heavy-hearted-hitman-blog

[heavy-hearted-hitman-blog]

friend: im having a problem with this person

me: kill them

friend: no

me: then i will kill them FOR you

friend: NO

[heavy-hearted-hitman-blog]

[heavy-hearted-hitman-blog]

He's just so happy to be out and about that at first it doesn't matter that he doesn't really have an idea what he's looking for. He can read street signs, but words like 'stationery' are a little beyond his current literary scope.

It takes quite a bit of wandering around before he finds a shop with things like typewriters and fancy pens and paper in the display window. He may not be able to read the word, but he knows it when he sees it- and thankfully he'd taken a long look at the little round tin on the desk before he'd left.

He finds the tins that look like that tin, and buys a box of them, glad he still has some money in his wallet. This ought to do. No wait... one of those, too. Yep. Thanks.

His errand completed, he heads back. That took longer than he'd meant. He hoped he'd lucked out and his benefactor hadn't got home yet. The whole point of a surprise was for the surprise-ee not to suspect anything, even he knew that.

Hunkering out on a broad’s couch, you hear things. Notice things. Rico played it cool. Pretended he didn’t hear or didn’t really care. He just got up in the morning, helped with breakfast, did the dishes, and waited for Elsbeth to leave.

Once he was sure she was both gone and a ways away, a grin spreads across his face. He wasn’t really supposed to go out, lest he get caught or worse. But after all the woman’d done for him, he couldn’t let this opportunity to make good pass up.

Jimmying the window open, Rico slips out onto the fire escape, closes the window behind him (leaving it just ajar enough for him to get back in later, and clambers down to the street, taking off. He wished he could take Baby out, but that’d be too risky- besides, he was happy just to run. He’d felt terribly cooped up lately.

He nearly mows over some sad-sack looking shorty, but oh well. He had an idea, and he had a pretty good idea on where to go.

[heavy-hearted-hitman-blog]

Hunkering out on a broad's couch, you hear things. Notice things. Rico played it cool. Pretended he didn't hear or didn't really care. He just got up in the morning, helped with breakfast, did the dishes, and waited for Elsbeth to leave.

Once he was sure she was both gone and a ways away, a grin spreads across his face. He wasn't really supposed to go out, lest he get caught or worse. But after all the woman'd done for him, he couldn't let this opportunity to make good pass up.

Jimmying the window open, Rico slips out onto the fire escape, closes the window behind him (leaving it just ajar enough for him to get back in later, and clambers down to the street, taking off. He wished he could take Baby out, but that'd be too risky- besides, he was happy just to run. He'd felt terribly cooped up lately.

He nearly mows over some sad-sack looking shorty, but oh well. He had an idea, and he had a pretty good idea on where to go.

[heavy-hearted-hitman-blog]

[heavy-hearted-hitman-blog]

"Tarantula, maybe. He don't talk, but he listens good and he's smart. Wolf... he's diplomatic most'a the time, but he likes things to go his way and makes damn sure they do. Seems reasonable at first, but can get real ugly real quick if he doesn't like the turn of the conversation."

He sighs, picking at his eggs.

"Truth told, I don't like the idea of you getting mixed up with them. You seem capable, but they're really dangerous. Even by the standards of this messed-up town."

He's never had a friend before, not really. He supposes someone who keeps you from jumping off a bridge and takes you in would count as a friend. And he'd rather not see that friend shot. Or worse.

Complications

[heavy-hearted-hitman-blog]

"Yeah. Ever since I was really little."

He sighs, rubbing a bit at his temples. He doesn't like talking about this, really, but if it'll help Elsbeth help him, he supposes he can divulge. It doesn't mean it won't be painful, though.

"I was bought from my parents, raised by the Spiders. As soon as I could hold a gun they taught me to shoot, and they also taught me that running away or not falling in line weren't options. Even when she was young, Recluse was vicious. Some people thought something awful'd happened to her to make her like she is. Me? I'm pretty sure she was born bad. Nothin' can make a person as nasty as that."

He swallows hard, fidgets, drums his fingers on the tabletop.

"And yeah. There's Wolf, there's Recluse... there's Tarantula. He wasn't so bad. Was nice to me, even. ... Of course, then Recluse lobbed his tongue out one night..."

Complications

[heavy-hearted-hitman-blog]

He was. He didn't really care for people wielding sharp objects near his face, or near his person for that matter. And furthermore, he liked his hair like it was. Maybe it wasn't generally accepted style, but Rico liked it. It suited him.

He listened to her, and nodded slowly. Yeah. Food sounded good. His stomach seemed to concur, as it growled, reminding him it hadn't been fed in about twenty-four hours.

"Power, huh? I hope you got a lot of it, sister. Nobody's connections've ever saved them before. Recluse don't care about that sort of thing. She don't listen to nobody, except for Wolf."

Complications

[heavy-hearted-hitman-blog]

"...I think I got time. I just did Lombardi- they're gonna expect me to lay low for a while. I think I can spare a week without putting you in too much trouble, but after that... if there ain't no way to get 'em off my scent, to let me go, I need to leave. You're bein' real good to me, especially considering we just met and I'm a killer. I don't want to put you in danger."

He exhales.

"Especially not this kind of danger. The stuff you see in the papers is just the tip of the iceberg. Recluse- I've seen her do things that'd make a seasoned cop vomit like a rookie. To her own people."

Complications

[heavy-hearted-hitman-blog]

"You don't get it."

Rico shakes his head, his eyes widened a bit as if the full brunt of the danger he's put his benefactor in has just occurred to him.

"The people I work for are ridiculously dangerous. There's a reason I just haven't left before- because they'll have that crazy hyena woman hunting me down like a dog. She loves doing that. She catches me and she won't kill me- she'll make me wish I was dead ten million times before she lets me die. I ain't no coward, but what she's capable of scares me."

He looks up at her, slowly, expression dead serious.

"I work for the damn Spiders. I don't think I need to tell you what that means. And if I'm found with you... christ, I'm putting you in the worst danger just by staying here."

Complications

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[heavy-hearted-hitman-blog]

His eyes widen a touch, and then close, the man shaking his head.

"...clever girl."

Sighing, he pours the coffee into two mugs, picking one up and blowing on the steam, hands warmed by heated ceramic. He's silent a few moments before speaking again.

"...yeah. I told you, it'd be better for everyone if I were gone. I can't get out of the game, and long as I'm in it, ain't nothing going to get better in this town. You saw what happened to poor ol' Alex Lombardi. Head heavy honchos don't want nobody coming in to clean up this place. They like it how it is. Nice and dirty to do dirty deeds in. Can't tell you how many good souls with good intentions I've put in the ground."

He sips from the mug, the strong and bitter brew burning down his throat.

"...you want me to go, I'll understand. I wouldn't want the likes of me around either, especially with the trouble bound to follow."

Complications

[heavy-hearted-hitman-blog]

                                                                                                                Control your emotions.                                                                   If you want to survive you forget about sympathy.                                                                   Think of it like a strategy- f o c u s on your ultimate                                                                             goal, shut out everything else, steel your mind,                                                                                     move on instinct. Let doubt take over and despair                                                                                                                               will cripple you.

[heavy-hearted-hitman-blog]

"Yeah, pretty good. Had a bit of a spook when I woke up, forgot where I was and why I was here. Fell into place after a couple minutes, though. And yeah, I could eat. Thanks."

He yawns softly, scratching the back of his head.

"You don't look like you slept all that great, though."

Complications

[heavy-hearted-hitman-blog]

"Mornin'."

His tone is a somewhat gruff, bleary one- he slept alright but he has all the telltale marks of a man severely paying for a night of heavy inebriation. He hopes the coffee helps.

Giving Elsbeth a look over, he bites back a slight grin. His rescuer was awfully cute in his book. Classy looking dame, even without all the bells and whistles. Still, she has the slightly raccoonish look of someone Morpheus had bad luck dragging into Dreamland. He can't help but wonder of she'd been kept up on his account.

He wasn't used to being a houseguest, much less to a lady. He was trying to be courteous though, as much as a trained killer could be.

He rubs his head.

"Coffee?"

Complications

"Okay. Okay. Just… don’t panic, Elsbeth. You can handle this. This is just going to be a little more challenging than you thought…"

She paced her bedroom floor, muttering to herself, hoping that it wasn’t loud enough to wake her guest.

"All right. So… I saved a guy from jumping off a bridge, and now I’m spending a week playing host to the most notorious killer in all of Sepia, who is responsible for… god knows how many deaths? And the police have been after him for months, and if they find him here, I’ll be in prison at best. Not to mention whoever hired him will not be happy that their top assassin disappeared…”

"… Johann is going to kill me.”

[heavy-hearted-hitman-blog]

Rico's awake, though he doesn't overhear this.

The least he can do for being put up, he figures, is make coffee. He figures she drinks it, due to the presence of a coffeepot, and Heaven knows he could use some- his head had a dull roar in it. He'd have some hair of the dog but his flask is tragically empty.

It'd taken him a good fifteen minutes to get his bearings after he woke up- remember where he was, where Baby was, what had happened last night. He'd been very close to whipping the window open and making a break for it until he remembered what he'd promised.

If nothing else, Rico was a man of his word. So he stayed, made coffee, and hoped to Hell that there was some aspirin around- all oblivious to the fact that, somehow, his benefactor had figured out who he was.

Complications

"Okay. Okay. Just… don’t panic, Elsbeth. You can handle this. This is just going to be a little more challenging than you thought…"

She paced her bedroom floor, muttering to herself, hoping that it wasn’t loud enough to wake her guest.

"All right. So… I saved a guy from jumping off a bridge, and now I’m spending a week playing host to the most notorious killer in all of Sepia, who is responsible for… god knows how many deaths? And the police have been after him for months, and if they find him here, I’ll be in prison at best. Not to mention whoever hired him will not be happy that their top assassin disappeared…”

"… Johann is going to kill me.”

[heavy-hearted-hitman-blog]

Rico didn't need to be told twice. The whole affair had been terribly draining, and he was really beginning to feel it- a bone-tiredness, an exhaustion that cut to his very soul.

Working off his boots, he collapses onto the couch, huddling under his coat, head resting on the cushions.

In the morning, he'd probably be hungover and confused. But for right now, the assassin sleeps like a baby, for once in his life feeling, for reasons he couldn't really explain, safe.

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