In Another Life...
Written for August Fic Challenge 2023, Prompt: Entwined. AU, no Annie. First try at Collateral fic, probably not the last. Could be gen, could be pre-slash. Comments and kudos would be awesome. Enjoy!
In another life, Max does not call the man in the grey suit back to his cab, and the stranger gets into another taxi, ruins someone else's night, someone else's life. He hears about the murder spree some other cab driver went on before he killed himself when he gets home the next morning on the news and shakes his head at all that pointless death, wonders what pushed the guy over the edge and goes on with his day.
In another life, that man does not fall through the window and Max remains blissfully unaware of just what Vincent's up to on their long night of stops, right up until the point where Vincent puts a bullet through his skull before he disappears into the crowds around LAX. Other cab drivers wonder what pushed him over the edge when all the murders land on him.
In another life, the cops that pull over the banged up cab realize that something is wrong and do not leave Max to deal with Vincent's insanity all on his own. They get to Vincent before the gun has a chance to come into play and while Max spends the night at the police station answering far too many questions, he makes it through more or less unscathed.
In another life, Vincent just straight up kills him for the stunt he pulls at the hospital. In another, Felix does it for him when he fails to convince the man to give him the back-up files.
Hell, maybe in some other far off life, Max even manages to stop Vincent all on his own.
But not in this one.
This is not any of those lives and Max is along for the ride whether he wants to be or not (he very much does not, of course). But it's at Fever that he realizes there are choices he needs to make here that will affect how the rest of his night – and his life – plays out. He knows the cops want him. He knows Felix's men want him. And he knows Vincent wants him. Two of them want him dead. Vincent apparently wants him alive (for now, at least), because when the laser sight lands on Max, Vincent is quick to divert his attention away from his contracted target to fire on that guy, instead, leaving Max reeling in shock at the unexpected rescue.
Better the devil you know, he thinks, as he weaves his way through the frantic crowds toward the familiar figure in the grey suit. The first time all night he hasn't been desperately trying to get as far away from Vincent as possible.
He gets there just as a trio of armed men surround Vincent (Max doesn't even know if they are cops or Felix's or his target's bodyguards at this point). Vincent is struggling with them and much like that rush of bravado when he'd been trapped with Felix, sure he was about to be shot, then, too, he opts to improvise. He gets his arms firmly around one of their necks and holds on, pulls the man away. It gives Vincent a chance to take down one of the other two with a knife he pulls from nowhere, and he's mostly dealt with the second by the time Max's would-be victim throws him off.
In all the chaos, another man – this one is a cop, Max realizes, when he sees the badge around his neck – approaches, grabs for him, no doubt to blame him for all of this like all the others. He fights the hold the cop gets on him, doesn't listen to whatever demands the man is making of him, barely has time to register the words at all before Vincent takes out the third man and then promptly the cop with his hands on Max.
"Come on," he growls out. He shoots his target quickly, his usual double tap to the chest with a headshot, and drags Max away, another name crossed off the list.
Two minutes later and they're back in the cab, peeling away from the club.
"One more, Max," Vincent says, reaching through the gap in the divider to lay a hand on Max's shoulder. "Just one more and we're done."
"And then what?" He dares to ask. He's sure now that he won't be getting that money (not that he cares about the money at this point, hasn't cared about the money since the body landed on his cab). He's sure now that Vincent will never let him go. He knows too much. He's seen too much.
"I told you. LAX."
"Are you going to kill me?"
"No, Max," he says, catching his eyes in the rearview mirror. If Max didn't know better, he'd think he actually meant it.
But maybe he does, because Vincent certainly had no reason to keep Felix's men from killing him – Felix would think 'Vincent' was dealt with, and the cops would have their fall guy, Vincent could finish off the rest of his list on his own, surely. Max is well aware that he's nothing but a loose end in all of this and he has a feeling Vincent doesn't go around leaving many of those. But, he hadn't let it happen. Why?
"Why'd you save me?"
Vincent frowns at him, like it should be obvious. "Because I like you."
He doesn't know what to say to that. Doesn't know that he wants a contract killer to like him. Doesn't know that some small part of him doesn't like Vincent, too, despite this horrible night.
"You wanna go there?" Vincent asks him, nodding to the postcard stuck on his visor. The Maldives, his island paradise. "I can take you. It'd be a good place to lay low for a while, after this cluster fuck."
"What?"
"We'd have to skip LAX, of course," he says, like this is some casual vacation planning, like they aren't in the middle of a fucking crime spree. "Wouldn't wanna risk getting you though security with half of LA looking for you, but we could drive down to Mexico. I can hook us up from there."
Max's world is tilting off its axis, spinning wildly out of what little control he'd thought he had over it. He thought the night couldn't get more chaotic and now the hitman who won't get out of the back of his cab wants to run away with him. What is happening?
"Max?"
"Yeah," he finds himself saying, agreeing to this insane plan with no real idea as to where the easy acceptance comes from. "Yeah, I'd like that."
Through the rear view mirror, he catches the flash of surprise in the other man's gaze, like he hadn't expected that answer any more than Max had expected to give it. He nods, clearly pleased, and rattles off the next address – oddly enough it's right back where the night began. The State Building.
"With me," Vincent orders when they pull to a stop. Together, they abandon the cab a block or so away. Like in the club, he keeps Max in front of him, a shield keeping him out of view of the cameras, as they finally enter the nearly deserted building.
He protests when Vincent kills the security guard on the desk in the lobby but a pointed look from the other man shuts him up, keeps him moving. They take the elevator, weave through the dark hallways to a specific office. A man is there, completely oblivious. He's working late into the night to prepare for some important meeting or the other and the fact that this is the office of the Assistant US Attorney registers somewhere in Max's brain, but much like everything else he's been through tonight, there's nothing he can do to stop it. He's tried. And it's only gotten more people (and nearly himself) killed.
But then Vincent hands him the gun.
"What?"
"You're gonna do it."
"No!" He exclaims, "No way, man, I am not doing that!"
Vincent grins at him, all teeth. Predatory. "Yes, Max. You are. I'll help you, and then we'll leave. I'll take you away with me just as soon as this is done. I swear."
And what can Max say to that? No? Like Vincent won't just shoot him, too, and go merrily on his way.
So, reluctantly, Max nods.
Vincent stands just behind him, his hand around Max's on the gun. Vincent controls the aim, keeps it steady, but when Vincent breathes a quiet, "Now," against his shoulder, it's Max's finger that pulls the trigger. The bullet shatters the plate glass window and buries itself in their target's skull. He's dead before he slumps across his desk.
He feels sick, feels his stomach roil at the sight of blood shed by his own hand, at the realization of just what he's done, what he's let Vincent make him do. He turns around, but Vincent is still there, too close, still grinning like a coyote that's happened upon a hapless deer. "I knew you could do better," he offers, hands landing on his shoulders, a solid grounding weight in the sea of chaos his mind is trapped in and he steadies himself against it. There's some spark in Vincent's steel grey eyes that makes him seem more alive, more human. Maybe the closest to human Max has seen all night. "Wait here," he says, ducking into the office to verify the kill, to add his double tap signature.
He's back in seconds, hands on Max again, urging him back the way they came, back down the hall, the elevator, through the lobby. They do not return to the taxi, but Vincent leads them to the metro instead.
And they go.
Disappear into the LA night with no one on their trail, the cops still tied up after the massacre at Fever.
Max stares out the window of the metro car as the city passes by, daylight only just starting to dawn. Vincent's arm is settled around his shoulder just in case he thinks about doing anything stupid, but he won't.
He is too entwined with Vincent now to do anything but go along and some part of him thinks that maybe that's how it was always supposed to be.
In another life…