A/N: Thanks to BeanieSgirl, DarknessDeadly, Vio and bunnyreader, for your feedback on chapter one; this series of one-shots is very much dependent on your support and belief in it.
Lucas
Dakar
Croupier... Courier... Killer.
How had it come to this?
How had he sunk so low?
There was desperation, and then there was John Bateman; a whole page of the dictionary of John's life could be devoted to this recently discovered, highly tainted facet of his own human nature.
He had been respectable once, a good person; he worked hard, was good to his parents, volunteered at the old folks' home and left college with a slew of qualifications. He could have been anybody, done anything, made the right choices.
But, like the good little capitalist he was, he succumbed to greed.
He made the wrong choice.
The situation that his impulsive tendencies and 'fluid morality' had gotten him into had seemed hopeless. He was stranded and alone in a foreign country with no passport, no money, no means of salvation. Lucas had thrown him a lifeline, Vaughn had thrown him another, and now Lucas' blood was on his hands.
Along with the blood of seventeen British and African people.
He covered his eyes with his hands, dug the heels in until colour exploded behind his eyelids, kept pushing until the pressure reached an unbearable level, then freed them.
If only the pressure around Lucas' crushed windpipe could have been released so easily. If only he could take it back.
His adams apple bobbed, swallowing the sob that could never escape. If it got out he would break; if it got out he would be as lost as Lucas.
The worst part of it all, the bitterest pill to swallow, was not that he had indirectly killed masses of innocents, nor was it the fact that he had killed Lucas with his own hands in cold blood; it was the simple realisation that he found it easy.
Killing was easy.
The adams apple bobbed again.
The good man he had once been wailed in a different kind of desperation, begging him to make amends, begging him to get it right this time.
The answering silence was painful, but he deserved the pain, the isolation.
He dressed himself mechanically, not noticing what he was using to cover up the willful monster he had become, knowing that he would get what he wanted regardless of what he wore; knowing it, because he always did.
It was the eyes.
At once disarmingly open and innocent, yet masking something dark, something extreme. He controlled it, the darkness, and yet allowed it to remain. He could exorcise it if he wished to, but that would be too easy and his conscience would finally catch up with him if he did. So he continued to control it, exercising varying degrees of it until it reached a point where the control became a game. The edge of control was tempting. The edge was very tempting. The edge was free. His eyes would hood, his brows draw low, his pupils dilate and then... there was the edge.
Realising that he'd stepped too close to the edge - during his introspection and without even realising it - he took a slow, deep breath.
He couldn't afford the edge. Not today.
He blinked. He'd arrived.
Looking up at his destination, he allowed himself a small curl of the lips and fingered the folded, faded photograph hidden safely in his suit pocket.
Thames House.
The door swung open for him, inviting him in, welcoming him to his new home.
John Bateman waited sadly on the doorstep, he'd still be there when the new Lucas North emerged.
Lucas North,
Lucas North,
My name is Lucas North.