(no subject)
Title: Mike Is A Hitman OMG (Part 2)
Pairing: Mike Carden/Kevin Jonas (pre-slashish?)
Rating: M (I... I don't know. Maybe MA?)
Warnings: Course language, casual murder
Word Count: 16, 519
Summary: The Academy Is... guys are hitmen, the Jonas Brothers own a cafe-bookstore, secret pasts, epic gun fights and awkward and probably inappropriate crushing ensues
Mike doesn’t approve of Bill telling the Jonas brothers everything about the contract, especially since Bill never tells them more than they need to know about a job, which tends to be solely about the customer. But here he is, casually discussing the finer details of his meetings with the client who arranged the job. Mike would probably be more inclined to fight Bill about his sudden openness to divulging classified information if he wasn’t so damn curious himself.
There wasn’t much useful information to be gleaned, however. The contract had been called in from New Jersey by a man using an alias, which was not uncommon in this line of business. The most troubling thing is that all the information the client gave them about Kevin’s alleged embezzlement had checked out. Bill hadn’t realised there was something amiss until Mike called earlier.
This means their client has access to serious resources.
Mike is contemplating the implications of this entire set up when his gaze shifts and he sees Kevin staring at him, looking wild-eyed and panicked. He thinks it’s an appropriate response to hearing someone discuss plans to kill you, but he doesn’t like the accusation in Kevin’s eyes, like Mike is responsible for all of this and not just a guy who was hired to do a job.
Mike shifts in his seat before getting up. He’s thirsty and Bill is up to the parts of his storytelling that Mike already knows about. Nick and Joe are focused on Bill; Nick’s lips pursed in a tight line and arms folded across his chest, Joe standing beside him slack-jawed and transfixed. Kevin, however, tracks Mike’s progression around the room with his eyes.
When he reaches the far side of the room, Mike stops beside Kevin and asks if he wants anything to drink. Kevin squeaks in reply, but none of the rooms other occupants so much look over at them and, after a pause, Kevin nods his head and follows Mike into the kitchen, the door swinging softy closed behind them.
There’s a short chorus of clinking sounds as Mike pulls the fridge door open, plucking two cans from within. Kevin hesitates before accepting the can of soda when Mike holds it out to him, nursing it in his hands and waiting until Mike breaks the seal on his own drink before Kevin opens his.
The kitchen is quiet. Mike can hear Bill’s voice muffled and distorted through the door and somewhere down the street someone is mowing their lawn, but the only noises from within the kitchen are the crackling of aluminium between fingers and the occasional drawn out sluuurp from Kevin who doesn’t seem inclined to tilt his can of soda in order to facilitate the drinking process.
The afternoon sun is glaring in through the kitchen window, spilling across the room in a block of light and heat. The temperature of the room seems to amplify the coolness of the beads of sweat on the can as they track their way across the skin of Mike’s hands, occasionally spilling down his forearm before disappearing somewhere near his elbow. Sometimes it feels like summer will never end.
Kevin is still eying him warily from the other side of the counter.
“How’s your head?” says Mike, leaning back against the refrigerator.
“Oh,” says Kevin, like he hadn’t expected Mike to speak. “Not so bad.”
“Can I?” asks Mike, motioning with his free hand.
“Um, sure,” says Kevin, and Mike meets him halfway, leaning across the counter to examine the cut on Kevin’s head.
“It doesn’t look too bad,” says Mike. The cut is closed and looks clean, although there are still flakes of dried blood tangled in the curls of Kevin’s hair around it. Head wounds are always messy, though. “What about your ankle?”
“Yeah, I think I just landed on it weird,” says Kevin. “It’s not so bad now, either.”
Mike makes a sound of agreement and steps back from the counter. He crushes his empty soda can around the middle and drops it into rubbish bin beside the cupboard.
They fall back into silence again and Mike feels awkward. The only people Mike talks to who know what he does for a living are people who are, or have been, in the same line of work. He usually doesn’t give it much thought, but he’s becoming increasingly aware of the communication gap when trying to connect with someone who has significantly less moral flexibility. Mike was contracted to kill Kevin. It wasn’t personal, Mike didn’t know him, and it’s never personal, but he knows that probably wouldn’t be of any comfort to Kevin.
This situation is bizarre enough for Mike, he doesn’t know what it must be like for Kevin; trapped with the people who were hired to kill him and finding out that someone else out there has gone through a lot of effort to dummy up some very authentic evidence against him in order to place a contract on his life, someone who also managed to stay untraceable and unidentifiable so far. It was kind of fucked up.
“The contract,” Mike starts, and Kevin’s eyes lock instantly with his own and, fuck, Mike feels terrible. “The contract,” he continues, “is void. We’re going to get you and your brothers out of here safely.”
“Oh,” says Kevin, but his face is unreadable. Mike is pretty sure his word means nothing to Kevin, and it probably shouldn’t.
Mike nods at Kevin and heads back out to the living room feeling like a jackass.
Nobody acknowledges Mike when he slips back into the living room and leans himself against the wall by the kitchen door. Bill’s saying that they have someone out following up a few leads.
As if on cue, Sisky bursts through the door, brandishing a stack of paper and demanding, “I am back on full time field work for this.”
“Show me what you’ve found out, first,” says Bill.
“Oh no,” says Sisky. “I spent half this time on the phone being passed from Cobra to Cobra and the other half, well…” Sisky trails off ambiguously. “I’m out of records.”
“You’re out of records,” agrees Bill, extending his arm towards Siska and making ‘give me’ hands at the stack of papers. Siska hands them over.
“You know Bob Bryar’s out looking for them?” Siska says.
“Our produce guy?” says Nick.
“Produce guy?” says Siska, shaking his head. “He’s been part of almost every defence-driven government agency out there. I don’t even know who he’s working for right now. I hear he’s a nice guy, though. If he’s not, you know, torturing or killing you.”
“You think he’s part of our witness protection thing?” asks Joe, and Nick smacks him across the arm.
“What part of ‘life-endangering secret’ do you not understand?” Nick snaps.
“What,” says Joe, waving his arms in Bill’s direction. “Like they don’t already know!”
Bill and Mike look to Siska in question.
“Yeah, we did not know that,” says Siska. “Might explain Bryar, though. There were rumours about the Ways being involved in some witness relocation programs a few years back, but there are always rumours about the Ways going around.
“That’s not all,” Siska continues, pointing towards Joe and Nick. “Two other agencies have been contacted about disposing of these two as well.”
This day is getting increasingly weird and Mike isn’t sure what to make of it. Bill is eyeing Nick and Joe with great speculation, as if by staring at them hard enough the answers to his unspoken queries will somehow be made apparent.
-+-
Kevin has been listening at the door since Mike returned to the living room. He hesitates for a while once his drink is finished, but he drops the can in the bin and quietly slips out of the kitchen to join the others. Kevin narrowly avoids colliding with Mike who is standing, unexpectedly, next to the kitchen door and he winds up standing awkwardly in front of the door.
“What’s with your hair?” says the guy Kevin recognises from Bill’s scrapbooks as Adam T. Siska.
“What?” says Kevin, confused, one hand reaching up on impulse to brush at his curls.
“You look like a poodle.”
Kevin has seen the pictures and he doesn’t think Siska has any right to judge hairstyle choices. Once a guy has had a hairstyle that can only be described as a cross between ferret pelt and deflated Mohawk Kevin is pretty sure they lose all rights to judging the hairstyle choices of others.
Kevin doesn’t have the chance to voice this before Mike turns and leans into the space between Kevin and Siska like a human shield and says that they’ve got bigger problems than hairdressing right now.
“We should relocate,” says Bill. “Get away from the city at least. Do we know who was hired to take care of the other two?”
“Sapporta was hired for Joseph,” says Siska as Bill flicks through the file. “And Nicholas -”
“Oh no,” says Bill, staring at the page in front of him.
“Yeah,” says Siska.
“We’ve got to move,” says Bill as he moves from the couch and heads to his bedroom in the back, stopping only to slap the file to Mike’s chest as he passes.
Kevin tries to peer around Mike to read the page, but the angle is strange and he can’t see it properly with Mike’s shoulders obscuring is view. He decides to join Nick and Joe in their quiet panic instead.
-+-
Mike skims the page until his eyes hit the notes in the lower margin. It takes a moment to decipher Siska’s messy lettering but when he does he understands Bill’s concern. While Gabe would be easy enough to convince to drop the job out of professional courtesy or by calling in a favour, Smith and Urie still had something to prove after their team split.
Bill returns to the room with two duffel bags he’d had packed and waiting, probably since he moved in; you just never know when you’ll have to cut and run in this business. Mike’s got his own bag of essentials stowed away in his trunk, which has proved useful on two separate occasions now.
“All right, kids,” says Bill as he strides across the room to the front door. “We’re on the move. Let’s go, let’s go.”
Mike follows the line of Jonai out the front door and up to the car, grabbing Bill’s bags on the way past to throw in the trunk. The brothers clamber into the back seat and Mike watches Bill talking to Siska in the doorway before they part ways; Siska jumping the fence into the next yard and Bill sliding into the driver’s seat of Mike’s car. Mike would be annoyed with Bill’s presumptuousness, but this isn’t the time or the place so he hands over his keys without comment and sits himself in the passenger seat.
“Where are you taking us?” asks Nick. Mike doesn’t have much - okay, any - experience with taking anyone anywhere against their will but he’s pretty sure the kidnapees should be a little less mouthy and demanding.
“We’re going to a safe house, so don’t you worry your pretty little head about it,” answers Bill, shooting a quick look in the rear-view mirror. “I’ve been watching the weather channel and I hear we’re expecting a change in the wind, so you better wipe that scowl off your face if you don’t want it to freeze that way.”
Nick’s scowl deepens and he slumps down in his seat. Bill’s lips are twitching at the corners, fighting off a smile and Mike thinks Bill is more of a dick than he thinks he is sometimes.
The car is quiet for a while: Kevin and Nick are hunched down in their seats and gazing out their respective side windows; Joe is squashed between them in the tiny backseat, jiggling one foot against the floor and tapping out a beat against his knees; Bill’s lips are pursed in a thin line and he’s careful to abide by the road rules and he’s checking his mirrors frequently enough that Mike knows he’s keeping a look out for tails, too. The last thing they need right now is to be pulled over by the cops or followed to their own safe house.
The scenery is becoming more and more familiar and they’re going where Mike thinks they’re going... Well, he’s not sure if he’s more pissed or worried or annoyed. “Bill,” he says warningly, but then Nick is speaking again.
Nick says, “Where are we going?” He’s more forceful this time, and Mike thinks he must have spent this entire car ride letting his annoyance build up to this.
“We’re the big bad, here,” says Bill conversationally. “And we’re really putting ourselves on the line for you right now, so we’re not answerable to you.”
Bill probably didn’t even give it a second thought, Mike knows. Mike screwed up for whatever reason and Bill could have salvaged the operation easily enough. But Bill didn’t even ask Mike why he did it, Mike’s put them all in danger and if this doesn’t get them all killed it will at the very least irreparably destroy their professional reputation and earn them a spot on a few choice hit lists.
Nick’s face is stony but his eyes are burning with barely restrained anger. Mike is suddenly reminded of Nick’s profession and skill and is silently thankful there aren’t any sharp implements around. Well, not unless you know where to look. Bill might be following a similar train of thought as he says, “We’ve got family in the area. We can stop there for a day or two until I can make other arrangements.”
“Bill.” Mike doesn’t snarl, he really doesn’t, but it’s pretty close. If Bill wasn’t driving Mike would probably punch him. His fist clenches in an anticipatory gesture nonetheless.
“Family?” asks Kevin, catching their eyes in the rear-view mirror.
“Yeah,” says Bill, and it almost sounds like an apology.
“My mom,” says Mike. The urge to punch Bill - to punch something - hasn’t dissipated.
-+-
“Michael?” asks the woman who opens the door. Mike’s mother. She’s almost as tall as Mike with brown hair up in pink curlers, and she tugs her pink cotton robe more securely around herself when she peers over Mike’s shoulder to see the rest of them staring up at her from the stairs.
“Hi mom,” says Mike, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
“Oh don’t you ‘hi mom’ me, Michael,” she says sharp and low so that Kevin has to strain to overhear. “You don’t so much as write for six months and now you show up unannounced? With guests, Michael. You could have called. If I knew I’d be having guests I’d have gotten dressed.”
“Sorry,” says Mike, and Kevin thinks he sounds chastised and the apology genuine. Kevin feels a little guilty himself because he shouldn’t be trying so hard to listen in like this.
“Oh,” says Mrs Carden, resolve breaking and wrapping her arms around Mike. “I’ve missed you.”
“Well,” says Bill with a smile. “I think you look lovely as always.”
“You’re such a schmoozer, young William Beckett,” she laughs. “Thank you.
“Come on inside,” she says pushing the door open and ushering them in. “Can’t be standing around in my pajamas all day. You know how the neighbours are.”
There’s a laundry basket of clothes on the couch with a folded ironing board propped up against the wall nearby. The television is playing quietly in the background - it sounds like some type of soap opera, the music swells dramatically and someone confesses to sleeping with someone else’s identical twin before Mrs Carden picks up the remote and the screen goes blank.
“Urgh. I knew it was Tessa,” Nick mutters under his breath. Kevin doesn’t know how Nick can care about the soap opera on TV when they’re practically starring in their own action-adventure come family drama right now. Joe is nodding his agreement, though, and what does Kevin know?
“What’s going on, Michael? Not that it isn’t lovely to see you,” says Mrs Carden, “but you didn’t even visit on Christmas.”
“Not that I’m bitter,” she continues before Mike can say anything. “But you could at least call to let me know you’re still alive.”
“I-” Mike starts, but Mrs Carden continues on.
“You haven’t even introduced me to your guests,” she says.
“Mom,” says Mike, he looks pained for a moment then says “Mom, this is Kevin, Joseph and Nicholas. We’re, uh. We’re helping them out.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” says Mrs Carden and she smiles kindly in their direction.
“You too, ma’am,” says Nick.
“You have a lovely home,” Joe chimes in with the same smile that somehow melts the heart of every other girl he meets. Kevin would really like to know how he does that, because he’s tried and mostly he just looks weird when he tries to mimic it, not getting phone numbers so much as queries about his well-being.
“Uh,” says Kevin when he realises Nick and Joe are both looking at him expectantly. “Your hair looks nice?”
There’s an audible pause and Kevin feels his cheeks heat up. He’d like for just once that Nick would be the one to say something stupid. Maybe Kevin should stop letting his mind wander off on tangents and follow what’s happening around him some more. Maybe then he wouldn’t end up stammering something stupid. His hands are suddenly sweaty and he wipes them on his pants as surreptitiously as possible.
Mrs Carden looks like she’s struggling not to laugh, but when she smiles at Kevin it’s not unkindly so Kevin takes that as an almost-win.
“So Michael and William are helping you out?” she asks.
“Yes,” says Nick, and Kevin is glad Nick loves to take charge because Kevin is pretty sure ‘your son was hired to kill me and we have all been kidnapped sort of’ would be written all over his face and possibly also shouted really loudly in a moment of panic.
“They’re helping us out with a problem,” Nick continues.
“Michael was always very considerate when he was growing up,” says Mrs Carden. “What happened?”
“Um, sorry?” says Nick, looking almost expressionless in the way Kevin knows means he’s feeling anxious and preparing to panic.
“I was wondering what it is that Michael and William are helping you with,” she clarifies.
“Oh,” Nick says.
“Fire!” Joe all but yells.
“Fire?” says Mrs Carden, puzzled.
“Uh,” says Joe, long and drawn out.
Kevin stares with wide eyes straight at Mike, trying to communicate the level of his panic right now.
“There was a fire,” says Bill, sweeping in to salvage the conversation. He wraps an arm around Mrs Carden’s shoulder and gently steers her over to the couch. “Last night,” he says, “their apartment burnt down. They lost everything, but they have family in Michigan - you know how important it is to be with family when tragedy strikes - so Mike and I are driving them there.”
“You two are so sweet,” says Mrs Carden patting Bill’s hand. She turns to face Kevin, Nick and Joe with an expression on her face that is reminiscent of the one Kevin has when there are injured kittens present and says “You poor things. Are you holding up all right?”
“It’s a struggle,” says Joe dramatically, laying it on thick and really playing it up. “We’ve lost everything except each other. But we’ll pull through and --” He breaks off with a strangled squawk as Nick elbows him in the stomach.
“We’ll be all right,” says Kevin.
“You know,” says Mrs Carden, “I think I still have some of Michael’s old clothes boxed away somewhere. There might be something in your sizes and it’ll give you boys something else to wear until you get back on your feet again.
“You don’t mind, do you Michael?” she says.
“No,” says Mike genially. “I don’t mind. That’s a great idea.”
“Excellent,” Bill chimes in. “How’s that flower bed coming along?”
Mrs Carden looks a little thrown by the subject change but says, “It’s been coming along fine. I just haven’t had much time to spend gardening of late.”
Bill nods, makes an agreeable sound and says “While the brothers Jonas are sorting through those clothes Mike and I could lend our horticultural expertise to flower bed.”
“Oh, you boys don’t have to,” says Mrs Carden.
“It’s nothing at all,” says Bill. “It is what we do. We’re professionals, after all.”
“Well, all right then,” says Mrs Carden to their retreating backs as Bill steers Mike out the door by his shoulder. “The gloves are on the hook by the back door.”
“This is weird,” whispers Joe.
“Super weird,” agrees Kevin, whispering back. Mike kills people for money. Mike was going to kill him. Mike kidnapped him and his brothers. Mike decided to save them. Mike’s mom is giving them Mike’s old clothes. He can’t quite process the events because they make absolutely no sense. And the more Kevin thinks about it the more questions he has and he’s sure he’ll never get answers even if they get out of this alive.
“Everything should be in Mike’s old room,” says Mrs Carden, leading the way down the hall.
“It’s weird,” whispers Joe. “He has a mom and a bedroom and clothes.”
“You thought he was a naked orphan?” Kevin whispers back, confused.
“No, I mean it’s so weird that he comes actually from somewhere,” explains Joe.
“Oh,” says Kevin and he nods because that makes sense. Well, Joe-sense.
Nick is a few paces ahead of Kevin and Joe and he’s saying something to Mike’s mom that Kevin can’t hear. Knowing Nick he’s probably thanking her again for her hospitality. Nick always overcompensates with niceties and politeness when talking to parental figures. Kevin doesn’t know much about psychology other than a few phrases and words he picked up from the two months Joe spent dating a psych major (and he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to use them correctly anyway) but Kevin’s pretty sure Nick feels guilty about what happened to their parents.
It’s not Nick’s fault - he wasn’t even ten years old when it happened - but it’s impossible for Nick to understand that. Kevin’s tried talking to him about it, back when they were seeing a trauma therapist, back when they were first relocated, but Nick just shuts down whenever someone brings up the subject.
Joe and Kevin reach the room - Mike’s old bedroom - and Mrs Carden and Nick are already set up over the other side of the room, opening one of the neatly stacked cardboard boxes by the wall.
Kevin wonders whether this day will ever get less weird.
-+-
“Do you even know what you’re doing?” asks Mike. The air outside is warm and humid and Mike can already feel sweat beading along his back where the sun is hitting him.
Bill is already wearing his pair of green and brown gardening gloves and he pulls his phone from the pocket of his jeans.
“That,” says Bill imperiously as he waves the phone at Mike, “is why camera phones are a good investment.”
Mike pulls his own gloves on and makes himself comfortable on grass while Bill snaps a few pictures of the flower bed and, presumably, sends them to The Butcher. Barely a minute later Bill’s phone rings and Bill beckons Mike over to the flower bed.
“We need to pull out these things with the jiggedy leaves and the ones with the yellow things,” says Bill, pointing out the plants in question.
“We also need to cut off these sort of end parts of these things,” Bill says, quickly looking at his phone. “Pruning,” he says. “We need to prune these end parts.”
It’s hot and humid in a way that makes Mike want nothing more than for summer to end. The temperature should have decreased this close to autumn but the heat has remained at a persistent high. Summer had sunk its fingers into the city and wasn’t letting up.
Mike’s own gloved fingers dig into the soil as he sets to the task of uprooting the unwanted foliage. There’s something about the repetitive action that Mike finds calming; he doesn’t need to think about anything or focus on anything other than removing the “things with the jiggedy leaves”. Mike is especially thankful for the distraction the manual labour provides, is thankful he doesn’t have to look up when Bill says “Why?”
There are an abundance of whys: why did he approach the customer? why did he drive the customer to his own residence? why did he break protocol? why doesn't he like tomatoes?
“Why what?” says Mike. He’s being evasive. He knows this and Bill knows this. Mike hadn’t thought he’d be expected to explain himself and he isn’t sure he can.
“Why,” says Bill, “is this one different?”
“You think they deserve to die?” says Mike. “They’re barely adults - two of them aren’t old enough to drink yet.”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Mike. We don’t decide who deserves what,” says Bill, gently. “And it’s never bothered you before.”
They lapse into silence when Mike doesn’t respond; hands digging down into the soil to pull out the roots of the weeds.
Mike doesn’t know why and he doesn’t want to think about it. He’s never had a problem doing his job before and he doesn’t want to consider what this might mean.
“I need a vacation,” says Mike, like it answers Bills’ question at all.
Maybe it does, because Bill says “Yeah” and “I think I need a change, too.”
Bill drops the subject and they continue gardening in quiet.
-+-
Joe spends the afternoon whispering his theories to Kevin detailing exactly how Mike, Bill, and even Mike's mother will have them killed the moment they are lulled into a false sense of security. He is hurriedly weaving a tale of their imminent poisoning when Mrs Carden informs them that the roast chicken wis ready.
Joe stops talking mid-sentence and, in blatant disregard to his theory moments earlier, is the first to the kitchen, downing mouthfuls of food so quickly that Kevin is worried Joe might choke to death. (And maybe that was the insidious plan of their captors all along. The one thing Joe never saw coming.)
Within the next two hours the brothers are each dressed in some of Mike's old clothes and offered Mike's old bedroom for the night. Mrs Carden had insisted on washing and drying the few things they'd each claimed from the boxes that were now resealed and lining the far wall of Mike's old room.
Nick and Joe both immediately called dibs on the double bed which leaves Kevin with the mattress on the floor, squished between the bed and the wall of boxes. Kevin just knows that at least one of his brothers is going to trample him in the morning.
Nick and Joe are squabbling over pillows. They don't always fight this much. Kevin thinks maybe it's stress or a distraction or just something familiar to keep them from going crazy and developing a weird crush on a murderer. Kevin thinks that maybe he should start joining in on the arguments and also he would really like pancakes for breakfast.
-+-
It's dark on the back stoop. The tiny porch light is dim; illuminating some of the brickwork and the tiny insects pinging against the bulb, but very little else. The tip of Mike's cigarette is a small flare of red in the darkness.
It's cooler now the sun has set, but the air is still and warm and smells like rain. Bill is out moving the car around the block, a few extra bags of clothes stowed inside, and Mike is almost out of cigarettes.
He hears the door creak open and a few moments later his mother sits down beside him on the back stoop. "You should really quit, you know," she says, even as she takes a cigarette for herself and waits for Mike to light it.
"I did," he replies, tucking the lighter back in his pocket. Mike almost made it eight months without a cigarette when he started smoking again six months ago. He also stopped cutting his hair which Mike is certain his mother wants to say something about. She doesn't, though, and there's a pregnant pause.
The glow from the cigarettes ebb and flare in the darkness until there are only cigarette butts left. Mike stubs his on the steps next to him and draws another from the pack.
"Michael," his mom says slowly, like she's not sure what to say, or not sure how Mike will react.
"I know we don't talk about it," she says. "Your job. Not that flower shop bit you're trying to sell now - I've known Bill almost as long as I've known you and I know that neither of you knows the first thing about plants.
"I try not to think about it, Michael," she says wearily. "I try not to think about what you do. But those boys. You're not. Are they a job, Michael?"
"No," says Mike quickly. "Mom, no."
"Don't lie to me Michael," she says sternly, but she looks relieved.
"We're just helping them out," Mike says. "That's all."
"Okay," she says, stubs out her own cigarette and stands up. "I'm sorry, Michael," she says, before closing the door behind her.
Mike doesn't know what his mother is sorry for but he feels unsettled.
-+-
Kevin clumsily rolls over on his mattress and smacks into the wall of boxes. His arm hurts from where it collided with the cardboard but he's disgruntled and tired and he jams his pillow down over his head in a futile effort to drown out Joe's obnoxious snoring.
Everything quiets and Kevin lessens his death grip on the pillow. His eyes are itchy and tired and so heavy he can't open them. He sighs quietly and tries to sleep. Moments later Joe lets out an impressively loud snort and Kevin gives up. He will just never sleep ever again.
There's a muffled yelp and before Kevin can think to care about what is happening he gets the air knocked out of him when someone stands on him.
"Sorry," Nick mumbles. "Joe keeps kicking me."
"Hmmrruhm," says Kevin from under his pillow.
"Thanks," says Nick, squashing in next to him. Joe is snoring again but both Nick and Kevin manage to drift off to sleep.
-+-
Mike isn't the most comfortable he's ever been, stretched along the couch on his stomach with Bill using Mike's back like mattress. Mike has a working theory that Bill grows extra elbows when he sleeps - it's the only explanation his sleep-addled mind can concoct to explain the jabbing angles Bill seems to be entirely comprised of.
One of Bill's two hundred elbows jabs sharply into Mike's side, just below his ribs and jolts him out of sleep.
Mike grunts in pain and annoyance and squints his eyes until he can read the glowing green numbers on the clock above the TV. 3:12. Mike closes his eyes and tries to settle back into that uneasy slumber when he hears the door lock click and the door knob slowly turn.
It takes less than a second for Mike to wake up. He grabs his gun from under his pillow with one hand, twists around and wraps his free arm around Bill's waist and rolls them over the back of the couch, landing with a dull thud on the carpet.
"Wha-" Bill starts and Mike clamps a hand over Bill's mouth. The handle stops moving and the sound of every exhale and Bill's warm breath on Mike's hand seems suddenly amplified. Mike moves his hand and they both crouch behind the seat. Bill peers over the headrest and nods at Mike.
Bill is diving for the hallway just as the front door swings open and hits the wall with a bang. For a moment everything is quiet; there is only the sound of loose papers rustling in the breeze from the open door and the sound of Mike's blood pumping loudly in his ears. There are five long seconds of this and time seems to stretch an eternity between each passing second, marked only by the thumping of Mike's heart in his chest.
Suddenly the quiet of the room explodes with the sound of gunfire. The framed pictures on the shelves and walls splinter in their frames, the glass from the cabinets of china shatter and coat the floor in shards of glass and ceramics. The stuffing flies out of the couch backing over Mike's head.
A rain of white dust from the plaster walls is still raining down across the room when everything comes to an abrupt stop; the sound of gunfire cuts out leaving nothing in its place but the ringing in Mike's ears and the slow shower of plaster and sofa stuffing floating gently to the ground.
Mike takes a moment to steady himself, then carefully peers out from behind the couch. A bullet flies over his head, reducing a vase to pieces across the already littered floor. He takes a breath, steadies himself and leans back out again, fires off three quick shots in the direction of the doorway and returns to the cover provided by the couch.
There's a sudden bark of laughter from outside and then a voice calls out, "Hey! Hey, Mike, is that you?"
Brendon Urie. Mike feels a sudden moment of panic take hold of him and he freezes. He thinks about his mother only a few doors away down the hall and wishes it was the Way brothers who'd found them. Brendon and Spencer were not only actively trying to kill one of the Jonas brothers but wouldn't hesitate to do the same to anyone who might be in the way. Witnesses need to be eliminated.
"Yeah," Mike calls back casually. "How's L.A.?"
"Not too bad," says Brendon. "We were thinking about moving back home but there's less competition in L.A. And there's not a lot of surfing in Vegas. I'm kicking ass at surfing."
"Yeah?" says Mike.
"Well I can stand up without falling off," says Brendon. "Well, for a little while anyway," he concedes. "I'm still better than Spence."
"Haven't seen him in a while," says Mike evenly. "He with you tonight?"
"He's around," says Brendon and a sense of dread falls over Mike. It's much too quiet. As if on cue the sound of gunfire fills the air, only this time from somewhere toward the back of the house.
"Shit," Mike says to himself.
"Fuck," Brendon yells. "It doesn't sound this loud in the city."
A long time ago, Bill had wanted to take Brendon and Spencer and the two other team members they'd had back then under his tutelage to share his wisdom with the future generations in the business or some shit. It hadn't worked out as Bill planned mostly because they'd only been working in 'the business' for a few years themselves at the time and were still working out their own skills and team dynamics. It seems Brendon and Spencer missed out on the lesson that silencers, while sometimes advantageous, are essentially pointless in the quiet suburbs. Mike knows it's highly unlikely some concerned neighbours haven't already placed an emergency call or two and it will only be a matter of time before the police arrive.
There's a yell and the distant gunfire is replaced with a clattering sound and a dull thud. One more shot goes off, followed by what Mike can only describe as half scream, half wail. Mike feels himself start to panic for the briefest moment, sees Brendon raising his weapon in the doorway, taking aim again, when the gun clatters to the ground, falling from Brendon's grasp. Brendon is down on one knee, clutching at his side, face contorted in pain.
Mike has his gun trained on the open doorway when Sisky and the Butcher walk through, Sisky casually picking up Brendon's gun from the floor and tucking it into the waistband of his jeans.
"Hey," says the Butcher. "We just finished burning down the store. What's up?"
"Spencer's somewhere near the back of the house," says Mike, pulling himself to his feet and shaking the plaster from his hair. "Bill headed back that way before all this," he says, waving at the destroyed room in explanation.
"What are we waiting for," says the Butcher, "let's move."
"You're fucking welcome, by the way," says Sisky, nodding at Brendon who is still kneeling in the doorway, breathing heavy and rasping as blood flows thick and sticky across his hands and into a steadily expanding pool on the floor.
-+-
Bill is staring at Nick with a look that is equal parts awe and surprise.
"I'm a chef," Nick says, shrugging. "We're good with knives."
They're huddled behind the kitchen counter, the four of them: Nick, Joe, Bill and Kevin. They'd almost made it to the back door when it had slammed open and the room exploded with noise and splintered wood from the cabinets. Now they are pressed close behind the counter while outside somewhere the gunman is screaming a litany of profanity Kevin will never, ever repeat, and sporting a filet knife to the thigh thanks to Nick.
The door behind them opens and Nick is reaching for another knife when Bill stays his hand. Mike and Siska and some third guy Kevin doesn't know are standing there, armed and looking like something out of an action movie.
"Brendon?" Bill asks and Siska says, "Taken care of."
"Is that Spencer?" asks Mike, tilting his head toward the stream of foul language still spilling in from outside.
"Knife to the leg," says Bill and he looks at Nick again, briefly, with wonder and amusement.
"I got this," says Siska, pulling a gun from the back of his jeans, taking the safety off and striding out the door into pre-dawn darkness.
There's a shot, loud and followed by unsettling quiet, and before Kevin can think too much about what this means, he's being hauled up and hurried out the door behind Mike. It's too dark outside to see clearly and they move quickly and awkwardly through the garden, bare feet sinking into the muddy earth and stumbling over patches of flowers and shrubbery.
They stumble out onto the footpath and the world is lit by dim streetlights. The air is cool and it's spitting with rain and Kevin's feet are caked in mud and grass and his ankles are scratched from a few unfortunate encounters with a particularly grabby series of plants along the way. He doesn't even notice Mike is holding onto his arm until Mike's hand is gone and cool air hits the skin of his wrist where Mike's hand had been.
Mike moves to head back to the house when Bill says, "She's not there. She went out the bedroom window before Spencer showed up."
Mike tenses for a moment, but then Kevin, Nick and Joe are being herded down the street and ushered into Bill's car. It's an uncomfortable experience being crammed into a car with two more people than the design allows for and Kevin is pressed in between Mike and Nick, with Joe on the other side by the door and the random newcomer on the floor at Joe's feet, somehow managing to look comfortable. Bill and Siska are lucky enough to get the front seats.
A phone rings and Kevin is shuffled over into Nick as Mike twists to pry the phone from his pocket.
"Mom?" he says. Then, "Yeah." And Kevin can hear the relief in that one syllable and knows that Mike's mom is okay.
Mike says, "Okay," into his phone and then slips it back into his pocket.
The sound of approaching sirens get nearer and nearer and Kevin wonders for a minute if they'll get caught; if Bob, who is apparently not just a produce guy, will be there to drag them back to their caseworkers (and if the older Mr Way will look at them all disappointed like the last time they had to be moved because Joe blabbed) and have the brothers shuffled off to some other part of the country with new names and life stories to memorise all over again; if Bill and Mike will be arrested and sentenced to however long in prison for whatever crimes they can be charged with. Kevin's not really sure whether he wants any of that to happen.
"They're not going to stop looking," says Mike.
"Then we'll just have to keep moving," replies Bill. "I think I'd like to try running a real flower shop this time."
"What?" says Siska, sounding unimpressed. "Like, legit?"
"Yeah," says Bill. "I want to do something challenging for once."
"Yeah," agrees Mike, and his voice softens a little as his eyes meet Kevin's. "I think I'd like that too."
Pairing: Mike Carden/Kevin Jonas (pre-slashish?)
Rating: M (I... I don't know. Maybe MA?)
Warnings: Course language, casual murder
Word Count: 16, 519
Summary: The Academy Is... guys are hitmen, the Jonas Brothers own a cafe-bookstore, secret pasts, epic gun fights and awkward and probably inappropriate crushing ensues
Mike doesn’t approve of Bill telling the Jonas brothers everything about the contract, especially since Bill never tells them more than they need to know about a job, which tends to be solely about the customer. But here he is, casually discussing the finer details of his meetings with the client who arranged the job. Mike would probably be more inclined to fight Bill about his sudden openness to divulging classified information if he wasn’t so damn curious himself.
There wasn’t much useful information to be gleaned, however. The contract had been called in from New Jersey by a man using an alias, which was not uncommon in this line of business. The most troubling thing is that all the information the client gave them about Kevin’s alleged embezzlement had checked out. Bill hadn’t realised there was something amiss until Mike called earlier.
This means their client has access to serious resources.
Mike is contemplating the implications of this entire set up when his gaze shifts and he sees Kevin staring at him, looking wild-eyed and panicked. He thinks it’s an appropriate response to hearing someone discuss plans to kill you, but he doesn’t like the accusation in Kevin’s eyes, like Mike is responsible for all of this and not just a guy who was hired to do a job.
Mike shifts in his seat before getting up. He’s thirsty and Bill is up to the parts of his storytelling that Mike already knows about. Nick and Joe are focused on Bill; Nick’s lips pursed in a tight line and arms folded across his chest, Joe standing beside him slack-jawed and transfixed. Kevin, however, tracks Mike’s progression around the room with his eyes.
When he reaches the far side of the room, Mike stops beside Kevin and asks if he wants anything to drink. Kevin squeaks in reply, but none of the rooms other occupants so much look over at them and, after a pause, Kevin nods his head and follows Mike into the kitchen, the door swinging softy closed behind them.
There’s a short chorus of clinking sounds as Mike pulls the fridge door open, plucking two cans from within. Kevin hesitates before accepting the can of soda when Mike holds it out to him, nursing it in his hands and waiting until Mike breaks the seal on his own drink before Kevin opens his.
The kitchen is quiet. Mike can hear Bill’s voice muffled and distorted through the door and somewhere down the street someone is mowing their lawn, but the only noises from within the kitchen are the crackling of aluminium between fingers and the occasional drawn out sluuurp from Kevin who doesn’t seem inclined to tilt his can of soda in order to facilitate the drinking process.
The afternoon sun is glaring in through the kitchen window, spilling across the room in a block of light and heat. The temperature of the room seems to amplify the coolness of the beads of sweat on the can as they track their way across the skin of Mike’s hands, occasionally spilling down his forearm before disappearing somewhere near his elbow. Sometimes it feels like summer will never end.
Kevin is still eying him warily from the other side of the counter.
“How’s your head?” says Mike, leaning back against the refrigerator.
“Oh,” says Kevin, like he hadn’t expected Mike to speak. “Not so bad.”
“Can I?” asks Mike, motioning with his free hand.
“Um, sure,” says Kevin, and Mike meets him halfway, leaning across the counter to examine the cut on Kevin’s head.
“It doesn’t look too bad,” says Mike. The cut is closed and looks clean, although there are still flakes of dried blood tangled in the curls of Kevin’s hair around it. Head wounds are always messy, though. “What about your ankle?”
“Yeah, I think I just landed on it weird,” says Kevin. “It’s not so bad now, either.”
Mike makes a sound of agreement and steps back from the counter. He crushes his empty soda can around the middle and drops it into rubbish bin beside the cupboard.
They fall back into silence again and Mike feels awkward. The only people Mike talks to who know what he does for a living are people who are, or have been, in the same line of work. He usually doesn’t give it much thought, but he’s becoming increasingly aware of the communication gap when trying to connect with someone who has significantly less moral flexibility. Mike was contracted to kill Kevin. It wasn’t personal, Mike didn’t know him, and it’s never personal, but he knows that probably wouldn’t be of any comfort to Kevin.
This situation is bizarre enough for Mike, he doesn’t know what it must be like for Kevin; trapped with the people who were hired to kill him and finding out that someone else out there has gone through a lot of effort to dummy up some very authentic evidence against him in order to place a contract on his life, someone who also managed to stay untraceable and unidentifiable so far. It was kind of fucked up.
“The contract,” Mike starts, and Kevin’s eyes lock instantly with his own and, fuck, Mike feels terrible. “The contract,” he continues, “is void. We’re going to get you and your brothers out of here safely.”
“Oh,” says Kevin, but his face is unreadable. Mike is pretty sure his word means nothing to Kevin, and it probably shouldn’t.
Mike nods at Kevin and heads back out to the living room feeling like a jackass.
Nobody acknowledges Mike when he slips back into the living room and leans himself against the wall by the kitchen door. Bill’s saying that they have someone out following up a few leads.
As if on cue, Sisky bursts through the door, brandishing a stack of paper and demanding, “I am back on full time field work for this.”
“Show me what you’ve found out, first,” says Bill.
“Oh no,” says Sisky. “I spent half this time on the phone being passed from Cobra to Cobra and the other half, well…” Sisky trails off ambiguously. “I’m out of records.”
“You’re out of records,” agrees Bill, extending his arm towards Siska and making ‘give me’ hands at the stack of papers. Siska hands them over.
“You know Bob Bryar’s out looking for them?” Siska says.
“Our produce guy?” says Nick.
“Produce guy?” says Siska, shaking his head. “He’s been part of almost every defence-driven government agency out there. I don’t even know who he’s working for right now. I hear he’s a nice guy, though. If he’s not, you know, torturing or killing you.”
“You think he’s part of our witness protection thing?” asks Joe, and Nick smacks him across the arm.
“What part of ‘life-endangering secret’ do you not understand?” Nick snaps.
“What,” says Joe, waving his arms in Bill’s direction. “Like they don’t already know!”
Bill and Mike look to Siska in question.
“Yeah, we did not know that,” says Siska. “Might explain Bryar, though. There were rumours about the Ways being involved in some witness relocation programs a few years back, but there are always rumours about the Ways going around.
“That’s not all,” Siska continues, pointing towards Joe and Nick. “Two other agencies have been contacted about disposing of these two as well.”
This day is getting increasingly weird and Mike isn’t sure what to make of it. Bill is eyeing Nick and Joe with great speculation, as if by staring at them hard enough the answers to his unspoken queries will somehow be made apparent.
-+-
Kevin has been listening at the door since Mike returned to the living room. He hesitates for a while once his drink is finished, but he drops the can in the bin and quietly slips out of the kitchen to join the others. Kevin narrowly avoids colliding with Mike who is standing, unexpectedly, next to the kitchen door and he winds up standing awkwardly in front of the door.
“What’s with your hair?” says the guy Kevin recognises from Bill’s scrapbooks as Adam T. Siska.
“What?” says Kevin, confused, one hand reaching up on impulse to brush at his curls.
“You look like a poodle.”
Kevin has seen the pictures and he doesn’t think Siska has any right to judge hairstyle choices. Once a guy has had a hairstyle that can only be described as a cross between ferret pelt and deflated Mohawk Kevin is pretty sure they lose all rights to judging the hairstyle choices of others.
Kevin doesn’t have the chance to voice this before Mike turns and leans into the space between Kevin and Siska like a human shield and says that they’ve got bigger problems than hairdressing right now.
“We should relocate,” says Bill. “Get away from the city at least. Do we know who was hired to take care of the other two?”
“Sapporta was hired for Joseph,” says Siska as Bill flicks through the file. “And Nicholas -”
“Oh no,” says Bill, staring at the page in front of him.
“Yeah,” says Siska.
“We’ve got to move,” says Bill as he moves from the couch and heads to his bedroom in the back, stopping only to slap the file to Mike’s chest as he passes.
Kevin tries to peer around Mike to read the page, but the angle is strange and he can’t see it properly with Mike’s shoulders obscuring is view. He decides to join Nick and Joe in their quiet panic instead.
-+-
Mike skims the page until his eyes hit the notes in the lower margin. It takes a moment to decipher Siska’s messy lettering but when he does he understands Bill’s concern. While Gabe would be easy enough to convince to drop the job out of professional courtesy or by calling in a favour, Smith and Urie still had something to prove after their team split.
Bill returns to the room with two duffel bags he’d had packed and waiting, probably since he moved in; you just never know when you’ll have to cut and run in this business. Mike’s got his own bag of essentials stowed away in his trunk, which has proved useful on two separate occasions now.
“All right, kids,” says Bill as he strides across the room to the front door. “We’re on the move. Let’s go, let’s go.”
Mike follows the line of Jonai out the front door and up to the car, grabbing Bill’s bags on the way past to throw in the trunk. The brothers clamber into the back seat and Mike watches Bill talking to Siska in the doorway before they part ways; Siska jumping the fence into the next yard and Bill sliding into the driver’s seat of Mike’s car. Mike would be annoyed with Bill’s presumptuousness, but this isn’t the time or the place so he hands over his keys without comment and sits himself in the passenger seat.
“Where are you taking us?” asks Nick. Mike doesn’t have much - okay, any - experience with taking anyone anywhere against their will but he’s pretty sure the kidnapees should be a little less mouthy and demanding.
“We’re going to a safe house, so don’t you worry your pretty little head about it,” answers Bill, shooting a quick look in the rear-view mirror. “I’ve been watching the weather channel and I hear we’re expecting a change in the wind, so you better wipe that scowl off your face if you don’t want it to freeze that way.”
Nick’s scowl deepens and he slumps down in his seat. Bill’s lips are twitching at the corners, fighting off a smile and Mike thinks Bill is more of a dick than he thinks he is sometimes.
The car is quiet for a while: Kevin and Nick are hunched down in their seats and gazing out their respective side windows; Joe is squashed between them in the tiny backseat, jiggling one foot against the floor and tapping out a beat against his knees; Bill’s lips are pursed in a thin line and he’s careful to abide by the road rules and he’s checking his mirrors frequently enough that Mike knows he’s keeping a look out for tails, too. The last thing they need right now is to be pulled over by the cops or followed to their own safe house.
The scenery is becoming more and more familiar and they’re going where Mike thinks they’re going... Well, he’s not sure if he’s more pissed or worried or annoyed. “Bill,” he says warningly, but then Nick is speaking again.
Nick says, “Where are we going?” He’s more forceful this time, and Mike thinks he must have spent this entire car ride letting his annoyance build up to this.
“We’re the big bad, here,” says Bill conversationally. “And we’re really putting ourselves on the line for you right now, so we’re not answerable to you.”
Bill probably didn’t even give it a second thought, Mike knows. Mike screwed up for whatever reason and Bill could have salvaged the operation easily enough. But Bill didn’t even ask Mike why he did it, Mike’s put them all in danger and if this doesn’t get them all killed it will at the very least irreparably destroy their professional reputation and earn them a spot on a few choice hit lists.
Nick’s face is stony but his eyes are burning with barely restrained anger. Mike is suddenly reminded of Nick’s profession and skill and is silently thankful there aren’t any sharp implements around. Well, not unless you know where to look. Bill might be following a similar train of thought as he says, “We’ve got family in the area. We can stop there for a day or two until I can make other arrangements.”
“Bill.” Mike doesn’t snarl, he really doesn’t, but it’s pretty close. If Bill wasn’t driving Mike would probably punch him. His fist clenches in an anticipatory gesture nonetheless.
“Family?” asks Kevin, catching their eyes in the rear-view mirror.
“Yeah,” says Bill, and it almost sounds like an apology.
“My mom,” says Mike. The urge to punch Bill - to punch something - hasn’t dissipated.
-+-
“Michael?” asks the woman who opens the door. Mike’s mother. She’s almost as tall as Mike with brown hair up in pink curlers, and she tugs her pink cotton robe more securely around herself when she peers over Mike’s shoulder to see the rest of them staring up at her from the stairs.
“Hi mom,” says Mike, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
“Oh don’t you ‘hi mom’ me, Michael,” she says sharp and low so that Kevin has to strain to overhear. “You don’t so much as write for six months and now you show up unannounced? With guests, Michael. You could have called. If I knew I’d be having guests I’d have gotten dressed.”
“Sorry,” says Mike, and Kevin thinks he sounds chastised and the apology genuine. Kevin feels a little guilty himself because he shouldn’t be trying so hard to listen in like this.
“Oh,” says Mrs Carden, resolve breaking and wrapping her arms around Mike. “I’ve missed you.”
“Well,” says Bill with a smile. “I think you look lovely as always.”
“You’re such a schmoozer, young William Beckett,” she laughs. “Thank you.
“Come on inside,” she says pushing the door open and ushering them in. “Can’t be standing around in my pajamas all day. You know how the neighbours are.”
There’s a laundry basket of clothes on the couch with a folded ironing board propped up against the wall nearby. The television is playing quietly in the background - it sounds like some type of soap opera, the music swells dramatically and someone confesses to sleeping with someone else’s identical twin before Mrs Carden picks up the remote and the screen goes blank.
“Urgh. I knew it was Tessa,” Nick mutters under his breath. Kevin doesn’t know how Nick can care about the soap opera on TV when they’re practically starring in their own action-adventure come family drama right now. Joe is nodding his agreement, though, and what does Kevin know?
“What’s going on, Michael? Not that it isn’t lovely to see you,” says Mrs Carden, “but you didn’t even visit on Christmas.”
“Not that I’m bitter,” she continues before Mike can say anything. “But you could at least call to let me know you’re still alive.”
“I-” Mike starts, but Mrs Carden continues on.
“You haven’t even introduced me to your guests,” she says.
“Mom,” says Mike, he looks pained for a moment then says “Mom, this is Kevin, Joseph and Nicholas. We’re, uh. We’re helping them out.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” says Mrs Carden and she smiles kindly in their direction.
“You too, ma’am,” says Nick.
“You have a lovely home,” Joe chimes in with the same smile that somehow melts the heart of every other girl he meets. Kevin would really like to know how he does that, because he’s tried and mostly he just looks weird when he tries to mimic it, not getting phone numbers so much as queries about his well-being.
“Uh,” says Kevin when he realises Nick and Joe are both looking at him expectantly. “Your hair looks nice?”
There’s an audible pause and Kevin feels his cheeks heat up. He’d like for just once that Nick would be the one to say something stupid. Maybe Kevin should stop letting his mind wander off on tangents and follow what’s happening around him some more. Maybe then he wouldn’t end up stammering something stupid. His hands are suddenly sweaty and he wipes them on his pants as surreptitiously as possible.
Mrs Carden looks like she’s struggling not to laugh, but when she smiles at Kevin it’s not unkindly so Kevin takes that as an almost-win.
“So Michael and William are helping you out?” she asks.
“Yes,” says Nick, and Kevin is glad Nick loves to take charge because Kevin is pretty sure ‘your son was hired to kill me and we have all been kidnapped sort of’ would be written all over his face and possibly also shouted really loudly in a moment of panic.
“They’re helping us out with a problem,” Nick continues.
“Michael was always very considerate when he was growing up,” says Mrs Carden. “What happened?”
“Um, sorry?” says Nick, looking almost expressionless in the way Kevin knows means he’s feeling anxious and preparing to panic.
“I was wondering what it is that Michael and William are helping you with,” she clarifies.
“Oh,” Nick says.
“Fire!” Joe all but yells.
“Fire?” says Mrs Carden, puzzled.
“Uh,” says Joe, long and drawn out.
Kevin stares with wide eyes straight at Mike, trying to communicate the level of his panic right now.
“There was a fire,” says Bill, sweeping in to salvage the conversation. He wraps an arm around Mrs Carden’s shoulder and gently steers her over to the couch. “Last night,” he says, “their apartment burnt down. They lost everything, but they have family in Michigan - you know how important it is to be with family when tragedy strikes - so Mike and I are driving them there.”
“You two are so sweet,” says Mrs Carden patting Bill’s hand. She turns to face Kevin, Nick and Joe with an expression on her face that is reminiscent of the one Kevin has when there are injured kittens present and says “You poor things. Are you holding up all right?”
“It’s a struggle,” says Joe dramatically, laying it on thick and really playing it up. “We’ve lost everything except each other. But we’ll pull through and --” He breaks off with a strangled squawk as Nick elbows him in the stomach.
“We’ll be all right,” says Kevin.
“You know,” says Mrs Carden, “I think I still have some of Michael’s old clothes boxed away somewhere. There might be something in your sizes and it’ll give you boys something else to wear until you get back on your feet again.
“You don’t mind, do you Michael?” she says.
“No,” says Mike genially. “I don’t mind. That’s a great idea.”
“Excellent,” Bill chimes in. “How’s that flower bed coming along?”
Mrs Carden looks a little thrown by the subject change but says, “It’s been coming along fine. I just haven’t had much time to spend gardening of late.”
Bill nods, makes an agreeable sound and says “While the brothers Jonas are sorting through those clothes Mike and I could lend our horticultural expertise to flower bed.”
“Oh, you boys don’t have to,” says Mrs Carden.
“It’s nothing at all,” says Bill. “It is what we do. We’re professionals, after all.”
“Well, all right then,” says Mrs Carden to their retreating backs as Bill steers Mike out the door by his shoulder. “The gloves are on the hook by the back door.”
“This is weird,” whispers Joe.
“Super weird,” agrees Kevin, whispering back. Mike kills people for money. Mike was going to kill him. Mike kidnapped him and his brothers. Mike decided to save them. Mike’s mom is giving them Mike’s old clothes. He can’t quite process the events because they make absolutely no sense. And the more Kevin thinks about it the more questions he has and he’s sure he’ll never get answers even if they get out of this alive.
“Everything should be in Mike’s old room,” says Mrs Carden, leading the way down the hall.
“It’s weird,” whispers Joe. “He has a mom and a bedroom and clothes.”
“You thought he was a naked orphan?” Kevin whispers back, confused.
“No, I mean it’s so weird that he comes actually from somewhere,” explains Joe.
“Oh,” says Kevin and he nods because that makes sense. Well, Joe-sense.
Nick is a few paces ahead of Kevin and Joe and he’s saying something to Mike’s mom that Kevin can’t hear. Knowing Nick he’s probably thanking her again for her hospitality. Nick always overcompensates with niceties and politeness when talking to parental figures. Kevin doesn’t know much about psychology other than a few phrases and words he picked up from the two months Joe spent dating a psych major (and he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to use them correctly anyway) but Kevin’s pretty sure Nick feels guilty about what happened to their parents.
It’s not Nick’s fault - he wasn’t even ten years old when it happened - but it’s impossible for Nick to understand that. Kevin’s tried talking to him about it, back when they were seeing a trauma therapist, back when they were first relocated, but Nick just shuts down whenever someone brings up the subject.
Joe and Kevin reach the room - Mike’s old bedroom - and Mrs Carden and Nick are already set up over the other side of the room, opening one of the neatly stacked cardboard boxes by the wall.
Kevin wonders whether this day will ever get less weird.
-+-
“Do you even know what you’re doing?” asks Mike. The air outside is warm and humid and Mike can already feel sweat beading along his back where the sun is hitting him.
Bill is already wearing his pair of green and brown gardening gloves and he pulls his phone from the pocket of his jeans.
“That,” says Bill imperiously as he waves the phone at Mike, “is why camera phones are a good investment.”
Mike pulls his own gloves on and makes himself comfortable on grass while Bill snaps a few pictures of the flower bed and, presumably, sends them to The Butcher. Barely a minute later Bill’s phone rings and Bill beckons Mike over to the flower bed.
“We need to pull out these things with the jiggedy leaves and the ones with the yellow things,” says Bill, pointing out the plants in question.
“We also need to cut off these sort of end parts of these things,” Bill says, quickly looking at his phone. “Pruning,” he says. “We need to prune these end parts.”
It’s hot and humid in a way that makes Mike want nothing more than for summer to end. The temperature should have decreased this close to autumn but the heat has remained at a persistent high. Summer had sunk its fingers into the city and wasn’t letting up.
Mike’s own gloved fingers dig into the soil as he sets to the task of uprooting the unwanted foliage. There’s something about the repetitive action that Mike finds calming; he doesn’t need to think about anything or focus on anything other than removing the “things with the jiggedy leaves”. Mike is especially thankful for the distraction the manual labour provides, is thankful he doesn’t have to look up when Bill says “Why?”
There are an abundance of whys: why did he approach the customer? why did he drive the customer to his own residence? why did he break protocol? why doesn't he like tomatoes?
“Why what?” says Mike. He’s being evasive. He knows this and Bill knows this. Mike hadn’t thought he’d be expected to explain himself and he isn’t sure he can.
“Why,” says Bill, “is this one different?”
“You think they deserve to die?” says Mike. “They’re barely adults - two of them aren’t old enough to drink yet.”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Mike. We don’t decide who deserves what,” says Bill, gently. “And it’s never bothered you before.”
They lapse into silence when Mike doesn’t respond; hands digging down into the soil to pull out the roots of the weeds.
Mike doesn’t know why and he doesn’t want to think about it. He’s never had a problem doing his job before and he doesn’t want to consider what this might mean.
“I need a vacation,” says Mike, like it answers Bills’ question at all.
Maybe it does, because Bill says “Yeah” and “I think I need a change, too.”
Bill drops the subject and they continue gardening in quiet.
-+-
Joe spends the afternoon whispering his theories to Kevin detailing exactly how Mike, Bill, and even Mike's mother will have them killed the moment they are lulled into a false sense of security. He is hurriedly weaving a tale of their imminent poisoning when Mrs Carden informs them that the roast chicken wis ready.
Joe stops talking mid-sentence and, in blatant disregard to his theory moments earlier, is the first to the kitchen, downing mouthfuls of food so quickly that Kevin is worried Joe might choke to death. (And maybe that was the insidious plan of their captors all along. The one thing Joe never saw coming.)
Within the next two hours the brothers are each dressed in some of Mike's old clothes and offered Mike's old bedroom for the night. Mrs Carden had insisted on washing and drying the few things they'd each claimed from the boxes that were now resealed and lining the far wall of Mike's old room.
Nick and Joe both immediately called dibs on the double bed which leaves Kevin with the mattress on the floor, squished between the bed and the wall of boxes. Kevin just knows that at least one of his brothers is going to trample him in the morning.
Nick and Joe are squabbling over pillows. They don't always fight this much. Kevin thinks maybe it's stress or a distraction or just something familiar to keep them from going crazy and developing a weird crush on a murderer. Kevin thinks that maybe he should start joining in on the arguments and also he would really like pancakes for breakfast.
-+-
It's dark on the back stoop. The tiny porch light is dim; illuminating some of the brickwork and the tiny insects pinging against the bulb, but very little else. The tip of Mike's cigarette is a small flare of red in the darkness.
It's cooler now the sun has set, but the air is still and warm and smells like rain. Bill is out moving the car around the block, a few extra bags of clothes stowed inside, and Mike is almost out of cigarettes.
He hears the door creak open and a few moments later his mother sits down beside him on the back stoop. "You should really quit, you know," she says, even as she takes a cigarette for herself and waits for Mike to light it.
"I did," he replies, tucking the lighter back in his pocket. Mike almost made it eight months without a cigarette when he started smoking again six months ago. He also stopped cutting his hair which Mike is certain his mother wants to say something about. She doesn't, though, and there's a pregnant pause.
The glow from the cigarettes ebb and flare in the darkness until there are only cigarette butts left. Mike stubs his on the steps next to him and draws another from the pack.
"Michael," his mom says slowly, like she's not sure what to say, or not sure how Mike will react.
"I know we don't talk about it," she says. "Your job. Not that flower shop bit you're trying to sell now - I've known Bill almost as long as I've known you and I know that neither of you knows the first thing about plants.
"I try not to think about it, Michael," she says wearily. "I try not to think about what you do. But those boys. You're not. Are they a job, Michael?"
"No," says Mike quickly. "Mom, no."
"Don't lie to me Michael," she says sternly, but she looks relieved.
"We're just helping them out," Mike says. "That's all."
"Okay," she says, stubs out her own cigarette and stands up. "I'm sorry, Michael," she says, before closing the door behind her.
Mike doesn't know what his mother is sorry for but he feels unsettled.
-+-
Kevin clumsily rolls over on his mattress and smacks into the wall of boxes. His arm hurts from where it collided with the cardboard but he's disgruntled and tired and he jams his pillow down over his head in a futile effort to drown out Joe's obnoxious snoring.
Everything quiets and Kevin lessens his death grip on the pillow. His eyes are itchy and tired and so heavy he can't open them. He sighs quietly and tries to sleep. Moments later Joe lets out an impressively loud snort and Kevin gives up. He will just never sleep ever again.
There's a muffled yelp and before Kevin can think to care about what is happening he gets the air knocked out of him when someone stands on him.
"Sorry," Nick mumbles. "Joe keeps kicking me."
"Hmmrruhm," says Kevin from under his pillow.
"Thanks," says Nick, squashing in next to him. Joe is snoring again but both Nick and Kevin manage to drift off to sleep.
-+-
Mike isn't the most comfortable he's ever been, stretched along the couch on his stomach with Bill using Mike's back like mattress. Mike has a working theory that Bill grows extra elbows when he sleeps - it's the only explanation his sleep-addled mind can concoct to explain the jabbing angles Bill seems to be entirely comprised of.
One of Bill's two hundred elbows jabs sharply into Mike's side, just below his ribs and jolts him out of sleep.
Mike grunts in pain and annoyance and squints his eyes until he can read the glowing green numbers on the clock above the TV. 3:12. Mike closes his eyes and tries to settle back into that uneasy slumber when he hears the door lock click and the door knob slowly turn.
It takes less than a second for Mike to wake up. He grabs his gun from under his pillow with one hand, twists around and wraps his free arm around Bill's waist and rolls them over the back of the couch, landing with a dull thud on the carpet.
"Wha-" Bill starts and Mike clamps a hand over Bill's mouth. The handle stops moving and the sound of every exhale and Bill's warm breath on Mike's hand seems suddenly amplified. Mike moves his hand and they both crouch behind the seat. Bill peers over the headrest and nods at Mike.
Bill is diving for the hallway just as the front door swings open and hits the wall with a bang. For a moment everything is quiet; there is only the sound of loose papers rustling in the breeze from the open door and the sound of Mike's blood pumping loudly in his ears. There are five long seconds of this and time seems to stretch an eternity between each passing second, marked only by the thumping of Mike's heart in his chest.
Suddenly the quiet of the room explodes with the sound of gunfire. The framed pictures on the shelves and walls splinter in their frames, the glass from the cabinets of china shatter and coat the floor in shards of glass and ceramics. The stuffing flies out of the couch backing over Mike's head.
A rain of white dust from the plaster walls is still raining down across the room when everything comes to an abrupt stop; the sound of gunfire cuts out leaving nothing in its place but the ringing in Mike's ears and the slow shower of plaster and sofa stuffing floating gently to the ground.
Mike takes a moment to steady himself, then carefully peers out from behind the couch. A bullet flies over his head, reducing a vase to pieces across the already littered floor. He takes a breath, steadies himself and leans back out again, fires off three quick shots in the direction of the doorway and returns to the cover provided by the couch.
There's a sudden bark of laughter from outside and then a voice calls out, "Hey! Hey, Mike, is that you?"
Brendon Urie. Mike feels a sudden moment of panic take hold of him and he freezes. He thinks about his mother only a few doors away down the hall and wishes it was the Way brothers who'd found them. Brendon and Spencer were not only actively trying to kill one of the Jonas brothers but wouldn't hesitate to do the same to anyone who might be in the way. Witnesses need to be eliminated.
"Yeah," Mike calls back casually. "How's L.A.?"
"Not too bad," says Brendon. "We were thinking about moving back home but there's less competition in L.A. And there's not a lot of surfing in Vegas. I'm kicking ass at surfing."
"Yeah?" says Mike.
"Well I can stand up without falling off," says Brendon. "Well, for a little while anyway," he concedes. "I'm still better than Spence."
"Haven't seen him in a while," says Mike evenly. "He with you tonight?"
"He's around," says Brendon and a sense of dread falls over Mike. It's much too quiet. As if on cue the sound of gunfire fills the air, only this time from somewhere toward the back of the house.
"Shit," Mike says to himself.
"Fuck," Brendon yells. "It doesn't sound this loud in the city."
A long time ago, Bill had wanted to take Brendon and Spencer and the two other team members they'd had back then under his tutelage to share his wisdom with the future generations in the business or some shit. It hadn't worked out as Bill planned mostly because they'd only been working in 'the business' for a few years themselves at the time and were still working out their own skills and team dynamics. It seems Brendon and Spencer missed out on the lesson that silencers, while sometimes advantageous, are essentially pointless in the quiet suburbs. Mike knows it's highly unlikely some concerned neighbours haven't already placed an emergency call or two and it will only be a matter of time before the police arrive.
There's a yell and the distant gunfire is replaced with a clattering sound and a dull thud. One more shot goes off, followed by what Mike can only describe as half scream, half wail. Mike feels himself start to panic for the briefest moment, sees Brendon raising his weapon in the doorway, taking aim again, when the gun clatters to the ground, falling from Brendon's grasp. Brendon is down on one knee, clutching at his side, face contorted in pain.
Mike has his gun trained on the open doorway when Sisky and the Butcher walk through, Sisky casually picking up Brendon's gun from the floor and tucking it into the waistband of his jeans.
"Hey," says the Butcher. "We just finished burning down the store. What's up?"
"Spencer's somewhere near the back of the house," says Mike, pulling himself to his feet and shaking the plaster from his hair. "Bill headed back that way before all this," he says, waving at the destroyed room in explanation.
"What are we waiting for," says the Butcher, "let's move."
"You're fucking welcome, by the way," says Sisky, nodding at Brendon who is still kneeling in the doorway, breathing heavy and rasping as blood flows thick and sticky across his hands and into a steadily expanding pool on the floor.
-+-
Bill is staring at Nick with a look that is equal parts awe and surprise.
"I'm a chef," Nick says, shrugging. "We're good with knives."
They're huddled behind the kitchen counter, the four of them: Nick, Joe, Bill and Kevin. They'd almost made it to the back door when it had slammed open and the room exploded with noise and splintered wood from the cabinets. Now they are pressed close behind the counter while outside somewhere the gunman is screaming a litany of profanity Kevin will never, ever repeat, and sporting a filet knife to the thigh thanks to Nick.
The door behind them opens and Nick is reaching for another knife when Bill stays his hand. Mike and Siska and some third guy Kevin doesn't know are standing there, armed and looking like something out of an action movie.
"Brendon?" Bill asks and Siska says, "Taken care of."
"Is that Spencer?" asks Mike, tilting his head toward the stream of foul language still spilling in from outside.
"Knife to the leg," says Bill and he looks at Nick again, briefly, with wonder and amusement.
"I got this," says Siska, pulling a gun from the back of his jeans, taking the safety off and striding out the door into pre-dawn darkness.
There's a shot, loud and followed by unsettling quiet, and before Kevin can think too much about what this means, he's being hauled up and hurried out the door behind Mike. It's too dark outside to see clearly and they move quickly and awkwardly through the garden, bare feet sinking into the muddy earth and stumbling over patches of flowers and shrubbery.
They stumble out onto the footpath and the world is lit by dim streetlights. The air is cool and it's spitting with rain and Kevin's feet are caked in mud and grass and his ankles are scratched from a few unfortunate encounters with a particularly grabby series of plants along the way. He doesn't even notice Mike is holding onto his arm until Mike's hand is gone and cool air hits the skin of his wrist where Mike's hand had been.
Mike moves to head back to the house when Bill says, "She's not there. She went out the bedroom window before Spencer showed up."
Mike tenses for a moment, but then Kevin, Nick and Joe are being herded down the street and ushered into Bill's car. It's an uncomfortable experience being crammed into a car with two more people than the design allows for and Kevin is pressed in between Mike and Nick, with Joe on the other side by the door and the random newcomer on the floor at Joe's feet, somehow managing to look comfortable. Bill and Siska are lucky enough to get the front seats.
A phone rings and Kevin is shuffled over into Nick as Mike twists to pry the phone from his pocket.
"Mom?" he says. Then, "Yeah." And Kevin can hear the relief in that one syllable and knows that Mike's mom is okay.
Mike says, "Okay," into his phone and then slips it back into his pocket.
The sound of approaching sirens get nearer and nearer and Kevin wonders for a minute if they'll get caught; if Bob, who is apparently not just a produce guy, will be there to drag them back to their caseworkers (and if the older Mr Way will look at them all disappointed like the last time they had to be moved because Joe blabbed) and have the brothers shuffled off to some other part of the country with new names and life stories to memorise all over again; if Bill and Mike will be arrested and sentenced to however long in prison for whatever crimes they can be charged with. Kevin's not really sure whether he wants any of that to happen.
"They're not going to stop looking," says Mike.
"Then we'll just have to keep moving," replies Bill. "I think I'd like to try running a real flower shop this time."
"What?" says Siska, sounding unimpressed. "Like, legit?"
"Yeah," says Bill. "I want to do something challenging for once."
"Yeah," agrees Mike, and his voice softens a little as his eyes meet Kevin's. "I think I'd like that too."