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The bullet cutting between Foxx’s eyes leaves raindrops of red dashing for the ground. Foxx twists on his heel, knees scraping the concrete safety barrier until he’s swallowed up by New York’s underground.
Blood splatters all over Ash’s face and torso. It barely touches Sing’s fingers as Ash pulls him up, lungs screaming, brain on fire. Sing’s tiny legs manage to haul his ass over the side, sneakers scuffing until he’s on his knees and catching his breath. The case of evidence settles nicely on the floor.
Ash looks over the side. There’re bones poking out of Foxx’s body. Teeth lay like a crown around his head.
“Fucking hell!” Sing wheezes, sat on the floor as he rakes a hand through that short black hair. “I-I thought—” He glares up at Ash, brows knitted in a pensive knot. “Why did you—who—”
Ash hears the cock of a gun but barely throws his glance over his shoulder. “You were here the whole time.” His fists tighten by his sides. “You wanted to play hero or somethin’? Not your style, Blanca.”
“No.” Ash detests the way the last of his hope dies when Blanca merely puts a cigarette between his lips, gun holstered and on his back. “I just don’t let potential die. Foxx was already a dead man walking.”
Potential. He used to call Ash that, years ago. Back then, it made Ash’s eyes sparkle. Potential.
Now, something twists in his gut. It’s uncomfortable. Echoes of old voices drown out the demons—Skipper, Shorter, Jennifer, Griff. Blanca’s voice is in the middle, unlike before, and Ash doesn’t like that.
This uncertainty.
“You had no problem chasing me over a city before.”
“And yet, you survived.” Blanca takes the cigarette from his lips, and his words join the smoke from the fires where Foxx becomes ashes. That stupid grin pains over Blanca’s mouth. “Now, you just need to pay up. I don’t work for free.”
Ugh. It always comes back to two things with this guy: money and the thrill of the hunt. Slap a curved ass on that retirement plan and Blanca’s set for life. Ash rolls his eyes. “Sure, whatever. You’ll get it.”
Stray pieces of gravel skip over the ground as Sing shifts, eyes big and wide as he stares at Ash. He stands, to full height, and he’s barely taller than Ash’s shoulder. Smaller than Eiji.
Maybe as small as Skipper.
“Why did… why did you save me?” Sing’s all confused, mottled—there are cuts all over his arms. He remembers Shorter ranting to him in the bar about how reckless this kid could be.
(He could take over for me someday, but jeez! I don’t want the kid going to an early grave! I just wanna teach him what’s what here, y’know? And then he’d drown his sorrows in whatever was sitting to his left. A drink, a song, a pair of arms.
Ash barely knew the kid at the time, but Shorter seemed to care about him.
Shorter, forgive me for letting you down again.)
Ash shrugs. “…We’d just be an extra $10 on some asshole’s hit list if we fought.” As Ash sighs, his fatigue becomes a cold, cold wisp of air, carrying it to the stars winking overhead.
“Aren’t you tired?”
Sing startles. “What?”
“You,” Ash glances at Sing. “Aren’t you tired?”
The kid—and he’s a kid, Ash realises. Fourteen, maybe, but still a kid—purses his lips, and digs his heel into the gravel. “…’dunno.”
Yeah, Ash thinks to himself. The way he’d collapse into Eiji’s lap, sometimes, when Eiji was already tuckered out waiting up for him. You are.
“Still, that could be interesting. He could match you one day, Ash,” Blanca supplies, so helpfully. Something crawls up Ash’s spine when he sees the way Sing’s eyes light up from the praise. “Sing was helpful in getting us this far to reach you.”
“We’ll see.”
And the subject drops—except it doesn’t, the thread remains untied, because Blanca never learns to stop. Ash has too many cracked ribs healed over.
Sing clutches his side. “What happens now? We’ve still got the—” Sing looks down at his feet, eyes bugging. “Wait, where did the case—?!”
Ash, startled, looks around too. He’s confident it didn’t fall over the side of the rail, so—
“Ah. Dreadfully sorry about this, Ash. But I’m afraid I still have a job to commit to, even if I did leave my employer.”
Ice crawls down Ash’s back. Blood seeps through his shirt. No.
“Huh? What are you doing?” Sing’s looking between Ash and Blanca, then focuses properly on Blanca, case in hand. “Blanca, we need that! It’s important!” Sing then looks back at Ash with childish urgency. “It’s important, right?”
“It’s the proof we need.” Ash moves a little in front of Sing. His hand clutches over the stab wound on his shoulder, dug into him by Foxx’s dirty hands. “Yeah. It’s important.”
“I agree.” Blanca holds the case up, and the silver glint catches his eyes. Cold. Unfeeling. Sliding back into another role. “Which is why, I’m sorry, Ash, but I can’t let it leave this facility with you. My former employer was the only person known to have successfully used this, and to let it go out into a world it doesn’t belong to…”
The words spill from his lips, and instead of smoke, the cigarette from his mouth turns to fire as soon as he gives Ash that fucking jovial grin. “It’s bad for business. Try to understand.”
“Are you talking about Yut-Lung Lee?” Sing intercepts as Ash processes his fucking horror churning in his gut, and he takes a step forward. “Blanca, he can—I-I’ll talk to him about this, he’ll listen to me!” Sing’s practically trembling as he tries to levy his spitfire height against Blanca’s wildfire presence. “You can’t destroy it, we came all this way! That—that thing is what killed Shorter! My friend, my boss, my—my brother! People need to know it exists!”
Ash’s gaze snaps to Sing.
“Hm.” Blanca reconsiders, taking the cigarette from his lips and exhaling a thought. Ash from the cigarette falls to Blanca’s feet, and he kicks it off, an afterthought. “It is true, he holds you in high regard.”
Ash narrows his eyes. “What are you thinking?”
Blanca holds up both hands as he places the case down. “Yut-Lung sees you as capable. And it is to my understanding Chinatown is out of control since the death of its former leader.” Ash winces; Sing clenches his fist. “I see potential in you, Sing.”
Ash’s heart stops.
“Perhaps he can be persuaded to give up some of the evidence in this case as a… gesture of goodwill towards Ash. In return, I’ll train you to become head of his security. You head the Chinatown Mafia already, don’t you? He trusts in my skills—you would inherit them, Ash gets partial evidence for his case, and everyone leaves happy.”
“I—” Sing stammers over his own words, tongue useless, cheeks flushed red from the sudden praise. “I’ve—I don’t know, I—”
“You don’t give a shit about gang politics,” and it surprises Ash how he finds himself seething. His shoulders brush Sing’s as he steps forward. “Why would you care to train the next Chinatown Mafia leader?”
“True, I care little for it. But,” Blanca shrugs, smiles, laughs. “Perhaps I’m curious. I’d like to see how far his potential goes—”
“Over my dead fucking body.”
Blanca tuts at him. Tuts. “You’re being impulsive, Ash. You are the strongest I’ve trained, but so… impulsive. This works out for everyone.”
“That’s bankin’ on Yut-Lung agreeing in the first place, and even if he does, you can’t train him the way you did me—Sing’s just a kid.”
“Hey! I’m not a kid—” Sing protests, but Ash shakes his head. Sing promptly shuts his mouth.
“He’s the same age you were when I trained you.”
Ash’s gaze lingers on Blanca. Hawkeyed look, locked onto his old teacher. That same, disarming smile. The one that hugged him after Blanca broke Marvin’s arm and kept him upright after he was brutalised, pockets filled by Marvin’s employer who had his way with Ash anyway. Blanca, who signed his bandaged fingers with stupid Indiana Jones’ references, bones were broken from training so intense it made his eyes water.
You were so young, Ash remembers Eiji’s horror. Why did he not break you out? Why did nobody see you needed help?
Something in Ash’s gut twists.
“Look, I—”
Blanca takes one step towards Sing, and Ash’s bloodied arm shoots out.
“Take one more step, and I’ll kill you.”
Maye this isn’t the first time Blanca’s students, or prey, or targets, have turned on him. Maybe he’s seen them snap under the weight of his “kindness” before. Because Blanca isn’t moved—at all—he just smiles. Continues to smile, smile, smile.
“I am no threat to you.”
“Not to me.” Ash looks at Sing. He backs up, pushing Sing back as well—who follows him, despite his stunned silence. “Back off.”
Blanca’s eyes flit between Ash and Sing, and his smile turns to a sigh, to gentle disapproval. “Why do you object? I am interested in seeing how far his—”
“Oh, fuck off with that potential talk!” Ash winces but holds his arm out steadfast. “I’m not about to let you ‘teach’ him the way you did with me—my ring finger’s still crooked because of you.”
“I thought he was your teacher?” Sing whispers.
Ash’s voice lowers, his gaze icy like the winds whistling around them. Fire’s dying. “He was.”
That cigarette’s dead now.
Just like Griff, Skip, Jennifer, Shorter. Dino died on the floor, Foxx all burnt up. Eiji’s life kissed a silver bullet, barely hanging on by a red string, Max chained, Jessica braving hell's crossroads to get her husband back—
Sing. Sing’s not ruined yet. He can still do good by this one.
“I can see we’re at a stalemate.”
“Definitely not friendly fire, old man.”
Blanca laughs, and his heel crushes the ashes, makes sure it’s flattened into the ground. “It wouldn’t be a fair fight now to convince you. You wouldn’t survive it. Much like that boy of yours, if he’d stayed with you any longer.”
“Don’t you fucking talk about him—”
“I meant no offense. I had a wife, once. I know what it’s like to fall into love.”
Yeah, and she left your ass once she found out who you worked for, and you didn’t care if she got caught in your crossfire as collateral for knowing too much.
“I can see we’re done here, then.”
Blanca picks up the case and tosses it into the hellfire roaring below. Ash watches it tumble, until it’s nothing but smoke, licked clean by the flames. Sing tries to catch it with a desperate lunge, but Ash stops him, shakes his head, and grits his teeth.
It hurts.
(It hurts, Griff. I’m sorry I couldn’t avenge you.)
Blanca turns on his heel. “Farewell, Ash.”
“Hey, where are you going? You can’t just leave, Blanca—!”
Sing’s cries are fruitless, even after those useless steps to chase after Blanca. Instead of bothering with Blanca again, Ash looks out to the sky.
Are you leaving me again, Ash? He sees Eiji, a phantom over a blazing sky, holding Ash’s heart in his kind hands, and somehow, Ash hears the words. Are you going somewhere far away, without a word? “Sa-yo-u-na-ra”. I should never have taught you that word.
To his knees, Ash falls. The gravel stabs his skin, the blood drips down his arms.
Sorry, Eiji.
“Ash!” Sing scrambles to hold Ash steady and looks around this wasteland, desolate, void of help.
Still, Sing hopes and looks for help to suddenly appear.
Must be nice, to dream like that.
“Ash, Ash, you—you’ve gotta stay awake! I—dammit, where are they? Why’d Blanca just walk off like that?! Dammit.” Sing tears off a piece of his shirt and blots the wound.
“…’s his way, Sing. Once his role’s finished, he doesn’t give a shit beyond professional curiousity.” Sweat beads on Ash’s brow, and yet, his lips quirk. “Just his way.”
“How can you smile now?! We need to get you some—” The void begins to buffer Sing’s words. Ash can see the light at the edges of his eyes begin to shadow over. “—oi, oi! I told you not to sleep, you can’t—”
Ash’s eyes close. Lashes flutter shut, and he can feel the snow starts to blanket the fires of New York. Maybe he’s no leopard, climbing up the mountain. Maybe he can just enjoy the peak from the ground, and watch the bluebirds fly.
“Ash!” Sing’s breathing gets shallow. “Help! I need help, someone! Please, help!”
Sing’s desperate scream for help is swallowed up by his brain, and Ash sinks against the kid’s shoulder.
There are few certainties in life: you die, people leave, and somewhere, it’s always 5 in the afternoon.
Ash got used to it, after a while. His mother left when he could barely comprehend light; a shadow in the doorway, a woman humming spring songs as the drugs ate her mind. Griffin next, desperate to save up enough money so they could run away, caught in a military vice.
Friends came and went, slaughtered by a system Ash barely survived by the skin of his teeth.
Once, Ash was in love. Fourteen years old, talking to a girl with flowers in her goddess braids, sun kissing her dark skin and black eyes. Copper Garcia gave him flowers, pressed into a book he found in the library.
Then she died, blood on the flower cart where she worked, and Ash forgot about love.
He thought Shorter would stay, for a while. It almost worked. Almost. Then his heart broke by Ash’s hand, mind like Ash’s mother’s, like Griff’s; addled by drugs. Too young. Too bright.
People leave. He’s the magnetic pull’s antithesis.
In Brooklyn, right now, it’s 4:09 pm.
It’s 4:09, and someone is stroking his hair.
Ash manages to crack his eyes open, mouth dry like the Sahara, and there’s an angel sitting by his bedside. Got a halo made from sterile hospital light.
“Wh…” Words aren’t his friend right now, but that angel—no, no, that’s Eiji?—laughs, shushes him gently.
“You’re safe, my Ash.” Ash feels his bangs swept away from his forehead. “It may hurt later. But you are safe, and I am here. I will not leave you.”
“…’shoulda ran away from me.” Ash turns his head away, closing his eyes as his cheeks colour in shame. “Far away.”
“Maybe that would have been smarter,” Eiji admits, and he scoots closer. “But when have you ever been able to tell me what to do?”
“Cheeky shit.”
“You tolerate it.”
Eiji gives Ash water to drink after his voice cracks again, and Eiji is supporting the back of his head by cradling it. Eiji’s hand is so careful against his skull, with the bruising making Ash’s body marked for death and vulnerability, and yet Eiji is being careful with him.
Maybe that wouldn’t be incredible to normal people, but in Ash’s world, that’s more valuable than a gun.
Once Ash has finished drinking, Eiji dabs his mouth with a tissue before scrunching it up and leaving it on the floor. And he lectures Ash on being messy, christ. What a hypocrite.
(Ash could weep.)
“What—” Ash’s voice strains under the weight of uncertainty. “What… what do I do now? What happened? I don’t—”
“Ssh…” Eiji leans down and kisses his forehead. “There will be time to catch you up on everything later. You are safe, Ash. Please, just try to rest for now, and once you are awake properly, we can take the first step together.”
Ash… pauses. “You’re staying here?”
“I am staying with you. I told you this already, didn’t I?”
Forever.
Ash relaxes back into the hospital bed and closes his eyes on Eiji’s smile.
It's you, my friend, why I'll get up again.