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Realistic or Modern LOVE, LOSS, REVENGE

Kaden narrows his eyes at his potential attackers. He hasn't seen these men in a fight, but he doesn't need to. Men of such size usually rely on their brute strength more than anything. Unless they have better gear hidden away, Finch has a chance.

Damien chooses his side, taking up Kaden's flank.
A brief flash of doubt crosses Delilah's face as she tries to anticipate a two vs three fight rather than a one vs five.
Clive makes a move, a slow easy one like a jungle cat testing the forest floor for a snapping twig that may alert prey.

Not only does Kaden not see Damien's attack, he doesn't expect it.
These are phantom hands, from a mystery attacker that missed his attention. It cannot be Damien. And if it is, it is some strange trick.

Delilah's henchmen rush in as soon as Kaden's on the floor.
Compromised, he doesn't get a single strike in. No one does. Clive grips him hard enough to bruise but that will be the extent of his injuries.

"Stop," he pleads when Damien pulls him up, drags his heels. The tackle was a police technique. It's all been police technique. Like a true professional, the ex-cop's face remains an impassive stare.
"Please stop! Damien, stop!"

Half as much emotion has brought the ex-cop to soften in the past.
His hold is rough, cold. It's as if this is a job, something to accomplish. A shallow arrest of a delinquent.

It's an awkward and painful task getting him inside. Multiple times Clive curls a fist, aborting an ingrained instinct to beat submission into his targets. Malcom puts the effort into shoving him into a position that will work. He isn't gentle, but he's not as mean as he could be.
All the while Damien pins him down.
It's him who fits the mask over his face. He's not careful about how much bare skin he touches. In a show of true disdain, he tucks a hand inside Kaden's coat to take his arsenal of poisons.
It's not necessary, what will he do handcuffed? In the dark?

Scrunched up tight, forcefully curled into a fetal position, Damien says he's ready. Its in a similar tone as someone saying 'finished' or 'done'.

"Yeah, I can arrange that. Malcom," Delilah says with a brisk nod.
It's as if Kaden hasn't been tackled and forced into a box.

Malcom wipes some sweat from his forehead. It's difficult to see from his position, but the man sounds disappointed.
"I kept it for safe keeping. I'll get it back to you."

There's footsteps as Clive heads deeper into the room.
Pawl's mew, concerned and curious in pitch.
Delilah takes the carrier.
"I'll drape a towel over her and send her along," she explains, setting Pawl down, "I'll get you to your contact's. For the time being, it's better than here."

Who's Damien's contact?

If his arms weren't bound, it wouldn't be so uncomfortable. He's wedged so tightly inside he can't sit up. He can't move. Everything presses down on him.
Kaden's breath comes in as half aborted pants, fogging up the mask.
The light begins to narrow when Clive tips the lid shut.

"Delilah," he cries, a last ditch effort he can't help.
For the second time today he is paralyzed and helpless, only this time she's leaving. She's abandoning him again. She promised and she's leaving!
There's nothing but a sliver of light left and he's positive this is what he'll be left with.

"Mom!"

The lid creaks open. Sheppard's there, holding it open. She looks over him briefly.
She reaches in and its to touch his scalp. He twitches at each rasp, but his breath slows. The capo can't help the dry sobs that wrack his shoulders.
No tears fall.

"There's not a whole lot of time for-" Malcolm starts.

Delilah snaps up a hand. The tendons in her neck strain. "Give me a minute."

She turns back to him and Kaden wants out. He wants to be with her. He needs to be with her.

"I'm doing this for you," she says, and Kaden really does hate her. He hates her so much he can hardly breathe, let alone speak.
So he takes it, takes the ounces of affection while he can have them.
She's dying.
She's really dying.

"I don't need it!" He hiccups through the words and if he wasn't so afraid of suffocating he'd rub the infuriating mask off his face.
He understands why she's doing this but...why?
"I've passed every test you've ever given me."

Delilah sighs. She glances up at Damien before leaning in further. She blocks out the light. All he sees is her.
A box of unwanted child at her doorstep, waiting to be taken up.

She strokes through his hair, slow. He attempts to match his breathing with it, but every third inhale is a panicked short thing.
"Years ago Kenji Nakamura had his first and only son."

"Over the phone he said he'd never loved anything more in the world." She smiles, a grim one with her eyes fogged over in memory.
"The bastard said it was such a surprise no one had taken the boy I'd raised from me yet... That I should be careful in our line of work."

Her hand rests over his temple. With her thumb she strokes over his hairline. Soft, soothing passes that rasp in his ear.
But the other hand grips the lid of the box. Her knuckles go white with the strain, the material of the case creaking.

Then, all at once her grip falls.

The thumb ceases it's soothing movement.

"I should have done it myself. But I was a coward. To me you were still a tike, to everyone else you were already a man. They beat you so thoroughly I couldn't recognize you... they were never supposed to-" Her voice breaks, flayed but no tears fall. Instead she wipes her nose against her arm, sniffing ruefully. She looks at him, envisioning the bloody pile he had been.
"Nakamura looked at me like I was a monster, Wight, everyone. But no one ever came for you."

It had never been a test of his loyalty.

He has no words, nothing to say.
He presses into her hand, clenches his eyes shut. He offers another sob, a quiet one that's more air than whimper.

"I don't deserve your forgiveness for it, and I don't deserve 'mom' either so you stow that crap, kid," she orders. Her hand retreats. He's suddenly cold all over, aching.

Sheppard grips the top of the lid.

"But I did do my best. This is all I got for you."

The lid falls shut.
 
Damien remains motionless looming over the- his container, eyes trained on Delilah as she speaks to Kaden. Malcom and Clive's body language makes it obvious he should be packing himself away already, yet he listens instead, right up until the lid closes down on Finch and Delilah straightens out. The woman's shape feels distant even from a few feet away.

Whatever mood has overtaken the ex-cop still persists, but somewhere in his throat the beginnings of a sentence are forming - an 'I'm sorry' or a 'Thank you', he's not sure. Probably both.

In his present state, neither comes out. His lips produce something else entirely, and it doesn't even register until he's spoken it into reality, in a monotone that doesn't quite fit the words, "Stay safe. And do everything you can to get out."

Moving deftly, the ex-convict fits himself into the container, breathing mask slipping over his face. He plunges into a world of darkness.

---

The outside world ceases to exist, though it continues to make itself known through vestiges of senses outside of sight. Damien's vestibular apparatus and hearing are working overtime, feeling the shifting of the luggage as it gets transported, listening out for any and every sound. Voices, the rumble of an engine, traffic. If he focuses enough on the surrounding nothingness, the ex-cop can block those sensations out as well. And so he does.

It's comforting. It's also the worst thing imaginable.

Curled up like this, all alone with himself, Damien feels his edges attempt to stitch themselves back together like usual, thoughts going over the entirety of this harrowing day. Going over what he just did...

The hiding space is tight, yet he manages to snake his good hand up to cover his eyes, pressing into them to see colors dancing on the back of his eyelids. A darkness on top of the already present darkness.

Kaden was pleading with him. He was begging. Damien can't get his voice out of his head - he's never heard the man sound like that. Panicked. Betrayed.

His exhale comes out shaky, fogging up the mask with warm moisture despite the cold in his bones. A nasty part of Damien's mind tells him that he's begged before too and Finch has never listened. This isn't a surprising turn of events, he should have seen it coming - after all, he successfully sustained himself on dreams of revenge for the last 15 years. The ex-convict is a petty, vindictive creature by nature. Once some weeks ago Kaden offered himself up to Damien to hurt him as some way of... making things even. Well, now he has, even if with some delay. An eye for an eye.

There is a feeling of disgust settling in his gut. Damien tries to reason with himself that this all was the right decision - the two had to escape, they couldn't stay in the High-Rise's clutches, and Kaden certainly couldn't have remained with Delilah. She didn't want him to risk himself, to sacrifice his life in this fight. The woman rushed to his side in a building under siege to bring him back from the brink of death, she wants him to live! She cares, she's his mother! And with her blessing, at her request, Damien helped take her son away. Fuck...

That same unnerving part of his mind speaks up again, dark and sharp, leaving a metallic taste in his mouth - the part of himself he fed in prison because no other piece had the drive to survive. It muses - or rather mocks - that per Kaden's own requirements, Damien can now be considered ruthless. Firstly, he has collateral - the injured Conley and a nameless Nakurra he imagined bearing Conley's face as he shot him dead. Secondly... he's stabbed someone in the back. Someone he cares for.

He feels like throwing up. He ripped Kaden away from where he wanted to be. If their roles were reversed, would he ever be capable of forgiveness? The capo coming along was always supposed to be a free choice, not... not this. Not a kidnapping. Damien didn't want this, everything's a mess. The capo's voice pierces through his memory again and if the ex-cop could curl further in on himself, he would. Here he is wallowing, and he can't even imagine what Finch must be going through.

God, what the fuck has he done?

Damien's mind won't shut the hell up arguing with itself, in the full throws of a headache - he's always been a chronic overthinker and never learned how to manage it. Maybe he should get a lobotomy, honestly, that'd make going through life less of a hassle.

The space around the ex-convict shakes with a harsher thud, and suddenly the outside world exists again. Damien isn't drifting in a formless void anymore, he's a person getting smuggled inside some fake luggage that just came to a stop. Shit, how long was he not paying attention? Did they make it out or have they been intercepted? The gun at his hip - the one Malcom returned - offers a comforting weight, if only he could reach for it.

Unfortunately, Damien doesn't have the time to wedge his right arm down to the S&W before the sound of locks coming undone resounds and the lid gets lifted to let a stream of artificial light in. The shadows cast by two people manage to block out most of it from blinding the ex-cop - Malcom's face is right overhead, the man holding the luggage open, and then some distance behind him is his "contact" - Eleonora, looking... completely and utterly uncomfortable.

His little sister's eyes are wide as she observes her brother unfurl himself out of a piece of luggage, like something from a movie. Or a documentary on human trafficking. Her arms are crossed protectively over her chest, one hand incessantly worrying the top of her blouse in a display of anxiety she's not even trying to conceal. Eli was alerted someone would be coming by to pick up the evidence. Knowing Damien, she probably expected something weird, but this...

The woman's eyes shift from Damien to Malcom, back to Damien, back to Malcom, before settling on something off to the side as a small, questioning meow pierces the air.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Damien..." Eleonora grumbles under her breath, nose scrunching up almost in anticipation at all of the sneezing she'll be doing with Pawl in the house. Damien can genuinely not be sure if she's more pissed off at having some kind of mercenary on her property, or a cute furry creature. The withering glare she sends his way makes him believe it's a combination of both.

"Thank you," the ex-cop turns his attention to the now-standing Malcom, nodding in gratitude before craning his neck to the side to give it a small crack, "I assume you'll be picking up what we have gathered then... Eli, you have the things I asked you for prepped, right?"

"Yes, yes, I do," at being addressed, the woman's posture goes rigid and stiff with tension, "But maybe we should talk first, Damien..."

"Please just give me a bit, I promise we'll talk," the way Eli grimaces at the retort makes it more than evident she thinks her brother is being rude, but she'll just have to deal with it for the time being.

Getting out fully, the ex-cop gives his limbs a cursory stretch before kneeling beside the other container that's been deposited inside his childhood home's living room. Malcom hands over the key to the locks - the one to the handcuffs as well - and Damien sets to work.

Still left completely in the dark as to what exactly is happening, Eli lingers off to the side, observing. She glances at Malcom several times, mulling over if the situation even calls for appropriate social etiquette, before deciding that it does. The hand she extends for a handshake is uncertain at best, "Uh, hello, I'm Eleonora. The, uhhh, the key- I should hand it over to you then?"

All that's separating Finch and the interior of the townhouse is a lid. The ex-cop's fingers pause an inch away from it... Part of him really doesn't want to face Kaden right now, but a much bigger part knows he has to. Damien opens the luggage, illuminating the man he shoved into its interior without a second thought. His jaw is tense. When his voice comes out, it is tentative.

"We're here, Kaden."
 
---

The closet is tiny. Some are bigger than others, but this one is small.
Sometimes he likes that. There's something comforting about it, like when he holds his hand over his mouth to box the air into his chest.
And it's his. Each room has one, and each one is his.
Sometimes if there's an outlet he'll get to take a lamp inside with him. Then he'll have light to draw and write.

But not this time. Everything's black again.

What is far more challenging is the different texture in rug, the griminess if the wall and the changing smells. Sometimes the ground is soft, but often times its scratchy or crusty. Or crunchy.
Like the cotton stuffed into his ears.
They're like tiny claws, like little bugs crawling in his brains. He loves them. Everything so so quiet.
He can hear his red juice sloshing and his air echoing in his body, and that is all. If it was allowed, he would like to hum. It sounds so loud, like the melody is all around him and in him, and yet at the same time he can't hear anything at all!

Mommy is play fighting with another grown up, but as soon as she's finished they'll watch cartoons together in the bed and he can eat whatever he wants.
They'll stay up together and she'll hold him down in the bed when it's time to be still. She'll squeeze him so tightly the little breaths make it easy to sleep and he loves her.

---

This isn't a closet.

A closet this small would be utterly useless.
Periodically, it shifts like a ship out to sea. It would be enough to make Kaden sick if he wasn't already so alienated from his life and the body he inhabits.
He knows he blacked out again. An infinite amount of time has elasped in what feels like five minutes.

Not only did this happen, it's already passed.
He knows it's real from the metal around his wrists. He remembers that part and the fact it's still on his person means it happened.
There's warbling outside, the distant sound an unborn baby must hear from within the womb.

The quiet darkness doesn't last.

The light is blinding. He's reminded of his mother, his biological mother.
Peeling back the closet door to come collect him. The itchy pleasure of having the plugs removed and the overwhelming rush of hearing her voice...

He can't remember her voice.

Her face is a blur.

He knows it looks like his, but the true shape of the eyes, the character in the laugh lines, the slope of a nose... It's not there.
All his life, pieces of her have fallen away. He wonders if he'll remember even having a blood mother before he's dead.
At this rate...

He can't remember his mother's face.

Damien cuts through the glare, casting Kaden in shadow.
His voice is unsure and quiet, and still too terribly loud after the muted sound.
Finch shifts, neck aching. The capo is a six foot frame crammed into almost half that size. He has no leverage to move. The box is a constant pressure, padded sides cushioned around him in an overwhelming embrace. When gripped by the scruff, Pawl goes still and immobile. Similarly, he feels deadened by this restricting presence.
Eerily, he watches himself as though he were a ghost floating above. He can see himself perfectly, rumpled clothing and empty eyes.

He blinks. It's a slow thing that scrapes against his dry eyes. Roughly, he swallows to wet his parched mouth.

There's...hooks inside here. Anchor points where the passenger (or victim) could be more thoroughly secured via straps and clips. Most likely for longer, rougher journeys.
The hook is covered in a rubber, plastic paint to make it non-abrasive. It's chipped in one or two spots, showing the unrelenting metal beneath tinged by rust.

Who all has been forced inside here? Was it to escape an unfortunate fate or were they delivered to one while trapped inside.

The soft touch against his arm makes him jump like a wild thing. Well, as much as he can.
In a dream Damien told him they were here.
This is here. He's here.

"I'm Malcom," a voice he recognizes says overhead. Finch's breath hitches.
"Um, yes. The sooner I get it the sooner I can be out of your hair, Ms Eleonora."

Perhaps further interactions happens between the two other people in the room. It feels largely inconsequential at the moment. From the ceiling alone, he's deduced it's not Damien's apartment. The style does not match Natalie's home either, not unless she has a distinct room which is possible.
Thinking hard, his mouth remembers how words feel on his tongue and up his throat.

"Where is 'here'?"
 
Damien expected to be glared at by dark eyes filled with hatred. Or at least judgment.

He would have preferred it to the glazed-over obsidian orbs that consume all light, staring unfocused at the ceiling, at some distance he himself cannot perceive. He recognizes the look well enough - Kaden's drifting, not quite here. He has given no retort, if he even heard the sentence aimed in his direction in the first place. The man's given barely any reactions at all, save for a slow, torturous blink.

Dead-eyed and crammed into a tiny space he... he almost looks like a corpse.

"Kaden?" the ex-cop's voice is a worried whisper, hand reaching out instinctively to try and pull the capo back to the present.

Kaden flinches away from his touch like it's a hot iron searing his flesh, and Damien's heart sinks. The man flinches away as much as he can, bound and contained within this prison as he is - knees bump into the sides of the false luggage uncomfortably, handcuffs giving off a small rattle at the sudden jolt. The ex-cop has already pulled his arm back, brows furrowed in concern and jaw tense with a growing pressure that makes his back molars ache. All of a sudden, his good hand feels almost as numb as the injured one.

Damien looks off to the side. It's shame that settles in his gut, and something else.

Finch does speak, finally. Mercifully.

"It's my-" the ex-cop's voice comes out strained (pathetically), and he has to clear his throat to finish the sentence, "It's my sister's place. Our childhood home..."

Every time he reiterates the fact that he's here, it seems surreal - the house he wanted to run away from but never had the courage to do so; the house he was, ironically, eventually thrown out of. It's a funny twist of fate that Damien has found his way back to the nest, even if said nest has been fundamentally changed. The architecture is still the same, elegant in that feminine Italianate style popular for brownstone houses, yet the insides have been hollowed out or rearranged. Eli has a similar sense of style to their parents - a mix of contemporary and vintage - but unlike under their ownership, she has made this a proper living space. Not something static to show off to people and brag about, but a proper, cozy home. Her brother's proud of her for it. Not that he's said it out loud, but he is.

"Yes, of course," Eli nods at Malcom after the two exchange pleasantries. Out of the corner of her eye, she looks to her sibling, and Damien answers her wordless question with a shallow nod. The woman sighs, before walking over to get what the ex-cop promised Delilah - everything he has. Eleonora comes back with a bundle of manila folders and, most importantly, a torn open envelope, showing off the tiny brass key placed inside. She extends it to the mercenary to take, "Well, this is it. It was a, uh, pleasure meeting you, Mr Malcom. Not- not that I'm in an awful hurry to get you to leave or anything-"

Blocking out the sounds of Eli and Malcom as they finish their (admittedly awkward) exchange, Damien steels his nerves and turns back to Kaden, "Can you stand up on your own?"

It's a bit of a ridiculous question, considering the fact the capo's been handcuffed and contorted. So, the ex-cop helps, making as little physical contact as he possibly can, throwing in a couple of mumbled apologies the few times he can't help it. Kaden flinched away from him. It's happened before, the man is bad with touch, yet this was different, and Damien cannot blame him for it. He can only try and accommodate.

At last, Finch is upright, and it's bizarre seeing him here, against the backdrop of the living room. Damien imagined this. He planned to let Kaden stay here after the raid for as long as he needed. With what a turn the day took, he didn't expect the two to end up in this place regardless. Neither did Eli, evidently, who stares at the other man until recently hidden in the luggage. Holding in a sneeze with a grimace, the woman gives a tense nod in his direction, fingers worrying her sleeve.

"There's a room for you to stay in, Pawl too," Damien states, taking a couple of steps to stand behind the capo. The thought that this might be a dumb move crosses his mind, but it doesn't stay for long. He holds the key firmly in his hand, "Extend your arms back, I'll unlock the cuffs."
 
His sister's home, the one he threatened an age ago for striking Damien.

It's the man's childhood home.

The capo is given a little more time to pull himself together before being roused again.
He shakes his head. He can't get up by himself.
If he wasn't bound he could unwedge himself. Pushing off with an elbow only gets him so far.
Like before, Damien hooks him by an arm to maneuver his body and the movement helps sew his soul back to his body.
When they met at the bar, the man's strength and endurance was never in question. Merely his resolve.
Somewhere along their tumultuous relationship, Kaden lost respect not only for Blumenthal's determination but that power as well.
His touch is gentle and considerate, but it belays the physical and relentless strength behind it.

It is humiliating to meet the host of a home while inside a box. The relief of uncurling his legs is overshadowed by the woman's strained expression at what is an unusual and disturbing image.
Her nose is a shade red, eyes a bit glassy, but it isn't from emotional distress. There are traces of Damien's genetics in her appearance and it's a surreal thought.
There are two of them. Potentially more different than alike, but they still share relation. The fact he's here at all is evidence Damien's made repairs to the rift between him and his sister.

Malcom is given a tidy pile of documents, of which he doesn't open or peruse. Finch can speculate it is dirt on the High-Rise, but he can't be sure. In the past he has been in Malcolm's position, Eleonora's, Damien's... He has never been the meat in the box that knows nothing, not in a very long time.

Finch offers his wrists.
The same convincing tenderness holds him steady while Damien does as he said. They come free with rasping click and Finch wastes little time removing the irritating mask. Tossing it aside with more spite than an inanimate object deserves, he rubs at the band of sweat that accumulated along the bridge of his nose.
Twice, he's needed oxygen fed into his face.

There's a brief moment where Malcom looks at him with his free hand resting on the handle of the pistol at his hip. It's an instinctive habit more than threat.
There's no anger, Malcom doesn't even look stern. Merely waiting for Finch to make a move. He doesn't.

The mercenary nods at Eleonora, boots squealing as he turns to leave before pausing. The man pulls out a burner, offering it to the woman of the house.

"We'll keep in touch," he says, and with a cough, includes Damien with a halfhearted point.
Whatever Delilah is planning, the blow will potentially be severe.
With Malcom leaving, Damien gives up his chance at personal redemption. He missed it with Genevieve, Moore and now this as well.

"If you don't get a message by tomorrow morning at the latest, I'd get out. Nice house." That's all he offers.
The man glances at Pawl's carrier before turning away for good.

And then it's just the three of them. 'Nice' is an understatement. The living room, or parlor, as such an environment requires to be called, is beautiful. The luggage bags attempt to ruin the aesthetic, but it is a sight to behold. Kaden feels like he's in a museum, a look-don't-touch display of human history and architecture.

Damien grew up here.

Finch rubs an arm, noticing for the first time the tender soreness there from Clive's grip. There isn't an immediate mirror to reflect on, but Kaden doesn't need one.
He can imagine the rumpled clothes that don't fit him, his tired eyes and wild hair without it staring back at him.
What a horrible small naked thing for Damien and his sister to be subjected to.
 
Eli is the one to see Malcom out of the door, closing it behind the mercenary with a turn of the lock, the latch getting secured in place a second later.

Now it's just her, Damien, and Kaden sharing the space. And Pawl. Usually, such a situation would call for introductions - the ex-cop gets to introduce his estranged sister and the man he infiltrated a police raid to rescue. However, looking at the latter out of the corner of his eye, he gets the feeling now is the farthest from appropriate - Finch is still deathly quiet. The biggest burst of energy to come from him has been the way he threw off the breathing mask in near disgust. Other than that... he seems frazzled. Lost. And the ex-cop is responsible for that.

When Eli turns around she doesn't exactly seem in the mood for exchanging greetings either. He's responsible for that too.

"Oookay then... hi, I'm Eli," Eleonora tries some halfhearted pleasantries, yet her intonation and defensively crossed arms betray just how on edge the woman is, eyeing up the false luggage left behind and the handcuffs discarded in one of the trunks. Her arms tense, one hand clenching the burner she's been entrusted with, "Feel free to make yourself at home, I guess... For as long as this is "home"."

Malcom said they should get out if they don't receive a message come morning. Eli's been doing a lot these past weeks, dealing with a lot of uncomfortable realities, and to Damien's astonishment she has been more than ready to help (for some reason he can't quite comprehend). However, this might just be her limit - no one told the lawyer she would potentially be forced to abandon her home. The gaze Eleonora sends her brother can only be described as dismayed and accusatory. She opens her mouth again as if to speak - to question, or maybe to chide.

Instead what comes out is a sneeze she scrambles to cover with a hand.

"Bless you," Damien's retort is instinctual. It's instinctual the second and third times as well, at which point he changes his tune, brows furrowed in worry, "You have Zyrtec, right?"

He's not sure if the way Eli nods her head is supposed to be a confirmation or if it's her shoulders simply being racked by yet another sneeze, but she is reaching for the cupboard where she stores medicine. Simultaneously, Damien maneuvers to pick up Pawl's carrier, signaling for Kaden to follow. He needs to get the cat away from Eli. Plus, as bad as he feels for his sister's allergic reaction... at the very least this means he gets to put off a difficult conversation and take the capo somewhere quieter where he can gather himself. Hopefully.

Damien chances a glance back at Finch every couple of seconds to make sure the man is following as he leads him up the staircase... He really is here, isn't he? Somehow both tangible and ghostly. Kaden's here, within arm's reach, yet he feels more distant than ever. How can everything change so drastically within 24 hours? The ex-cop doesn't pause on the second-floor landing, instead heading further up to the third and final one.

"You'll be in the guest bedroom, if that's fine with you," he doesn't know what to do to fix things, he doesn't know what to say - he just knows that all at once the silence is unbearable. Damien wanted Finch to be here, he planned for it. He was going to give the man a tour of the house once they got to it safely, and though now that seems ill-suited, the ex-cop needs some kind of noise - any noise - to fill the void, "It has a small bathroom, and you're probably going to want to shower. There should be products kept in there already."

Has he ever seen the capo's hair in this mussed-up of a state? Under different circumstances Damien would find it charming, but now it's the result of the man being smuggled away in a claustrophobic container... The strands probably still have that coarse texture caused by chlorine he didn't have the time to wash out, "I'll set out some clothes for you as well."

This all feels starkly familiar, if from a different perspective. Damien's been on the other end of the equation, hasn't he? Does this make them equal?

The ex-cop opens the door to the guest bedroom for Finch to step through, before following in himself. Like the rest of the house, Eli has put care into making the room pleasant and cozy. Damien places Pawl's carrier down on the double bed, removing the towel Delilah threw over it.

"Do take what my sister said to heart, and make yourself at home. Go wherever you like."

Damien bites down on his tongue. If he could bite it off, he would. God, he's such an idiot. Ignoring the pulsing headache behind his eyes, he forces himself to look at Kaden, at the person he ripped away against his will from where he wanted to be. His eyes travel from Finch's face to his wrists - did the handcuffs bruise him? Did he get hurt in the scuffle?

"Sorry... I'm so sorry, Kaden."
 
He is an unwanted stranger, a burden. Finch finds a comfortable place to stare at the floor.
Eleonora attempts a vague pleasantry and Finch is too brittle to do more than nod. It feels... beneath him. Or maybe perhaps too far above him.

She's allergic.

As if he couldn't be more of an nuisance, the woman is allergic. Cat dander can last in a house for six months.
His mouth parts, half in ready to excuse himself. He'll find his own path, but it is late and he is tired.
So he follows Damien.
More often than is necessary, he looks over his shoulder at Kaden and he's not sure if it's to make sure the capo hasn't wandered and gotten lost or if it's to assess his emotional state.
Both are gestures Finch would find condescending and vaguely irritating in regular circumstances.

He walks through the memorabilia of Damien's life. There isn't much to indicate children were raised here, not that he can see. People who buy townhouses don't seem the type to be wholly preoccupied with the satisfaction of their children's amusement. It adds clarity to the man Damien has become.

The guestroom is the same, but it's private and he's grateful for that.

Unzipping the carrier, Pawl won't come out.
She doesn't duck away from Kaden's hand, but she doesn't press into it either. That's for the best. Perhaps if she stays enclosed her dander can be better contained for the length of time she'll be here. Damien took him to the top floor, as if spreading allergens over the entire house was his intention. Eleanora will think of Finch after every sneeze and itchy blink and hate him.

The ragdoll looks out into the unfamiliar surroundings, ears swivelling. It's the second time in one day she's been relocated and she doesn't have the benefit of a chemical haze to make the transition more tolerable.
This isn't a hotel room. Or even the inoffensive interior of an unused apartment.
This is a home, deep in the heart of one even though this is just a guest room. There's history in the walls, emotional value in the various artifacts. It's brimming with articles and decorations without ever feeling smothered. To Finch, a home was a place to be away from other people and, if possible, sleep.
It was never a place to live in.

And now it's gone.

"I would like to be alone," he utters, asking someone to leave a space that isn't his.
The the irony isn't lost on him.
He housed Damien for a time, first out of kindness and then forcefully. Did he feel this small, this pathetic?

"Please."
 
Kaden asks to be alone. He requests it, doesn't demand it, even though he's in his full right to do so, and more. He's in his full right to grow angry, to lash out. Part of Damien wants him to do just that. Instead, the capo remains ever quiet in his utterance, a faraway shape of a person. A shadow. He's lost everything.

"Of course," Damien replies back just as quietly, nodding his head more so to look away than in some kind of show of assent. There are words on the tip of his tongue - too much he wants to say because he simply talks too much. But none of it is capable of helping in any meaningful way. Nonsense. Just like usual.

At least he can offer Kaden some privacy. So, the ex-cop exits the room, leaving the capo out of sight if not out of mind.

---

Natalia bought him things, despite his adamant refusal. Better fitting things, few of which he has touched because if he couldn't rescind the generosity, at least he could protest it. Maybe his distaste for such acts of aid is misguided, but Damien doesn't think it's ridiculous to want financial independence. There's a pleasure that comes from being able to buy your own clothes, your own possessions. And maybe then, when you feel like your own person, you can not feel guilty accepting gifts.

It's not something the sergeant's understood. Not something Kaden's really understood either... Will Finch feel that way now? Will he turn these away?

The ex-cop takes the chosen articles carefully out of the closet - at the very least what his stubbornness means is that he has unused things he can lend to the man who rightfully wants nothing to do with him... It's fortunate that the two are more or less the same size, save for a few inches of height. Though maybe with the weight the capo's lost, the clothes will hang slightly awkwardly off of his frame in some areas. Not that that really matters with sleepwear - first priority there is comfort. He doubts Finch will find any comfort tonight, for a plethora of other reasons. Even with the doors unlocked, this place must feel like a prison.

Damien takes his shoes off when he makes the quick climb to the third floor, skipping over the steps he knows creak. It's nostalgic - he is a child sneaking off to places where he shouldn't be going, creeping silently. Kaden asked to be left alone, yet the ex-cop said he would leave a change of clothing out for him, so that's what he's doing. Even if merely standing in front of the guest bedroom door makes him feel like he's breaching privacy.

Dropping off the outfit outside, Damien walks down just as carefully as he went up, back to the second floor, then much less carefully to the first. The headache squeezes around his head like it's going to pop the top of his cranium clean off, and he beelines for the medicine cupboard in a half-blind rush. The pain behind his eyes blurs his vision.

"Damien, is it you?" Eli calls out from where she's migrated to the kitchen. The only thing her brother can give in reply is a grumbled 'mhm', rifling through the loose blister cards, "I, uh- I made tea. If you or your... friend want any."

"No, I don't think he does," life-saving Paracetamol clutched tightly in hand, the man rushes to where Eleonora is sitting at the dining table relishing breathing in the vapors of her beverage after what must have been a nasty bout of congestion. Working fast, Damien pours himself a cup as well, swallowing down the pill with the herbal blend. It burns his tongue, warms his chest. It's the biggest relief.

... Maybe something like this would do Kaden a world of good, actually.

Damien looks up at the ceiling as if he could perceive the capo through it, ask him if he does in fact want tea. The ex-cop doesn't know if he enjoys things like that. Of the drinks the two have shared, this has not been one of them, unless the brew back at Wight's manor counts. That had smelled divine. Eli's storebought variety is nowhere near as arresting, but it's warm and it isn't poisoned. Though maybe that's what Damien needs right now - a drug-fueled haze to save him from the heavy, relentless stare his sister observes him with over the rim of her mug.

"I shouldn't have let you stay," the words reach him with some delay. Of all the things Eli could have begun this very unpleasant conversation with... There is so much to go over, yet this is what she chooses to address.

"No, you really shouldn't have. I have absolutely no idea what made you do it," Damien's voice is even. His hand gripping the cup much less so. He should have expected this eventually, he doesn't know why he didn't, "Tell me, Eli. And don't bullshit me that it's 'cause we're related. We both know how little blood relation means."

"To you. It means little to you," his little sister spits out, "You've always been like this.... I wish you cared for your biological family half as much as you do for your chosen one."

"You of all people don't get to say that, as if you care for me," at one point she did. At one point he did. Now all they do is hurt each other. There is a look of disgust in her eyes he hasn't seen in weeks. A part of Damien maybe even believed it to be gone for good.

All at once, Eli looks away, "Do you remember when you left?"

"You mean when our parents made me leave. Because of what you told them. What, you thinking of recreating the moment?"

"You're the actual fucking worst," yeah, he agrees - in many ways he is, "No, you ass - the night before. When you feel out of your window like an idiot."

Damien scoffs, not able to meet her eyes either. Walking in his socks around the house isn't the only sneaking he did growing up, especially not after he won enough of his parent's trust they didn't check up on him, like he had to behave even in his sleep. Playing at being a model son earned the privilege of privacy, and he didn't need a watchful eye as much. Damien abused that fact. He can't remember how many times in those final months he snuck in Mike - the "bad influence" his mom and dad disliked so much - through the window, or how many times he snuck out himself to go do something stupid and reckless.

He only slipped one time, literally. It was a miracle Damien merely got bruised landing from the second story - if he had sprained an ankle or something, Michael and he wouldn't have been able to haul ass as the townhouse awoke from the ruckus. The memory is... bittersweet, terrifying and exhilarating all at once. It's one of his fondest memories. One of the worst ones too. When he eventually reluctantly returned home, ready to grovel, his parents knew everything. Who he was, who he wanted to be. That was the first and only time his father hit him.

"You'd joked so many times about running away, I thought you were finally doing it," a small voice cuts through the recollection, forcing his attention back to Eli, back to the person that caused all of it, "I thought you were abandoning me."

"What are you going on about?"

"That's what it looked like, Damien. And I hated you for it. I hated you for it so much, I would do anything to hurt you."

Another bout of pain spikes through his head, grips his body. The ex-cop doesn't know how exactly, but he's wound up seated at the table, next to Eleonora. If he hadn't, maybe he would have dropped the cup, shattering it all over the nice floor.

It... it hadn't been some spiteful rivalry that made her do it.

"All I had wanted was to come with you... This house meant nothing then," Eli reaches for a tissue, and he's fairly certain it has nothing to do with her allergies, "But it's everything to me now."

"I'm not leaving my home, no matter what happens."

That's what this is about. His little sister is afraid, and in the wake of such a confession, Damien can't find the energy to reply. So, he simply lays his hand down on the table, palm open. When Eleonora holds it in return, squeezes, it's warmer than the tea. He feels just a little selfish leeching off of her comfort when the gesture was meant to wordlessly reassure her. Somehow. Even though he himself has no idea what is to come - he never does. He just knows he wants to keep her safe. He wants to keep Kaden safe as well.

"That guy you came with... Is he going to be okay?"

"Kaden," Damien sighs into the name, pulling his foot up on the chair to rest his forehead on his knee. His neck aches, "That's his name. And I don't know."

If Damien can start mending the broken bond he once had with Eli, can he do the same with Kaden?

"Well, um... I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but I hope he will get better."

Yeah, Damien's hoping too. Fuck, he needs a smoke. He hasn't indulged in some days, but he hasn't had a day like this in what feels like forever. The ex-cop doesn't want a smoke. He needs it, "I'm sorry... can you hand me the Marlboros? I'll go outside."

"Oh, that..." he doesn't need to look at Eli to know the kind of awkward expression she has on. But then all of a sudden her voice comes through, just a little bit smug, "I threw that trash out."

The laugh that rips out of Damien's lungs is a genuine one, a sharp, disbelieving sound that racks his shoulders. God, she's such a little brat.
 
----

Maybe he's on autopilot.

Maybe he's lost his mind. Or maybe it is just work interview jitters. That thought makes him smile to himself, pretty much the whole drive into the city.
It's stupid. His whole life is so unimaginably stupid.
He's stupid.

Cade only has enough sense to know that, but not enough to actually do anything about it or make better choices. He just got out of an intense situation he was glued to and now he's trying to get himself sewn into another one. Does he hate himself that much?

Things are awkward with Neil.

It's the day after you've been too fucking honest and too fucking weird with someone you don't fucking know.
The first nights they were together- well, it was weird, but this is a whole new level of weird. They've brain fucked one another now.
And Cade didn't even fight it. He didn't fight a regular fucking either...

Yeah, sure, lemme tell you everything about myself.

What a joke. If Neil had a shred of respect for Cade, that's long gone now.
Scouting for a parking place (which isn't connected to a building of thugs that are going to kill Cade), he snorts audibly to himself.
He washed the guy's hair. He forced him to sleep with him.

Who does that? What happened to him psychologically he thinks that's the way to go about these things?

For Christmas time in NY, it's a nice day. The sun beats down on them, the warmth whisked away by a gust of wind that's more refreshing than just cold.
Neil leads and Cade's confusion grows and grows as they walk down a crowded street. Most are business men, some are long trenched ladies speed walking in high heels to get last minute presents. This isn't the kind of place you imagine a hitman getting a job. Cade always imagined it'd be in a dimly lit, stinky room. Or in a rich guy's swanky parlor room.
Or over the phone with a creepy dude.

Cade sidesteps a woman with six bags of gifts. She mumbles an excuse me, but her mind is on different things.
Shit, Cade hasn't gotten anything for Oliver yet.

The first thought he has walking through the revolving door into the shiny building Neil's brought him to is that Lex Luthor works here. It's that evil looking.
The floor is marble white, while the walls are all black. With the windows, it lets in enough light to shine off every surface but it feels cold.
They have plastic plants parked in the lounge, but they're little bonsais and in this setting it just feels pretentious.

On the wall in bold silver letters is TreaTech. The company name is on every pamphlet, every wide screen TV playing their ads.
"Holy shit," Cade mumbles, "You work here? And you want to quit?"

It's the kind of place you spend an extra twenty seconds scraping your boots off before entering. Which is what Cade does, with Neil staring at him in silent judgement.
The guy does work for Lex Luthor. A female Lex Luthor.

The receptionists pale when they see Neil. It's a half terrified, half shocked look you see in movies to signal the arrival of the big bad.
Right, they probably assumed Neil died in the explosion along with everyone else. It must be like seeing a ghost.
With a shakey nod, the receptionist points them onwards. Happy to be rid of them, probably.
Even if that's going to make a nuisance for someone else.

Neil works for pencil pushing capitalists.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so scary. How many companies aren't playing by the rules? How many of them are paying off cops or fucking over the ones that can't be bought out?
The Nakurra and Black Dogs were evil assholes, but they were the only thing sitting in between the High Rise and whatever this is.
It's a chilling thought, one that keeps Cade company down the hallway to the elevator.

There's a display case. Neil storms passed it, but Cade doesn't have that level of discipline.

Inside is a square of pale pink rubber skin. It's the kind they use in medical demonstrations.
On the top in the center are a bunch of faint lines, like a kid with a pin got bored and slightly fanatic and scored tiny stripes all in the same place.
One circle of the glass encasing it is a magnifier, so you can see up close what is probably the most boring art piece Cade's ever seen. Sensing movement, the display revs into action as if to prove the gangster how wrong he is.

A blade parked on one end of the case zips across the fake blob of flesh. The resulting slash leaves a bloodless gape in the skin, a small one. A hydrologic press comes out to squeeze the square back together, the wound leaving a visible seam.
It takes a while to start, and its so slow you might miss it if you weren't watching.

The sides of the make-believe wound pull towards one another. It's not a trick of the light, it's not the press squeezing the block closed.
The flesh is sealing itself back together.

Under the magnifying glass, little dots converge at the intersection between torn skin and healthy skin. They jitter back and forth, following the progress of the wound. The way they wiggle and move makes them looks like bugs, maggots in a wound. Something gross like that.

"Cool, right?"

Cade nearly leaps out of his skin, gasping out an expletive for good measure.
He just about careens into Neil too, the poor bugger. No, not bugger. No bugs.

The man standing there is half trust fund kid and half greasy weasel. Either he has too much goop in his hair to slick it back or he hasn't washed it in a while.
He has bright, happy eyes, a quirky smile that makes him look like an alien mimicking the human race.

"It's bioelectronic wound care we've been developing. Well, I've been developing," he says, peering into the box of horrors with a prideful puff of his chest.
"Still in clinical trials, but the results speak for themselves."

It's the weirdest sci Fi bullshit Cade's seen in a while.
A persistent throb in his pinky reminds him it's still broken. After Neil's threat of losing the damn thing, he's taken better care of it. That doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt like a bitch.
The freaky greasy prep student looks down at it. A moment before he had been eyeing up Neil's injuries with an almost hungry look. Biting his lip and clutching the tablet in his grip a tad too tightly.

Could it fix a broken bone that fast?

"Look at you, all in bits," he says to Neil and Cade's jaw drops when he walks up to give the psycho killer a few pats on his cheek that borderline a slap.
His hand stays there a bit too long and Cade can't help but notice it. The weasel is short, shorter than Cade. And small too. Snap like a toothpick small. There isn't an ounce of fear on his face, just a smug smile.
The hand drips away before Neil can push it off.

"Are you bringing Viv fresh meat to make up for two days of radio silence?"
 
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To call Cade awestruck would be an understatement. The guy walks around the space, jaw nearly dragging on the floor, and MacDarragh can't help snorting at his companion's ridiculous reaction. He has the energy of a kid that walked into one of those absurd department stores decked out for Christmas, like the one from Home Alone 2. Well, maybe that's not an entirely fair assessment - when he abruptly pauses to peer into what Neil can only describe as a self-masturbatory display case for one of the company's foremost achievements, the gangster isn't exactly looking at the piece of synthetic flesh knitting itself together with eager or excited eyes. More wowed and amazed ones, with some uneasiness mixed in there. Which in many ways is the intent of the thing. Real body horror shit, that's what this department store sells.

Either way, Cade has the energy of someone seeing something for the first time.

It's the exact opposite of how Neil is feeling. Really, what a drag to be back here. Same boring building, same boring foyer, same boring people. Same unnerved glances getting thrown his way, though this time around there is something added to them - like witnessing a dead man walking. And dragging in an unknown element to boot - Wolf has not gone unnoticed. Under different circumstances, Neil might revel in the distress a mere presence is able to cause. Unfortunately, he is too displeased at seeing these people too to enjoy it.

Tapping his foot with some mild impatience as he waits (oh good, his favorite), the hitman looks away from the man responsible for his return. Partially, at least.

They slept together last night. Like, the dreamland kind of sleep. Cade and he have now officially slept more times than they have fucked, and that is a frown-worthy statistic, one Neil actively fights the thought of in order to maintain his smiling mask while in the TreaTech corporate headquarters. It's bad enough that he's coming in with an injured shoulder. At least if all goes to plan today, Cade and he will be doing neither anymore. Fate can keep bringing the two together via increasingly bizarre coincidences only so many times before one of them flips off the cosmic forces that be and skips town for good...

Cade swears. That's the only warning MacDarragh gets before the gangster bumps into him, narrowly missing stepping on his foot, though the clash does cause several bruises to ache, further exacerbated by the instinctual way the hitman shoots out an arm to steady the guy. Neil bites down on a groan through his smile. He'd tease Wolf about being so jumpy if he wasn't too busy staring at the person that made him jumpy to begin with. This little fucker.

Neil rolls his eyes with a huff listening to the scientist boast. He's been offered to test out the experimental wound care himself, but, firsts of all, he can take care on his own (when he rarely even gets injured). And, second of all, he's pretty sure the guy has a hard-on for injuries. His tone definitely seems to confirm it. The way he dares touch too.

MacDarragh's smile turns sharp. "The results do speak for themselves. The model's very impressive behind glass," his knuckles tap against the cold surface, the transparent dome shaking slightly while its contents remain undisturbed, "Less so in the clinical trials. Dehiscence is Rory's trigger word."

Half-turning to address Cade, the hitman points his thumb at the scientist, "Rory being the cocksure, handsy creep."

Vivien's top investment, her little genius she likes keeping close because supposedly he is an asset. The twerp is aware of the boss' opinion, of course, which is why he calls her Viv and she lets him, without the usual grimace sent Neil's way at the nickname. Not that he cares for the difference in behavior. Honestly, he doesn't mind Rory. Because crazy recognizes crazy. Medicine is an appealing field of work for people like them. If things had gone differently, the hitman could have been in a similar position. Not identical - he doesn't have any interest in bioengineering - but he could have been Dr Neil MacDarragh, M.D., instead of Captain Neil MacDarragh. However, that hadn't been in the cards.

"'Make up for'?" Neil gives a mocking laugh at the choice of words, "Oh, my being safe will make up for the bout of silence well enough."

"Fresh meat and I should go see her, I bet she's missed me," snaking his good arm around Cade's shoulders, MacDarragh goes to maneuver the two away, only to pause next to Rory. He looks down at the scientist, at Viv's prized pet she makes sure to keep protected and content to continue his work. Grinning, the hitman leans down to whisper, "Touch me like that again and I'll break your arm into a pulp. Then you get to test if your bioelectronics can fix that."

He continues pulling Cade further into the building (not letting him get distracted by any more weird shit), towards the elevators, where he shoves the two into the first one that arrives. It's not elbow-to-elbow crowded given how spacious it is, though it is filled with enough people that MacDarragh has to reach over the head of a nervous-eyed woman to press the button he wants. It's a lot of nervous looks all around, actually, absent-mindedly aimed at the floor or some distant point in space because it's awkward to make eye contact with strangers. Elevator rides like this are probably one of the most uncomfortable human experiences. A personal hell, accompanied by terrible, persistent music. For most people, anyway. On his end, Neil casually leans back against the metal wall, gaze focused on the panel as the numbers change with each passed floor.

No one is getting off as late as he and the gangster will be. So the higher they climb, the more the rubble starts clearing out of the space, though not as quickly as MacDarragh would like. Fingers tapping against his thigh, halfway through he joins in on the elevator music, picking up its tune in a whistle. Now that proves to be a very effective tactic, and several people hurriedly get off way before their floors. The last stubborn old guy he has to stare down, but he caves and exits soon enough as well, leaving Neil and Cade alone.

In the sudden quiet, the hitman eyes up this "fresh meat" that's willingly come along to get eaten.

"Okay, some advice," MacDarragh detaches from where he was leaning, walking into the gangster's personal space, "You drooled all over the foyer in amazement and that's well and good, but maybe try and keep your jaw closed in front of Viv. Unless you're asked to talk."

"Also, do not call her Viv. You know, be professional."

The last word comes out slowly. The palm of Neil's left hand finds Cade's shoulder, smoothening out the fabric where he ruffled it earlier moving the gangster along. He can't believe this guy is legitimately coming in for a work interview. It's even more unbelievable that he's helping him, "She's gonna want to know your job experience - both the police and gang one will do you good. Keep it to the point and relevant, efficient. Efficiency really gets her going."

"Don't tell her you're the person that blew up her police raid, though, as impressive as it was," in the middle of fussing with some lint on Cade's sleeve, a Cheshire grin splits Neil's face, "That being said if you get the sudden inspiration to blow up this tower too, go right ahead."

Briefly looking up at the still-changing numbers on the elevator panel, the hitman hums.

"Any last-minute questions? Or last-minute second thoughts?"
 
Cade is only 80% sure what dehiscence means. On the hand hand the smart ass creep seems to be intimately aware of what it means.
He frowns for a moment, before his easy smile comes back. It reminds Cade of a weasely little puppy barking up at a giant rottweiler. MacDarragh could fuck him up, probably, but Rory seems happy and satisfied that he won't.
The little shit hides under Vivien's skirt.

"Don't be so bitter, Neil. I'll get the impression you don't like me," Rory says with another flirty smirk, batting his eyelashes.

Cade eyes Neil, watching to see if any playfulness flickers in his green eyes. There's nothing, not that he can see, but he can't be sure. Not really.
Honestly, Cade couldn't care less but, Rory touched him. No, slapped him. In a condescending, good boy, kinda way. How many people do that?
Before his head can run away without him, Neil's grabbing him. The contact is jarring, but also appreciated to get them both out of this.

Rory gives him the creeps.

Neil lets the weirdo know touching him again will be an insult even Vivien won't save him from. It's a quiet threat, said more like a fact. Rory doesn't seem convinced, smiling like Neil's still a dog at the end of it's chain yapping at heels just out of reach.
The guy's quitting, but Rory doesn't know that. At the same time, he demonstrates some sense of self preservation. The kid doesn't touch MacDarragh again, not before he's pulling Cade forward again.
The gangster smiles, half to himself.

Not just anyone touches Neil, then.

They pass by a lot of other cool shit, stuff Neil isn't in the mood to look at. The guy has a real problem with waiting, he's noticed. If there's ever a next time, Cade will torture him by leaving him in a doctor's waiting room.

Or an elevator.

This is it then. This is really really happening.

With a proper splint, Cade can't mess with his pinky anymore. It's for the best, even if he goes there to fuck with it and comes away with depressingly nothing.
Instead he clenches his jaw shut, grinding his teeth together while one by one, the people filter out. To better lives that don't involve violent death and murder.
Neil's casually leaned into one side of the elevator, mildly pissed but nevertheless still in control of the situation.

The menace floats into his space again and Cade wonders if thats genuinely how he is. Maybe it isn't an intimidation play, maybe he's just that weird.
There's the soft flowery smell of his mom's shampoo still in his hair.

What a mind fuck that is.

Second thoughts?

Vivien sounds like Kaden. He got a hard on for efficient shit too. Will Rory get on his case too?
Neil's quitting. It's not like the guy is the template for a regular human experience, but him leaving has to mean something, right?
No, he's leaving because the job isn't fun enough. Fun meaning being a diabolic, evil little shit. No, maybe this job will be a step back from the knee deep shit Cade's been wadding through. Maybe this will be good.
He's owed a good turn by now right?

And if he doesn't get this, what else is there? He can't be a cop again; that bridge is burned and he's not going to stack cans of food until he's eighty either.
Yeah, he has money saved up but not enough to last a life time.
If he'd saved he would've, but Cade burns through cash. He always has.

It's this or nothing.

The gangster gnaws on a cheek, still contemplating the question.

"Uh, is she actually going to trust me? I mean, I don't really have a resume ready for this kinda thing. How is she going to know I'm the real deal?"

He has Neil's good favor, which could actually turn sour the moment the man's completely free of Cade.
Fuck, he really didn't think this through at all.

"She doesn't have a trap door filled with crocodiles, right?" He asks with a chuckle he hopes is convincing.
He searches the hitman's eyes, looking for visions of his own death in their shade of forest green. Neil wouldn't let Vivien kill him, not if he could help it.
He would've killed Cade before they got this far.

Probably.

Cade scratches at a cheek.
"Have you ever slept with her?"
 
She doesn't have a trap door filled with crocodiles, right?

The chuckle that follows Cade's question is colored by undertones of nervousness, yet Neil does nothing to alleviate them. If anything, he aggravates, remaining quiet as he smiles at the gangster, a glint in his eyes. The elevator music fills the meaningful silence between them. No, it's not crocodiles that she has.

Then, all at once, MacDarragh's sharp expression cracks - it expands, twists into a full-blown laughing fit and his hold on Cade's shoulder tightens as the hitman nearly doubles over in hysteria.

This fucking guy! All of his questions are hilarious, but this last one... Did he really just ask if he's slept with Viv? That's funny. He doesn't realize just how funny, but MacDarragh does, and that's what counts.

"Fuck no!" he finally manages to spit out in between struggling to catch his breath. Neil even throws a gagging noise in there for good measure before laughing again - he might be a manwhore per definition, but he has standards. And certain lines he won't cross.

Straightening himself out when he has more or less recovered, Neil wipes away the tears of amusement forming at the edges of his eyes, only to send Cade a narrowed stare even if his grin is ever-present, grip on the man's shoulder squeezing once more to bunch up the clothing he smoothed out mere seconds ago, "Why are you asking, Cade? Getting ideas?"

The doors of the elevator open with a ding.

That's the sole thing that saves Wolf from having to give an answer. With one final, slow roll of his jaw, Neil looks away to step onto the floor beyond.

His shoes click against the tile. Unlike the foyer, here the surface is a shiny, reflective black marble, polished to the point of seeing one's reflection in it while the walls are a more muted grey that doesn't reflect the light of day as much as stark white would. And light is pouring in in abundance - one side of the hallway Neil leads the two down is all high-ceiling windows, unveiling a view of the cityscape. This isn't the top floor, but it is damn close. From this high up, people look like ants.

The hitman ignores the reception desk and the empty waiting area. Viv's secretary doesn't do anything to stop his march towards their boss' office, simply following his movement with their gaze - there's barely any surprise there; the staff out front must have already called in that the wayward captain has miraculously risen from the dead to make a return.

Instead, the secretary is much more focused on taking in the man MacDarragh has brought along.

Cade is following. Of course he is. Briefly looking back over his shoulder, Neil chances a glance at his companion. At this piece of "fresh meat" whose greatest worry is apparently proving he's the real deal as he willingly hands over his leash. Shit, he might even try to sleep with his new master. Does the guy have a thing for that? The hitman scoffs, turning to face ahead as his jaw clenches. The two will be splitting ways. It's none of his business what Cade decides to do after/if he gets hired. It's simply bad practice to fuck the boss.

Plus, Neil's pretty sure the woman's never slept with anyone... Probably.

Vivien Taylor, CEO

That's what the name plaque says on the door Neil unceremoniously barges through. No knocking, no announcing himself. He refuses to do that for her. The interior of the room, much like the entirety of the corporate building, is painfully familiar - still sporting that minimalist, cold aesthetic present everywhere. It fits the woman seated behind the desk, who lifts dark brown eyes up from a pile of documents to zero in on this interloper within her domain.

"You're alive," her voice is calm, impassive. There's no surprise there, no relief either. Just the subtlest notes of disappointment only someone familiar with her would pick up, "It's good to see you unharmed. Mostly unharmed, at least. But you should have called beforehand. I've been worrying, trying to reach you."

"Worrying? Oh, how sweet of you, Viv," MacDarragh's voice drips with sarcasm. It does nothing to faze the woman.

"I don't understand where the tone is coming from. You've been a valuable employee, Neil," she states matter-of-factly. If he were anyone else, she might even try to put on that "we're all a big family here at TreaTech" voice. But considering that he is who he is, this is as far as even fake pleasantries extend. Honestly, he doesn't know why she even tries to pretend to be civil when it's just the two of them. Well, actually, suppose it's not just the two of them presently...

Viv might not be shocked to see the hitman alive, yet she certainly is suspicious of this unknown man that came in with him. Her impassive eyes bore into the gangster.

"I brought you a potential new recruit," Neil supplies, taking a step towards the chairs at the front of her desk - the uncomfortable ones that dig into his back, "This is Cade. He's the one responsible for getting your "valuable employee" away from the wreckage after the explosion."

At that Vivien's eyebrows twitch up for a split second, and her suspicion mixes with curiosity as she appraises the man yet again. MacDarragh grins. He doesn't wait for an invitation, plopping down in one of the torture devices Viv tries to pass off as furniture. At the movement, something stirs behind the woman - a dark shape opens up to flash something pink surrounded by two rows of white. A maw, big enough to bite down on a human's head. Powerful enough to crush it too, or at least do some serious damage. Cane corsos used to fight lions in Roman coliseums. Now, two specimens of these once-proud creatures have to answer to someone as insufferable as Vivien. And they do so, unquestioningly. Rising up from their slumber, the dogs move to amble forward.

"Sit," Vivien's calm voice resounds, hand sweeping in a welcoming gesture towards Cade, though her command also gets her pets to obediently stop and plop down, one of them looking up at the woman in adoration, tongue lolling out.

Elbows placed on her desk, Viv leans forward, "Cade, was it? Am I right to understand you've... come here looking for a job?"
 
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Neil's a chucklehead. It makes sense his go-to answer is a minute long laughing spree. Cade crosses his arms, refusing to feel stupid for asking a legitimate question.
How is he supposed to know how things work around here?

MacDarragh even chokes on his own laugh, the next bout coming out in a squeak. It's not a big confidence booster to have this ninny hanging off of him for support while he loses his shit, and only a few levels off from what must be the boss'. Cade steadies him with a hand, glaring at him, skin prickling.

He really doesn't need this.

When Neil's had his fill of cackling, he pins Cade down with another look and fuck if he knows what that look means. Or the question that follows.

Saved by the bell.

They get some breathing space once the elevator opens. Cade still doesn't get enough air.
If the lobby was evil, this place takes it to a whole new level.
It's the pinnacle of cold modern art, the kind where the high ceilings and imposing walls make you feel small and choked.
What is with that? Finch had a hard on for this kind of stuff too. Something must be off in their brains that this is the kind of stuff they like to look at.

Cade's boots are squeaking on the floor. It's a sharp, stripping shrieking squeal. Fuck.
He has to walk very specifically to get them to stop.

Neil, ballsy little fuck that he is, just barges into his boss' office. Vivien Taylor, that's who she is. Cade huffs in and out before following him.
He's a bad motherfucker, he can do this.

And holy shit, it's a female Finch.

Cade stands there, rhythmically clenching and releasing his injured hand.
The two go back and forth, faking pleasantries only a toddler would take as genuine. There isn't one thing out of place on this chick. She doesn't get up to greet Neil, doesn't shake his hand.
Kaden would've been ripping his hair out with worry if his little bitch had disappeared on him.

Which, Cade has.

Instead of a little cat with social anxiety, Taylor has two 'roided out monsters. They're the biggest fuckers Cade's ever seen and he likes dogs, knows a few breeds.
These aren't dogs. They're bulging with muscle, more Angus beef than canine.
Someone surgically separated Cerebus so instead of guarding the gates to hell they could come stand guard at this woman's feet instead. They must've eaten their third brother to get this big. Damn!

There's a split second where he's not sure if she's talking to the demon dogs or him. Cade takes a leap of faith, taking a seat.
Neil hasn't thrown him under the bus, not yet.
He clears his throat.

"Yeah," he says, and forces himself to meet the bottomless pit of her eyes.
They're not just like Kaden's- no one could have a void like that guy's eyes but... Damn.

"I dragged him out of the Black Dog tower before it collapsed. But that's not really my specialty. I'm good at killing people. I was a cop with a Pistol Expert award with my skill with firearms." He sounds so stupid. This is the stupidest fucking thing he's ever done. Should he flirt with her? Would that work?

He's getting eaten by crocodiles tonight. Or Cane Corsos.
He can fiddle with his hands as much as he likes. She can't see over her desk.

"I realized I wanted more out of life and got into this side of things. Because I'd operated on the other side I knew who to talk to, what to do. I had to earn my loyalty, but once I did I did a good job. I'll do any job you have. Done a lot of the shitty ones, like cleaning up afterwards."

He's a self starter, is what he's trying to say and lie about.
Well, not lie, but he's not being specific. That's what you do in a job interview; half of it's a lie and half of it's an exaggeration.
Yes, I'm very passionate about being paid and not starving to death, etc.

Neil's in his peripheral. Does he see straight through him?
The dogs almost blend into the environment around them. There's just dewy eyes, wet noises. They don't know they're killers.
Would she let him pet one if he asked?

"I'm looking for something more now," he says, and that is genuine. Something more, something different. What if this is just more of the same? He can't... Do that again.

"This place...looks like more."
 
With a half-grin, MacDarragh listens to Cade list his greatest accolades and virtues as a prospective employee. The hitman's eyes drift to the fiddling fingers the man's attempting to conceal under the desk (as if Viv won't notice his air of nervousness) - at least he doesn't appear to be messing with the broken pinky anymore. But the gangster's got the jitters, while faced with a woman that's probably half his weight. Well, Neil supposes this kind of feeling would be considered normal for job interviews, and maybe the impassive stare Viv sends his way also has something to do with it. Watching in complete silence, the woman doesn't interrupt even once as she likewise takes in his work summary.

It's Cade's very last comment that finally manages to get a reaction out of her - a small, polite smile, her measured utterance filling with pride, "This place doesn't just look like more. It is more."

Neil muses to himself that Wolf did fine. Good even, in some ways. He certainly didn't say anything to offend or overstep. But he missed some vital things too.

"Considering the fact that this company is more, as you say," Viv repeats the epithet for the third time, appearing to enjoy it, before her slight smile drops and she looks down to take notes on a sheet of paper, "We like to deal with full names around here, Cade."

She's gotta second-check his background, after all.

"We also like to deal with information about past employment. You were a policeman with the NYPD, that much has become clear. Who did you work for on... this side of things?"

"He was with the Black Dogs," MacDarragh chimes in casually, finger pointing at one of the cane corso with a light snicker, "And you really like those, don't you?"

Vivien's unamused brown eyes shifts to the hitman. She doesn't seem surprised - she must have anticipated this piece of information considering Cade's outward appearance and his supposed presence at the tower's collapse. The CEO just needed confirmation, but now it has opened a whole floodgate of questions. Her focus zeroes back in on Cade, sharp. The mutt that had been staring at his master lovingly also looks in the gangster's direction, a trail of spittle falling out of his oversized jawls to dirty the pristine floor, "The Black Dogs, who up until recently had bad blood with us."

The statement doesn't need to be worded as a question to require an explanation.

"The gang is gone now, Viv," Neil speaks up again. The police raid might not have turned out to his boss' liking, but the whole ordeal was effective in its ultimate mission, "Arrested or buried. Plus, the Black Bitch is with us."

He shrugs his shoulders, "Take my word for it, the guy's trustworthy. And good at what he does - I've seen him in action." Action being the two beating the shit out of each other.

Vivien's eyebrows twitch up again and she leans back in her chair, the leather of it squeaking with the movement. Propping an elbow up on the armrest, she rests her fist against her mouth in diseccting interest, eyes darting between the two men. Her and MacDarragh do not like each other, it's an open secret around this place. But it's not a lie when she says he's a vaueble, important employee. Has been one for ages.

"I'm giving him a personal recommendation. Not that I'm gonna write one down, but that's what this is."

Viv's eyes narrow in on his face - MacDarragh doesn't recommend people. He doesn't do things out of the goodness of his heart, and the suspicious air coming off of the woman makes him aware that she is aware. She's right. This isn't some kindly gesture in repayment for getting saved. It's a bullshit proposal he agreed to while held captive, though now he might just benifit from it himself.

"So, this... "more" you are looking for," despite still observing Neil, the woman addresses Cade, "It would be similar to MacDarragh's position?"

"No, not similar. It would be my position," the hitman leans forward, smirking. He lets a pause settle over the room, enjoying the flash of genuine surprise this gets from the CEO.

"He's the perfect replacement. You could slot him into a police position if you wanted, and have him doing my other duties, no problem. There'd barely be any noticeable change," except for the fact that both Neil and Vivien would be rid of each other's presence. Finally.

"You're quitting?"

"I am."

The woman retreats into consideration, dark fingers with short, clean nails rubbing at her jaw to banish lingering signs of shock. When she speaks a moment later, her tone is definitive, "You can't."

Neil grimaces at the choice of words, "What the fuck do you mean, I can't? I can do whatever I want, be grateful I'm even coming back offering you a replacement."

"A couple of weeks ago you were threatening to have me let go anyway. Don't be petty, Viv," because that's why she's doing it - she always has to be in direct opposition to MacDarragh.

"You had messed up then. I see no reason to want to fire you now," oh, she's such a bitch. Before the hitman can argue further, the woman picks up a tablet from beneath the heap of documents, "Of course, I can't force you to stay. But.. I do have one last job for you, one I think you'll find personally invested to stick around for."

Long arm extending to the other side of the desk, Viv places the device for both Neil and Cade to see. There's a document displayed on its screen. It's styled like any regular brief Neil receives for an assignment, with detailed information. However unlike most times, now an all too familiar face stares up from a mugshot photo.

"I seem to remember you have history with this man," MacDarragh doesn't look up as Vivien continues... Well, isn't this one hell of a situation for this bitch to exploit... "Blumenthal escaped our custody late last night. I need you to track him down and retrieve him. Supposedly, he has been collecting documentation on the High-Rise, and it would be prudent to collect it."

"You would also be retrieving another individual he escape with... One Kaden Finch," at that Neil's eyes finally leave the tablet, head moving so fast he nearly gives himself whiplash. Vivien is not focused on him anymore - her dark eyes piece into Cade, searching every twitch of his facial muscles, every nonverbal sign he might have. While the Black Dogs are gone... the Butcher is still at large. She speaks to the gangster, voice smooth, "I think such a job in collaboration between you two would be a good test for a recruit."
 
Taylor has a bit of an ego to massage. Maybe he can work that in the future.
She's every bit the ice queen Cade expected, vivisecting him with her eyes.
It's Neil who speaks for him in the end, and Cade hates that he's grateful. The guy talks him up, puts a good word in while Cade sits there like a tool.

And it finally becomes obvious why Neil wasn't fighting being brought back here.
He's doing a trade off.
Cade's his sacrificial offering.

His head snaps to Vivien at MacDarragh's suggestion of Cade being a cop again.
Could he? Obviously, he'd be a fake cop, but maybe that would be better than being a real one.
Oliver would love that...

It's obvious Vivien doesn't have much love for Neil. The tension between them crackles and sparks, but never escalates beyond that.
Maybe it would be entertaining, if Cade wasn't banking on this working out.
Or not working out.

Vivien wants to keep Neil.

Cade blinks on a slow exhale, a short one.
Kaden was the same way. He wouldn't let Cade leave either.

You know the evil super company you're working for is high class when your debrief is on a tablet.
Their first target brings out an awkward bark of laughter the gangster quickly smothers.
This fucking guy... Damien is everywhere. He can't go twelve steps without bumping into the little shit.

Neil must feel the same way times ten.
With MacDarragh it'll be a piece of cake, maybe even fun.
Then a name that's only been in his head for the past two days is said out loud.

He checks out after Kaden Finch.

Cade wipes his sweaty palms off on his knees.
Another string of drool drips off a dog's loose lip. He's trying to tie his flaying mind down and all he can think about is how disgusting all that drool must be.
Does she get any on her shoes? Has she ever slipped in it?
He keeps his breathing even, but can't keep himself from chewing at his lip. It's December, so they're dry and tortured enough to bleed.
He's fine, but Finch's name spoken out in the world makes his ears ring. He's hot under the collar and he wants to punch something.
He has to settle for gripping the arm rests instead. It's a poor substitute.

"Alive, you mean?" He blurts. Vivien's looking right at him, they're both looking at him. Cade smothers the need to yell, to slam his hand on a desk that isn't his. Tell them to mind their own fucking business!

It's not a problem, he can fucking do it no problem.

Delilah was with the High Rise.

Cade grinds his teeth together. His jaw aches.
That fucking bitch.
How long was she working behind their backs? She throws everyone to the dogs, but keeps her kid. What did they offer her to make the job shift worth it? Apparently Kaden didn't agree with it, if he's escaped along with his prissy boyfriend.

What a pair of fucking idiots.

"How 'alive' are we talking? Finch was my old boss," he says, and it's like someone's squeezing his windpipe from the inside.
Cade rubs at his tattoo.

"I just want to be transparent."
 
Vivien watches Cade like a Hawk. Neil does too in much the same fashion, brows furrowing at the sudden question.

Alive, you mean?

... What answer is he hoping for?

"The transparency is appreciated," the woman at the head of the desk gives a shallow nod, unperturbed by the fact Finch was his old boss. In many ways, that's the point of this test. She remains still for a second, intertwining her fingers in thought before speaking, "Simply 'alive'. That's how we want Finch returned, for now."

For now. That's a key part. The High-Rise wants the asshole returned to them alive for some reason - maybe it has something to do with his mommy that rushed in to rescue him, like a helpless child. Neil can only hazard a guess. Either way, Viv deliberately makes no mention of the level of 'aliveness' like Cade requested. That's another key detail.

"Blumenthal, on the other hand-"

"Let me guess, dead," the hitman clenches his jaw. He's not bothered by killing Damien, not at all - that's his goal; has been for some time. What he is bothered by is having to do it at his boss' order, her way. He scoffs, rolling his eyes, "Cleanly. Bullet to the head, then move on."

"I'll leave the method up to you," Vivien retorts impassively and Neil quirks an eyebrow in suspicion, "What matters is that we get ahold of all evidence he might have. Make sure you secure that in its entirety, by any means necessary. Afterward, you're free to do whatever you want. Though it would be wise to get rid of such a persistent annoyance."

She's throwing him a bone then - the parting gift of folivorous entertainment on this last job. Supposedly last job.

Her dark eyes shine with something that makes Neil's frown only deepen, "I seem to remember you wanted to do this way back in the day as well... I for one think you had the right idea 15 years ago."

He did, and no one listened. Not that he knew it would devolve into this, not that he really cared. MacDarragh simply hates people getting in his way, and back then most of them did. Moore more than anyone. The hitman broke the old cop's leg for that. Would have broken both if he'd somehow gotten Kell off scot-free too, but for one policeman let off the hook the then-head of the High-Rise allowed him only so much as recompense - the chief of police sported a limp till the end of his miserable life.

... Fuck, it's kind of funny - letting a small fry like Blumenthal live might end up being the sole mistake that man ever made over the course of his career. A mistake his protege backed up 15 years ago, regardless of the bullshit Vivien is trying to spew now. He hates her. He hates her, and the feeling is mutual. The only thing holding some tentative peace between the two is respect - not for one another, but for her predecessor. The instant he is out of the picture... all bets are off. Neil can barely wait. The stare the hitman aims Vivien's way is filled with a cold, unspoken threat. Her dogs sense it, of course, and one of the beasts growls in a low warning.

He growls back, if only to be difficult, "I work alone, Viv."

"Not this time. It's a condition for your potential resignation," the CEO counters, rising up from her seat. She might be slender, but fuck is she tall. Taller than MacDarragh. It's a good thing she isn't wearing heels today, "It'll be a mentorship role. A handing over of the reins, if you will."

Immediately, Viv addresses Cade in a diplomatic tone, "I hope you understand such a formality. It's to get you oriented, not that your skills are in doubt."

No, what's in doubt is his potential loyalty.

Grabbing at one of the many folders she has on her desk, Viven starts to walk around it toward the two men, the claws of the two cane corsos clacking against the tiles as they follow, "I would like a moment alone with Cade."

MacDarragh tenses, giving Wolf a quick glance out of the corner of his eye. His grin is mirthless when the words ooze past his lips, "Why, you two need some privacy?"

"No," she perches on the corner of the desk on Neil's side. Usually, Vivien would leer down at him and he'd chortle at the intimidation attempt, but the genuinely somber look in the woman's eyes merely makes him grimace. He truly, honestly hates her, "I thought you might need it, actually."

Neil knows what documents are inside the folder way before Vivien hands it over. Or, well, before he rips it out of her grasp. He doesn't think before he rises up to storm out of the door. If he stays any longer, he will legitimately do something to her. And he can't allow himself that, not yet.

Vivien's gaze trails after the hitman, unperturbed when he slams the door closet. The sound persists in the sudden silence, yet calmly her eyes land back on Cade. If she notices the light perspiration that formed on the man's brow earlier, she doesn't make any note of it, or of the blood on his lips he gnawed on. In general, there is no mention of how willing Cade might truly be to go against his old boss. That remains to be seen rather than claimed.

Vivien puts her hands away in her suit's pockets in a relaxed fashion, "What exactly is your relationship with MacDarragh?"
 
Of course Finch gets off the hook. Little brat.
Cade's eyes leave the desolate oblivion that is this woman's eyes to look at his reflection in her shiny desk instead.

Could he even really kill that man? Hell, maybe the question is could he not kill the guy? A lot has changed in the gangster's brain in just forty two hours. He's either stronger... Or, or he's stafing off a mental breakdown five years in the making.
Maybe he can pin all this on that, the hair washing, the job interview, the Tower demolition, just the utter nonsense his life has become.

Of all the people, why'd it have to be him?

They talk about Dame like he's a thing, like some tick on the dog's back. Bullet to the head sounds brutal enough, but Neil makes it sound like that's not the right caliber of death.
Well, given his shoulder, maybe some payback is in order. They both got fucked over by these guys. That injury is always going to hurt. Twenty years from now Neil is going to be heralded a witch for his ability to prophesize rain. Not that Cade's an expert.
He's never tortured anyone either. Punched them, but that's not torture, that's a message.
He's tormented people, yeah, for the hell of it.
Maybe that's the stepping stone to this.

Maybe it's something like the way the CEO torments Neil.
She gives him some documents before sending him out and fuck isn't that scary.
Not as bad as the actually sad look on her face. It looks, wrong, like some A.I program has face lifted her. Just, off.
The dogs framing her and the way she sits on the desk doesn't help.

No, actually Neil leaving in such a huff he's actually silent is scarier.
And then Cade's alone with the Amazonian woman.

Is frenemies an applicable term? The joke hovers on his tongue, but...
Vivien's taller than Neil, who's already taller than Cade. Sitting down, she might as well be a sinewy tree in comparison. And she's not even wearing high heels.
What in the world did her parents feed her?

He swallows, throat bobbing.

I wish I fucking knew.

"We bumped into one another when he was on a job," he says, the ghost of Neil's hand over his throat tickling the wolf.
"We've been...sorta acquaintances ever since. I admire the way he works. No fear, just balls to the wall."

I like how mean he is.

He straightens with a breath, ignoring the urge to rub at the sudden soreness in his back. The back of that chair is also from the underworld, same as the dogs.
They growled at Neil just for staring. The guy growled back, raising a lip to show teeth.
Cade's never heard a sound like that come from a person, at least not in the real world.
Neil doesn't fuck around with just anyone he hates either.

He has to suppress a shiver for fuck's sake.

"I'm Cade Wilson. Cadence Wilson," he corrects because she's going to find out anyway.
Man, is she ever fucking tall...
"I'll get you Finch, he trusts me so it shouldn't be a problem."

His eyes linger to the door to freedom and he wants to fucking ask.
About Neil, about her, about Finch, (asking about compensation wouldn't be bad either). Hell, he wants to ask about her robot maggots.
It all feels premature. Presumptuous.

In a panic that flares up in a silence that lasts less than five seconds, Cade's brilliant brain supplies a real winner.

"Can I pet one?"
 
Vivien's eyes bore into Cade as he speaks, digesting the answer the man presents with a neutral expression, only giving the bearest of half-hearted nods as he promises her results on the issue of retrieving the Butcher.

Just like earlier, it's his last statement (or rather question) that gets the woman to show some emotion beyond impassivity. Her slight smile is back, and while it can't be described as kind by any stretch of the imagination, it certainly is amused. Like asking to pet one of her dogs is some hilarious joke. Maybe to her, it is.

"Of course," languidly, her eyes drift down to look at one of the beasts at her feet.

The dog is already staring up at its master in adoration and affection that only spikes when it notices her attention, its short stump of a tail doing its best to wag excitedly, batting at the floor in rhythmic thumps. Viv pats her thigh in a wordless gesture and instantly the dog rests its large head there, wet eyes gazing up.

She gestures again, this time at Cade in permission to approach and... pet it, as he had requested.

The instant the gangster's hand runs over the coarse, thick fur the muscles in the dog's back tense instinctively - a ripple of the powerful flesh ends in a flash of teeth under the folds that are its jawls. A low growl of warning rumbles from deep within its chest, much like the one it had given MacDarragh some moments ago. The only thing that stops the biting snarl is Vivien's fingers scratching the top of its head, massaging between the eyes. All at once, the dog turns docile, tongue licking once at its teeth before its maw closes for good.

"Her name is Sina," Viv continues giving Sina rasping scratches, shushing her whenever the beast gives another huffing noise of discontent at the stranger touching her. Under the woman's care, the dog does not protest. Her tail even starts wagging again and she slobbers all over the CEO's suit, yet the woman doesn't seem to particularly care, fingers busy tracing the groove of an old wound on her snout, "Her brother's name is Galen. They used to be fighting dogs until they were gifted to me some years ago. Now they've been rehabilitated, naturally."

Rehabilitated not to hurt their master, anyway.

"Your words to describe MacDarragh's work ethic are certainly... choice ones. But I don't disagree," sending Sina away to lie back down on the floor once Cade has sated his desire to pet the creature, Vivien's eyes bore into him yet again, "He's always done his job without a hitch."

Until recently. Neil's always been a wild card, but he's been acting up as of late.

"If you've known him for a bit, then you're aware he can be volatile," she doesn't blink as she holds Cade's blue gaze from above, implication clear in her tone, "Maybe working alongside a partner for once will settle him down."

Neil is meant to be Cade's mentor. Cade is meant to keep Neil in check. A bout of silence passes.

"It might be wise to get your finger checked by our head researcher," Viv nods casually at the splint on the man's pinky. Taking her other hand out of her pocket, she grabs the tablet still displaying Blumenthal's dossier and hands it over to the gangster. Her voice has a finality to it as she speaks, "Unless you have any further questions, you're free to go."

---

Neil is leaning against the grey wall a little way outside of Vivien's office, staring up at the ceiling as if somehow he could see through it - pierce through all of the concrete and steel and piping to reach his destination. Reach what he's searching for, who he's searching for...

The epicrisis lies crumpled up in his hand. The paper crinkles when he squeezes to crush it further.

There's an energy buzzing the man's bones, his limbs nearly vibrating. It's like his bone marrow has become a hornet's nest.

One of these days he'll burn this place to the ground. That's a promise.
 
She doesn't seem totally bothered by the request, and that's more than Cade hoped for. Still, he gets a condescending smile, like asking is funny or some shit.
He half expects to get eaten by one of her Cliffords painted black. The thing feels big, a giant square head that dwarfs Cade's hand.

A scar he didn't notice interrupts the rough texture of fur. There's distrust in every fiber of the animal. Ears pinned back, showing the whites of their eyes. Licking their lips.
At each stroke of Taylor's hand the beast settles down, remembers it's safe.

It's a she. You'd never guess they weren't both boys. Cade grunts, but keeps his attention on the hand eating machine. He doesn't have the guts to stroke anywhere but the top of it's- of Sina's head.
It's... It's almost sweet.
'Gifted' is a suspicious word, like the dogs were used up and instead of being turned into ground meat they gave them away. Away to someone already familiar with dog fighting.

Did she train them herself?

Cade glances up at the ice queen, past the slobber wetting her thigh.
Sina dumps her weight on the floor by her master's feet and Cade's back to being the focus of attention.
He'll have to get used to that scrutinizing glare. He has practice but...
Taylor's been respectful, even nice, sorta. Whatever happened between her and Neil won't happen with Cade because Cade isn't a complete asshole.

Settle him down.

Its weird to bridle Neil when he's on his way out. Why housebreak him for someone else?

Past experience tells him to ask a question, a real one, to show interest and attentiveness in a potential job position. And he does have questions, lots of them. Will they pay for his shit? What if he gets caught?
If Delilah's part of the High-Rise now, then that means Kaden is too. Are they going to have to interact beyond this job?

Honestly, he just really wants to get out of here.
Cade takes the tablet, leaving the torture chair behind a bit more eagerly than he should.

"Thanks for meeting with me," he says, on autopilot and trying to keep his eyes locked on hers when they keep drifting to the door.

"I'll think about it."

---

Once outside, he can breathe again.
The jitters run up and down his skin, and it's a damn blessing he can walk it off.

That went well? Maybe?

It's with an embarrassing amount of relief Cade spots Neil just outside of Taylor's office.
This place isn't a maze per se, but he doesn't have a clue which floor Rory is on.

Giving his jacked finger a tentative poke, he's not exactly sure he wants to know.
Are Taylor's polite suggestions really orders in disguise?

Neil's pissed.

Genuinely actually upset. It's bizarre, maybe a little unnerving. The air around him is electric and the few people that pass know to give MacDarragh a wide berth.
It's not the guy who gets up in Cade's face to breathe hot air into his prickling skin with a smile.
This is the guy who broke his finger out of animal panic, rather than fucked sadistic pleasure.

It will never not be weird seeing Neil as human.

He clears his throat, busying himself with flicking through Damien's info. It's creepy how much they got on him.
If you'd asked Cade, he would've said his eyes were a washed out blue. Something a dramatic romance novel would describe as the sea on a stormy day.

But no, apparently they're grey. Cade didn't know that was possible, but who is he to argue with an evil corporation?
He's an inch off from six feet (does he lie about that on Tinder?), and he has a little sister.
Eleonora Blumenthal.
Cade snorts to himself.

She was at the gala.

With another flick of the screen, Damien's medical history reveals itself for a stranger to peruse.

A guy comes along with as fucked a life as Cade has, sure, he's going to look into him for morbid curiosity. They were both cops at around the same time too. The guy was a cautionary tale, something to talk about with colleagues over drinks. Yeah, the partner murder seemed a bit far fetched, the whole thing a cover up, but Cade was a kid. He wanted his own case, start to finish, which is what he did. He was stupid like that.

He never dug this far into Damien Blumenthal. If he'd known the guy was going to turn up and fuck his life, maybe he would have.

Finch fell for these eyes, that face. The exact opposite of Cade...

"You think you'll be done sulking soon? Your boss thinks I should let her guy look at my hand."
She also thinks Neil needs to be babysat. Weighted down.
It's a crazy life when Cade is the impulse control.

The gangster gives Neil's shoulder a glance and it's hard to imagine him going round two with Dame.
Apparently, MacDarragh got the guy back, but not enough to keep him from escaping the High Rise.
If it was just a bullet to the head, then yeah, sure, but they might have to rough him up first and that means getting up close.

Unless they can use Kaden.

It's a real weak spot Dami seems to have.

Fuck, they're really working together, aren't they? This is new uncharted territory for them, as if what they had previously wasn't weird enough.

"It's safe, right?" He asks, worrying the edge of the tablet screen with a fingernail.
"That...weird thing downstairs? Are you going to get your shoulder looked at?"
 
The door to Viv's office opens and Neil's eyes shoot down from staring up at the ceiling to instead pierce into the man approaching him - there Cade stands, unchanged from how he was moments ago.

Unchanged, except for the fact that now he's his new partner. His first partner.

The hitman's face scrunches up in mild displeasure, lips thinning as he frowns. What he said inside the office had been the truth - he works alone, always has. That's how he functions best, able to navigate jobs as he pleases while not being weighed down by anyone. Typical that Vivien, as much of an insufferable bitch as she is, would choose to get MacDarragh tied down with someone for his "last job", as if he's going to believe something as blatantly false as that.

Question is, what angle exactly is she trying to play?

Neil's clenches his fist again, paper rustling. The exchange didn't work... Well, at the very least this gives him the chance to make good on what he told Cade - to help him, to show him how to be a "bad motherfucker". And in doing so, maybe he can even prevent Viv from digging her conniving claws further into the gangster. He'd hate to see Wolf get metaphorically spayed and neutered the way those poor cane corsos did. The leash has been thrown around the man's neck (or rather, he put it there himself, the fool), yet it hasn't been tightened quite yet.

There's time to prevent that.

Cade asks if he'll be done sulking soon and Neil scoffs, putting the crumpled document away in his coat pocket. In a flash, a sharp smile slips onto the hitman's face with practiced ease "You kept me waiting. Did the two of you have a... nice, long chat?"

Oh, MacDarragh would love to know what they talked about.

Apparently, part of it had been about going to see Rory. Of course. A new recruit comes in and instantly Viv wants to send him over as a guinea pig for her precious boy genius.

"It's experimental technology, what do you think?" supposedly, it's safe. Supposedly, it works well too, not that he'll tell that to the gangster. Neil's never used TreaTech's miracle flesh cure, and he doesn't intend to start using it any time in the foreseeable future. Call him old-fashioned, but he believes in scalpels and stitches. He believes in not accepting anything from Viv too, "No, I won't get my shoulder looked at."

Moving away from where he'd been leaning against the wall, MacDarragh starts walking back to the reception area, shoes clacking against the marble tile in the same manner as earlier. Cade's boots squeak to announce that he's following, and Neil chuckles to himself as the gangster struggles to rectify the noise. The guy's hilarious.

This time the elevator is blissfully empty, so Neil doesn't have to waste time intimidating anyone off of it for the two to be alone. He starts talking basically as soon as the doors have closed.

"We have two targets," Neil nods his head towards the tablet Cade is holding.

... Fuck, that sentence sounds weird. 'We'. Once again he reiterates to himself that they're partners, at least for the time being. It's kind of funny, honestly. Maybe even exciting. Wolf is skilled, that's without question, and the two have great chemistry in bed, yet that's never guaranteed to translate over into great chemistry in the workplace.

Still, one thing that's certain is that this job will be very interesting, considering who their two targets are.

"It'll be good to get them simultaneously, considering that they're likely on the run together."

"I have a way of smoking out Blumenthal," the brief Viv has provided probably contains all of the ex-cop's personal info, maybe even shit Damien isn't aware of. It for sure contains the identity of his parole officer, yet it's unlikely that they've gathered all of the Montesanos' daily movements and routines. MacDarragh, however, has been surveilling that household for weeks. For this kind of situation precisely, "It would involve baiting him out with a close friend of his. Or her family, anyway."

Neil's eyes scrutinize Cade for several prolonged moments before he chuckles lightly. When he speaks, his voice is laced with teasing amusement, "Unless you have better ideas, mentee."

The numbers on the elevator panel keep slowly changing, going lower and lower. The labs are located further down than the offices and conference rooms and all of that corporate mess. It's per safety and evacuation requirements. For ease of access too, "Also, we're coming up on Rory's floor soon. It's your choice if you want to subject yourself to his bullshit, but I wouldn't recommend it."
 
Neil left him at the alter. Or tried to.

Cade wishes he could be more pissed by that, but the tally sheet he has against him and every damn living thing in this city is getting too long.

No, this is... Fuck, it's good. Maybe it's the dopamine rush from facing the dragon lady and coming out unsinged, but Cade almost feels nice. Optimistic, even with Crazy's unrelenting teasing.
He's at a place that gives out tablets. Not to show his poorness or anything, but this place is fucking cool and he has a legitimate chance of getting up in the world.

There's even the possibility of being a cop again...

"I don't like involving women. Or kids," Cade huffs, leaning into the elevator wall. In the privacy of the box, he can comfortably continue his invasive research. Even though every slick haired, polished boot asshole here has to be twisted and evil it still feels wrong to read a hit list out in the open.

This Montesano's a working mother of three. She's a good cop, if this is anything to go off of. There was a major conflict of interest to make her Damien's parole officer and he wonders if there was under the table tampering involved there too.
In any case, apparently Neil's soft spot for pubescent little shits only goes so far. The guy's willing to traumatize and endanger a couple kids if it gets him what he wants. Knowing what he knows now about Neil, Cade realizes he could be so much worse. All things considered, he's almost all together when the guy should be answering phone calls on a banana in a place where the walls are white and cushioned.

"It would be easiest though...I know Finch. At a time like this he'll go where he feels safest. That'll be with Damien if it can't be the Black Bitch."

Cade picks at his lip. It's already scrabbed over from where he'd chewed on it with his teeth. Damn, he did that shit in front of the CEO...
Neil stares at him for, like, a weird amount of time.
A shark toothed grin burns Cade alive.
Most people would see a look like that and want to head to the other corner of the elevator. Instead, the hair on the back of Cade's neck raises.

He stays right where he is.

Somehow, he's going to have to make it work with Crazy Eyes.
For the most part, MacDarragh's been either too pissed or too out of his element to terrorize Cade. If only Cade could force him unconscious, or tie him down more often, but it would still be nothing when all Neil needs to do is send a smile his way. Or make a stupid ass comment.

He's going to have to face Kaden. With MacDarragh, and Damien sprinkled in for good measure.
It's a fucking nightmare.
But for what's at the finishing line it might be worth it.

"I'm just gonna look," Cade argues with his 'mentor', handing off the tablet. "Maybe you've been apart of every conspiracy and sasquatch sighting, but I'd like to see how the sausage gets made."

And he needs some damn breathing room.

The elevator trills in a too happy way before the doors open. Its not the sleek darkness of every other level. That doesn't mean its nice or friendly. There isn't a creature comfort to be seen.
It's not that he needs Neil, but Cade definitely notices when the guy chooses to hang back. This is all old news to him, and not only is it old, it rubs him the wrong way. Like everything here. And Cade thought he was jaded.

It's pretty par for the course.

Cade was expecting some giant lasers and potentially evil dentist chairs with automatic cuffs that snapped shut on their unsuspecting victim. But it's a regular, run of the mill lab.
Microscopes, glass cabinets of liquids and pills. Every free surface of wall is either a warning, a reminder to use safe lab etiquette or a diagram.
The thing that most resembles a torture machine is a fountain that sprays twin jets of water into your eyes.

It's almost disappointing.

In a branching room Rory's perched on a stool, eating a bowl of microwaved ramen noodles. Apparently everyone else left for lunch
Rather than say 'hi' to the mad scientist, the gangster peruses. There's a wall of plastic boxes. Each one is filled with some saw dust, a feeder and a rat. Most of them are the white ones with the creepy red eyes. One or two have grey patches and black eyes. Thankfully, none of them have a dissected limb to grow back.

There is one box, with little white scratches on the front. The grey white rat inside is walking in a circle.
A continuous, uninterrupted circle. Like it's stuck on a track or something.
Cade doesn't believe most people have souls, let alone animals but there is something just dead about it's empty beady black eyes. Nobody's upstairs in this little buddy's head.

"What's up with Ratatouille here?"

This time it's Rory who's caught off guard, jolting and slapping the table. Apparently he never noticed the two-seventy pound dude rummaging around his stuff.
Daintily, he covers his mouth, coughing through his noodles at what must be the last person he'd expect to make a visit.
Honestly, he can't blame him. Cade's not really the science-y type, and he definitely doesn't look it either.

"Yeah-" Rory wrangles a wayward noodle from his mouth with a pair of chopsticks. The kid tugs an airpod from an ear. "Hello. I know it looks bad but that's an improvement."

"An improvement?" Cade scoffs, tapping gently on the box. It doesn't so much as flick an ear. There's a squiggly groove made in the wood chips from the rat's pacing. You pull the boxes out like a drawer to scoop the poor bugger out, like it's just another tool. If it was lifted out, would it's legs keep paddling like it was still on the ground?

"Yesterday she was stuck on her back. Still trying to figure out how to help her, but I'm close."

Rory doesn't elaborate, whether the thing was paralyzed, brain dead or crippled. It wasn't moving, now it won't stop.

"You come to get that checked out?" Rory asks, and his eyes are on Cade's hand. The researcher twists his sticks into the bucket of noodles. Without looking away, he manipulates another noodle into his mouth, lapping the broth from his lips with a swipe of his tongue.

Cade tucks the hand out of sight. "No, mostly just to look around-"
"How much can you lift?"

The question comes out of nowhere and seems to surprise them both.
Rory takes the tip of a chopstick between his teeth.

"I can bench three seventy, maybe four," he murmurs, too caught off guard by the zombified rat to really boast in a place like this.

Rory inhales tightly, letting it out in a sudden sigh. There's a lazy, appreciative look in his eyes.
"You could lift like three of me."

Okay.

Cade clears his throat. "Man, fuck off with-"

"And you still got yourself hurt," Rory murmurs, planting his chin into his hand. He's got long fingers, pale skin. A few bracelets hang loosely on his wrist, half hidden by the sleeves of his hoodie.
"Just like Neil. All the power and gusto in the world and you're just brittle bone wrapped up in flesh that tears like paper. I am very interested to know how good he'll do in the field missing an arm."

Cade feels a frown snap onto his face. He's not sure why. Neil doesn't need to defend himself to this creep and he definitely doesn't need Cade to do it for him.
MacDarragh could split this kid open before he knew what had even happened.

"Hey, I'm not doubting him. I'm just saying there's something almost gratuitous about him, don't you think? Ya'know, the Joker grinning, the swagger, the mindless and horrible violence. He's like a caricature of himself," Rory explains and his face softens. He looks like a regular young man, a stupid hipster one, but still halfway normal.
"So every once in a while I like to remind him he's human like the rest of us."

"He's crazy enough to kill you for that," Cade warns, seeing in his head Rory's pale, sun starved hand swatting Neil's cheek.

"If some teasing and disrespect for personal boundaries - something he does to other people relentlessly - is enough to kill me over than I think that says worse about him than me."

"I don't think he'd care."

The kid genius shrugs. "That's the whole point. He does care, that's what makes it fun. I'm a scrimpy kid from Manitoba, he's a badass assassin. I make a comment, he threatens to kill me. I shouldn't even be on his radar, and he wants to break my arm for touching him. He knows I do it to get a rise out of him, and he still can't help it. It must be hell being that fragile. Physically and emotionally."

"Neil's not afraid of anything."

"Except hugs," Rory supplies casually. "He categorizes people as either beneath him or on par, but then still considers their behavior or opinion of him as relevant enough to act. You must be an exceptionally... friendly person if he can tolerate you for any length of time," he says, putting special emphasis on 'friendly' while his eyes look Cade up and down.
The gangster feels like he's being insulted, but can't quite be sure how.
All he knows is being slapped across the face doesn't really count as an opinion. It's in-your-face disrespect, something Neil doesn't put up with because he's not a pussy.

"You really think you have him figured out?" Cade says instead, maybe a bit desperate to stay out of this ninny's spotlight. Has he psychoanalyzed everyone he works with? Even the knife eyed CEO bitch? Will he be next?

"I have the human condition figured out. I enjoy the power rush of teasing a guy who wants to believe he's invincible and watching him squirm when he can't do anything about it because if he did kill me not only would he be in a heap of trouble, he'd know someone far beneath him got him to snap," Rory says without a smile, but no less delighted.
He has the enthusiasm and brightness of a kid talking about something they're passionate about, talking with their hands and eyes darting.
The researcher breathes in, and takes twice as long to exhale once he's finished.

"I'm not proud of it," Rory admits after the rant, "but I like the drama. I really need to work on myself. It's problematic."

It's... freakishly like talking to Neil. The two psychos overlap, not by very much but the similarities are there.
Rory pokes the tiger's back for fun. Cade had guessed that a while back, but to hear this whole dissection of MacDarragh be told this casually makes his blood chill. Does the kid know where MacDarragh comes from? His past? Has he seen the scars on his back?
Neil was cozied up against Cade this morning. He'd like to think he was the only one privileged to see something like that, but apparently Rory doesn't have to see it to know.

But Rory is harmless.

The rat cursed to walk in circles has gradually found itself against the wall of the cage. It's greasy fur smears the once clear surface as it passes, eye half closed but not enough to keep it from pressing against the plastic. The wet eye leaves a smear not half as blurry as the rest of it's sweat soaked body.

"I could have it fixed in an hour," Rory says, and the change in topic nearly gives Cade whiplash. The gangster looks down at his hand, as if realizing for the first time the damn thing's broken when he's positive Rory never forgot.
The swelling has gone down, but it still hasn't stopped hurting. It'll be a prime target if he gets into a fight.

"I uh..."

The stool gives a wailing shriek when Rory pushes away from his desk. He's suddenly too close, even when he hasn't breached Cade's personal bubble.
The kid scoops out a rat, not the crazy one, but with the pink eyes and flicking nose it's hard to judge this one's sanity too. The researcher rubs behind it's ear before taking an eyedropper full of liquid silver. He pinches the rat's jaw open, letting two fat drops fall past the ugly buck teeth and down it's little mouth.

"Good boy," Rory says, scrubbing the back of its head with a knuckle. The rat doesn't particularly react, to the goo or to the researcher. It sniffs again, exploring the surface of the table once it's set down.
Rory pulls a noodle from his bowl, jangling it in front of the rat for the thing to paw at and grab.

Rory's putting on gloves next. The rubber snags and snaps over his skin.
It's funny, it's not the appearance of them or the feel. It's the sound. That meaty, elastic slapping.
Cade puts a hand on the table to steady himself while he breathes through the sudden vertigo and his finger simultaneously aches too much and not nearly enough.

"You okay with a little blood, beef cake?" Rory asks and his head is dipped, edging into a sudden and private moment.
Jaw clenched, Cade nods.

The scalpel slices through flesh like a razor.
The noodle is forgotten as the rat springs away, a few beads of blood dripping onto the table and being smeared by it's flurry of paws. It twists in a wild circle, not unlike the crazy one, trying to reach the cut at it's back. It's placed in such a way it can't quite reach while still giving Cade and Rory a front seat view.
It doesn't cry, it doesn't squeal. It just flails in confused agony.

Like the display case upstairs, but bloodier and hairier, the slit begins to draw together.
Rory scoops up the rat, and it doesn't even scratch him. Not even after being hurt by him.
The researcher spreads the fur aside to show the wound, keeping it from getting stuck inside as the skin brings itself together like two sides of a sweater being zipped up.
Without the special glass, all Cade can see is a faint silver outline along the cut. At the nexus of the joining wound, hundreds of gooey red-white webbing pulls the skin closed like teeny tiny threads.
Underneath, the muscle strands and layers are tugged back together like melting taffy.

Left behind is a faint, white scar.

Rory offers the rat it's half unfinished noodle, but the animal twists it's head away. It gets put back in it's cage where it can watch it's cellmate walk in an endless circle.

Rory sets to cleaning the table. With paper towel before dousing it in a chemical that leeches into the air.
"I get it if you're anxious. Our biggest problem now is how the hell marketing is going to sell magical bug goo to the population. It might just be a thing we shell out to the military."

The kid genius sends a look around like a weasel poking it's head from a hole. It's an odd gesture to do in an empty room filled with no one but a wall of rats.

"I'm not technically allowed to do this, but I'll give you a few vials for the road."
Rory ducks under the table he'd been eating at, dropping a small case on top of it.
Inside is a foam encased injection gun. Next to it are little bullet shaped pills. Through the pill casing, the goo inside swirls and pulses like a living thing. There's what looks like a few pairs of bracelets also carefully packaged inside the Styrofoam.

Rory doesn't explain them.

"Shoot it where the injury is for a speedier recovery. They dissolve after they're done working."
"They do?"
"Yeah. It's one and done. You're not gonna become the Wolverine. I haven't gotten that far yet."

The case closes with a click. The researcher flicks the locks into place before sliding it towards Cade.
Hesitantly, the gangster reaches for the case and the contents he doesn't fully comprehend. Not just from a science perspective, but a human one.
He feels like that rat, the one sliced open for a demonstration.
Too oblivious to understand the noodle in his mouth is a distraction, not a reward for good behavior.

"How far have you gotten? Further than this?" Cade asks.

He takes the case.

"Ah, no spoilers," Rory says with a smile and a wink. The researcher returns to his shrieking stool and his tepid noodles. Apparently, Cade's been dismissed again.
"Let Mr. MacDarragh know he's more than welcome to a shot if he ever gets tired of being exclusively left handed for the next six weeks."
 
Cade doesn't like involving women. Now that gets a good chuckle out of Neil. Guess this is where the gangster's morality stands - in some good old-fashioned chivalry. How misguided.

"Oh, get over yourself, Cade," the hitman huffs through another amused grin, "That's the kind of mentality that gets you killed in this line of work."

Allow yourself to underestimate the "fairer sex" and you've tricked yourself into being the vulnerable one in the interaction. Cade should know this well enough - he was among the ranks of the Black Bitch's gang until recently and is now vying to be Viv's loyal pet. A lot of the most prolific assassins also just so happen to be female. Women aren't defenseless creatures. Children on the other hand... Well, Neil doesn't intend to hurt any children, of course. But they are a great bargaining chip to get a hold of, and it's not like the parents need to be aware that their kids are perfectly fine. The implication of harm - that's all that's needed, really.

Regardless of his ridiculous misgivings, Wolf actually concedes to the plan.

Kaden is likely to stick close to Damien, that's good to know. And MacDarragh does trust that Cade is familiar with his boss to be able to ascertain such a likelihood. Ex-boss. The hitman's eyes pierce into the gangster much like when Vivien originally brought up retrieving the Butcher. She is curious to see how Cade will react to his old employer, if he will be faithful to his new master. Likewise, Neil has his own reasons for being very curious.

Before they can discuss any more details, Cade informs that he will in fact go check in with Rory, if only to have a look. What a waste of time, "It's your funeral. Just don't keep me waiting."

---

Cade kept him waiting. Any amount of time Neil is left hanging about constitutes as waiting in his eyes, really, but it is true that the gangster took his sweet time with the prick. Wonder what they talked about... Knowing Rory, he spouted a lot of nonsense. Showed some nonsense too, probably. Nonsense that managed to get under Cade's skin, if his distracted state after the fact was any evidence. And for all of that, he didn't even get his finger fixed up by the twerp. No, instead the guy came back with a case full of several doses of magic sludge to use as needed. That, and an offer for MacDarragh to help himself to some if he "gets tired of being exclusively left-handed for the next six weeks."

It made Neil snicker when the message was relayed to him the first time, and it makes him snicker now again thinking back on it, as he fusses with his keychain.

The two aren't at TreaTech anymore. Under the hitman's directions, Cade drove them out to a different building, a residential one. Well, not that it looks like that on the outside at a first glance - the place used to be a printing company sometime during the early last century and its industrial past clearly shows in its facade, even if it's long since been repurposed into an apartment complex.

The front door to Neil's place opens easily enough even with him only using his left hand. If Rory really thinks he'll be bothered by such a predicament, the creep has no fucking idea who he's dealing with. All at once being exclusively left-handed for six weeks has become a personal challenge to the hitman, and he loves nothing more than a challenge. As a matter of fact, dealing with such a handicap should make this upcoming mission all the more interesting. With or without the injury, he'll be able to take down Blumenthal. He's eager to find out if all the talk surrounding the Butcher is in fact all talk and no substance, and considering the pathetic state he witnessed the guy in last, MacDarragh is starting to draw his own conclusions.

Anyway, he will be Cade's issue to deal with. After all... the two are "partners". Gotta delegate work.

"Mi casa es su casa," smiling over his shoulder, the hitman swings open the door and strides in.

The first thing that resounds on the other side is the gentle white noise of the Roomba as it goes about its timer-scheduled daily routine of keeping the floor clean while its owner is away. The robot passes by the entry hallway in a coincidental greeting before resuming its rounds. It has a twin on the upper floor too, or, well, the upper half-floor. This is one of those industrial lofts - all metal railings and concrete floors and exposed beams up hanging above; half of the walls are wooden panels, half are rough brick interrupted by large grid windows looking out. Apart from the high ceiling, the space is actually relatively compact.

People have called it unfriendly and cold in the past. Neil likes that it looks raw and sleek. It's fucking cool, filled with shit he finds personally cool because it's not like he furnished the apartment to be to anyone else's liking but his own.

Honestly, the only thing MacDarragh desperately wants to add is a large fish tank as a divider in the kitchen, one of those feeding a self-sustaining garden on top that he could grow herbs out of. But that takes way too much maintenance and he's rarely home. As a matter of fact, with him being constantly on the move, he isn't even sure he can refer to this as "home". It's not like the hitman really sleeps here that much. Well, the space is very useful for two other things - gearing up, and bringing over the occasional booty call.

"Don't break anything or your first company paycheck is gonna be spent reimbursing me," Neil throws out a casual warning while he continues maneuvering the space, headed straight for one of the wooden panel walls. Laying his hand on top of it, he briefly pauses, before turning back to Cade with a grin, voice a slither past his lips, "That, or you could suck my dick as an alternative."

There is a small divet interrupting the surface, one that perfectly fits another key on MacDarragh's keychain, and all at once the hidden door beneath his hand gives way. That's another thing he likes about the apartment - half of the things here have secret storage, seams made so flush with the surroundings you wouldn't recognize them unless you knew where to look. If Cade goes searching for the bathroom that's gonna be hilarious.

The room Neil walks into is a special type of storage. It's a weapons cache.

The layout is reminiscent of that of a walk-in closet, but only a couple of the shelves are taken up by clothing, black and nondescript. The others contain what one would expect from a hitman, or maybe a spy. It's all well-organized weapons ranging from knives (a whole bunch of knives) to different degrees of firearms. Some experimental shit too - an oversized rifle-like gun that looks like it was ripped straight out of a sci-fi movie sits behind some glass. MacDarragh was gifted that one, but hasn't actually tested it, ever. Randomly, there's an umbrella too, right next to what appears to be a lipstick case amongst other out-of-place paraphernalia. The whole thing is a bit movie-esque, honestly. Neils likes that too.

It's a shame that most of the weaponry won't be seeing the light of day, not on this assignment, non-lethal as it's supposed to be. For now.

"Feel free to peruse, but we're only taking what we're going to need," speaking of which, unlocking yet another wooden panel, Neil pulls out a small drawer. A stack of passports stares back at him from within - different colors and insignia according to the country of origin. Every single one of them contains a photo bearing the man's likeness, but only one of them has the name Neil MacDarragh. He hasn't needed to use any of these identifications for some time. Not since Vivien inherited her position...

Regardless, that's not what he's looking for right now. Montesano has three children - an older teen and two younger twins. The path of least resistance would be to get ahold of her sons under the guise of Natalia's work friends. And if they go down this path - if he and Neil are to play policemen - then the gangster is going to need a badge at the very least. Might be wise to have one either way.

MacDarragh hums to himself, still looking for the backup badge he has stashed away, "Your brother would be happy to see you back on the force, wouldn't he?"
 
At first, Cade's not sure where they're going or why. It's disturbing he doesn't ask, especially when from the outside the location doesn't really make all that much sense for what they're fixing to do. He just follows the directions, too focused on lunchtime traffic to question it.

Maybe that's a bad sign, that he has this much trust already. If it's something important, Neil will let him know and if he doesn't, the guy will take care of it. They are partners, afterall.

So it shouldn't be a shock to walk through the door and be suddenly flung into a bare bones, skeletal living arrangement of some bum trying to be sophisticated and different. It's like an art project of an apartment, rough around the edges and even a bit grungy without ever actually being...

Oh, Neil lives here.

Su casa was in fact literal and not Neil being facetious again.
A Roomba says hello on one of its cleaning passes, leaving the floor it's gone over just as clean as the rest it hasn't touched yet. Neil doesn't come here often. It's home, but only in the barest sense.
It's all open concept, but there's no bed so that must mean it's up in loft. It's funny, thinking of him bringing women here. Not that he would know, but do chicks really dig a place like this?

"Yeah, yeah," Cade says, waving the guy off while he touches something, mostly to be difficult and partly because it's a cube lava lamp. Everything about Neil has to be a twisted commentary on life, doesn't it? What's he trying to say with a hipster lamp?

Cade had normal things where he stayed. Like a PlayStation and a box of cereal. Toilet bowl cleaner, couch pillows, that sorta thing. He was at least pretending to be grown.
That's all gone now, but he did have it. In comparison, Neil's place feels not empty exactly, but one dimensional almost. He's not Neil MacDarragh, occupation; experienced killer. He's a hitman who happens to have the name Neil MacDarragh.

The alternative payment to breaking one soulless article of Neil's life makes Cade's brain stutter like an old computer. The gangster releases the lava lamp like it's a live coal.
He can feel himself go red in the face as he gives this asshole the bird because he doesn't know what his mouth would say if he opened it. Crazy is pulling his chain, like everybody does, but that never makes it any easier.

And then, to add insult to injury, Neil presses into a panel of wood. It must be a hidden hand hold of the door to the bathroom.

Instead of a toilet, a secret room of weapons unveils itself.

"I fucking hate you," Cade says around a smile. He sets the case of magic bug juice on the kitchen counter, walking passed the threshold between artsy fartsy and James freaking Bond.
There's shit in here Cade doesn't even know the name of and he knows the name of everything. There's a truly freakish, alien looking gun behind glass that he's choosing to believe is a set piece to a movie.

MacDarragh is Batman.

"You're one crazy mofo, man," he says in a voice that's halfway gitty.

It's cool, okay. Cade's not a big enough douche to act like it's not. He has a secret compartment of fucking guns.
And fake passports and I.Ds. Again, this maniac shifts out of Cade's draw sights. There's a good chance MacDarragh isn't even his real name. Hell, there's a chance his backstory isn't real either. This dude, with the jacked up shoulder and poisonous smile is a complete stranger and at anytime he could twist and bite.

But no warning bells go off in his head. If anything, he feels like he knows Green Eyes better than he did before.

"As if you have a uniform that could fit me, princess," Cade sneers, picking up a knife rather than the very suspicious lipstick. It's probably not real make-up, right? But what's the alternative? What kind of weapon can you stick into something that small?

Man, he's out of his wheelhouse. The difference between him and this guy have never been made more clear. If Cade was willing to feel a little bit more sorry for himself, he'd wonder why MacDarragh ever spent the light of day on him.
In a fight, they're maybe equals. In a gun fight (not that they've had the chance to compare), maybe Cade would've finally had the upper hand but now...

Maybe there isn't one thing he does better than Neil.

"As long as we're not hurting them, I'm fine with taking the kids. But Finch won't care. He'll call your bluff or flank us if Damien quote, unquote 'comes alone'. He doesn't have a soft spot for anyone. We need to separate them."

He grips his own jaw, feeling along the edge.
Fucking shit.
In his mind, Kaden looms over him with that dead, impassive stare.
Your teeth, he says.

The gangster carries the hand up over his head, smoothing down the pinpricks of hair. A heavy exhale disturbs the peace.
How fucking stupid is he to forget something like that? There's just been so much...

"Hey," Cade grunts, "you mind if I christen your toilet? I gotta piss."

Neil mentioned pulling his teeth out. For a snuff film, if Cade remembers right.
It was a joke, but as he twists around to pursue some semblance of privacy, he has to wonder if Neil would actually do it.
It's a fleeting thought, that much fainter when he leaves the Batcave behind. Maybe if he looks in the mirror he can see which one might have the implant.
After that? Fuck... Who knows.

Cade frowns. He walks across the pompous apartment to the door.
Without twisting the knob, it opens.

"Did you come in last or did I?"
 
---

Despite his body's best efforts to the contrary, Kaden does sleep. It's a fitful, frail sleep that blurs the line between wakefulness and true sleep.
Delilah shoves him deeper into the darkness, or she was never there in the first place. She's beside him after escaping from Ortiz, and than, abruptly, she's gone.
Gone to fight something else, gone to fuck something else. Anything but stay next to him.

You were too much...

Finch doesn't wake so much as he opens his eyes. A smooth transition from the darkness behind his eyelids and the darkness of a room he doesn't recognize.
Without a phone or a working clock, it's impossible to know for sure what time it is. There is no light in the window, but in the dead of winter it could still be dark at eight o'clock.
Pawl is a dark lump, still waiting for her own turbulent life to settle enough so she can find peace to sleep.

It won't happen. Not for either of them. Not like this.

The bedframe wheezes when he leaves it, crying out just as the floor does to be stepped on.
The pajamas bottoms he leaves, but the top is warm, plain and most importantly not tacky with sweat.
After a primitive touch up in the bathroom, he feels a modicum return on his dignity, his sense of self. His hand shakes when it reaches for the crystal doorknob, but the tremors aren't fear related. Holding a hand still, it shakes like a wet dog.
He's shaking.

The door opens with another sad squawk and Kaden curses this house and all it's memories and age that make it this way. A perfunctory glance both ways shows the gaping darkness of a still and quiet home.
Quiet, that is, until the capo takes a step. Its an echoing snap that seems to travel through the house like a nerve signal. Like a fly in a web, tugging on the strands. Miserable, mewling little fly.
The noise becomes outwardly rambunctious and rebellious when he reaches the stairs. Knowing Damien's harsh family and dictator like parents it's not hard to imagine a young Damien moving in Finch's shaking footsteps.

After another ghostly moan, Kaden freezes. He breathes in, moves lower to the ground. Every muscle protests being pulled taut, bones creaking and crackling like this forsaken house.
His exhale comes out smooth. His next step he takes on the edge of his foot. The lamenting wails are quieted, appeased, but not by much.

There is a certain step Kaden knows howls from when he was brought up. He steps over it, letting the proverbial sleeping dog lie.

When he reaches the landing, he can breathe again. The wall he needs to steady himself, unfortunately. Not only is he shaking, he's weak.
The months alone have ground him down like a river over stone. Last night he was shaved down to a nub, whatever little was left of him pulverized into a powder.

The phone Malcom left isn't here.

Not that he can see, even after daring to turn a light on. It would make most sense to sleep with something like that, evidently what Damien has done with both his own phone and his gun.
Neither are here.
His head light, Kaden regretfully opens Eleonora's fridge. With a finger along the seam, he's able to break the vacuum silently.
Dairy will keep him fuller longer, but protein will give him the strength he needs without making him feel hollow in an hour like a carb would. But meat is a far more expensive than either.

When was the last time he stole food?

Like a disgusting vermin, he eats Eleonora's sandwich meat and, regretfully, whatever he can saw off a block of cheddar.
He chews and chews, and it's as if his throat has forgotten how to swallow, passing the food from cheek to cheek. Even as his mouth waters, his stomach says no.

It's fuel, it's just fuel.

That helps it go down.
It was years ago, when he was with his mother. He would go to church and while the good people had their heads bowed, he would excuse himself to the gentleman's room and take what he could. God forgives and saves, but back then all he wanted was bread.

He's always taken. From bad and good alike.

And he takes again when he robs Eleonora of a winter coat that looks like it might fit him. It zips up in the front, but it is tight around his shoulders. Such constriction is almost soothing as feels hemmed in, like he's two pieces of loose thread that have become unbraided made partially whole again. Feeling down the fabric, the irrational thought occurs to him; he wishes this was Damien's jacket.

The capo sends a final look into Damien's childhood home before he turns away into the cold.

---

It is later in the night than he thought. The city never really sleeps, but the people change in accordance to the time. The young and the shady have retired and the middle aged, yellow vested men are out.
It's earlier than early.
In a few hours suits will be out to complain how early it is without ever knowing how early it truly could be.

"Yes mom," the working man nods, walking at a clipped pace. He sneers at a bikeman that rushes by.
"No, I told you I can't come over right now. It's twenty minutes out of my way and I'm already late. If you can't get the heating working yourself, knock on a neighbor's door."

Finch keeps pace behind him. Rather than a predator stalking prey, he feels like a dog tip toeing behind a sausage vendor.
The stranger is big and his hands are so worn they resist the cold like the leathery skin wrapping them are gloves themselves.

Finch recalls the cursed gloves he began this journey with and how much he hates them for isolating him from the world while still keeping him so bone achingly cold.
He misses them.
Nothing could be colder than this.

He taps on a bulbous shoulder.

When the troglodyte turns, Finch is already on his opposite side and slipping the phone from his hand. His mother's voice is a tinny blur in the background.

"Wha- hey!" The man's roar slaps his back, but Finch is already sprinting down the street.
By the thunderous footsteps, Finch doesn't have to look to know he's being chased. The man will be red faced, out for blood for a phone. So much like the man Damien stood in front of. They had been strangers then, and not on the best of terms. Still, the ex-cop put himself in harm's way.

Damien's not here now.

Stealing is more tolerated when you're a child, and even then he'd been slapped and had things thrown at him.
Mostly by other children.
When he needed a phone, the easiest and safest grab were other children. Being caught by anyone else would have been the end of him.

Finch attacks the chain link fence, scrambling up it's face like a particularly motivated cat.
He lands and rolls to disperse the energy in his dismount.
The fence rattles fiercely when the man slams into it next, barking curses at Finch.

"You're trash!" He screams at the capo's retreating back. "You hear me?! You're trash! Fuck you and fuck the woman you came out of!"

Finch doesn't argue.

---

The app isn't particularly high end or expensive. The icon is a pixelated dog and when clicked on, it winks and wags its tail.
Sometimes the most innocuous things can be the most practical and efficient.
And unassuming.

Kaden doesn't know this part of the city well.

He doesn't know this building either. Cadence doesn't have family here and there's no Black Dogs outposts either.
It's on the edges of the High Rise, only recently liberated from the Nakurra.
In the lobby he went through half the call buttons before someone unlocked the door for him.

Everyone's always expecting someone.

The capo checks the screen again, if only to confirm the ludicrous information. Fortunately, though this is an apartment complex it's more squat than tall. Finch won't have to waste an incredible amount of time checking each apartment that lines up with the Black Dog's position.

But Cade isn't really a Black Dog anymore, is he? Neither of them are, not really. Their most substantial tie has been severed. Or perhaps that happened the night before the raid, when he unclipped Cade from his leash and told him to find greener grass. The man had spat at the freedom, the same way he always has.
If Kaden had known when and how the High Rise would decimate them, he would've put the man in safer keeping.

But he's alive.

Unless someone is dragging his corpse around at an alarming speed, his friend is still alive. Somehow, someway, his second survived the raid and the following explosion.
Another step further into the unusual building brings a small smile to Kaden's face, a light breeze to his heavy stone heart.
Another tear builds and threatens to fall at the memory of blue eyes and strong arms and a broad chest.

Almost there...

The door is closed, but unlocked.

Perhaps Kaden should knock but he hears Cade's voice and his search is over and he blinks rapidly to wash the tears away.
It is unmistakenly his.
Rough and overconfident, desperately attempting to shadow the smallness he feels inside.

Finch twists the handle and pushes the door open.

There's a second voice, male.
The timber instantly rakes over his mind with stabbing, scalding familiarity.
Its a slimy, warm voice, one that caresses the skin like the edge of a knife.

"As long as we're not hurting them, I'm fine with taking the kids."
It's Cade's voice again, coming from what appears to be a hidden room in this otherwise underwhelming apartment.

"But Finch won't care," the gangster says, clearer as Kaden draws closer.
"He'll call your bluff or flank us if Damien quote, unquote 'comes alone'. He doesn't have a soft spot for anyone. We need to separate them."

This floor is far more forgivable. It is the only thing in the capo's life that is forgiving. The cement doesn't squeak in pain as Kaden backsteps. This floor and this home is indifferent to the breath caught in his lungs as he stumbles.

He can't make it to the door.

Just as Cade steps into view, Finch ducks down behind the kitchen counter.
The Roomba is going over the kitchen, so familiar with the architecture of the building it no longer bumps into the drawers and cabinets.
Finch lifts a leg out of the way, holding his breath as it vaccuums underneath him.

"Did you come in last or did I?" Cade asks, throwing his voice to be heard by the man he's keeping company with.

This is MacDarragh's apartment.
 
---

Conley is in the corner.

Conley is in the corner, a bullet hole gaping in the middle of his forehead, just like Mike - a third eye forcefully opened, dark and hollow, save for the lights flashing from within its abyss. Blue and red bathe the interior of the room interchangeably, but they don't disperse the shadows. Merely bend them, making the black tendrils twist and jump. Like tendons beneath cut-open flesh.

It's nearly mesmerizing. So much so that maybe even if he had the choice, Damien wouldn't look away. As things stand now, though, he doesn't have a choice but to hold Conley's unblinking gaze with his own.

He isn't sure if he is asleep. It feels like he's mostly asleep, anyway, even if his eyes are wide open.

The ex-cop's body slumbers, limp and useless lump of flesh, yet his mind teeters on the edge between dreams and reality, and so the two bleed into each other.

This waking nightmare is somehow neither yet both.

The young man he shot visited him on the night Moore died as well, and ever since then Conley's hauntings have become more or less regular. It's the same every time - he'll just stand there, peering out from the corner, whether in the apartment at the Black Dogs' tower or here, in Damien's childhood bedroom. Sometimes the ex-cop wonders if this really is Dan, his consciousness roving outside of his comatose body to exact quiet revenge on the man that crippled him.

Damien nearly made a deal for Conley - if nothing else, the High-Rise would have been able to provide the best medical care money can buy. The kid would have been cared for. He could have walked again, he could have possibly gotten back on the force. Or the ex-cop was simply deluding himself into such an optimistic outcome, hoping against hope. Well, at the end of the day, that bargain wasn't about being a good person, not really. It was selfish, disgustingly so. He just wants the guilt to go away.

But then Damien ended up escaping, rescinding the deal, and Daniel knows this. He knows everything. His stare doesn't need to be harsh to burn in judgment - it's with a cold relentlessness that it burrows into the person who inspired a boy to become a policeman, then ripped all of that and more away from him.

Being hurt by someone you trust hurts the worst. Like what Damien did to Kaden...

Conley's face melts. Like a body left out in the sun, his flesh and blood sag into formless gore before some invisible hand begins to mold the rotting meat like clay. Transforming it into dirty blonde hair and sharp green eyes, and a smile like a knife's edge. The permeating reek of decomposition is suddenly replaced by the reek of cigarettes, and it's that that makes bile threaten to rise up in Damien's throat. If he were to vomit right now, he'd suffocate on his own refuse. Wouldn't that be funny? Neil certainly seems to think so.

As if he were able to smell fear in the air, the captain grins his usual grin, taking languid, confident steps towards the bed. A predator stalking prey. Toying with it.

This man Damien trusted once upon a time leers over his motionless form. The muscles in his legs ache with a phantom tension. God, if he could run he would.

This isn't real, you're dead.

I sure as he'll don't feel dead. With a roll of his fully functional right shoulder, the specter of Neil bats away any pitiful comfort the ex-cop might be struggling to give himself, leaning further and further down. A ghostly, oppressive hand pressing on his chest makes breathing difficult.

No, Damien doesn't get to rest. This is punishment. It's self-flagellation for being such an idiot. He's always hurting the people around him, isn't he? Questionable choices, questionable choices. One such questionable choice laughs inches away from his face, mocking. Really, has Damien ever made even one good decision over the course of his entire life?

Neil is still cackling when his face begins to bubble and melt, that invisible hand once again molding flesh into new, terrible visages. One after the other.

There is a creak from above.

That's not uncommon. The house creaks as it settles down, like a living creature. The wood and brick are the building blocks of something organic - the entity that is this place inhales and exhales with wheezing breaths. Even 20 years down the line Damien still knows all of its sounds and quirks intimately. That's the reason he's certain what he's hearing right now isn't some bump in the night.

It's footsteps, creeping down from the third floor quietly, though the occasional misstep betrays the fact whoever they belong to is not as familiar with the house. Kaden's up, making his way to the first floor. That could be a good thing - Damien told him he could go wherever he liked, so maybe now that the rest of the occupants have retreated he feels more comfortable taking a look around.

Maybe he's getting something to eat, that would do him good.

Maybe he's getting a knife from the kitchen to kill the ex-cop with.

That's the kind of thing you worry about in prison.

The morphing figure settles at last, its semifluid features freezing over. Dead grey eyes. Damien looks up at Damien - the one from his reflection, the one that feels more real than him. When did he become so calloused and weathered? When did life mold him into this? Is this even him? It's what he felt the need to be over the years, but now...

Maybe the footsteps are simply a part of the sleep paralysis he has succumbed to. How long are such things supposed to last? 30 seconds? 2 minutes? It feels like an eternity.

It's a blessing when he is finally able to squeeze his eyelids shut, the darkness a warm comfort. Sleep, he wills himself. Fuck, he just wants to sleep. Morning will bring clarity, and then in the light of day he can worry about things.

Or if he does die in his sleep, well... then he won't have to worry about anything.
 
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