Until next time -Scrutinized Fanfic

Not Drinking alone

The man yelled in frustration as the clutter that lay on his table was aggressively thrown to the floor "SHE'S FOUND ME?!" His voice ricocheted off the walls of the small room. The walls were painted a horrible grey colour, and the paint was pealing and cracking at the corners, revealing the bare wall beneath. Mould was growing on the ceiling and slowly creeping down the walls like a predator.

"Yes sir" Darren tensed up, the thought of his failure clinging to his brain like a tumour. He watched as the man rested his hands on the small tattered desk and listened to the long, deep sigh that escaped his lips "Do you not know how to follow simple instructions? 'Get rid of her, i don't care how you do it, just make sure she isn't a problem'. And here you are saying that she has found me" The man's thick London accent shook with bottled up aggression, his slender yet muscular body turning to face him, the darkness of the room still masking his features "I know sir, I will do what ever it takes to redeem myself after what I have done, it's just I was unable to let myself kill her".

"What?" The man's posture straightened "you were unable to let yourself kill her? What is that supposed to mean?" Darren looked at the floor in shame, he could feel his employer's steady gaze on him. "Oh" he said "oh" he said again, chuckling through the word. His laugh increased until he was leaning on the table for support "you mean to tell me...you expect me to believe that you love her-" he burst out laughing once again, Darren looked up at him with a furious gaze, all his hatred for the man seeping through his pupils.

His chuckle decreased, his smile being replaced with a look of authority, a look that told Darren that he had done something that his employer was not happy with. He wiped his hateful look away from his face and looked him in the eye, regretting his choice of gaze.

"Do you think I care?"

Darren felt a shiver run up his spine, a look of fear revealing itself on his face

"Do you think I give a shit that you love her? If it wasn't for me you would still be sitting in that shitty little town standing by your family's grave alone, so why don't you start showing me some respect. I got you out, I helped you find the monster that killed your father. I only ask for one thing in return and you go and get all soppy with the threat and give me looks like that!" He threw a knife that was sitting on the table past Darren's head, hitting the wall behind him, leaving a shaken Darren paralysed with fear "but I know you won't fail me again. Will you?" Darren still didn't move, his muscles refusing to function, the look of fear clearly visible on his face "hey hey, it's alright, now what you're going to do is bring that copper and that little monster of her boyfriend to me and we can sort this out like civilised people" he placed his hands on Darren's shoulders and looked at him with a mask of calmness and sensitivity "and hey, you'll finally get to have your old name back, no point in having fake one if the people you're hiding for aren't around. Is there Thomas?"

He nodded to his employer, hearing the name his parents gave him once was freeing, it had been so long since anyone ever spoke it. Even his employer rarely said it, referring to him as Darren in case anyone aware of the name was listening.

"I'm not going to let some girl take down what I have built, what we both have built" the employer walked back over to the desk, looking down at the mask and beanie that lay there helpless "should've killed her along with her cousin when I had the chance"

"When the deed is done, Thomas. You will have him" He spun back around to look at his employee, unsurprised by his subservient eyes looking at him. He chuckled.

"As much as he may wish it, he cannot hide from you forever"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Luna stood next to her bed staring at the door, she heard Tanner get up a few minutes ago and didn't want to leave her room, she knew that Just the sight of his face would make her want to hide away, so why not skip that part all together and get straight to the hiding.

"Come on Luna" she said under her breathe, and forced her legs forward to the door, turning the handle to meet her fate as she stepped outside of her safe haven.

"Good morning Luna" Luna jumped, rapidly turning to see Tanner leaning against the wall to the left of her room, she struggled to form words as she hadn't expected him to be standing directly outside of her room. He watched as her eyes darted around and had to suppress a small chuckle at her expression "morning" she said, walking past him and making her way to the kitchen, he laughed to himself and followed after her "not good is it?" He asked teasingly, leaning against the entrance to the kitchen watching as she gracefully moved around the kitchen, entranced by the movement's she was making.
"What?" She said still making an effort to not look at his face and instead looked at the toaster, tapping her fingers on the countertop "well when I said 'good morning' you only said 'morning'" Luna have a small look over her shoulder in Tanner's direction, still not looking him in the face "it was a joke".

Luna looked back at the counter and Tanner began playing with the buttons on his sleeves, both of them letting the silence fall over the room. Whenever there was a silence one of them always said something meaningful or abrupt and Luna was hoping, preying, that this was going to be the odd exception and Tanner wasn't going to say anything about last night.
"Luna, about last night" Luna let out and audible groan, and let her head drop. Tanner looked at her with a skeptical look and shook his head "I can see that you are upset about it and I just want to clarify that I don't want you to feel as if you-" "Tanner. Can we just forget about it?" She said, cutting of Tanner and finally spinning around to meet his gaze "Forget about it?" Tanner stepped toward her slowly and his heart sank slightly as he watched as she tended at his movements, but he ignored it and continued "I don't think I can do that Luna" He smiled and Luna chuckled "there's no winning with you is there?" He raised his hands in defence and tilted his head making her chuckle more.

"Fine, let's not forget about it, but please for the love of god, can we not talk about it so early in the morning" Tanner let out a low, throaty chuckle and Luna smiled at the sound, feeling her face heat slightly "fair enough Youngman" Tanner bowed his head in defeat "oh pulling the last name card now are we? Well so be it Grayton" Tanner pretended to be offended and gasped, firing more banter back at her. It was like that for a while, Luna saying some banter to Tanner, and him returning one of equal offence, strange, but it seemed that despite how awkward they felt about it, that little kiss had made them closer.

"Right" Tanner said triumphantly as he tapped his thigh and jumped out of his seat "what are you doing?" Luna said watching as Tanner made his way to the kitchen and grab two small glasses and fill them with tap water, he dramatically slid back into view and held out the glasses as if they were the greatest discovery in the world "Since, last night was a disaster and there was one thing going wrong after an other" he sat back down on the sofa and passed one glass to Luna "a toast" Luna chuckled at Tanner "where has this come from?" Luna managed without laughing "hey! You have just found one of the biggest murderers in the country, I think you deserve a toast" he glanced at the glass and urged Luna to take it, once she did he gave her a proud smile as if he had made some big accomplishment. "Fine, do your toast" "To Luna, for achieving what many, including myself, made extremely difficult, you have made all of us proud" they clinked glasses and drunk the water in them. "Oh yeah, that was really strong, puts hair on your chest" Luna said sarcastically and was met with a tired look from Tanner, trying desperately not to smile at him "well I'm sorry if I don't take you for the biggest alcohol drinker" Luna looked away with a smile "wait here" she said and practically jumped out of her seat and made her way to the kitchen, she poked her had round that corner and looked at Tanner with an intriguing look in her eye, before revealing a bottle of wine.

Tanner smiled up at her almost impressed and nodded "ok that wasn't a joke, I genuinely did not take you for the type who drink alcohol" Luna grabbed their glasses "Sarah gave it to me not long before she died, I never opened it so I vowed that once I found the motherfucker, I would drink it" she passed Tanner his glass and sat back down on the sofa "I just always thought I would be drinking alone" Tanner smiled at Luna and clinked her glass with his.

"Cheers"
"Cheers"