Sixteen: Favor

*thanks to B, Bumblebee, and km300 for your support!!!*

***

“Please, please, please? Just one last time? For me, your oldest, dearest friend?”

Sage sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. It was six in the morning, and Luis was outside his front door on his knees, hands clasped together as he peered up at Sage hopefully, not caring that any one of Sage’s neighbors could step out and see him groveling shamelessly like a starving dog begging for scraps. Sage had really hoped he’d never have to see Luis again, especially now that he was planning to retire.

Luis was…well, not really a friend, despite what he claimed. He was more a beggar and a rat than anything else, but he was the only person who knew of both Sage’s identities, and he really only found out on accident. Unfortunately for Sage, Luis was never one to pass up on a golden opportunity, and he had used his knowledge to badger Sage into helping him run heists over the years. Sage had agreed – as long as he got to keep a minimum of 50 percent of the profit for himself, of course. Luis had no problem with this, considering that even half of the profits from a bank or museum robbery typically exceeded hundreds of thousands of dollars. And Luis was always in need of money. Sage didn’t know if he was gambling it all away or if he owed loan sharks or what, and he didn’t particularly care. All he knew was that every couple of months, Luis was back at his doorstep with some new plot that he needed Sage’s help to carry out.

“I’m trying to retire, Luis. I told you that. You need to find someone else to help you do whatever new stupid thing you’ve come up with,” Sage muttered, before remembering that they were literally standing in the hallway of his apartment building. Not wanting any passersby to hear anything they shouldn’t, Sage glanced up and down the hallway before grabbing Luis’ arm and hauling him into his apartment, catching a whiff of cigarettes and marijuana off him as he did. “And I told you not to come here anymore,” he said after he’d closed the door behind them. “You’re supposed to call me or text me. Not show up at my motherfucking apartment to act like a fool where any of my neighbors could see.”

Luis brushed off Sage’s anger easily, moving away from Sage to flop onto the sofa in the living room like he lived there. Sage glared at the bit of short cropped brown hair peeking over the back of the sofa. He came around the end of the sofa to find Luis’s face buried in one of Sage’s throw pillows, inhaling deeply.

Rolling his eyes, Sage stomped forward to snatch the pillow out of his hands, throwing it onto the armchair nearby. Luis pouted, blinking baby blue eyes up at Sage while he grabbed the other throw pillow on the couch to sniff too.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Sage muttered, whirling on his heel to go to the kitchen, deciding to ignore the little annoyance in his home before he snapped and killed him once and for all.

Coffee, he decided. Coffee first. Surely caffeine would help save Luis’s life.

Sage hadn’t even gotten all the way into the kitchen before he heard a crash behind him and then a small ‘woops.’ He didn’t turn around to see which of his items Luis had broken this time. He really didn’t think he could handle it.

Deep breaths. Big, deep breaths.

Once Sage started the coffee brewing, he felt marginally more sane, and so he decided to check on his uninvited guest, peering around the short half-wall between the kitchen and living room, only to find it empty.

Fucking…

Sage had never been a hundred percent sure what kind of drugs Luis was on at any given moment. He only knew that he was definitely on something that shouldn’t be mixed with whatever anti-psychotic drugs he was certainly being prescribed.

Wiping a hand down his face, Sage went down the hallway in search of him, and found his bedroom door more ajar than he’d left it. He went inside with a frown to find Luis buried face down in Sage’s bed, appearing euphoric as he huffed Sage’s sheets. When he noticed Sage staring at him from the doorway, disturbed, Luis simply rubbed his cheek against Sage’s pillow like a cat.

“What? Everything in here smells so fucking good. What laundry detergent do you use, really? Because it’s awesome,” Luis explained. Sage scrubbed a hand over his mouth and considered pouring Luis a glass full of his laundry detergent so he could drink it and die and get the fuck out of Sage’s apartment and life.

“Luis,” Sage said, voice brittle as he attempted to hold back curse words, “get off my bed – no, don’t take my fucking pillow with you. Set it down. Yes, good. Now follow me. Follow, Luis.”

Sage stormed back out to the living room, Luis on his heels obediently. For the moment, anyway. He’d get distracted by something else sooner or later.

Once they were back in the living room, Sage turned to face Luis, who was already stretching out a hand to fiddle with something on a nearby shelf, only to snatch his hand back when he saw Sage glaring at him in warning.

He wanted to tell Luis to shove whatever new scheme he was cooking up his ass. He wanted to slam the front door in Luis’s face and tell him to fuck off for eternity.

Unfortunately, Sage was in a delicate position where Luis was concerned, and Luis knew it. Luis knew Sage’s villain identity and his real one. He had leverage on Sage. If Sage refused to help him, there was nothing stopping Luis from ratting him out to the authorities or media. Well, nothing except the threat of Sage murdering him, but Luis knew Sage was not a killer. He could steal, he could lie, he could beat someone until they were coughing up blood and bone, but he’d never been able to take someone’s life from them. He could rob someone blind until they had nothing, not even their dignity, but their soul was their own, and Sage had never been interested in collecting those.

And Luis could be ditzy at times, could do things that made one question his sanity and whether or not drug use had rotted his brain, but he wasn’t stupid, at least not when it came to fucking people over.

“Luis,” Sage started sternly, and Luis looked at him, but his eyes drifted away to latch onto something else that had caught his attention. “Look at me, Luis, and fucking pay attention. I am retiring. Which means, after that, you can no longer come to me for help with your stupid ideas, do you understand? I need a yes or a no from you.”

Luis wrinkled his nose. “Yes. But you haven’t retired yet, right?”

Sage pursed his lips, wanting to scream. “…That’s correct. But that doesn’t mean I want to help you. Do you even remember the last mess you got us into? Those dogs chased me for three miles. Three miles, Luis. And we didn’t even get that much for it.”

“Yeah, but this one is different,” Luis exclaimed. “I promise. It’ll be quick, easy, and the payout will be enormous. We’ll be swimming in cash. Just one last heist. Just one. Pleeaaasssseee?”

Sage glared at Luis, wishing he could blow him up with his mind. Sage didn’t like Luis’s heists, even before he decided to retire. While they were usually surprisingly successful, they were also dangerous, and almost always resulted in Sage running into his least favorite person. A certain cloaked asshole that Sage really, really didn’t want to run into considering the last time Sage had seen him, he’d had Sage’s legs around his waist.

Sage really didn’t want to deal with that situation. There were a whole lot of ‘fuck no’s’ running through his head at even the thought of seeing that bastard again.

But he couldn’t tell Luis no either. He had too much to lose, and Luis knew that.

Fuck my life.