Money is Greed (Private)

[Benjammin]

Wires sat in the middle of a dingy, desolate tavern, awaiting his contact. It was easy to pick out who it was amongst the few people, his contacts were often undesirable people, of sorts. Often looked drugged out of minds, or just plain mean looking, for the sake of being mean. Wires would think it a killer look if he didn't know better.




A tall fellow approached his small table, wearing a dirty gray hoodie. "Hey. You that freak kid named Wires or somethin'?" The guy asked, licking his lips and looking around in the most sketchy of manners. Wires rapped his fingers gently on top of the table, eyes focusing forward as if it were a normal conversation.




"Yeah." The unnamed individual stared at Wires like he expected more, but soon realized he wasn't. He slid an envelope across the table and Wires snatched it up, carefully looking inside.




"There's only half," he growled at the man, narrowing his eyes. The other put his hands up defensively, palms facing Wired.




"Hey, don't shoot the messenger. They said you'd get yer other half when the job was done. All the info is in there, yeah?" He pointed aggressively at the envelope, in which Wired had to fight off a wince. The man was sure making it look like they were up to no good.




"Fine." Wired quickly gathered up his "things" (the envelope and his book on forensic analysis) and left. When he checked over his shoulder, he snorted at the fact the guy was at least smart enough not to leave right after him.




Nathaniel Bayer. Some snot kid messing with shit he shouldn't be. Wired was that kid at one point, and look how he turned out.




The assassin, now at his one-bedroom flat, pulled a black case out from under the bed. He opened the locks using a short passcode, and cushioned in the velvet lay his pistol revolver and silencer. He carefully put it together before slipping it in under his shirt, in his jeans. Easy. Simple. Routine. Next, he grabbed his mask, lightly tracing the pattern with a finger, he slipped it into his large jacket pocket. He didn't need it yet, it would just arouse questions in public. That was the last thing he wanted.




And then Wired was ready, short and sweet. He wanted this job done with quickly, he needed all that cash, and fast. He left his apartment via train, and arrived shortly at the Bayer estate, just as the sun began to set.

 

[Endling]

Nathaniel paced his study with hurried steps, messing with his hair and talking to himself. Books, papers, notebooks, and writing utensils were strewn about the floor, light streamed through the large windows on one side of the room behind Nathaniel's desk, and the whole room reeked of smoke. The bags under Nat's eyes suggested he hadn't slept in a while, and his eyes were slightly bloodshot. A cigarette was in between Nathaniel's lips, and he breathed the smoke into his lungs and then took the cigarette out of his mouth and breathed out.


"What have I done... Oh God help me..." Nathaniel mumbled. He had done something terrible, and he was sure that his family, or him specifically, were being targeted by the gang he had messed with.


"Why do my parents have to work with gangs... Why me.. Why my stupid ass temper.." Nathaniel stopped pacing for a quick second, and he flopped into his spinny chair and leaned back before getting up and pacing again.


"Why the hell couldn't we have just stayed in Britain... I would've liked that much better, but no. We just had to move to Japan. If we still lived in Britain I wouldn't be in this situation.." Nathaniel looked towards the large doors to his study when he heard knocking and noticed the door handle was jiggling. The Bayer family's old and trusted butler managed to get the locked door open, and covered his nose at the smell of Nathaniel's cigarettes.


"Young master, you really should refrain from smoking so much. You are too young to even be smoking one cigarette. At least open a window so the room can air out a bit." The butler said. Nathaniel stopped and looked at him for a minute, before going back to pacing again. His black hair was messier than usual, and his skin had become very pale from spending so much time inside his home. He looked sick, which is what he was, though he wouldn't admit it and refused to have anybody help him. Though lately the thing he did was eating away at him and making him more of a nervous wreck than he normally was.


"Oh what should I do Sebastian... I've royally screwed up!" Nathaniel started rambling on about what he did to Sebastian, who was opening up the windows of Nathaniel's study to let the room air out. He listened as Nat spoke, and sighed when the boy was done rambling.


"You and your temper young lord.. I must say, is this really worth stressing about for two whole weeks?" Sebastian said. Nathaniel let out an exasperated sigh. "Of course it is! now go bring me some lunch, I haven't eaten in days and I'm starving..." Sebastian nodded. "As you wish, young master." He said, and walked out of the room to make Nathaniel some breakfast.


Nat laid down in his desk chair and took the cigarette out of his mouth and carelessly disposed of it out the window after putting it out. He laid his head down on the desk and began to cry, his anxiety getting the best of him. "It's been two weeks, surely they're coming for me and my family by now..." Nat let all of his anxiety he had been holding in the last couple days, completely forgetting that his study window was open.

 

[Benjammin]

Wired carefully appraised the estate, noting the brevity of the structure itself. There were too many cars to tell how many people were home, so Wired gave up on the sneaking in through the back window idea. He circled the building, avoiding windows and any angles that would give him away. He stopped when he heard a voice, an excuse in his throat.


Except it was coming from the second-floor window. Wired looked up, tilting his mask up for a better visual. Surely enough, it was his target. Blabbering about a mess, but Wired couldn't be bothered. A cigarette butt landed on his head, and he scowled. He was killing the kid anyway, no need to be so petty. Wiping off the mess, he surveyed how he would make it to the window without notice. Or maybe he'd enter through the window next door. Probably a better bet.


Wired began to climb, his unsecured pistol forcing his pants to sag. He cleverly used the architecture of the older home to make his way to the next door window, which was locked, but easily lock picked. The window squeaked, and Wired paused hesitantly, but was fairly certain nobody heard it. He climbed in and bashed his knee on an end table.


"Ffff-mmmhm!" Wired muffled himself, avoiding a very loud curse. He swallowed, glaring at the offender (the end table). "Dumb table," he muttered quietly. Peering in the darkness, Wired thought he could make out the room; it was a a bedroom of sorts. Too nice for a servant, but possibly not nice enough for the masters. It could possibly be the younger Bayer's room. Wired didn't have enough time to check.


Pulling out his gun and fixing his mask snugly, the assassin slowly opened the door to an empty hallway. He breathed hotly in his mask, heading to the room on his right, where he last heard his target. Gun carefully aimed ahead, searching for a heart, he cautiously opened the door.

 

[Endling]

Nat wiped his tears and tried to calm down... He hated when he had his anxiety attacks. They made him feel weak, which he was, though he liked to believe he was strong enough on his own, but his family and the servants knew better, so they always kept an eye on him, well most of the time. Nathaniel took out the notebook he was currently writing in and started scribbling the next part of his zombie apocalypse science fiction story.


He was so immersed in his story and really couldn't focus on much else, and didn't even lift his head when he heard the door to his study open. He assumed it was Sebastian, bringing him his lunch, and continued to write. "Sebastian, if you don't mind could you just leave my lunch on the table over there?" Nathaniel said, writing still with his right hand and pointing to a table and chairs with his left hand.


After Nathaniel didn't hear Sebastian's lunch cart move across the room, he assumed he must be hearing things and just went back to writing. As he scribbled the next sentence, he felt the presence of another person, and quickly shut his notebook and looked up, noticing the door ajar. 'That door just doesn't open..' Nathaniel looked out his window and let out a gasp when he noticed the window was open.


He stuck his head out, and noticed that the window to his bedroom next door was open as well. 'I'm done...' Nathaniel looked around frantically, almost about to have another panic attack. He thought for a moment if he was just being paranoid, but he wasn't going to risk it. He quickly ran to his desk, opened a drawer and pulled out his handgun and a knife and stood by the window, ready to escape if he had to. Nathaniel would claim he was paranoid if nobody came in the room in 1 minute, but he was ready to run if there really was somebody there.

 

[Benjammin]

Wired watched as the kid panicked, from his safe hiding spot; half behind a bookshelf, shadowed by the low lighting. He watched the Bayer boy leave (shit, he forgot to shut the window) and re-enter, only to rifle in his desk for a hand gun and a knife.


Wired almost sighed, but resisted. This made his work a little more challenging, but he doubted the kid had much experience. He looked sick anyway, probably because of all those cigarettes he was smoking.


It was deafeningly silent in the room as Wired went around the bookshelf, approaching the kid from his right side. He said expertly shot out a leg in an attempt to knock the gun (bonus if he got the knife too, he thought) from the kid's shaky hands.


"Don't be dumb, don't play hero," he growled from behind his motionless mask.

 

[Endling]

Nat's eyes darted nervously around the room, and jumped slightly but kept his tight grip on the gun when he heard the shot. Unfortunately the knife slipped from Nat's hand, but he decided to focus on his attacker. Despite having a huge headache from the cigarettes, Nathaniel stood up straight and quickly pointed his gun and shot quickly and steadily towards the voice he heard.


Nathaniel's parents were definitely not stupid. Nat had lots of experience with many types of guns and fighting styles, and was quite the sharpshooter. Unfortunately, he wasn't as good a shot when he was under pressure. 'Dammit.. I probably missed..' Nat thought, and tightened his grip on the gun and looked at his attacker.


"I know why you're here, but I don't plan to go down without a fight. And I'm not trying to play hero." Nathaniel said plainly. His headache made his head feel like it was about to explode, but he ignored the pain for now and focused on tje assassin sent to kill him.

 

[Benjammin]

Wired growled as the gun failed to fall to the floor. Instead, he barely managed to dodge a bullet. Oh, he was so getting more than his other half for this. Wired grunted, surprised to find the bullet had actually nicked his shoulder, and now he was bleeding. Shit, Wired cursed.


He swallowed the pain in favor for adrenaline, adjusting the grip on his silenced pistol, aimed directly at the kid's head. There was still the matter of the gun pointed at him. Stalemate. Wired hated when this happened.


"I hardly know why I'm here, and you look like you're dying anyway," Wired barked, finger playing with the trigger threateningly. Blood dripped from his arm to the floor, but he ignored it, it wasn't his shooting arm anyway. He couldn't miss at such a close distance, but neither would the kid, this time. Wired licked his mildly chapped lips as he thought of a way to end this. "Your fault for getting into this shit," Wired grunted, just to keep the kid from shooting first.

 

[Endling]

Nathaniel smirked slightly when he saw that he had at least nicked his target. He expected to miss, but maybe this could work to Nathaniel's advantage somehow.


He kept his gun pointed at his attacker, who had his gun pointed at Nat's head. 'Sebastian, or somebody should've heard my shot. the door is open and so is the window. I just have to stay alive..' Nat thought to himself.


"So the guy who hired you didn't even tell you why you're here to kill me in the first place? Geez I was right about him being an asshole after all." Nat chuckled. "But I'm sure you wouldn't want to know anything, would you. You're just focused on killing, and that's it. I really don't think your job is terribly special. I mean, anybody can kill, even a weak, dying kid like me. If I hadn't been smoking so much these past few weeks, you'd be dead by now. I was aiming for your head earlier, and I never miss my target unless I've been smoking."


That part was pretty much true. The only two things Nathaniel knew he was truly good at was writing science fiction and shooting things. Smoking helped his creativity, strangely enough, but messed up his shooting. He kind of wished it was the other way around at the moment.


Nathaniel was backed up to the open window and his eyes scanned the assassin in front of him.

 

[Benjammin]

"Hey, quit moving or I'll shoot, and we'll both be damned," Wired said menacingly, but his young face didn't do his attitude any justice. At least he was entirely calm, and almost clear-headed. Pain and adrenaline did this to him.


"It's a good thing I don't do this job for the glamour, huh?" He snorts, terribly aware that somebody had to have heard the kid's shot, but he hoped that nobody was here. "And cigarettes kill. Which is ironic. Since I'm here to kill you," Wired explained dryly, staring levelly at the Bayer kid.


The kid really did look like shit. His eyes were dark and puffy underneath, his cheeks and nose still faintly red from recent crying. It was almost pitiful, but Wired had learned to tuck his humanity away a long time ago. Or at least, he thought he had. "You could always pay me not to kill you," Wired casually suggested. He bet he could get more money off of this than whatever the hell that sketchy ass gang could pay him.

 

[Endling]

"Huh, yea. Maybe you could've just let me worry away and suffocate in cigarettes, then you wouldn't have to go through all this trouble."Nat chuckled and stared at his assassin. "I knew I was going to die one way or another, whether it be the cigarettes or being killed by you, I was expecting to die."


Nathaniel loosened his grip on the gun a bit, since it was hurting his hand a bit with how tight he was holding the gun.


Nat looked down at himself briefly. He had been wearing the same pair of sweatpants and the same t-shirt for the past two weeks. He was a bit dirty, and reeked of cigarettes, and was a bit embarrassed at the state himself, but he brought this upon himself. He listened as his assassin said something about paying him money so he wouldn't have to kill Nathaniel. "Well, as you can see, I've got plenty of money, and honestly, I could pay you ten times more than the guy who hired you so that I could live, but then me wasting myself away in here with cigarettes would be pointless, wouldn't it?"

 

[Benjammin]

Wired shrugged, but released a small gasp of pain when he realized he tried to move his injured shoulder. This was the trigger for him realizing that he had been losing too much blood. Quickly debating, Wired decided he'd rather be at the mercy of some sick kid than die of blood loss in front of him.


Wired slowly put his pistol back in his pants, lifting his good hand to stop the bleeding on his shoulder with a harsh groan. "A-ah, at least then you have a-a chance to bring your life around, or something," Wired managed, licking his lips again, nervously.


"I'd appreciate if you either would just out me out of my misery, or let me go to a fucking hospital," Wired managed a somewhat smarmy statement, to feel in control. He had a burning suspicion the kid wouldn't want to actually kill a person. Killing somebody was horrible, although addictive and sometimes easy to get used to.


Sometimes it just left scars.

 

[Endling]

"You know, I would kill you. I've had to kill people before. Just because I'm the precious and important son of two of the biggest gang leaders in this area doesn't mean I haven't seen any action before. I've had to risk my life before for my parents. But at the moment, you aren't a threat, so I'm not going to kill you." Nathaniel kept his gun in his hand and cautiously walked towards his assassin.


Nathaniel took his assassins gun and patted him down, taking any other weapons he might have. "And really, that mask is pretty stupid, just saying. You would be better off just having a ninja mask or something." Nathaniel said plainly and sighed, taking off the mask concealing the face of his attacker.


Nathaniel refrained from looking at this assassin as he dragged him out the room and down the hallway, and then turning into another room which looked liked an infirmary of sorts. "Hospitals are a pain in the ass, so we have doctors and nurses on site. Thankfully I'm also partially trained in medicine." Nathaniel sat his assassin down and put on gloves and pulled out a medical kit form a cabinet.


Nathaniel tried to keep his cool, but he had been shaking this whole time. His headache was killing him, but he figured that if he fixed this assassin up and paid him, he wouldn't bother him anymore, hopefully. But Nat was trying to act as tough as he could, the way he did when he was in fights with some of the other guys in his parents gang. But just now was different. Nat was alone, with a trained assassin. Sure Nat could kill, but he had almost no muscle and was only good with guns, which was useful, but not enough to keep you alive in some situations.


(I'll reply in the morning)

 

[Benjammin]

Wired stared blankly at the kid as he patted him down, and seemingly nonchalantly drag the assassin out of the room. Sure, he pretty much surrendered, but he appeared too comfortable to be around a trained killer.


Wired avoided flinching when the kid suddenly reached for his mask, removing it. He went to forcefully snatch it away with his bloody, bad hand, and cringed, but he wanted that mask. "Shut up," he said in response to the comment on the mask. It was important to him, and it had style. Being an assassin was over glorified, but he had to have his fun.


Wired eyed the medical kits in front of him. He'd be more comfortable patching himself up, but it didn't look like he was being given a choice here. "Say, kid, I don't know if partial training is good for bullet wounds," he drawled, hand over his wound protectively. He had begun to feel a bit dizzy from his loss of blood, and decided it was probably best if the kid dressed his wound anyway.

 

[Endling]

"W-Well it's better than no training at all." Nathaniel said, and got out a cloth and went to the assassin and started to compress the wound to stop the bleeding. "I would say sorry for shooting you and all, but you were kinda about to kill me, so I think that's a pretty valid reason and all." Nat said as he continued pressing on his assassins' wound.


Nathaniel took off his cloth when he was sure the bleeding had stopped. "I'm sure you know my name and all, but I would like to call you something, even if it isn't your real name." He said and took out a few things and got ready to clean the wound. "This may hurt just a bit, just bear with it. Well you do have a gunshot wound but still, alcohol burns." Nathaniel began to clean the wound and refrained from speaking.


Nathaniel could have already killed this guy. He didn't know why he held back. I mean, the guy was injured, so nothing was stopping him from doing so. Nat's hands shook a bit while he cleaned and disinfected his assasin's wound. This guy could also kill Nat with his good hand if he wanted to. Nothing was stopping him either.

 

[Benjammin]

"Wired. My name is Wired," he answered gruffly. His good hand latched onto the table, it's tensing the only giveaway that he was in pain.


He stared unabashedly at the Bayer kid. "Does that mean I can call you Nathaniel? Love being on first name basis with my targets," he drawled sarcastically, but with no real bite.


There was something about the kid, Nathaniel, that put Wired off-guard, kind of in a good way. He was surprised by how friendly he was being, mainly. At least the kid understood that it wasn't anything personal, job was a job, after all. And he just gave up on killing him, deciding it wasn't worth the trouble and risk.


Wired hissed through his teeth when the rubbing alcohol hit his wound savagely, looking away from his shoulder. He wasn't squeamish, but it made him dizzy to see a bloody hole in his shoulder.