Just Like Old Times (closed)

[zydrate]

https://i.imgur.com/rC6VZPx.jpg

They had agreed to meet around this time each year.

So far, for the past 2 years, no matter the assignment, they were able to keep their promise. They had met in the same small town each time.... but a different hotel and lived off room service for 3 days.

Sex and room service.

What more could a girl ask for?

Maybe a more normal life? Ha! Was that even possible?

Yes, it was going to be possible damnit...this year is going to be the year... this year was different for Nicole. This was going to be her last year in this business. She was done with it all. Even walked out of the job with a flourish from her last employer.

Would one call a hail of bullets a flourish?

Sure. Why not...?

Here she was now, waiting for him, in a suite at the Tropicana in no where Laughlin, Nevada.

Nicole had originally flown in to Salt Lake City, UT and drove the rest of the way. It was better safe than sorry. She had arrived in the middle of the night and had slept most the next day. He was expected later tonight.

All she could do now was wait for him.

 

[Nouh_Bdee]

Alan picked the lock on the back entrance to the Laughlin Tropicana. Nicole had chosen well, and he hoped he hadn’t been followed. He was one of the best at losing a tail, but it was hard to do that covered in blood. It made blending in more difficult.

He found the room easily enough, and leaned heavily against the frame with his good shoulder. He knocked on the door: tap tap taaap, tap tap tap. It was their signal that it was him.

His suit had even more bullet holes than he did. Okay, he’d only been shot the twice. Twice is a lot when it comes to bullets, though. Once in the shoulder, low enough to go through flesh but high enough to miss bone. Once on the outside of his thigh, a graze. He’d been very lucky. Luckier still to be here. She might not think so when she saw all the blood, but it wasn’t his. Well, most of it wasn’t his.

She’d always warned him that he trusted too much for this line of work. She’d been right. He wouldn’t mind telling her. He still trusted, but now it was just her.

 

[zydrate]

He was late.

Only by 20 minutes.

20 minutes may not seem long to some but to Nicole... it was not good.

She hadn't realized she had fallen asleep until she heard the knock at the door. Shooting up to a sitting position, she quickly grabbed her gun as the sleepiness and grogginess quickly washed away from her and she was fully awake and alert.

Had she mistaken the knock for something she was dreaming about?

No.

With her pistol held carefully behind her back, she quietly unlatched the chain lock and then the main lock. She opened the door slowly at first but then saw Alan standing...well, standing-ish/slumped-ish, against the door jam. She then saw his appearance and saw the blood. With a quick jolt, she yanked the door the rest of the way open and quickly had an arm under him, helping him inside.

She knew better than to ask the obvious of what happened. Clearly he was shot but where and how many times?

"Better late than never, huh?" She said as she helped him to the bed and help him sit down. "What happened?" She asked anyway as she looked around the room and saw that she didn't have any gear to help him immediately. She hurried to the bathroom and grabbed some of the few towels that they had provided. She saw the tear on his thigh and quickly pressed a towel against it hard. She had to because it would help with the bleeding.

The other small towel she gave to him so he could cover where ever else he was bleeding.

"You always did like to make an entrance, didn't you?" she said, taking a good look at him.

Was it already a year since they last saw each other?

Nicole didn't trust anyone. But there was a lingering trust she had in him but not much, only because she was so damn cautious at this point in her life.

Probably one reason she was still alive.

Was it wrong to say he still looked good?

 

[Nouh_Bdee]

What happened?

“I showed up to meet the contact with the dossier on the target, and it was an ambush. There must’ve been a dozen guns in that parking garage. I still can’t believe I made it out.”

Alan held the small towel Nicole had given him to his shoulder. Maybe it was the blood loss talking, but he thought she looked even better than she had last year. Her dark hair was up in a ponytail, and her lips were ringed with dark lipstick. He felt like kissing her, but this might not have been the time. He could still flirt a bit, though.

"You always did like to make an entrance, didn't you?"

“Well, I wouldn’t want you to get bored with me,” he said with a wink.

He was pretty sure he saw a small smile on her face.

Alan knew his wounds were superficial, but he was concerned about infection, especially with the through-and-through in his shoulder. “Is there any alcohol in here?

 

[zydrate]

"Bored with you? Never." She said as she pressed the towel a little harder against his thigh. It didn't look too bad, just a flesh wound.

"Is there any alcohol in here?"

"Of course there is." Although there originally hadn't been, she had made a stop before coming here for some much needed items. Drinks and junk food. Things she couldn't indulge in while on the job. She placed his other hand on the towel where she was holding his thigh before getting up and walking to the small room frig and pulling out a bottle of vodka, which she placed on the nightstand next to the bed.

After that, she grabbed a small first aid kit from her bag and placed it next to the vodka.

"Let's get you up here.." she said, patting the head of the bed. She helped him scoot up so he could lean against the headboard. Then, she carefully helped him remove his jacket and then his shirt.

There were a lot more scars on him than before and well, with what happened now, he could add another one to the mix.

With a sigh, she looked at his shoulder, both front and back, "Well, no exit wound... so, I guess its up to me to get this out." She said, more to herself than to him as she grabbed her make up bag and pulled out some tweezers and put them in a plastic cup and poured some vodka into it. It wasn't much for sterilizing but at least it was something.

"Ready?" she said, preparing more herself to get the bullet out.

 

[Nouh_Bdee]

Alan was disappointed to hear that there was no exit wound. He knew from experience that extractions were a bitch.

“Shit.”

He did his best to prepare himself while Nicole got the tweezers ready.

”Ready?”

“Ready for you, Nicole? Always...Ready for this?” He gestured to his shoulder. “Eh, I’ll get by. Tell me a story. Something that happened since I saw you last.” It was a game they would play. Telling stories with fake names of people and places, among other details, but true events and emotions. It was a way to get to know each other without revealing any important secrets.

 

[zydrate]

She was focused on the wound. She had seen some whoppers in her time, and by that, this didn't look that bad. Nicole took a deep breath.

Before he could get another word in, Nicole took the vodka and poured some onto the wound. She heard him exhale hard and curse as silently as he could...which wasn't much.

"What's going on with me? Well..." she told him, in no certain terms of her last mission.

In the middle of her story, she successfully extracted the slug and dropped it into the small cup of vodka on the beside table. She noticed they had bloodied up the towels... she'd have to grab some more later. As she sewed him up (all thanks to her field kit that she always kept with her) she sat back on his legs and admired her work momentarily.

"You should rest," she said as she stood up and took a shot of the vodka. Although it had seemed like it took awhile, in reality, only about 20 minutes had passed.

 

[Nouh_Bdee]

Extractions were definitely a bitch. At least he had Nicole to talk to while she dug around in his shoulder with tweezers. Her story even made him laugh a couple of times, which didn’t help with the pain.

“Ow, less funny, please?”

He assumed her stitches were good, but he didn’t want to move too much just in case. So, he nodded his head at her suggestion that he rest and held out his other hand for the vodka.

Alan felt a little lightheaded from the blood loss and pain, but he had too much adrenaline to fall asleep immediately. He gingerly leaned against the headboard and smirked at Nicole. “Yeah, I guess you’re just going to have to dote on me, hand and foot, for a little bit, huh?”

He laughed at her response. “Kidding!”

“You know, despite the bullet, the worst part about all this is that they ruined my romantic gesture, Nic.” He told her how he was going to ask her to run away with him, quit their jobs and travel the world together. He meant it, too, as unrealistic as it had sounded a few days earlier. Now? It may have been what they had to do to stay alive. Or, at least what he had to do, assuming he hadn’t already gotten her irreparably tangled up in all this.

 

[zydrate]

How she almost wanted to hit him playfully but realized she had almost smacked his injured shoulder.

"Run off into the sunset?" She said, wistfully. Yeah, she had thought about it. After all, he was the only one who could get what she was about. Someone who didn't need a lot of explanation of what her past entailed.

She had thought about it too.

Nicole handed him the vodka and immediately took it away after he took a sip. "That's all you get for now... the last thing you need to be is wasted, besides, I'm not sure how much blood you've actually lost, so better safe, than sorry."

"Speaking of doting on..." she glanced at the clock on the small table beside the bed. "Since you decided to get shot, I'm going to run downstairs really quick, get some more supplies and pick up something for dinner. The last thing we want is someone up here delivering anything."

She took a damp cloth and brushed it across his forehead, "You sure know how to keep things interesting."

 

[Nouh_Bdee]

He pouted when she took away the vodka, but he knew she was right. She was right about not getting things delivered, too. “Such a smart woman.” Did he say that out loud? Shit, he must’ve lost more blood than he thought.

He put his other hand over hers and gave it a little squeeze. “Seriously, though. Once all this shit is over...I want some dull with you.” He gave her a weary smile. “Think about it.”

With that, his eyelids started to feel heavy, so he closed them. He wasn’t really asleep, but he was happy to take a rest, breathing deeply on the hotel bed, relaxing for the first time in nearly twenty-four hours.

 

[zydrate]

It was a little past 5AM when Nicole returned from getting some food for Alan, as well as obtaining some clothes for him.

She had moved through the hallways and casino just as she were any other guest... occassionally stopping at a machine to play for a minute before moving on. To anyone else, she appeared to be someone just moving around and having a good time.

All the while, she kept a look out for anyone following her or observing her in a weird manner.

By now, the hotel casinos were cleaning up and there was rarely anyone around. Which was good for her because she and Alan had to get moving before the sun rose.

When she returned to the room, Alan was still sleeping. That was a good thing. She checked his bandage and found that the bleeding has ceased.

"Alan.." she said quietly and placed a hand on his thigh, giving it a small shake, "Alan, wake up...we need to get going. I don't think it's safe to stay here any longer..." she pulled out a burger, wrapped in lettuce and a cold bottle of orange juice. It was a strange combination to be sure, but both would help with the blood he had loss.

She placed the clothes she 'borrowed' and set them on the bed, "You eat and then get dressed while I get this place cleaned up. The faster we get back on the road, the better."

It had taken some long thought and consideration, but she had a place in mind. A 'friend' had a small cabin near the Grand Canyon. It was a place they had rarely used so she figured it would be a safe place to stay until Alan was feeling better. As she cleaned up and he got dressed, she let him know about the cabin. "It's about a 5 hour drive... you think you'd be up to it?"

 

[Nouh_Bdee]

The burger was amazing. Okay, it was fine, but Alan felt like he was starving so it was amazing. He could tell his body wanted more sleep, but when it was time to move it was time to move, so Alan got up and got dressed. Nicole’s plan was a good one, but with every word she spoke his heart sank.

He finished getting dressed and walked over to put his hands on her arms. “Nic...I...I shouldn’t’ve come here. You don’t deserve getting mixed up in this.”

Alan let go of her and backed up, gesturing with his hands. “I need to figure this out without risking you in the process. Let me find you after it’s dealt with, yeah?”

He tried to think about how to make sure she wasn’t followed after he left. He knew she could lose a tail but they would need to see her without him to truly let it go. “Remember that story I told you about Gelderland? The tulip fields?” It didn’t matter that the events of that story had actually happened outside of Prague, or that the tulip fields had been a complete fabrication. What he hoped Nicole would remember was the plan for him to leave her moving vehicle while she was driving. He knew he could do it, even with his shoulder.

“You just keep driving, let them see you without me, then Poof!...you disappear.” He gently squeezed her arms again, staring earnestly into her eyes. “I’ll find you once it’s all over.”