So I really hope you enjoy this! It's a teensy bit of a filler chapter but I had fun writing it all the same - I hope you have fun reading it. The break between the next chapter may bit a little longer because a) I'm going on vacation next week and not bringing my laptop and b) I'm going to try to update my TMI fan fiction first (It's been, like, months since I added a chapter to that story. I've been kind of neglecting it in favor of this one.) Please review! It's really helpful!
One Week Later
A labored breath left Assassin's lips as he swung a heavy sack off of his shoulder and onto the ground with a loud 'thump'. He wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead, leaving a small streak of grease on his face.
"There you go, Sparky," he said once he had regained his breath. "All the junk you could ask for. It'd better be worth it, because I had to outrun three coppers with this on my shoulders." He let go of the opening of the sack and it fell open, revealing a jumbled-up assortment of wires, circuitry, and tools.
Sparky grinned, her dirty blond locks falling out of the knot she'd tied them in. "Cheers, mate," she said, her eyes analyzing the contents of the sack. "Oh, and Spider wants to see ya in the alleyway," she added as she lifted a strange wrench and looked at it appraisingly.
Sin grinned and nodded. He'd come to enjoy his training sessions with Spider; not only were they a great way to blow off steam and keep fit, but there was something… exhilarating about using your body as a weapon. He nodded to Sparky and Wheels, who sat next to her, before turning on his heel and heading outside.
Spider and Shade were leaning against the vandalised bricks waiting for him. Spider had his usual hard, uncaring expression. His arms were crossed stiffly. Shade, however, was pressing her lips together in a way that made it look like she could barely contain a smile.
"Um… are we going to spar or something?" Sin asked Shade, furrowing an eyebrow in confusion. He couldn't imagine any other reason they'd need Shade; she was much closer to Sin's level than Spider. However, Shade shook her head, her eyes twinkling slightly.
"Follow us," she said mischievously, pushing herself off of the wall. Spider followed her example and they led Sin through the maze of alleyways before turning a corner. Sin gaped at what he saw. He was speechless.
"Happy birthday Assassin!" Came a chorus of voices. Sin blinked, still shocked at the sight before him.
Before him, in a stretch of alleyway, was a fenced-in area covered in colorful streamers. There was a rusty table with two jugs, one of orange juice and one of water. Next to the drinks sat a monstrous cake; an enormous chocolate confection with the words 'Happy Birthday!' written in shaky white icing.
Several red balloons were tied to the fence on the other side of the decorated area, and a long banner with Sin's name on it hung across the dilapidated building on the left of the alley. Standing around the table stood every single one of Sin's new family. Light sat on Toxic's shoulders, beaming; Toxic was smiling pleasantly. Next to Toxic, Sparky had her arm draped around Wheels' shoulders, a goofy grin on her face. The grease splotch on her forehead had gotten a little bigger, and Sin could see Wheels glancing at it and trying not to laugh.
Roach smiled widely at Sin, and there was a little bit of chocolate icing smeared around his mouth. Sin glanced at the cake and stifled a laugh as he saw one corner had disappeared.
Hero leant against the wall of the alleyway, a wry smile written across her features. She nodded to Sin as he met her eyes and he grinned back. She chuckled silently before the silence broke as Stickler - who was tapping his feet incessantly as he stood next to the table - said loudly, "Don't just stand there, you great oaf! Are you going to join us or not?"
Sin snorted with laughter, and with that the awkward tension following his birthday proclamation broke. The others began to laugh with him, and Sin felt the strange, warm feeling in his chest that had began to glow ever since he'd found this strange, dysfunctional family grow and grow until he felt he was about to burst with happiness. He felt tears pricking at the backs of his eyes and he blinked several times in quick succession. He was not going to cry, especially not on his birthday, especially not when his family had clearly tried so hard to make today special for him.
So instead he said, "God I'm starving. Let's break into that cake, yeah?" There were cheers of agreement all around and Shade drew a knife from within her sleeve. She cut into the cake with a grin, and Stickler tapped Sin on the shoulder.
"That cake cost a hell of a lot of money. It'd better be worth it," he grumbled to the younger boy. Sin nodded but he could see a smile hidden behind Stickler's grim façade. However, the words prickled at his stomach with guilt, and the giddy smile slid off his face. He approached Shade with a frown.
"All of this - the cost, I mean - I appreciate all of this so much, I really do, but -"
Shade cut him off. "But you're worried about us not having enough money to really afford it." Sin nodded, staring at the ground, his cheeks heated. Shade handed the knife to Hero and pulled Sin in for a hug.
Sin blinked, caught off guard. "We have a birthday fund stored away. We save up for everyone's birthday and don't touch it for anything else unless we're starving. Just because we live on the streets, Sin, doesn't mean we can't have a little fun sometimes." Sin nodded, blinking away the guilt that was still forming in his chest as he squeezed Shade tighter.
"But anyway, that jewelry box you and Hero stole last week? The one from that frankly embarrassingly under-guarded house on Bethany Street?" Sin nodded. "Well Stickler got in touch with a fencer about it yesterday and it turns out it was worth a lot more than we originally thought." She grinned wickedly. "You stole a box worth nearly eight hundred pounds." Sin's mouth gaped. "So, I think it's safe to say you deserve this."
Sin was about to reply when he felt a faint tug at his shirt from behind. He raised an eyebrow as he turned around to see Light with chocolate smeared all over his face and down his front. In his hands he held two slices of cake, and he shoved one into Sin's face.
"Is goo' ca'e," the little five-year-old said savagely, his mouth full. "Wa' some?"
Sin snorted quietly and took the second piece of cake. "Thanks, Light." He took a bite and raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"Wow," he said, "It really is quite good."
"Cheers, Sin," Sparky said as she shouldered past Wheels and Toxic to get to him. She'd somehow managed to add to the mess on her forehead with a splotch of icing. "I picked it out. Mr Menacing over there," she nodded in Spider's general direction as Sin chuckled, "Kept arguin' wif Stickler over what they were gonna get cha, but I told 'em, 'look, lads, everyone likes a bi' o' chocolate, don' they?'"
Sin grinned. "Well, it was a good choice. It tastes amazing." Sparky patted his cheek, beaming, before sauntering off to where Wheels stood in the corner chatting with Roach.
They were there in that alleyway for hours, eating, drinking, talking and laughing to their hearts' content. Finally, when the cake was all gone, the jugs empty, and the sun beginning to dip beneath the buildings, they started to head inside.
As Sin helped Hero and Spider put away the decorations, he couldn't help but feel that nothing in the world could possibly burst the enormous ball of happiness burning within him. He'd had a real, proper birthday for the first time in his life - and it was more than he'd ever imagined. He'd spent years watching Dudley's birthdays enviously, but now he felt like he'd had a better birthday than Dudley ever had. He hadn't gotten thirty-seven presents, or a trip to a theme park, but… he'd gotten a sense of family. He'd gotten hours of pure, uninterrupted bliss with the people he loved and trusted most in the world.
So he felt that the years watching from afar as Dudley tore open the wrapping to his presents had all been worth it, for this.
Sin stepped back into the warehouse and smiled affectionately at his new family, all of them climbing into their beds, and was content.
Assassin grumbled quietly into his pillow as he felt someone shaking him. "Sleep," he murmured. "Jus'... jus' lemme sleep."
"Get up, you lazy idiot," a fond voice said lowly. Sin huffed and rolled over to see Shade above him. "You're ten now. Do you remember what that means?" Sin racked his brain before shooting upright.
"You're kidding," he said with excitement. "I'm allowed to go?"
Sin nodded with a quiet laugh. "Yes. I'm not particularly happy about it," her smile twitched into a momentary frown, "But I did promise, and Spider will never get off my ass about it. Besides, it's probably good for you to go and get an idea of what it's like in the Fights before you actually participate."
Sin scrambled out of bed and hurried past Shade to get changed. Ten minutes later he was scarfing up a hamburger bun with margarine spread over it. Strangely, while the food was never exactly that fancy, he seemed to be better fed - or at least fed more often - now that he lived on the streets than when he had lived with the Dursleys.
Spider eyed him with a thoughtful look. "You sure about this?" He asked. "We've 'fought', but you've never seen a real Fight before. I don't want you upchucking on me."
Sin wrinkled his nose in disgust. "I'm sure," he said firmly, pleased that his voice didn't waver despite his anxiousness.
"Alright then. We'd better hurry - the Fights started two hours ago, and they end at sunrise, so we've only got another hour or so before they end and we have to wait another week. Follow me."
Spider led the way out of the building and down the alleyway behind. They crossed a few streets, the area suspiciously quiet despite being in the middle of the city. It was almost eerie, the way that their footsteps, quiet as they were, were still the loudest things Sin could hear.
They ducked behind a rundown Chinese restaurant and down an alleyway, through a network of tiny, narrow streets before they came out into a cemented courtyard, like a giant version of the one Sin and Spider trained in, except in the center of the courtyard was a huge pit in the ground. It was seven or eight feet deep, and about ten feet wide. Around the edge of the pit was no barrier, just a crowd of people.
As they stepped into the courtyard (Sin was almost thankful for the violent cheering, for it meant the strange silence was gone), a gangly young man (perhaps in his early twenties) with a lewd tattoo of a woman on his right forearm stepped in front of them.
"Welcome back, Spideyboy," he said with whiny sort of voice. "Who's your new friend?"
"Now that's none of your goddamn business, is it Jerome?"
Jerome shrugged and his beady eyes drifted to Sin, who resisted the urge to hide behind Spider. "No need to be so rude," he said oily, before sighing. "Alright then - you know the drill. Fighters it's five, spectators it's twelve."
Spider drew several crumbed notes from his back pocket and handed them to Jerome, the distaste obvious in his eyes. As Jerome counted the bills his eyebrows raised slightly.
"What, you're not fighting today? Now that is a surprise." Spider ignored him and took Sin's hand, dragging him past Jerome and into the crowd. Sin swallowed thickly and kept his gaze straight, refusing to look at any of the other spectators. They elbowed their way through so that they weren't quite at the edge of the pit, but nobody stood directly in front of them.
"For the next match, it's recurring champion Skullfinger, who's won twelve out of thirteen matches, versus the new guy from last week, Whirlwind!" Cried a young woman, perhaps a year or two older than Shade, from atop the wall of the courtyard. In the pit stood a young man, propably just out of high school, and someone Hero's age. Nobody in the courtyard seemed to be older than twenty-five.
"Let the Fight begin!"
So I hope you enjoyed that... please please please favorite, follow, and review! Reviewing a) gives me a little more incentive to update faster b) helps me work out what you guys like seeing and what you'd like me to do more of/avoid and c) is one of the major reasons I write. I appreciate it a lot, I promise! xx