FIC: Fast Fuse (Mint Royale 2/8)
Title: Fast Fuse
Pairing: Bank Robber/Getaway Driver
Summary: Nearly 3 years after their first encounter, robber and driver meet again.
Word count: 4,800 (this part)
Rating: NC-17 overall
Disclaimer: I gave them new names and all, but I don't own Mint Royale, or their video, or Julian and Noel for that matter. No harm is meant.
Author's Notes: (TL;DR!) This story began when I wrote a standalone Mint Royale fic for booshbattle a couple of weeks ago. The characters kind of took on a life of their own though, and that supposed standalone fic has now been turned into the prologue to this multi-chaptered... thing. o.O Massive thanks to the Mint Royale filter on my friends list for the hand-holding while this was a WIP, especially xthursdaynextx and silent_fields for their helpful comments and for continually assuring me the story was worth continuing. Big thanks/blame-slinging to thickets for coming up with the prompt that set this whole thing off. Last but not least, I owe the_reverand my first born child for all the time she invested in this story as a beta, and for all her cheerleading throughout. She's like my fandom big sister, I want to be like her when I grow up! (I also have a bit of an incestuous crush on her, but don't tell her I said that).
Part 1 (Prologue)
2.
***
When Elliot waltzes back into his life, Jon is shocked, but somehow less surprised than he should be, as though everything he’s done since leaving jail has been slowly building up to it.
He’s thought about him every single day ever since his arrest. He’s replayed their afternoon in the car in minute detail, every word, every touch, and every tiny little gesture burned into his brain like a brand. He’s fantasised about things he could have said or done that could have led to a different ending. He’s thought about what he’d say to him if they ever met again and imagined a million different scenarios through which they could meet - each one with a different outcome depending on the day’s mood. He’s wrung Elliot’s neck and tossed his body in the Thames, he’s handcuffed him to his bed and made him beg, he’s kneeled down in the shower to return that blow job, all within the safe confines of his mind.
Nearly seven months out of jail, he still sees Elliot in every young trendy idiot in the street, and wakes most mornings with the image of Elliot kneeling at his feet on the car floor with his hand around Jon’s cock, smirking up at him.
Even so, nearly three years of pathetic obsession hasn’t prepared Jon for the reality of seeing him again.
When he walks in the pub’s back room, where Jon and Murray are having a chat, Jon recognizes him immediately. He looks a bit different, a bit thinner maybe, and his hair is now jet black and longer than it had been before, brushing the top of his shoulders, and the contrast between his dark hair and pale skin somehow brings his pointy features into even sharper focus. Jon remembers him being dressed like any stupid Camden twenty-something, but he seems to have taken his look one step further: skin tight black jeans, red cowboy boots, some sort of low-cut satiny girl’s blouse and an infinite number of silver necklaces and bracelets. He looks ridiculous and out of place and infuriatingly alluring.
Jon somehow makes note of all these little changes before he even has time to realize what is happening, what Elliot’s presence means, and before he has time to get any further their eyes meet and cold rushes through his body like a drug, making the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand up.
For a second Elliot’s gaze is neutral, even friendly, but Jon can see the exact moment when realization sets in - a slight widening of the eyes, a hitch of breath, a tiny falter of his bright grin, a split second of genuine panic. It’s gone almost as quickly as it appeared, but Murray doesn’t seem to have noticed the slip because he’s too busy staring at Jon.
Jon hasn’t moved an inch from where he was standing when Elliot walked in, but there must be something in his face that’s betraying his shock because Murray immediately reaches for his gun and points it right in Elliot’s face, at point-blank range. Jon can see his fingers twitching slightly on the gun handle, even though his hand appears steady.
“Who the fuck are you?” Murray barks, glancing quickly between Jon, who’s standing there like a statue, and Elliot, who had raised both hands up in a gesture of surrender as soon as the weapon was drawn.
Elliot lets out a kind of laugh, like he’s just realized he’s in big trouble. “I’m A-Alex,” he stammers, “Listen m-mate, I ain’t gonna cause any problems, yeah? I just wanna buy some weed, Ian said to find you here. If you want me to go, I’ll go, it’s cool. I ain’t gonna say nothing about the gun, I promise. Please, mate, come on, just, don’t shoot me,” he pleads, and it’s an amazingly convincing performance considering the circumstances. The only detail that’s off is how he barely glances at the gun in Murray’s hand and keeps his wide blue eyes straight on Jon’s face the entire time.
“Jon, you know this geezer?”
Jon knows - and he knows that Elliot knows - that he’s only got to say one word, or even make just one tiny gesture, and it will end right there and then. This little fucker, who toyed with him like a cat with a mouse, who’s responsible for sending him off to jail and ruining his entire life, will finally get what he’s had coming to him. It’s there, right on the tip of Jon’s tongue, waiting to come tumbling out. He’s a cop.
Elliot is speaking to him, though, pleading him silently with his eyes, as clear as if the words had been spoken out loud.
Tell him something, anything that will make him put the fucking gun down.
Why should I do that?
I don’t know, I don’t care, please. Please. Don’t let him shoot me.
“Jon?” Murray cocks the hammer with a click that resonates loudly in the small room, causing Elliot to flinch visibly, and it’s the sound of it that finally breaks Jon out of his stupor. The words are out of his mouth before he’s even really aware of what he’s going to say.
“Put the gun down, Murray.”
“Why? You look like you’ve seen a ghost, you know this kid?”
Jon shrugs and tries to make himself relax, but he can’t tear his eyes away from Elliot, who’s still got his hands up in the air and is breathing in panicked gasps, all flushed cheeks and bright eyes. It’s hard to tell if the fear is all an act or not, but there has to be an edge of genuine terror somewhere in there, there has to be.
“Dunno, I think he might’ve sucked me off in a car a while back.”
It’s not even a complete lie, and it works. Murray immediately lowers his gun and looks disgusted.
“Jesus Christ, Jon. I didn’t need to know that.”
“You asked.”
It only lasts for a fraction of a second but it’s there, a flash of gratitude that flits across Elliot’s face, and Jon hates him for it, but hates himself even more for the way it makes his stomach flip.
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
“I dunno mate, I blown a lot of guys in my time. I might’ve done. Shit, I’ll blow you here and now if you’ll just sell me some weed and let me get out of here without shooting my face off.”
He’s still trying to get his breathing back under control but it’s sort of amazing how quickly he goes with it; no hesitation, no stammering. He’s caught the ball that Jon has thrown and keeps on playing as though it’s the easiest thing in the world, and Jon needs to get out of there before he changes his mind and empties his own pistol in Elliot’s stupid face.
“I’m not that desperate,” Jon growls, making a grab for his jacket. He steps around Elliot, making sure to avoid any physical contact, because even a tiny brush of arm against arm may be enough to break his tenuous control. “And we don’t have any weed to sell, you heard wrong.”
He throws a quick glance over at Murray, whose suspicion has been completely replaced by a wry sort of amusement, “Just get him out of here, alright? Unless you want him to blow you.”
Murray says something that’s probably along the lines of ‘I’d like to see him try’ but Jon doesn’t quite catch it over the thundering sound of his own heartbeat as he shoves the door open and steps out into the hallway and then onto the street.
***
Jon doesn’t know where it started exactly, this descent into crime. He’s had a pretty uneventful upbringing as an only child, his mother has always been a loving presence in his life, albeit somewhat overprotective, and his father wasn’t necessarily a bad parent despite being a reserved, emotionally distant man. The only major disrupting event of his childhood was the divorce of his parents when he was twelve, but then, plenty of kids see their parents split up and do not become bank robbers as a result.
He’s just never been able to deal with monotony, the 9 to 5, the idea of a slow uneventful decline towards old age and death. He’s always needed something more, a bit of madness in his life, a bit more clutter.
As a teenager, he cheated on most of his school exams, sold weed on the school ground, and shoplifted every chance he got. From then on it was a gradual move to selling contraband cigarettes, breaking into shops, and stealing cars. He never got caught.
Until the bank heist. Until Elliot.
Sitting handcuffed in the back of that patrol car, Jon had been convinced that his life was over, but a fortuitous combination of circumstances had miraculously landed him with an inept prosecutor, some incomplete police records, a witness that owed Jon a big favour, and a brilliant defence attorney.
That was how Jon found himself out on parole after a mere 22 months in jail, a joke of a sentence cut even shorter by Jon’s exemplary behaviour and shining character references. Jon had sat there in the courtroom while his attorney threw around phrases like not carrying a weapon and no one was harmed and previously clean record and not involved in the planning and, hilariously, fragile mental state.
Jon had pleaded guilty, had kept his head down, had jumped through every hoop like a circus pony, and miraculously walked out of prison into the autumn sunlight less than two years after orchestrating a bank robbery.
When he came out of jail, he promised himself that he would take this stroke of luck as some sort of sign from the universe, and finally become a clean and upstanding member of society. He diligently kept to the conditions of his six-month parole, was always on time for the meetings with his parole officer, didn’t miss a day of work even though it was a crummy night job cleaning office buildings, and never even tried to get on the Tube without paying his fare. For six months, he didn’t do anything remotely illegal.
In the end though, all it took was a tiny nudge in the wrong direction before he was blown off-course again.
***
He ran into Murray by chance, a few weeks after the end of his parole. Murray was an old mate from his school days, who was responsible for teaching Jon how to hotwire a car when they were both seventeen and high on cheap weed. Murray got Jon a job at the pub, which allowed Jon to drop his soul-crushing job as a janitor. From working in the pub, it was only a matter of days before he found out about the shady activities going on in the back room, and it didn’t take long after that before he was personally involved.
Jon refuses to actually take part in any of the transactions, preferring to let Murray and Ian deal with the twitchy junkies, but he’s the one handling most of the drugs - cutting the high quality stuff, weighing out little baggies, keeping track of what is sold and making sure that none of the merchandise mysteriously disappears.
It’s a far cry from the glamour of robbing banks, and it’s stupid, really. He should have known that the karma police would punish him for squandering his second chance at an honest life.
***
Now, barely three weeks into his new life as a drug dealer, that little fucker has to show up again, turning up at the pub like a bad penny.
Jon shoves his jacket on and strides down the streets leading to his flat, his mind whirring at a hundred miles an hour, occasionally throwing a glance over his shoulder to make sure that Elliot isn’t following him.
It seems astronomically unlikely that they should meet again like this. Surely there is more than just one undercover officer in all of London?
In a way, this is a massive stroke of luck. Had it been any other officer, Jon would have been none the wiser and would’ve ended up right back in jail, probably less than a year after getting out.
What is Elliot up to, though? Obviously he’s there on an undercover assignment, but how much does he know? How long has he been skulking around? Is he working alone? What is he going to do now that Jon has seen him? Surely he’ll have to drop the case. Or maybe he’s already got enough information to make some arrests. Maybe the cops are busting the pub right this instant, in fact. Maybe Jon managed to get away right in time.
It’s maddening, all these questions with no hope of getting any answers any time soon.
As soon as he gets back to his flat, Jon turns on the telly and leaves it on in the background while he paces the small room agitatedly. Surely, if the pub is raided by the police, it’ll be mentioned on the news?
Jon stays up for most of the night, keeping an absent eye on the small TV screen, going on various flights of fancy about which course of action he could take. He could go back to the pub, warn everyone that the police are on their tracks. They could get rid of all the merchandise and then leave town. He could track Elliot down and question him, maybe he could even take him as a hostage. Or he could go directly to the police right now, tell them that he just found out there’s some drug dealing going on at his place of work. He could return to the pub in the middle of the night, steal all of the merchandise, move somewhere else, like Manchester, or Glasgow, and sell it all there, keeping all the money for himself.
They’re all stupid plans, though. Out of all the possible scenarios, there’s really only one that makes sense. He packs a suitcase and leaves it waiting by the door. After getting a few hours of sleep, he’ll immediately leave the country. It’s the only sane thing to do.
But when he wakes up around noon the next day, his curiosity gets the best of him, and the first thing he does is go back to the pub.
***
Elliot is there waiting for him. He’s sitting at a table by the window, picking idly at a serving of greasy chips. He brightens and stands up when Jon walks in, meeting him by the door with a massive smile, like he’s delighted to see him. The sight of him just standing there, out in the open when he knows that Jon could blow his cover any time he wants, is so mind-blowing that Jon can’t do anything but stare in shock.
“There you are,” he tells Jon with a flirty smile, chewing some gum obnoxiously. He’s wearing silver boots, skin-tight red jeans, and a tiny yellow t-shirt that exposes a strip of stomach when he reaches up to play with his own hair.
None of it makes sense; his presence, his reaction to Jon’s entrance, his flirty attitude, and Jon is completely baffled - until he notices Murray by the bar, looking at Elliot with an infuriating smirk and elbowing Ian in the ribs. That’s when it hits him: it’s all an act, a little scene that Elliot’s putting on for the benefit of Murray and Ian, as an excuse to talk to Jon without looking suspicious.
“What do you want?” Jon finally manages in a tight voice, ignoring the mock-adoring faces the guys are making behind Elliot’s back.
“You left last night before I could give you this,” Elliot replies, sticking a piece of folded paper in Jon’s hand. Jon is pretty sure he’s not imagining how Elliot’s fingers linger against his palm, and has to suppress an embarrassing shiver, “My number.”
Before Jon can react, Elliot stands up on his tiptoes and leans close to whisper in Jon’s ear, “We have to talk. Meet me there, by the bar, in an hour,” he says seriously, dropping all pretence once he’s sure only Jon can hear, “Come alone.”
When he pulls back he’s all coy smiles again and gives Jon a wink before stepping around him and going out the door.
Jon ignores the burst of derisive laughter coming from Murray’s direction and unfolds the tiny scrap of paper. It’s not a phone number, it’s an address. Jon sticks it in his pocket and leaves the pub so he doesn’t have to deal with the guys.
He should make a run for it, there is still time. But he doesn’t want to.
***
Elliot had instructed Jon to meet him inside the café, but Jon doesn’t feel like doing what he’s told and the warm midday sun feels pleasant against his back, so he sits at one of the small round tables outside the door. He orders a coffee, picks up a newspaper and stretches out his long legs under the table. He lights a fag, not because he really feels like having one, but because it might calm his nerves, and because it might help him cultivate a look of bored nonchalance for Elliot’s benefit.
Jon sits there for a good fifteen minutes before Elliot shows up. It turns out he had been sitting inside all along, waiting for Jon in the corner by the bar, and there’s an edge of annoyance in his voice when he informs Jon of this fact. It’s a tiny victory, but Jon will take what he can get. He shrugs in what he hopes is a careless manner and stubs his cigarette out while gesturing with his chin for Elliot to take a seat.
Even though the sun is out, it’s still early spring and the light wind is cool enough to discourage the other patrons from sitting outside. There’s no one around to listen in, but despite this, they are both quiet for a long time. It’s not that Jon doesn’t have anything to say; there are about a million questions, accusations and threats swimming in his head, all jostling for position, but he can’t seem to be able to hold onto one idea long enough for it to make it past his lips. Elliot doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to speak either - that, or he’s just waiting to see how long Jon can stand to remain silent. It’s a battle that lasts for nearly sixteen minutes (Jon keeps track), and they’ve both emptied their coffee cups before Jon finally breaks, unable to stand the suspense any longer.
Until he opens his mouth he isn’t sure which question is going to come tumbling out, but it ends up being a pretty inoffensive one.
“What should I call you anyway? Elliot? Alex? Donnie Brasco?”
He regrets the joke immediately because humour doesn’t seem very appropriate for the situation, and because Elliot doesn’t look amused in the slightest. Maybe he gets that one a lot.
“Don’t matter, you can call me ‘Oi, you!’ for all I care.” He lights a cigarette and props one silver boot on his opposing knee, and Jon can’t help but admire his cool, the effortless air of confidence that Jon can only ever fake with varying degrees of success. “I’ve already let it slip that Elliot’s my surname, in case you fuck up and call me the wrong name in front of the guys.”
“Please, give me some credit.”
Elliot smirks, “Yeah, I know I make it look really easy, but playing innocent is harder than it looks.” He pushes his sunglasses up into his hair and leans forward with his elbows on the table to look Jon in the eye. “Okay, there are some things we need to set straight here. What do you want? Why did you come back?”
I have no fucking clue. That’s what Jon wants to say, but instead he clears his throat and looks away. “I want you to leave it. Go stick your nose somewhere else, and forget that Murray and I and the rest of the guys exist.”
Elliot starts laughing while inhaling on his cigarette, which sends him in a fit of half-coughing and half-laughing in disbelief, “Are you insane?” he splutters, waving his hand in front of his face to clear away the smoke. Once he’s got his breathing back under control he crushes his cigarette in the ashtray and smirks at Jon, “Look, I’ve put too much work into this. I’ve been Alex for three months now, just blending in and gathering information. I’m not going to drop it now just ‘cause you’re involved.”
This conversation has barely started and it’s already not going where Jon wants it to.
“You’re the one who’s insane here. Listen, I didn’t give you up ‘cause I don’t want any deaths on my conscience, but if you think I’m going to just stand around while you-“
“You’re not going to stand around, you’re going to help me.”
Now Jon is the one who’s spluttering in disbelief, “What?”
“Christ, Jon, think about it. I could’ve had you arrested from the second you walked out of the pub yesterday. I could do it right now, actually. And you know that this time, they wouldn’t let you out of the nick after two years, because you’re a nasty little recidivist.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Because I owe you one, you tit. And because it’ll be dead useful having you there. That was genius, telling Murray I blew you. I could’ve kissed you when you said that. Gives me an excellent excuse to hang around the pub without looking suspicious.”
Jon leans back in his chair and pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to make some sense out of this ridiculous conversation. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting from this meeting, but it certainly wasn’t this. For fuck’s sake, he’s supposed to be a hardened criminal; he’s supposed to be the one with the upper hand here. He should be the one controlling where this is going, but he already feels out of his depth.
“There’s nothing going on at the pub anyway. You’re wasting your time.”
“God, you’re a shitty liar, Jon. Here’s just a few of the things I already know,” Elliot says, lowering his voice to a whisper even though there’s no one around, and counting off on his fingers, “First, Mike? The bloke who owns the pub? He’s the leader of this little operation and he’s distributing coke to the whole of Hackney. Second, he wants to expand his share of the market to the rest of the city, as well as the south east. Third, there’s a big meeting planned with an importer in a couple of months to negotiate a new deal. So don’t tell me that there’s nothing going on at the pub.”
Jon tries to find something to say to that, but all the air seems to have gone out of his lungs. Instead, he removes his glasses and starts cleaning them with the hem of his shirt, just so he has some excuse to avoid looking at Elliot’s smug face.
They both stay silent for a moment, but when it becomes apparent that Jon isn’t going to say anything, Elliot leans forward to try and catch Jon’s eye again, “Look. You play along with me and keep your mouth shut for a little while, and I’ll make sure you stay out of jail.”
“And what’s stopping me from having you killed?” Jon says it because he knows it’s expected of him, like he’s reading a line in a script, but he already knows what Elliot’s reply is going to be.
“You can, but it won’t change anything. Your little gang is going down whether I’m dead or not, we know too much already. The only reason we’re waiting is because we want to catch Mike’s supplier as well - and whether we manage that or not ain’t gonna change anything to your prison sentence. Face it mate, killing me isn’t going to make a difference. It’s either collaborate or go right back inside.”
“I could just make a run for it.”
“If that’s what you wanted to do, you’d have done that last night when you left the pub. You really want to spend your life on the run? Come on, you have to see that this is a win-win situation. You help me out, and I make sure that you go away with a clean slate at the end of all this.”
“And how do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain?”
“I’m telling you I will.”
“I know you’re telling me that, but betrayal is part of your job description. No offense, but your word isn’t worth much, Alex.”
Elliot shrugs, like that’s the least of his concerns, “Well, you haven’t got much of a choice, have you? And neither have I, really. So we’re just going to have to make the best of it, and be pals.”
He gives Jon a cheerful grin, and Jon doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone look less like an undercover special agent as Elliot does now. He feels a bit sick, but if he’s completely honest with himself, a bit exhilarated, too. This situation is not ideal, but he has to admit that in the span of 24 hours, his life has got exponentially more exciting.
“Fuck. Why do you have to show up and ruin everything all the time?”
“Cause you’re a bad man who refuses to learn his lesson, Jon. Well, as nice as it was to catch up, I gotta get to work, my shift starts at three.”
“What shift?”
Elliot looks at him like he’s a simpleton before pushing his sunglasses down over his eyes and standing up, tossing a few coins on the table to cover for the coffees, “I gotta have a job, right? You think I spend my days at the Met headquarters when I’m not hanging out with lowlifes like yourself?”
Jon ignores the barb and stands, winding his scarf back around his neck, “Where do you work?”
“A record shop, not far from here. Not bad, compared to some of the other jobs I’ve had. It’s a tiny place, and I can pick the music, it’s cool. Plus my boss likes me, so I get some pretty flexible hours.”
“I bet.”
Elliot starts walking down the street at a leisurely pace and Jon follows him without really thinking about it, as if they’re just two regular guys, continuing a pleasant conversation on the street.
“Last week, right, this bloke comes in and he wants to advertise some poxy band in the shop, and I listened to one of the tracks, but it was the worst racket I’d ever heard-” Elliot goes off on some winding anecdote, gesticulating and smiling at Jon like he’s an old friend, and Jon stops paying attention to what he’s saying and watches him with a baffled sort of amusement, nodding when it seems like that’s what’s expected of him. It’s such a weird dichotomy between this Elliot, the trendy arty type who talks about his job selling records, and the Elliot who was sitting with him outside the café not ten minutes ago, threatening him with arrest and a lifetime in jail.
If Elliot minds that Jon accompanies him, he doesn’t show it. He talks Jon’s ears off the entire way, about music, then about random people in the street, and on to the latest film he’s seen. Jon knows that he shouldn’t be making it so easy, that he should be raging and threatening violence and putting up a fight - anything but this strange charade of camaraderie. Instead, he finds himself smiling at Elliot’s jokes and following him all the way to the shop, like some lovesick teenage girl.
The record shop smells of smoke and mold, and it’s dingy and overcrowded with stacks and stacks of records, and Elliot seems so completely at home there that it’s easy to forget who he really is. Jon ends up staying there for nearly an hour, listening to Elliot talk animatedly about music, and neither of them mentions their deal again.
Much later, when Jon is sitting on his bed in his tiny little studio flat, he wonders how the hell Elliot managed to steamroll over him so completely, from bullying him into agreeing to betray his mates and collaborating with the police, all the way down to convincing him to buy five ancient LPs from bands he’s never heard of.
He doesn’t even own a record player.
Next part
Pairing: Bank Robber/Getaway Driver
Summary: Nearly 3 years after their first encounter, robber and driver meet again.
Word count: 4,800 (this part)
Rating: NC-17 overall
Disclaimer: I gave them new names and all, but I don't own Mint Royale, or their video, or Julian and Noel for that matter. No harm is meant.
Author's Notes: (TL;DR!) This story began when I wrote a standalone Mint Royale fic for booshbattle a couple of weeks ago. The characters kind of took on a life of their own though, and that supposed standalone fic has now been turned into the prologue to this multi-chaptered... thing. o.O Massive thanks to the Mint Royale filter on my friends list for the hand-holding while this was a WIP, especially xthursdaynextx and silent_fields for their helpful comments and for continually assuring me the story was worth continuing. Big thanks/blame-slinging to thickets for coming up with the prompt that set this whole thing off. Last but not least, I owe the_reverand my first born child for all the time she invested in this story as a beta, and for all her cheerleading throughout. She's like my fandom big sister, I want to be like her when I grow up! (I also have a bit of an incestuous crush on her, but don't tell her I said that).
Part 1 (Prologue)
2.
***
When Elliot waltzes back into his life, Jon is shocked, but somehow less surprised than he should be, as though everything he’s done since leaving jail has been slowly building up to it.
He’s thought about him every single day ever since his arrest. He’s replayed their afternoon in the car in minute detail, every word, every touch, and every tiny little gesture burned into his brain like a brand. He’s fantasised about things he could have said or done that could have led to a different ending. He’s thought about what he’d say to him if they ever met again and imagined a million different scenarios through which they could meet - each one with a different outcome depending on the day’s mood. He’s wrung Elliot’s neck and tossed his body in the Thames, he’s handcuffed him to his bed and made him beg, he’s kneeled down in the shower to return that blow job, all within the safe confines of his mind.
Nearly seven months out of jail, he still sees Elliot in every young trendy idiot in the street, and wakes most mornings with the image of Elliot kneeling at his feet on the car floor with his hand around Jon’s cock, smirking up at him.
Even so, nearly three years of pathetic obsession hasn’t prepared Jon for the reality of seeing him again.
When he walks in the pub’s back room, where Jon and Murray are having a chat, Jon recognizes him immediately. He looks a bit different, a bit thinner maybe, and his hair is now jet black and longer than it had been before, brushing the top of his shoulders, and the contrast between his dark hair and pale skin somehow brings his pointy features into even sharper focus. Jon remembers him being dressed like any stupid Camden twenty-something, but he seems to have taken his look one step further: skin tight black jeans, red cowboy boots, some sort of low-cut satiny girl’s blouse and an infinite number of silver necklaces and bracelets. He looks ridiculous and out of place and infuriatingly alluring.
Jon somehow makes note of all these little changes before he even has time to realize what is happening, what Elliot’s presence means, and before he has time to get any further their eyes meet and cold rushes through his body like a drug, making the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand up.
For a second Elliot’s gaze is neutral, even friendly, but Jon can see the exact moment when realization sets in - a slight widening of the eyes, a hitch of breath, a tiny falter of his bright grin, a split second of genuine panic. It’s gone almost as quickly as it appeared, but Murray doesn’t seem to have noticed the slip because he’s too busy staring at Jon.
Jon hasn’t moved an inch from where he was standing when Elliot walked in, but there must be something in his face that’s betraying his shock because Murray immediately reaches for his gun and points it right in Elliot’s face, at point-blank range. Jon can see his fingers twitching slightly on the gun handle, even though his hand appears steady.
“Who the fuck are you?” Murray barks, glancing quickly between Jon, who’s standing there like a statue, and Elliot, who had raised both hands up in a gesture of surrender as soon as the weapon was drawn.
Elliot lets out a kind of laugh, like he’s just realized he’s in big trouble. “I’m A-Alex,” he stammers, “Listen m-mate, I ain’t gonna cause any problems, yeah? I just wanna buy some weed, Ian said to find you here. If you want me to go, I’ll go, it’s cool. I ain’t gonna say nothing about the gun, I promise. Please, mate, come on, just, don’t shoot me,” he pleads, and it’s an amazingly convincing performance considering the circumstances. The only detail that’s off is how he barely glances at the gun in Murray’s hand and keeps his wide blue eyes straight on Jon’s face the entire time.
“Jon, you know this geezer?”
Jon knows - and he knows that Elliot knows - that he’s only got to say one word, or even make just one tiny gesture, and it will end right there and then. This little fucker, who toyed with him like a cat with a mouse, who’s responsible for sending him off to jail and ruining his entire life, will finally get what he’s had coming to him. It’s there, right on the tip of Jon’s tongue, waiting to come tumbling out. He’s a cop.
Elliot is speaking to him, though, pleading him silently with his eyes, as clear as if the words had been spoken out loud.
Tell him something, anything that will make him put the fucking gun down.
Why should I do that?
I don’t know, I don’t care, please. Please. Don’t let him shoot me.
“Jon?” Murray cocks the hammer with a click that resonates loudly in the small room, causing Elliot to flinch visibly, and it’s the sound of it that finally breaks Jon out of his stupor. The words are out of his mouth before he’s even really aware of what he’s going to say.
“Put the gun down, Murray.”
“Why? You look like you’ve seen a ghost, you know this kid?”
Jon shrugs and tries to make himself relax, but he can’t tear his eyes away from Elliot, who’s still got his hands up in the air and is breathing in panicked gasps, all flushed cheeks and bright eyes. It’s hard to tell if the fear is all an act or not, but there has to be an edge of genuine terror somewhere in there, there has to be.
“Dunno, I think he might’ve sucked me off in a car a while back.”
It’s not even a complete lie, and it works. Murray immediately lowers his gun and looks disgusted.
“Jesus Christ, Jon. I didn’t need to know that.”
“You asked.”
It only lasts for a fraction of a second but it’s there, a flash of gratitude that flits across Elliot’s face, and Jon hates him for it, but hates himself even more for the way it makes his stomach flip.
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
“I dunno mate, I blown a lot of guys in my time. I might’ve done. Shit, I’ll blow you here and now if you’ll just sell me some weed and let me get out of here without shooting my face off.”
He’s still trying to get his breathing back under control but it’s sort of amazing how quickly he goes with it; no hesitation, no stammering. He’s caught the ball that Jon has thrown and keeps on playing as though it’s the easiest thing in the world, and Jon needs to get out of there before he changes his mind and empties his own pistol in Elliot’s stupid face.
“I’m not that desperate,” Jon growls, making a grab for his jacket. He steps around Elliot, making sure to avoid any physical contact, because even a tiny brush of arm against arm may be enough to break his tenuous control. “And we don’t have any weed to sell, you heard wrong.”
He throws a quick glance over at Murray, whose suspicion has been completely replaced by a wry sort of amusement, “Just get him out of here, alright? Unless you want him to blow you.”
Murray says something that’s probably along the lines of ‘I’d like to see him try’ but Jon doesn’t quite catch it over the thundering sound of his own heartbeat as he shoves the door open and steps out into the hallway and then onto the street.
***
Jon doesn’t know where it started exactly, this descent into crime. He’s had a pretty uneventful upbringing as an only child, his mother has always been a loving presence in his life, albeit somewhat overprotective, and his father wasn’t necessarily a bad parent despite being a reserved, emotionally distant man. The only major disrupting event of his childhood was the divorce of his parents when he was twelve, but then, plenty of kids see their parents split up and do not become bank robbers as a result.
He’s just never been able to deal with monotony, the 9 to 5, the idea of a slow uneventful decline towards old age and death. He’s always needed something more, a bit of madness in his life, a bit more clutter.
As a teenager, he cheated on most of his school exams, sold weed on the school ground, and shoplifted every chance he got. From then on it was a gradual move to selling contraband cigarettes, breaking into shops, and stealing cars. He never got caught.
Until the bank heist. Until Elliot.
Sitting handcuffed in the back of that patrol car, Jon had been convinced that his life was over, but a fortuitous combination of circumstances had miraculously landed him with an inept prosecutor, some incomplete police records, a witness that owed Jon a big favour, and a brilliant defence attorney.
That was how Jon found himself out on parole after a mere 22 months in jail, a joke of a sentence cut even shorter by Jon’s exemplary behaviour and shining character references. Jon had sat there in the courtroom while his attorney threw around phrases like not carrying a weapon and no one was harmed and previously clean record and not involved in the planning and, hilariously, fragile mental state.
Jon had pleaded guilty, had kept his head down, had jumped through every hoop like a circus pony, and miraculously walked out of prison into the autumn sunlight less than two years after orchestrating a bank robbery.
When he came out of jail, he promised himself that he would take this stroke of luck as some sort of sign from the universe, and finally become a clean and upstanding member of society. He diligently kept to the conditions of his six-month parole, was always on time for the meetings with his parole officer, didn’t miss a day of work even though it was a crummy night job cleaning office buildings, and never even tried to get on the Tube without paying his fare. For six months, he didn’t do anything remotely illegal.
In the end though, all it took was a tiny nudge in the wrong direction before he was blown off-course again.
***
He ran into Murray by chance, a few weeks after the end of his parole. Murray was an old mate from his school days, who was responsible for teaching Jon how to hotwire a car when they were both seventeen and high on cheap weed. Murray got Jon a job at the pub, which allowed Jon to drop his soul-crushing job as a janitor. From working in the pub, it was only a matter of days before he found out about the shady activities going on in the back room, and it didn’t take long after that before he was personally involved.
Jon refuses to actually take part in any of the transactions, preferring to let Murray and Ian deal with the twitchy junkies, but he’s the one handling most of the drugs - cutting the high quality stuff, weighing out little baggies, keeping track of what is sold and making sure that none of the merchandise mysteriously disappears.
It’s a far cry from the glamour of robbing banks, and it’s stupid, really. He should have known that the karma police would punish him for squandering his second chance at an honest life.
***
Now, barely three weeks into his new life as a drug dealer, that little fucker has to show up again, turning up at the pub like a bad penny.
Jon shoves his jacket on and strides down the streets leading to his flat, his mind whirring at a hundred miles an hour, occasionally throwing a glance over his shoulder to make sure that Elliot isn’t following him.
It seems astronomically unlikely that they should meet again like this. Surely there is more than just one undercover officer in all of London?
In a way, this is a massive stroke of luck. Had it been any other officer, Jon would have been none the wiser and would’ve ended up right back in jail, probably less than a year after getting out.
What is Elliot up to, though? Obviously he’s there on an undercover assignment, but how much does he know? How long has he been skulking around? Is he working alone? What is he going to do now that Jon has seen him? Surely he’ll have to drop the case. Or maybe he’s already got enough information to make some arrests. Maybe the cops are busting the pub right this instant, in fact. Maybe Jon managed to get away right in time.
It’s maddening, all these questions with no hope of getting any answers any time soon.
As soon as he gets back to his flat, Jon turns on the telly and leaves it on in the background while he paces the small room agitatedly. Surely, if the pub is raided by the police, it’ll be mentioned on the news?
Jon stays up for most of the night, keeping an absent eye on the small TV screen, going on various flights of fancy about which course of action he could take. He could go back to the pub, warn everyone that the police are on their tracks. They could get rid of all the merchandise and then leave town. He could track Elliot down and question him, maybe he could even take him as a hostage. Or he could go directly to the police right now, tell them that he just found out there’s some drug dealing going on at his place of work. He could return to the pub in the middle of the night, steal all of the merchandise, move somewhere else, like Manchester, or Glasgow, and sell it all there, keeping all the money for himself.
They’re all stupid plans, though. Out of all the possible scenarios, there’s really only one that makes sense. He packs a suitcase and leaves it waiting by the door. After getting a few hours of sleep, he’ll immediately leave the country. It’s the only sane thing to do.
But when he wakes up around noon the next day, his curiosity gets the best of him, and the first thing he does is go back to the pub.
***
Elliot is there waiting for him. He’s sitting at a table by the window, picking idly at a serving of greasy chips. He brightens and stands up when Jon walks in, meeting him by the door with a massive smile, like he’s delighted to see him. The sight of him just standing there, out in the open when he knows that Jon could blow his cover any time he wants, is so mind-blowing that Jon can’t do anything but stare in shock.
“There you are,” he tells Jon with a flirty smile, chewing some gum obnoxiously. He’s wearing silver boots, skin-tight red jeans, and a tiny yellow t-shirt that exposes a strip of stomach when he reaches up to play with his own hair.
None of it makes sense; his presence, his reaction to Jon’s entrance, his flirty attitude, and Jon is completely baffled - until he notices Murray by the bar, looking at Elliot with an infuriating smirk and elbowing Ian in the ribs. That’s when it hits him: it’s all an act, a little scene that Elliot’s putting on for the benefit of Murray and Ian, as an excuse to talk to Jon without looking suspicious.
“What do you want?” Jon finally manages in a tight voice, ignoring the mock-adoring faces the guys are making behind Elliot’s back.
“You left last night before I could give you this,” Elliot replies, sticking a piece of folded paper in Jon’s hand. Jon is pretty sure he’s not imagining how Elliot’s fingers linger against his palm, and has to suppress an embarrassing shiver, “My number.”
Before Jon can react, Elliot stands up on his tiptoes and leans close to whisper in Jon’s ear, “We have to talk. Meet me there, by the bar, in an hour,” he says seriously, dropping all pretence once he’s sure only Jon can hear, “Come alone.”
When he pulls back he’s all coy smiles again and gives Jon a wink before stepping around him and going out the door.
Jon ignores the burst of derisive laughter coming from Murray’s direction and unfolds the tiny scrap of paper. It’s not a phone number, it’s an address. Jon sticks it in his pocket and leaves the pub so he doesn’t have to deal with the guys.
He should make a run for it, there is still time. But he doesn’t want to.
***
Elliot had instructed Jon to meet him inside the café, but Jon doesn’t feel like doing what he’s told and the warm midday sun feels pleasant against his back, so he sits at one of the small round tables outside the door. He orders a coffee, picks up a newspaper and stretches out his long legs under the table. He lights a fag, not because he really feels like having one, but because it might calm his nerves, and because it might help him cultivate a look of bored nonchalance for Elliot’s benefit.
Jon sits there for a good fifteen minutes before Elliot shows up. It turns out he had been sitting inside all along, waiting for Jon in the corner by the bar, and there’s an edge of annoyance in his voice when he informs Jon of this fact. It’s a tiny victory, but Jon will take what he can get. He shrugs in what he hopes is a careless manner and stubs his cigarette out while gesturing with his chin for Elliot to take a seat.
Even though the sun is out, it’s still early spring and the light wind is cool enough to discourage the other patrons from sitting outside. There’s no one around to listen in, but despite this, they are both quiet for a long time. It’s not that Jon doesn’t have anything to say; there are about a million questions, accusations and threats swimming in his head, all jostling for position, but he can’t seem to be able to hold onto one idea long enough for it to make it past his lips. Elliot doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to speak either - that, or he’s just waiting to see how long Jon can stand to remain silent. It’s a battle that lasts for nearly sixteen minutes (Jon keeps track), and they’ve both emptied their coffee cups before Jon finally breaks, unable to stand the suspense any longer.
Until he opens his mouth he isn’t sure which question is going to come tumbling out, but it ends up being a pretty inoffensive one.
“What should I call you anyway? Elliot? Alex? Donnie Brasco?”
He regrets the joke immediately because humour doesn’t seem very appropriate for the situation, and because Elliot doesn’t look amused in the slightest. Maybe he gets that one a lot.
“Don’t matter, you can call me ‘Oi, you!’ for all I care.” He lights a cigarette and props one silver boot on his opposing knee, and Jon can’t help but admire his cool, the effortless air of confidence that Jon can only ever fake with varying degrees of success. “I’ve already let it slip that Elliot’s my surname, in case you fuck up and call me the wrong name in front of the guys.”
“Please, give me some credit.”
Elliot smirks, “Yeah, I know I make it look really easy, but playing innocent is harder than it looks.” He pushes his sunglasses up into his hair and leans forward with his elbows on the table to look Jon in the eye. “Okay, there are some things we need to set straight here. What do you want? Why did you come back?”
I have no fucking clue. That’s what Jon wants to say, but instead he clears his throat and looks away. “I want you to leave it. Go stick your nose somewhere else, and forget that Murray and I and the rest of the guys exist.”
Elliot starts laughing while inhaling on his cigarette, which sends him in a fit of half-coughing and half-laughing in disbelief, “Are you insane?” he splutters, waving his hand in front of his face to clear away the smoke. Once he’s got his breathing back under control he crushes his cigarette in the ashtray and smirks at Jon, “Look, I’ve put too much work into this. I’ve been Alex for three months now, just blending in and gathering information. I’m not going to drop it now just ‘cause you’re involved.”
This conversation has barely started and it’s already not going where Jon wants it to.
“You’re the one who’s insane here. Listen, I didn’t give you up ‘cause I don’t want any deaths on my conscience, but if you think I’m going to just stand around while you-“
“You’re not going to stand around, you’re going to help me.”
Now Jon is the one who’s spluttering in disbelief, “What?”
“Christ, Jon, think about it. I could’ve had you arrested from the second you walked out of the pub yesterday. I could do it right now, actually. And you know that this time, they wouldn’t let you out of the nick after two years, because you’re a nasty little recidivist.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Because I owe you one, you tit. And because it’ll be dead useful having you there. That was genius, telling Murray I blew you. I could’ve kissed you when you said that. Gives me an excellent excuse to hang around the pub without looking suspicious.”
Jon leans back in his chair and pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to make some sense out of this ridiculous conversation. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting from this meeting, but it certainly wasn’t this. For fuck’s sake, he’s supposed to be a hardened criminal; he’s supposed to be the one with the upper hand here. He should be the one controlling where this is going, but he already feels out of his depth.
“There’s nothing going on at the pub anyway. You’re wasting your time.”
“God, you’re a shitty liar, Jon. Here’s just a few of the things I already know,” Elliot says, lowering his voice to a whisper even though there’s no one around, and counting off on his fingers, “First, Mike? The bloke who owns the pub? He’s the leader of this little operation and he’s distributing coke to the whole of Hackney. Second, he wants to expand his share of the market to the rest of the city, as well as the south east. Third, there’s a big meeting planned with an importer in a couple of months to negotiate a new deal. So don’t tell me that there’s nothing going on at the pub.”
Jon tries to find something to say to that, but all the air seems to have gone out of his lungs. Instead, he removes his glasses and starts cleaning them with the hem of his shirt, just so he has some excuse to avoid looking at Elliot’s smug face.
They both stay silent for a moment, but when it becomes apparent that Jon isn’t going to say anything, Elliot leans forward to try and catch Jon’s eye again, “Look. You play along with me and keep your mouth shut for a little while, and I’ll make sure you stay out of jail.”
“And what’s stopping me from having you killed?” Jon says it because he knows it’s expected of him, like he’s reading a line in a script, but he already knows what Elliot’s reply is going to be.
“You can, but it won’t change anything. Your little gang is going down whether I’m dead or not, we know too much already. The only reason we’re waiting is because we want to catch Mike’s supplier as well - and whether we manage that or not ain’t gonna change anything to your prison sentence. Face it mate, killing me isn’t going to make a difference. It’s either collaborate or go right back inside.”
“I could just make a run for it.”
“If that’s what you wanted to do, you’d have done that last night when you left the pub. You really want to spend your life on the run? Come on, you have to see that this is a win-win situation. You help me out, and I make sure that you go away with a clean slate at the end of all this.”
“And how do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain?”
“I’m telling you I will.”
“I know you’re telling me that, but betrayal is part of your job description. No offense, but your word isn’t worth much, Alex.”
Elliot shrugs, like that’s the least of his concerns, “Well, you haven’t got much of a choice, have you? And neither have I, really. So we’re just going to have to make the best of it, and be pals.”
He gives Jon a cheerful grin, and Jon doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone look less like an undercover special agent as Elliot does now. He feels a bit sick, but if he’s completely honest with himself, a bit exhilarated, too. This situation is not ideal, but he has to admit that in the span of 24 hours, his life has got exponentially more exciting.
“Fuck. Why do you have to show up and ruin everything all the time?”
“Cause you’re a bad man who refuses to learn his lesson, Jon. Well, as nice as it was to catch up, I gotta get to work, my shift starts at three.”
“What shift?”
Elliot looks at him like he’s a simpleton before pushing his sunglasses down over his eyes and standing up, tossing a few coins on the table to cover for the coffees, “I gotta have a job, right? You think I spend my days at the Met headquarters when I’m not hanging out with lowlifes like yourself?”
Jon ignores the barb and stands, winding his scarf back around his neck, “Where do you work?”
“A record shop, not far from here. Not bad, compared to some of the other jobs I’ve had. It’s a tiny place, and I can pick the music, it’s cool. Plus my boss likes me, so I get some pretty flexible hours.”
“I bet.”
Elliot starts walking down the street at a leisurely pace and Jon follows him without really thinking about it, as if they’re just two regular guys, continuing a pleasant conversation on the street.
“Last week, right, this bloke comes in and he wants to advertise some poxy band in the shop, and I listened to one of the tracks, but it was the worst racket I’d ever heard-” Elliot goes off on some winding anecdote, gesticulating and smiling at Jon like he’s an old friend, and Jon stops paying attention to what he’s saying and watches him with a baffled sort of amusement, nodding when it seems like that’s what’s expected of him. It’s such a weird dichotomy between this Elliot, the trendy arty type who talks about his job selling records, and the Elliot who was sitting with him outside the café not ten minutes ago, threatening him with arrest and a lifetime in jail.
If Elliot minds that Jon accompanies him, he doesn’t show it. He talks Jon’s ears off the entire way, about music, then about random people in the street, and on to the latest film he’s seen. Jon knows that he shouldn’t be making it so easy, that he should be raging and threatening violence and putting up a fight - anything but this strange charade of camaraderie. Instead, he finds himself smiling at Elliot’s jokes and following him all the way to the shop, like some lovesick teenage girl.
The record shop smells of smoke and mold, and it’s dingy and overcrowded with stacks and stacks of records, and Elliot seems so completely at home there that it’s easy to forget who he really is. Jon ends up staying there for nearly an hour, listening to Elliot talk animatedly about music, and neither of them mentions their deal again.
Much later, when Jon is sitting on his bed in his tiny little studio flat, he wonders how the hell Elliot managed to steamroll over him so completely, from bullying him into agreeing to betray his mates and collaborating with the police, all the way down to convincing him to buy five ancient LPs from bands he’s never heard of.
He doesn’t even own a record player.
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