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Bang bang, he shot me down
Bang bang, I hit the ground
A gun cocks in the distance. Neil pauses, listening intently.
Footsteps muffled by the carpet, getting closer. He breathes in, once through his nose and releases it through his mouth. He keeps his fingers close to his armbands concealed beneath his shirtsleeves, and flies into the corridor, every nerve in his body screaming at him to get back to the safety of the dark corner.
He fluidly removes two sharp knives and stands poised opposite the one man didn’t want to see.
“You.”
The man in front of him lets out a long exhale, as if he is tired of seeing him. “You,” his voice goes flat.
“Me,” Neil tilts his head to the side. And then, “Where is he?”
The man scoffs, “I’m not telling you, Josten.”
“By now, you should know that it is not a good idea,” he bares his teeth in a vicious, villainous smile.
The man remains unfazed. “Are you wearing a vest?”
Neil rolls his eyes. “Yes, Minyard. I’m not a novice.”
The man scoffs delicately, “Idiot.”
He fires at the same time Neil’s knives arc gracefully through the air.
Both of them find their respective marks.
//
I was five and he was six
We rode on horses made of sticks
“Andrew look, Andrew!”
Andrew frowns at his friend. The playground was filled with his annoying classmates and he hated all of them. His foster mother would call that rude; she would tell him that he shouldn’t really hate people. But it was the only thing his five-year-old body held.
Hate and anger – always warring with each other.
“Nathaniel, stop,” he whines now, slight lisp making itself known. “You’re going too fast,” he knots his hand into the back of his friend’s blue t-shirt and drags him to a slow stop.
“Andrew,” he grumbles, but Andrew simply marches them towards a bench under a tree nearby, making sure Nathaniel was following him.
“I want to play.”
“I want to sit down. Stop running. My mother says it’s bad.”
Nathaniel’s eyes go wide. “My mum too. She says my father will hear me.”
Andrew frowns, picking out a smooth pebble from the ground. “What would he do if he hears you?” He watches him, while spinning the pebble between his fingers.
Nathaniel slumps forward. “He hits me.”
Andrew closes his fist around the stone, the cracks digging into his palms. “I will hit him back for you.”
Nathaniel’s blue eyes are now the size of saucers. “No, An’rew,” he stumbles, fear a real, flashing thing in his eyes, “He’s much bigger than you.”
Andrew scoffs, stuffing the pebble into Neil’s hand. “I’m not afraid. I’ll take him down for you.”
//
He wore black and I wore white
He would always win the fight
“I’m stronger than you.”
Andrew hums around his ice cream scone. “Have you seen yourself?” he says, lisp still strong. Nathaniel slouches in the seat next to him.
“I am strong, An’rew. I will punch anyone who talks to you.”
Andrew looks at him, puzzled. “Really?”
Now, Nathaniel scoffs. “Ya.” And then, “Give me your ice cream. I want to try.”
Andrew hands his pistachio cone to Nathaniel and takes his chocolate cone in return. He gives it a few experimental licks and then settles in happily with it. He looks at Nathaniel and says, “Your eyes are blue.”
Nathaniel blinks back at him. “Yes, they are. Yours are brown.”
“I know. They were black yesterday.”
“That can’t be true. Eyes don’t change colour,” Nathaniel replies hotly. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I will never lie to you,” Andrew says solemnly and licks more of his ice cream until Nathaniel notices.
“Hey! That’s mine.”
Andrew shoves the whole cone into his mouth, freezing his mouth in the process. His eyes water and his head feels cold, but he chomps down on the ice cream anyway, watching Nathaniel’s eyes fill with tears.
“I hate you, An’rew,” he yells, running out of the classroom.
//
Seasons came and changed the time
When I grew up, I called him mine
Andrew lazily swats at the flies hovering around the schoolyard. The summer heat made him feel stupid. His eyes scan the ground, looking for a head of red hair. He sighs.
“Looking for me?”
He jumps and then turns around and scowls. “No.”
Nathaniel smiles at him. “It’s okay. I was looking for you.”
“You always look for me.”
“Ya you’re my best friend,” Nathaniel scoffs.
Andrew takes in the scars on his neck that he’s attempted to hide with a scarf. “Again?”
Nathaniel shakes his head and looks into his eyes. “I will tell you if you tell me.”
Andrew looks down at his shoes, noticing how frayed they are. “I have nothing to tell you.” It comes out a little quieter than he intends, breath catching between syllables, reducing his statement to a stumbling mess.
“Okay,” Nathaniel says, but sits down next to him. “You’re still my best friend Andrew. Even though you stole my chocolate ice cream that time.”
“Shut up it was mine.”
Nathaniel looks at him, eyes round. “Don’t say shut up. It’s a bad thing.”
Andrew turns, “What? Says who?”
Nathaniel’s brows furrow slightly, and his voice drops an octave, “My father.”
“I’m going to kill him one day,” he swears, fully expecting Nathaniel to admonish him, but it doesn’t come. Instead, he looks at him with wonder and says, “One day I’m going to marry you, Andrew.”
“What does that mean?” His lisp is gone now.
Nathaniel looks thrown for a moment. “It means we’ll be together all the time.”
Andrew considers this. “But we’re already always together,” he says, prompting an eyeroll from Nathaniel.
“I meant we’ll stay together.”
Andrew tries very, very hard to tamp down the giddy feeling churning through him. “Okay. Then?” he prompts and Nathaniel’s brows furrow, knees knocking into Andrew’s.
“We can share games. And books.”
“I’d like that,” Andrew hums, “And then?”
Nathaniel scrunches his nose in confusion. “I’m not sure. Do you know what we have to do to get married?”
Andrew thinks for a second. “Kiss, I think.”
“Ewwwww,” Nathaniels leaps away. “Ew, Andrew. I’m not kissing you.”
Andrew pulls him back next to him. “Don’t. We’ll find another way to be together.”
“Fine,” Nathaniel pouts.
Andrew leans back on his elbows and breathes deeply. “I like sitting with you.”
Nathaniel bumps his foot against his. “Same.” And then, “Do you think I’m weird?”
Andrew wishes he had a dictionary with him. “What does that mean?”
“My mother says it means different. She asks me to not be weird all the time.”
Andrew frowns. “I don’t understand. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
All Nathaniel says is thank you.
//
He would always laugh and say
"Remember when we used to play?"
“Nathaniel-”
“It’s Neil, uncle Stuart.”
“Sorry, kid. I keep forgetting,” Stuart says, surveying Neil’s black hair and brown eyes. They were in his London house. Neil fidgets.
“My sources tell me that your father is dead.”
Neil’s head shoots up, “But-”
Stuart looks distinctly uncomfortable. “He was alive when we left him, yes.” He clears his throat. “I think the Moriyamas shot him.”
Neil looks nonplussed. “Why?” His voice is a ragged croak at this point.
“Looks like they had unfinished business with him too.”
“It doesn’t make any sense. He brought them a lot of money.” Neil takes in a shaky breath and lets it out quietly. His father was dead. His mother was gone. Loss rang loud and true between his ears; he shuddered with it.
Stuart looks at him, a little worried now. “I don’t know the reasons, Neil. But safe to say he’s not going to come after you. If only your mother were-”
“But she’s dead, uncle Stuart,” he says, steel in his voice. “I’m tired of running. I’m tired of hiding, of being nothing.” He slips his hand into his pocket and draws out a pebble, its edges worn smooth with age. He clutches it tightly, willing his panic down.
Stuart’s gaze is reflective. “What do you want to do?”
“I want to do what you’re doing,” he says, and watches his uncle blanch. His resolve only grows. “I want to take out the bad people, uncle Stuart.”
“Neil. We ARE the bad people.”
Neil’s smile is a vicious thing – all teeth. “I know.”
“You are too like your mother some times, kid,” Stuart sighs, weary. “I’ll make sure you begin training soon.”
Neil sighs, and then startles when a group of loud and rowdy people enter the room. He instantly tenses, fists clenched, body pumping adrenaline. He realises he’s out of his seat only when a woman steps forward with a soft “hey” and reaches her hand out to him.
“Neil, these are your cousins. And probably your colleagues if things go to plan,” he hears Stuart say.
“Hey, man, we got ice cream,” one of them says with a smile, pressing a cone into Neil’s hand. They all talk at the same time, and Neil falls back into his chair.
He looks at the ice cream in his hand and cracks a genuine smile for the first time in years.
It’s chocolate.
He stuffs the whole thing into his mouth to everybody’s horror.
//
Now he's gone, I don't know why
And 'til this day, sometimes I cry
Andrew clenched his fists. “Where is he?”
“Andrew, sit down.”
The panic was a thunderstorm in his head. “Where is he?”
“Andrew, I need you to calm down.” He hears voices, but he is miles away from the classroom he is in right now.
He never got Nathaniel’s phone number. They always met in school, sat with each other, played together, shared snacks and brooded at the sky. Summers moved torturously slow but Andrew pushed through the months, counting the days down until he could go back to school; to Nathaniel.
And now the teacher assigned to his class has the audacity to tell him that Nathaniel was no longer in his class. There is a mousey-haired kid next to him now, and Andrew’s anger surges – wild and vociferous.
He bristles at the unfairness of it. He picks up his battered pencil case and hurls it at the chalkboard. It bounces open, spilling his pencils and pens everywhere. “Tell me where he is,” he spits out at the teacher, and sees something flash in her eyes that he knows too well – fear, blank abrupt fear. He begins to cry.
Twenty minutes later, he is seated in front of the principal in a wooden chair, his feet dangling high off the ground.
“Andrew,” she says gently and he looks up, wiping his nose against his sleeve. “Will you tell me what’s wrong?”
“Why should I?” he sulks, trying to push away the tears threatening to spill.
“Because I might be able to help you.”
“No one ever helps,” he says, petulant, and watches her eyebrows pinch together.
“Andrew, I promise to help.”
He looks up expectantly. “Really?”
She nods once, “Really.”
He pauses for a minute. “My friend Nathaniel is missing.”
Her expression changes instantly. “Ah.”
“Do you know where he is?”
His heart sinks as he watches the principal shake her head, “Sorry, Andrew. His mother took him away. He won’t be returning.”
Panic fizzled through his gut. “Ever?”
She holds her hands out apologetically. “Sorry, Andrew.”
He grips the edges of his chair, ignoring the pain. “But where has he gone?”
“Nobody knows.”
The tears fall.
He learns to talk with his fists, he learns to not trust, he learns that promises are always broken.
He buries Nathaniel somewhere the ugly tendrils of his reality won’t ever be able to touch.
//
Bang bang, that awful sound
Bang bang, I used to shoot you down
They clambered down a steep stairwell, into the bowels of the bungalow that was the home of the Butcher.
Andrew pulls out a gun, and pushes aside the men in front of him.
“Move,” he growls, a muted fury singing through his veins, heart thudding in his throat. He doesn’t know what waited for him in the dark, dingy basement; he expects the worst; goes in.
The basement room is all rough concrete, as though it was hewn from stone. He takes a quick look at the walls, bare except for a few rusted tools, a broken down radiator near the back, the few naked bulbs hanging off their wiring from the uneven ceiling.
His gaze comes to a shuddering stop and hones in on the bodies lying on the floor.
He freezes for a second as his men around him surge forward. Every pump of blood through his veins is a hoarse No, No, No screaming their way through his body to his mind. He steps forward, boots landing in puddles of rust-red liquid – blood, he realises, with a jolt that hooks somewhere beneath his navel. He notices bullets scattered on the floor, a blunt axe with bloody fingerprints on its handle.
“Lola,” he hears one of the men mutter in the distance. He recognises the hair, and her trademark blue jacket.
His feet carry him – reluctantly – to the other body, and he looks down. A pair of bloodshot, ice blue eyes look back at him. He raises his gun, angles it at the bloodied, scarred torso of the man in front of him.
He sees fear flash through those eyes. His fingers pull the trigger.
“Minyard,” someone yells in the distance. Footsteps come closer. He fires two more times in quick succession, and watches the life leach out of the man’s eyes.
“This is for him,” he whispers, baring his teeth at the lifeless body in front of him.
“Man, you took out the Butcher,” someone claps their hand on his shoulder, and Andrew eases himself out of the grip.
“The boss is going to be happy,” says the woman to his right.
“Where’s his son though?” her companion asks.
Andrew walks back outside without a single backward glance.
//
Music played and people sang
Just for me the church bells rang
“What are we even doing here?” Neil groans, settling into his seat with a champagne flute in his left hand.
“Focus,” Jamie retorts, slipping into the seat next to him with ease. “Also, since when do you drink?”
“Champagne isn’t alcohol,” he scoffs, scarfing down the contents of the glass.
She rolls her eyes and leans in slightly. “The Moriyamas have sent their guys here too, I hear.”
Neil frowns for a beat, “Why?” and then, “No seriously, why?”
Jamie rolls her eyes. “I heard you the first time.”
Neil pushes at her shoulder with his. “Good. Thought your hearing went for a toss after the bombing last week.”
“Shut up Neil,” she snipes, and then, “They have a target here too.”
Neil stiffens.
“I don’t think it’s you. I won’t let them harm you,” she says, eyes flashing, and not for the first time, Neil feels something fierce for his family.
He nods once and then stands, weaving through the guests thronging the venue, and heads for the washroom. Locking himself in a cubicle, he checks the armbands tucked beneath his suit for knives. He pats his waistband for the gun. He slips his hand into his jacket’s inner pocket and feels the smooth, worn face of a pebble. He turns to the mirror and takes in his auburn hair, scarred face and icy blue eyes.
“Be ready in three,” Jamie’s voice comes crackling through his earpiece. He adjusts his collar and steps out.
“GO,” she yells, and he turns the corner at full tilt, knives drawn, and promptly freezes.
His mark is currently being tackled to the ground by someone else. His gaze meets Jamie’s across the lawn and she looks as annoyed as he is.
The man pumps a bullet into the mark’s leg and ties his arms behind his back, tosses him over to his accomplice and looks up.
He pauses.
Neil frowns. There’s something about his blonde hair that he cannot place. It is also the way he moves, the frown currently on his face, the way his lips turn down on one side.
The man walks up to him, and Neil sees Jamie move a step forward.
Hazel eyes look into his. They track the burn marks on his face, lingering on the scars on his neck.
“Nathaniel,” the man says. “Thought I’d never see you again.”
Neil draws in a raggedy breath as his vision goes grey at the edges. “Are you real?” he asks, voice hoarse.
“Neil,” Jamie calls out for him, but he cannot bring himself to look anywhere else.
Andrew smiles up at him, his mouth quirking up in a way that is absurdly familiar to Neil. “I’m not a hallucination.”
Neil’s answering grin is every inch as feral as Andrew’s dreams.
//
He didn't even say goodbye
He didn't take the time to lie
“I hate you,” Andrew mumbles, biting a kiss into Neil’s neck, feeling him tremble beneath his lips.
“I hate you,” he kisses his shoulder, pressing harder into the scar stretching over Neil’s skin.
“I hate you,” he touches a finger to Neil’s lower lip, surging forward to kiss him hard.
“I thought that was my line,” Neil gasps, arching into his touch. “How much?”
“One percent for every second that you weren’t there by my side,” Andrew says, catching his fingers and putting them to his lips.
Neil looks at him, his face a mask of incredulity, “How have you not forgotten me?”
Andrew sits back in a flash. “What did you say?” he goes, voice dangerously quiet, but all Neil does is roll his eyes at him.
“Andrew I left without a trace at 11. It’s been what? 13 years?”
“And what of it?” Andrew says, turning his face away, trying not to spiral. His sheaths dig into his skin beneath his armbands, his fingers itch for a cigarette.
Neil reaches out and gently tilts his chin up. “Did you look for me?”
Andrew scoffs, “I always look for you, idiot.”
Neil grins; Andrew slips.
He proceeds to kiss his scars, lips catching on rough skin. He touches Neil with a reverence he cannot bring himself to think about. He asks for the stories behind the scars. He seethes.
“He’s gone now. There’s no point to your anger,” Neil informs him, his face an open wound.
“I know,” Andrew manages to rasp out, voice taut and unyielding. He swallows, “I shot him dead.” He cannot bring himself to look at Neil. “I told you I’ll take him down, didn’t I?”
Neil’s hands tighten on his shoulders, and he pulls him closer.
Later, surrounded by darkness, Andrew speaks into his pillow as Neil cards through his hair, “You could have told me you were leaving.”
“I didn’t know I was leaving either,” he says softly, into the darkness between them, and Andrew clutches the pillow harder.
“I think I broke when you left.”
Neil kisses his forehead. He scrabbles around the nightstand and then unclenches Andrew’s left hand, placing something in it. Andrew squints at the pebble; in the half-light of the room, its smooth surface shines pale and iridescent.
Andrew presses a kiss to it. Neil then puts his mouth to Andrew’s scars, splitting him at the seams, sending him into freefall.
//
Bang bang, that awful sound
Bang bang, my baby shot me down
They both fall.
Andrew tugs a knife off of his shirtsleeve, where it has pinned him to the wall. “I like this shirt, asshole. Try not to rip it up.”
“I’ll buy you another one,” Neil says, ducking as his knife comes back to him, whistling through the air.
“No thank you,” Andrew shudders, kicking out at Neil’s legs. “Your taste in clothes is terrible. What are you even wearing? he squints against the light.
“This is YOUR shirt, you fucking fucker,” Neil growls, landing a punch on Andrew’s bicep, making him stagger sideways. Andrew straightens himself and immediately lands a blow to Neil’s chest. “Which you bought for me. So, you see what I mean?”
Neil glowers at him from the floor. “I didn’t hear you complain when you wore it the first time,” he says, dodging a kick, and throws two knives in Andrew’s general direction. “Or the second. Or the third, or fourth or the 50th million time.”
Andrew pulls out the knives from the carpet behind him with a vicious flourish. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” he drawls, and neatly sends Neil sprawling with a well-aimed uppercut.
“If you are done flirting with your fucking boyfriend, can you get back on the job, Neil?” Jamie’s voice comes crackling through the earpiece and Neil grins. “Jamie says hi.”
Andrew rolls his eyes, “I met her yesterday.”
Neil’s grin widens, and then he tackles Andrew to the ground, pinning his arms above him, slotting their hips together neatly. “Minyard.”
Andrew sighs, “Josten.”
“Tell me where he is.”
“Use your brain for once maybe?”
“Fuck you.”
“Later.”
“Okay.”
They pant from the exertion and Neil winces when he feels his jaw throb with pain from where Andrew had punched him earlier.
“Does it hurt?” he asks from below him, and Neil smirks. “I’ve seen worse,” he says, aiming for condescension but it only comes out in a fond tone.
Andrew grimaces. He pulls Neil closer and places a kiss to his jaw and then one on his nose before flipping them over.
“Seriously, are you guys cuddling on the floor?” Jamie squawks in his ear and Neil ignores her.
“I’ll get the ice ready when you come back home,” Andrew mutters, his fingers raking through Neil’s hair.
“Not if I get home first,” Neil replies cheekily, kissing Andrew between his eyebrows.
“No kissing on the job, Neil,” Jamie screeches, and this time Neil chuckles. “Shut up, Jamie. I found a loophole.”
“I thought shut up was a bad thing to say?” Andrew quirks an eyebrow at him and Neil flushes. “I was 10 years old, Andrew. Shut the fuck up now.”
Andrew’s lips quirk, and he gets up, smoothing his shirt down, and watches Neil struggle to his feet.
“Right. I’ll see you around?” Neil says, sheathing his knife and taking his gun out.
“Maybe,” Andrew says, cocking his own gun.
“Stay safe, Andrew,” Neil calls behind his back, turning a sharp corner.
With no one to witness him in the middle of a dark corridor, Andrew smiles.