Evenfall (47 page)

That being said, Sin turned to walk back to the bathroom.

"Sin," Boyd said suddenly before he got far.

Sin paused, turning to look over his shoulder.

One of Boyd's hands was absently touching the stitches peeking out of his ruined shirt. His eyebrows were drawn together and his gaze tracked Sin's face before settling to meet Sin's eyes. His expression was sincere when he said, "Thank you."

They stared at each other for a long moment before Sin just shrugged his broad shoulders and disappeared into the bathroom to clean up. He stayed in there probably longer than was necessary-- detailing the shower and the tiled floors as best as he could to get rid of all traces of blood. Afterward he showered himself after noticing that streaks of Boyd's blood had dried to his arms, hands and chest.

There was a strong desire to separate himself from Boyd as long as possible, that co-existed with a desire to watch Boyd and make sure he was okay. And it was that unhesitating response, that automatic action of attending to Boyd, which was disturbing him.

Why the fuck did he even care? It wasn't like Boyd didn't have medical training. He knew how to take care of himself, and if he didn't then he'd be taken out. It was a fact of life. A basic tenet of their lives. Yet here he was, babying the teen, running through the street in some rush to get him to safety.

And that wasn't even mentioning the actual panic that he'd felt at seeing Boyd sprawled on the filthy cold ground and covered in blood.

Sin turned off the water with more force than was necessary and stepped out of the shower. For what felt like the first time in a long time, he looked at himself in the mirror. It was usually something he avoided-- he didn't like being reminded that he was nearly a reflection of his now deceased father. But even so, Sin looked at his own face and tried to figure out what the hell was different. Where had he gone so fucking wrong? When had he become just another weak person?

He'd think that years of conditioning himself to not care about other people would have held out longer. He'd think that years of being alienated would make him not as likely to get sucked in. But all it took was genuine interest in him and a smile, and things had slipped out of his control.

Shaking his head, Sin turned away.

The next few hours passed slowly. They talked from time to time but Sin mostly withdrew. He dropped into a brooding mood and looked out the window silently most of the time, watching for anything out of the ordinary. After awhile he remembered to send in the initial check-in on his panel to say that negotiation had failed but Eugene was terminated.

He left Boyd alone to doze from time to time, prodding him every once in awhile to ensure that he rose easily. In that time Sin wondered what the hell Boyd's problem was with his shirt. It was entirely possible he'd been delusional due to the head wound but before and after that, he'd seemed fine. It would have been easy to ask but Sin didn't think he'd get an answer and at the moment, things felt alternatively tense and awkward anyway.

By the time they left the motel and met the plane at a private airport outside the city, things had slowly fallen back into routine. Without the urgency and adrenaline going full force, it was easy to push things aside.

After the flight back to Lexington, Boyd was sent to medical directly from transport and Sin was left with the task of writing up the report. By this time it was the middle of the afternoon and his body wanted to rest. He ignored it and typed a bare bones report that barely included any detail. It was pointless anyway considering they would debrief later that day.

Thinking about the debriefing sent an irritated flash through him. It was tempting to blow it off. He hated sitting at the conference table and listening to everyone's bullshit input. He'd lost interest in the details a long time ago.

Sleep came easily enough once he returned to the apartment, and when he woke three hours later it was already nearly evening. Glancing at the clock, Sin wondered if he'd missed the meeting but no such luck.

It was a complete chore to drag himself back to the Tower with the throngs of obnoxious staff. It was even worse to sit through the debriefing and listen to them all talk about future options and other possible defectors of Janus. Everyone played their roles well, and not for the first time did Sin wonder if Owen, Jeffrey and Ryan actually had these personalities or if they just acted a part for other people's benefit. He'd wondered the same thing about Boyd when they first met.

Looking over at his partner, Sin noticed that Boyd's eyes had been on him. They looked at each other briefly before mutually glancing away. After that, Sin kept his eyes on the panel in front of him, or zoned out completely.

"Are you with us?" Carhart asked him at one point, giving him a flat look when Sin's hair curtained his face as he leaned on one hand.

"Sure."

"Don't let me interrupt your nap," was the sarcastic reply.

"I wouldn't."

And the debriefing dragged on.

By the end he was ready to go back to the safety of his empty apartment where he could try to drown out his extraneous preoccupation with recent developments in peace. He was determined to somehow mentally retrain himself and get back to the place he'd been in before Boyd had come along and complicated everything.

But that too was ruined when Boyd stopped him after everyone else filed out of the conference room.

Sin looked over his shoulder and turned, facing his partner entirely. He gave him a full once over for the first time since the briefing had started. He was paler than usual, but seemed better.

Boyd glanced at the door and then studied Sin a little more closely. "Thanks for waiting," he said, watching Sin with a thoughtful air. He hesitated and then turned to his messenger bag lying on the table. "I wanted to give you something."

He pushed the flap of the bag up and pulled out something that was rectangular and wrapped in several layers of white tissue paper so Sin couldn't see what it was. He held it out to Sin, his eyes not leaving Sin's face.

Confused, Sin took the package. It was heavier than he'd expected. "What is it?"

"Open it and see," was all Boyd said.

Not entirely knowing what was going on, Sin ripped the paper down the middle. It was a book-- an archaic looking hardcover book. It was reddish gold in color with a plain cover. The spine was more elaborate despite the fact that most of the cover was faded with age. He could just read the words 'Paradise Lost' fading on the spine.

Eyebrows shooting up, Sin looked up at Boyd. "You're giving this to me? Why?"

Boyd shrugged, looking down at the book. "I've had it for awhile but after I saw your tattoo, I started wondering whether you would appreciate it more." He reached out, his fingers brushing the cover. The movement must have pulled at the stitches because his lips thinned briefly, but when he looked up at Sin again there was only interest in his eyes.

"It's a second edition. I wanted a first but those are too expensive. I was lucky enough to find this at an antique store I frequent." He dropped his hand at his side and shrugged again, seemingly absently. "Anyway, I wanted to give it to you as a thank you."

Trying to figure out what to say and completely failing, Sin looked down at the book. He felt simultaneously awkward, baffled and... pleased. The book was something he would appreciate. He hadn't read it in years and he didn't have access to any real books of his own that he could enjoy. But aside from that--

Sin cut the thought off sharply. "Why do you keep thanking me?"

"Because--" Boyd stopped, his eyebrows drawing together. "Because you're nice to me. And you listened when I..." He gestured to his shirt, looking highly uncomfortable. "You could have forced me and you didn't. And I..." He hesitated. "I appreciate that."

"Oh." Sin stared at him and then back down at the book again. "I see." If Boyd was underwhelmed by Sin's response, he didn't show it or look surprised. There was a pause and then Boyd turned and flipped his bag closed. "Well, I'm going to leave. I have some errands I have to run today." He put the strap of the empty bag over one shoulder and turned toward the door. "I'll see you later."

There was a moment where Sin struggled with an appropriate response. He had none. This was a situation he had never been in. But he opened his mouth anyway, to at least say goodbye, when his cell phone vibrated against the pocket of his pants. Caught off guard, the moment passed and Sin ended up not speaking at all as Boyd left the room.

Irritated, Sin took the call without even looking at the caller ID.

"What?" he growled.

"Problem, Vega?"

Sin paused and glanced down at the book in his hands. He had a sudden desire to cover it up again, as if Marshal Connors could see it through the phone. There was an instinctive part of Sin that didn't want Connors to know that he and Boyd got along now. He couldn't explain it, but it wouldn't go away.

"No," he snapped. "What do you want?"

"You, in my office, in twenty minutes," was the chilly reply. "You're being sent out within the hour."

The call ended and Sin slid the phone back into his pocket. Whatever he figured out to say to Boyd, it would have to wait. With a low sigh, Sin left the conference room and headed to his building to drop off the book reluctantly. It too would have to wait until his mission was over.

Feeling inexplicably gloomy, Sin wondered who he would be assassinating now.

C
hapter 15

It was the end of November and Sin was slightly mortified that someone had put up Thanksgiving decorations in various places around the compound. He wondered if this was some pathetic attempt to make the Agency seem less like a life-sucking void and more like a normal job. If so, they had failed miserably.

Paper cutouts of fat turkeys did not a welcoming environment make.

He stood in front his apartment and stared at the thing that was stuck to his door. It was a cardboard decoration of some sort that looked like an odd horn with fake fruit stuffed inside of it. He stared at it silently for a full minute as he searched his vocabulary for the word that would describe such an odd creation.

"Cornucopia," he murmured out loud and pulled it off the door. The guards on either side of it had all but ignored him until that point, when one of them actually snorted a laugh.

'All employees are formally invited to a Thanksgiving feast this Thursday, 11/21/19, at 1700 hours in the main cafeteria.'

Sin stared at the thing and began shredding it into small pieces. He did not know what had possessed someone to stick this to his door, of all doors, but he found it mildly offensive. He wasn't even really American. Not technically anyway, he didn't think. Perhaps that was something to look into.

He tossed it on the floor and swiped his card key in the door, opening it and entering his apartment. After his solo assassination assignment, there had been a lull in missions. He didn't have any problems with admitting that he was bored. In the past month and a half he had participated in a grand total of three missions and none of them had been very exciting. He spent most of his time exercising, reading or roaming the compound when he was alone.

He'd begun leaving his quarters more often lately and he wasn't entirely sure why. He thought maybe it was because most of the other agents had grown almost used to his presence in the past two months. It may have also been because he would frequently spend time with Boyd.

Sin walked across his apartment and leaned against the wall so that he could stare out the window. A few months ago, he used to sit in the dark for hours while his mind remained perfectly blank in an almost meditative state. His sole purpose had been for killing and for avoiding the box. He hadn't cared or had interest in much else other than that. He'd had no desire to be around or to speak to anyone else. For the most part, that hadn't changed.

Except, of course, when it came to Boyd. His preoccupation with his partner had not diminished at all in the past month. If anything, it had grown.

He found himself thinking about Boyd at odd times, even often wondering what he was doing when they were not together. When Sin exercised or when he grew bored with that and sat staring into space for hours, he found himself wondering what Boyd did in his spare time. What he read or did to get through the long hours of the day that were filled with silence and inactivity. He wondered if Boyd went out, if he spoke to people outside the Agency. Most of all, he wondered if Boyd wondered these things about him.

Sin didn't particularly like this new, needy aspect to his personality. In fact it was a little disgusting. But no one else seemed to notice the change within him and to everyone other than Boyd he was as coldly sarcastic as ever.

He slid down the wall and sat on the floor, staring into space silently. It wasn't only the sudden interest in his partner that alarmed him, however. It was more startling that he'd begun to act differently when they were together.

There were times when his gaze would linger on Boyd longer than was necessary. When his eyes would focus on Boyd's mouth or eyes. There were times when he would sit alone and think about how odd it was to desire someone after so many years of not even knowing what that would feel like. There were other times when he would think about the mission in Seattle, and the feel of Boyd's bare skin underneath his hands. Sin closed his eyes and tilted his head against the wall, irritation bubbling to the surface. And here he fucking went again.

He'd begun reminding himself nightly that he was behaving extremely out of character. He was a killer. He'd been trained to be one since he was eight years old and that was the only thing he was good at. He had had enough trouble even learning how to have a normal conversation without thinking Boyd would use any information for devious purposes. What would he even do if he decided to focus on this completely random attraction?

Sin ran his fingers along the carpet idly. He was relieved that Boyd had been called away on a solo assignment to meet up with Andrews. It allowed him some time to sort out the confusion that constantly clouded his brain.

His lips quirked up into a sour smile as he recalled the brief meeting with Carhart before Boyd had left. Apparently Andrews would only agree to the meeting if Sin was not there. He wanted nothing to do with "that animal."

The words didn't bother him but the idea of Boyd going off on his own did. It was the first time Boyd had a solo mission of any kind with no backup in the vicinity. What would happen if Andrews had turned on them, and decided to take Boyd hostage or kill him to get out of the deal?

He hadn't voiced the concerns out loud, not seeing the good it would do since no one would listen to him anyway. Ryan, however, had done it for him. He'd complained loudly that at least Sin should accompany Boyd even if he didn't actually go to the meeting. Carhart had said there was no point and by now Boyd should be able to hold his own.

It was true, but the entire thing still made him, and apparently Ryan, uneasy. The thought reminded Sin of something else, something that he'd noticed and completely forgotten immediately after finding out that Boyd was going alone.
Before the briefing had started, Ryan had asked Boyd if Wednesday was his birthday.

The concept of a birthday was alien to Sin. He couldn't remember celebrating his own and was unsure as to the actual date of it. He suspected that it was sometime in April and he knew that he'd been born in 1991, but that was the extent of his knowledge. Despite that, he knew that other people sometimes considered them to be joyous occasions that called for celebrations. He wondered mildly if Boyd was one of those people. Somehow he doubted it but at the same time, he had trouble dismissing the date from his mind.

His eyes wandered over to the manuscript of Paradise Lost that sat on the small table in front of the couch. It occurred to him that he could get Boyd a present but the idea seemed absurd.

For one, it wouldn't do anything to change his ridiculous fixation with Boyd and the idea wasn't doing anything but feeding into it. And two, he'd have to sneak out of the compound. The sneaking out wasn't actually the problem-- the wandering around trying to find a present before the Agency came hunting him down was.

He banished the thought for the moment and walked over to the kitchen, making a dinner for himself out of chocolate chip cookies and instant oatmeal. He stared at the sink blankly and automatically ate, attempting to adopt his old meditative mind frame and failing when his thoughts wandered right back to Boyd's birthday.

Even if he were to get Boyd a gift of some sort, which he wasn't, he had no idea what he would get. It occurred to him that other than the fact that he knew Boyd enjoyed reading, he knew next to nothing about the kid. It nagged at him for a moment and he rationalized that it was because Boyd seemed to somehow know quite a bit about him.

He liked to be on equal footing with the people around him and he was on anything but that with Boyd. He barely knew anything about his background or life before coming to the Agency. Sin had the opportunity to read Boyd's file long ago but he'd never intended to maintain the partnership so he'd barely glanced at it. He didn't have access to the files anymore but he knew someone who did.

Sin tossed the empty packages into the garbage and strode out of his apartment again.

This time, the guards looked at him fully instead of ignoring him as they had before.

"Where you headed?" Daniels asked although he didn't seem very interested.

Sin stared at him impatiently. "What do you care?"

Daniels shrugged. "I don't really, I'm just bored." He eyed Sin's attire skeptically and looked out the doors. "The temperature is in single digits tonight, guy."

"Your point?"

The guard held up his hands and looked exasperated. "Forget I said anything."

The look on Sin's face made it obvious that he planned to do just that. The guards at his complex often treated him that way as of late. They no longer seemed particularly hostile although they were always wary. Now they seemed almost curious about him and the lack of bloodthirsty rampages that they'd heard so much about.

When Sin got outside the cold stung his face and went through his thin clothing but he showed no outward signs of discomfort and strode towards residential building C. The guards of that complex gave him more of a hard time but they had no real reason to deny him access to the building and had no choice but to let him pass. He ignored the elevator and took the stairs two a time to the fifteenth floor.

He noticed that this door also had been accosted by the hideous cornucopia and he took the liberty of destroying it as well. After it was sufficiently shredded, he knocked on the door.

Someone from within the apartment shouted, "Coming!" There were clattering noises before the door swung open without much delay.

He was surprised that an agent, even a non-combative one, would be so careless as to open their door without so much as pausing to look through the peephole. Although, he supposed, maybe it was better that way. He didn't particularly enjoy the idea of standing in the hallway, trying to explain why he was there or dealing with anyone's overactive paranoia.

Ryan stood in his doorway in an oversized red t-shirt and baggy boxers. His hair was sticking out in every direction and he had a can of soda in one hand. He stared at Sin with an expression that could only be described as agape. "Hsin!"

Sin raised an eyebrow at the usage of his real name.

Ryan reddened. "Er--Sin."

He raised the other eyebrow.

"Hsin?" Ryan asked in confusion.

Sin gave him a flat look and strode into the apartment, not waiting for a formal invitation. "Give me your keycard."

"Um? What?" Ryan blinked at him and closed the door. He looked around his apartment, and then hurried over to his desk, closing his laptop hurriedly. He'd stopped behaving awkwardly around Sin after the first several weeks but he still maintained a generally flustered air when he was in his presence.

"Your keycard. Give it to me."

"That's not really... like, allowed." Ryan scratched the back of his head, looking baffled and conflicted. "What do you even want it for?"

Sin stared at him silently and held out his hand.

"Well when are you going to give it back?" the R&D agent asked uncertainly, eyebrows drawing together.

Sin supposed that it was very fortunate that Ryan would most likely never be questioned by an enemy if this was the extent of his resistance. "Shortly. I need access to personnel files. The entire ones, not the superficial version. I don't have the access code for that."

Ryan opened his mouth to question him further but the expression on Sin's face shut it instantly and he settled for just looking extremely curious. "Uh… well, I guess. My access code is um…" He looked mildly embarrassed. "0666." He pulled the card out of his pocket and handed it to Sin. "But first can I--"

Sin was striding out of the apartment before the younger man had a chance to complete his sentence. He took the stairs once again and determined that this building was designed identically to every other residential building. Which meant that there was most likely a public computer lab and lounge area on the third floor. He was pleased to realize that he was correct, and even more pleased to see that it was entirely empty. He took a seat at the back of the lab and swiped Ryan's card, waiting for the screen to load.

It welcomed Ryan Freedman and asked for the access code. Sin punched it in and stared at the screen for several moments before figuring out how to get to the area of the database that he wanted. His own keycard was limited to unlocking specific public areas of the compound unless they temporarily increased his access. Even then it was limited to accessing mission files that he was specifically involved in.

Ryan, on the other hand, apparently had free run of the entire database.

He typed in Boyd's name and found the folder instantly. There were subfolders within it and he took his time, going through all of them. He checked all of the files and images of certificates from academic awards and contests that Boyd had received throughout the years. Sin noted that Boyd had graduated high school early, skipping to college courses at the age of 15. Sin had never been to school himself but he figured that was impressive.

He only skimmed through the information about Vivienne but took his time reading about Cedrick Alan Beaulieu, a journalist and aspiring author who had perished during the bombings in New York City while covering the story.

There was an entire subfolder dedicated to Boyd's father, and Sin read every document and went through every subfolder. He was curious about the type of person who would marry and have a child with Vivienne, who seemed even less likely to be capable of intimacy than Sin was himself.