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Realistic or Modern LOVE, LOSS, REVENGE

"Why thank you," Neil's voice is a near purr at being called a 'crazy mofo'.

It's not said with the usual freaked-out intonation he gets from people, but with an almost giddy one. And that makes him giddy in return. Not that that particularly matters, but it bodes well for their partnership.

Cade likes the weapons cache, and Neil likes that he likes it. They're on the same page.

Once more the gangster has the energy of a kid walking into a department store on the holidays. At the sight of the armaments he seems excited and eager for real, even if he skirts around some of the more exotic pieces of the collection. And some of them really are collector's items rather than tools to be used on the daily - like that lipstick he eyed up, for example. "The Kiss of Death". KGB-make, a single-shot 4.5 mm pistol hidden inside a lipstick holder. It's an assassin's novelty item considering what modern technology offers is miler better, but MacDarragh enjoys having things like that lying around. Like a lava lamp, they're cool little knickknacks. But of the deadly variety.

The hitman hums to himself.

Sure, they have a mission to plan out and he was intending for the two to pop in his apartment only long enough to gear up... but it could be fun to give Cade a tour of the other things he has lying around. Maybe he'll be the type to actually appreciate them.

Before Neil can so much as propose something like that, a heavy sigh resounds from Cade.

Looking away from the drawer he is still browsing, MacDarragh's attention focuses on Wolf. That was a sudden shift in mood. The guy hasn't even picked out anything yet. But he is simply asking to go to the bathroom, and there's nothing innocuous about that.

"Right," Neil enunciates the word like he is learning it phonetically for the first time, still searching Cade's features. They appear almost downcast or at least distracted. Hell if he knows why, "It's down the hall."

The gangster exits the secret room, and after a brief narrowing of his eyes, Neil goes back to rifling through the drawer. He'll ask what's up when the guy comes back. Not that that particularly matters, but Cade has to have his head clear for what they're about to do.

Suddenly, the gangster's voice comes through with a question.

Did you come in last or did I?

Something in MacDarragh perks up.

Nothing innocuous about that inquiry either, much like asking to go to the bathroom. Nevertheless, the hitman feels his senses sharpen in a deep, ingrained instinct. Nothing is ever innocuous.

Pushing the drawer shut and making a grab for some items off of the wall, he walks back into the apartment proper, making sure to close the panel leading to the weapons cache and locking it securely back up, keychain jingling.

Cade is standing before the front door.

It's yawning wide open. Neil neglected to lock it, because he didn't particularly feel the need to. This was meant to be a quick visit, and it's not like anyone ever disturbs him here. No one dares to.

"You did," MacDarragh's voice is casual, light. The smile he throws the gangster is unbothered, even if his eyes glisten with an animal alertness. He maneuvers around the man to push the exit closed. Locking it.

"Said you needed to go to the bathroom, yeah?" taking a step back, he's nearly brushing into Cade, standing chest to chest with him. The hitman extends one of the two handguns he took, "As funny as it would be to leave you to look for it on your own, I don't want you pissing yourself all over my floor. Come."

Neil and Cade are both trained law enforcement officers. The hitman hadn't expected this similarity between the two to come in handy so soon, but as he raises up his good arm to communicate with the guy via police hand signals, it feels useful. Very much so.

They should spread out, search the place.

The door was open. It's not flimsy enough to swing open on its own. Maybe it was a particularly strong draft... That, or someone has decided to encroach on this private space. For whatever reason.

Neil grins.

If anyone came in, they are definitely not upstairs. The spiral staircase up to the loft is metal, it would have sounded. So, if there is an intruder and they didn't bolt out of the front door, they are on this floor, where there are not many places to hide. Well, there are plenty, but only if you know where to look, where to touch.

"It's already lunchtime, by the way," Neil speaks, if only for the sake of keeping up the pretense that Cade and he are having a casual, unassuming conversation for the sake of any potential interlopers that might be listening in, "We should probably have a bite to eat soon enough. I do owe you a meal."

Gun at the ready, the hitman conducts a police search of his own apartment. The couch is clear. So is the bookcase.

As Neil's eyes zero in on the kitchen counter, he signals to his partner once more.

Cover me.
 
A sinking horrible feeling weighs Kaden down. An encompassing, soul eating regret. Like a fool, he walked into the colosseum of lions. Had he knocked, perhaps things would be worse but it's hard to imagine presented with his current predicament.

There's the faint rustle of clothes and the feather step of feet as the two men search the apartment.
There's no place to go, no where to hide.

Finch take advantage of the Roomba's humming to unzip his jacket. A new layer of sweat will dampen this shirt before this is over.
Although the offer to introduce Cade to the bathroom comes up again, there is so follow up. No closing doors to indicate the offer has been accepted.
The only closing door was the one Kaden came through, the rasp of a lock scraping into place.

"It's already lunchtime, by the way. We should probably have a bite to eat soon enough. I do owe you a meal."

More of the man's trademark psychological torment which he employs to critical effect on lesser individuals.
He wounded Damien and then refused to die. That is the true fear, visceral and violent. The man faced Damien and survived a collapsing building.
The talk is just useless fluff.

The footsteps are near silent.

It's all so quiet.

Can they hear Kaden's thundering heartbeat?

Like waving a cape in front of a bull, Finch tosses the jacket into MacDarragh's face.
He leaps at the tyrant, gripping his firing gun to leverage himself further into position. Shoving the heel of his hand into the hitman's chin knocks his head back, and the intimacy of that connection haunting his skin. The thunderclap of a bullet makes his heart skip a beat.
Finch rips the handgun from the man, curling MacDarragh to his chest in one fluid movement.

"Drop the weapon," Kaden orders, pressing the gun to the hitman's head. Pressed together, they move and breathe as one.
It is revolting.

Shock and horror is etched into Cade's features as he freezes. It reflects how Kaden feels on the inside.
This was a mistake, one of many Kaden has made in recent time. It hurts. It all hurts.
In less than a day, Cade has found realignment. With this snake of all people.
MacDarragh is the man who saved Cade, buying his loyalty in the process.
With his arm wrapped around MacDarragh, he can press into his weakened shoulder with his elbow. As if to hurt Finch further, his friend turns the handgun away, showing the palm of his hand in an act of surrender. One gesture of pain is enough to make Cade cave.

But he doesn't drop the weapon.

"...I didn't know it was you," Cade says, tone unexpectedly soft. Almost apologetic. He squints at Kaden, as if he can't believe he's actually here.
But he is, and he wishes he weren't. The capo exhales, head thrumming from the adrenaline. His hand is shaking again, his ears ringing. There is a vicious itch under his arm as sweat begins to pool there.

"Why the fuck would it be you?!" Cade hisses, slapping the air with his free hand, "What are you doing here, man?"

Kaden narrows his eyes at the man. For a brief moment, his legs tremble and he has to grip the slimy eel harder to regain his temporary loss of balance.
"I have misinterpreted the longevity of our relationship. Unlock the door. I'll release MacDarragh when it's safe for me to do so."
 
A coat gets thrown in his face. That's all the warning MacDarragh gets before the person that dared intrude in his home dares to attempt to assault him within it as well. That's some gall, he'll give them that - it takes a certain kind of audacity to make a grab at a man holding a gun, especially when there is a second man with a gun right behind him.

The cry of a firearm going off echoes off of the apartment's brick walls, reverberating in the space and amplified by its barrenness.

Yet, the clap of thunder doesn't deter the intruder, ballsy bastard. He does not relent, moving to position the hitman into a hold. That old instinct screams in his gut. Neil's injured arm instinctively jumps with the desire to act, to retaliate and show this fucker why messing with him like this is a death wish, but then the stab wound in his shoulder screams out with a pained spasm, and in a whirlwind of movement he's being held, his own gun pressed to his head.

It almost takes MacDarragh several seconds to reorient himself in this new situation, to compute what has just transpired. The way his body has betrayed him.

And 'new' is definitely the right word for it. Neil doesn't get held at gunpoint, he holds others at gunpoint. It's been so long since the roles have been reversed, especially with him being immobilized in such a manner - close, constricting, pressed up against an assailant nearly intimately. The only recent instance of such a thing he can remember is, well, his sparring with Cade. Yet instead of being the one digging at his injury like he had done yesterday to awaken him from a fake slumber, Cade now stares back in wide-eyed horror as the Butcher tries to use MacDarragh as leverage.

Neil's own eyes go wide with surprise as the gangster holds his arms up in surrender immediately after an involuntary wince escapes the hitman's lips. This is... not simply a new situation. It's not one he's ever experienced before, so it might just be the most tricky part to compute.

The apologetic tone Cade addresses his ex-boss with all of a sudden is also not something Neil can easily wrap his head around, yet the gangster's willingness to roll over for certain individuals is something he is getting used to. As much as it pisses him the fuck off. The present comes into stark focus. Eyes growing sharp, MacDarragh grimaces in his partner's direction. Don't fucking apologize. Snarl, bare your teeth.

The guy does hiss at Finch. That's some progress, at least. And in response, the Butcher gives back a heaping serving of bullshit.

"'Misinterpreted the longevity of your relationship'?" Neil can't help it - he laughs, both his body and that of Kaden racked by the incessant cackling. Shit, he'd slap his knee in amusement if he could. It's way too fucking funny. Does the guy force himself to talk all pedantically on purpose, or is he naturally annoying? And that's not even the most hilarious part.

"You torture a man for two years and you call that a relationship?" Neil can feel the cold barrel of the firearm where it kisses his skin. He can also feel the way Finch is shaking. Smiling, the hitman attempts to turn ever so slightly, to catch sight of the Butcher out of the corner of his eye, "Oh, you're truly pathetic, aren't you?"

It's almost impressive to be able to break a man so much he becomes your loyal dog. But to fool yourself into thinking it's something genuine you can run to... well, that just shows what a sad, delusional little creature you are. The infamous Butcher. Another bout of laughter takes hold of Neil.

Some might call it unwise to be antagonizing a person aiming a firearm at you, but it's not like MacDarragh is going to stay quiet and let the fucker do as he pleases. No, he's going to twist the metaphorical knife as far as it can go. When Neil's eyes land back on Cade they crinkle at the corners.

"You know who it was that blew up your tower?"
 
You torture a man for two years and you call that a relationship.

It didn't take much for Neil to put two and two together.
That's it, that's his life. It's all been laid out, in broken bits and small words, all in reverse chronology that everyone else can put in order better than he can.
Raw and naked, he's been born over and over again. Five years ago, three years ago, two days ago. Drawn out kicking and screaming to sprint at the sound of the bullet until he's ragged.

Neil twists and Kaden readjusts the hold he has, tightening around the man even as he laughs. It's bare skin in some places and Cade knows he hates it, even if his stony face doesn't change. The less he likes a person, the less he tolerates.

You're shot. When are you going to realize you're dead?, he screams into the void of his head. He should have known he couldn't do this. Kaden isn't human, the relentless ice cold sonuvabitch. Why would he ever let Cade win one?

"Quiet," Kaden says into MacDarragh's ear and this is it- the scariest, craziest, toughest guy Cade knows is going to lose his face as a meat shield.
Those eyes are going to close, drowned out by Finch's black because it's a void that eats fucking everything.

And just as he's sinking, MacDarragh casts him a line.

Finch scowls, the famous one that's a cross between pissed and genuinely surprised. It's the squinty face a cat makes when you squirt water in its face, and fucking idiots would think it was cute if they actually knew what kind of twisted bastard he is.

"You did that?" He asks, oblivious to the dark streak rolling down his leg.
"Why?"

Cade feels his face twist with a grimace that will never have the simplistic, indifferent scowl Kaden's infamous for.
It's the snarl of a dog.
"Because I fucking hated that place."

A shallow cough brings the first drops of blood over Finch's perfect lips. Bright red against porcelain skin. Snow white. For a moment, he rests his chin on Neil's good shoulder and he really does look like a princess the way his dark eyelashes flutter against his cheeks. It happens in between time, an alternate dimension where Kaden is soft and weak. It's the man Damien gets, the one he holds.

And then he's gone.

Cade can shoot a gun from someone's hand. Depending on his familiarity and the caliber, he can do it without losing the tip of a finger. Finch doesn't have that finesse.

Or he simply doesn't give a fuck.

The bullet goes through Cade's wrist.

His shooting hand.

Unlike Finch, he feels it immediately. Blood gushes as his gun clatters to the floor. Streams of bright red squirt from his wrist and even Cade knows that's bad.
In the weirdly fast-slow time he thinks of Neil beside him.

The man on his side in bed, lips wrapped around a blunt, telling Cade how he'd kill him.
Slit his wrists, bleed him out in a warm bath of his own insides. The words are heaven against his ears and Cade knows they would have tasted good if he could have kissed MacDarragh in that moment.

The next two bullets tear through Neil's chest.

They paint the air in red mist, like MacDarragh is made of smoke, like he really is a demon that clawed his way out of hell.
Kaden tosses him aside, lets him drop like he's nothing. The capo blinks, slow, and he is that empty rat in Rory's lab.
There is nothing in him, and if there somehow is, Cade has never reached it.

"No! Don't -" A third bullet drowns Cade out. Neil's body rattles.

Finch addresses his bloody front, finally, finally realizing the life blood slipping down his side. It's a minute too late.
Hand to his ribs, Kaden wheezes up more blood. It's wiped a moment later on his sleeve. The guy assesses the crimson with an offended grimace.

Cade squeezes on the hot, sticky mess of his wrist. He can't feel his fingers. His pulse bounces sporadically under his grip, spitting a geyser each time.

The capo walks to him.

And then passes him.

The lock rasps again. The door swings open. Kaden doesn't even look back.

Cade leaves a splattering trail of blood that meets with the puddle under Neil when he reaches his side. The red mixes, them together in the most true and intimate way. With morbid humor, the gangster thinks it's good luck MacDarragh doesn't have carpet.

It would've been a bitch to clean the them-shaped stains.
 
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He is on the ground.

Huh...

How is he here? Why is he here? Where even is 'here'?

It's everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Images flash before his eyes, faces and places and memories. Brain activity keeps occurring for several minutes after the body succumbs to death - just signals shooting off into the void, into something that will never answer back. His guardian once told him some scientists theorize a person's entire life replays itself within these final moments of simultaneous chemical release. Like a movie reel, so the kid better make sure he has a movie-worthy life. A fun life.

Fuck the hand fate might have dealt you, how it's tried to crush and grind you into nothing. Grab the damn thing by the horns and rip into it. Suck its bone marrow dry for all of the delicious pleasures that it's worth, and don't just survive - laugh and fuck and do whatever the hell you want, because that's the only thing that matters in the end.

Or at the end... Is that what this is?

There is an all-encompassing warmth spreading around him. Not dark and comforting like the one in his dreams, but red, the color of viscera. Leaking out of his chest the same way the life he has led is leaking out of his brain. And the more this warm pool of blood expands, the more the man feels his limbs begin to grow cold.

It's going to leave a stain on the floor. The floor in MacDarragh's apartment, where he's been shot down like a dog. Pitiful and defenseless. Ah, that's where 'here' is.

Did Mila realize it when she was shot? If she even was shot... Neil can't be sure exactly how she died. He wasn't even aware she was dead before it was too late. They probably didn't waste a bullet on the old bitch, a knife would have been more than enough - groin to sternum. Did she put up a fight? Did she try and crawl back to him?

The way Cade is doing right now.

That's right, Wolf is here too. His Wolf.

Electric blue eyes connect with MacDarragh's green and something heavy and unnamable weight in his chest, aside from the bullets. The guy truly is a dumbass - he should have shot at Finch a second time when he had the chance, whether or not the hitman was being held at gunpoint. Fuck, he should have shot through Neil, that's what he would have done. Instead, Cade raised his arms in surrender.

And now the hand he held up has been shot through - the hand that's hit him as many times as it has caressed him. The hand that broke his nose and washed his hair.

The blood spreading on the ground isn't only Neil's... Finch mangled Cade. The fucker dared to do all of this.

Neil's vision is blurring, yet all the same his eyes burn with a vengeance.

No, this isn't how it ends. He refuses, he rejects this reality.

MacDarragh tries to move his feet, to kick against fate like he has done for the entirety of his existence. His shoes slip on the sleek blood, and each horrid muscle spasm only makes the bullet holes in his chest leak out more and more precious life force. The effort matters little, he's only hurting himself. Neil is stuck on the floor, a dying thing convulsing in desperation, staring right at Cade.

He's never met a more fun person. He's never met a more fucked-in-the-head person either. Their partnership can't just end here.

MacDarragh gathers up all of the strength left in his body into the muscles of his left arm, and in one sharp, painful move his fingers clasp the gangster's, squeezing.

What escapes his throat is not a whimper and neither is it a growl. It's a horrible, wheezing rattle as Neil feels the lung he has been shot through audibly pop as it collapses, his thoracic cavity flooded with air he can't use to breathe. Ironically, it's suffocating him.

The case. The case Cade got from Rory, left on the kitchen counter. The man needs to get it. Before they both die.
 
Neil doesn't have anything left to say and neither does Cade.
Really, there's too much to say and it would just spoil everything to start and never finish. So why bother?

They both get company while this happens and that's more than either of them deserve.

The hitman finds the strength to squeeze Cade's fingers. His hand is clammy and cold already.
They meet eyes and if Neil could speak, it looks like he'd have a lot to say. Instead, he makes the sound everyone makes when they're dying. Doesn't matter if he's a badass or still just a little kid, he makes the same fucking sound.
His fingers squeeze again, against the cast MacDarragh forced Cade to get on his finger. It's hilarious seeing the splint against the streaming of his wrist.

...

The ground moves out from underneath him, like a rug as he bursts away. If he squeaked at TreaTech his shoes make a slower, gurgling sound as they slice through the red sea.

The case!

The fucking case.

The gangster lets his hand go and wow, the entire room warps when he grabs the case.
The clasps shift subtly when Cade flicks them. Everything is either too sticky, too slippery or too numb.
MacDarragh is dying and the last fight Cade has is with a tiny brief case. Who's going to find them here? Some stranger who investigates the shootout. Who's going to go to their funeral?

Oliver will go to his.

When he saw the kid again after almost a fucking year, he was huge. He'd sprouted up and Cade had missed more of his life, but this time it'd been willingly. And why? Because he hates himself? Because he was ashamed of himself? What a fucking stupid ass reason to deny himself the last bit of real good he'll ever have in this life.

Or would have had.

Neil's fading.

The lid flings open. With shaking hands Cade has to load this damn thing and fuck Rory so much for this. The gangster slots the syringe gun between his legs to grip. Everything shakes. He pulls on the loading pin but- well fuck, he doesn't know what he's doing on a good day and right now he's leaking and only has one hand.

To hell with this.

The rat had it dropped into his mouth. Neil doesn't need it injected when he has three perfect holes.
The pill is unworldly cold, like it's fresh out of the freezer. In a vague way he won't realize until much later, it shifts and squirms in his palm.

With a shaking stab against the needle tip, the undulating silver pools in a tiny, wiggling dot at the top of the capsule.
Neil's shirt he pulls up with a swiping motion with his arm. The fabric sticks like a second skin. It's Cade's old shirt, when he was stupid and easily impressionable and liked band T shirts to seem relevant.
Like he's squeezing a jolly rancher out, Cade picks the scarier looking place for a hole and lets the juice fall.
It makes an immediate contrast.

With the fluid coming out of Neil, Cade worries he's been a fucking idiot by foregoing the needle when it pools atop the blood.
A second later the liquid sinks down inside of Neil, pushing past the blood like a worm.
There's an audible squelch, like something alive is shifting through the chest cavity.

A rat.

Those horrible poor fucking things. Forced to hangout with Rory all day, eating his noodles and then getting fucked in the ass with a needle or a thermometer when they least expect it.
Neil and Cade are doing the fucking for him willingly. Desperately even.

It's not so bad now.
Things don't hurt anymore. Nothing hurts anymore. It sucks, a little, but at least it doesn't hurt. He fought so long and so hard and this doesn't even hurt. He stomached so much pain for nothing.
In fact, it's even a little funny how the wound in Neil's shoulder closes up around the stitches there before the massive gaping holes in his chest even begin to change.
Ain't that just how it is, too?

"If you die I'm going to fucking kill you," Cade says, or maybe thinks. Who knows.

Feeling like a ghost, like you could push a hand through his face and take the tracker easy and painless, Cade repeats the procedure.
Maybe it kills Neil, maybe he becomes a cyborg, who knows? The man is an empty Capri sun full of holes at this point so a second shot can't hurt.
In a haze, he impales a second pill and squeezes it right into a smooth open hole.
The guy is so soft and wet where he's been torn open. Cade can feel when his muscles faintly twitch against his fingers, especially when he circles the rim of a wound. The manmade horror infecting MacDarragh runs under his skin, brushes along Cade's hand. Another bead of blood rolls down his side like a tear and what would it taste like?
In the end, he was right about his eyes. They've lost half their vibrancy. His face too.
Maybe this is why human taxidermy isn't a thing...

Neil doesn't look like Neil, staring up at the ceiling like he is. The subtleties that made him, him are not there and an artist could never hope to recapture them.
They couldn't sew the right smile into his lips and glass eyes would never do the real things justice.

His hair will need to be washed again too.

He's pouring liquid metal into his own bare skin. It feels like the right thing to do, even if he can't quite remember why. Like when you enter a room and forget why you're there, he doesn't remember the sense behind pushing a capsule of goo into the mangled meat of his hand.

He'll never shoot again.

Even if he did live, after months of physiotherapy he'd still never be the crack shot he was.
That's so fucking unfair. The one thing he can do and Kaden rips it from him. And then just leaves.

The guy didn't even say goodbye.

A hot, rippling feeling rides up his arm. Cade regrips his hand, folding over to press his forehead to the wet cement.
It burns, it does, but there's nothing he can do about it.
He's never been able to do anything about anything. Just lie there and take it.

So that's what he does.

When he succumbs to the warm embrace of the floor, he knows he's not getting back up again.

The light rays shining through the window are pretty. They really show how hollow Neil's eyes are.
When the Roomba comes this way, it bumps into Cade's shin and then squawks angrily about the interruption.
The gurgling whirrling continue as it drowns.

Life goes on, with or without them.
 
---

The footsteps last night hadn't been a dream or a hallucination, Kaden really did sneak his way around the house in the middle of the night, leaving the privacy of the guest bedroom for the ghostly creakiness of this place's old hallways. He didn't return to the third floor after his traipsing, though, considering the quiet emptiness that now greets Damien as he intrudes into the space. The noise of the city at midday filters in from the outside, the traffic that is the lifeblood of New York passing by down the street, but otherwise the air hangs still, muffled by the window pane.

It feels a little awkward to be standing here sans invitation, yet the ex-cop's tentative knocking went unanswered no matter how long he waited. And he did wait, for some reason, as if he didn't already suspect the state of things.

There's food missing or half-missing from the fridge. Eli and Damien noticed it first thing while making breakfast together. The coat missing from the wall hanger near the front door was also evidence enough - Kaden didn't just leave the guest bedroom, he left the townhouse.

That's fair.

Even if it aches that he left behind no notes. No goodbyes, if this really is supposed to be some kind of final goodbye. Not that he's owed goodbye, but still...

The room is not entirely empty, apart from the ex-cop's presence. Pawl is still here, staring out from within the one piece of familiar furniture she has, which just so happens to be her cage, her carrier. Poor thing, Damien hadn't considered how stressful this could be for a cat - he's never had to relocate an animal, so it didn't really cross his mind when it was happening, but Pawl is a creature with feelings and habits just like anyone, and it hurts to have your sense of security ripped from under your feet, your whole life uprooted in one fell swoop.

With a sigh, Damien sets down the tray of food on the bedside table. Coffee and toast - that had been easy enough to make considering the fact neither of the siblings is especially proficient in the kitchen. Half of the bread is topped with avocado, the other half with egg. It's decent, and it's what Eleonora likes having first thing in the morning. It had felt like a safe enough bet for the capo too, despite not really knowing Finch's breakfast food preferences aside from cardboard-like cereal purchased in a sticky diner.

Pawl, on the other hand... Damien has absolutely zero clue what to feed her. Crouching down to present the cat with a small offering of some cubed ham in a bowl right outside her carrier, the man makes a promise to actually get her some proper cat food later.

If the ragdoll is still here, maybe that means that Kaden intends to return after doing whatever it is he set out to do. Ventilate his head, get some breathing space.

Damien rationalize to himself that this house isn't a prison and Finch can leave whenever he wishes, of course. Wherever he wishes. It doesn't mean he's gotten himself in trouble... But maybe the capo, as stubborn and relentless as he can be, is going to try and track down Delilah.

The ex-cop squeezes his fists closed (or, well, his one good one). His hand is rubbed raw again. Not because he purposefully scrubbed it with soap until the skin nearly peeled off, but because this is what cleaning products tend to do. He can't remember the last time he had to tackle chores this fervently, yet that's what the deal Eli and he made staying up late last night is about - he brought a cat here, now he has to take on the housework to make sure the place is free of allergens. Not that his sister would throw Pawl out either way, but this is the least he can do for her, really, considering the fact she keeps putting up with him.

She isn't even making her estranged brother pay rent, which is a fact Eleonora nags him about at every opportunity, just like she nagged him to get out of bed this morning. Honestly, he's thankful for the pushback - without Eli there to serve as a persistent annoyance, Damien isn't sure when he would have gotten up today. He slept. He knows he slept, despite the nightmare. However, paradoxically it's somehow left him more tired.

Regardless, Damien did get up. He cleaned and cooked, and he stayed close to his sister because right now both siblings are starved for the comfort of human company and conversation, as unsteady of a thing as it might be to hold onto.

No messages have come through from Delilah.

The phone Malcom left behind has remained deadly silent, and Eli doesn't need to voice her worries for Damien to know she is anxious, even more so than her usual self. He's growing anxious too. The woman claimed she wouldn't leave her home, no matter what, and he has to wonder just how resolute her position on that front is - the mercenary advised them to get out if no message came in by morning at the latest. It's already noon.

Damien straightens back up. He's moving while not going anywhere; pacing in place as if that'll help settles any of the bullshit he has rattling around in his head, the noise of it all so loud it threatens him with yet another headache pulsing behind the eyes. There is so much happening, and he has no idea what to do.

No messages have come through from Delilah. None from Natalia either. Eleonora is slowly but surely losing her nerve. And Kaden is missing.

Damien can't be sure the man will return. He won't blame him if he doesn't - were he in his position, he probably wouldn't, but... fuck, he wishes he could have apologized. Not to receive forgiveness necessarily, but even just to- just to talk.

The ringing of a cell phone pierces the air.

Unfortunately, it's not Malcom's device. Fortunately, it is Damien's, and there is only one person that would be reaching out to him on this number - Natalia is checking in, potentially with news. Maybe she has information on Cade's fate; maybe she has unearthed MacDarragh's lifeless body in the ruins of the tower. Because the captain is dead, surely. Damien exhales. Fuck, he needs good news right now, any kind of good news to make him feel like his life is moving forward instead of him simply pacing around in a tiny, helpless circle in which his fate isn't his own.

When the ex-cop finally looks down at the screen, he pauses.

There is only one person that would be reaching out to him on this number; only one person that knows it. Or, well, two people, though the number staring up at him is an unknown one. In a hurry that nearly has him dropping the thing, Damien raises the device to his ear, voice quiet as he answers, "Who is this?"
 
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Hiraeth is a Welsh word with no English translation. It is defined as an intense longing for a home you can't return to or never existed in the first place.
Homesick is the most obvious comparison, or so Kaden thought.

Adrenaline carried him down to the base level, and it fizzles up at the landing. Like a burned candle wick, he has reached his end.
Collapsed, on a step and back to the railing, Finch sees the word is unfitting.
When he hears Damien's voice, he understands the difference between homesickness and hiraeth.

"MacDarragh and Cade were working together to kill you and me," he rasps between a rabbit fast breath. The skin of his hand, particularly the tips and around the fingernails have gone blue-ish. In a moment disorientation and confusion will muddle his mind.
After that he'll lose consciousness.

"I can only assume things with Delilah went poorly," Finch says, shutting his eyes in some attempt to numb the reality of that sentence.
"The High Rise knows about Natalia and her family. They'll use them to get to you."

His exhale is a restrained, short thing before the panting resumes. The weight on his shoulders lift. At the very least, Damien needed to be informed. What he does with that information is up to him. The capo shifts into a position that may offer a bit more comfort and finds none. He cranes his head back, soothed and tormented by Damien's soft breath.

"I'm not angry with you," he offers, weakly shaking his head despite the gesture being pointless.
"It was inevitable. Delilah was going to leave me one way or another."

Is there a Welsh word for being a truly despicable and petty creature? There's vicious joy in this destruction - something Cade would appreciate.
Delilah will catch word of this eventually and she'll finally realize how counterproductive her approach has been.

A supposed year of planning to hurt the High Rise (and apparently to save him) will burn up in her face. If real people weren't at stake, perhaps it would be worth it.
He hears the creaky stairs and smells the stale air of an old house and the homesickness is a tangible pain. He is nostalgic for a home that was never his, a childhood he never had.

He could have been with Damien right now.

"Please find the courage to talk to your mom some day. She would like to hear from you."
 
It's Kaden.

He called and for once Damien picked up, and all it took was for him to dial in from an unknown number.

The unexpected sound is a shock to the system. At the familiar presence of the man's voice, a wave of emotions crashed over Damien - confusion and worry and relief, only to suddenly and cruelty have any modicum of settling warmth drowned in a torrent of gut-twisting panic that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Kaden's words all reach their intended target, but the ex-cop takes a while to actually understand anything that's being said. That's just what the capo does to him, isn't it? Matter-of-factly he utters unbearable truths, and every time Damien struggles to answer in any meaningful way, stunned into a mortifying, inadequate silence.

Even when the tone he is used to being smooth and refined now fights to gasp out over the receiver, pained and shaky.

This is a final goodbye.

And of all things he could do, Kaden uses these moments to warn Damien. To tell him he isn't angry with him.

"She didn't-" his voice hitches before he can finish the sentence, some phantom pain stabbing into his chest making him lose his breath.

She didn't leave you. She was trying to protect you.

Damien takes in a sharp inhale. The door to the guest bedroom shuts behind him a bit too loudly as he exits, rushed footsteps not caring for landing on the stairs that creak the worst in offense at being disturbed. It makes the ex-cop feel weird that he so instinctually defended Delilah in his head - this stranger he was so ready to be angry with merely yesterday, and that for all of her good intentions has still caused so much hurt to her son. Yet if her intentions are good (and he prays and trusts that they are), then maybe his can be as well. Maybe it can be justified when Finch says he's not mad. The ex-cop was also trying to protect him... in a very misguided, self-serving way.

Kaden is paralyzed on verge of death, lying on the floor of his penthouse. After so many years of only hurting or letting people down, Damien had finally managed to help save someone. Someone he cares for.

The familiar voice is growing fainter with each unbearable truth uttered. Kaden is Michael, body riddled with bullet holes and eyes clouded over.

"I would like to hear from her as well," Damien responds without thinking. What a ridiculous idea - it had been ridiculous when Kaden mentioned it originally back at Nirvana, and it's infinitely more ridiculous when he mentions it now of all times, "And you're going to help me find Ms Kell so that I can do so. A favor for a friend, right?"

Unlike you, I plan to be there when my friend needs me.

Kaden is dying. It feels like all of this is Damien's responsibility - if only he had gone about things calmly, rationally; if only he hadn't gotten triggered over a single fucking sentence, maybe this could have been prevented.

Eli stares at her brother in tense bewilderment as he barrels down to the first floor, running to her. 'Your phone' he mouths to the woman, holding his own one pressed between shoulder and ear while extending his hand, palm open. Maybe it's something in his eyes, but Eleonora doesn't question the request.

'And the key'. She doesn't question that either before walking off.

"Kaden, where are you?" Damien has to find him, and he has to keep him lucid as long as possible, "Please, I need you to keep talking, to keep your eyes open."

The ex-cop is already dialing Natalia on his sister's phone, pleading with all of his being that she picks up, that she isn't dying as well. There is a lump in his throat he can't swallow down. He never should have gotten his friend involved, it's all his responsibility.
 
It's a relief to be done speaking and just listen to Damien's voice again. The sudden sleepiness takes him back to Nirvana, before it all went wrong and Kaden got to just listen.
Listen and rest.

There's so many branches of choice, where things could have changed, where chances were missed. Had he not imprisoned Damien, they would have fought side by side against the Nakurra. Had he not fallen for Ash's tricks, Cade wouldn't have solidified his alliance with MacDarragh.

Each step taken has brought him here, gripping an oozing wound with weakening pressure.

"I can try," he says into the receiver, smiling at his friend's attempts to motivate him into living with a scenario he doesn't need Finch's help with. Regardless of what happens, Damien must find and contact Mrs Kell.

Delilah used to say bullets were magic.
She would give him an unnecessarily vivid description of a man that was shot six times in the throat and chest and still survived. One of the six bullets stopped in his pericardium (the narrow space between the heart and a protective membrane) and the other in his esophagus, which he swallowed.
In Delilah's retelling, the man was lucid and walking. Bullets can bounce, ricochet and change vector within the human body.

It is conceivable he could survive this. Potentially the blood from his mouth is from biting his tongue and not from a collapsing airway.
Will he suffocate again?

"I'm lost," he murmurs, not completely in an effort to be dramatic. He is in fact lost.

"I'm sorry I said those things to you, Damien. I was... scared. Even if I could've helped Delilah, it would only have been holding off the inevitable. It's been a long time since I've been so... helpless."

He inhales softly, weak and quiet. "It wasn't your fault, Damien."
 
"It was my fault," Damien's retort comes out in sharp disbelief, nearly breaking at the end. If he can't be in control of anything else, then at least let him own his mistakes.

Clamping his mouth shut, the ex-cop takes in a deep breath through his nose. He needs to stay calm, stay level-headed, or at least pretend.

Almost like letting out cigarette smoke, the exhale comes out past his lips in a slow, invisible stream. In a sotto voice, Damien speaks more steadily, tone going as soft as the headache squeezing his skull will permit, "Don't apologize. I'm the one who should be sorry, Kaden, and I am. I knew how you were feeling, yet despite that I was-"

The thing that all of a sudden comes to mind is that singular, strange emotion Eli had confessed last night - a lashing out brought on not by retribution, but by some desperate, petty need, not caring for the consequences.

I hated you for it so much, I would do anything to hurt you.

What a self-destructive thing. And Damien knows what it feels like, "I was angry. It was irrational and stupid, and I hate the fact I hurt you like that. I should have been there for you. I should have had your back."

Blessedly, Natalia picks up the call. Damien can hear her progressively more confused 'hellos' resound faintly from Eli's phone in his hand.

"I'm going to find you, Kaden. Just hold on a little bit longer. Don't end the call."

Putting his device on speaker to be able to hear the capo and be heard by him, he exchanges it for his sister's. Montesano's intonation is tired if growing concerned as she wonders why her friend would dial her then not respond, "Hellooo? Eli? Damien? Is something wrong?"

Everything is wrong. But one thing at a time.

"The High-Rise know about you," Damien hears it all too clearly when Natalia's breath hitches. Is she shocked? Or is this an eventuality the woman considered, yet hoped with all her being would never come true? That's what Damien hoped, or maybe his foolish self from a month ago didn't really care if he got the few people he has in his life in danger, "They know about Kim and the kids as well. You all need to leave. Eleonora too, and you're taking her with you."

"What?!"

Damien turns his head. The yelled question hadn't come from the policewoman, but from his little sister that has just come back. Her face is mortified, hair a mess of curls as her hand clutches the key her brother asked her to retrieve - tiny, made of brass, an identical copy to the one Malcom took. Damien's failsafe.

The ex-cop reaches out, clasping Eli's fingers in his own around the item. He doesn't answer her, he has nothing to tell her she doesn't already know - no message has come through. Something has gone wrong with Delilah. They should have left the house hours ago, "Go pack, and take Pawl. You two wait for Natalia."

The skin of Eli's palm is warm against his, growing clammy with sweat. Or maybe that's him, he can't tell, "What about you?"

"I'll meet up with you guys when I can," Damien reassures, and he doesn't know if Eleonora buys it. She doesn't say anything back, silently staring at the man instead, grey eyes searching his face, eyebrows furrowed in a worried grimace. He knows full well Eli's an adult - and a much much more put-together one than him - but seeing her so serious and grown-up feels alien. He's so sorry. He's sorry and he's proud of her and he loves her, but before Damien can break down under the weight of everything he has to say, his sister nods her head and lets go.

It's Natalia's voice that breaks him out of the trance of watching Eleonora climb the stairs of the home she's about to leave for who knows how long. The sergeant heard everything - she is quiet in his ear, putting on that fake air of calmness he himself carries right now. It feels like Montesano is more successful - she is the strongest person he knows, "What are you going to do, Damien?"

"I'm going to ask something of you, and this will be the last request I make, Nat," the ex-cop is walking fast towards the front door. The line Kaden is dying on the other end of is still on. You're not dying, you're not dying - he repeats the mantra over and over in his head, willing it into reality. Finch is not dying. No one else is dying, "I need you to track down a phone location."
 
Kaden's comment said in the heat of the moment caused far more damage than he anticipated.
It was never truly meant to wound, but he can measure Damien's guilt for his reaction in his voice.

Sitting here, bleeding out, Kaden comes to stark realizations.

This is what the man does; he takes the blame for things he couldn't have changed or controlled. It is Damien's fatal flaw.
He cannot accept things as they are.

Just like he won't accept this.

The man feels he's never enough, while Kaden has never tried to be more than he is.
He's never been there for anyone, aside from Delilah. Everyone else he's stabbed in the back or mistreated. Not only is he intrinsically self centered, he has no identity. No soul.

He deserves this, but Damien does not. The ex-cop's voice comes out faint as he warns Natalie and directs Eleonora into action. It's all so unfair to them.

"I'm not mad..."

I'm okay with this... It's better this way.

He tries to voice as much, but when he does the words form into warm honey in his mouth. The world goes hazy around him, but he never lets his eyes shut.

A white blob that clacks and chimes trots into his swirling vision.
Finch blinks, and the scruffy creature comes into focus.

An atrocious animal has come to keep him company. The crusty lapdog has a severe under bite and stained brown fur around it's eyes, as if it spent it's many years crying oil.
It sniffs, it's tongue swiping over the yellowed protruding teeth of it's lower jaw.

"Mr Chief!" A voice calls and it echoes in and out of Kaden's ears, not unlike the ghostly wailing of an underwater creature. But a small one.
For a moment he's blasted to only last night, when he floated in the pool's depths only to be dragged to the surface by Delilah.

A tiny person stands in front of him, holding their equally small dog. With their gender neutral pajamas and short (but not short enough) hair it is near impossible to deduce sex. They are simply a child, pale faced with red dots spotting their face.
There's no horror in their eyes, just an impassive curiosity.

"Are you sick?" They ask, eyeing the dark syrup staining Kaden's shirt.

"...Yes."

The child looks at the gun resting in the capo's lap, which is soon joined by the phone when he no longer has the strength to keep it to his ear.

"Me too... chicken's pox," they say, and they pet Chief's grunky head with a few persistent pats. "That's why I stayed home today. Did you hear the fireworks? I was supposed to be in the closet, but I wanted to see the fire works and then Chief ran out. I'm Micah."

"Kaden... Where's your mother, Micah?"

The little person shrugs, jutting Chief into their chin with the gesture.
Kaden nods and his head sags down to his chest.

I don't know where my mom is either.

"Go home..." Someone says, using his last breath to speak in his voice. His ears ring. His palms are damp.
Tiny bare feet make gentle slaps as the child comes closer. Little feet make a gentle splash in the red puddle.
Twenty six odd years ago, this is what Delilah saw on her doorstep.

Go home.

That is what she told him.

There is no shifting light to indicate any movement has happened, nor any sound.

Perhaps they are gone already, perhaps they've done what he couldn't. If only he'd known then the woman he clung to was just as wounded and hopeless as he is now.

Something heavy and alive is put into his lap. It writhes into his thigh.

"I'll go get my dad," the small voices announces, "Chief will keep you company, Kaden."

His mouth drops open and it's to beg them not to leave. Kaden curls his sweaty fingers into the curly white thing, hiccuping over another mini breath.
Had Delilah ever been desperate for his company?
 
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---

Neil rises with a gasp, eyes opening as he shoots up into a sitting position so fast it's dizzying. Disorienting. Like in one of those overly dramatic scenes where someone wakes up from a nightmare, frazzled and drenched in a cold sweat. Yet, this isn't the hitman waking up; farthest thing from it - panting rapidly in an unsteady rhythm, MacDarragh feels like something that has either never known how to breathe or is only just learning how to do it. Relearning. Something reborn.

What the fuck happened?

Neil grimaces around another spasming inhale. There is a gap in his memories. The last thing he has any recollection of is... Cade, crawling to him while bleeding out in the apartment. The hitman's bleeding out as well; he can't breathe, can't move. The case. Somehow the gangster, absolutely relentless and dumbass motherfucker that he is, finally finds it in himself to get up off the floor, and fuck yeah, Cade-

Everything after that is dark. Until now.

Eyes sweeping over his surroundings, Neil's senses sharpen as he takes in the room - unfamiliar location. Familiar setup.

There are desks against one of the walls with flimsy-looking swivel office chairs, and shelves laden with various medical equipment. Containers of formalin too. A whiteboard has been scribbled over top to bottom, and a slew of printed-out signs hang taped to the walls. This place is evidently well-loved by the people that work here, even if everything is tile, stainless steel, and porcelain illuminated by harsh ceiling LED lights. Sterile, but not for the sake of not contaminating people like most other hospital departments. It's for the sake of not contaminating evidence.

MacDarragh is in a fucking morgue, lying on an autopsy bed, his body covered up with a sheet that just fell halfway down with the movement.

He shivers, but not because of some deep dread at the situation or whatever - in the lower temperature of the mortuary Neil is cold, skin wet with chilly moisture. It's not post-nightmare sweat, though - it's water. He's been washed, and recently - the drain of the table still has traces of blood where the gunk was cleaned off of him. It's what you have to do with a body before an external examination. There's a handsaw nearby for cutting open skulls as well as other bones, and a scale for weighing organs during an internal examination, yet both remain unused, unmarred.

A microcassette recorder has been left running, abandoned next to a blank autopsy report crumpled up in one of its corners. There's no one in sight. Neil can already imagine some disgruntled coroner marching upstairs to go scream at the paramedics for being incompetent idiots. How the fuck do you misreport three bullet wounds to the chest? You should have your medical degree taken away for being that much of a moron.

Misdiagnosing people as dead is a rarity nowadays, what with the leaps in progress medical technology has made, but it used to be common in the past. People used to be buried in "safety coffins" - coffins fitted with mechanisms for those prematurely entombed to signal that they were still alive, actually. The most popular type of failsafe measure was a cord attached to a bell on the surface. Imagine, taking a nice stroll through a cemetery as a Russian peasant sometime in the early 20th century at the height of the sixth cholera pandemic, and hearing all of these little bells ringing out, not knowing if it's simply the wind or someone trapped deep below where the worms crawl, desperately pulling at a wire. Well, it wasn't only bells. Some manufacturers used flags, and the most flamboyant ones used pyrotechnics. That's how you do it with style. Ironically, some manufacturers forgot to include any way of getting fresh air. Because signaling that you're alive is only half of the battle - the other, arguably more important half, is someone actually digging you out in time, and if you can't breathe, well... that's fucking funny.

There are no holes in Neil's chest - he runs his hand over every inch of skin, yet can find nothing. Only echoing sensations the water has not managed to wash away - broad hands touching him, and something viscous seeping deep into his flesh. Rory's bullshit. Fuck, MacDarragh hates the fact that he ended up taking that creep's miracle cure, but the anger at the fact feels temporarily distant because, well.... the air, heavy with chemicals as it is, tastes delicious.

This morning at TreaTech the hitman was looked at like a dead man walking. Now he really is just that.

In one fluid motion, zombie Neil dismounts over the raised edge of the autopsy table, the sheet falling off completely to have him stand in the middle of the morgue, stark naked. He rolls his shoulders to hear them pop, and there's no pain. A half-grin forms on the man's face as he reaches for the microcassette recorder, where the coroner is supposed to verbally describe his findings. The hitman wets his chapped lips in slow satisfaction, raising the device up to them, "Boo."

With a click of a button, the device gets turned off.

There are other autopsy tables, with several more bodies splayed out, though those are still in bags. Cade must be in one of them. Neil's bare feet connect with the tile, resounding as he walks languidly over to the closest corpse, only to have a sudden dull bang interrupt him just as he's unzipping some schmuck with half of his face missing. The hitman's ears perk up, head turning to gaze at the other wall in the room - the one with the cold lockers inlaid into it, top to bottom. Fuck bells resound over a cemetery in a ghostly wail. The metallic rattle of a locker in an otherwise deathly quiet morgue - now that's some real horror movie shit.

"Cade," MacDarragh's smile grows, a chuckle escaping his mouth. It couldn't be anything else, unless a rat or something somehow got trapped in there.

In an instant, Neil's next to the cell where the noise came from. There's a sign taped to it - 'Please Keep Door Closed and Locked at All Times. Thank you!' When he goes to pull at the thing, it becomes immediately evident that someone hasn't been following instructions. Oh, how naughty.

The hitman's newly resurrected muscles tense in anticipation as he flings the square door open, making a grab for the handle to pull the rack from the inside. He's eager to see Wolf, "Don't make such a ruckus, you'll wake up the rest of the dead."
 
He just about knocks himself out a second time.

Instead he groans, rubbing out the ache in his forehead. Why does this kinda stuff always happen to him?
With cold, clammy fingers he feels shakily at his wrist. Smooth slimy skin glides under the pads of his fingers.
Cade rubs the ache out of his forehead, pulling a blanket off his face only to witness more blackness.
He blinks.
In a building panic he tries to breathe through (one stuffy mouthful at a time), he feels against the cold walls boxing him in.
Where the fuck is he?

He was with Neil.

Like a nightmare you forget that comes back with a vengeance in the middle of the morning shit, he remembers.

Did Finch put him here?

Head pounding, Cade feels at the walls, scratches at them. Bits of grunk come loose under his nails. The fucking freak has never buried anyone alive, not that he knows. Yeah, he's made people dig their own grave or put a tarp out for the mess, but he's never gone this far.
But stabbing Finch in the back would call for something special right? Or maybe he did toss Cade out, and Rory's goo brought him back so he can die all over again.

He's not ashamed to admit he's building to a mental breakdown when a door at his feet clangs open with a spine jarring howl. The light burns his eyes.
The wailing echoes through the entire box, and that's nothing compared to the thunder of being dragged out.

Not a coffin.

Not buried alive.

Buried dead.

"Oh I'm so fucking happy to see you," he says in a breath, squinting into an honest to God autopsy room.
He was being fucking stored. He's not sweaty, he's wet from being cleaned. Obviously the comfort of dead people isn't a priority because the fresh air of the room hits his bare skin and makes him shiver.
He's freezing.

He's naked and afraid, and that is so stupid. It's all stupid.

He tumbles off the hard ice block of a table, and everything cracks. Toes, ankles, knees. Even his hip pops.
There's no pain, but he sounds like uncooked spaghetti. Unlike MacDarragh, Cade keeps the sheet up around his waist. This is fucked enough as it is without making it any weirder and as previously stated he's cold.

"Oh shit- we're in hell. Great," he says, leaning into the wall of dead people while the cold floor bites his feet.
Cade studies the lockers, in all their dread inspiring horror, into the open black mouth of the locker he'd been stuffed into.
Who touched him? Who determined him, a perfectly alive person, dead?
There's no Y section cut into his chest, but the saws and the measuring tools seem to point in the direction that was going to become a real possibility.
He brushes his hand over his face, exhaling into his palm and re-breathing the used oxygen.

Not only is his right hand un-shot, his pinky's fixed too. There's no pain.
Cade clenches the hand shut, knuckles crackling like popping ice. There isn't so much as a scar where the bullet wound was. The entrance had been bad, but the exit wound was some really fucked looking gore. It didn't look like a hand, and definitely not his hand.

There's no hair on his wrist, but that's it.

Neil's chest is fine. He'd been blown through three times and he looks fine.

So is the rest of him.

When Cade makes the hasty trip back up to the guy's face, he curls his lips into a thin line of absurd acceptance. They're in a morgue, after assumedly being pronounced dead. There's not a scratch on them, in fact he feels fucking great. Why wouldn't it get any weirder?

Neil's eyes are silver.

Not blue, silver. Fucking white. It makes his pupils the most intense, awful fucking things to look at. It changes his entire face. The curl of instinctual unease in Cade's stomach is palpable, the human dread of seeing something truly uncanny bubbling away. It's like seeing a bad CGI monster; it just looks wrong. For a minute, Neil really does look like a ghoul.

It's a blink and you'll miss it moment, and that's what Neil does.
On the next bat of lashes, the familiar green are back and Cade's left reeling.
Maybe he's dreaming. Maybe he's still bleeding out in Neil's apartment.

There's a band around his ankle, one that's scribbled in the hard to read writing famous in places like this.
White male.
Blue eyes.
5'9".

Leaning against the wall of the lesser fortunate, he fiendishly rips at the band to toss it off.
He's not dead.
He's not fucking dead.

"Fucking idiots can't do their jobs right! How hard is it to tell a dead dude from a living one?"

Cade slams the table back in. It hits the back, clanging loud enough to wake the dead several neighborhoods over.
The sheet metal in the back is dinted and the table itself has fallen off it's hinges.

How many people saw his dick? How many people touched his dick?

"You good?" He asks, fisting his hands into the sheet to warm the digits.
There isn't a so much as a stripe where the deep wound in Neil's shoulder was. The guy's back at his peak, standing like he's in his uniform and not buck ass.
That alone would be infuriating, but the fact he actually looks good too.

He got shot (three times mind you), woke up on a table and he's fine because of course he is.
Bastard.

"You can see okay?"
 
"Oh, I bet you are very happy to see me," Neil purrs out, nodding at the way Cade is gripping onto the sheet for dear life to try and cover his shame. Or most likely the guy's just cold, but it's not like Neil will miss up on an opportunity to tease. His eyes crinkle at the corners as he grins.

People think hell is supposed to be hot, all fire and brimstone. According to Dante's Inferno, however, the last circle of hell is a sprawling frozen lake where sinners suffer for an eternity encased in ice. It's the final, deepest part of the abyss, meant for those guilty of the most heinous of crimes (supposedly) - treachery. Betrayers, oathbreakers that went against people they had a... special bond with, or that abandoned their purpose. There lie Judas and Cain and Antenora, and in the center of it all is the big bad arch-traitor himself. Lucifer. Inferno's a funny little book some dude wrote about going on a trip to the underworld with his favorite dead Roman poet.

But if for a second Neil is to take what Cade said seriously - that their being in hell isn't merely an exclamation at the present circumstances - then the gangster and he are demons that managed to break free from the ice. Excitement makes the hitman's entire being thrum with barely contained energy, even as he shivers in the deathly cold of the morgue. Or maybe it's the energy that makes him shiver, doesn't matter.

Finch shot them down. The paramedics pronounced them dead.

Yet they rejected that reality.

Cade is using the hand that the Butcher mangled to hold up the sheet around his waist - the bullet wound in his wrist is completely gone, like it was never there to begin with. Same with his broken pinky now curling up in the fabric, no pain on his expression at the movement. The gangster's been reborn as well, and Neil gives this entity he is partners with a slow appreciative look at the same time Cade seems to be taking him in. They're alive. Maybe even more alive than before.

Cade's eyes find his own, and suddenly something morphs the air between them.

The guy has been frazzled since Neil pulled him out of the locker like another dead body of some nameless John Doe, but what the hitman perceives in his pools of blue now is different from the distress of being mistaken for dead. Cade looks like he's looking at something that shouldn't exist, and that is what they both are, technically - by pouring silver in their wounds to save them, the man violated any and all laws of nature. They are ghouls, demons.

Cade's troubled eyes are silver.

MacDarragh feels himself go completely still and silent. He observes the man intensely as he rips off his tag, then slams the rack back into the cold locker with force, not caring for the noise the damage causes. Had it been a trick of the light? Given where they are and the normal coloration of Wolf's irises, that's very much a possibility.

The instant Cade starts asking questions, Neil closes the distance between them in a rush of feet slapping against tile, hand reaching up to clasp the gangster's jaw. Not to threaten, but to hold in place. Hold in place in order to inspect.

"Yes," the hitman murmurs, lips pursed as all of his focus is on the pair of electric blue eyes inches away from him as he leans in. Maybe it had been a trick of the light, maybe it hadn't. Did Cade see something strange on Neil's face too to make him unnerved? "I can see just fine."

The bite mark Wolf left him with weeks ago is fainter. He only notices it now, holding onto Cade in such a way. What about the wounds on Neil's back?

"That weasely little creep," he hisses out between teeth, snarling. They're back from the dead, sure, yet they crawled out of the grave with outside help, and now Neil has to worry if their eyes go the same liquid silver as Rory's bullshit magic cure.

Finally releasing Cade's face, Neil gives the guy another once-over, "Do you feel any different?"
 
Neil crowds into his space and Cade is reminded again that he's naked. They're both naked.
He flinches like a damn gun went off when Neil finally touches him. The frustratingly calm, yet intense asshole doesn't force Cade to look up at him. The gangster could pull his head away, be difficult.
That's usually his go-to, especially in a situation like this. Cade doesn't care if the only thing that raises Neil's BPM is a nap, Cade's a semi-normal person with the blood pressure of a hummingbird.

He needs to punch something. Or have someone punch him. He's itching for it, antsy without it.
But he follows the leading force and tips his head up to look into impish eyes that are green. Man, he's so fucking relieved they're still green. Still vibrant. They pull Cade apart like always, and that's good.
It's not slamming the death locker shut, but it is something.

He rests his hand over MacDarragh's arm, and he's solid and warm(ish) and there. There in a way Cade's never had.
They should be dead.
Fuck, they should be dead.
Cade bites at his parched lips, but there isn't a scrap of dead skin there. It's all soft and smooth, the ache of winter gone.

The weasely freak has to be Rory. That pissed off snarl isn't for Cade, and that's a breath of fresh air.
Neil drops him and Cade has to tell himself that's fine and he's sick of the weirdo getting into his bubble all the time anyway.

"Just...good," he says, feeling where Neil held him.
It's hard to explain, especially when emotionally, spiritually, psychologically and religiously he's been turned inside out and upside down.
The breath he takes seem deeper, sounds are crisper, things are shaper... For years his fingers and knuckles have been fucked looking. You wouldn't notice unless you came up close but yeah, some of them were crooked. They still worked fine, but they clicked.
Now they're straight and soft. Nothing under the skin and flesh whines like a rusty door hinge. The stretch marks around his shoulders and bust are gone, the stab wound Neil fixed is a shiny faint line.

The persistent ache that has been growing inside him since thirty is just... Gone. He feels like a centuries old etch-a-sketch that just got shaken into nothing.

"Like I'm ten years younger."

Or not...me, anymore.

Cade presses one freezing foot to the inside of his calf, warming up the ice cubes he has for toes.
Why he keeps looking down is anyone's guess, but he'll keep doing it until it's not there to look at.
Neil needs clothes. Like, right now. It's a human rights violation for Cade to deal with waking up in a morgue locker and be paired with an idiot who has no sense of modesty.
He's one man, he can't juggle fucking everything, okay?

"Let's get outta here before I break something else."

The doorknob to the supposed exit wobbles and twists in Cade's grip. The door opens and standing there is a woman with grey hair that has to be twice his age. Her head's over her shoulder, barking down the hallway.
"And I'm telling you that's impossible! I saw them myself - they were a couple of stiffies."

She finally looks his way.

For a moment, her old woman irritation is there in spades. Here's this man bothering her, showing up somewhere he's not supposed to be and it shows in the miserable wrinkles on her face.
Then she sees his bare open chest and the sheet clutched around his waist and her jaw drops.
And then so does the rest of her. Her eyes rolls back and she's going limp like a puppet with cut strings.

Cade lunges for her, saving her a trip to the hip breaking ground while she goes to twinkle town.
His arms full of old lady, the sheet wrapping his waist pools around his feet.

***

It's both a procedure and a complete nightmare getting their stuff. This is the typical nightmare most people have right? Going someplace in public completely nude. One thing's for sure; this will haunt Cade for the rest of his life.

"What are we gonna tell Taylor?" He asks, shoving one leg through pathetically tight and then stupidly long pants. The zipper on this idiot's jeans are jammed. Who continues to wear pants that don't work anymore? Holes are one thing, but a busted zipper?

Being naked is another one thing, but changing is another. There's something so inherently stupid and vulnerable about pulling on a pair of pants, the way you gotta haunch over like a cowering animal. Especially when they're not yours, particularly after sneaking around a hospital and definitely after waking up in a morgue.

Neil's back is to him. Maybe it's a trick of the light, the shadows making illusions but his stripes look fainter. They weren't trophies, just marks from a bad past long gone so it shouldn't feel as weird as it does to see them drifting away. Scars aren't features, they're just mistakes you can't get rid of or forget.

He glances down again, at the perky little girl ass MacDarragh hides and it's weird that this is the first time he's actually seen it.
Has he even seen it clothed up? It feels like Neil's always behind him or right in his face. Does he leave his back unguarded to anyone?

He reaches further into the locker- a live person's locker this time- and tugs out what he prays is a lunchbox and not something filled with a pair of shoes or something stupid.
A sandwich and a handful of baby carrots.
The rank smell of tuna assaults his face, but he's too hungry to care. He's hungry in a way that makes his teeth hurt and his mouth wet, hungry like he'd put anything down his throat if it would just satisfy him.

Maybe he is a zombie.

He doesn't realize until after his first bite how thirsty he is too. It's like the inside of his throat is caked in dried dirt, crackling with each swallow. It's sore, like he's sick.
Cramming the sandwich into his mouth, he walks up to tap Neil on the shoulder to offer the other half.

"This didn't really go the way I pictured it...Am I gonna be on her shit list now?"
 
Like I'm ten years younger.

Neil's grimace twists even further, like he's sucking on a lemon, a particularly sour one. Or maybe the fruit is rotten. Opening and closing his left fist where it hangs at his side, he feels the way the muscles flex beneath his flesh without a modicum of pain. If anything, they feel more envigorated than even before the raid.

The body heat of a soft hand that had been much rougher several hours ago lingers where his partner held onto his arm.

His eyes narrow. Inspecting the man slowly up and down with clinical precision, MacDarragh takes a good, long look at Cade. Because this is Cade, just... smoother, like some hand passed over him and fixed up all of the faults, patted down the imperfections accrued over a lifetime. That word - reborn - enters Neil's mind once more yet he can't quite find it in himself to feel giddy over the fact like when he initially woke up on the autopsy table, cold and gasping into new life. This is Cade, yes, but certain wrinkles and scrapes that showed history and that made him him have faded, much like the bitemark on the hitman's hand. That was from the first night the two met, when MacDarragh was sent on a bullshit assignment that Wolf's presence managed to turn interesting, and ever since then the hitman's life has not been stale or boring for a second. Just the way he likes it.

This present excitement, however...

Neil's fist squeezes, shaking. Not from the cold, but from anger. What part of the two men did Rory's bioelectronics mess with? Was it only on the tissue or cell level? And if it went beyond that, down to the molecular... did it fuck around in their genome, rummaging somewhere where it doesn't fucking belong?

Is it still rummaging (whatever the hell it might be), making their eyes go silver?

Cade says they should leave before he breaks something else, and the hitman agrees with a sharp nod. He feels like breaking something too, but it's a specific something (or rather, someone) that he needs to get out of the morgue to reach. Which may or may not prove to be annoying to accomplish. There's a person making their way to the mortuary, an older woman shouting down the hallway in indignation. At that volume it'll be simple enough for her to sound an alarm the instant she notices the walking corpses in her path, and that's a situation MacDarragh doesn't have the patience for. His senses sharpen - she'll have to be disposed of before that can happen.

Surprisingly, the doctor disposes of herself. She doesn't yell at the sight of the two men - apparently, they're frightening enough ghouls to cause a person to faint on the spot. Her body doesn't hit the floor, however - in an even more surprising twist, Cade rushes to catch her. Seems like the gangster has been reborn with a penchant for heroics, so much so that he sacrifices the modesty he has been so desperately clinging on to in order to save this random old lady from a painful tumble, giving MacDarragh a much-appreciated eyeful of his butt-ass naked hero glory.

This fucking guy... For a second, Neil's pissed-off expression breaks with a snicker, and putting two fingers in his mouth he catcalls behind Cade, whistling as quietly as he can manage, "Nice catch."

---

Neil's elevated mood doesn't last long, and neither does Cade being in the nude. Unfortunately.

The changing rooms seem to be co-ed, evidenced by the fact that the jeans MacDarragh pulled out of one of the lockers are a woman's. The shallow, shitty pockets you can barely cram your hand into make that obvious enough, but his first option from another locker was way too wide of a fit, and at least the owner of these pants is comparable in height to him, so despite the somewhat tight squeeze around his thighs as he puts them on it's not that uncomfortable. Either way, the clothes serve their purpose, which is to allow Cade and him to leave this fucking place already. The buzzing energy in MacDarragh's limbs has not dissipated, far from it - he feels even more filled to the brim with stamina, and part of it is definitely him being pissed the fuck off, but another part is-

A tap on Neil's shoulder interrupts his train of thought, causing the muscles in his back to tense and in one rapid movement the hitman swirls around with a scowl. Only to be presented with half a sandwich. Tuna, by the smell of it. That's... nice of Cade. He doesn't really think as he opens his mouth to bite the thing from the man's hand, he just knows he's hungry. Almost concerningly so.

Guess they never had lunch...

Neil eats. He doesn't like it, but he eats with a grimace that only deepens after Wolf asks him one of the dumbest questions he's heard in his life, "Is that what you're worried about? Being on Viv's shit list?" The hitman says through a mouthful of bread and fish, swallowing the bite down his dry throat before proceeding, taking the sandwich in his hand, "Holy shit, Cadence, who gives a fuck about her? Look at us!"

"Even your tattoo looks faded," that's the only clarification Neil offers, pouting while observing the ink he's traced enough times at this point to remember the outline. He likes the tattoo, he's liked it since he first saw it at the bar.

"This isn't..." he doesn't quite know what he's trying to articulate. The hitman hates words like 'good' or 'bad', concepts that are constructed by current societal morals and that are wholly subjective, yet frustratingly he can't find a better word, "... Normal."

Fuck, he spent so long refusing to be part of Rory's experiments, partially to be difficult with Vivien, partially because he doesn't trust the creep. He doesn't take anyone's shit, and he's certainly no one's guinea pig. With a huff MacDarragh turns back to the locker, retrieving a pullover which he quickly puts on over his head before wrapping a scarf around his neck to guard against the cold where the v-cut of the top would leave his skin exposed.

"Yeah, you likely are on her shit list, welcome to the club. But she won't do anything to you as long as you're associated with me. That said, I don't know about your hiring prospects now, but what I do know is she'll make you sit through her lecturing you."

There's an umbrella deep inside the locker. Whoever Dr. Dara (if the tag on the outside of the door can be trusted) is she likes to keep prepared for any weather, just in case. The hitman grabs at the thing - it's one of those old, wooden ones. Good quality. He highly doubts it has a poisonous tip like the one back in his weapons cache, though.

"That is if you intend to go see her. I for one, plan to pay Rory a visit, ask him some questions. And depending on that prick's answers..." holding onto the umbrella shaft with both hands, Neil tries for a swing with it. It has a good, sufficient weight to it, "I might just cave his skull in."

MacDarragh turns back to face Cade, his partner on a mission that has gotten way fucked before they could even start it in earnest, "So... are you coming with me?"
 
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Neil has two emotions; pissed off and brimming with charisma. This being the array of human emotions he can experience, the guy likes to rock back and forth like a pendulum on acid.

This feels different though.

Yeah, he takes the sandwich (bites straight from Cade's hand), but he's more than peeved.
It takes Cade for a ride to realize this invincible hitman is frazzled.
Fucking shit.

This isn't... normal.

"It is?" He asks, hand jumping to his throat. Cade marches to the mirror to see for himself the band of ink interrupted by two empty eyes and a row of fangs is several shades lighter.
Rubbing at it, he... doesn't know how to feel about that. Once again he's been another epic failure and he deserves to have it stamped into his skin.

His eyes are brighter. There's a fuzzy sheen of dead skin on his face and when he scratches it away, he's baby soft. The pores are smaller, like his entire face has been airbrushed in Photoshop. On his best day he couldn't look this good and he's still ruddy red from freezing his ass off.
Cade makes a glance around before tucking a hand down the front of his pants. He'd been ignoring it, the way a normal person should in a locker room, but the thought something's changed there makes him...

Fuck, he doesn't have the thesaurus or the emotional capacity to explain this.

The tattoo's faded. Without anyone asking if that was okay to do, it's been washed out. It's not enough to go away and too much to look like anything but something shitty. It sucks.

At risk of sounding like a petulant kid, everything sucks. He's fucked up his chances with Taylor pretty good while simultaneously making an enemy out of Kaden (and the crazy bitch he associates with). The universe has decided this is the year of fuck Cade Wilson's life up.
As if the last five have been a cake walk...

Miraculously, he's still alive. It's hard to be upset with that, even if that's what Neil's pushing for.
Fucking Neil, wearing pants that clearly don't fit him. If it was important to know, yes, the paint-on jeans are doing him every favor on the damn planet. He shows some mercy by covering up his skin with a ridiculous looking scaf and Cade hates that this is what he's putting brain power towards. On the back burner of his life is the subject of his once rock solid sexuality, burning away into a molten mess.
Maybe it's just Neil, but if that's the case then that comes with it's own complications. There's so much bullshit to figure out that he hasn't even touched yet.

The psycho is pretty much the last friend(?) he has, and isn't that the saddest fucking thing.
And the guy wants to fuck with Taylor further by harassing her golden goose.

With an amazing display of maturity and self control, Cade punishes the mirror with his fist. The perfect reflection pretending to be him shatters into a dozen hims, before clattering to the floor.
Cade shakes his fist out, blowing the blazing warm skin that radiates up his arm. There's no blood.

"Might as well."

---

Bless his heart, Rory is finishing up his half day at the gym. The sight of the building puts a warm ache in the gangster's chest; it's a familiar place with a lot of okay memories. He'll always be a piece of shit, but at least he took some accountability when he finally looked after himself. It was a good place he could drop his brain and just be in his body for a while.
It was the first time in years he could remember ever feeling good about himself, too.

Now, instead of being inside, he's outside in the cold waiting to drop an idiot. It's not uncharted territory; it's familiar in its own way.
Cade could ask how MacDarragh knows which Planet Fitness Rory goes to, or that he works out at all given how tiny he is, but it'd be a useless diversion.
Rory wasn't a job for Neil, but that doesn't stop the psycho from sniffing people out apparently.

Their hobbies, likes and dislikes...

There's a good chance Rory just bragged in Neil's face honestly.
Something he must regret as soon as he walks out and gets dragged down a decrepit alleyway.
Most people are deceptively strong in a situation like this. Rory isn't.
It's actually counterproductive to struggle; going limp might buy you more time, that is if anyone's actually going to save your ass. Cade finds that hard to believe, particularly with this parakeet.

Cade's not rougher than he needs to be, but the boy genius ends up back to a wall either way.

"Oh-" The kid stammers, recognition taming the wild look in his eyes while simultaneously brimming up something new. The sheen in the researcher's hair is water this time (thank fucking goodness), and he clutches at his duffle bag like it's a stuffed toy.
"It's you guys. Hi. Vivien's been trying to get ahold of you, Neil."

He seems to notice Neil has both arms in working order. His mouth parts into a tiny circle before he utters, "You actually took it..."
 
---

Expect the unexpected.

You can never know when the guy you're planning on kidnapping will show up in your apartment. Or when a walking corpse will ambush you on your way home to drag you off into an alleyway.

The little shit doesn't see Cade coming, though. Of course he doesn't, he has no reason and zero awareness to anticipate anything bad, especially on his return from working out (or however he chooses to waste his time in the gym because whatever he is currently doing certainly doesn't seem to be paying off), and Neil has to wonder if Rory's false sense of security has something to do with his gilded position at TreaTech. Vivien's always treated him like her most prized possession, after all, and he's always more than welcomed that attitude, taking advantage of it by hiding behind the woman's skirts like a child.

So it's not a surprise at all when (even as the gangster pushes him into a wall) one of the first things Rory brings up is the fact that the CEO's been trying to reach Neil. Like he's ever given a fuck. The hitman's jaw clenches so tightly at the sight of the creep's idiotic expression that he swears he can feel a vein pop in his forehead from the pressure. Yet he hides the full brunt of his irritation behind a full-toothed grin, eyes half-lidded as he raises his chin up.

"You like?" MacDarragh's tone comes out low, arms spreading out dramatically as he half-turns to give the scientist a good view of the fact that, yes, he actually fucking took it. So did Cade.

Not that they had any other choice.

Neil's hold around the stolen umbrella tightens and he drops his arms back down, tapping the umbrella tip rhythmically on the cold pavement. It's wooden, not necessarily a sharp point, but not too wide either. Smile not faltering, the hitman speaks up once more in a sing-song voice, "Gotta hand it to you, you made something special. I expected for it to close up some wounds, sure, but what I didn't expect was for it to give me a facelift."

"Or to bring us back from the dead," in a couple of long strides, Neil walks to stand in front of Rory.

"All this time I've been putting off hurting you, 'cause you make Viv money. Meaning you make me money in turn," in one languid move, the tip of the umbrella finds itself pressed against Rory's chest, right above where he's clutching onto his duffle bag, "But apparently you have bullshit regenerative technology, so I can hurt you as many times. As. I. Fucking. Want."

With each word uttered Neil punctuates his point by tapping at the kid, putting slightly more and more pressure on the bone beneath. The sternum, especially in its upper part, is not something easy to crack on a healthy person. Yet, MacDarragh feels he can do just that, with the same energy that lets a guy not bleed at all after punching a mirror with his fist.

"What is it, Rory? What side effects does it have?"
 
That smugness Rory had playing with death is a distant memory as MacDarragh puts on a performance that would probably make even Cade a little uneasy.
The kid gulps, like he's in some kind of cartoon, casts a glance down the alleyway before Neil sweeps up his attention with the umbrella again.

"I- I dunno- It's never brought someone back from a flatline before," Rory stammers, white as a ghost. He doesn't shove away the umbrella, just takes it like a lamb to the slaughter.
"Different batches are programmed to do different things. Something about you dying must've... confused it."

"We... actually died?" Cade mumbles. That feeling of wrongness surges and he feels a little bit like a stranger in his own meat suit.

"I'm assuming it kept your brains firing so it depends if you think something needs a heartbeat in order to qualify as being alive."

Cade rubs at his throat, at the faded tattoo that has kept him on this side of society where something like this could only happen. It's hard to push the imagery of himself lying on the floor, gray faced with empty eyes. No longer human, just meat waiting to decompose.

The coroners did do their jobs.

"It wasn't supposed to do this. It's a draft for a medical procedure I haven't come close to finalizing yet... It's in your nervous system now. Everywhere." Rory's eyes glaze just a little as he forgets who he's with, the umbrella turned weapon pushed into his chest.
It's the same appreciative way he looks at his rats.

"You said it was one and done!" Cade spits.

"I said, 'use it to fix a broken finger and a knife wound'. How was I suppose to know you'd take it when you were already half dead?"

Rory raises a shaky hand to unzip his duffel bag. He does it slowly, as if either man would ever worry the researcher had a gun in there. Or even knew how to use a gun.
Rory pulls open his phone, flicks it off DND and it immediately starts buzzing with unanswered texts.

Popular prick.

Rory flicks through some screens until he gets to the one he wants. There's two generic outlines of the male physique, stuck in an 'A' pose. Sliding through a timeline, Cade watches as both the outlines sprinkle with red splotches. One has a red dot in the right wrist that slowly spreads, dinging with warnings.
The other is a mess of red, at it's shoulder and back. A moment later three more indicators show up in the middle of it's chest.

Rory glances up at them, biting his bottom lip.
He switches to a new tab.

The new diagram shows the outline of a brain, sparkling bright splashes of color intermittently.
Rory taps the screen and a twin brain replaces the first. The only indication Cade has that it's not the same one is the spattering of color in a different place.
He glances at Neil and wonders in a way that further tears at his paradigm how an emotionally void psychopath experiences a moment like this.

That's them.

"It's pretty impressive how much you remember, actually. Or that you guys can even talk. There's a good chance it saved you from hypoxia symptoms by repairing the brain cells as they died. You have a beautiful brain by the way," Rory finishes in a soft inhale that makes Cade's skin crawl.

A troubling look brings an infuriating pout to Rory's face. He zooms up into the live display of their heads, clicks the screen a few times and the color goes dead.
New segments are highlighted, but it isn't activity. At least, not that Cade knows.
There's millions of little spots dotted through each hemisphere. Not glowing, pulsating clouds that dance to the rhythm of their thoughts, but stagnant still dots.
He flicks the screen to switch to the other and it's just as spotted, if not worse. Whosever's brain this is, it might as well be a Pollock painting.

"Crap," the kid mumbles.

Rory inhales, rubbing the edge of his phone with a thumb.
He eyes Cade in a way that reminds him of the rat walking in circles.
A shrill beeping errupts from the phone. Another warning flashes across the screen.

"I really didn't mean for this to happen to you guys, but I gotta say I don't appreciate being jumped either. I bruise like fruit, ya'know." He doesn't glare at Neil, doesn't have the balls for it, but he's as close to disgruntled as Cade's seen.

"Wilson, this is going to be scary."

And that's all it seems to take.

A funny feeling builds in his stomach. Not like hunger and not like nausea. Just... different.
It's not like passing out. Nothing spins, it doesn't get dark. He stares into space, locked into one moment.
Cade's on his feet and then a spine jarring coldness is against his back and that must mean he's on the ground.
He jerks, spastic and pain blooms across his head from someone hitting him before he realizes he's hit his own head into the ground.

And he can't stop.

"In five minutes, that's you when the machines keeping you alive start losing power," Rory says with a point.
"Apologize for threatening me, Neil. And I'll help before he's completely brain dead."

Cade scratches deep grooves into the snow, twitching.
Rory was right, it's damn terrifying.
His body isn't his anymore, and it's trying to self destruct.

This isn't normal

Cade tries to find MacDarragh, but all he sees is open sky and blurring buildings and he wants it to stop. He needs it to stop.
 
Neil listens to Rory's lackluster "explanation" with something between a grin and a grimace, umbrella still pressed to the guy's sternum in a very real, very violent threat. One wrong move, one slightly off twitch, and the creep is going to pay, dearly.

Honestly, MacDarragh feels the need to hurt him regardless of what he does or says - the fact that Viv's boy genius did not anticipate such an outcome is somehow worse than if this had been a planned, calculated reaction to his technology. It's laughable, and it makes the hitman feel even more like a guinea pig subjected to some brat's half-cocked experimental cure, accidentally serving as a new frontier on the path to his work's development. The idea makes his hands itch.

There is some minuscule satisfaction to derive from the fact that Cade and he did this to themselves - that they had agency in this outcome - yet it's shallow relief that doesn't please or calm Neil at all. It only makes him feel... helpless.

Fuck that, he's not helpless. Never has been, never will be. He raged against fate, against death itself, and came back!

Clinical death.

That's what the first responders must have discovered upon examining the two men - no circulation, no breathing, which are the two criteria needed to sustain life. They probably tried to resuscitate them (actually, they definitely did, it's protocol), but with vital signs not returning no matter their efforts and with the idea that recovery was beyond the realm of possibility considering their grievous injuries combined with bloodloss, the medical professionals determined them legally dead, no need to check for brain activity. Not when cardiopulmonary death had already been well established.

No one could have anticipated the two would get back up some hours later, shedding off old skin. No one, and that includes Rory.

Shakily, the kid takes out his phone, and Neil watches with intense scrutiny as diagrams get pulled up, displaying the timeline of today's events - getting shot up, dying. Coming back. The brains are spotted, like some mess of an abstract painting. Their brains - MacDarragh realizes who the scans are of and what the implications of it all are, yet all of a sudden things become... difficult to contextualize.

In a flash, he finds himself thinking back to this morning, after Cade and he arrived at the headquarters he's come to hate so much, after he made his attempt to finally go his separate ways with the High-Rise and break free because he was never meant to be kept on a leash. And then Vivien handed him an epicrisis. The bright spots of accumulated radiotracers on the full-body PET/CT scan glow almost blindingly in his memory. A painting. He's seen the image before, of course, and with each passing month things only become worse and worse, but still Viv refuses to let him die. The woman clings onto hope desperately, praying that she can keep the man alive long enough to somehow save him once Rory's experiments bear definitive, surefire fruit, as if such a thing will ever be possible. Some things you can't turn back. But still Vivien refuses to let her mentor - her's and Neil's guardian - die with dignity.

Ah... It's not helplessness that MacDarragh is experiencing in this moment. It's a complete and total loss of dignity, and maybe that's just as bad. Kept alive by artificial means, his body isn't his anymore.

And neither is Cade's.

Neil doesn't realize something has gone horribly wrong until he hears his partner's head make hard contact with the cold ground. The sound causes his senses to come back to the present in stark, overwhelming focus as he swirls around from where he is still keeping Rory pressed to the wall. The umbrella tip digs further in, and the movement's only partially voluntary.

It should be completely voluntary, but observing the gangster racked by convulsion as he is, something old in MacDarragh's gut twists, and not only is his body not his anymore - it feels like all of his faculties are lost.

"Cade-" in a clipped exclamation of shock he didn't intend to slip his lips, the hitman lets his impromptu weapon clatter to the ground, rushing to kneel at the other man's side. The procedural actions come to him instinctually - in a blink, he's putting his scarf beneath the gangster's head to give him some semblance of a soft surface, while his hand reaches for Cade's. The one he surrendered, the one he got shot through. Jaw tense beyond belief, Neil struggles to sound calm and collected for Cade's sake, "Hold on. This is only temporary, it'll pass."

It will pass, it will. Into death, if what Rory says is true. And it is. Not letting go of the gangster, MacDarragh throws his head up and over his shoulder to glare daggers at the scum that caused this, snarling, "Tи јебено срање."

He could break Rory. Fuck, he'll do more than bruise and break him, and that's a promise. He'll kill the slimy fuck- A tug from the still convulsing Cade forces Neil to return his attention to him, blue eyes fluttering uncontrollably much like the rest of his body. Supposedly he has five minutes, yet the longer he delays, the more damage Cade sustains.

"I'm sorry-" the phrase rips out of MacDarragh's chest, and for a second he doesn't even register that he's said it. It's his voice, sure, but the words sound foreign, like he's learning English phonetically all over again. They taste wrong, even more so after he repeats them in a horrible desperation that he hasn't felt in decades, "I'm sorry for threatening you, okay?! Now stop this!"
 
This is the death he should have had, happening hours later.
He doesn't expect Neil to show that much soft underbelly, not for his sake.
He doesn't expect the guy to come to his side either. Or hold his hand. The same one he bit through weeks ago. He can't squeeze back, at least not in a way that isn't another convulsion as his brain melts.

Neil's a dick. They're both dicks, and the promise it'll be over soon is the hitman priming Cade to be dead. He hates how much he appreciates that. It's not a whole lot, but it's honestly more than he expected and Neil says it so genuinely. Gently, even. No smiles, no teeth. It's too real, like he's putting his dog down.

"I'm going to assume that wasn't another threat," Rory murmurs somewhere above him.

And then he hears it.

Words he never would've imagined coming out of the hitman's mouth unless they were dripping with vindictive sarcasm.
It's in a tone Cade's never heard, another emotion to add to Neil's roster of human experiences.
He hears it and sees Neil twenty years younger, the same scared kid he was.

His mom used to say when you felt empathy for an animal it was just your own feelings reflected back at you. What you wanted to be there (love, happiness, whatever), was just your own projection.
It made him feel that much lonelier to think the family dog didn't give a shit about him either.

Rory's rummaging through his bag, knowing better than to gloat. As much as his monologue back at TreaTech supported the concept of Neil being an insecure narcissist, he seems just as shell shocked as Cade feels.
He pulls out one of the bracelets that had been in the original case, the one they lost who knows where.
It's older, a less refined design than the other one. Rory stretches it out with a clasp and suddenly it's long enough to be looped around his neck.

It clicks shut around the wolf underneath it.

Within seconds, the electric force keeping his body tense and aching eases. The ticking time bomb that is his brain gets wound back. He sinks back into the snow beneath him, shuddering. Things hurt again and that would almost be a relief if it wasn't just going to disappear again. Suddenly and without any reason to. With a shaky grip, he squeezes the hand there in earnest.
He gave Kaden five years of his life and the guy doesn't even say goodbye. After less than five nights together this guy holds his hand like he's a fucking flower.

"Thanks for the apology. I'm also sorry for the drama, but you started it," Rory says, ferreting past sneakers and stinky sweatshirts until he finds what he's looking for. He pauses to rub at his chest, pulling his shirt open to wince at the bruising on his sternum.
Apparently he isn't infected with the same crud Cade and Neil are.

Satisfied with the licking of his wounds, Rory holds the second collar out for Neil.

"You won't have to wear it forever. And I can make you a better one later. And you are going to need a better one, just so you know."
 
Neil doesn't meet Rory's eye line - on one hand because he doesn't want to, on the other because he doesn't trust his reaction if he were to take a look at the fucker. And on the third, because his attention is fully trained on Wolf as the bracelet-turned-collar clicks around the gangster's neck. As suddenly as it started, the seizure ends. Cold, lying on the ground and winding down from a lethal panic, the man is shivering like an animal, but at least he's not convulsing anymore, limbs no longer bending in chaotic, unnatural contortions.

It's over. Wolf is not dead.

Well, Neil doesn't know whether to classify the gangster - or himself - as alive either, not after everything that has happened. Shit, maybe the two of them are stuck somewhere in between, beyond the bounds of the laws of man or nature. Not outside the control of a phone, however.

Knelt over Cade as he is, there is no sign of relief on MacDarragh's face. There's no expression there in general, just this all-encompassing blankness that descended the moment he gave Rory his... apology. Smiling is a comfort zone; a familiar friend. This feels more like a defense mechanism, an old one the hitman believed and wanted long forgotten.

Weakly, Cade squeezes his hand, and Neil squeezes back in a tight grip as the building tension in his shoulders eases up, even if barely.

With a collar around his neck, Wolf truly looks like the dog MacDarragh knows him to be. Yesterday Cade asked what made him the way he is, like the hitman wasn't simply born into the world this way. Or, well, he asked what made him "get all John Wick-y", if he remembers the verbiage correctly, and Neil does because the dope communicates through pop-culture references and expletives exclusively. Except for when he gets all flustered or mopey... MacDarragh had answered that someone killed his dog, of course.

Wonder what having yet another dog hurt will do to him. Wonder what being treated like a pet himself by lesser individuals will do to him.

MacDarragh's sharp eyes finally land on Rory as a second collar is extended his way, and if he could feel anything right now, he imagines he would growl at the proferred leash. Instead, the hitman takes the thing in his hand, speaking in monotone, "Tell Vivien I'll have our mess cleaned up, and that I'll contact her after we've made progress."

Because he's not reaching out to the woman now, and he certainly isn't going back to see her. Not with how smug she'll be at Cade and his present situation. MacDarragh puts on the device and has to fight through a deep feeling of wrongness in his gut, instincts scratching at his insides asking him what the fuck he is doing. Surviving. For now.

Rising up, Neil extends an arm to help Cade off the ground when he's ready, "How long does this have to be worn? How long until a new one is needed?"
 
"I will, but she's not going to like that. When I say she's mad, I mean she's really mad," Rory warns, rezipping his bag to morosely rub at his chest again.

It's...weird seeing Neil collar himself. Almost as weird as hearing him apologize was. The guy grovels to no one, not Finch and not Taylor.
Seeing this is like the sky turning green. With another click, they're both locked into the same boat.

With the crud melting against his back, he's more than ready to accept that same hand to get up. Neil hauls him up and holds him until he finds his footing.
It's the opposite energy of the hitman being in his face, all that poisonous hatred barbed towards Rory.

And honestly? Fuck that guy. He made that happen, made Cade helpless to prove a fucking point.
But if Cade hadn't come with Neil... his blood goes cold thinking about it.

"A couple hours a day. More if you're getting yourselves into a lot of trouble." Rory inches to the end of the alleyway, where he's slipping from their grip.
There's fuck all they can do about it.

"Those are prototypes, which means they don't charge as fast and, not to be a diva, but they look gross on you," he says in a comfortable smile. He could sprint and make it back to civilization now.
The researcher isn't ready to tap anyone's faces, but the shine of a battle won is in his eyes.

"I know you're cranky, but think how perfect you both are now. You're skill and bodies matched with my intellect has made you guys the best versions of yourselves. You're badass," he's saying, walking backwards towards safety.
"You'll thank me eventually, especially you, MacDarragh."

Bitch collar around his neck, he's never felt less like a badass.

---

He's always felt like negative space, a void. There's a Cade shaped hole where an actual person should be.
Maybe that's more true now than it ever has been. As far as he understands it, the itchy, warm collar is charging his brain. There's a gentle whine of electricity if he listens hard enough. He's assuming the collar itself has batteries, which makes the whole transference just...weird.

He doesn't rub at the wolf as much, just the collar.
People are kept alive with machines in hospitals and stuff. This isn't that weird, is it? He just hopes it isn't forever. Or that it doesn't get worse.

They go back to their old hotel room.

This time together.

It's different now. Cade knew as soon as they began working together it'd be different. It should be different. It's not just stress relief anymore, it's real now. Uncomfortably, overwhelmingly real.
He steps inside behind Neil and sees the spot where MacDarragh broke his finger. The finger that, a few days later, is better than it's ever been.
A little beyond that is the bed where Neil took his broken pieces and sewed them back together again. Real, honest care with soft hands that took several minutes to do, and then weeks after to heal. He'd flex his abs and remember the tenderness that put that pain there.

Are they even the same people anymore? And he doesn't even mean that poetically or metaphorically.
How much of their minds aren't even theirs anymore? And how long will it be like that? Are they going to need these robotic crutches the rest of their lives?

The bed's made up, not a hint of blood or any other fluid on it's smooth sheets.
Cade parks his ass on his side (shit, he has a side of the bed) and rubs at a neck that doesn't ache.

He's not tired.

He died today and all he wants to do is run the chaotic energy out of his system, or eat again. Clasping his hands together, he squeezes until the fingers go white. His knee jogs in place.
He should be exhausted, but he's wide awake.

Neil is fucking with a vent.

His back is on display and when he reaches to pull a bag out, the shirt that doesn't fit him hugs every tensing muscle like a second skin.
It was one moment of sappy hand holding and a dumbass apology. Cade's standards aren't that damn low. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't have to mean anything.

"I might go down to the exercise facility if we're going to be here a while," he says, itching where the band is and realizes a second later how weird it must look to normal people.
He gets up to see what Neil has, not because he wants to be closer.

They still smell like the morgue, like death.
Hazy waves of warmth come off his body, meeting with Cade's and why won't he get into his personal space again? He does it 24/7 and now he's busy.

It makes sense he packed failsafes here. They were probably meant to kill Cade, or hell, maybe Finch. When that wasn't necessary, he packed them away for safe keeping. Why is that kinda cute?

It's not even that Cade's difficult to love (which he is), but completely undeserving of it too. He's never been enough for anyone, or he's been too much of the wrong thing for everyone.

He's never going to be better, and Neil's the first guy to be okay with that.

A kitten fight isn't what he's after, but he tests the water by shoving Neil. It's a mean one, one that could unbalance the hitman if he wasn't expecting it. The release of steam is immediate, the ants under his skin melting away, the noose on his neck loosening.
The touch is electric, MacDarragh's body responding to his. They couldn't fight before, not with Neil's shoulder the way it was. Now there's nothing keeping them apart except everything else.

He smiles at him then, feeling like a dog doing the play-bow again, suddenly excited and stupid over something no one else will ever understand. He's just a body, with Neil's, waiting to hurt and flex and sweat.

"Take it out on me," he says, pushing Neil's chest and shoving him back another foot. The hitman looks so unapologetically stupid with that shirt, with his sharp, elegant collarbone visible and his bust just beneath it. There's parts of him that are just meant for showmanship, pretty by existing. Sculpted like a statue, stone made soft by the repeated sanding of warm hands.

"And I'll take it out on you." He'll be that much clearer if MacDarragh can wipe the cobwebs in his head with his fists, if he can fight until he's spent and gain back some semblance of dignity again.

And it'll be easier than having a grown up talk.

"I swear I'll be able to think if I can just get it out of my system, Neil."
 
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The smarmy fuck tells them they'll be thankful, the hitman in specific, and Neil feels like snarling.

He feels like tearing into Rory, into anything really, but instead all he does is stare blankly, unmoving as he helps Cade steady himself while the scientist walks away to safety, the glimmer of self-satisfied victory at winning this "fight" evident in his eyes. The kid's expression is detestable, it always has been, doubly more so now that he looks at Neil and Cade like they're projects. Rory's magnum opuses, combining their "skill and bodies" with his "intellect", or whatever bullshit it is he spouted.

As if MacDarragh needs the creep's brains to be the best version of himself.

No, but now he needs his machines to stay alive...

The guy probably believes he outmaneuvered them. Unblinking, Neil's severe eyes are drying out in the cold December weather, all the while his insides are writhing around like snakes fighting to break free, to sink their fangs into someone stupid enough to think them pacified. He doesn't let them, not now.

Observing Rory back out of the alleyway unharmed and unscathed, the hitman quietly reiterates the promise he made himself this morning - he'll burn the High-Rise to the ground.

---

The familiar off-color door closes on the familiar mediocre hotel room.

It's strange how familiar this space feels, ludicrously more so than Neil's own apartment. That shouldn't be the case, especially not when the two have been here together merely twice in the past. Yet, that's not taking into account the several nights in a row the hitman returned here waiting for Cade to show, only to get stood up for the first fucking time in his life. And all over the dumbest reason he's ever heard. It's one of the most audacious things the damn bastard has committed, second only to breaking Neil's nose, then rebreaking it the morning after the two slept together for the second time here. Slept as well as slept-slept, even when MacDarragh didn't plan to let his guard down. Because he doesn't let his guard down.

How many times has he shown his back to this man at this point?

Neil tries not to think about that right now - about the fact this place is teeming with fucking memories - as he turns away from Cade sitting on the bed, and walks over to one of the walls, pulling a chair behind himself to stand on as he painstakingly takes the vent grate off. He has to balance on his toes to grab the duffel bag hidden deep inside the filthy vent. It falls to the carpeted floor with the clink of metal, only to be followed a second later by the man's own soft thud as his feet also return to solid ground.

A moderate array of weapons and essentials unchanged from the last time he saw them, that's what meets Neil's eyes as he unzips the bag. This stash he brought as a failsafe - the one he originally hid under the bed the first night Cade and he slept (as well as slept-slept) here - pales in comparison to the impressive secret cache in his apartment.

It seems surreal to think the two men were browsing Neil's collection and chatting away mere hours ago, instead of the lifetime ago it feels like.

But this kind of is a new lifetime, isn't it?

Cade is in his personal space. Of his own volition for once, and Neil feels his muscles tense in anticipation of... shit, he's not sure what. It doesn't feel like danger, though. Stupidly. The shove that comes a second later unbalanced that idiotic belief, and the instinct Neil had to smother to keep himself from lashing out at Rory rears its head again to call him a fucking idiot, sharpening his senses in a screaming urgency to retaliate. The hitman swirls around to face his "partner".

Wolf is smiling at him.

Take it out on me. And I'll take it out on you.

Some sensation runs down Neil's spine at the words, some electrical signal that spreads through his torso and limbs before gathering back up in the core of his body with a shiver. It's warm. He feels the corner of his lips twitch up.

Is it his own nervous system sending out the impulse or is it the collar around his neck?

The beginnings of a grin die before they can become anything real. MacDarragh's fists clench, nails digging into the soft flesh of his palms. Fuck, he wishes he could take it all out on Wolf. He wishes the two could fight like they did when they originally met - just two bodies matching synergy, going toe to toe to such an extent he was not sure who would come out on top. It was exciting, invigorating. Intimate. Cade says he'll be able to think if he just gets all of this bullshit out of his system, and maybe he's right. But Neil's issue right now is that he is thinking, way too much. He wishes he could just act. Hurt and touch, and live. He wishes he could do what the gangster is asking of him and smile and be his usual self.

MacDarragh closes the distance between the two and his arms extend towards Cade, but it's not to shove. The movement is languid, like when the gangster reached up to his face and made him flinch only to grab at his hair for the first time weeks ago. The hitman will pay him back for all of the hairpulling sooner rather than later, and for the suffocating he did as his captor/caretaker.

When his hands find the sides of the man's neck they squeeze, not enough to choke. The pressure is almost gentle in its firmness, and Neil hates the fact that the contact is interrupted by the dog collar Wolf now wears - the dog collar they both now wear. Guess the gangster got what he wanted out of the High-Rise - a new leash. Maybe tighter than even the one Finch had on him, the fucker that managed to find him twice.

The question is tinged by no emotion, blank much like the hitman's face, "Where is the tracker, Cade?"
 
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