their voices echoed through the night as the train grew closer.
“Better luck next time, gentlemen!” she shouted, finding herself unable to stop laughing. “We shall meet again—“
“--at the next full moon!” finished DeMasque gleefully, and he threw himself backwards with a triumphant “Haha!”. There was a split second of air rushing past their embracing forms before DeMasque’s arm snapped out and caught the edge of the train car. He braced both his feet on the roof and clung to Charade with his other hand. He shouted something that was lost in the roar of the train and Charade buried her face in his collar.
This was better than fast cars or bikes. She was completely helpless, at the mercy of the twisting speeding train and only kept safe by the wiry frame of her lover. Charade laughed and saw DeMasque laugh as well when they darted through a tunnel that only cleared their heads by a foot. He gave her a sharp squeeze with his fingers, alerting to her an oncoming stop, and when the train slowed enough for safety they leapt as one onto the roof above the platform.
Her heart was racing, her knuckles white around the thief bag, her legs trembling from the impact on the metal roof. When DeMasque turned to face her with the moonlight backing his silhouette Charade backed him into one of the ironwork decorations and forced them both to their knees.
“You’re amazing,” she whispered. Their mouthpieces clattered together as she smothered her helpless gasps between his lips.
“No,” DeMasque answered between passionate kisses, running gentle fingers down her back. “We’re amazing.”
The masks stayed on. Her gloved fingers delved inside his pants but made no gesture to remove them, his hands racked across the gold braid on her chest and clutched desperately at her shoulders. His cries were as soft and delicate as his kisses and her joyful screams were smothered by his high collar. When he came she saw his mouth work soundlessly, casting about for a name before finally resorting to a desperate “I love you, I love you!” and she could only answer back an ecstatic “Yes!”.
The trains came and went, and the anonymous populace wandered oblivious below the tangled pair. She raised her head and finally removed her mask, wiping the sweat from her face as her mussed hair tumbled down around her shoulders. Her partner touched his hand to his own face, questioning, and Desiree delicately peeled it away from his face.
“You’re wonderful,” she said, and kissed his nose—the midway point between Ron’s adoring eyes and DeMasque’s daring smirk.
