Heathens chapter 8

It's been a while ahhhhh.

viii. 

He leaves the man’s body tied by the inner side of the fence surrounding the building, since he doesn’t want the damn thing to escape that easily if he does wake up a little earlier than B calculated. He grabs both guns, and the holster the man is wearing so he can tuck the backup handgun safely, makes sure to remember and check if he’s left anything that could be used as DNA evidence to trace back to him,  before climbing over and pulling his hoodie over his head. 

He looks exactly like the guys in photos people are warned about in school, the sort that sell you chalk marketed as drugs, or maybe are said to shank you for no other reason than you look shank-able, but it’s better that no one recognizes his face right now as he walks down the street. ‘Red house’ isn’t exactly very descriptive, but it’s the most that was offered to him, and it’ll be easy to find a red house in a city of dirty grey and smoke black, anyway, somewhat, after he looks at every house in the neighborhood or something.

At least, if Red House wasn’t the big bar several blocks away from the church. B stares at its sign, blinking in neon in the dark city, and thinks, well, the best disguises are the most obvious ones. 

It’s occupied, though, which is no surprise - duh, it was a bar, those things ran late into the evening - so he waits outside at the back, keeping quiet, since storming inside while there were people there was just going to have his face seen and remembered, not to mention any ruckus created downstairs once he got there would be quickly phoned to the police. 

So he waits, and hopefully A’s holding out a little longer.

“A bar basement? Wouldn’t that kind of be a wine cellar?”

“Depends - if this place was created with other things in mind, the basement’s not a basement, it’s a dealer’s office,” B says, “Storage would be on the higher floors.”

“Right.”

“Do they have cameras?”

“Yeah, they do, but none of them are for basement, so either they got turned off, or - you know, there’s none.”

B grins. “See?”

“Yeah, whatever, no need to gloat,” Jeevas says. “The more you wait, the less chance we have of getting to A in time.”

“Have a little faith in them, they’re not stupid,” B says, glancing at the back door, then to the wall of the neighboring building facing one of the bar’s curtained windows. It’s still bright. People inside. 

“You’re surprisingly not worried about anything right now.”

“I know A’s not stupid, and I know they can think their way out of a situation,” he says. “Just because they know I’m being sent in to retrieve them doesn’t mean they’re not going to do any work themself especially when I’m inconvenienced and trying to make sure everything goes smoothly and with as less unwanted attention as possible.”

“I thought attention was your whole thing.”

“Then you severely misunderstood me, Jeevas, I’m a little disappointed,” B says, gravely, and then laughs lightly a second later. “I adjust to what I need. I’m not an idiot either, otherwise I wouldn’t have been in Wammy’s.”

Jeevas doesn’t answer. B eyes the light from the window. 

“MONIKA, time?”

“11:10, sir.”

“And when does Red House usually close?”

“11:30, sir.”

“Twenty minutes until showtime, then,” B says. He feels for the knives sheathed and clipped to his belt, checks the guns he has on hand, and eyes the door again. They’re going to be closing soon. He just has to wait. 

He does. Forty minutes until everything has been cleaned and the bar house is locked, he approaches the back door, crouching down to set his gun on the ground and taking out a knife to slip into the thin space between the doorframe and the latch. 

“I can’t believe you’re prying a door open with a knife.”

“I have to improvise, I don’t have lock picks,” he says, “If we get lucky, this thing won’t snap. It’s a hunting knife, so, hopefully.”

“And if it doesn’t work, and you have to get loud and shoot the lock off?”

“We’ll break a window,” he says, “Or, at least try to, quietly.”

He carefully moves the blade down, feeling for the bolt, and then angles the knife so that its tip slides past the bolt, carefully pushing it so that it starts to move back the more the knife digs in. He turns his hand, trying to force the bolt back. It snaps back. 

“My god.”

“Not really,” B says, and then takes the knife out to move onto the second lock, the one without a door handle. 

Jeevas snorts. “Narcissistic bastard.”

“Not really either,” he says, doing the same thing, only the bolt doesn’t easily snap back and he thinks he’s going to bend the knife or snap the tip completely off if he forces it. He clicks his tongue.

“That sounds like you’re having trouble.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” he says, slowly tugging the knife back by just a bit, readjusting his hold on it and then letting it shimmy down a bit to the center of the bolt so it has less chance of slipping and snapping. He digs it in with a push, and then another, and another. Slowly turns the knife, letting the middle of the blade balance on the doorframe. 

It snaps back.

Jeevas lets out a small huff. 

B tucks the knife back into its sheath, gets his guns, and then twists the knob open carefully. “See?”

“That was luck.”

“That and precise maneuvering. The blade could have snapped,” he says, letting the door quietly click shut when he’s inside. He presses the lock. “Basement. Any idea which door it is from your footage?”

“Try the hallway next to the one by the bathrooms. I have no idea where the door there leads, since I’ve found the break room and the storage room, and I’m pretty sure I’m not seeing and confusing the footage - or lack thereof - from it to belong to other rooms. Boxes around the door,” Jeevas says. “That’ll be to your left once you get to the bar proper.”

He keeps his footsteps light, even as he walks quickly to get to the bar, and then to the left, where there’s several hallways. One has two doors that says BREAKROOM, and STORAGE, another has a ‘TOILETS THIS WAY’ placard right at the entrance, and the other is well-kept, but sparsely decorated, surrounded by boxes, with only one door at the very end of the hallway. 

His eyes adjusting to the dark of the room isn’t enough for him to make everything out, so he steps into the hallway carefully and whispers, “MONIKA, flashlight.”

The one on his phone turns on, the light phasing through the pocket of his jeans. He turns carefully, taking in everything he can. The wallpaper here is clean, but barely, like it’s been cleaned less than the rest of the area in the bar. There’s boxes everywhere, like Jeevas had said, but they look freshly moved, as there’s obvious marks on the carpet, parts that the dust hasn’t gotten to since the boxes have been there for so long they’d protected the space even as the rest of the hallway got covered in dust overtime.

“When were these boxes moved, have you checked the footage?”

“Yeah, they were moved this afternoon,” Jeevas says. B raises an eyebrow. “They had to wheel in a delivery and it wouldn’t fit through.”

“Deliver - of course,” he says. “If A curls up into a ball, they’d fit into a box if it’s sizeable enough.”

He turns so the light shines on the door at the end of the hallway. The placard on it says OFFICE. He doesn’t think it is. He clicks the safety off his gun, and holds it firmly in both hands, ready.

“MONIKA, flashlight off,” he says. The room is drenched in darkness, and he takes a few seconds to let his eyes adjust again. 

He tries to be quieter, somehow, as he walks down the hallway, trying to catch any noises that might be going on there. Not that there probably would be since the bar did just close, unless some of the cultists were still in and just told the employees to close up shop, and were just waiting for the quiet so they could probably try to get A to talk.

If that was the case, it was in both his and A’s favor. They wouldn’t have started when they knew noise would get even their employees suspicious. That is, unless they were cultists, but even then, the bar patrons couldn’t all be cultists. 

He tries the handle carefully. It doesn’t turn. He does think he can hear noises from downstairs. 

“Of course.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s the sound of a locked door, and that knife handle is going to snap.” 

“Well, they’re not going to have the keys around here,” he says, “I don’t think they’d leave  the office key even to an employee. The rest of the place’s keys, sure, but not this one.”

“I know. It’s still going to snap.”

“Bet, then.”

Jeevas laughs. B takes out one of his knives again, crouches, and feels for the space between the doorframe and the door itself with gloved fingers. The door is unfortunately fitted in a way that the blade would have to bend to even get to the bolt, and he frowns.

“Knife won’t work?”

“It’s not angled right for the knife,” he says, sheathing it back and standing up. “We’ll have to break it open if there’s no key, and I’m pretty sure there won’t be.”

“That’s going to make noise.”

He pauses, staring at the door. Right under the OFFICE placard is a scrap of paper. He thinks he can make out ‘employees are not permitted beyond this point’ printed on it, thanks to being so close to it.

He hears a faint thud, coming from below.

“It’s going to buy A time,” he says, takes a step back, and then kicks the door right beside where the knob is. The sudden burst of pressure is enough to let that weak point break, the bolt snapping off completely and the door swinging open. B grips the handgun again, ready, as he steps inside, footsteps quick but quiet, alert. 

The office really isn’t an office at all, and is in fact a basement, or at least, will look like one, as B is still descending the steps, and is getting to the anteroom - and already, he can hear more noises. The doorway leading to the room past this one has its lights on. There’s voices now, and they’re getting nearer. He runs to the corner nearest the doorway out the anteroom, keeping his gun close, before he sees someone else step into the room cautiously, gun drawn. Behind the man are three more people, just as armed and ready.

He fires first. 

The bullet goes straight into the man’s eye, and B immediately ducks, firing off another round that hits another one in the neck, his aim off due to the sudden burst of light in his vision from the shot, and then he lunges forward, aiming for one of the men’s knees., even if his arms barely gets what he’s aiming for. He feels a bullet graze his side, shit, but the adrenaline isn’t letting him feel it, and he tackles the man to the ground, before feeling a bullet actually rip through his thigh this time. If he doesn’t move soon, he’s going to have two people to deal with, and one of them has a gun, even if the other is still disoriented. 

He rolls off his target, gritting his teeth, and avoiding another round breaking past his ribs and into a lung, then raises his gun, aims, and squeezes the trigger, barely able to bring his other hand up for support as his shoulder jerks back from the recoil, his awful position not helping. The one on the ground is moving - he takes out one of his knives and shoves it up the underside of the man’s jaw. 

He takes a second to suck in a breath, take the knife out of the corpse - and it comes out with a disgusting, slick noise - and then stand. His wounds  don’t hurt as much, but he knows it’s going to hurt like a bitch when everything’s over and the adrenaline rush has died down.

There’s more thuds in the distance. 

“What is that?”

“Could be A, but I’m not sure if they’re the one doing the throwing around or if they’re the one being thrown around,” he mumbles, carefully sheathing the knife again so he can hold the handgun carefully. 

“How big is the place?”

“Not big enough,” B says.

There’s a gunshot.

“Shit.”

He rushes to the edge of the doorway, careful to look inside first, stepping in as soon as he sees it’s clear. There’s another gunshot, but it’s coming from the room beyond that, and he runs there, gun ready and drawn as soon as he’s inside. 

The first thing he sees are there’s three people. A is not there, at least not in his line of sight, but it’s a small, crowded room with three people not letting him see the rest of it. There’s weapons drawn, as all three people have guns, so he fires a shot into the back of the neck of the one closest to him. 

The other two turn as that one goes down, one of them yelling, “Shit!” - and then both guns are aimed at him, and he ducks, fires a shot at one before they can pull the trigger again, but the other one has also squeezed a shot at him, and B feels the bullet hit his arm, tearing through skin and muscle easily. 

His hold on the gun falters, and time is precious in a gunfight, so he grits his teeth, tries to aim, but the last one already has an aim at him and - 

There’s a blur of movement before B’s shooter goes down, A’s shoe making contact with the side of their head after they use the chair they were probably tied to earlier to jump higher and let the kick hit true. The shooter drops to the side from the blow, further disoriented as they hit the ground. A takes the chance to land, dart forward to grab the gun from the first guy in the room B shot down, aim, and fire. 

The bullet blows through the shooter’s temple. 

B watches, not daring to move in case A might be a little spooked, especially since they’re just standing there holding a smoking gun. 

They move after a while, walking silently and kicking the body so it’s on its stomach, and then aim the gun down at it. 

They fire, right into its neck. B winces. 

“That’s overkill,” he says. 

A snorts, turning to him, and now that they aren’t moving, he can see the split lip and the bruise on their cheek, days old and purpling. He presses his lips to a thin line. 

“That’s called making sure.”

They take a step back from the corpse, and aim the gun at its back, before squeezing the trigger one, two, three, four, five, six times, arm angling downward with every shot, and it’s only after that B realizes they were shooting out vertebrae, or, at least, that was the thought. The damn things probably fragmented further and further the more they shot at the spine.

They turn to him again, waving the gun a little.

“That’s overkill.”

B lets out a breath, laughing, clicking the safety back on his own gun before setting it down, stretching his legs as he sits on the ground. He tries not to lean back on his injured arm. A, across him, sits and props their legs up on the corpse since it’s in the way. 

“What the hell happened to you?” A asks, clearly still riding whatever rage they were channeling while brutally kicking someone in the head and proceeding to shoot their spine out. 

“I got shot at, A,” he says, “And it’s not fun.”

“You’ve never been shot at?”

“I was a locked room serial killer, not an action star,” he says, “No, I’ve never been shot at.”

A starts laughing, and he’s not surprised when it’s a little hysterical. “That’s another thing I can say I’m ahead of you at, I guess.”

He lifts his gaze to the ceiling. “I just saved your ass.”

“Kinda looked like I was saving yours,” A says, although there’s no heat in the jibe, the edge in their tone ebbing the more they talk. “I sadly don’t owe you anything, Birthday Boy.”

“Not even the Uber?” he asks. “I’m picking you up.”

“Shit Uber, can’t shoot two people at once.”

He snorts. He can start to feel the wound on his thigh now, and he thinks if they stay here long enough, he’s not going to be able to walk without wincing every three seconds or so. 

A notices, thankfully, and stands, although they keep the gun with them as they do. They extend a hand to him when they walk over, and he takes it, letting them help him to his feet. 

“Do you think you can walk?”

“Yeah,” he says, “We just have to be fast.”

“Fuck,” A says, switching the gun to their other hand so they can let his arm around their shoulders in case he starts to stagger from the pain. “Come on, then. Is Matt connected right now? MONIKA?”

B’s ankle monitor beeps. He notes that Jeevas has been silent for while.

“Okay, good - good, although I don’t know if they can make it fast enough,” A sighs. They look at B’s belt. “Backup handgun?”

“Couldn’t be too safe.”

“Okay, good, I think I might have nearly emptied this one out,” they say. They click the safety on their gun and crouch down a little to set it on the floor gently, and then let their arm hook around B’s waist, making sure they can reach the gun in the holster of his belt in case they’ll need it. B doesn’t think they will, but they can never be too sure. 

They both start walking out the room, B trying not to stumble as the pain continues to sink in. 

“Okay, MONIKA, I’m going to need you to get us a cab, and then get people ready for us to get to a hospital. I think you know the drill.”

“Yes, A,” MONIKA says, even though B’s sure she knows A can’t hear her. 

“And I’ll need this place shut down for the next two days, and I need people to be here as soon as possible to clean up. Redo a check on the employees and compensate them if they’re clean. File a warrant for the owners, they’re with Wickerton.”

“Where is he?” B asks. His footing slips a little and A stops, steadying him. Only a bit more until they get to the anteroom, and then up the basement steps. 

“Ran,” A says, “But don’t worry about it. They tossed my recorder out, but if we can retrieve it and it’s in good shape, that’s solid evidence. If we don’t, I remember everything. We’re still good.”

“And you got kidnapped for looking too much into things?” 

“I got too close,” A says, “But they actually got me in. Wasn’t my fault.”

B laughs, amused. “God, people are dumb.”

“Yeah,” A says, hefting his arm up their shoulders when it starts to slip off. “That, we can count on.”

-

He’s not even surprised when A breaks out a laptop as soon as they’re done changing. He doesn’t know where they got it from, although he thinks someone probably stopped by the hospital to deliver them one before they were both released (after a shit ton of weird looks, but significantly not a lot of weird questions, which B chalks up to A and their network’s machinations), and even though it might not have their files, it could always connect to the Wammy’s cloud drive, which...he thinks is where they store their cases, but they could have their own, depending on how much budget they’ve been afforded. 

Probably a lot.

He scoots onto his bed and falls back, staring at the ceiling. He’s honestly glad he’s had this hotel room booked prior, even if they had to have a last minute upgrade, because talking to the receptionist would have been so exhausting when it’s ass o’clock in the morning, damn the odd looks they’d gotten for the late check in and the injuries. 

“How are you still e-mailing.” He closes his eyes and lets his fatigue wash over him. He can probably actually sleep right now. 

“Because I have to and time is of the essence. I know where our man might go, and I know where we might catch a few others - I mean, obviously they’re still looking for a twelfth sacrifice, maybe still from L.A. - ”

“Get a social media influencer.”

“ - and - pfft, what?” A snickers, before propping their feet up on his bed. “That would be a scandal.”

“And it would be interesting,” he says, shoving their feet off.

They put it back. “It would, it would cause a lot of noise,” A says, “If that’s what they wanted, that’s honestly perfect, but - I don’t think that’s what they actually want.”

“What do they want, then,” he asks, “Aside from being - well, culty. The stigmata was little too much, don’t you think?”

“It’s a cult, I’ve never been in one, I - ” A yawns, and their voice is clouded with drowsiness as they speak next. “I’ve only been kidnapped by one.”

“It’s too much,” he says.

“Says the one who turned a victim into a clock.”

“No, that, that was clever. That had purpose. That was design,” he says, sitting up, and then falling back down with a hiss as he’s moved his injured arm, and while the anesthetic was working, his natural high drug tolerance meant it still hurt a bit, and he’s too tired to put on a show right now. 

A moves a leg to keep him down when he tries to sit up again.

“I will chop that leg off.”

“That leg saved you, you ungrateful ass, so stay down.”

He tries to shove it off, but A stubbornly doesn’t budge and continues typing on their laptop. 

“Now, you were talking about interior design?”

“You know what I meant,” he says, “This - the stigmata motif, and it’s a cult; that doesn’t seem like a combination that’s going to have any use for design aside to fulfill something within the purposes of the cult, yeah?”

“But you have to say, altars and robes and a bit of sacrilege is a nice theme for interior design.”

“A.”

A laughs, and then swiftly lets their fingers tap out the last of their letter and snap at the enter key with a finality. They close the laptop. “I think finding you a new hobby would be healthy.”

“I think I like you better when you’re more well-rested and haven’t hit that sweet spot of sleep deprivation where everything is funny and your brain’s creativity is at an all time high.”

“I love it,” A says, “I miss it, actually.”

“Go the hell to sleep,” he says, and this time actually gets to shove their leg off. “How much rest have you had since you’ve been missing?”

A lifts a shoulder. “A few naps here and there, when I got knocked out, when I was in a van; you get it.”

“Go to sleep,” he says. “You don’t have any other mail to write.”

“Do I not?”

“You closed your laptop.”

“To open again at a later time.”

“A.”

“There’s still so much to talk about - so “There’s still so much to talk about - there’s so much to explain, and you’re probably curious.”

“We can talk about that tomorrow.”

Their laugh is weaker this time, and they yawn again. “I’m fine.”

“You look like you have bruises for eyebags,” he says, “Rest equals efficiency. You know this.”

A stares at him for a moment, leaning back in their seat, and he looks at the tiny cuts on their face, the near-sallow cheeks, the dark shapes under their eyes, and the bandage over their broken bruise. It won’t scar if they’re careful, the nurse had said, but he doesn’t think A cares much about that. 

“You’re tired.”

“Yeah,” they say, sighing. “Yeah, I am.”

They stand, careful, and put their laptop on the dresser between both their beds, before flopping onto their mattress, crawling under their blankets with a lot more difficulty than they normally would since they seem like they’re trying to burrow into the bed instead, the covers included. 

They stick their head out from under the blankets after a while, resting their head on a pillow. 

“God, I do feel tired,” they say. “It’s been weeks.”

“Sleep, then,” he says, “If you’ve gotten enough information as much as you said you did, then you should be set for a while if your assistants aren’t incompetent.”

“They’re not.”

“Then you’ll be fine,” he says. “Rest.”

A only snorts, and then giggles. He gives them a look. 

“What?”

“I feel like I’m having deja vu,” they say, “I’m not sure - oh.” 

He pauses, and then lets himself think as to why they’d feel that, and he pictures it, a memory. He is younger, and so are they, and they’ve just spent weeks on end studying for a test they both know they will ace but still worry over anyway. He argues with them until they crawl into bed, and even then continue after that until they stop answering, having fallen asleep.

He says nothing. 

“It’s been years,” A says. “Three years.”

“It’s a long time if you spend it right,” he says. 

“Did you?”

He looks at them, at their drooping eyes, and decides even the sleepiness isn’t enough. “Yeah,” he says, and doesn’t give an explanation.

A only nods. They let out a sigh and close their eyes, finally giving in to sleep. 

So does B. He adjusts the pillow under his head, turns the lamp on their dresser off, and closes his eyes, ready to finally get some actual rest they both need. 

“I’m sorry.”

It takes him a few seconds to wake up, unsure whether that had been something A said out loud or in a dream. He stares at the ceiling. He’d definitely been at least half awake when he’d heard that.

When he turns to A, though, they’re asleep.