Night Marauders

Chapter Five: Death in the Family

They were calling it 'the incident', preferring to skirt around what had really happened, as if Six didn't come home to a bathroom covered in blood, a bullet sitting pretty by his sink. They were acting like Angel had come out of it a-ok, as if he didn't go home with Six that night only to cry himself to sleep, leaving his boyfriend to clean up the mess of his blood strewn about white tile. Jae had pretended he was fine, like what he'd done wasn't bugging him in the least, but B knew that was utter bullshit. He heard the sobs, muffled by the bedroom door. Ginny had walked out, claiming she needed air, her face bare and sullen. Kiki sat with his brother the whole night, leaving B with an empty bed and a nauseous pit in his stomach. He couldn't go on pretending anymore, he couldn't go on trying to forget.

~~~~

"You know better than to bring him up."

Kiki's expression was dark, eyebrows knit together like he was trying so hard to be angry, but his shaking hands gave him away. Jae just stared back at him, lower lip wobbly, but he was too determined not to cry.

"You asked me why I was upset, and I told you." he mumbled, his voice coming out just as small as he felt. Kiki just stared back at him, and the two squared off like that, the tension in the air very nearly physical, as Kiki stared at his little brother with a look nasty enough to kill the kid, Jae just tried to stand his ground, ignoring how Angel's blood was drying onto his arms.

"Go wash your fucking hands." Kiki said, spitting the words out as he turned on his heel and exited the room; Jae flinched at how hard he slammed the door. Jae wanted to say a lot of things that night. He'd wanted to tell someone (anyone who'd listen or even pretend to listen) just how badly he was getting eaten alive by all the shit he'd seen as a child. He'd wanted to tell someone how much it fucking hurt. He hadn't wanted to start that night, but Kiki had pushed, desperately trying to get Jae to talk to him, to tell him why he was so upset because Angel was going to be fine. He'd pushed and he'd pushed hard and Jae just wanted him to shut up so he'd given in and told his brother the truth, something he hadn't done in a long time. He'd told Kiki that the blood all over his hands was dredging up these awful memories of his father, of how he'd pressed down on the nasty gashes in the man's stomach, hot blood seeping through his fingers as he'd tried so hard to save a man who'd done so much wrong to him because that was the only thing that seemed right. He'd watched his father die that night, and when his breathing finally stopped, Jae was left with the blood, drying slowly on his forearms. Kiki had stood there, just watching, the jagged, broken bottle still clutched firmly in his hands.

"I had no choice." was all he'd said in lieu of an explanation, the bottle clattering to the ground as he exited the room, leaving a fifteen year old boy to clean up the mess of his father's dead body, all the while having to come to terms with the fact that his brother had been the one to put it there.

~~~~

One Week Later

"It's barely been a week, I don't think you should go back to work."

Angel was hearing the words coming out of Six's mouth, his brain was even processing them and everything, but he couldn't manage to wrap his head around them.

"Will you quit acting like I'm some delicate flower? Getting shot isn't the worst thing to ever happen to me."

Six was leveling him with this ugly frown, something a disappointed parent would loose in a child. Angel glared right back at him as he stuffed his wallet into his back pocket, more reasons as to why he should be allowed back to work were circling in his head and Angel was so utterly baffled by his own brain; he had no reason to justify himself on this one. As childish as it sounds, Six wasn't the boss of him, Angel was in charge of himself and he had been since he was sixteen.

"I'm just worried about you, that's all." Six said, the frown sliding off his features, and Angel felt a sliver of pride bubble up in his chest, but he tamped it down as he tugged his keys down from a hook near the front door.

"That's great and all, and I love you for it, but I'm working tonight and you're not gonna stop me." he said, pressing a kiss to Six's cheek and breezing out the door before the older man could come up with another reason for Angel to stay home.

Angel eased himself into the driver's seat of his car, hating that ugly little voice in the back of his mind that was telling him that the dull pain in his side was the reason Six had told him not to go. He ignored it, practically rolling his eyes at himself. He wasn't running drugs tonight, he was working his other job (the one he kept mostly for fun than for income) and it didn't take much to stand up on a stage and sing. He turned the car on and pulled out of the driveway, ignoring another twinge of pain that flared up when he rolled over a speedbump.

~~~~

Kiki had told himself that he was out of the house all day because he had shit to do. He'd rationalized it with the fact that about ninety percent of hacking is social engineering, meaning you've got to get a handle on the person you're targeting before you can even think about starting the hack. That basically boils down to stalking, and that was never Kiki's job. He usually let Red take care of it because, honestly, following some guy around all day made him feel a little gross. But he'd taken it upon himself to do the leg work that day because he couldn't stand to be in the same apartment with his brother. He'd made considerable efforts to shove down all memories of his father because everything related to that man sent this wave of nausea mixed with rage over him and it was entirely unpleasant and Kiki wasn't a fan of feeling unpleasant. Kiki also hated confronting his feelings (even though he'd never admit to himself) so he'd opted to avoid Jae entirely, and that's why he'd landed himself here: perched on a balcony across the street from his target, snapping pictures through a long lensed camera. His phone buzzed in his pocket again and Kiki rolled his eyes, grabbing the offending thing, expecting to find another text from B, bugging him to makeup with his brother already so he could stop walking through his own apartment like it was a warzone, but it was Angel.

is there a fight tonight?

There was, and that fact had done nothing for Kiki's foul mood.

yeah there is. you there for fun or business opportunities?

Angel responded almost immediately: both lol. need to get my mind off some shit, watching your hot boyfriend beat the shit out of someone seemed like a good way to go about it.

Kiki wouldn't know. He'd been dating B for two years and has yet to watch him fight, in practice or for money.

ok. you wanna place bets?

no. put me down for spectator only.

i'll let jin know you'll be there.

Angel sent back a string of emojis and Kiki replaced his phone in his pocket, attempting to turn his attention back to his camera and his very important, very creepy, job of stalking this guy, when his phone rang. Kiki was horribly tempted to toss the thing off the balcony as he pressed the answer bar.

"B this had better be a life or death situation."

"It concerns your computer, so I'll let you decide."

Kiki's heart started doing double time in his chest and his fingers got all cold and tingly as panic surged through his body, "What about my computer?"

"I dunno. It just flipped on, there's code running across the screen, I haven't touched it."

Kiki was already disassembling the camera, phone pinched between his shoulder and his ear, "Good. Leave it as is, I'm on my way home."

He replaced his phone in his pocket with shaking hands and darted down the stairs, his heart firmly re-homed in his throat, as he tried to ignore the ringing in his ears, as fought down the ugly voice in his head circling the same sentence around in his head like some sort of horrid news banner: he'd been hacked.