Inspiration: "Just a Job to Do" by Genesis

Setting: Alternate Reality (Modern day, Assassin)

Characters: Lalli

Relationship: Past Emil/Lalli

Warnings: Major character death, murder, child abuse, emotional abuse/manipulation

Other tags: In the style of Kill Bill, multiple endings

The spring air was chill against his skin, the scent of fresh earth and growing things hovering in the clean, crisp early morning atmosphere. Of all the things he'd wondered about over the past four years, this was not one of them: even if not for the security provided by isolation, it was easy enough to see why the other had chosen this place.

He shifted his weight against the branch, being careful not to make a sound or to stir any other part of the tree. The barrel of his sniper rifle remained trained on the house.

Hopefully, his target was going to open the door at some point during the day, but if he got a clean shot through one of the windows, he would take it. Not that he was likely to get a clean shot through one of the windows—in spite of the pleasant weather and beautiful view the house had only a handful of narrow windows set with thick-paned glass. Well, fair enough; it was hardly surprising that the target knew he would someday be hunted.

He waited. It was a boring job, but then again he was a patient man. As the sun rose higher in the sky he began to see hints of motion through the windows, patches of brightening and darkening that did not match the shifting light of the sun, and he knew that the occupant must be awake. Good. Hopefully he would be able to end this soon.

There was the distinct click of a latch. His muscles tightened; he shifted his weight, making sure of his balance on the branch. His finger curled inward to touch the trigger.

Then, he laid eyes on his target for the first time in four years.

As much as he thought he'd prepared himself for this moment, the jolt that shot through his stomach at the sight of the gold hair, the blue eyes, and the breathtaking smile was as strong as ever. Traitor, he tried to think, and, when that didn't work, You broke my heart. Though the latter was far more potent, it was still no use. His arms were shaking; he couldn't make the shot.

No…

His finger—his stupid, traitorous finger—had fallen from the trigger without him willing it to. Angrily, he renewed his grip, but his arms were even more determined to betray him than his hands and refused to hold the barrel steady enough for him to get a clean shot.

What was wrong with him? He'd never cared before—but that should be making this easier for him, not the other way around! The man had betrayed him. He'd betrayed their team. He'd broken Lalli's heart… and still, he couldn't seem to make himself pull the trigger.

Again, his body betrayed him, and the gun slipped, jostling the branch. Startled by the sudden rustle of leaves on a windless morning, Emil turned, and looked straight at Lalli with widening blue eyes…

Tell me why.

Those were the words he'd held burning inside him ever since Emil had abandoned them without so much as a note. For four years he'd choked them down, swallowed them back during every down moment when he'd asked himself again and again what he'd done wrong. They had just gotten started… Emil had been his first… he hadn't been good enough, hadn't been able to give Emil what he wanted…

Only when Taru had called him in to report that they'd managed to locate Emil, alive and well and living in a remote area of the mountains, had that guilt and betrayal crystallized into anger.

In spite of the fact that he fought quietly, everything inside of him was screaming it over and over as he kicked and punched and bit at every part of Emil that he could reach.

Emil's eyes widened, the breath forced from his lungs as Lalli slammed him back into a tree, but he recovered quickly and ducked under Lalli's arm just in time to avoid his knife. Again he kicked the rifle, sending it flying into the underbrush and well out of Lalli's reach before he could do anything more than brush it with his fingers, before getting hold of Lalli's wrist and swinging him around to send him flying into a patch of briars opposite the trees.

Damn. Lalli was faster but Emil had always been the stronger of the two, a factor his targets had always underestimated those few times he'd had to resort to hand-to-hand thanks to his short stature. If he wanted to win this fight, he could not let Emil get hold of him again.

He tore himself out of the brambles, ignoring the thorns that ripped into his skin. No sooner had he gotten his feet on the ground, though, than Emil was rushing him with a yell and swinging a crowbar straight at his head.

Just in time, he raised his arms to block, and the jolt of the impact reverberated all through his body—he'd count himself lucky if he got out of this without any cracked bones. Moving with the momentum of the attack, he dropped to the ground and swept Emil's legs out from under him.

Emil hit the ground with a thud, the crowbar flying out of his hand. Wasting no time, Lalli leaped to his feet and brought his boot down onto Emil's neck, only for Emil's arms to come up to block him in turn. Then, Emil had him by the ankle, and Lalli was yanked down to join him on the ground.

Before he could roll to his feet, Emil's full weight was on top of his chest, his legs pinning Lalli's arms to his sides, and struggle as he might Lalli could not shift him. (How in the name of all that was holy could someone who was so short manage to be so heavy?) After a few moments of helpless thrashing he was forced to give up, panting, as one of Emil's hands came to rest on his exposed throat.

"Give me one good reason not to kill you right here." In spite of his words, though, Emil's fingers did not tighten.

Lalli said nothing. He had failed; Emil knew as well as he did what the price of failure was. If you had to beg for your life you were already dead.

Still, they waited. There was a rustle of breeze through the branches, the sound of birds chirping in the trees. Presently Emil's weight shifted a little, and he sighed.

"Look, if I let you up are you going to try to kill me again?"

With what? He'd lost his gun, he'd lost his knife, and his whole body was too exhausted and battered for him to take a chance on trying anything with his bare fists, not against a man both significantly stronger and significantly heavier than he was. Resigned yet puzzled at this unexpected show of mercy, Lalli shook his head.

Abruptly the weight lifted from his chest, and Emil's fingers closed around his wrist—Lalli braced himself, but the other man was only pulling him to his feet. Unfortunately, he'd chosen the arm that had taken the brunt of the crowbar, and Lalli hissed as the sudden pressure sent a jolt of pain all the way from elbow to wrist.

"You've been training for this." It wasn't a question.

"Sorry about that." Emil looked awkward—adorably awkward, but Lalli angrily pushed down the wave of nostalgia that rose up in him at the thought of Emil talking to him without malice like they'd never parted ways at all, like they'd only just seen each other yesterday and Emil hadn't walked out on them four years ago… "Would you… like to come inside?"

"Why?" He spat the word as soon as they were inside and seated at the kitchen table, and Emil was laying out bandages and antiseptic in addition to two mugs of very strong coffee. Lalli pointedly did not touch the latter. They were both a complete mess: hair torn and tangled, dirt smearing their clothing, blood drying under Emil's nose, Lalli's face and arms covered with scratches, their skin a discolored mass of bruises and black eyes.

Emil stiffened momentarily before he returned to the table with a small pitcher of cream. He was still avoiding eye contact. "Do you mean, why didn't I kill you just now, or why did I leave in the first place?"

Lalli crossed his arms. As far as he was concerned, Emil had a lot of explaining to do, so he might as well answer both.

"Okay, fine." Emil sat down beside Lalli, reached out with an antiseptic-soaked gauze pad as if intending to swab the cuts on Lalli's face, but then changed his mind at the last second and handed the pad over to Lalli instead. "I wanted out. I couldn't do this anymore." He waited, but Lalli said nothing, only hissed slightly as the stinging liquid met the raw cuts on his face and forearms. Only a handful of swipes and the gauze was already discolored with blood and dirt; when Emil handed him another along with the bottle Lalli snatched both out of his hands so violently that he nearly cringed back. "Are you honestly going to tell me you've never even thought about it?"

"Couldn't." The sound of ripping paper was loud in the room as Lalli viciously tore a Band-Aid from its protective sheaf. "Knew better. You should have too."

Taru didn't look angry, and for some reason that made him all the more anxious. Lalli's palms were sweating, and he fought to make his pounding heart slow down. He hadn't done anything wrong… had he?

"Lalli." Taru folded her hands atop the desk, looking at him in much the same way she did whenever she laid out a mission. "Have you thought about where you are going to live?

"For that matter," she continued, still looking at him with that calm, level gaze that made him squirm in his skin for some reason he still couldn't account for, "how would you live? Do you have any skills that would make you an acceptable hire in any modern-day workplace?"

Lalli didn't know what skills she was talking about—or indeed, what anyone was even supposed to do in a modern-day workplace. Taru was right. He hung his head.

"We treat you very well here, Lalli. Your room and board is free. You are fed. You are clothed. If you need money for anything within the scope of your duties, you are provided with it. You could not find another employer anywhere in this world who would treat you so well. And yet instead of professing your gratitude, you claim you want to leave."

"I go back after I've completed the mission, or I don't go back at all. Even if I fail, there will be others. Do you plan to face every one of them as well?"

He could see Emil truly considering that possibility, wondering whether he would rather be shot, or stabbed, or poisoned; whether it would be worse to die by Lalli's hand now, or by his longtime mentor's later, or at the hands of a complete stranger after doing the same for both of them. He could not keep running forever, and they were not going to stop coming. An example has to be made, Taru had said. Sooner or later, one of them was going to succeed.

"It doesn't matter." Emil shook his head, and his hair caught the light in a way that still had the power to take Lalli's breath away. "I decided I'd rather be killed on the run than live for one more day like that."

Without his willing it, Lalli felt his fist clench against the table. He hadn't—!

The first time Taru had handed him a rifle and invited him to fire at a target that was shaped like a man, he hadn't thought anything of it. Taru was always asking him and Tuuri to do things that didn't make sense; this was just one more weird thing in a whole list of weird things that had come before. Once he could do that, she'd had him start to practice with moving targets: flying plates, small animals… "It's hunting," she'd said when he'd asked. "Lots of people do it." From there, it wasn't long before she had him start firing at people…

They'd done bad things. They were enemies of their company, of their family. Taru had told him whatever she needed to to get him to pull the trigger… but in the end, he'd still always been the one who was pulling the trigger.

"I wanted to ask you to come with me." Once again, Emil's voice shook him out of the past. "But even if I had… would you have said yes?"

Lalli looked away. He didn't know what he would have done.

"I don't know whether you would have been able to keep it from Tuuri. And she would have told Taru, who would have told my uncle… Lalli, I'm sorry. But I just… I couldn't take that chance."

For the moment, they both stared at each other. The offer that Emil had never made hung in the air between them, but it was insubstantial, a ghost. Even if Emil were to revive it, Lalli knew that he would not (could not) take it.

Lalli pushed out from the table. "Next time I come, I finish my job."

Emil nodded. "I'll be ready."

"What was your first time?" They were sitting on the sofa, Lalli's head in Emil's lap as Emil's fingers ran gently through his hair. In front of them, the TV broadcast news of the latest terrorist attack, an explosion that had leveled a whole building along with everyone in it.

Of course, the official channels would call it that—but both of them knew who was actually responsible.

"I'd just dropped out of school," he continued when Lalli didn't answer, without needing any answer. "My parents had lost all of their money a few months ago, and it was only just now hitting me that we were poor now, you know?" His hands, as they ran through Lalli's hair, were trembling slightly, but somehow he still managed not to tangle or pull. "Then my uncle called, said he might have a bit of work for me…"

This was the only life that was open to them. Yet somehow, Emil had escaped.

Emil was clearly making money without any help from his handlers. Emil was fed, clothed, housed… things Lalli had always been told that he'd never be able to manage on his own. So what was different?

The rock that he experimentally tossed into the trees produced an explosion that lit the night like a beacon.

Emil had set mines, then. Lalli knew better than to believe that he'd managed to miss all of them by coincidence or miracle the first time he'd come. No: Emil had been expecting someone, maybe not him but someone, and had still chosen to let him through.

Knowing Emil, there would be multiple tripwires and other booby traps, and not only on the ground either. He might not be able to avoid all of them.

Lalli scaled the nearest tree with catlike grace and began his leaping progression from branch to branch.

An empty house greeted him when he pushed open the door.

At first, he moved cautiously, wary that he might be walking into a trap. As he eased open door after door, however, training his rifle on the empty rooms beyond, it was clear that there was no trap, no ambush. Lalli was completely alone.

Emil had chosen to run. Again.

Lalli could not go back with nothing to show. He had no choice but to follow wherever Emil led him—whether to join him or to finish the job he'd started, only time would tell.

During the fight, which had lasted for only a few minutes but carried the intensity of hours, bullets had been flying through the air around them, whizzing past their ears and blowing the bark from nearby trees, accompanied by a series of explosions that had shattered the night with bursts of fire.

Over the course of his career, Lalli had never once missed a shot. Emil knew that, and had set the battlefield specifically to throw him off. Throughout the battle, his senses had been under constant assault from bursts of sound and light that had left him reeling from overload before plunging him into straining silence, only to start all over again before he could regain his equilibrium. Even through the confusion and pain, he could not help but admire Emil's dedication. Lalli didn't think he had ever performed half so well when he was doing it at the behest of others.

Now, they stood facing each other, each with his gun pressed against the other's head. Lalli had refrained from firing earlier, knowing that he could not get a clean shot. Emil hadn't skimped on the bullets, but then again he hadn't needed to: the discarded shell casings lying strewn over the ground told Lalli all that he needed to know about how well-stocked he was.

"I know it's too late now," Emil started, meeting his eyes against the backdrop of flames. "But I'm going to say it anyway. Lalli, I want out. Will you come with me?"

Two simultaneous gunshots rang through the night.

When Lalli came back to the house that night, the lights were on.

He approached cautiously, easing the door open and leading with the barrel of his gun, but there were no traps, no ambush. Instead there was only Emil, unarmed, sitting in the same spot he'd sat the last time they'd seen each other with his hands folded atop the table.

"I know that it's already four years too late," he started, calmly, not flinching even though the barrel of Lalli's gun was aimed right between his eyes. "But I want to ask you anyway." He took a deep breath. "I needed to get out. I got out. Believe it or not, it can be done." Slowly, he raised one of his hands and held it out to Lalli, palm up. "Lalli, will you come with me?"

Whatever happened, it was going to be both of them or nothing at all, whether against each other or against the world. There was no other way.

A/N: I enjoyed writing angry!Lalli a lot more than I probably should have. I also enjoyed writing Emil and Lalli having a knock-down, drag-out fight a lot more than I probably should have.