Chapter Text
airport terminals were a familiar evil in neil’s life, but no matter how often he went through them, the lines never got better. he never had to head to baggage claim, at least. all of his material possessions could fit in a single carry on.
the comforting thing about airports: no one seemed to give a shit about him. everyone there was a stranger to everyone else, and the only people that ever dressed up were there on business or first class flights. it wasn’t at all odd to see a boy in ratty clothes wandering through— it wasn’t like anyone else looked much better at two in the morning, no matter how nocturnal society had become, they were still human at their core.
the problem with airports: the fear every time his identification is checked, instinctive anxiety bubbling up in his chest when the name and picture on the documents doesn’t quite match up with the person he has come to be.
his paperwork was legitimate now; gifted to him by witness protection on the condition that he’d be allowed to change it when the threat of his history was cleared from the horizon. he wouldn’t have to worry about being caught for there was nothing to be caught for, fake names and identity fraud a thing of the past. his mother wasn’t there to squeeze his wrist so tight it bruised, making him wince every time she had to hand their papers over. she was dead, and he was real, however strange that felt.
the truth was this: his documents looked more real when he was fake, everything about the lie a little more true to him. he was allowed to be calvin, alexander, stefan; now he wasn’t anything but who witness protection said he was, and that was nothing like him at all.
“naomi?” the woman at the desk asked, looking from him to his identification and back again.
“i haven’t gotten it changed since, uh—“ neil gestured to himself; black hair, bound chest, faint mustache hairs he’d been advised to shave but would only under threat of death actually do so. he looked nothing like his pictures, carefully staged to exude harmlessness and femininity, as if both equates to the same thing.
the lady nodded, taking that for what it was. it was two am, after all, and not even in a nocturnal society did anyone have the energy to start a fuss. she handed the papers back, which neil snatched greedily from her hands, and called for the next arrival to come up to the desk.
neil scurried away, fleeing the scene as fast as he possibly could without arousing suspicion. as much as he was finally allowed to take his time wandering like any other arrival, staying any longer than was needed would probably give him hives.
from the email he had received from the REGISTRY, his guard was supposed to receive him at exit gate F, which meant sprinting to the very end of the pick-up areas to sit and waiting for someone he’d only seen one picture of and who had probably only seen one terrifyingly misleading picture of him.
hernandez had assured him that he’d picked neil’s guard specifically because he had respected his pronouns, but that in itself could mean nothing. V-positives would say whatever they had to to get a bank in their possession, so long as it got them what they wanted. the older banks that came in for re-education and debriefing delighted in spinning horror stories for the undergrads of the program, and that was often all they were, but many tended to be warnings.
simone hathaway, fresh off of her third assignment, was pressured for a story of either kind; preferably the first, for none of the undergrads wanted to be told that they would all be dying horribly. however, the likelihood was that they would all be entering perfect death traps, so simone would not risk sparing them of that reality.
“my first guard was really sweet, at first,” she said, vowels sweet and slow like southern honey. “he was a real stand up guy, discounting the fact that he was about twice my age— this was back when people were still scared of dying, so banks tended to be a lot younger and guards a lot older. it wasn’t odd that he had chosen me, and back then they let us pick guards for ourselves once they said they liked us, so i wasn’t surprised to see him when he came in for visitation.
“he was really nice— like, crazy nice. it was almost creepy, and now it definitely is. he bought me gifts that started out as food and then became jewlery and clothes, he talked to me about his problems with his wife and then asked me to talk about boys, he said he wanted to know everything about me so he would be able to care for me when he was my guard.”
“that’s.. weird,” one of the younger banks frowned. “and you didn’t notice?”
simone shrugged. “i was used to men yelling and hitting me— this was tame, i thought it was normal.”
she was quiet after that. back then, banks tended to have higher rates of homelessness and abuse pre-REGISTRY than even now.
“long story short, i chose him. i wanted to pick some old lady instead, but her caretakers said they didn’t want anyone with a criminal history in the home, regardless of the fact that it was self defense.
“his house was nice, and so was his wife, but then the missus went to dinner with him and didn’t come back when he did, and i never saw her again.”
this was sometimes where the stories ended; where the frightened banks called the cops or the REGISTRY and got the hell out of dodge. it didn’t.
“he got home, i asked about his wife, and he locked me in the basement from the outside. he came home from work everyday, fed his dog, walked around his kitchen, and visited me— all i had to listen to was his footsteps and my own breathing, so i paid attention to this shit, believe it or not. after, he’d come down and visit me, tell me i had to feed him before he would give me any food of my own. if i refused, we both starved, but he’d beat me until he didn’t have to get my permission to get the blood out from my body.”
“fuck,” said one of the loudest undergrads, but he wasn’t very loud at all now.
simone laughed, but it fell from her mouth like tar. “yeah, he did that too— he was pretty greedy that way, wanted dinner and a show. ‘cept one of my best friends in the program was a jailbird, and taught us all to make shivs from pretty much anything. he wasn’t exactly ready for me to stab him in the throat, no matter how fucking powerful he wanted to be.”
there was a cacophony of audible surprise when she smiled; oozing the same dark substance as was in her laughter, black and poisonous.
“did he die?” neil asked, causing about as much surprise as simone’s twisted grin. he rarely spoke except to dole out a swift reprimand, usually resulting in silencing the rest of his class.
simone shook her head, and disapointment shot through the room like a bullet. “he was just surprised enough that i could finally run from him and call the cops. I was there for a month— you all could be longer.”
and that was the truth, though neil in that moment had sworn to himself he’d kill his guard and strike faster than it took for the other ravens to kill him first.
neil in this moment had yet to plan out the death of andrew minyard. he figures that plan A should suffice regardless: fight like hell.
a car pulled up to the pick-up lane. the driver’s side window rolled down, only for neil to see a man about a few inches too tall and a few shades to dark to be his guard. nevertheless, he called out: “neil josten?”
neil adjusted his bag over his shoulder and walked over to meet his new captors. “that’s me.”
the not-guard arched a brow. “nice hair.”
“thanks, i grew it myself.”
peering into the backseat and seeing two for the price of one, he braced himself for impact. this was going to be be rough.,