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Norton Campbell’s kitchen is big enough for a staff to work it.
Just- Absolutely sprawling. The sort with pots and pans that hang from the ceiling. The fridges are electric (Jesus) and countertops are a marble maze, and he has multiple working sinks hooked up in here.
It makes the sheer emptiness of it rather jarring.
He finds only one cabinet to be filled with food, and another to be filled with spices. The fridge is barebones at best, with maybe some variety of vegetables, and some indiscriminate meat that looks a day or two from go bad. Only one stove seems to get any use, caked with splashes of old food (The one closest to the door, Naib notes) and near all of his dishes sit unwashed in the smallest sink ( also the one closest to the door, Naib notes) and Naib needs to wash just enough for them to eat off of (He then notes, absentminded, that Norton has just about run out of soap, with a splash of water in there to give him a bit more to work with.)
And there’s no one. The kitchen is empty enough that the wooden spoon hitting the pan causes an echo, and his footsteps ( Naib’s footsteps , who walks so quietly he’s a tendency to scare the shit out of half the man he’s lived with) catch on the walls in squeaks and scuffs.
Naib tries to bring this up to Norton. It goes well.
“So,” Naib says, pushing a bit of his food around on his plate, “You’ve got a house now.”
Norton snorts, “Something like that.”
“It’s a nice house,” Naib continues, fingers twitching against silverware, “Rather large. But nice.”
“Thanks,” Norton stares at him, raises his fork to point at him in a way that feels far less threatening and far more accusatory. His tone is so incredibly dry, and gaze so incredibly blank, and then he adds, “Was a lot nicer before you covered it in my blood.”
And all Naib ducks his head into his hand and groan, “Campbell-”
“You know, I think that’s going to stain.”
He grabs his hood and quietly yanks it over his eyes.
Of all the people, it had to be Norton fucking Campbell.
//
There’s a house on a hill, with an old worn path leading up to it, and a good few acres of land surrounding it.
It’s not the first thing Naib notes about it. The first thing Naib notes about it is how unprotected it is. The entranceway (An old, rusted iron cast gate, large enough that he needs to heave it open with his shoulder) remained unlocked, cracked open somewhat from what he imagines was the recent storm. Most of the doors and windows are locked, but he finds that of all doors, the front door is not.
There’s a file in his hand. Shifted to him on some dusty office desk, in a room where the air was a little too dry and light a little too low. He’s never quite understood the need for the dramatics, with these things.
Rich people, he thinks, with a huff.
“Mr. Mole,” He mumbles to no one, thumbs through the pages, “Who the fuck calls themselves that? Sounds like a tool.”
When you kill for a living, you can’t just be good at your job.
You need to be great at it. Your life or theirs. Effient, and calculate. The fact that getting into his house is so easy isn’t taken as luck, but a warning.
The halls of this place are a maze, the air stale and still. But the pathway is lit up to him like an invitation. Again, quite literally in this case. The living room light has been left on. The kitchen lights are low, but there. Only one bedroom has it’s door open, and one office has sound coming from it.
He strikes without looking at them.
Maybe he should have.
//
Norton Campbell’s medical cabinet is filled with pills Naib doesn’t know the name of, cough syrups that look more like poisons, and a first-aid kit that looks more like a surgical unit supply closet. Which Naib would think ridiculous were it not for the fact that it might just save his life.
“Where the hell did you get morphine from,” Naib calls back, like he expects a reply from a dying man, and snatches the bottle off the top shelf. Right.
The clothing Norton wears is of a quality far nicer than he expects. He’s use to seeing Norton in working man's cloths. Worn denim and cotton, not satins and leathers. It’s a jarring experience. They look new.
Having said that, he doesn’t feel too horrible, cutting into them.
He takes the time to stitch up the very wound he gave him (A skill trained into his hands by a doctor he struggles to remember the name of. It’s gone unpracticed on skin other than his own, but even in panic he remembers how to work a needle.) and bandage it properly (Another skill taught to him by that same doctor. He’s learned to work quickly and efficiently and every second could be another closer to death. What was their name. What was her fucking name.) and he’s almost thankful that Norton is, for some reason, out cold. The blood on his hands dries weirdly, in layers, and he gets a sickly feeling at the way the stench sticks under his nails.
That said, the first thing Norton does when he wakes up is offer him a nasy punch.
Which, ouch, okay, mother fucker . But Naib thinks he might deserve that much. It does leave a rather brilliant cut, deep across the cheek, and leaves him seeing stars in his spot. (How many fucking rings does he have on?)
At least he didn’t break his nose.
Which is the last thought he has, before Norton attempts to shoot him.
It does throw Naib for a loop.
Who gave Norton Campbell a gun. Why does he have a gun. (A glance tells him it’s a Colt Model; 1903. 9 bullets, he’s used one before. The arm he uses to aim is the side he’s been stabbed on, throws off his aim. The bullet flies past his head and hits the wall behind him instead. Naib still ducks to the ground in a crouch to dodge, entirely instinctual.
He holds his breath and waits for another shot to come.)
What he gets instead is;
A long pause, where Naib’s joints have locked up and entire body is tense. He’s two seconds from bolting across the room (The door is right there it’s right there if he’s careful he can dodge another bullet just fine) only instead of another bullet it’s recognition.
“Subedar…?” Norton hisses, goes to pull himself up, but immediately “What the fuck. You stabbed me,” His voice, notedly, cracks with disbelief.
“Hey Campbell,” He says, and immediately collapses back into a pile of his own limbs on the ground. His body does not, in fact, catch up with the fact that this is a nulled threat. He still feels ringing in his ears, a wicked turn of the stomach, a crawl of the skin he won’t be able to scratch away. His limbs are tense and hands don’t exactly shake, but they aren’t steady as he moves his hands up to run through his hair.
They stare at eachother. Norton blinks down at his own wound with an almost dazed look to his eyes, and Naib reaches for his blade entirely on instinct.
Then Norton says, “You know. I liked this shirt,”
And then he passes out again
==
“It is a rather nice house,” Norton notes, musing, leaning back to make a show of looking around his own home, “Bought it right out the manor. Paid the entire thing off in cash. Should have seen the look on the dealers face.”
He tries to imagine it. He remembers the torn up state he’d been in, coming out of the manor. Imagines Norton Campbell, years worth of grime on his hands, blood dried in his hair, and torn up clothing, handing a landlord what had to be thousands in cash for some three story home fresh on the market.
He’s almost positive that’s not how it actually happened. But he does humor the thought for a moment's time. Thinks that Norton does make for a rather jarring rich man, with the burn scars up his face and brush of elements that have worn and shaped his face.
It’s not an... un-nice face, despite that.
“Must be nice, needing not to worry about rent,” Naib notes, a mumble, refusing to lower his hood again, let alone look Norton in the eyes.
“Ah. See, you’re smart,” He hears Norton go in to actually eat, but when he peers up he finds his eyes to still be on him, simply spearing one meat piece after another without looking at it, “Same thought I had.”
Naib, finally, manages to pull himself back together. For a man that just got stabbed, Norton looks far too put together. Sure, his hair is standing in a hundred different directions, and he’s still has a blood stained shirt on, and he looks a bit pale and about ready to drop again. But he moves as though the pain is nothing.
(Naib understands that. Pain, to this day, still feels like something disconnected from him entirely. Like his body still expects the wounds to stitch themselves back up overnight. Like he wakes up, shocked, when he’s met with scabs and bandaging. Pain is secondary, something that exists strictly as a concept.
It scares him, somewhat.)
Then again, it could just as well be that Norton is probably more doped then a surgical patient right now. He didn’t count how many painkillers Norton took, but he doesn’t think Norton counted how many painkillers he took either.
“... Have you met up with anyone else,” Naib asks, more curious than anything. Maybe even a little hopeful. For as much as he keeps his eyes and ears open, he's only a single set of eyes and a single set of ears. His reach only goes so far, “You know. From the manor.”
“Nope,” Norton’s answer is short, and stilted. But he humors him, “Can’t say I’ve tried,” Naib tries to fault him for that. Something bitter in his chest.
He can’t fault him though. Not for that.
Norton continues, “Can’t say this is how I expected that to happen, either.”
Naib opens his mouth.
“So Mercenary work, huh?”
Naib closes his mouth. Nods.
“I didn’t realize it was you, prick,” Naib tells him, quietly, goes to dig the folded up paperwork from his pockets, “Mr. Mole is an absolutely brilliant name, by the way. Just- completely genius,” His tone leaves plenty of room to doubt that. Norton shrugs, catches the file that comes flying across the table.
“I thought it was fitting.”
“You sound like a tool.”
“So, fitting.”
Naib frowns. He pushes his plate forward and rubs at pressure points on his head, “Yeah,” He relents, “Sure. Lets go with that.”
Norton takes the time to flip through the few pages. He looks amused by it. Like the knowledge of having a hit on his head fills him with nothing but joy. His rings click together, and Naib takes into account the way they curl around his fingers.
Norton whistles, “Look at that pricetag,” He says, a huff of laughter falling from his lips, “No wonder you took it.”
“Yeah,” Naib reaches out to take it again. Norton yanks it away, then seems to regret this with a grimace and a grunt.
“The food poisoned?” Norton asks, and it’s only now that Naib realizes that he hasn’t actually.. Eaten any of it yet. Something about that sits weirdly in his chest. He doesn’t think how horrible he feels comes from the fact that he’s not gotten proper sleep in quite some time, nor from the realization
He wonders if it’s guilt.
“It’s not,” He reaches across the table to pluck up the pages, doing little to let the exhaustion croak in his voice, “I’m not going to kill you, Norton.”
“Ah. Well damn. What a way that would have been to go,” but he takes his word for it, it seems. Finally goes in to eat his food.
Silence has never wrong between them before. He wonders why it does now.
“So you have money now,” Is what Naib offers up in return, looking down at his own food with contempt. He thinks if he eats anymore he might vomit.
“Well. I won,” Norton says, “So did you.”
“My prize was the thrill of a battle and the realization that I hated it,” Immediate, and blunt, and harsher than he intends it to be.
“Ah.”
And then the silence feels right.
//
Naib falls asleep tucked between the couch and the side table, in a ball tight enough to hurt. He’s woken with a harsh kick to the side, something he thinks might bruise, that sends him scrambling in a blind panic to find something to fight with.
He doesn’t get that. What he gets instead, is Norton’s boot on his hand, with just enough pressure to hold it there.
“Get up,” Norton says, holding his side with one hand, the painkillers with another. He sounds exhausted, “You owe me breakfast.”
//
“Anyway, get some rest,” Norton tells him, “You’ll need it for the new job. Just take the first guest room you find.”
First guest room he finds. He snorts, and goes to take another bite of his food, “You have multiple guest rooms,” He says, disbelieving. Whether it’s because of what Norton’s decided to do with his wealth, or just trying to imagine Norton Campbell as someone that would actually have use for multiple guest rooms, Naib isn’t even entirely sure.
However, then the second part of Norton’s statement actually registers in his mind. He blinks. Glances up at Norton, rather than his meal, “... New job..?” Naib echo’s, curious.
“Well, yeah,” Norton pulls himself up off his chair with a grunt and a heave, something Naib almost scolds at him for doing. You know, just for old times sake. But he has the sinking suspicion that now really isn’t the best time, and that he isn’t the best person to be telling him that. Norton continues, “Evidently, I need a bodyguard, and you need something better to do with your life. So. New job. Congratulations.”
Norton gives his shoulder a few firm pats as he limps by.
He leaves the room.
Naib’s eye twitches.
“What. Campbell, what?” He calls out, spins in his chair. Then, louder, “Campbell! Do you think I’m agreeing to this!?”
Norton’s laughter echoes from down the hall.
Fucking. Prick.