Short description: Christophe recounts the last mercenary mission which Gregory and himself had gone on before they arrived back at home and Gregory simply went off and disappeared for over a year.
âHeâs what?â
âA kid!â
Gregory gathered his wits, then stood straighter, shoulders back. âAnd he-"
âHeâs here because he heard something from his brotherâs cousinâs friend and they dared him to come here. I know,â he began to defend himself, noting the way that Gregoryâs lips began to form a slight frown, his eyes saying âand you are simply going to believe that story?â, âit sounds like a fucking trap, but he thinks thereâs diamonds in there.â
âAnd the bag of money?â
Just then the boy who could not have been older than ten came up behind Christophe and peeked over from around his shoulder. Big brown eyes locked onto Gregory and Christophe noted that Gregoryâs expression was not softening despite the childâs silent pleas.
âTell him,â the Frenchman urged him to speak, and the boy moved to stand in front of Christophe; seeing him in the light of his flashlight, Gregory could see that he was in regular everyday clothing: a light blue t-shirt with a picture of Mickey Mouse on the front, and a pair of khaki shorts, along with classic black and white tennis shoes.
âI got the velvet bag from my grandmaâs closet. My cousin said she wouldnât miss it. I-â he picked up the speed, speaking faster, âI was going to replace the treasure with it so me and my cousin and his friend could have the real thing and, uh, I guess you guys would get the coins.â
Christophe couldnât help but to grin: the kid reminded him of himself and Gregory when they were little, just about to get sucked into the mercenary business⊠though, unlike with the two of them, this kid was just being a kid, getting up to innocent trouble with his friends. Maybe it was stupid, but Christophe often looked for innocent trouble like this when back home; it was nice to get up to things but not have those things always result in violence or getting put on yet another dangerous personâs shit list.
And, with that, the kid began to rush towards the staircase, only to be stopped by Christophe who made an even faster dash in that direction, blocking him from escaping. âWe still have questions.â
The kid audibly gulped, and crossed his arms; Christophe guessed that he was really wishing that he had brought that paintball gun that he had told him he had originally planned on bringing in with him right about now; but they werenât there to hurt him. They simply could not risk falling for a story and the kid escaping, only to alert the rest of the thieves he could be working with that Gregory and Christophe were inside the pyramid.
While the two of them stayed put, Gregory went for the prize. Kneeling down, he put on a pair of primary blue rubber gloves and began to untie the knots in the battered up plastic bagâs handles. He could see a couple of old dried up specks of blood on the bag and he grimaced; it had to have come from the man who left the bag here for whoever tried to bring the prize home next to find. Then the blond reached in and, sure enough, under two layers of sparkly green and pink birthday present tissue paper, he could feel the outline of the iron key. The tissue paper made this moment feel more silly than serious in a way that made a blush rise over Gregoryâs cheeks: he felt he was being laughed at in a way.
Crumpling the tissue up in his hands, he then got his first clear look at the key. Remarkably, it looked much like the drawing, and, also, quite similar to the key that he had seen framed and hung up on the wall inside Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, when he had been to Virginia on a family trip five years prior⊠he loved the beach, loved feeling far from the mountains of Colorado⊠and, of course, Christophe had been there with him, wearing an ice cream stained shirt almost every day they were there; the guy practically lived at the small family owned ice cream shops that dotted Virginia Beach. The key at Mount Vernon had been a gift to George Washington from Le Marquis de Lafayette of France; it was a key from the famous Bastille prison that had been stormed by a mob, effectively putting a start to what would become the French Revolution in 1789.
Holding the key in his hands, Gregory wasted no more seconds reminiscing, and, instead, peered over his shoulder at Christophe and the kid who was now sitting on the floor of the old pyramid as he waited for the two of them to let him make his escape. "Would you bring me the purple bag, filled back up with coins?" he asked the kid, who got right up and to work, scrambling to fill the bag back up, leaving no coin in the natural dust which had settled on the ground since the pyramid was last closed off.
Christophe caught on to the plan right away: they would leave with the key and the bag of coins would take it's place under the... was that tissue paper? He narrowed his eyes as he stepped closer, but decided not to say a word based off of the look on Gregory's face that told him âjust don't.â
~~~
**~~~**
All of that to say that, now, here they were, the next morning, safe in their hotel room, said key safely packed up and placed into one of their suitcases. On their way out of the pyramid, Christophe had felt as if he was holding his breath: this could not have been that easy! It was never that easy! Sure, for a beginner, this would have still been quite the impressive feat, but, for them, three days in a foreign country and one time of sneaking in to a world treasure where they didn't have to use their weapons against an opponent even once was unheard of!
But, once they had made it out and Christophe breathed in the cool night air, as he felt the soft breeze cross his face and the sands around them gently blowing down and over his boots, he felt genuine relief as there was nobody around them as far as his eyes could see.
Now, lying down in bed, eyes closed and still pretending to be asleep, Christophe felt the bed sinking as Gregory sat down on the edge of it and he could hear him paging through a book; Christophe knew that they were not getting room service, but he could dream that his posh friend was glancing over a menu.
Continuing to think back to the night before, Christophe thought about that kid (they never had gotten his name, and, likewise, they never disclosed theirs to him), and how they had taken him back to the area just outside of where he lived. Gregory didnât like the idea and Christophe, who also could not be fully convinced that this wasnât a trick after all until they were back on that plane home, couldnât blame him for being ready to make a run for it at a momentâs notice. In the distance, they watched as a kid who looked a lot like the kid theyâd just lead back home, his cousin, rushed towards the kid theyâd just left, laughing, arms raised high in the air.
âAre you crying, Christophe?â
Christophe wished that Gregory would not point it out when things got to him: the two shared so much history that the Frenchman believed that Gregory should just understand that sometimes things just hurt. Sometimes you just donât feel like explaining it. This was one of those times: for once, they were helping someone in a kind way during one of their assignments. It didnât happen often.
The kid may not have returned with the diamonds that he and his cousin and his cousinâs friend thought heâd come back with, but, on their walk to where he lived, the brunet had given the kid some things he had in his backpack: a crisp $100 bill, an unopened pack of gum, and a harmonica heâd gotten in California. It was the best that he could do with what he had on him; the kid seemed happy to have something to show for his efforts, something to prove himself.
Now Christophe was being tapped on the shoulder, as Gregory attempted to prod him awake. âThe plane is due to pick us up within the hour,â he says softly as Christopheâs olive green eyes slowly opened. âIf we leave in five minutes, we will have time before we go to stop at that cafe you were eying on the day we arrived.â
Christopheâs cheeks flushed just slightly at the mention of the cafe: Gregory, as always, had noticed things, then, quietly, he had taken note.
This is a short story I wrote based off of some headcanons I have. This is the first short story Iâve written in forever, lol.
Short description: Christophe recounts the last mercenary mission which Gregory and himself had gone on before they arrived back at home and Gregory simply went off and disappeared for over a year.
PART 1
(part 2 is also up now)
In less than two hours they would be on a private plane back to Colorado. It wasnât as fancy as it sounds: this plane wasnât picking up celebrities or political figures; it was one which flew under the radar, aiding people like Christophe and Gregory, mercenaries, on their missions when they needed an especially quick ride back home. Christophe didnât understand why, when theyâd gotten away so cleanly, they needed to hurry back so fast, but Gregory had been adamant that they did so. Maybe he was scheduled to attend one of his parentâs swanky parties and didnât want Christophe to find out and request that he be his plus one.
Right now, though, the brunet would lie in bed, eyes closed, and pretend that he was still asleep; he wanted to take advantage of every moment in this hotel room in Cairo, Egypt, even as Gregory had, mere moments ago, already gotten up and out of the bed and began to pack up his belongings, making stops into the bathroom every so often to gather toiletries and, no doubt, to check on his hair and see if it had dried completelyâŠand whatever else he did. Christopheâs own routine was so short in comparison.
Nothing about the past week would have led Christophe to come to the realization that, once they arrived back in Colorado, he wouldnât end up seeing Gregory for over an entire year. After spending the better part of his life as best friends and mission partners with the Brit, they would be apart, and without warning, for longer than they had ever been apart since first meeting. So, for now, it was the mission they had just completed the night before that was weighing on his mind⊠he assumed it was the same for Gregory.
~~~
The sun remained high up in the sky for so long that, if he didnât know better and had not experienced the cool still nights previously, he would have believed his own mind which, in desperate wishing to cut the mission short and get back to the hotel, told him that the sun would never set for them; that it would remain up there, knowing he was chewing at the sides of his fingers after his nails were too short to chomp at anymore, as he waited and waited until Gregory and himself could set out for what, if everything went right, would be the final stretch of the assignment.
Once the pair were deep inside one of the many pyramids (provided he live to tell the tale some day when he was no longer actively doing work for shady people, under a nom de plume of course, how was he going to convince people that what they did wasnât âjust like in the action movies?â now??), seeing only by the light of small flashlights, Christophe wished that he could enjoy this moment; every kid, back in school, dreamt of visiting these places that they learned about in class⊠but he couldnât come here with a backpack full of books and a notebook: he had to stay focused, ignoring most anything of interest along their way.
âYour shoes are squeaking!â Gregory hissed under his breath. Christophe had been so in his own head that he hadnât even noticed. He picked his feet up enough to not make any extra noise from then on. Gregory was right ahead of him as they climbed up a modern yet extremely narrow staircase further up into the pyramid. The blondâs hair was tied back into a low ponytail, and, just like Christophe was, he was dressed in beige colored fabrics rather than their usual pitch black attire; their navy colored attire was on underneath the beige, for, if everything went right, when they had time to switch out of their clothes and stuff the light fabrics into their backpacks on their way out of the pyramid. Theyâd escape back to the hotel in the dead of night, unseen by most everyone.
Palms up against the walls as they walked, Christophe carried his miniature flashlight between his teeth. Once they had arrived on the upper floor, it was almost too easy: there it was⊠what they were looking for. Back up against the furthest limestone wall, was a tattered up plastic grocery bag, tied at the top upwards of three times. Inside, unless they had been fooled, was the key they were looking for. To what? They did not know: they were hired to retrieve said key, and that is all they were told. Heavy and nearly five inches in length, they were drawn a sketch in charcoal back at home of what the key looked like; it would be made of iron and it was originally crafted in the 18th century in France.
Christophe had delved deep into the history of using iron to make keys on their flight over to Cairo and discovered that it was the Ancient Romans who had began using iron to make keys rather than using wood, though it seemed that the Ancient Romans keys were usually much smaller than the one they would be acquiring today. He was excited to get his hands on the key to whatever it was that was so important that the guy who had tried to gather it the last time only had time to hide it in one of the lesser known and lesser toured pyramids, as this pyramid had been closed to the public for years, before he eventually had to be rushed into the hospital and was decidedly unable to finish what heâd set out to do⊠Christophe didnât spend too much time trying to fill in and figure out the holes in that story; both he and Gregory figured that scaring themselves was usually never for the best. They needed to remain sharp.
Two steps away from the staircase and into the room, and they heard a loud drop, then the distinctly metallic sound of scattering coins. High pitched and sharp, the sound echoed off of the old yet sturdy walls. Gregory turned his flashlightâs light toward the direction in which the sound was coming from and, sure enough, there was a bag of coins dumped over and sprayed across the floor. The sound of sneakers booking it echoed louder than anything theyâd heard all night down a hall to their left. âIâve studied this map, this hall leads to nowhere,â Gregory stated, hand moving towards the pistol strapped to his belt.
âNowhere except a turn in the hall and-â
âItâs been blocked off for decades!â Gregory corrected, keeping his voice low.
âI know.â he grumbled. Gregory had reacted so quickly that Christophe hadnât even been given time to finish his thought: that whoever it was was likely down at the end of the hall, pressed up against the newer stone, trying not to be seen.. Possibly waiting to catch the pair of them off guard to attack. The blond had been extra snippy this entire trip. Christophe wouldnât admit it, but it kind of hurt in a dagger through the heart kind of way each time.
Grasping the taller male on the shoulder, Christophe made his next decision before they could start on their way towards this stranger. What if they were walking right into this personâs trap? What if the rest of his team were outside of the pyramid, waiting? What if this was exactly what happened to the last guy, and the two of them were walking right into the same spiderâs web?
âYou wait out here. I will go in. Keep watch.â before Gregory could disagree and dig his heels into the floor over wanting to be the one who heroically dashed down the hall, as if this moment would be captured in a painting forever, Christophe was already on his way, flashlight between his teeth again, while, in one hand, he held a pistol; his other hand was clenched as he fitted a brass knuckle onto his fingers⊠coincidentally, brass knuckles, as per his research, had also been invented in the ancient times: in ancient Greece and ancient Rome to be exact.
Goddamn anons. Fucking asking me about people I donât fucking know. Want to ask for gossip about someone? Go talk to a goddamn church lady! Shit.
Also, I ducked your mom.
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