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Neil had never panicked on a job before. He’d never made a mistake or killed the wrong person or not killed the right person. He could kill whoever he was told to kill, he could kill however he was told to kill, and he could be whoever he was told to be in order to do it.
Killing Andrew Minyard was the worst and last mistake Neil would ever make.
Worming his way into A. Minyard’s life hadn’t been easy but it had been natural- the most honest work of his filthy, bloody life.
It had to be this way. It couldn’t look like a typical mob hit, anything abrupt and easy would look suspicious. The call had to come from inside the house, or so they say.
Neil tipped the vial into the remnants of the whiskey bottle and poured two modest glasses. It wouldn’t be pleasant for him but he’d built up enough of a tolerance to survive. Odorless, collarless, no paper trail. He’d suffer some hallucinations and maybe some minor liver damage but he’d live and after tonight he’d be free. No more Moriyama’s. No more contracts. No more death.
No more Andrew.
Neil brought one glass up to swirl, smell, sniff, and sip. A perfectly normal glass of whiskey. He brought out onto the small balcony and put them on the rickety table between two lawn chairs. Andrew picked his up and didn’t make the small cheers motion he always did as a silent thanks, didn’t drink. He’d been staring at his closed phone for the last half hour. Neil knew he would say what was wrong in time (if there was time).
“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said after several long minutes, punctuating the statement with a sip. Guess there was time, after all. Neil sat sideways on his chair so he could watch Andrew light a cigarette.
“That sounds ominous. You’re not a murderer are you?”
Andrew’s top lip curled in a small, vicious smile. “That’s a truth for a different day.”
No, it wasn’t, and Neil found himself reaching for another mouthful of whiskey. Andrew raised a brow at this, having caught on a while ago that Neil liked to draw the drink out as long as possible if it meant he didn’t have to go home yet.
“It’s nothing to form a drinking habit over, calm down.” Andrew took up his drink again and every sip he took felt like friendly fire. “You’re going to see something on the news tomorrow and I’d rather tell you myself than get pissy with me for not bringing it up sooner.”
“Secrets secrets are no fun,” Neil parroted. Andrew kicked out his socked foot to hit Neil’s heel and didn’t pull it back.
“A story will be dropping about my brother’s involvement in a gang bust tonight. Just got word that everything went well but his services had been needed on sight.” With the hand that held the cigarette, he gave his cellphone a little shake.
“You have a brother?” That hadn’t been in the assignment, but family matters were often left out for jobs like this. He couldn’t go in knowing too much and risk exposing himself.
“My twin.”
“You have a twin?”
Andrew threw back the rest of his drink and waved it at Neil’s face. “The only reason I’m telling you is because you’re going to see him parading around on t.v. with my face. We’re not that close.”
A gang bust. Big enough for national news. That couldn’t- that would mean-
“What’s his name?”
“Aaron.”
“A. Minyard. Doctor Aaron Minyard.”
Andrew froze. Looked at Neil so expressionless he might as well have been stone. “I never said he was a doctor.”
He didn’t have to. Dr. A Minyard. Fox affiliated attached to a photograph. Andrew had his PhD and his connection to Kevin Day was easy enough to find if you knew where to look. The Foxes were an elusive bunch of vigilantes but everyone had heard of Kevin Day, son of the founders of the Foxes.
Neil had never made a mistake before and killing Andrew Minyard was the biggest mistake of his life. He knocked the glass from Andrew’s hand only because Andrew let him.
“Now, right now,” he changed, grabbing Andrew by the sleeve and tugging him back inside. It only worked because Andrew let him. Andrew was always letting Neil, trusting Neil. And for what? For this?
Neil let go when he was sure Andrew would follow him and rushed to the tiny kitchen. He took the water glass by the sink and upended the entire salt shaker into it.
“Drink this right now,” he ordered Andrew.
Andrew did not take it.
“Andrew, trust me just one last time. Just this one last time trust me and drink this. Just this once. Just this one last time.” There was time. There was barely time. It had been less than a minute, there had to be time.
Neil didn’t know what he would do if Andrew didn’t drink, if Neil killed him for nothing. No matter what the outcome, no matter Andrew's decision, Neil would die either way.
Andrew took the salt water, drank the whole thing, and promptly threw up in the sink.
Neil watched, hands in his hair and tears clouding his eyes as Andrew righted himself, wiping at his mouth with the back of his wrist.
“That’ll give you time to get to the hospital. You have to go now, you’ve got time.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Andrew put his hand slowly, calmly, over Neil’s throat, “until you explain.”
He pressed him into the wall.
Neil let him.
“You were supposed to be my last one and my contract would be fulfilled,” he said.
“Explain better than that. What does this have to do with Aaron?”
“There’s no time-”
“Then make it quick.” He pressed against Neil’s throat and Neil’s hands came up instinctively to grab his arm. He stopped before making contact.
“I was born into a debt that the Moriyama’s own. I was one of their hit men. A. Minyard. Fox associate. And a picture. That was my last assignment and I could finally… I could…”
Words were getting harder. He had begun ingesting the poison before Andrew and hadn’t gotten any of it out of his system.
“You’re the only one I never…”
“Never what? Never shot like a coward? Never succeeded in killing?”
“Never wanted to.” His hands came down onto Andrew’s forearm even though he didn’t have permission. His vision was swimming around the edges and he couldn’t tell if it was because of the drug or the pressure on his trachea. “I didn’t want to kill you. H-hospital. You still need the hospital. You have time.”
“Why should I believe a single thing you say?”
“I’ve never lied to you.” It was so important for him to say that somehow the words came out with conviction. “Never lied. Andrew, you’re amazing and I love you but you need to leave right now.”
His knees gave out and for the briefest moment all of his weight was being held by the hand on his throat. Andrew lowered them both to the ground.
“What did- You idiot.” Ah, yes. He must have caught on. “You did all this to live only to fucking kill yourself? Neil. Neil… Neil!”
Neil had never panicked on a job, but he’d also never woken up in a hospital bed before. He was aware of the spike in noise before he was aware of his surroundings.
“The worst assassin in history.”
Neil groaned but didn’t yet open his eyes. His memory was just solid enough to know what he’d taken and experience told him he wasn’t ready to face the spinning world.
“Can’t say he was wrong, technically,” the same voice said.
“What kind of assassin not only chooses the wrong target but falls in love with their dumb ass?”
“This dumb ass has the same level of education as your dumb ass.”
“My dumb ass has a doctorate of medicine, not in books.”
“Literature.”
“Still dumb.”
“Sssh,” Neil breathed out, testing the waters of control and strength. He had very little of either.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the dumbest of asses.”
“Give him another hour and he might even be able to respond.”
“Now who would want that.”
The second time Neil woke up in a hospital, it was enough for him to look around and realize this was not a hospital but rather a medically furnished bedroom.
“I hate you.”
He turned his head to see Andrew slouching back in an overstuffed, wingback chair. The look on his ever-passive face was angry and Neil would take angry over dead any day.
“You made it,” he slurred. His mouth felt like cotton. “You made it,” he said again because it was right and good. “You made it.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m fine. Got a tolerance”
“Is that something they teach you in the bright sunny world of the Nest?”
Neil made a finger gun at Andrew (why?) and slowly, slowly tilted himself onto his side to see him better. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew there were things he needed to worry about, but for now he just wanted to look.
“I’m happy you’re alive.”
“I don’t care.” And he sounded like he didn’t, but that was how he always sounded. Still Andrew. Still him. Still alive. For a long, quiet while they stared at each other.
“I have to go before the Moriyama’s come looking to do clean up. This won’t be tolerated.”
“No. It won’t be. But not by the Moriyama’s.”
Andrew stood in a motion that made him look much older than he was, tired. As he came to stand over the bed, Neil couldn’t help but stare because not killing Andrew Minyard was the only right thing he had ever done.
“The Foxes completed their take down of the Moriyama’s. It’s been all over the news, which you would have seen if you hadn’t poisoned yourself.”
The… the what? Something must have shown on Neil’s face because Andrew pressed him down into the bed a split second before he’d tried to sit up. As consciousness cleared his fog, his brain began catching up enough to understand that he wasn’t understanding. The synapses were there but they weren’t connecting.
“I don’t understand,” he whispered. Andrew’s mask twitched.
“Of course you don’t, you’ve been too deep cover to keep up with what was right under your nose. The Foxes won, there are no more Ravens, and you, Nathaniel, are a free man.”
The sound of that name, his name, sent a flinch so hard through his body that it made something cramp in his stomach. Andrew watched, bored, as he curled in on himself. If he knew that name, if his cover was blown so spectacularly, then there must be an ounce of truth to it.
“I’m just… Neil. I just want to be Neil.”
“Well, Neil.” Andrew slid his hand into Neil’s hair and squeezed, not hard but enough to tilt his head back. “If you ever do something that stupid again I will kill you myself.” Something in his eyes, however passive he tried to pull off, told Neil that Andrew was not referring to his own attempted murder.
“Were you… worried about me?” That couldn’t be right.
“I don’t know, Neil.” He kept saying his name like that and Neil didn’t know what to feel about it. “My whatever of a good stretch of time nearly killed himself. How should I be feeling?”
“I nearly killed you. I only poisoned myself a little.”
“Why?”
Why? The easy answer was forensics. Two glasses. Two drinkers. One lucky to survive the ordeal. But that wasn’t all of it. As Neil stared up up at Andrew, here at the other side of it all, he could admit to himself that he was glad for the punishment.
“Because… because I was going to kill you to save my own life and I had never hated myself for anything more than that.”
“I hate you,” Andrew spat.
“As long as you’re alive to hate me it’s fine.”
“Shut up.”
“Tell me more about the take down.”
“No.”
“Is your brother a Fox? Do I have to be killed for knowing that?”
“You have to be killed because you won’t shut your mouth.”
A good stretch of time. That’s how long Neil had been worming his way to be Andrew’s whatever. And in all that time he’d never felt safer. He lifted a shaky hand and waited. It took nearly a minute before Andrew released his hair and took the hand up in his own.
He didn’t apologize for trying to kill him. He didn’t apologize for coming into his life under false pretenses. If Andrew was there now, he trusted Neil enough to understand. They could talk about it later.
“Go back to sleep,” Andrew ordered quietly.
“So I’ll shut up?” Neil whispered back. His eyes were already drifting closed.
“Sure.”