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PORTIONS FOR FOXES
“I arise from the crossroads, my hands full of promises” -Ocean’s proverb
When he comes to the Foxhole Court, he comes to seek asylum. This is, of course, a lie, but they have promised him Jean's life for it.
He comes to the gate of the Foxes' complex on foot, dragging Jean behind him. Jean had been conscious in the car, for the most part, but not particularly lucid. He is wobbling in and out of coherence now, on the stone steps of the Foxes' gate. It is a brutally bright summer's day, hot and sunny, and the sweat collects and lies itchy at the base of Neil's collarbone.
There are two of them, when they come to the door, both wearing white masks around the bottom halves of their faces. One of the Foxes is a girl, and she has white-blonde hair with pastel-dyed ends, green and pink and blue, all partially washed out. The other is a boy, almost the same height as her, and they could be siblings. Perhaps they are. Neil knows that the Foxes have some siblings, so this is good intel. He cannot tell who is the handler and who is the asset in this pairing, so it's most likely they are both handlers.
"We know you," says the boy. "What do you want?"
Neil sucks in a breath, because they know him from that night, of course they do. They're Foxes. "I seek asylum," he says, and he tries to sound pathetic, like that is what he really wants. What he really wants is not asylum; it is not Jean's life; he wants Kevin Day's blood on his hands and to hear him struggle for breath.
He thinks, also, about going back to Kevin. About the calm and quiet house, the way it was before he was given to Riko to train. About the yellow fog that dragged its back upon the windowpanes; the night that he came home with the number four on his cheek; the way Kevin frowned, and kept turning his head to look; the smoke outside, the lamplights. With Kevin, his loyalty was rewarded. Riko could not respect him and would not reward him.
The Foxes have been looking at him for too long. He raises Jean as supplication between them. "He needs help," he says. "Please. Kevin knows us."
Neil can only see the boy's eyes, above his mask. "Kevin knows you," he repeats, and flicks his eyes to the girl.
The girl takes a step forward. "Your friend," she says. "Is he still breathing?"
"Yes," he says, which is true, but maybe not for long. "Please," he repeats.
The girl cuts her eyes to the boy. "Andrew," she murmurs, which must be his name. He treats it like a codeword.
"In," agrees Andrew, and steps backward, opening the gate for both of them to come through. There is a car nearby, which the girl puts Jean into, and drives him somewhere else, and then it is just Neil and Andrew, standing in the sun. Neil feels. Wild, exhilarated, inside the gates. Kevin is here, somewhere. Closer than he has been for two years. This isn't just another mission – this could change everything. "I'll take you to quarantine," says Andrew, and takes off in a direction. Neil follows, just a little slower on the uptake. He thinks that it will be silent, but then Andrew says: "Were you looking to continue your work as an assassin, or would you like to choose a different job, as a Fox?"
This is so impossible that he does not even have the ability to consider it. "Um," he says, like he's nervous, but he feels like he’s drowning. "I was hoping to talk to Kevin Day, actually. Is he – around?"
"He's on a mission right now," says Andrew, flat. "You'll have to settle for me."
Neil swallows. This is – Kevin shouldn't be an asset. He isn't – that's not – he wasn't made for that. "He was a handler when he was at the – at the Ravens."
"I'm aware," says Andrew, even. Neil feels like glass, like translucent plastic, like Andrew can see every part of him, his entire being, what makes him up. "You wouldn't know," he goes on, conversational, "but the Foxes will switch out every few years, from handler to asset."
Neil was certainly aware of this at some point, but had assumed it was just a rumor, due to the fact that that is Completely Fucked Up.
"Yes," says Neil finally, after slightly too long of a pause. "I think I knew that. How does that work, exactly?" This is so fucked up.
"We switch spots every two years," says Andrew. "Handlers become assets, assets become handlers. Sometimes individuals are on a different schedule than the rest of the group, and we handle that case by case, depending on who is working well with whom. So there's no worry about coming in during the middle of a cycle." Of course. Neil was worried about whatever that means. "Wymack, of course, stays the same every year -- he's the groundskeeper and swordmaster. He's Kevin's father, but you knew that, didn't you?"
He's maybe the only one who had known, except apparently all of the Foxes, now. He's read the letter. Maybe more times than Kevin had, now, because he left it behind. "Yes," he confirms, because what's more powerful than the truth when he's nothing else but lies?
"What brings you to the Foxes?" Andrew asks, and there is no way that Andrew can tell that he is not paying attention, and this is normal, and he feels fine about it. This is the present and he is in it.
"I come here to seek asylum," he repeats again, but isn't it obvious? "I know you gave it to Kevin, after he was – after he came here. And I want the same."
They walk a little longer, and Andrew doesn't speak, and Neil thinks of the wide open sky, and the way the air smells, like grass and concrete and maybe a bit like fish. There are other people – Foxes – out and about, as they pass buildings and dormitories and a long field where there are Foxes sparring.
"There are other factions of assassins," says Andrew, into the silence between them. "Any number of places you could work after leaving the Ravens. Or you could try and freelance, of course. But I don't think that the Ravens let go that easily, and I think more than your stunning track record brought you here."
Neil tries, in his head, to sort out who he is, what he wants. Between what the Ravens want from him – to come here to the Foxes, collect information, kill Wymack, and leave them in disarray and despair, and return to Riko's tender mercies – and what he wants for himself – Kevin's blood let out from underneath his skin. So that he walks free with no past and no memories of what had been.
"Kevin Day," he says, eventually. "He came here. I was – that night, I made sure he got here. And you let him – you let him stay. You kept him. And now he's working again."
"So you'd like to work with us eventually as well, is that right?" Andrew asks, and Neil can smell a leading question when he's presented with one.
"I want to work with Kevin again," he says, hotly, foolishly, showing his hand. But he only has two.
"I don't think that's a good idea," says Andrew slowly. And Neil feels -- upset, in his chest somewhere, by his collarbone. He's not Neil's handler, and Neil doesn't have to listen to whatever he says. He doesn't know shit about Neil. It's actually a very good idea. If he was allowed to work with Kevin again, the Foxes would never question keeping either of them. They made each other better , and he wants that again, desperately, so close that he feels like he could taste it.
Or, alternatively, he wants to kill Kevin with his bare hands. Whatever, he's open to what he feels at the time.
"Hm," says Andrew, noncommittally, and his golden eyes betray no warmth, no hints at what might be in his future. "We're here," he says, and so they are, arrived at a little house like they look in fairytales, with the triangle top belying the secret of an attic and square windows. There is a sign outside that reads QUARANTINE HOUSING. A facade of a house, meant to make you think that what is inside is not cells, Neil assumes. But who is there to fool? Only Foxes live here in this complex. Andrew opens the door without needing to use a key, and does not take off his shoes inside. There is a little common area here, with a kitchenette and a collection of square cubed items that could be either tables or seats. There are a few drinks on one of them, so ... tables? Neil tables it to think about and consider later. Andrew takes him to a door, which he unlocks from the outside, and waits patiently for Neil to walk inside. And Neil does, and then the door shuts, and then there is no handle on the inside of the door, and Neil is alone.
Alone, alone, alone, like he has not been for years, perhaps, or – sometimes, he is alone when he is crouched on top of a building with a rifle, but even that is an hour at a time, and he has someone living in his ear, a little earpiece where Riko can hiss orders at him from lightyears away. Well. Best to make the most of it, isn't it?
The room he has been provided with is a rectangle, containing a twin sized bed, a night stand with two empty drawers and a little lamp, and a cozy oval braided rug. There is an attached bathroom, towards the foot of the bed; there is a toilet and a sink, but no bathtub. A little investigation reveals that he can close and seal the door and unhook the shower faucet from the ceiling, making it a compact wet bath. There is a box fan in the corner of the room, but no way to turn it off without unplugging it, which would take effort that he is as of yet unwilling to expend: its cord goes directly into the wall, and he would have to dismantle something.
There is a window, but it doesn't open. It doesn't look like it was designed to open, at any point. If this is asylum, to be given a view of the sky but no way to get to it, Neil is not sure that he is interested in it even as a possibility any longer.
The bathroom is equipped with a toothbrush and toothpaste, but no razor. There is soap and shampoo, but no hair dryer. There are some curious flat fabric items in a plastic container; it takes Neil too long to realize that they are reusable pads. He is not sure that he would like to reuse his pads trapped in this little room for an unknown amount of time, but he is not the target audience so perhaps it would be fine.
There are no cameras in the room. Well, after some investigation, there are no cameras in the bathroom; there is a little camera on the wall that faces the twin bed. So they can watch him sleep? He attempts to cover it with one hand, to see what happens, if someone will intervene as he blocks their attempts to surveil him. Because that's an easy mistake, isn't it? Just back away, three steps, raise both hands so they can see him, no weapons here, see, see, I'm being good. I'm being good.
When he covers the camera, though, the wall lights up to reveal it was not a wall at all but in fact a glass tablet screen, at approximately the right height for him to stand here and manipulate it. If it's a touchscreen, which it is, and if he's allowed to use it, which, well, they can't stop him. Here's the thing about when you shut people in rooms: you are putting them away so they can't do anything else, sure, but you also can't get in to mess with them unless you do a whole rigamarole of unlocking that door, and that gives the person in the room time to get on the bed and raise their hands and say, I'm so sorry, look at me, I'm being good. Look at me, don't look at what I did, look at me. And he's used the little tablet so much by now! He's opened several programs and discovered their uses! He's playing a match three game where you have to match different types of flowers together and then you get points! Technology is so incredible.
Speaking of technology. Neil shuts himself back in the bathroom and sits on the toilet and patiently feels out the implant in his arm, testing to see if it is still there, that it did not magically disappear in the miles between here and there. Tetsuji Moriyama gave him a deadline of six months, but Neil has never finished a job outside of two weeks, and he certainly isn't going to break his record now, for the sake of Kevin Day. He’s not going to abandon himself at the Foxes’ mercy, like Kevin had. He’s going to leave himself an exit route, a way to get out of here. Some time was eaten up on the trip; Neil drove, Jean suffered. The car had been abandoned somewhere to the east of the Foxes' complex; it had taken Neil three hours to even find the gate, well-hidden among the willow trees and the swamp that seems endemic to this area. Neil had dripped water into Jean's mouth so that Jean would stay alive long enough to act as a bargaining chip, and dreamt of having his very own asset. If Neil had his own asset – and this is dangerous thinking, this is the kind of thinking that keeps getting him caned – if Neil had his own asset, he would set up a reasonable system of rewards and punishments. He would be consistent. He would take care of his asset. He would be a good handler.
But that isn't the way things are, is it? He was not made to be a handler. He was made to be controlled. His training has all been in how to become more deadly, and it would be dangerous to just let him walk free after all of that. It would be irresponsible to let him kill whoever he wanted, to let him around civilians , normal people. Perhaps, if he was free, he wouldn't want to kill, he wouldn't want any of this, but he has been trained, he has learned, and so he must. It would be wasteful, otherwise. It would be irresponsible. So, so, so.
About handlers. Neil has had three, in his life. His father, who raised him and taught him how to use a knife. Kevin Day, when the Moriyamas bought Neil’s father's debt and took his son as payment. And Riko Moriyama, when Kevin had – after that night. Kevin –
Kevin had been better. This keeps getting him caned, but it keeps being true, and the punishment for thinking this isn't waiting for him here, in the Foxes' cell. Kevin had been good at being a handler, had actually done his laundry, had had hot food waiting for him. Every time Neil killed someone for him, he had portioned out an orange, sectioned it into slices, and asked how it went. And even when Neil's hands trembled, even when there was still blood in his mouth, even when he could still taste it, the freedom of being out of the Nest – the orange had been good. He had trusted Kevin.
It was supposed to be like this. It was supposed to work like that. They were terrifyingly effective together. They were good together. Without Kevin -- Without Kevin as his handler, he is just terrifying. He is just terrified.
That had been almost four years ago, now. It wasn't because Kevin left – well, he did leave, but it wasn't like that, they made him, he wouldn't have – but would he have? Now it seems inevitable, the leaving: every time he dreams of it, it always ends the same way, the way it does in reality. He finds himself dead in dreams and wakes up to feel dead in reality. There was – there is – another handler, in the Nest. He outranked Kevin, not because he had earned it, but because he was born into it, he was made for it.
It was their winter break, when most people in the world were celebrating. They had too much free time, because everybody had gone home: their intel was all wrong, because people were not following their usual patterns. Their targets had stepped outside of their routines, and so they were not available like ducks to be shot at, as they had flown home for the winter. Neil doesn't remember – a lot of the things happening around it. He doesn't remember what happened before, really, except that now it seems like the event was always going to happen, was inevitable. There was nothing he could have done to influence it.
He remembers the shattered bone, Kevin too shocked to scream, the fear, the numbness. He remembers Riko holding him by his collar, one finger through the ring at his throat. He remembers the slight tug as Riko yanked Kevin's tag off his collar. He wore Riko's tags after that night.
It was snowing hard, with a sharp wind at every turn, and Neil couldn't feel his face for hours after. And the Foxes had been in town – there was a conference, or a banquet; Neil doesn't remember the excuse. The Foxes were in town, and everyone knew them. And it was night, and Kevin's father was there. And Kevin's father was the Foxes' handler, and Neil could not function between the inevitability of it and the brutal want for none of it to be happening. To abandon Kevin there, to serve up his portions for the Foxes – and Neil went home to Riko's collar, which is no longer a metaphor.
The collar sits at his throat, and Riko muzzles him, and he deserves it, and he knows better, and he tries to fight against it every time, against the stone inevitability of it, but Kevin does not return, and there is nothing he can do, and he wears his implant, and he wears his collar, and he wears his scars, and he drives Jean to the Foxes' front door and he will kill Kevin because he does not return and because he cannot kill Riko. Because he cannot kill his father.
Listen. He didn't say it was a good plan.
***
It takes two weeks to pass whatever kind of test they are running on him, two weeks of being alone with his thoughts and not climbing out of his skin and playing the little match three game on his tablet. They deliver food to him through the door, twice a day, and he accepts it and returns all his dishes after washing them. And there are little videos, on the tablet in the wall, of Renee with her pastel-tipped hair breathing in and out and doing a series of movements that he is supposed to follow, and videos of other Foxes, with reassuring voices and reassuring faces. Neil looks through them all, for Kevin, and does not find him, and gives up on the entire concept. He mostly plays the match three game. He wonders, a fair amount, about whether they are psychoanalyzing him about his match three choices, and if that's going to affect whatever future he has here. If he's going to get a worse handler or given a weird job because matching all of the red mushrooms first denotes some kind of crazy thing that is happening inside his brain, something that proves he's a killer and that he's never going to be anything more than a killer. That he needs to always be on somebody's leash, because he can't control himself. He always uses the power ups instantly; he's hot headed and he speaks out of turn too much. He has the scars to prove that last one's true, but maybe they'll just glean it from the way he plays the game.
Whatever. That's not his business to worry about, probably. He's here for Kevin, to kill David Wymack, and then leave before anyone knows that Kevin is dead.
When they come back for him, they come into the cell, unmasked, and somehow their presence in this space he's acclimated to amounts to an intrusion that he feels creeping over his skin, even though this whole building and everything in it is theirs to begin with. It's Andrew that speaks first, of the two of them: Renee is nearby, but he takes the lead here. Neil wonders if that's how it always is between them, or if it's because of all the Kevin between them. Anyhow, it's Andrew that makes the offer to him: "We'd like to offer you asylum, with some conditions."
He'll take the first and eel out of the latter. Asylum means you're free at any time to go back home. Doesn't it? "What are the conditions?" he asks, because he knows better than to sign a contract without reading it. It should at least all be laid out in front of him.
"You'll serve as my asset for your first two years," Andrew says, unoffended and unsurprised. "For the first year, you'll be given medication to help you transition from your time with the Ravens."
Andrew's not an obstacle when the only medication he's under is the Moriyama word. Anything else, though... Maybe it'll be an interesting challenge, to kill Kevin while he's drugged. "What kind of drugs?" he asks.
"It's a specific cocktail that assets are given when they're transitioning from more difficult situations into the Foxhole," says Renee, speaking for the first time. "They'll help you form better memories, and they'll help you sleep. And they'll make you more – honest, with how you're feeling, with how you're doing. We prefer our assets to express their feelings, so that they become better assets in the long run."
Sure. Neil notices that she kind of stepped around the question. He resolves to ignore her. He doesn't need to listen to false prophetesses, especially ones who aren't his handler. He doesn't have to respect her. He turns to Andrew, visually giving him his full attention. "And being your asset," he starts, like he has anything to bargain with. "What do you require?"
"Exacting perfection," drawls Andrew, and Neil straightens, squares his shoulders, because he can do that, he can give him that. He can take it, he can take whatever Andrew requires him to take, and he can do it. He won't need the drugs, he'll show them how perfect he is without them –
"Shut up, you're scaring him," Renee hisses, elbowing Andrew in the side.
"I'm not scared," snaps Neil, because, fuck you, fuck all of this, he just wants!!! he wants!! he wants Kevin!! and he wants them out of his room!! he wants to play his match three game and not think of any of this!!
Andrew, casually supercilious, tips his head towards the girl handler. "See, Renee, he's not scared."
Neil – in this moment – he wishes he were Riko. He wishes he were Riko, free to bristle like a cat when you pet them the wrong way, free to refuse them as he sees fit. He wishes that he was on even ground with the two of them, like they don't hold his future in their hands, like he can come to them on talent alone, belying no history behind him. "I'm not scared," he says again, and his voice sounds slightly better. "I'll take your drugs if you'll take me as your asset. I'm – I have a perfect kill record. You know me." It's not quite the right thing to say, but he can't figure out what the right thing is. Sometimes, he doesn't feel quite human when he talks, like he's saying words that belong to a robot, or to an interloper with his voice and mouth. But they know him. They know him. Kevin has talked about him – there have been banquets – there has been networking. He's the Ravens' smallest asset, and he gets the job done every time.
"Great," says Renee. "Read the contract over carefully, and then sign here, alright?" A sheet of bright white paper, multiple paragraphs, and a line at the bottom. Neil scrawls something approximating a name. Renee puts the paper away.
Renee looks over to Andrew, and Andrew scowls. "I'm not going to say good boy, " Andrew tells her. "He's not a dog."
Something thrashes, interestingly, behind Neil's ribcage, when he says it, anyway. Something like anticipation, or hope, or – he feels, on the brink of something, some kind of cliff, a precipice –
And then the pills are brought out; a fingertip in length, a soft light blue color. They're cylinders, not ovals. Renee brings a glass of water, sets it next to the bottle. It's Andrew who picks the bottle back up, opens it, and shakes out two for Neil to take, which he does, ignoring the water. He never learned how to take pills with water. Andrew taps the top of the glass, insistent: "Drink," he orders, and it's the first order that Neil has to actually pay attention to. It's the first order he's given as a handler. It sounds the same as every other time he's spoken, but Neil obeys this one. He drinks, and when Andrew continues to look expectantly, he finishes the glass. "Good," praises Andrew, despite his earlier protest.
Neil has that selfsame heartbeat again, but this time it's in his throat, like there is something stuck there, something he wants to get out. Instead, he drops to his knees before both of them – he wishes Renee would leave, he doesn't want an audience for the next part, doesn't want anyone else to watch what he has to do – and bares his throat, and waits. Assets make themselves vulnerable for their handlers, because it's supposed to be safe, when they're put away. Thinks, idly, that if Kevin is an asset, at least he has to wear a collar now, that he is brought low. That Neil didn't have to do any of that work to lower him, at least. He'll just finish it up, nice and tidy, like he would any other job.
Nobody is moving above him. Neil shifts his weight on his knees, anxious now. He wants to know what it feels like. Soft leather? Something new, something lined? Or a length of chain, wrapped around a lock? An afterthought made of plastic? Something welded, so that he might never take it off, never been free of the Foxes?
"What are you doing?" Andrew asks, above him somewhere that he can't see. Neil wonders when the drug will start working, what it will make him do, what it will make him feel. If Andrew will still count his behavior as 'good' once they take hold of him. It's too long before he realizes that Andrew asked him a question, and that he should answer.
"I'm submitting to your collar," Neil says, even though this feels like a trick question. Riko would sometimes – even when he was already wearing the collar, but it was just training him for a mission, preparing him for a real job, his real purpose – and the collar is just for everyone's safety, isn't it? To keep him where he belongs, so that he remembers. Somewhere beyond his own thoughts, he can hear coughing, a repetitive wheezing, and then it cuts off. Neil waits for an order.
It's Andrew's hand on his throat, on his chin, that makes him tip his head back down. It's the hand on his throat that makes him look Andrew in the eyes; he wouldn't risk it otherwise. "I don't need a collar to keep you," says Andrew. His voice is soft, but Neil can read it as the threat it is. "Do I, Neil?"
"No," breathes Neil, aware of the hand at his throat. "No, Handler."
Andrew lets him go all at once, and straightens up. Neil's eyes follow the line of his body: oil-slick smooth, bleached white by the light. "Get up," says Andrew. "I'll take you to the apartment."
***
Andrew's apartment is on the first floor of the Fox main complex, apart from all of the scattered houses. They enter from the main hallway of the Fox tower, entering directly into a hallway penned in by kitchen appliances, and a tiled floor. There is a collection of counters, and a set of stools on the other side of them, so one person can sit at the counter while another cooks. Neil toes off his shoes when he comes inside; Andrew watches impassively, and keeps his sandals on. But there are other shoes in the entryway: Neil leaves his next to those.
He can feel the drugs taking hold of him the further they get into Andrew's apartment. There is a foyer, past the kitchen; there is a larger, brighter door that leads directly outside, buffeted by windows. Neil feels like his breath is caught between beams of sunlight; after a moment, he realizes that there are trees swaying in the wind outside. Andrew looks at him critically. Neil wishes that he would be put away already, so that this day can be over and things will stop happening inside it. "There's three rules to being my asset," Andrew says, and snaps his fingers in front of Neil's face. Maybe he looks glassy already. "One. You wear a mask when you go outside. You see the basket? Take one and put it on before you go, and you can take it off when you're back here."
"Yeah," says Neil, who thinks that this is a weird rule to have. The basket lives on a little table by the door: it's stuffed with plastic-wrapped masks, like the kind Andrew was wearing when Neil first arrived at the Foxes. "Yes," he says, again, more firm. "Yes, I agree."
Andrew keeps looking at him, assessing him, unpacking him. "Two," he says, raising a second finger in front of Neil's face. "You don't lie to me."
"Yes sir," Neil replies, which is a lie, because he is made up entirely out of lies, from head to toe, and has rarely been made up of much else. (Maybe, before, on Kevin's leash – but even then.)
"Three," says Andrew, a third finger. "You get to ask one question every day. After that, I get to ask one back for every question of yours I answer. So use your free question carefully."
"Okay," says Neil, which is not an agreement, just an acknowledgement that he's heard Andrew. Because what he's said makes absolutely no fucking sense, and he's just going to deal with it when it gets out of hand. The floor is wooden, he reflects, absent-minded; polished to glossiness. It'll hurt more to kneel on. Maybe there will be a folded t-shirt, or a blanket underneath him, but he doubts it. He thinks that the medication really is starting to affect him, now; everything seems muted except for Andrew's movement. Except for the Fox door closing behind someone, but Andrew doesn't move to address the interloper. So: a friend, or someone he's expecting, not an interloper that Neil will be expected to defend this house from. Neil hears
Andrew speak with one ear and has his other to the stranger, now in the kitchen, now coming forward to the other end of the kitchen hallway to stand next to Andrew.
He knew that this had happened. He had known that this had happened in reality; so far, it has only been in the words of people he has no reason to trust. But Kevin, collarless, stands at Andrew’s beck and call. And Andrew is calling. "You're giving him asylum?" Kevin asks Andrew, disbelieving. Had they talked about this before? Did Kevin know he was coming before this moment? Neil feels again, the stone inevitability of it, feels the air shift around him and turn into solid object, that keeps him where he stands, where he stays put, like the dog he is. "He's too loyal," says Kevin, and he doesn't approve, he hates Neil, he doesn't want this to happen – "He's too loyal and the Ravens will come here, they will come here and ruin all of this." Neil is breathing, still, impossibly, the same breath in and out, like someone else is doing it for him (the medication? his body, acting without the orders of his mind?).
He is saying this before he realizes that he has said it: "Because the Ravens came for you, because you were so valuable to them?" It's interesting, how his tongue tries to turn it into a statement, because it is true; he is a Raven and he is here for Kevin. But when he speaks, it becomes poison, a scathing question. And he waits, for whatever consequences might come of that. Hit him hard, now, and see what he makes of it, instead of waiting for Kevin to fuck him over later.
Neil tries to watch him, tries to see how he's changed, how he reacts. He looms larger than in Neil's memories; he has become hale and healthy, although under the new presence of Neil he has gone pale. With fear? Does Neil bring a reminder, that he did not kill all the Ravens when he left them behind, that they still remain? Does he remember, that he could not get himself out under his own power, that he needed help? What does that mean for a man like Kevin? His broken hand does not tremble when he raises it to strike Neil, and the scar that remains is faint enough that it could be missed, if you didn't know what you were looking for. Neil knows what he is looking for, even as the arc of it cuts across his vision.
Andrew, lightning fast, catches Kevin's wrist before it goes any further. "Stop that," he says, even, and squeezes until Kevin gasps in pain, until he stops looking so serious and starts to actually look at Andrew. "He's not yours. Neil, your bedroom is on the left hand side of the hallway, at that door. My bedroom is at the end of the hallway. The bathroom is across the hall. Take a shower, you’ll feel better. I’ll get your clothes washed.”
***
The bathroom has a tiny unblocked window, and Neil considers it for too long before starting to strip. He showered last night, in the little wet bath in his room, but he is obedient to his handler's orders. Also, he has been sweating a lot. So. Neil likes his showers hot, and takes advantage of it when he's allowed to. Kevin's preferred soap and shampoo is already set on a little shelf inside of the bath, and that's what Neil uses, even knowing that he will come out of the water smelling like Kevin. The label reads that the shampoo has notes of vanilla, bergamot, and citrus. Neil can't identify two out of three, but he kind of guesses that Kevin smells like oranges, and that that's pleasant. Or like the powder packets of immune boosters that Riko gives them, every morning in the winter. The orange that Kevin peels and sections for him…. the memory, or the scent, makes him kind of nauseous, and he has to close his nose for a minute and just breathe through his mouth, which is when Andrew knocks on the door and says: "I'm taking your clothes," and Neil is not sure whether or not he says, "Yeah," back, or if it just happens, because the door closes again, and the shower curtain is closed and nothing is happening to him nothing is happening nothing is happening you will keep breathing – the scent of the water, the oranges – there is another soap on the shelf. In a green bottle. There is a photo of the forest on the front, and he opens it, and the scent is mint, and it becomes a lather in his hands and cuts through everything else, all other noise.
He is clean. He is whole. Time has passed, a period of it, a full sarcasm's worth, the maw of it between when he entered the shower and when he is coming back to himself, which is now, who has to deal with the consequences of the future much sooner than he would have preferred to, which is never.
Andrew took his clothes. He doesn't have clothes anymore. It's fucking -- he walked right into this. He walked right into this, and he's going to walk right back out there and let Andrew see what he's working with. And that's probably the point of this entire exercise at all, the whole tripwire talkthrough of it. He towels himself dry and does not look at himself in the mirror because he already knows what he looks like. The worst of it, of course, is that there's no way for Andrew to know which are the scars he earned under a handler's hands and which are the scars he earned as a killer, on a job. Which mark him as an asset who can endure a lot of pain and injury, and which mark him as worthless, should be retired, put down, nobody wants to use you anymore.
He feels nothing as he emerges, naked, back into the living room where Andrew and Kevin are sitting, speaking in low voices. Kevin is the first to look up, and he hasn't changed. "Neil," he says sharply. "Go put on some clothes."
But Kevin isn't the man he has to listen to, any more, so he keeps walking. He wants to sit on the sofa, and he wants it badly enough that he is going to find out if it gets him caned to sit on furniture without permission. It looks so soft, but not unapproachable. Not like he couldn't relax on it. Not like he couldn’t take just a minute, to sigh.
Andrew is looking up now, is looking at him. The full weight of having all that attention on him – he stops walking. "How many of your scars were from Kevin?" he asks, interested.
Neil frowns, but just because he's thinking about it in his head and wants to calculate it. "Some of them," he says eventually. "Riko prefers to mark me up, for training, or -- whenever he likes. If I was cut in training, Kevin would patch me up afterward, so that they didn’t scar.” He can feel the burn of it on his tongue, the truth of it, the way his mouth seems to move without his permission, in response to his handler’s question. The scars were for his own good – they were whatever Kevin wanted to do to him, whatever Kevin needed to do to him – he doesn't resent them, doesn't resent their presence. Just that sometimes, when he stretches, he remembers getting them -- and that’s painful all over again, but that means he learned his lesson.
Kevin ignores both of them, and says, sharper: "Clothes, now , Neil." and Neil finally deigns to look to Andrew for direction. Is he your pet or not? Do something.
Andrew acknowledges the glance, and says, "In your room, the one on the left, there are clothes in the dresser drawers. They should be in your size, unless Kevin is bad at his job. It would be good to dress for bed. It's too late for dinner, but there are snacks if you'd like something before bed."
Not quite orders, but resources, a full pantry, and probably a trick, a false idol. He wants nothing but what his handler gives him. He wants a job, an orange, and a safe bed. He wants hot food when he's been good, and someone else to do his laundry, so he can just focus on being good. And he wants to sit on the sofa in Andrew's living room – but yes, clothes. So that they both stop staring at him. It would be good to dress for bed. He can work through the meaning of that and figure out that to be good for Andrew, he is to dress for bed – does that mean that Andrew will be joining him? No, he doesn't think so; surely Kevin has been fulfilling that purpose, and he hasn't been trained yet, nor has his blood been taken to test for diseases.
Neil takes the door on the right – it's Kevin's room, he was correct – and it looks like Kevin's room too, something that belongs to him in the way that Neil once did. There is a wide, open window, a little bookshelf with a collection of histories of a different time; Kevin's copy of The Art of War. Kevin was so attached to objects in a way that Neil had never been allowed; things fell out of his possession so easily if he was not actively paying attention to them, but Kevin was allowed to keep things. To have and to hold.
"The door on the left, Neil," Andrew calls out pleasantly from the hall. Fuck, he's much closer than Neil had thought, and it startles him out of Kevin's bedroom and back into the hallway, a brief awful glance at Andrew – it's fine, nothing is happening, nothing is happening. He's going. The door on the left. His bedroom.
It's mostly a blur – he shuts the door behind him – and there is a stout little dresser with five drawers. Top: underwear and socks. Then: shirts and sweatshirts, soft pants and jeans. No tac gear, but maybe Andrew has that for when he goes out. All of the clothes are anything but red and black, but mostly muted: blues and browns and ochre yellows. Nothing garishly orange, to his immense relief. At home – in the Nest, he wears Kevin's clothes to sleep in, where his bedroom still lives, where Neil pretends that he still lives. None of his things have been cleared out, and nobody else was using them.
Kevin still being here, unchanged and whole, makes Neil feel like maybe he has been a ghost since then.
Not unchanged. Not whole. Think back. His hand –
He would have used his right hand to backhand Neil.
If he had touched Neil, maybe he would have proved that neither of them had ever been a ghost.
Neil shuts the drawer. He dresses himself. He lays down in the twin bed, underneath the covers, and he waits. Waits for what? For sleep to come. For the open maw of time to swallow him again, and deliver him to the next morning. Unchanged. Unwhole. Still scarred.
***
It is the evening, it is the morning, it is the second day. Neil rises to a splitting headache and considers going back to sleep, but he emerges from the bedroom of his own free will, to sit at the sofa in the room adjacent, and sulk. There isn't much more he can do, beyond the pain, just marinate in the agony of it and tip his brain juice around, waiting for Andrew to wake up and either do something about it or make it worse.
It's Kevin who gets up first, and they share a brief moment of eye contact and mutual disapproval, before Kevin returns to his Task of the Morning, which appears to be making breakfast. What is the point of Andrew, then, if not to make breakfast! Why is he making his assets make breakfast! This is so fucked up. Fuck the Foxes, and their stupid rituals, and their -- whatever. The thought peters out before it can get too angry; the pulse in the back of his brain prevents the majority of his critical thinking.
Andrew wakes up later, comes to the kitchen where Kevin has a hot cup of what appears to be milk waiting for him, and drinks silently until Kevin jerks his chin at Neil, who is not ever getting off this sofa. It’s just as good as he imagined it. He’s not -- They're all -- fuck, his head hurts.
Andrew leaves his mug and pads over across the rug to Neil, kneeling in front of him (fuck! fuck! he shouldn't do that, this is the weird fucked up power dynamic that they have, where handlers can be assets too!) and taking hold of Neil's chin, tipping his head back, turning his head to see if there is any change from the light. "It hurts, doesn't it?" Andrew asks, and his voice is too loud, and Neil had not appreciated the silence before then and this is his punishment for it and --
It's a question, and Andrew had said not to lie to him. "Yes," Neil breathes, trying not to draw any more noise into the world. "Yes, Handler." He is not going to beg -- what would he beg for? -- but he would like to, if he could draw the breath, if he thought it would do anything.
"Each dose lasts about eight hours," says Andrew, and he's -- Neil has missed the transitory movement, too focused on Andrew's hand on him, but he's let go of Neil's chin and is holding the pill bottle in front of his face. "It's been about twelve hours since your last dose, since I sent you to bed so early last night. You're experiencing withdrawal, and you're probably also hungry and dehydrated, which doesn't help." It's Kevin who sets the glass of water down next to Andrew; Andrew twists a hand in a sign, and Kevin goes. "Take your morning dose, drink all the water, and then we'll get you some toast, and you'll start feeling better."
So: a demonstration of power. Okay. Alright. Let's roll, then. Tipping his head back to swallow the pills is agony, but soon after, there is a little plate with toast and butter on it, and he eats, and starts to feel -- well, in less pain. Going under, today, feels different -- he's noticing it come over him more. Objects and things around him dampen; people and movement get more interesting. Would it make him a better striker? Would it make him better at killing? At the moment he just feels somewhat nauseous.
Andrew is sitting at the "breakfast nook", where the collection of stools sits underneath the tall counters. "Here's your agenda for today," he's saying. "You're in an acclimatizing period, so we're not asking you to do anything that won't become part of your regular routine. The idea is to build up to a pattern, which will then become your routine. Today, we're focusing on getting you used to the apartment and your meds.”
***
He has six months on his countdown clock before his tracker explodes and kills him and anyone else around him, and Andrew has wasted two weeks of his time checking him for a disease he's never had. He's never gotten close to his time limit before, but here in the Foxhole Court -- well. They say that jealousy is the most perfect waste of time, and he's indulging in that, a little bit, here. Wasting his time, that is. And if you think about it, he's kind of wasting Riko's time as well, and the taste of freedom here on the other side of the world is tempting enough -- and he is not even really free, is he? Andrew is here to rein him back. So he will not lose control and hurt, and hurt, and hurt -- he has someone to handle him. Someone to pull him back from the worst of it. Someone watching him, watching his back.
This is how the rest of his week goes: in the morning, if he's timed it right, he does not wake with a headache, and he waits anxiously for Andrew to wake and dispense his dose. Kevin makes breakfast, which is usually something bread-based, toast and jam, or pancakes, or pancakes with squares inside of them that are filled with syrup. Andrew drinks a cup of hot chocolate milk, and he makes Neil two sandwiches, which he puts in small Tupperware containers that go in an outer, sturdier tote. He includes a bag of cheese crackers and a water bottle. Neil takes the tote to whatever is set out for him for the day: Andrew makes him schedules, with numbers of houses and the rooms inside the houses, where other Foxes wait to teach him things. Renee, the pastel girl, teaches him the hand signals that he's seen Andrew and Kevin use, when they don't want him to hear. Danielle, who is not David Wymack's daughter, teaches him how to disguise himself, in a forest as part of the landscape, or in a city masquerading as a person. He learns field first aid from a man who wears the same face as Andrew but calls himself Aaron. He wears his hair a little longer, enough that he can tie it up, which is how Neil is functioning in differentiating them. He wonders if field first aid is useful, when you're not the only asset on a mission, when you have someone else to fix. He wonders if that's how Aaron learned the skill, if he was an asset. Neil wonders if Andrew was his handler, too.
Neil eats the lunch that Andrew packed for him in between the classes, crouched on porches in front of the facade of houses. Sometimes one of the Foxes teaching him will usher him into the house, frowning, to eat his lunch at a desk or a table. He doesn't mind eating outside. It's sunny, and there's usually shade from the house to shelter him from burns. Neil always disassembles his sandwiches before he eats them, and tries to identify every one of the ingredients, and fails most of the time. And he always eats them anyway, because if his handler wants to poison him, then that's simply what's going to happen. But so far it's just been sandwiches, and tiny crackers, and water.
Renee gives him a test, on his fifth day of having her lessons in the morning, walks him through his learned signs, and he does okay. He finds it difficult, to move his hands and translate it to words: he can do words to words on any day of the week, but the way that Renee conjugates her hands and moves her fingers so precisely is an art that is beyond him. She goes over his mistakes with him, patient and calm, and does not seem at any point like she is going to hit him over his half failure. Maybe she doesn't use her hands in that way. She politely insists that he eat his lunch inside, at her long wooden table, and she sits down across from him, watching as he disassembles his lunch box. "How are you settling in?" she asks him, so soft-spoken that at first Neil mistakes her question as polite.
Neil swallows, and eats a slice of what he thinks is ham. The meat is harder to identify when it's flat and cold. And he feels the press of truth tugging at his mouth. Andrew only asks questions he really wants to know the answers to, and this is a nothing question that is supposed to be an introduction to a conversation. How is he settling in? "It's different," he says eventually. "The bed is soft. I like the Foxhole Court -- with all of the house facades. Kevin sucks, but it's --" what can his mouth say about Kevin that does not betray his inner heart? how could she ask this question of him, knowing that he is bound to telling her the truth? "Andrew stops him from -- most of it, I think." And he's grateful for that, he is. Even if he wants, sometimes -- for Kevin to force the issue -- and then what would Neil do? Would he fight back? Or would he roll over for Kevin? Would he bare his throat to be cut, because Kevin had once been his handler? Or would he appeal to a higher power -- Andrew, Riko -- that would rather him not killed? He has value. They want his work to be their work.
Renee considers him. "That's good," she says. "I'm glad to hear that. Let's go over what you missed in class, and see if we can send you home with homework to catch up what you didn't understand. Do you think they would practice with you? Andrew and Kevin?"
A truth he can answer easily. "Yes," he promises. "Andrew sends me to the classes, and if you want me to practice, I think he would practice with me. Because it's more of the class."
Renee's smile is sunshine, and it hurts him to look at it for too long. "I'm glad," she says. "Let's spend your second class making some flashcards for you to take home."
***
At the end of his second real week at the Foxes -- four weeks wasted to one single job -- Andrew leaves instructions on his schedule to meet him outside the long house, where he's seen Foxes sparring before. Neil wonders with interest who he'll be sparring with: the obvious answer is with Kevin, but according to Kevin's own schedule, he is leaving on a two-day mission that evening. So it will be just Andrew and Neil in the apartment, and Neil will have to make the most of it while he can.
He is not ready for Andrew to be the one at his sparring lesson, and nobody else. He is not ready for Andrew to be wearing the clean, soft uniform for sparring, built to move around in. He is not ready for Andrew to show him to a table of knives, of different lengths with different handles. Neil feels his whole body flinch, at the implication, at the prospect of it.
He is not allowed knives. He has never been allowed, after his father, after his matriculation into the Nest, after --- after his first kill. He works well with a rifle, from a distance, from a rooftop two buildings away. Knives are for handlers, knives are for Riko, knives are for -- anyone else besides him. He is an asset. He does not get to touch knives. Perhaps other assets, at some point, get to touch knives, but everyone knows Neil's history. So he does not get to use knives. This is a trick, this is a farce. If he spars with knives, then he is never going to be able to go back to the Nest, he is going to have to stay here and explode, because he is going to touch them, and it will all awaken inside of him again, his legacy.
Andrew looks at him, his eyes dark, betraying nothing. "Not today, I think," he says, looking over Neil. "Tonight we'll just go over basic forms, and start working on your hand to hand combat skills. Kevin didn't come with very many, and I'd like you to develop some. As well as to develop different methods for your practice, which will be more useful for jobs, when it comes down to it. You'll be more versatile as an asset. But I'd like you to pick out a knife for yourself, to carry regularly."
"What?" Neil asks, and curses himself for it, because Andrew had told him to be very careful with questions.
Andrew merely tips his face into a wry smile, and answers: "Depending on what you pick, I have a variety of sheathes for you to use, to carry the knife on your person. You're looking more spooked than usual. What are you thinking about?"
"I can't -- I'm not --" The pills make his words spill out immediately, but he doesn't really know what's going on in there. "I'm an asset, I don't -- it's not for me. Sir. Handler."
"You're not allowed to use knives, because you're an asset?" Andrew asks, carefully threading Neil's thoughts together. Neil nods frantically, relieved. "That was an old rule, I think," he says. "I'm making a new rule, which says you are allowed to carry a knife. And that if a handler or otherwise tries to take it away from you, or if you feel like a handler is threatening you, then you are authorized to use your knife. Are you understanding me?"
"No sir," says Neil, because this is an impossible cliff to climb.
Andrew passes a hand in front of his face. "We'll work on it," he says, and Neil hopes that he does not run out of that well of patience.
At the end of their sparring session, during which they do not spar but Andrew shows Neil some basic forms to follow, Andrew waits patiently for Neil to pick out a knife from the options. Neil does not pick a knife from the options, but instead stands there for so long that Andrew picks one for him, and says that if he wants to choose something different later, he can. They walk back to the Fox dormitories together, and Andrew seems unbothered by Neil's new power.
Neil leaves the knife on his bedroom windowsill. Two promises that he can't collect on.
Yet.
***
In the evening, for his second dose, he takes the pill and then Andrew makes him open his mouth and fishes around with a finger, to make sure he's swallowed it. The first time he did this, Neil retched and choked, like Riko had taught him nothing. But he's learned his lesson: he keeps his tongue still for Andrew's finger now, and it's over fast. The way Andrew looks at him -- When Riko looks at him, Neil can tell that he doesn't even really see an asset, someone to do good work for him. Riko sees a collection of synapses that can be manipulated in a series of ways that will make an interesting collection of noises. Kevin looks at him and sees an asset, certainly, but one that needs to be pushed and dragged into place, because he doesn't listen very well. He tries to do what he thinks is best too often, and it's better to curtail that before it gets out of hand. When Andrew looks at him -- it's like he's thinking about him, about who he is and what he is trying to do. It's like Andrew sees the motivations behind what he's thinking, what he's doing. Like he's been there, and he has reeled out a list of possibilities and outcomes for this situation.
In the evening, Andrew makes dinner, and Kevin sometimes helps, and Neil gets back too late from lessons to get there before they start making food, so he sits at the counter on one of the spinny stools and listens to Andrew and Kevin talk about there. To Andrew asking about Kevin's day, and Kevin reporting back, just like a real asset would. Neil finds it both novel and extremely stupid, that everyone is forcing Kevin to play this role, and Kevin is just rolling over and taking it. Like he's always wanted it. Pathetic. He still wears his cripple and he doesn't even take kill missions, and he makes food for his handler, for his handler's other asset.
Neil would never. Well, Neil isn't allowed to use knives, so he's never been allowed to cook. Kevin's not dumb, he has a history, etc. Kevin was smart not to let him, just as Riko was smart not to make him.
Anyhow. It's been two nights, Kevin is gone on his useless little vanity mission, and Andrew has been cooking alone. Lots of chicken boiled in pots, lots of rice, lots of green vegetables that Neil has never tried to name before. Long skinny ones, and big fluffy ones. Neil isn't complaining; there's always enough food for him, and Andrew puts more food on his plate if he empties it but doesn't leave the table, so he doesn't even have to work himself up to asking. In the evenings, after Neil's had his second dose, he will sit in the front room with Andrew, Neil on the sofa, Andrew on the squashy chair. Andrew will put something on the screen; images fill the space, although they mostly remain incomprehensible to Neil. Images have been like that, since he started the medication: the background of a scene before him will be uninteresting, so it becomes faded in his sight, but the people he is actually around become more important, visible. Andrew turns the sound on low enough that it doesn't become words, just a pleasant kind of murmur in the background. After a period of pleasant time passing, while Neil does homework for the classes he attended earlier in the day, Andrew will say: "You should shower and go to bed," and Neil will take it as an order, and go. He can control the temperature of the water himself, and Andrew never says anything about it either way.
It's the third night of just the two of them. Kevin was supposed to return today. Perhaps he has abandoned the Foxes, at long last. Perhaps he has seen Neil and realized that he should return to where he belongs, at the feet of the Moriyamas. Neil thinks that he would be justified in killing Kevin anyway, if that were the case, if he were that stupid. It seems like Kevin may indeed never return, and Andrew suggests that he goes to shower, and Neil goes, collects soft clothes for bed, and in the transition between his bedroom and the bathroom, the front door opens. Neil pauses, in the shadow cast by the entryway's light, to look at who comes in from the dark.
It's Kevin, and he's bleeding. He peels off the mask that he is wearing, and drops it on the floor. Andrew sets down his tablet immediately, and sets it aside, and waits, wordlessly, for Kevin to come to him. And Kevin obeys the prophecy set out for him, and drops to his knees in front of Andrew -- Neil recoils, immediately, because that isn't what should happen now -- but Kevin simply lays his head in Andrew's lap, and sighs, and Andrew puts a hand in his hair, and strokes. And Neil can't stop watching them, even though -- this is the most private of rituals, between a handler and an asset, this is what it's all about, why they put up with so much, to be allowed this one moment -- and Neil wants, and he aches with it, and he doesn't know why this scene is making him feel this way, and he doesn't know why he would want -- whatever this is.
"You're bleeding," says Andrew, quiet, enough that Neil has to strain to hear from the hallway.
"I didn't -- I couldn't get it," Kevin says. "It wasn't there at the same place, and I was spotted -- I couldn't get out where you told me too, and I had too -- I didn't do it," he says, all in one breath. Neil understands, intimately: Kevin failed the mission. And now Andrew will kill him? That's why Kevin went immediately to kneeling? That seems to be the only reasonable option.
"Shh, shh, shh," says Andrew instead. "We'll talk about it in the morning." He tilts Kevin's face up so that he can examine it closer. "Did you eat?"
"I don't need food," says Kevin.
"That's not the question I asked," replies Andrew, a little sharper. "Did you eat?"
"I didn't eat," Kevin eventually bleats out.
"Then you'll have a midnight snack before you go to sleep," Andrew declares. That's not right -- if Kevin failed his job, he shouldn't be rewarded with food -- there's no point to even doing any of it, if it doesn't even matter , if it doesn't even matter for Kevin -- "Where are you bleeding from? Come here, come sit on the sofa."
"I don't know," says Kevin. "There was -- I don't remember."
"Come lay down then," says Andrew, and as he stands, he herds Kevin onto the couch, to where he's lying down. "I'm going to fetch the first aid kit. Do you want Neil to help out and fetch things, or should I send him to bed?"
"Nnnn," says Kevin, and Andrew doesn't press the issue again.
Neil is still standing in the hallway when Andrew comes through for the kit. For a moment, Neil can only see the reflection of Andrew's golden eyes, and the light behind him, and then Andrew flicks on the bathroom light, and it spills into the hallway. "Did you take your shower?" Andrew asks.
"No sir," Neil breathes. "Are you going to kill Kevin?" He shouldn't -- why did he fucking -- that's Andrew's business.
Andrew laughs, though, at the question. "No," he says. "We'll try the mission again later. Go to sleep, Neil. You'll have your first job in the morning."
"Yessir," says Neil, and he goes. And he thinks about treading the path where Kevin failed, yet again, and if this is always going to be where he is led. And he thinks about the knife set on his windowsill, about what he will take from the future, if he is allowed to.
About what he can steal back, for himself.