shell suites | {kira/bailey}

I don't wanna think about the world
cause I've been dreaming for a while
I settle with the butterflies
the night is going out of style

Bullets in his teeth and the smell of death haunted Bailey Helvar. Dante himself placed a pistol neatly into his hands, counted to three, and expected to pull the trigger.

He hadn't yet, and there were entire infernos hissing at him as a result.

He was not a killer. He was not built for it. His mother seemed to think it was a matter of time, sending her henchmen after him, tabs open and pens ready to write down any little thing he did, but it was only ever a matter of time before he became bored and lost himself in the shadows.

None of them were quite as good at getting secrets as Bailey.

"He'll be here soon," his mother said, sips of white wine from the glass she held in her well-manicured fingers. She did a fine job of walking the line of dangerous and posh, though Bailey often thought the two were practically the same thing in her case. Dangerous to keep her money; keeping money to be dangerous.

"You've done your research?" She asked, not bothering to look away from the hotel room curtains dancing in the wind. "Of course I have."

He could count quite a few times when the information he'd found on their trading partners and employees had saved his mother's ass, as well as her entire business.

"Good little wraith."

Three minutes of silence before Marco poked his head into the door. "He's here."

It was funny, the precautions they had taken for a boy his own age, a nomad who didn't mind dipping his hand in a forbidden cookie jar or two if it meant a cash payment.

Kira.

He walked in a few moments later, and Bailey tried to get a lock on the look he was wearing. Fear? Not exactly. Anger? No.

Anxiety?

"Young Kira," his mother said, standing from her seat.

"This is Bailey," he took a step forward and nodded, "He'll be handling the details of your assignment tonight. I simply came as a formality, and to thank you for doing work with us again." Ghosts of boys and memories of who the once wore swam between Bailey and the boy he'd spent the last few months trailing.

He hadn't been particularly shy about his secrets, which was a rarity. Bailey had learned that those with no secrets were most often the ones with least to lose. Danger on their tongues and not the property of any man or woman, showing up in suites filled with shotgun shells and people who lied, stole, and killed for a living and not even bothering to blink an eye.

"And to formally invite you to officially join us," Bailey's mother continued. The pretty part was over. Now came the danger he had mentioned.

"I've been impressed with your work so far. Enough to ask you for your loyalty." His mother did not ask for anything. She merely had a way of making people think they had a choice, and when they chose wrong, she used Bailey to change their minds. He was a fly on the wall, a buzz in one's ears, whispering for them to jump from the cliff side rather than stepping down from it, and there were many times when he watched the ceiling above his bed at night and wondered if that made him an awful person, but then, these people showed up willingly.

Dance with a flame, you can only blame yourself for the burns on your palms afterwards.

"Of course, this would mean halting business with any other organizations," False pity and venom laced her every word, "but I think Bailey here has some information that'll persuade you to stay." She kissed the boy on the cheek, and walked out without allowing an answer.

Bailey was up then, center stage, fully in control now that his mother had gone.

Kira was handsome. Fair skin, thick hair, pretty eyes. A tragic kind of beauty; beauty wasted in a body with so many bad habits.

"You've done some work with the Calder family in the past," Not a question: a statement.

"Are you aware that three of their employees have disappeared within the last eight months? All after failing an assignment." He clicked his tongue, folding his hands behind his back.

"And there was your hand in the Scam on Lofton. Made the papers, that trade. So did the bodies found later on. You might still have a target on your back from that one."

Bailey circled the boy, not knowing if he would faint or attack or laugh. Not caring. He'd dealt with just about every reaction possible. He was prepared for whatever came.

"And you certainly aren't the cleanest we've found," Bailey continued, sniffing in through his nose and wiping his hand across it to prove a point, "But what you do in your spare time is of no concern to us. The point I'm trying to make is that you have no bad blood here, and we pay well. Think of the things you could buy your poor mother." This was where the lines became a bit less black and white, when whiskey was watered down and question marks started following every sentence that came out of his mouth. He didn't like placing threats on a person's left one, veiled or outright. Nothing they were doing was right, but this in particular was what always felt most wrong.

"I'm sure you would want to take care of her, should anything ever happen." His gaze broke for the first time, and he found his mother's chair and took a seat in it.

"Wine?"

since I can't forget
why I went for red
why don't we just make it now
ain't no need to wait