This was an accident. LaTotES was supposed to be finished before I started a new story, but apparently Sikens has flipped my switch from writer's block. I actually really like this idea, and though I have yet to figure out how far I'm going to go with it, I hope you enjoy it too. I want to give major props to beyond-the-twilight for always encouraging me, and making sure that I'm not just jumping into this. She deserves cookies. All mistakes are still mine though.
12/10 - I've recently been posting on AO3 under the name Mamihlapinatapai, and while doing such, have been doing some editing. Today, because I'm crazy, I've decided to update everything on here. The changes won't affect the story line, it's just to clean everything up a bit.
Noah Puckerman doesn't like jail.
He went to juvie once in high school, and spent most of it in the fetal position praying that the guy who looked like a thirty-two year old Cuban dictator didn't make him his bitch the entire time. So, yeah, Noah really, really hates jail, and judging by the amount of time it's taking Santana to saw through this safe doesn't bode well for his future.
"Fucking hell, can you move any slower. There's only so long Sam's video feed will hold before the rent-a-cop downstairs get suspicious." He's pacing, checking and rechecking the radio like it will explode in his hands. (Which has happened before, thank you very little, so it's probably a legitimate concern.)
Santana Lopez, a name more counterfeit than the eyelashes she fluttered at the guy who was remaking her passport in Portugal, turns, eyes flashing and Puck's fingers twitch.
"Puckerman, I swear to god I will drop you right here, and take your cut to buy myself a new 'retrieval specialist'. Now shut the hell up so I can focus." And the thing about her is that he doesn't doubt she would do it for a second. It's not like they always worked together, and he's not too eager to discover what happned to the guy before him.
(She's not really into loose ends.)
So he backs away, hands in the air with fake surrender, and goes to dial Sam two floors below. He doesn't even get a word out before the hacker's voice is crackling over the radio in his hand.
"Dude, Brittany's hot but she can only distract Cooper for so long. Has Santana lost her touch?" Puck starts to laugh until he catches a glare in his peripheral, and for the sake of his and Sam's lives, stops abruptly.
"She just needs a couple more seconds, this safe is a little trickier than we thought. Is everyone still at the party?" At the thought, he loosens the tie wrapped around his neck, and frowns at the prospect of scaling anything with the ridiculous shoes he's wearing.
"No, everybody is still as drunk as ever," and then Sam reads his mind because that's what people who have worked together for so long do. "There's gym shoes in your bag, if you need them."
The smile forms unconsciously, but he still pulls them out, slipping them on, before moving to Santana's bag and tossing her a pair, too.
For a few mintues, it's silent, and then enough static to hear a muffled, slightly mumbled, curse. Even after that, it still takes Sam a couple seconds to say anything.
"So by the way, you owe Brittany a new dress because apparently she ripped hers bashing Copper over the head, and I paid last time."
"I thought she was supposed to be distracting him."
"She was."
Puck laughs before sending a glance towards the brunette across the room, just in time for her present the open safe with a raised eyebrow and a flick of her wrist; he sighs before tossing her the radio so that both of his hands are free.
The radio crackles back to life as he's unloading the last of the blood diamonds and manila envelopes into the black bags at his feet, and Santana's throwing equipment into her own bag.
"Uh, guys, I think we may have a problem." The ice cold barrel of a silencer is pressed to the back of his head and Santana, because she's a quick bitch, pulls her own gun. But really, the way her eyes widen slightly doesn't bode well for his brain's grey matter.
-0-
He got into this field accidently.
He's living in Seattle, name: Ben Puckerman age: twenty-two, and he is paying rent with the money from both illegal fights he's won and illegal fights he's thrown because there's nothing quite like simultaneously beating the shit out of someone and cheating people out of their (probably) hard earned money, in his mind.
In May, two weeks before his twenty-third birthday, a stunning brunette leans across the counter of a bar he had been wiping down, and offers him a new life.
Said new life included the same thing he's been doing, except now he's paid to never to lose a fight. The brunette, who he learns goes by Santana and Maria and sometimes Elizabeth when they're in any southern continents, introduces him to the other two people in this misfit team she's assembled.
Sam Evans doesn't even flinch when Santana introduces him in a shady warehouse on the outskirts on the city. The fake name is obvious, as is Brittany's, the pretty blonde who knows how to quitely disarm anyone with a smile and a well placed elbow, so when Sam sticks his hand out, Ben doesn't hesitate. Thinks of the way his mother had whispered Noah across his face in her hospital room, two years before his brother had been put into the ground.
"The name's Noah, you can call me Puck though."
-0-
It takes awhile to learn their habits. To get comfortable with San's snark that is supposed to be interpreted as some screwed up sort of affection, or Brittany's habit of playing up dumb blonde even though she knows more languages than he thought the world had, but probably nothing takes as long as getting used to the fact that Sam smiles all the time. And means it.
But, eventually, it's second nature, so that's why it throws him so off guard when, in September of the same year they find him, Brittany drops off the map.
Santana isn't amused, but there's worry lines around her eyes, and Sam spends two tense days tracking everything from Brittany's cell phone records to the serial numbers on the bills she always keeps in her pockets. On the third day, her cell turns on and they drive six hours into California just to find her unconscious on a warehouse floor, blood matting her hair. They drive her back to Seattle, and after making sure she's not concussed, and or, into something deep enough that it earns them all a bullet, she spills the story.
Apparently, on her way up the stairwell in her temporary apartment (because elevators are just looking for trouble, duh Puckerman) she had been blind-sided. There's a gaping hole in her memory after that, and Puck really thinks they should check for a concussion, again. Santana paces the floor of the hallway and the hotel room and the warehouse, when they're there, so that two days later when Sam's laptop pings with a name, Puck doesn't know whether to be grateful that they know who did this to Brittany or relieved that Santana's rage can be directed at someone, so it won't just explode and take him as collateral damage or whatever.
His name's James Cooper, a filthy rich American billionaire working out of France, who has a propensity for illegal blood diamonds and child labor. Brittany had stolen two million worth six years ago, and apparently he has a tiny problem with letting the little things go. So he had cleaned out her apartment, her Seattle storage unit, and a disorienting blow to the head was sufficient.
Fortunately, not only does Brittany have storage units all over the continental United States, not that Puck wants to see any of them, but everyone seems to agree that taking Cooper for all that he's worth and giving him a much earned jail cell, wouldn't be pushing the limits of revenge too far. And yeah, they tend to take no hostages when it comes to their own.
Four plane tickets were purchased three weeks before a perfectly well-timed benefit honoring the stunning donations of one Mr. James Cooper to the poor little African children he was secretly exploiting. Only Santana and Puck had tickets into the benefit, which were obtained through no shortage of debt repayments and short skirts, but getting Brittany and Sam in through the roof on the fiftieth floor was easy enough. So while they went to clear out every document from Cooper's personal office, and Sam made his way to the security office on the fotieth floor, Brittany kidnapped Cooper from his own party.
All this means is that Puck was really expecting an easy night of revenge and blackmail, and instead got the threat of a bullet through his skull.
Given the circumstances, he would have chosen prison.