With an incredible dried throat, sore eyes and an ugly nausea, Kenny woke up. He groaned, while turning to his side to face the white wall. The first thought that came to his mind : 'I'll never drink again'. Yea, he knew better than that. A headache started to crush down his brain and now, he was more determined when he decided not to drink again, ever, seriously.
What happened last night? He started going over the events last night and, in spite of the awful brain damage, images started building in his mind.
He walked down the hall, next to Gregory. They were both in surprisingly good moods, after their last lesson, as they headed towards the 'living-room', or so they called it. It was, actually, just another room, with a couch, a table, a fridge for beers, or food, occasionally, and a TV. It was quite ironic, 'cause everyone went there to escape the routine of work. What routine, in deed. Breaking bank accounts or making plans for assassinations was not that much of a big deal.
Tweak, Token and Wendy were already there, visibly tipsy, and they welcomed the newcomers with a loud cheer, not bothering to get up from their comfy chairs.
"I've heard you passed the Brit's tests" came Token's voice, interrupted by a hiccup."I think they're a pain. I really don't see the purpose of this. It's a mind fuck - worthless and unpleasant." He stopped to take a large gulp of beer and Gregory hurried to correct him:
"Just because you didn't understand what I was trying to teach you, it doesn't mean that it's worthless for others. Kenny here is going to work on the field and he'll need it, believe me."
"I say you'll quit within a week" the black turned to speak with Kenny. "Each one of us have their drops of craziness, but that French guy, man, he's insane."
"And he glares." All the heads turned to face Tweak, who was shaking more than usually. Wendy snorted, but agreed.
"Everyone glares" she shook her head, then rested it on top of her folded arms on the table."It's common nature. But you're right, he glares."
"Do you guys hear yourselves, such nonsense! And what if he glares?" Gregory said again, folding his arms over his chest in protest. Kenny sat down, Gregory followed, as the brunette girl handed them beers.
Emptying a can of bitter alcohol and taking another one, Token threw his eyes to heaven and spoke firmly " Dude, it's Christoophe-fucking-DeLorne we're talking about here. He's got a different type of glare for every situation. Heck, he even glares when he's happy!"
"That's a very rare one" continued Tweak, the twitching never ceasing."Don't touch his shovel." He went on, his eyes wide, terror visible in his eyes.
"Guys, I don't like this conversation. Gossip is wrong."
Everyone burst into a fit of laughter, excluding Gregory, whose comment was the actual reason for it. Instead, he chose to frown and shut up. Trying to stop his team mates from laughing was equal with trying to dry out the ocean, while taking it's water with a spoon. Soon enough, the laughter ceased, being replaced by snickers and small giggles here and there. He sighed and resigned, letting his facial muscles unwind and, all of a sudden, he felt a lot better. 'Why get tensed and stressed for all the small things. There are worse things, so better wait for them to get you pissed.' Certainly, a lot better. So he started listening to the others chatting about random stuff, like how much of a bitch was the last guy they had to escort out of town because he was a too rich/paranoid to simply drive.
"I'm tellin' you, all the lawyers are lying bitches. You don't want to have them around. Especially if they're women." Token's voice sounded so sure, the British had to restrain himself from labeling the comment as misogynistic. A small smile appeared in the corner of his lips as Wendy punched him pretty hard in the shoulder:
"Women hater."
"Woman, I love women! But not if they're lawyers, they scare the shit out of me." The black's little piece of speech made everyone nod. It, somehow, made sense.
Silence fell over them, a comfortable silence. It made Kenny's stomach feel awkward. It was as if, after a long time, he belonged to a family. Though he liked the situation, there was a single thought spinning in his head and it kept bugging him:
"I like it here, it's a nice place" he spoke, before stretching out." There is something bothering me" pause for effect , "and that's the fact that I'm not the only blond here."
Every one blinked, and, within seconds, suggestions started falling, surprising Kenny. His comment was supposed to be a joke, but then he remembered: never try to muse on drunk logic. Token, as usually, went first.
"Tweak can shave his head and Brit can dye his hair yellow or somethin'."
"Blonde is yellow, dumbass."
"Stop scolding him, Greg. You're no better than he is. Drunk, I mean." She leaned back in her chair, then continued " and so am I. I think we should head out now."
"No no no!" the orange wearing teen hurried, slapping Gregory slightly on the shoulder." I have classes with a crazy mercenary tomorrow. And he's crazy, he tried to kill me with his shovel!"
Wendy sighed, and rested her chin on the table once more.
"Look man, you have to be smart when you fight DeLorne, try to outsmart him, y'know, think… I dunno. Greg, explain it to him."
"He will try to learn about you, then exploit what he knows, in his advantage and your disadvantage." He stopped to open another can and take a big gulp. "Then, there's the psychological damage he can do."
Tweak interrupted: "Brainfuck."
"Yes, brainfuck, you can call it that. If he gets in your head, you're nailed."
By the time Christophe entered the room, Kenny alone had consumed too much beer to remember exactly how much.
After that, he blacked out. He didn't know how he ended up in his room. He remembered smoking, because of the nicotine taste that still lingered in his mouth, and he remembered a pair of glistening dark-green eyes staring at him. Suddenly, he sat up, eyes wide opened, as realization struck him. There was only one person with eyes of that shade of green. If he hadn't been himself, he probably would be embarrassed. Actually, the situation pretty much amused him. There were dozens of people in hell who could tell that they had been killed by the mercenary, but, either in hell or on Earth, he was the only one who could tell that he'd been tucked in bed by DeLorne. The dude was strong, fast, a cold blooded killer, a prodigy and… and, fuck, he had to meet him at the gym! In a second, Kenny was heading to the bathroom and, within ten minutes, he was fresh and running to grab something to eat. He burst through the kitchen's door, panting heavily. A sleepy-looking, twitching Tweak, in a bathing gown, was making himself coffee and threw him a 'are-you-crazy?' look. Waiting for Kenny's ragged breath to calm down, the coffee addict scratched his neck and turned back to his own business. Feeling better, the orange-wearing glanced at the clock on the opposite wall. Mockingly, it showed 3:14. He couldn't believe this was happening. To kill his suspicion, he asked:
"Tweak, what time is it?"
" It's 3:15" came the reply, after a few moments of hesitation and a violent twitch. Rolling his eyes, Kenny continued.
"I know that. It's a.m or p.m? "
"A.m. It's kinda hard to tell without windows, eh? I'm telling you, the walls and ceiling are going to collapse one day and we'll all be dead."
Ken remained silent, chewing on his frustration. He couldn't believe he acted so recklessly, so he made a mental note: first thing you do when waking up is looking at the time. With that matter settled. He sighed and went back to his room. Walking absent mindedly through the dark corridor, he frowned and traced invisible lines on the wall with his fingers as he passed by, Seriously, didn't they have enough money to put some god-damned lights ? Walking shouldn't be this much of a bother. The blond sighed and scowled. He really needed a smoke right now. His face lit at the idea of warm smoke filling up his lungs, calming his nervous system. He inhaled deeply, shuddering in anticipation. Yep, it was an emergency. Turning around, he made his way to the brunette mercenary's room. It was the last door from the main corridor. The hive had lots of corridors and the dorm rooms were on the main, which had to be the darkest.
Stretching out a slightly shaking hand, he knocked on the door shyly at first, then harder. He heard footsteps on a carpeted floor, the knob turned and the door opened to reveal a bored Christophe, his feet bare and hair ruffled, in a more accentuated manner than usual. Kenny felt a familiar scent filling up his nostrils. It smelled like dirt, smoke and coffee and maybe a little bit of blood. He cleared his throat and spoke:
"I- I need a smoke."
The French quirked an eyebrow, an amused gleam in his eyes, but he shrugged and stepped aside to let the blond in. The room was lit poorly by a single lamp hanging from the ceiling. Though, he could notice a mattress laying in a corner, a short table next to it, paper scattered everywhere, a shovel against the opposite wall, another one on the mattress and a pile of what looked like clothes in another corner of the room. A cigarette was pushed in his face to wake him up. He took it, grateful that a lighter clicked and, soon enough, the cancer stick was lit. Taking a long drag, he closed his eyes as he blew the smoke. When coming back to earth, he noticed that Christophe was sitting on the mattress, a cigarette hanging from his lips, as he looked over some papers. He went to sit down next to the mercenary.
The silence was broken when Chris spoke, in a hoarse, nicotine affected voice:
"You came all ze way 'ere for a smoke?"
The blond decided to look in the darkest corner of the room, pretending he didn't hear the question. What could he say? 'I woke up in the middle of the night, thinking that I had training with you and I ran like someone with a bad psychical issue to the kitchen, where the weirdest person here thought I was weird?'. As if.
"So what are you doing?" he spoke, changing the subject and his train of thoughts.
"Zis ees a building plan, a mansion" the brunette replied, handing the other a large piece of paper." You see, zis is ze room where ze object we want is held," he continued, dragging his index finger over the file."Now zis is ze front door, but we won't use it, non? Non. We need another way in."
Kenny scratched his chin, thinking."What is this?" he asked, pointing at a small opening in one of the bedrooms' wall.
"I think zat eez for ventilation. It's no good, I already checked."
"And what is this?" Kenny continued, showing a little channel, which started from the street and seemed to disappear under the building.
"Zose are ze sewers. Zey go from the street, as you can see, and zey continue under ze house." He paused, then quickly, he continued "I think it goes closer zo ze foundation than usually, if my information eez correct."
"If it is, you could simply dig, right?" the blond continued the idea.
"Zat eez correct. As soon as we're in, the rest will be too easy."
A small smile appeared in the mercenary's features. He knew from the beginning that there had been a reason why he chose the blond.
"What are you after?" the said blond asked, after taking a deep drag from his cigarette, as if the smoke was more valuable than air.
" We are after some files for some lawyer. You see, ze mansion belongs zo a drug dealer, who eez also a fucking pedofile. Zat folder should be ze evidence for taking him down once and for all."
"So we're the good guys here!" Kenny couldn't hold back his enthusiasm, he really wanted to find out and show what he was capable of. This might be the best opportunity.
"I zink so."
"So we get like, spying devices or some of that cool stuff?" And he couldn't hold back his grin either.
"Are you stupeed?" the brunette looked at him, an eyebrow slightly up. "Zis eez not a fucking movie!"
Kenny let out a soft sigh, pouting, just a little. With a quick eye, Christophe observed and couldn't believe his eyes.
"Are you pouting? Fucking pouting? From all ze things? Fuck, zuch an idiot."
"Yea? And well, you're a douche bag!" came the reply, after the blond crossed his arms on his chest.
"Fuck you, bien?" Christophe couldn't restrain himself from rolling his eyes. He was starting to have second thoughts about the perfect apprentice and all. The next comment, still, was the cherry on top.
"I don't speak douche bag-ic!"
Laughter erupted from his throat, Kenny following shortly after. There could still be hope.
When they calmed, the soon-to-be mercenary scratched his head nervously and said:
"Y'know, thank you for earlier…". Christophe stopped him instantly, adding quickly.
"Don't mention eet. Really, don't. I helped you because I needed you zo be useful."
"Aw, the Mole tucked me in bed because he needed me! God, this is too much! I think I'm going to need a beer!"
" 'ey, don't say that faggot's name 'ere, zis ees my place! And zat eez not a reason for you to get drunk!"
"Too bad, I get rather frisky when I'm drunk!" Ken added, a suggestive smirk playing on his features and turning into a toothy grin when the brunette smiled too.
"You zink you're such a smart ass, don't you?" He took a deep drag, with the blond watching him intently. Then he remembered:
"Hey, if I recall correctly, you said something about training."
"Yes, I deed."
"And shouldn't we go to rest or something?"
"Non." With that, he got up and, seconds later, he threw a heavy backpack at Kenny and told him to follow. Soon enough, they were both in the black Hummer. Christophe was rummaging through his pants pocket and took of a black piece of cloth. He moved a little closer to the blond, stretched his arms towards him and almost whispered:
"Come 'ere."
"Um, what are you doing?" Ken said, obeying nonetheless.
"Now turn around." Doing that, he felt a shudder down his spine. The brunette leaned closer and put his arms around him, whispering in his ear:
"I'm blindfolding you. Your recommendation, remember?"
Kenny blushed a little and the French, of course, noticed. Making a double knot at the back of Kenny's head to make sure the cloth wouldn't fall, he drew back and muttered 'pervert' before stepping on the acceleration.
My longest chapter yet! Yay for me! I think I'm gonna need a beer to celebrate! XD
Anyway, back to the story…I think it's getting quite interesting! I also have some drawings with the Mole and Kenny, but, sadly, I don't have a scanner, so they're useless.
P.S: I watched 'BASEcketball' and, dude, Trey and Matt are kissing at some point! I laughed my ass off at all the other scenes of the movie, but that particular one left me with my mouth hanging open! I didn't see it coming…
Keep reading (if you read it at all) and take care of yourselves!
~ALLYed
