After the fires before the flood, my sweet baby, I need fresh blood

[47redbirds]

Mike is a number of things. Secretive, oddly retentive about the chore wheel, Brigg's second-in-command, and smart as a whip. He also trusts Billy. Maybe not implicitly, but he does. It's been a while since Billy's first task, and while he still stays by Mike's side for the most part, the crew's beginning to respect him, too. Not just Johnny--Jakes had made a point to shake his hand after a particularly hairy getaway between him and the Chechens.

Mike starts drinking with Billy after a good run. He's damn good at pool and can hold his beer for someone who looks so straight-laced, even with scruff. Boy-band or not, the only personal thing that wound up causing a stir outside what they do is Mike punching someone in The Drop because they were harassing a girl. For a criminal, he's oddly well put together.

It's one o'clock in the morning when Mike texts him. It's nothing but an address to a motel and a room number, but when Mike texts it's mandatory Billy shows up. Another exercise, maybe. Another deal. The whole Graceland group had been very careful with Mike--most of the stuff he was a part in he either never got to actually see the transaction or it was far too minor. Not all the heat is off of him, it seems, but he's trusted. Mike trusts him enough to send him the text. It's the room to the corner, and it's run down and shitty. When Mike opens the door, it looks like he hasn't slept in days despite the fact that Billy was asked to get him out of bed since Paige wasn't there. He's also smoking, which is both disconcerting and never seen before.

There's something else, though, and it's not just his hair pushed back from his face. The white tank top he's wearing is spattered with red liquid, as is his chin. His hands are covered, even the one holding the cigarette while he exhales and lets the other in. It's blood.

Once Mike closes the door, it's immediately apparent why: there's a girl in the bathtub, the tiles covered as someone stabbed her more than a few times, and on the bed a man. What is probably a man judging from the fact that he's naked--his face has been mangled, it seems, by a rather large number of bullets to the face as well as a champagne bottle.

Mike takes another drag of the cigarette.

"Thanks for meeting me here."

Comments

[heroeswork]

Again, Billy shook his head. Not looking at Mike. Not moving from his spot on the floor. He'd been through hell before. Captured by the enemy. Tortured. He had the scars to prove it. But what he imagined might happen...he wasn't sure he was prepared for that. What could possibly pass as an initiation in this group? With what Mike had said to that guy after the bottle ran out...Billy shuddered at the idea.

"Briggs, he..." Billy cleared his throat, dismissing the idea. No, don't even mention it. "I think it'd be best if...if I stayed as I've been. For now." He flicked a glance up at Mike, then back to the floor. This is what the mission had been for. Earning trust. Earning his way upstairs. Into the inner circle. And now that it was offered to him on a silver platter, he couldn't take it.

[47redbirds]

Mike's eyes widened, and he can't help himself. He actually laughs, even if it's a light chuckle. There's no humour. "Briggs? Briggs thinks you're alright. I'm the one that didn't trust you."

It's the truth. Honest to goodness, and Mike tries his best to smile. It's one of his dashing ones, oddly charming and boyish but at the same time handsome. It's also the same smile he gives when he's giving a false sense of assurance.

"Please. If not for you, then for my sake of mind."

[heroeswork]

Billy looked up again. That bright smile he'd once found so endearing seemed almost sinister. A mask hiding the monster he'd found in that hotel room. Did Mike forget what he'd said before? Or was he hoping Billy wouldn't wouldn't bring it up? Neither side seemed appealing. What was Mike hiding? What followed now that he was supposedly trusted?

He couldn't think of an argument that didn't twist his stomach. So he just nodded. Agreeing with no intent to follow up. He just wanted to be alone Truly alone. Maybe after his shower, he'd go out onto the beach. At this hour, it would be empty save for clusters around fires and even those would be scarce now. He could go out on the pier and look up at the stars. Where it was quiet. He could imagine that it was not the Pacific ocean before him, but the Firth of Forth. Where it mingled with the North Sea. Just like when he was a kid. When things made sense.

With that in mind, something to help hold himself together, he moved. Just enough to allow Mike to open the door.

(from Mike)

[heroeswork]

Maybe it's his selfishness again, but Mike feels that stab again. Guilt. He should have kept Billy down. Kept him quiet and just the wheelman.

Briggs and Mike had argued, too, and that image is fresh in his head. Briggs was ready to trust him when Mike was the one who was suspicious. Now? Now he trusts Billy, all right. Just at the cost of fucking him up.

Mike's not sure he likes that cost. So he nods his head, clapping a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. "Go shower," he says softly. "You'll feel better." And with that, he left.

[heroeswork]

Billy flinched at the pat. He tried to hide it, but he was too tense. He let Mike go, giving only another nod. It took him a while to get to his feet. To get rid of his clothes. Repulsed by the fact that he found blood on both the front of the shirt and the cuffs of his pants. Both would end up in the trash before he left the house.

The shower helped him a great deal. At least to clear out the worst of what was in his head. Perhaps if this were the first time he were face with such horrors, he would have taken longer to just be mobile. But once he was able to push away the irrationality caused by so much blood, he was able to think a little clearer. He still didn't trust Mike. The fact that Mike could go from being so incredibly cold to acting like everything was fine really worried Billy. Even in the car, after the house, Mike had seemed completely normal. Well, what Billy had assumed was normal. That warm, friendly Mike that he'd been growing to enjoy spending time with. But which was the real Mike?

He'd let himself get too close, he decided. It was that which finally kept him from going upstairs to Mike's room. He'd taken the lid off that box that he kept his heart in. Exposed it to this strange family. But now it was time to put the lid back on. Feeling at least a little better, he dried himself off and left the bathroom, a towel around his waist. The clothes he'd worn went into the trash and he found the clothes he kept there for his impromptu overnight stays. A teeshirt, beach shorts, sandals. The night was still warm enough he didn't need much else. And so dressed, he went for the front door. He hesitated near the stairs, looking up. This was it. This was what the mission was for. But he didn't trust himself to handle it well. Not when he didn't know what he was getting into. The invitation was there. He could take it up another time.

He walked out of the house, locking the door behind him. He considered just getting back into his car and leaving. But that would mean returning to his team. Explaining what had just happened. He wasn't up for it. So he headed for the beach. The pier. And just walked. Just listened to the soft sound of the waves.

He found his way to the end of the pier. And there he just sat down, legs folded under him, staring out at the black void where night sky and dark ocean met. There were too many lights behind him to make out much in the way of stars. But it was enough to just focus on the roar of the waves beneath him. It allowed him to let his mind drift. To let himself feel whole again. To think of home. To think of times and places where he didn't have to torture people to get close to bad people. Where he could do what was necessary to get the job done and no one got hurt.

Where there was no blood. No Graceland. No Mike.

[47redbirds]

Mike waits. Mike waits so while he waits he makes lists, because he hates waiting and is trying to process what had happened. Goes through what he has to do tomorrow. What he has to follow up on afterwards, who he's going to tell what and who gets the whole story. If he organizes, if he makes lists and keeps his anxious and proactive side away, he can ignore everything.

He knows Billy goes to his room or out when the shower stops, and so he starts making another list. He lists people to replace Billy, in case he dashes, and he immediately stops once he gets to the sixth person.

He's not selfish. Mike's not so selfish he can just replace something he's broken. Billy is more than a thing, or a dispensable pawn. He's more than his assets--Billy is a person. A normal, if criminal, person. One that Mike suddenly vows not to break as much as he's broken himself.

He knocks on Billy's door. There's no answer, so he opens it--the downstairs rooms were never locked on principal--and doesn't find him there. Briggs is home, though, and Mike knocks on his door, softly. Explains the situation, and asks for advice.

"First of all, don't tell Charlie."

"No, I know, I mean Billy."

"First time?"

Mike thought for a moment. "Yeah, but it's more than that. I don't think he trusts me. I don't blame him."

"He doesn't trust you now that you trust him?" Briggs' eyebrow raised. Not judging, just questioning.

"When we do this, do you notice how none of us look shaken?"

"Armor. We've done it longer than him, Mike."

"No, I mean I'd just...turned it off, simple as that, and Billy was so shaken, so completely overwhelmed--"

"--You're wondering you stopped caring."

"I still care," Mike said softly. "Just not as much as I probably could."

"I think you should talk to him, Mike. That probably spooked him more than the blood thing."

And so Mike listened. He listened and he to the beach. It was the only place he could think of Billy to go, really. Sure enough it was the pier. None of the normal places the house hangs out in, he notices, but another spot. Just near the docks.

He makes a point to make his footsteps known, though he doesn't stomp. Mike's main concern is he'll startle the other--he's dressed in jeans and a hoodie a little too large for him instead of the usual dressed-down way he normally spins things. "Billy," He states a good way away. Takes a moment to hold up two beer bottles as he says it behind Billy, far enough he isn't in arms reach in case he scares the other.

[heroeswork]

Billy's calmed down enough that when he hears it, he doesn't flinch. But he also doesn't look up right away. He needed to compose himself. To suppress the urge to tell Mike to just go away. To insist on being alone. Anyone else would have been a comfort. Even Briggs, though Johnny was the one who'd help the most. But it was Mike he needed to figure out. And yet there he was. Billy had chosen this spot because it was hard to see a single person. No one from the house came out here, and he knew for a fact it was impossible to make out the end of the pier in the dark from the house. And yet Mike had found him still.

He just turns back toward the water, leaning both his arms on the rail, folded and resting his chin on them.

"Starting to wonder if you've got me chipped for GPS," he said, managing to sound almost like himself. But there was a faint resignation in his voice.

He didn't ask Mike what he wanted, because he didn't want to talk about it. Any of it. He just needed time to put everything back in the boxes where they belonged. Including his heart. That was perhaps why it had hit him so hard, why that cold monster in the hotel had frightened to his very core. It wasn't that Mike was a monster. Billy had been dealing with monsters on a daily basis for years. It was that he'd let himself open up. And he'd left that box open when everything else exploded. And it had been exposed when he put up that wall. Once he repaired the worst of the damage and got the lid back on that particular box, everything would be okay.

[47redbirds]

"I thought about it," Mike doesn't waste his time in taking a seat next to him. He saw and opportunity and he needed to take it, needed to make damn sure the other's okay. "Turns out GPSes aren't in our budget." It was a weak joke, too, and Mike just hands the beer over to the other.

He opens up his, and doesn't quite visibly squirm but looks slightly squirrly for a moment. Settles on fixing his eyes to the inky blackness, gulping a few sips down right away so he can say something. "You know, since I was little, I've always wanted to be an FBI agent. Always. I think I wrote a letter to them once when I was 8, I was obsessed. You know, like how some kids wanted to be astronauts or ballerinas?"

[heroeswork]

Billy took the beer, but he didn't open it. He didn't even try. He just took it in both hands, lowering it into his lap. Looking at it in the faint light that reached them from the beach. But he wasn't really seeing it.

Those words. The story. Did Mike know the truth? Had Billy's reaction given him away? Was he made? Would someone as involved in this business have reacted different? Taken up that invitation upstairs? He twisted the bottle between his fingers, watching it. Why was Mike telling him this?

"Life leads us to places we never planned," he remarked, still in that same tone. Easier to hold onto that then suddenly act like everything was fine. Until he figured out if Mike knew anything.

[47redbirds]

"No shit," He states softly. Staring at the ocean is easier--Mike doesn't do monologues or reminisces about the past. It's not him. Mike is always thinking ahead, always ready to go.

He's trying, one more time. Trying to connect with Billy, to be what the other needs. He glances over at the other, taking a swig, and as he launches in again his eyes go to the stars.

"I got pretty far, too. The practicals--I aced pretty much everything physical. Written exams? Not a thing. Honours and a full ride through the academy tuition wise because of my academics, but the moment I put a pen to paper every single question suddenly seemed unimportant and completely irrelevant. You want to know why?"

[heroeswork]

All Billy wanted to do was shove that lid back on. Close himself off. Not open up or connect. Not until he knew for certain what it was he was opening himself up to. He was in too deep. He needed to find a way out. But he also needed to find out why Mike was telling him all of this. Was this what he'd been waiting for, or had Mike found him out? A scenario played out in his mind. Some minor detail--a receipt, a note, something small left in the pocket of his pants that identified him. A card with his real name in the pocket of his shirt. No, he wouldn't have been so sloppy. So, why then?

But then Mike posed that question. And Billy, so accustomed to the subtle and social aspects of his job, saw all of the options open up before him. Just as he always did. Seeing social situations the way tacticians saw physical attacks. All of those options leading to other options. A web he could manipulate. It meant he was starting to piece things together. But it wasn't complete. Not knowing the real Mike, he couldn't tell just how far this would go. But there was one that stood out, among the rest. Intuition highlighting to before he even consciously knew why. The praise in the car, the talk in the bathroom. Mike wanted him to confide.

So that's what he did. Or appeared to do. He couldn't voice everything, but he could at least make Mike think he was. He hoped. "I think I saw why," he admitted. "In that hotel."

[47redbirds]

Mike half-smiled, looking almost amused. He could let Billy bite. He was still trying to get something across, trying to tell Billy he wasn't alone without making it seem like a 'yeah, well, pity me, too' contest. This was about Billy and just Billy, even if Mike's using a story from himself.

"And what did you see?" He asks. Wondering if he needs to say anything else. Did Billy get that Mike could just turn his moral compass off when he needed to?

[heroeswork]

A monster, Billy wanted to say. But he was supposed to be a criminal himself in this ruse of his. Maybe not the ruthless, murdering kind. But the sort who did the menial tasks for bad men. The one who got the body from murder to dump site. Even if he neither pulled the trigger or dug the grave.

He was close to assuming what Mike was trying to tell him. It wasn't that he thought the moral compass could be switched off. It was that he assumed it was missing entirely, Mike was just very good at hiding it.

"I saw..." he was still too shaken to come up with a solid lie. So he chose the truth closest to what would pass in this situation. "...a man unlike the one I've come to know." A slow breath and he forced himself to continue. "You know already how good I am at...reading people. But what I saw there, in you...it was something I'd not seen even of a hint of before tonight."

[47redbirds]

Mike exhales and smiles, all soft lines and an almost sort of relief. His shoulders dipped, and for a brief moment it was like whenever the group had a bonfire going, or talked about Charlie's sauce nights.

"Because I couldn't help thinking that in the end, it didn't matter which side you were on. You were going to see and do some fucked up shit. I've heard stories from people--big people, important people-about what officers and the FBI and DEA have done. Most of them, they say it's justified. That all of the stuff they do is bad, there are stories worse than what we did because they wanted to get the bad guy. Because they were the good guys, whatever price they had to pay from murder to torture to god knows what else, it didn't matter. And I just looked at the page of the entrance exam and realized something." He shakes his head, as if it's a charming anecdote about his old dog that died. "I'd rather be on the side that knows they're pieces of shit than the ones pretending theirs smells like shit."

He'd never told anyone that, but he rubs a hand on his stubble, much like he'd done at the hotel room. "It's hard, at first. Petty crime? Driving people for drugs and money? That stuff, that's easy. It's stuff... things and situations like this that there comes a point where you have to shut yourself off. Have to tell yourself that no matter what happens you have to look at yourself in the mirror the next day. You have to look straight into your own eyes and find a way to bury whatever it is you did because otherwise, it's going to eat you alive. And you... Fuck, Jesus Christ. Billy, if there was anyone--anyone else, I wouldn't have done that to you. I wouldn't have, I swear to God."

[heroeswork]

Billy's hands tightened around the bottle, still unopened. Mike was wrong. When bad things were done in the name of good, the thing that made it all worth it was knowing lives were saved. It's not that it's justified, it's just that it's necessary. You don't stop bad people unless you're willing to be on their level. That's why Billy was there. To be on their level and take them down from the inside. He could never do these things if it wasn't to protect innocent people.

But he couldn't say any of that. Nor could he say he'd done similar things in the past. However, he hadn't buried it. Hadn't shoved it away in a dark corner. He brought it into the light and let it go. Any time he saved even one life with his actions, it made it all worth it. It lightened his burden until he was able to release it entirely. But this was too heavy. He couldn't let it go.

"Is that what I saw, then?" He asked, still in that same tone. "Everything you've had to bury to do what you do?"

[47redbirds]

"Just...." He made a waving finger with his hands. "Turn off the part of you that thinks it's wrong. And it gets easier, and easier, and easier.."

Billy was understanding it. Most of it. Mike is halfway through his beer, looking at the moon. Looking at anything but Billy right now. "I'm not sure how to really say this, but having you help out... Part of me knows it was necessary. It's logical, it's planning, it's what anyone else would do. The other part, you're like this eager-eyed kid who wanted to be a cop and saw too much. Started on your way to turning into a really ugly son of a bitch." Into him. He doesn't say that, only shoots the other a slightly nervous smile, eyes watery in the dark.

"I shouldn't have made you do that. Shown you that. I shouldn't have twisted you to make it easier to shut that part of your brain off. I think... I think we need you because of that little switch. Because we're all so fucked up--I'm having problems telling right from wrong and I had no idea I was until today."

[heroeswork]

Billy felt the strangest twinge. He actually wanted to tell Mike it would be okay. Console the criminal he was here to catch. Perhaps it was the oddity of being called an an eager-eyed kid by someone who was likely ten years his junior. In that, he realized he'd been wrong about Mike suspecting him, since the other now spoke of him as part of the team. It didn't exactly put him at ease, but it shifted his thinking.

"What's done is done," he said, half away between defeat and reassurance. It was another scar he couldn't erase. But if he could bring these guys down, it would be worth it in the end. Better he take the beating and get this done quick then have some one else end up like Whistler.

Carefully, he set the bottle down between them. "Isn't it better that way, not telling right from wrong? It means you can get the job done, doesn't it?"

[47redbirds]

Mike nodded, more to himself than the other. Downs another bit of his beer and, for a brief moment, seemed to be thinking or rethinking something.

Billy was absolutely right. It means he can get the job done. Push forward. Be Brigg's bodyguard. Part of him, though, still wonders what would have happened if he'd pushed his problems aside and just wrote the test. He knew the answers, front to back.

"It is," he states. Not quite at ease. He shifts a little closer. Moves a little more towards Billy. Licks his lips and leans in close, but not too close, and drops his voice and volume as he gets in. He still looks like he's about to cry, thanks to the wetness still in his eyes.

"I just wish I didn't have to drag you down with me," he murmurs. Reaches his hand up, distracted, to touch at the collar of Billy's T-shirt.

[heroeswork]

Those words coupled with that touch, and where they sat, it all had a strangely ominous feel. Billy imagined, even with the rail there, Mike grabbing him by the shirt and hurling them both over and into the ocean below. This talk, this sudden remorse, when turned at the right angle, looked very much like a man contemplating his own end. Speaking of Billy like he were now some sort of blood stained dove. Innocent once and now soiled. Is that really what Mike saw him as? Clean before stepping into this?

Carefully, he reached up to push the hand hand from his collar. "It's not as though you held a gun to my head." Though he feared he would have been shot in the back if he'd tried to leave. He still remembered the look in Mike's eyes. The exact words he'd uttered. "I chose to be there." He didn't, but this remorse from Mike after 'You're not going to run, are you, billy boy?' felt like some sort of trap that he didn't want to test.

[47redbirds]

And then billy grabs his hand. mike mistakes it as something else entirely, not someone who is choosing diplomatic answers to get him to go away. Mike sees someone holding his hand and comforting him--because Mikes never really had that before. Never, until falling in with billy. Paige, maybe, but this is different.

"You're right. But I'm still sorry," he says finally. Billy is good, and right, and Mike goes ahead and ruins him because he's too ambitious. Too selfish. Too fucking selfish, he's the one seeking comfort now. And billy? billy is giving him it, soft touches and careful phrases. "I don't want to turn you into me," he says softly. Moves his face up to Billy's, getting closer. Closing his eyes, Mike moves to catch the others lips. Tender and soft, and so very needy.

[heroeswork]

One of the things Billy had actually looked for was a sign that Mike had an interest in men. He'd seen no sign of it. Nothing beyond Mike's usual charm that extended to everyone. It was Billy's default path. So when he found it closed off, he didn't push it further. So when Mike leaned closer, he expected softly spoken words. Or an embrace. Anything but lips on his.

He went rigid. That sinister demand of "You're not going to run, are you?" rang through his head. That look in Mike's eye. The metaphorical gun pressed under his chin. For a few terrifying beats of his heart, he was afraid to movie. He couldn't even think. Everything in him just screamed "WHY?!" trying to figure this strange turn of events out.

Carefully and with great caution, Billy placed his hand on Mike's chest and pulled back. He let all he felt show on his face. Suspicion, fear, confusion. "What are you doing?" he asked, still shaken and stunned. Worried he'd hear those words again.

[47redbirds]

Shit.

Selfish, selfish selfish. Mike pulls back, trying to look for something. Trying to find some sort of mutual reciprocation, but all he sees is Billy. Billy looking worried. Billy looking almost afraid of him.

Mike's at a position he doesn't care to be in--he wants to help Billy, but he's not sure he can. He's the source of all that's bothering him, isn't he? And yet all Mike wants to do is talk to the other, quiet and reassuring. It doesn't tale him long to put his own shit behind, to turn it off--to have that section of him retreat.

..Is he so selfish, though, that he's doing this to make himself feel better? Or because he's genuinely worried about Billy? He's not even sure himself, even though Mike desperately wishes it's the latter. That's when he catches it--that brief look of fear on the other's face.

Billy's scared of him.

Fuck.

"I'm sorry--that was uncalled for," He manages. Offers the flightiest of smiles, and puts a hand on his shoulder. He wants to touch Billy, to remind him that it's alright. To be there for him. "You're hurting, and.. I want to do something to make it stop."

[heroeswork]

That only confused Billy further. Only muddied the whole situation. If Mike had pressed on, insisted on making the kiss happen, Billy knew what to do. It would mean Mike was truly the evil thing he'd shown in that hotel room and Billy could have slammed that lid back on in a flash. But instead, Mike showed remorse. Awareness. Tenderness. Not the sort of things one expected to find in a mobster.

He needed to act fast. Especially since Mike apparently didn't know what to do. He was already seeing ways he could spin this and use it. What he could do to get the time he needed to get himself back together without compromising the mission. Carefully, he reached up and took Mike by the wrist. He deliberately pushed the hand back toward Mike.

"The first thing you need to do," he said, keeping his voice soft, still letting that fear show through, "Is to stop touching me. Just for tonight. It's...it's making everything worse."

[47redbirds]

Mike stares at the other for a moment, hand back to himself, and he finds himself nodding. "Okay," He says softly. He's careful to keep his voice neutral, careful to make sure there's no judgement or the like in his voice. Just a tad bit of sympathy.

He really fucked Billy up. The other was scared to be touched by him, and Mike can't imagine, suddenly, what his presence must feel like. Stifling, he imagines. Terrifying. He licks his lips, nodding to himself, and chugging the rest of his beer down.

"Do you want me to leave you alone?" He asks, voice soft and as gentle as he could. He needed to do this right. He needed to fix Billy.

[heroeswork]

"Is that really an option for me?" Billy sounded almost hopeful that it might be, keeping any judgement or accusation from his voice. But he shook his head and looked back out over the dark water.

"I took a shower not to get clean, but to be alone. To clear my head. And you were there. I came out here, thinking it would take even you a while to find me. And yet here you are." He was piecing it together as he spoke. Mike's driving need to fix him after he'd begged to be let out of the task. It wasn't as though Mike had done this on accident. Billy had made it obvious to him, and he chose to ignore it. It wasn't that he resented it, Mike was the bad guy. The one Billy was supposed to bring down. He just didn't like feeling as though he were to be Mike's salvation.

"I wonder," meaning he knew "If this isn't so much about my current state, but rather it's about your role in creating it." A gentle way of pointing out just how selfish and twisted Mike was being. "I can fix myself, worry you not. I'm not nearly as innocent or fragile as you've convinced yourself I am." He did shoot a guy with impressive precision on their first day, after all.