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He knows something is wrong when, in the middle of sitting through his target’s self-important monologuing, Twilight thinks, I wish Yor were here.
It’s startling enough of a thought to crash land him back to the present situation, where his target, idiot that he is, has turned his back to the spy. And while Twilight is strapped to a chair and his wrists are bound behind the seat back, it is all, of course, a ploy to lower the target’s guard. Appropriately enough, the target wakes up three hours later, blinking amphibiously at the ceiling. Twilight is nowhere to be found, and neither is the precious, internationally contentious jewel previously in the mustached man’s coat pocket.
Many streets away, Loid steps into warm, bright lighting and the smell of beef well past tastefully charred. His wife—a false front—peers out the kitchen at the sound of his entrance, expression like it always is, like she never expects him to return, and always, always splitting into a smile like she can’t believe he’s returned.
It isn’t right, thinks Twilight. It can’t be correct, he surmises as he returns her smile and her greeting, that the sight of her brings such relief.
It can’t be good.
—
Sometimes, when he’s waiting in the wings for the right moment to spring into action, he gets impatient.
It’s annoying, is what it is. Having to pay such close attention to how he breathes, having to stand so still, being so aware of every sound his targets make, every click of their polished shoes against tile, every brush of fabric, all of it leading to something, pointing to something, meaning something that he has to piece together in his own mind to ascertain where his targets are, what weapons they’re carrying, where he should shoot when the time comes—
He just wants to be home. His daughter—not quite real—has homework that he promised he’d help her with. The dog needs to be taken out, it’s his turn. His wife—an imitation—is all on her own, and while she can manage on her own just fine, he worries, perhaps for no reason, but he can’t help it, he just…
He just wants to be home.
When all the suits around the corner sound as if they’re standing in line, Twilight takes the turn, shoots with aquiline accuracy, searches the unconscious bodies for the artifact he needs, and makes his exit.
Two hours later, he enters his home. His wife greets him like she always does, like she’s so glad he didn’t run away, and for a second, like every time before, he wants more than to smile back at her.
—
He doesn’t remember much about his childhood. Certainly not any details. But he remembers feelings: fear of his father, desire to impress him, anticipation that it may happen, and freedom with his mother.
Back then, freedom was hiding behind his mother as a shield when his father was especially cross, or running to her in tears when exceptionally injured. There is no pain in his life now, not substantial at least, but the danger exists, if in a different form. And for a long time, there was only danger. So much so that it hardly felt like danger anymore.
He’d thought that that was freedom: impenetrability, and, though he’d never admit it, invincibility. The world’s best spy, a perfect track record. Only one goal in mind, and unwavering determination. Or maybe duty. Of course he’d figured it’d catch up to him one day, likely old age, but until then, what other purpose does he serve?
But these days, it doesn’t feel like freedom when he’s dodging bullets and reloading his own. It doesn’t feel like freedom to drag incapacitated bodies into dark closets. It doesn’t feel like freedom to wait as the minute hand ticks across the clock face. He wants a job he can clock in and out of.
These days, he finds that feeling in his daughter—not quite his daughter—who is still light in his arms when he brings her to bed. In his wife—not quite his wife—who looks at him just so when he walks through the door. It’s a version of what he felt with his mother, but honed to a finer point.
It’s dangerous. He shouldn’t indulge it.
Yet he finds he walks into the blade over and over and over again. Always willingly. Always wantingly.
—
One day, he has an uneventful day. He sits in his doctor’s office, filling out patient forms and signing off on research trials. He chats with the other doctors, nurses, patients, residents between meetings. He waits for the day to be over so he can go home.
It’s the sort of day that’s a relief in its nothingness, but he still, upon seeing Yor's face, feels the weight of nothingness come off his shoulders.
“You’re home!” she says, as if she half-thought he’d be on a plane halfway across the world.
“I’m home,” he answers, and it fights him because what he really wants is to scream I think I love you, I think I love you, I think I love you! And there’s the need or the urge or the something to pull her into his arms like any other couple would, to press his face into the crook of her neck and kiss, to grin at her like they don’t have secrets.
It makes him feel psychotic. Irrational. Unlike himself.
“I was just about to go to the bus stop,” she says.
“We can go together,” he says. His version of the truth. She glows. It makes him want to be something he isn't. It makes him want to bleed himself across the floor.
He’ll tell her. One day. When he better understands what it really is that makes him want to leap into depths he cannot see.