A Man and His Job

In a dimly lit room a man sat back in a precarious chair, with his arm over the back, and looked down at the table in front of him. He ran a hand through his hair, sighed, and tapped his foot as he considered his options. Both options weren't the greatest, but he wasn't in the position to not choose either. He could only hope for the best and choose one, forgetting what would happen to him afterwards. It was, how you say, an interesting world Eustass Kidd lived in.

Two Years Earlier; an alley behind a run-down apartment complex - a medium-sized town.

Sitting on top of a dumpster with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, a long-haired blonde tapped his fingers on his lanky long leg as he waited patiently for his 'captain'. That captain was the one who ran things around there. Everyone who was anyone had heard of him- the bastard who was ruthless and would do anything simply because he felt like it. There were only a few maybe insane and/or cocky people that would go up against him and come out with only minor injuries; maybe it was better that way, since the hospital staff all knew the captain's face all too well.

A bruised up, punkish guy came wandering into the entrance of the alleyway, casting his tall shadow down it and onto the blonde's feet at the end of the alley. The punk grinned. The blonde took a drag from his cigarette and smirked. With a gentle hop from the dumpster, the blonde sauntered down the alley with hands in his pockets, smirking all the way till he bumped chests with the other punk. The punk merely gave the blonde a punch to the chest. The blonde took a scabbard from off his beltloop and jabbed the other in the gut with it, and then returned the sheath to its holster. The blonde pulled a pocketful of money out from his boot and pushed it into the other's chest while pushing past. The blonde walked into the full daylight of the street with no worries; after all, he had met his quota for the day and given the captain his 'payment'.

"I swear, you get more and more each day," the taller punk whispered with a spin on his heel, following after the long golden locks that he was used to seeing each day while ungainfully stuffing the cash into his pocket.

"Isn't that my job?" the blonde replied with a swish of his hand, plucking the cigarette from his lips and tossed it to the ground. He stamped it out on the pavement with his high-heeled, steel-toed boots.

"Yeah... I guess it is," the other responded with a smirk, putting his hand out to grab the blonde's shoulder. He halted the blonde from walking further into the street; they were already in the dead-center of it with no fear of anything, for they were the only people that could possibly hurt them. They looked around the empty street and grinned.

The two strange-haired thugs, roaming 'their' streets with no worries..

No apparent worries, at least.

The same blonde and punk sat in a sliced-up, blood-red booth at the back of their favorite pub. They puffed away while beggars and kids strolled through like they owned the place. However, these people did not know that the real 'owners' were nearby and ready for their next source of income.

The punk leaned into the blonde's shoulder and pointed past him at a lanky dark-haired guy who looked like he hadn't slept in days. The blonde followed the pointing finger and observed the lanky man carefully... no apparent weapons, no muscle; easy as pie.

"See that guy?"

"Yeah, I not blind.. as far as I know."

"Really? Can't tell 'cause of your fuckin' hair the way it is."

"It's my hair. I can let it cover what I want to cover."

"Even the things you see with... Killer?"

"Yes, even 'the things I see with', Kidd... Anyway, continue."

"Alright, alright. So I got a call from this real uppity guy, real calm-sounding ya know but in the way you can tell he's not normally like that, suspicious, and he tells me this, 'Kidd, I have a guy for you.' And I says back , 'Oh really? Tell me 'bout 'im.' So he does ya see, and that's that guy there. 'Parently he's got something goin' on with his 'princess of a daughter, and he wouldn't ever accept a thug like him'. So, there he is, and here we are."

The blonde, Killer, nodded slowly and tilted his head back toward the punk, Kidd. Killer tapped a long-nailed finger on the jagged booth-table and grinned under his golden bangs, concocting a simple plan of murderous action in his mind. Walk up to the bar, order a drink, slide up next to the guy while blowin' out some smoke and drag him out the back door the right and into the alleyway. No one here is in there right mind to know what's going on, or have the guts to tell anyone. Kidd would probably follow afterward to make sure the deed is done, but Killer probably wouldn't have a problem by himself with a dead-lookin' guy.

"Ya better go, kid," Kidd urged with a jab to Killer's lower back. Killer clicked his tongue at the word 'kid' and afterward no more words were needed. The blonde seemed to glide up over to the bar through the smoky air and puffed on his cig, tapped a nail on the bar and immediately got a drink, (free o' charge). He took a swig and noticed not even a glance from the dead-lookin' guy. It was perfect. Killer set down the drink, headlocked the dead-guy next to him, and ushered a wave back at Kidd before disappearing into the alley beyond. Kidd chuckled to himself and brought the tabacco-stick to his lips and took a deep drag, slowly blowing out as he faintly heard a piercing scream and a shink of metal on brick. Kidd then opened his eyes and took a drink from his glass, putting his cigarette down on the wooden table. His smirk dissapeared as he strode out the back down of the bar before the table was engulfed in flames.

"Good job. Bring him with and we better hurry. The place'll go before long," Kidd explained calmly while Killer hauled the bloody corpse on his shoulder. The body was cooling down and clamming up, and the lukewarm blood oozed almost peacefully onto Killer's shirt that used to be black and white. Killer always carried bodies in this way- face-down and over the shoulder.

It was easier that way.

Eustass Kidd put an arm around Killer's waist and pulled him to his side, laughing as dollar signs were in their near future.

"Why do you always insist on holding me this way when you blow up a place?" Killer asked monotonously as they walked across the street from the flaming bar, where 'something' in the back room that may or may not have been there the day before caught the flames in its hands and a deafening sound cracked like a bomb. Black smoke billowed up into the sky with the flames in a deathly manner. This created a simply marvelous backdrop for the two thugs that grinned their way across town through the main streets- blood dripped the entire way to the 'client's' front door while Killer noted to Kidd that both the day's money and liquors had still been inside the obliterated bar. Kidd shrugged it off as they walked up the steps to the house.

Kidd knocked four times, as was instructed, but not on the back door, as was not instructed, and a plain young girl answered the door with a sheepish smile. Her smile was erased as her body froze in pure horror at the sight of Eustass Kidd, and his wicked grin, and outstretched hand, and her boyfriend draped over his 'boyfriend's' shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

The whole world stopped and she screamed a piercing scream that was heard throughout the town, and everyone knew what had happened for the 2nd time that week..

Killer let down the corpse on the front step like a ragdoll and saluted the lady, slinking back into the shadows as her father, the client, came to the door with a look of pure dread and caught his fainted daughter in his arms. Kidd didn't let his grin slack, and waved his open palm, and pulled the man by his collar up to him.

"Here, Pops, it's done. Now gimme what I asked for."

The man's eyes were unseeing and he only half-consciously pulled a few stacks of cash from his back pocket and shakily pushed it into Kidd's open hand. Kidd let go of him, gave the girl a wink and shoved his hands into his pockets. As he walked away, Kidd whistled an eerily peaceful tune. The man, the girl and the body were all frozen motionless at the end of the street, in a trance.

Eustass Kidd disappeared from view into the shadows once more with the echo of his whistling floating on the wind.

~ + well hello and welcome to a request story about Kidd, and I got this story idea from one sentence about a man sitting at a table looking down at something. that was all it took to get this going, and im really excited to finish this! XD stay tuned for more in the next few days. + ~

2/20/15 HOLA im back :P touched this up a bit. NOTE that this now takes place 2 YEARS before the table scene! I figured this would help later on in the story, and so yeah! feels good to be back in business.