. clocks .

first hour

/ / with all sincerity / /

/ / I would like to be able to reach you / /

/ / with all sincerity / /

I would like to show it to you

Please, please, please don't shoot me but I couldn't help myself! I had to start this story. It's been sitting in my head bugging me for ages now, and I've just – I couldn't help it. I had to write it and I had to post it. Don't worry, The Sunday List of Dreams and Twisted are both coming along (slowly… a.k.a. SUPER, SUPER SLOWLY THEY'RE STILL HALF ON HIATUS D:) (Actually Twisted is really easy to write for cause I already know how it's going to end but The Sunday List of Dreams…. well that I also know how it's going to end but getting there is the problem lol) but for now they'll be side stories compared to this one. I guess, maybe, who knows lol. Also, I have deleted Last Chance. I honestly have no idea what the hell I was thinking when I started that story but honestly I don't like how I started it and so it'll be under revision until further notice. As to how many chapters this story will have? Too be honest I'm not too sure, it could go to twenty-four (like the number of hours in a day) or it might not. It just depends on how long I keep the chapters, I guess. And how much I want to drag this story on LOL. This first chapter is pretty long, but I don't know if the rest will go on for this long. There may be some inklings of other couples (I don't know how deep or how long those inklings will be LOL) a.k.a. Pokeshipping and Ikarishipping. All the characters are included in this story, they will all play roles, but I don't know where or how I'll stick them in per se lol.

Also, I severely apologize for my lack of...well, existence lol. I came on multiple times with the intent of posting chapters, but found that I couldn't. I haven't been satisfied with the work I've been doing as of recent on my other stories, which got me into this spiraling blah of just laziness/lack of motivation to write. I hope I'm coming out of it now, but I don't really know. For now, Clocks will be my main focus. I'm sorry, this does indeed put The Sunday List of Dreams and Twisted on the back burner again (like I said, half-hiatus) and I'll update them (irregularly, if at all) but I hope this story will sort of help me wipe the slate clean and really get me going again. I may post a few one-shots in between as well, just to help me sort out my thoughts and ideas and really get back into writing again. Thanks for still reading my (crappy) stories ; - ; And one more thing: I think I hate this new format. I can't do anything with spaces anymore and I liked how pretty it looked before D: LOL ignore me.

Anyways I know I shouldn't be starting this lol but I can't help it. Inspiration strikes me at the strangest times… like when I should be doing homework or sleeping. Le sigh lol but this idea has been bothering me for a while now. This story is a going to be a bit dark of course, seeing as how it's an M rating. It is super, super AU lol and there will be a lemon(s?) and of course blood and lots of killings and etc. Yeah, okay sit down and get ready for a ride! Enjoy!

This is very un-betaed and I know my tenses got really fucking confusing but I was too lazy to go back over and read it… I'll try harder next time to write in proper tenses :C... And sorry for the ridiculously long author's note LOL.

WARNING: This is rated M for a reason. Expect coarse language, gore, blood, killings, gun shoot-outs and lemon(s). If you don't like any of this, you might want to leave!

Full Summary: /AU\ She is dedicated to her job; She pursues him relentlessly, for he is a loose end... Her loose end. He tries to leave, but finds himself back where it all started, back to her. She holds absolute faith in her company, until they put out a hit - on her. Then she finds everything she once knew, was wrong, and finds herself unexpectedly putting her faith in the man who once was her loose end. /Contestshipping\

"I quit." He states clearly, his eyes hard. He throws the dagger with a swift flick of his wrist, and it lands with a loud thunk in the wall. It grazes past his head, and he simply looks at him, before smiling pleasantly, his fingers linked together as he leans his chin upon it. The knife behind him juts out, a blatant threat. He knows he could take him down at any time, but still he sits there leisurely as if he feared nothing. But Drew could see past his façade. He could quit this. He knew he could. But his smile was aggravating Drew…

Drew glares at him, his gaze narrowing even further. The man's smile widens.

"You can't quit." Drew looks at him in alarm.

"Of course I can quit. I could kill you right here, right now, and I'd be done." Drew responds harshly, his words resounding in the large room. His expression goes from alarm into a snarl in less than a second. The sun is a blurry haze of colors as it sets behind the cityscape. The room is aglow in a dark orange and blazing red, the occasional pink flitting across the floor. The man smiles again, half of his face hidden by the shadows that bounce across the room.

His body is a silhouette in the fading sun: regal, broad, and dangerous. Corrupt.

"You can't run away, Drew. It'll always follow you, wherever you go."

Silence washes the room once again. Drew stares at him, hard and long, before turning around and leaving.

He is gone from the city by nightfall.

May awakes to the sound of her shrill alarm clock. It is loud and obnoxious in her ears, but she likes it that way, a familiar reminder of her former life. Her body no longer needs loud alarm clocks or organized calendars to keep track of her day. She wakes at the same time every morning now. Her memory is sharp and she is able to recall things at the drop of a hat. Years of training have made her body a slave to her mind. It seems ironic, if she thinks about it hard enough, but she tries not to. May gently clicks the alarm clock to a stop. The green lines flash at her. It signals the start of her day.

She showers and eats mechanically; her body may be a slave to her mind but she is still tired. Exhausted, really. Her job couldn't have gone more wrong last night, and even if the outcome had been the one desired, it'd been one job that'd kept her up for the entire night. She'd barely managed to get three hours of sleep before having to wake up for a day full of class.

May pulls on a comfortable pair of jeans and a light, form fitted top. She wants to be comfortable, and is too lazy at this point to try and find a cute outfit to wear. She pulls her hair into two low hanging pigtails and checks herself in the mirror before nodding. She grabs her bag on the way out of her apartment, before slipping on a pair of flats and running out the door, down the hallway and into the elevator. May unlocks her phone, her thumb flicking across the touch screen as she checks her text messages. There is a long list of conversations with multiple people in her inbox, messages that, to the naked eye looked like a normal college student talking with other men and women about their jobs, homework, and love lives. But May knew better – everything is in code. Her inbox indicates no new messages and her e-mail is the same. May sighs as she leans back against the cold elevator wall, shoving her phone into her side bag. Two cute straps attached to the side jingle as she slips her hand into her bag. She glances down at them for a moment – one is a little figurine with blazing orange hair and a strap that says 'Misty'. The other is similar, only the small figurine has brilliant blue hair and the strap instead says 'Dawn'. May smiles at the two, the familiar reminder her friends were always with her.

The elevator pings, and it draws her out of her reverie. Slateport was a large city with one of the largest, and most prestigious universities: Slateport U, the university at which she is currently attending. It's a university that specializes in a wide range of majors, with a large student body and multiple concentrations and specializations. May steps out of the elevator. A young man passes by her as he heads into the elevator. She blinks as she passes him, her foot stepping up and out of the elevator and it's as if the whole world begins to move in slow motion. She shifts her head to look at him, but he continues to stare ahead, his eyes partially obscured by his somewhat long green hair that is styled so it moves towards one side of his face, almost like a slight swish towards one direction. May blinks again at his presence – or lack thereof.

Suddenly the world is moving at a normal time again and her foot lands forward as she continues to walk. May glances back at the mysterious boy, noticing that he is leaning against the elevator wall like she had just been. The elevator doors are closing – and at the last moment, before they shut completely, he looks up and his eyes meet hers.

And she feels recognition slam her in the face like a high-speed train.

May rushes out of the cool of her apartment building and into the sunshine of a lukewarm spring day in Slateport. She barely manages to catch the bus but she barely notices or really cares for that matter. It's like her body is on auto-pilot but her heart is effectively beating at a million miles per hour and it feels like her lungs don't have enough air in them. She is mentally freaking out and her brain is working on overdrive. She recognizes that face and she recognizes those eyes and god dammit, she should have recognized that hair color! She should have had half the mind to jump off the bus and run back into her apartment complex and slit his throat –

May takes a long, deep breath in, trying to calm her frazzled nerves and her frantic heart.

Admittedly, she never thought she would see him again, especially not in this town. After all, Slateport was where she'd met him. It was also the place of her first failed mission. May mentally groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. She thought she'd managed to rid herself of the self-loathing that always popped up when she thought of that mission.

It'd been simple, really. To get rid of someone who thought they could quit. May had moved to Slateport only a few months earlier and so of course she was the perfect candidate for the mission. She knew Slateport well enough by then and intel had indicated that he'd been staying in Slateport. He didn't know her face, so he was less likely to suspect the innocent brown haired girl with bright blue eyes was working for the company he once worked for. She'd studied his picture for days, wondering why he'd quit the business, and wondering how in the hell had he managed to stay alive two years after he'd quit. Admittedly, it wasn't the cleanest business on the planet (okay that was an understatement. It wasn't a clean business at all) and she'd known quite a few officers that had burst from the mental exhaustion and guilt that had assaulted them, but none of them had quit. She wasn't in a profession you could exactly quit at the drop of the hat; you couldn't just put in your two-week notice and expect to get out clean.

May was a thorough type of girl. She always kept two small daggers on her body at all times. She knew she would need it for this type of job. He was an enigma, eluding the company for years but at the same time allowing them to see him enough that intel had decent information on him. It was as if he were taunting them, and May presumed that he took some sort of amusement in totally screwing around with the company.

May hadn't quite expected to meet him in the middle of the sidewalk of Slateport, but there he'd been, walking casually through the crowd of the cold winter months, a large scarf pulled up and over his mouth. The time had been 12:00 right on the dot, and people were rushing all about them heading to lunch or back to work. He'd been looking down, not quite interested in what was in front of him. His presence was nearly invisible – he moved softly and swiftly, like anyone in her profession. She hadn't been too surprised at how smoothly he moved, but May had been young and over confident in her abilities, with her perfect kill streak. She hadn't expected him to dodge or stop her attack.

Her blade had been hidden within the sleeve of her thick coat. She moved her body like a dancer and with precision the dagger had flown past the moving bodies between him and her. She thought he wouldn't have been able to seen it coming, thought that he'd be dead within a few moments on the ground, thought that his blood would be spreading slowly out like a fan on the cold gray concrete sidewalk of Slateport while the crowd all around him screamed and ran around in a frenzy while she slipped away quietly into the shadows of the alley.

Instead, he'd caught her blade with his hand.

May had been alarmed and surprised. Her aim had been perfect and precise, like it usually was. But he'd managed to catch it without even batting an eye lash – in fact, he looked completely unfazed, as if he'd been expecting her this entire time. He'd caught the handle perfectly – the blade still pointing towards him. May grit her teeth in anger, allowing only a tick in her jaw to give away the way she was feeling. But she continued at a leisurely pace as to not alarm the people around her. Her presence was nearly invisible, but his was as well.

They were coming close to each other and May could feel the pinpricks of anticipation rising in her heart. She readied her blade and as she moved towards him, her foot caught hold in the ground and she tripped forward. Her blade pointed forward towards him with the intent of driving it straight into his stomach, deep enough to pierce the lining of his gastric chamber and cause a deep rifting wound that he would surely bleed out of before he could get the proper medical care for. He'd caught her gracefully, his hand steadying hers which held her dagger.

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" May breathed, demurely. She looked up at Drew with bright, innocent eyes. He simply smirked at her.

"Well, aren't you lucky that I was here to catch you?" He responded arrogantly to her, his voice deep and smooth like velvet. May laughed airily.

"Oh, I suppose I was! I'm sorry to inconvenience you."

"Not at all."

May pushed past him, eyes hidden behind the shadows of her bangs. Drew continued to move on in the other direction. May grit her teeth angrily as she picked up the broken pieces of her bruised and shattered ego, her face burning red with shame and anger and self-loathing and a million other feelings as she walked away. She'd failed her mission.

Drew smirked as he walked away from the brown-haired girl who'd been following him all around Slateport for quite a while now. He shoved his hand in his pocket and could feel the sting of the wound she'd managed to inflict on him. His glove was torn and he could feel the blood seeping out of it. A few drops had spilled onto the light concrete beneath his feet. He'd managed to escape that time. But the girl was a novice and the next time he crossed that girl, he knew he probably wouldn't be so lucky.

The two melted back into the crowd as if nothing had happened. All around them, life moved on and the clock ticked forward.

May has a headache by the time her bus reaches the bus station next to Slateport U. That, and she can't help but be ridiculously pissed off after remembering her first (and only) failed mission and the fact that the subject of that failed mission was now in the same city as her again. He'd been in the same building as her, for god's sake! The fact that he'd been in the same building as her freaked her out, and the reason why he'd been there was bugging May to no end as well. May had no idea how she was going to report this to her higher-ups.

What should she do? Should she just take him out and then report him? Or should she report him first and wait to see what happened? But what if she didn't get the mission to take him out? May didn't think her ego could take another blow like that. She was the only one who'd be allowed to take him down. She had to make sure of that. He was a loose end, and May didn't like loose ends. Especially when they were her loose ends. Which there weren't any loose ends of hers, mind you, except for him. He was a horrible black smudge, a black cloud on her record and an annoying loose end that had to be taken care of. He had to be finished off.

In order to rid herself of this black cloud of shame on her record, she knew she had to be the one to take Drew down herself. May frowned as she debated her options. Even as she thought of all these things, her body was still able to sense the oncoming presences behind her. She mentally sighed before getting ready for the oncoming pounce that Dawn would more than likely assault her with. Normally she wouldn't mind but today she was just too stressed and high-strung to be in a cheerful mood.

"May!" Dawn cried, as she launched herself at her friend. May let out a slight 'oomph' as Dawn tackled her and jumped onto her back, before turning her head to look at Dawn and smiling brightly, wiping off all traces of frustration and worry. She attempted to push her nerves and thoughts aside, wanting to enjoy the company of her two good friends.

"Good morning, Dawn!" May responds brightly, hugging her dear friend. She'd also managed to crush the normal killing reflex that sprouted in her when someone tried to sneak up on her. She didn't want to accidentally kill her two best friends, after all.

"Is something wrong, May?" Misty asked, frowning. May glanced at her, a curious expression on her face.

"Why do you ask that?" May questioned, but she knew that Misty was more perceptive than normal people. It certainly would have helped if she was in the same profession as May, but Misty and Dawn were civilians. They were just part of the crowd May was able to blend into.

"Oh, I don't know… something about you just seems… off today, I guess." Misty squinted her eyes as she stared at May intently. May just smiled, easily and rehearsed, at Misty. She didn't particularly like deceiving her friends, but it wasn't like she could just tell them, 'oh, well I met up with this guy I tried to kill and failed a year ago. But it looks like he's back so it's all good cause I get another chance to cut his heart out!'

"Don't worry, I'm fine!" May responded loudly, with gusto. Misty took this response easily and smiled as she settled comfortably on her feet. They continued to walk towards the main plaza.

They chattered loudly as they walked, flitting from one topic to another. May sometimes wished her life could always be this simple, but she knew better than to hope for something like that at this point. The three turned their heads to a loud voice that yelled towards them.

"Yo, Misty!" Ash Ketchum was a student at Slateport U. May didn't know what the hell he was majoring in, but all she really knew was that there was something about him that was off. She didn't know exactly what it was, but something about the boy bugged her. It was like his presence was that of a civilian, blatantly there and loud – but at the same time, practiced. Like he'd been trained. May shook her head. He couldn't possibly be like her. He was much too loud. He'd get caught before entering the same building, hell, before entering a ten-mile radius of the target.

"Oh, hi Ash." Misty replied lamely, and a well-practiced routine starts between the two. Ash was currently advocating something – May didn't really care what it was nor did she try to pay attention to what it was. The two began to bicker about something, more than likely the same thing as yesterday. It was a routine that May had gotten used to, and normally would have liked to participate in or watch. She didn't quite pay attention to it anymore, but she still enjoyed it nonetheless.

But as she looked at Ash, that nagging feeling in the back of her mind began to poke at her again. It was like he was a well-rehearsed machine, like he'd been trained to pretend to be a civilian. A little ironic, she thinks, that one would have to be trained to be a civilian. But she doesn't know why. He couldn't possibly be in the same profession as her. Perhaps she's just paranoid after seeing Drew this morning. May repeats these things to herself multiple times, her mind quiet and time has stopped in her head, even as the mouths and bodies of all the people all around her continue to move in slow motion. Dawn is attempting to hide her laughing, her hand moving towards her mouth just as Misty steps forward, angrily, her mouth-moving non-stop as she waves her fist furiously at Ash, who staggers backwards, alarmed. His movements are precise and rehearsed and for some reason May is unsettled by it.

The world flashes back into her head as the clocks start moving again. Sound comes rushing back in as Dawn taps her on the shoulder, giving her a questioning look. May blinks for a moment, confused and disoriented almost, before smiling at Dawn. Seeing Drew has completely messed her up, she thinks to herself.

"They're cute, don't you think?" May mentions, her head turned towards Dawn as Misty turns to look at her completely aghast.

"As if, May!" Misty responds angrily, "How could I ever get along with someone like him?" She points accusingly towards Ash, who gapes at her.

"Aw, don't be like that, Mist!" Ash whines at her statement, and May watches as Misty turns a slight shade of pink at Ash's nickname for her.

"Very cute." Dawn responds easily, already forgetting the strange look that May had on her face previously.

Life moves on, all around her, and the day flashes by in the blink of an eye. May waves to Misty and Dawn as they head to different buses. Ash waves his arms frantically to Misty, who turns bright red and runs into her bus as fast as she can. May can hear Dawn laughing loudly at this, as Ash yells something to Misty.

She boards her bus and sits in a seat. She pulls her headphones in and settles comfortably, staring out the window. May is more exhausted than usual. It's like her body is on overdrive and she's suddenly become hyper aware and sensitive of everything around her – almost as if she were on a mission. May sighs as she leans her head back. The bus is still empty, save for the bus driver. She stares up at the black ceiling of the bus, her mind a blissful blank slate as the music of her iPod filters through her headphones. She closes her eyes briefly and allows herself to rest.

The bus engine roars to life, and a few moments' later jerks into motion.

Ash's hand is still half mid-air as Misty harrumphs and runs into her bus. Only when the busses take off towards their respective destinations does Ash release a loud, relieved sigh. May had been staring at him like she knew exactly who and what he was the entire time they'd been in the plaza and Ash was positive she'd figured it out by now. Luckily for him, Dawn had pulled her out of her reverie before she'd been able to guess what exactly he was. He had never felt so grateful to the girl before in his entire life until that very moment.

Ash turns on his heel abruptly and heads towards the school's main parking lot. He drives off the school campus grounds and drives the streets of Slateport towards his apartment. He parks in his usual spot, and rushes into his apartment building. The elevator is painfully slower than usual and the elevator music only serves to irritate him. Finally the elevator pings and the doors slide open. He steps out into the hallway and walks calmly towards his door. The cameras are watching him, he knows. He doesn't want to give anything away.

He closes his door behind him quietly, throwing his book bag onto the ground of the narrow hallway of his apartment. The hallway opens up to a large family and kitchen-combined area. Windows line floor to ceiling on the opposite end of him, and the ground sinks into a family room where Drew, Paul and Gary are leaning comfortably against his sofa and chairs, watching the news. He glances at the TV. The young newscaster was reporting about the murder the night before.

A large political figure had been killed in his home last night, after he'd returned home from a large social gathering. He'd been killed meticulously and precisely, a clean slash to his carotid artery that had effectively caused him to bleed out. His phone lines had been slashed and his cell phone destroyed. All the security cameras had suddenly blacked out or been destroyed before the murder. He'd been unable to call for help. There was no trace evidence left behind – no DNA, no fingerprints or any fragment or semblance that someone had even been in the room with him, like a ghost had swept through the room and killed the man, before vanishing through the walls and into thin air.

Drew shuts the TV off and the room falls silent. Paul glances at Ash as he walks up behind the sofa, arms behind his head.

"Good to see you three are getting comfortable in my apartment." Ash remarks cleverly, and Paul rolls his eyes at him.

Gary simply smirks at him, "So how was your day, Ashy-boy?"

Ash grimaces, and this attracts the attention of all three boys.

"Err… I think May almost figured me out today." Drew turns to look sharply at Ash.

"What do you mean she almost figured you out today?" Ash throws his hands up defensively at Drew's eerily calm tone.

'Boy, is he pissed.'

"Well, uh, I don't know, she was staring at me real hard today, like she could see right into my soul, you know?" Ash trails off, as Gary rolls his eyes and Paul pinches the bridge of his nose.

"You should probably tell Gramps you nearly gave your cover away." Gary snorts,

"Hey! I said she almost figured me out! I never said she actually did! And besides I play my part perfectly, every day. I don't even know how I could have given anything away!" Ash yells back angrily.

"Well obviously you're doing something wrong if May almost figured you out!" Gary retorts angrily, and Ash opens his mouth to respond.

Drew can feel a headache coming on.

"Ladies, ladies, you're both beautiful." Drew responds, his fingers rubbing his temples in exasperation.

Gary opens his mouth to retort back at this, but Drew simply glares at him. Gary sighs, and Ash quickly closes his mouth.

"Well, I guess it's partially my fault." Drew responds, glancing on the window behind him.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" It was Paul this time, and Ash can't help but agree for once with him.

Drew shrugs nonchalantly, "I saw her this morning. She's probably flustered from seeing me." Drew turns to smirk at the three. "I have that effect on ladies, it seems."

Ash is gaping at him now, and Drew snickers at his expression.

"Are you shitting me right now?" Ash bellows, "How can you be so calm? She knows you're here! If you see her again she'll definitely slit your throat!"

Drew rolls his eyes, "I think I'll be okay, but thanks for your concern."

Ash is waving his arms frantically all around him now, "No, I don't think you guys understand. May is like, the mother-fucking queen of all assassins. She'll kill us all when we're sleeping and we won't even know it until we're dead!"

"That makes no sense, Ashy-boy."

Ash ignored Gary, "The point is, if she finds out you're staying here at my place, she's going to fucking rape me! Rape us all! We'll all be dead before we know it!" Ash is panicking wildly now, causing Gary to turn to Drew.

"Jesus Christ, is she really that good?"

Drew shrugs, "She only managed to nick me when she tried to kill me."

Gary turned back to Ash, "She doesn't sound like that much of a threat."

"You're overreacting, like usual, dumbass." Paul deadpanned, as he grabbed the remote and turned the large TV back on.

"No, I'm not! I'm serious, you guys. I've been watching this girl for like, a year now okay? She's crazy fucking good at her job. I bet you anything that she killed that guy." Ash remarks, referencing the man that had been killed the other night.

"And how the hell do you know that? Have you ever seen her kill anyone before?" Ash pauses at Gary's question.

"Err… well I mean, who else could it be? It's not like there are any other assassins here in Slateport… right?" Ash started lamely, causing Gary and Paul to groan.

"You're kidding me, right? How the hell do you not know if there are other assassins in this fucking city? I mean for fuck's sake, all four of us are here! That makes a total of five assassins that you know of. How many others do you think have been stationed here, other than May?" Paul hisses, and Ash throws his hands up again.

"It's a big fucking city, okay?" Ash yells back.

"The more reason to do more research!" Paul retorts angrily, and Drew hears Gary throw an insult at Ash as well. He refuses to contribute to the conversation any further. He knows better than to underestimate May, but he hasn't seen her in quite a long time. He doesn't know if her skills have improved or not, and he's praying now that they've gotten rusty over the year he hasn't seen her. He knows that if she is still angry over her failure of killing him, she will stop at nothing to kill him, and he can't afford to die. Not yet.

He turns to look out the window. People are rushing all about in the streets below, blissfully unaware of the dangers that lurk in every apartment, behind every door and in every alleyway. The sky turns to the color of concrete. The clouds have started to gather in the sky and the first few drops of rain have fallen onto the glass windows. They slide down the pane in meticulous lines, like tears.

The clock's hands move forward. Life moves on.