No need to apologize, I understand! Your writing is honestly really enjoyable, too! ^^ Also, sorry the delay. :') //
Of New York, there was much to say. Yet, in spite of all its intricacies and dark corners, at its core it was just another metropolis; as bleak and convoluted as any other city in the world. Skyscrapers, alleyways, overpasses, and red-light districts—the Big Apple had its Empire State Building, its Rockefeller Center, Lady Liberty, and the Hudson, but Vanya had seen enough places, had known enough things to recognize that despite everything it had to offer, New York was just another place to die in. Now, it was a hunting ground, another "here be dragons!", but once he was finished, once the cops had come and gone, once the media got their headline of the week and the world moved on, it'd just be another dot on the map, alive and insignificant.
The city wasn't as pretty on the inside as it was on the outside, and as a train screeched to a stop on the opposite track Vanya understood then why no one ever talked about the belly of the beast. The stench of ammonia wasn't as stifling as it had been on the stairs leading down to the platforms, but he had already counted six rats scuttering about down in the tracks, and between the vermin and the litter Vanya wasn't sure which he favored more. A little kid stared at him from behind the safeguard of his mother's legs, an old lady held a conversation in some foreign language over the phone, and— oh. Vanya knew that face from the file.
Under the sickly glare of the overhead fluorescents, Andrew Johansson looked much, much more unassuming than Vanya had been expecting him to. In the pictures, Johannson had seemed like an august man: professional, rigid, someone who had an underground empire beneath his hand, and yet now he was astonishingly normal, just a person, just a statistic. Vanya knew better than anyone how misleading an appearance could be, but it was almost difficult to imagine him being anything other than a commonplace paper pusher. Johansson was supposed to be dealing in blood, and yet his eyes suggested about as many vices as anyone else's did.
Even so, at the end of the day, he would be as dead as all the men that had come before him. Johannson was just another face in a long line, and if the syndicate had taught him anything it was that doubt got nothing done. Vanya had been employed for one purpose and one purpose alone. His contract brooked no room for second-guessing.
The ground trembled as the train slowed to a halt beside the platform, and Vanya casually joined one of the clusters of people that amassed at its edge. The doors slid open, passengers filed in, and all the while he kept his eyes on Johansson. New York had its white-collar workers, its average joes and its oddballs. What would he look like but anything other than another red flag, a suspicious stranger that kids were told to avoid and passerby's narrowed their eyes at? Vanya leaned back against the closed doors, the train lurched into motion, and he wondered half-heartedly how long it had taken Johansson to master the tired businessman look. He was the CEO of something—whether that be a clandestine organization or a figurehead company—so perhaps the worn-thin look wasn't entirely an act. Either way, the possibility of that was a fleeting notion, and the thought was gone as quickly as it had come.
Tunnel lights blurred past as the train rushed on, metal screeching against metal, the murmur of conversation persistent and soft throughout the car. Vanya watched as Johansson raised his gaze, brilliant and blue, and nearly met his eyes. For a moment he thought if it had dawned upon him what was coming, that his fate was in others' hands now. Just like that, however, the man shifted in his seat and looked away. Beneath the shadow of his hood, Vanya's lips formed an amused, short-lived smile.
This would be easy. The usual, just muscle memory. Sure, he'd have to do some scaling, put in some elbow grease to close this chapter, but it would be the same as it had been for the rest. Quick. Smooth. Blade against the throat. Through the skin, the meat of the neck and the stretch of the jugular. There'd be blood in the foyer (there always was) but Vanya knew whoever they called in the morning would have the floorboards cleaned as if nothing had ever happened at all. A police investigation, a coroner, a column in the paper or a few minutes in the news, a clean-up crew and then the continuance of the city. The world would keep turning, New York would keep living. There'd be a funeral, maybe, but someone would step up to fill his shoes eventually, and whatever organization Johansson had under the palm would go on. He would die, and someone else would after that, and after that, and after that, too, and all the while Vanya would go on, rich in sin and money.
The train lurched to a standstill, a woman's voice announced through the overhead speakers that this stop was "Christopher St and Sheridan Sq", and Vanya counted until six before he stepped off the train and slipped into the mass of commuters making their way up another set of musty, dirty stairs. He couldn't make out Johansson from the back of the crowd, but he had memorized the man's address days ago, and he knew that this wouldn't be the last time he'd see his face.
It was getting late: the day greeted him with a darkening sky, heavy with clouds and ombre. It had rained earlier that afternoon and the air still carried an underlying scent of wet tarmac, distinctive despite the reek of cigarette smoke and exhaust fumes. Vanya followed the mass out onto the corner of the street and as people streamed past him out onto the crosswalk, he pretended to read the street signs, confused and marveling, enraptured by the Brownstones and the cafes. Eventually, the sidewalks grew emptier and he continued, tucking his hands into his pockets and keeping his eyes on the ground. He was just trying to get home—"no problem here, Officer!"—or maybe he was just meeting a group of friends for a few drinks and some conversation. His work had been keeping him busy, and he hadn't been able to see Derrick or Sarah or even Mateo for a while now. This would be a night out for old time's sake.
A series of streetlights flickered to life as he ducked behind a parked car. Through the glass, he watched Johansson enter the lobby of a high-rise building, give the receptionist a casual wave, and then walk out of view. Vanya waited until the man behind the marble-top desk settled down again before he rounded the rear of the car. Swiftly, he rushed across the sidewalk and into a dimly lit passageway between the building and the one beside it, narrowly avoiding the pools of amber light cast across the concrete.
The fire escape's ladder hung over a pair of closed dumpsters, and he carefully pulled himself onto their metal covers. The lids groaned softly beneath him, but Vanya had already hooked his fingers around the lowest rung of the ladder before he could find out if they'd give in to his weight. With his jaw clenched, he began his ascent of the fire escape. The metal was old and rain-slicked, and Vanya found himself stepping cautiously as he headed up the short flights of stairs, ducking under windowsills and dodging shafts of lamplight. The streets were practically deserted, but he was incessantly aware of any movement on the sidewalk far beneath him. His vigilance faltered only when he realized he'd gone up past the window of Johansson's seventh-floor apartment.
Vanya paused and leaned against the railing of the platform. The metal was rough beneath his palms, and whatever layer of wash it had been lathered in was beginning to peel away from exposure. Vanya crumbled chips of paint between his fingers, and for a moment he felt the compulsion to appreciate the view of the expanse of Brownstones below. West Village wasn't somewhere he'd been to before in spite of all the places his contracts took him, so the stretch of homes met him with some vague sense of awe. For a site tucked away in Manhattan, the neighborhood was unusually calm and almost irritatingly quiet. Johansson's murder would set the people here on edge. Vanya could imagine it now; the curfews instilled on the local kids, mother's warning not to stay out too long after dark. West Village was townhouses and restaurants now, but after his business was done and over with, there'd be a tension everyone could feel.
Across the alleyway, the curtains in a window parted and a shaft of light fell across his face.
Vanya was moving before he even knew what he was doing. He hauled himself over the edge of the railing, but when his hands shot out to grab onto the lowest bar of the platform his fingers curled around empty space. The fire escape was old. The bar had rusted away and fallen off years ago.
His chest slammed into the railing of the platform beneath him, knocked the air out of his lungs and left him breathless as he scrambled for a grip. The jagged edges of the old beams dug into his legs: he was winded, frantic, and in his panic, the rubber of his shoes slid uselessly against the rain-slick metal. He hadn't dressed for something like this — how did a person dress for something like this? He was going to fall to his death. There'd be the police. A column in the paper. A minute on the news. A clean-up crew would come and scrape him off the concrete, mop up the blood and then the city would move on. The world would keep turning.
A platform shot past him. He'd paint the alleyway red. His head bounced off the metal of the next platform. The police would come with a coroner. The world swung. The cameras, the headline, the news. Vanya's vision went black. The clean-up crew. A power-washer for the blood. He landed on the seventh-floor fire escape with a thud. New York would keep living.
— Ivan "Vanya" Voronin.
— Cisgender male.
— Thirty-four years.
— Demiromantic bisexual.
— Probably going to add some more tidbits later as well.
— FC: Keanu Reeves
