el mañana

Chapter One

The bar was crowded, loud, and a little bit smelly, but it worked for Billy Russo, who really wasn't looking for much in particular that night. Just enough drinks to numb the edge he was feeling, crawling into the corners of his head as he pushed through the bodies in the open space, enough to leave him feeling jumpy and with a sense of anxiety, but not enough that he couldn't plaster the charm on when he reached the bar.

"A bourbon on the rocks, please, when you get the chance." He flashed a grin at the bartender, reflexes kicking in as he scouted the bar either side of him with a quick flash of his eyes, a habit that he knew he'd never get rid of, not after all those years in the army- no, there was plenty from his army days he wasn't getting rid of.

A man to the right of Billy caught his eye. Dirty blonde hair, propped up on a barstool and his arms folded round the drink in front of him, his eyes fixed down on the liquor that he swirled in its bottle with slow turns of his wrist. It wasn't his shadowed expression that caught Billy's eye, or the worn denim jacket, it was something else that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Maybe the man had also been in the army? Young, athletic build, haunted expression - it made sense. Or was it some sort of psychic sensory feeling linking them together, drawing him into wanting to make conversation. Billy scoffed at himself. Sensory bullshit.

He leant his arms on the bar and turned his head with a characteristic smirk stretched across his face, looking right at the man, who in return, didn't look up from his drink.

"I buy you a drink?" Billy offered.

The blonde still didn't raise his eyes. "I'm alright thanks man."

"Come on." Billy gave a light chuckle. "You haven't even looked at who's offering yet."

The stranger finally lifted his head, just a touch, to scan Billy's awaiting face. "Like I said," he raised the half-full bottle, "I'm good."

The bartender placed a glass on the counter, a soft thud, bourbon on the rocks, and Billy turned to pick it up, take a long sip, and raise it to the man on his right with a wink. "Your loss."

He moved further down the bar, away from the stranger, to a group of attractive and tipsy ladies, and the stranger turned back to his bottle.

***

The bar was too busy, loud, and smelled pretty bad, but that was exactly what the teenager walking into the room needed, a perfect mess of factors to get lost in.

He pushed through the crowd, worry written clearly on his face as he shot looks over his shoulder, muttering hasty apologies as he bumped into people on the way. He headed straight for the toilets, which was really just the first thing that had come to his mind, but it made sense, they'd have a harder time of looking for him in there.

The boy wasn't unnoticed by Billy, who saw the young, latino face and frowned- he was a bit out of place here.

But the boy didn't notice him, and carried out his plan, ducking into the toilets and locking himself in a cubicle. Breathing heavily.

He ran his fingers through the brown strands on top of his head, his thoughts racing a thousand a second, but the music was muted and less thumping in here, and he could feel his pulse steadying, his breaths slowing, the room quiet as the door swung shut with the footsteps of someone leaving.

It was quiet now. Safe? Only one way to find that out, he thought.

He raised a slightly shaking hand to unlock the door, rubbed his eyes, and stepped out.

A group of men, four in total, were waiting for him, having caught the door and walked in silently, now they leant against the sinks and just waited.

"Can," The boy paused, his breath catching in his throat. "Can I help you?"

"You definitely can." One of the men spoke, his voice low, his tone less than friendly, and he stepped away from the sink.

"Please, I think you guys have the wrong person, I don't know you." The boy backed away, the door of the cubicle hitting his back with the realisation that there was nowhere for him to run, he'd backed himself into a corner. "Pinché." He cursed to himself, under his breath.

The man gave a shrug, taking a casual step forward. "Oh, but we know you, Charlie."

The boy, Charlie, inhaled sharply, then his arm whipped out straight ahead of him, brandishing a small pocket-knife that he pointed at the men circling him. "Stay back."

The leader of the group stopped in his tracks. Then his mouth stretched into a mocking smile, and he looked at the other men, slowly and carefully. "Isn't that cute? Boy thinks he can stop us with a pocket-knife."

"I mean it, stay b-"

Charlie let out a shout of pain as one of the men grabbed his arm, pushing it down with one hand, and pressed on his shoulder with the other, twisting until he dropped the knife. The leader lowered himself into a crouch, reaching down to pick up the blade, and he looked up at the boy.

"You were going to use this on us?"

Charlie struggled in the man's grasp and didn't give an answer, trying to twist round without getting his shoulder dislocated or worse, but the man held too tight, and with a gesture from their leader, he was pulled upwards and shoved against the wall behind him, hands twisted in his jacket to hold him in place.

"I asked you a question," the man continued, standing up and moving close to Charlie, "Were you going to attack us with this?"

Charlie turned his head to the right - that way he didn't have to look at the leader on his left, or the man pinning him to the wall, just a smooth wooden panel, almost calming - but the leader grabbed his chin and forced his face back round to see him.

"I think that's quite rude of you, really, threatening us with a knife." He didn't let go of his squeezing vice hold on Charlie's cheeks. "Isn't it, boys?"

"Not very nice at all, boss." One of the men still leaning against the sinks replied, with a grin.

The leader waved a hand at the man next to him, indicating for him to step back so that the leader could take his place, wrap his own hand in the material of Charlie's jacket, and press the pocket knife to Charlie's exposed throat.

"How does that feel, hm?" He pushed harder, ignoring Charlie's winces as he tried to stretch his neck away from the blade. "Does that feel good?"

"What now, boss?" The man in the background piped up again.

"Now?" The leader grinned, twisted and eager. "Now I have some fun."

***

The attractive woman to Billy's left was talking, hadn't stopped in a while actually, but he wasn't putting in the most effort to listen to her. Slow sips of the whiskey, a couple nods and murmurs now and then, was all that Billy was required to do. She might've been rambling about something interesting, something that Billy could've joined in with if he actually tried, but he doubted that, mostly due to the level of drunkness she was at that point, and the tone of drawl coming out of her mouth was something he just found himself zoning out to.

Besides, if he was being honest, he had other things on his mind. Distractions, scraping and cutting his attention, nudging away at his mind, despite the alcohol he was pouring into his system. He'd first found it difficult to concentrate on the conversation he was supposed to be part of when he saw that boy run in, tense and coiled up like a spring, ready to explode, Billy thought, and he saw him run straight into the toilets.

And then, just as he'd pushed the boy out of his mind, he noticed the men following.

Couldn't really help but notice, not with his years of experience with and against those exact kinds of men, as they moved through the crowd as an organised and focused force, all predators on a mission, fixed on completing their objective. They'd followed the boy into the toilets maybe five minutes ago, and Billy was sure everything would be fine. He was sure there was no reason for him to get involved. He was sure that being the hero wasn't who he was, never had been.

But the longer the woman to his left droned on, the faster his fingers tapped on the side of his glass and the counter, and the more often he checked the corridor to the toilets, looked for familiar faces, and more pressure was building in his chest, rising to his throat, strangling, and he had to go.

"Sorry, I have to visit the men's room, I'll just be a minute." He interrupted the woman mid-flow and walked away from the bar without waiting for a reply, heading for the toilets, his mind set.

The knife was adjusted, moved to the side of Charlie's neck, to make room at the front of his neck for the man's lips.

Billy sidestepped a couple making out in the corridor, ignoring their drunken moans, his pace a bit quicker. The flickering overhead light wasn't helping his paranoia.

The boy protested and wriggled some more, but the man continued to press long, sloppy kisses to his neck, beginning from right under the chin to the top of his shirt.

The man paused to pant in Charlie's face. "Pretty thing like you, we'll have no trouble, isn't that right?"

Billy was nearly at the toilets now, his step only slowed when he noticed the man standing in front of the door, arms folded.

"Hey, can I get through?" He thought it was at least worth a try.

The man shook his head, smiled. "Sorry, mate, they're out of order."

Billy sighed. Then threw his fist right into the man's face, knocking his head into the door, and he crumpled to the floor.

The leader of the group kicked the boy's legs apart slightly, pressing his own leg in between, lowering a hand to touch the boy's thigh-

A crash. Then-

The door swung open, and Billy stood there, and time froze for a moment.

He saw the spread legs, the hand on the thigh, the knife still pressed to the throat - and he saw red. Or black, nothingness. Or everything at once, in rapid vividty.

The knife he always kept tucked in the back of his jeans was out before he knew it and hurled straight at the man's head, the one holding the boy, and then he was dead. Simple. Problem solved. Everything red.

The rest of the group, freed from their freeze-frame, rushed forwards suddenly, the threat finally recognised, and they started laying in their kicks and punches on the attacker.

Billy smiled. This was going to be fun.

***

Dex was enjoying the company of his beer, just the cool neck of the bottle and his own mind and memories, now that he had been left alone, after the brief offer of a stranger, and he could finally stew over his memories as he did most nights, never coming to much of a conclusion.

He thought of Julie. Her red hair. He thought of Dr. Mercer, the tapes. Reciting them in his head, imagining her voice. The structure, the familiarity of coming to the same bar most nights. Everything was in order.

He heard crashes. Of course, at first he dismissed those as just more memories, surfacing from whatever depths of his mind he'd tried to drown them in, as he was no stranger to crashes in his life, but he realised quickly that the crashes were real and happening right at that moment. He tuned in, using his acute hearing like an instrument, and tracked the source of the noises to the toilets, or at least in that general direction.

And of course, his niggling curiosity wouldn't let it rest, and maybe whatever was going would be more interesting than drowning in self-pity and the past. Dex downed the rest of his drink, placed the bottle on the counter. Traced the wood under his finger for a minute. Then, he found himself in the corridor leading to the toilets, the noise getting louder with every step.

Crashes, grunts, the solid smack of punches - he recognised the sounds of a fight.

Dex kicked open the door. He wasn't wasting any more time just waiting around, sitting on a barstool, not when the heat of a fight was so close. He saw three men, kicking and punching with all the force of trained fighters, a boy keeping against the wall, frozen, and the man from earlier, who'd offered him a drink, in the center of it all. Taking all the attacks with a harsh laugh, spitting out blood to the side.

"The hell..." Dex wasn't sure what to make of it, or rather, where to begin.

Three on one didn't seem very fair though, not to Dex's standards of a fair fight, so he took advantage of the surprise his arrival had been, and the slightly unsure faces of the men at this new competitor, to grab the nearest man and knee him in the face. The grapple for control began, with the man landing a strong punch to Dex's side in return, but Dex swiftly kicked the man's legs hard enough for him to stumble, giving him time to get him with a left hook.

Billy, meanwhile, seemed somewhat uplifted by this new arrival, and with renewed vigor, he started laying into the two men still enclosing him. His punches were brutal and merciless, considering what he'd seen before, and blood splattered his face as he pounded the nose of one of the men. He was dragged off by the other one, smashed against the mirrors, breaking a sink in two, and then to the floor, pinned down ready for a pounding of his own, but Dex stepped in and pushed him off with a punch. He was then knocked down from the back, tackled to the floor, and kicks were reigning in against his sides. Dex put his arms up to protect his face, looked over to his right, and noticed a handy blade, just about in reaching difference. The only issue, it being wedged in someone's head. He let the man kick him some more, then shot his legs out hard against the man, and stretched over to tug out the knife. It was lodged in tight, but he kept yanking and pulling until it flew out, and he angled it right, mental calculations whirring in his head, and threw it full force at the man's chest. Jumping up, mustering energy with the roar of adrenaline, he grabbed the handle of the knife and drove it further into the man's body, pushing him against the wall, tearing it along so it caused the man to scream in pain.

Then a large thud. Dex whipped his head round, only to see the boy standing with half a sink in his hand, the red-stained white porcelain, the red spreading over his hands, and he just stared, blinking, breathing heavily. One of the men lay on the floor, either dead or unconscious Dex wasn't sure, but from the position Billy was in, it seemed like the boy must've saved him. Dex checked the man he'd stabbed and decided he wasn't going to be a problem, his eyes flittering shut already.

"You okay?" Heavy words broke through the shocked silence, coming from Billy, but addressed to the boy, who was still holding the sink.

Charlie didn't reply. Dumb question. Had to be asked.

Billy stood up, somewhat shakily, holding out a hand towards the boy, but maintaining a distance. His voice was soft, quiet. "Hey, I'm not gonna touch you, I promise. But do you want to put that sink down?"

Charlie blinked a couple more times, the brown of his eyes shown as they flickered to Billy's face, and he lowered the heavy porcelain to the floor, his hands visibly shaking.

"I'm Billy, Billy Russo." Billy offered a smile, then looked around the room. "And we should probably get out of here."

Dex watched the exchange silently, noticing the caution Billy was using, the shock on Charlie's face, and he had some kind of idea of what the men now lying on the floor had been up to.

"Hey, guy who already has his own drink, you coming?" Billy's eyes were fixed on Dex now, a smirk in his voice as he stepped closer to the door.

Dex looked back at Billy, his face becoming more and more familiar the longer he looked at it, his expression slightly manic, but not in a way the worried him, and he looked at the brown-haired boy who seemed to be following close behind, stepping over the bodies, despite no verbal agreements being made.

He thought of the drinks waiting for him at the bar. The past.

Dex nodded. "It's Dex. And yeah, I'm coming."