Tonks stared at the malnourished body of the man before him as he begged for his life. The addict cowered before him; needle still embedded in his arm as he shook uncontrollably. He put up no fight when Tonks entered the shabby flea infested apartment and dragged him to the floor to kneel before him. The stench of the room mimicked that of the man’s. His dirty brown hair stuck to his sweat drenched face as his eyes rolled back into his head. Incoherent words mumbled from his cracked lips meant nothing.

In his line of work, emotions were more dangerous than the gun. Fear nothing and feel nothing, was what he lived by. The barrel of his gun placed against the pathetic man’s head, his whimpering and pleading would not stop Tonks from doing his job.

“Do it,” Michael said. He stood several feet behind Tonks idly leaning against the doorframe, a bored expression on his face. Was there any doubt he wouldn’t?

“Say hello to the Angel of Death. Tell him I’ll be seeing him soon.”

Tonks pulled the trigger and the man before him crumpled to the ground, his shattered face splash out around his now dead body. Blood splashed against Tonks black shoes and pants but nothing that would be noticed once they left the scene. Another drug addict whose worthless life meant nothing to those he worked for - a lost soul trying to make the most of their hollow existence. Tonks did them all a favour. Wasn’t death better than living a life with no meaning or purpose?

“Why do you always say that?” Michael pulled away from the doorframe to stand beside Tonks, ignoring the dead body. From inside his jacket, Michael pulled out a cigarette from the top pocket of his shirt and putting it too his lips, lit it before handing it to Tonks.

Tonks took it without replying and inhaled deep before lowering his hand. He didn’t pass the cigarette back to Michael; he didn’t smoke. Tonks turned away from the body, left the room and Michael followed. Their routine had been the same from the moment they met. After a similar kill, Tonks reached for a cigarette only to find the packet empty. From the corner of his eye he spied Michael leaning up against the doorframe and pulling his gun on him, the younger man merely entered the room, giving him one of his cigarettes, and told him, “The boss sent me to keep you company”.

Tonks never questioned why but simply took the cigarette from Michael and it had been their habit ever since.

As with the cigarette, so to was the question Michael asked and the one Tonks ignored. Michael never pushed for an answer and Tonks never made any effort to explain.

As Michael walked outside into the sunlight, Tonks admire the moment the sun touched his body giving him a natural glow. Michael loved the sun and being outside, and hated indoors and dark places. Tonks never understood how Michael found himself in their line of business. Michael never once took a kill, always leaving the work to Tonks. He asked once if Michael wanted the kill but he replied with a shrugged and explained he like watching Tonks when he did it. There were times Tonks found Michael's behaviour strange, yet he overlooked those things given the company of the beautiful man become something he craved.

Outside, the smile on Michael’s face revealed the pleasure in his surroundings. The man’s beauty, unusual and haunting, often gave Tonks his single most pleasure in his life. At six foot three, they were the same height but where Tonks was solid built, short dark hair and hardened appearance, Michael appeared the complete opposite. Younger by almost twenty years, slim build, blonde shoulder length hair he preferred to wear down, high cheekbones, sharp nose, and bright piercing blue eyes. Tonks could not fault him.

But what Tonks saw was all he knew about Michael. They shared very little about each other, neither willingly volunteered any information and that suited Tonks.

With sunglasses on, Tonks watched Michael without being obvious. His feelings for Michael steadily grew over the last few months and he wondered if it was because he’d never settled down with anyone permanently. Past relationships with both men and women never lasted long. In his line of work, relationships often ended badly. With Michael waiting for him every morning when he left his small apartment and leaving him when he returned left Tonks craving for more.

Yet the fact he had been partnered with anyone for the first time left Tonks experiencing a sense of responsibility. If Michael was to learn from him, Tonks had no right to make their relationship personal. Perhaps, when Michael took off on his own, Tonks might pursue something then. Until that time he would wait. Tonks ditched the cigarette butt and walked past Michael, making his way to the small derelict courtyard in the centre of the apartment complex.

On a graffiti stained concrete bench near a dead tree, Tonks sat hunched over, massaging his neck with a hand. Weary bones ached, reminding Tonks of his age. At forty-two his body grew tired with every new day. He’d killed his fair share of drug addicts and cons but the wasn’t the possibility to retire from his profession. You retired when you were dead.

Tonks removed his gun from the holster from under his coat, placed it to his head and wondered when the time came would he do it. Michael came to stand before him, casting his shadow over Tonks. With a glance up at Michael, his expression much the same when telling Tonks to do it. He almost heard Michael say it too before Michael reached out and lowered the gun from his head.

“It’s not your job to do that.”

Tonks put his gun away and stood, walking back towards the car.

“Not today anyway.” Tonks replied.

He’d come close to taking his own life a few times over the years but bitter memories and recently Michael stopped him every time.

The walk back to his car, located in a service lane a block over from the kill, was done in silence. Michael never talked when others were around and Tonks never talked unless being spoken to first. A trait stemming from his childhood when his father beat into him quite literally children did not speak until spoken too. The message left its mark among many others.

Tonks would love to say it was because of his father he ended up becoming a hired killer but he was only partly to blame. It had been his sister's’ death and the circumstances behind it that gave him his taste for killing. A memory he’d endured his entire life and one he never shared with anyone, including Michael. He would take that memory with him to the grave.

Upon reaching the service lane, Tonks notice the two dark cars parked at the entrance on either side of the lane. Several men in suits much like his own, milled around. Tonks entered the lane without glancing their way. Their presence meant only one thing. On the bonnet of his car sat his boss, an event that never happened to him personally in the past? This meant one thing - Tonks had messed up. Michael moved over to the side of the car, leaned against the wall with hands in pant pockets and watched. Tonks sat down on the bonnet of his car next to the boss and removing a cigarette from his inner pocket he lit it before speaking.

“Gregory, what brings you here?” They both knew why he was there, Tonks only asked for the sake of asking.

“Sorry about this Tonks, you’re my best man but there’s been a contract put out on you.”

Tonks moved off the car and turning to face Michael looked at him rather than Gregory.

“So this is it then.” Tonks removed his sunglasses and looked directly into Michael’s eyes but Tonks saw no malice in them. Nothing that indicated he was going to be responsible for the hit on him.

“Do you know who it was?” Tonks might as well know who wanted him dead.

“The father of the hooker you took out twelve months ago. Turns out she was from some wealthy family who were trying to help her get back on her feet when you finished her off.”

“If I remember right she was in so much debt her life was forfeited because of it.”

Tonks continued to stare at Michael. That kill was the day Michael appeared. How easily he remembered that when he barely recalled the face of the man he killed that morning.

“Yeah, apparently the family cleared the debt but not before the contract on her life was cancelled. This sort of shit happens, but the family wants whoever was responsible to pay.”

“Well that would be you, right? I mean you contracted the kill. I only follow orders.”

“True, true. But you see Tonks your life is worthless compared to mine and so long as I appear to be doing something the cops and family will stay off my back.”

“So that’s it then. My life for some worthless hooker you wanted killed.”

“That’s how it is Tonks. No hard feelings.”

“Nah. It’s all good. I was getting ready to retire anyway.”

Gregory moved off the car and stepped between Michael and Tonks gun in hand. Only then did Tonks eyes move from Michael’s to Gregory’s.

“You’re going to do this one yourself?”

“Seems only fair I should be the one.”

“I’d prefer if Michael did it?”

Confusion passed over Gregory’s face.

“Michael?”

Tonks once more stared past Gregory toward Michael. The smile on his face one he’d seen often but now it made no sense. The sound of the gun firing took Tonks by surprise. Pain ripped through his chest as his vision of Michael’s unchanged features began to fade. His feet gave way beneath him and he stumbled back before falling towards the ground. On his back, the pain ripped through his body as he looked up at Gregory standing by his side, gun pointed at his head.

Tonks eyes began to dilate as pain burned through his body and everything began to fade. One last glance was all Tonks manage, however where Gregory stood now was Michael. With his hand outstretched towards Tonks he said, “Say hello to the Angel of Death, Tonks. I’ve been waiting for you.”

The effort to lift his hand towards Michael’s seemed hopeless, yet Tonks wanted to reach him. As their fingers touched, Michael entwined his hands around Tonks before another shot rang out and everything went black.

Michael wrapped his arms around Tonks waist and pulled him closer. A whiff of soft musk emanating from Michael enticed Tonks to nuzzled his face deeper into his long golden hair.

“What took you so long?” Tonks asked and Michael laughed.

“Sorry but I had to wait until you were ready.”

“I was ready thirty years ago.” Tonks pulled back to look at Michael.

Thirty years ago it all started. The mystery surrounding the circumstances haunted Tonks every day of his life. Not what he had done, but the sensation he had not been responsible, that a force greater than his own drove him.

“Why did you make me do it?” It was then Tonks realised the answer stood before him and he wanted the truth.

“I am the light and I needed the darkness. I chose you.”

Michael caressed Tonks face as the memory from thirty years ago engulfed him. The abuse of Tracy, his older sister, at the hands of their father had been as horrific as his. At the age of twelve he came home one afternoon to find her beaten and bloody, sitting in the corner on the bathroom floor. In her hands was their father’s gun between her teeth. Her torn dress exposing her body, showed the scars their old man inflicted and blood trailing down the inside of her legs told him what happened. When their eyes met Tonks saw her humiliation and suffering.

What he said to her that day he did not recall, but he talked her into giving him the gun. She begged him to kill her but he couldn’t. When he asked what happened, her anguish confirmed what he suspected drove him to snap. Their father had raped her in a drunken rage and then beat her when she resisted. His heart that day died as anger and hatred replacing all other emotions. He swore to his sister he would kill their father as she continued to plead with him to take her life. To free her from the memories that would destroy her otherwise.

Tonks remembered kneeling over her, holding her hands in his as she rocked back and forth begging him. He witnessed the bruises and blood; there was no part of her body that had not been tainted. The depth of his pain became so overwhelming before a strange calmness over came him. It was like he knew what he had to do and he wasn’t alone in doing it. Without hesitation he took the gun from the floor beside him and pointed at her temple. When she looked at him, she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were lost, but he saw her relief and although his intent was not to kill her that was what he did.

The peace that engulfed Tonks lasted momentarily as the aftermath encroached on reality and overwhelming grief consumed him. Tonks remembered falling over her body, crying uncontrollably, a distant memory of someone telling him, the Angel of Death awaits you, before anger and revenge consumed his body. Tonks hunted his father down and killed him that day. He showed no remorse in doing so, the bastard deserved to die. Due to his age and his circumstances he never did any time in juvenile detention but his destiny from that point was a life of crime and contract killing.

Tears fell down his face and Michael wiped them away with his thumb.

“You would not have killed her otherwise. I helped you so that we could one day be together.”

Tonks only nodded, accepting Michael’s explanation brought closure.

“You knew I was going to die.” Tonks asked.

“Yes but I was impatient and not willing to wait for you to join me.”

Michael ran his hand around the back of Tonks neck and leaning in gave a soft, gentle kiss on his lips. It was unlike anything Tonks experienced. It was like coming home, the soft touch was an awakening of everything Tonks ever wanted.

“Now what?” Tonks asked as Michael pulled back.

Michael smiled and replied; “Now we do what we were chosen to do. Bring death to those whose time has come.”

“And how do we know whose time is up?” Tonks questioned, eyebrow raised.

“The boss will tell us, of course.”

Tonks stared at Michael, brows creased in confusion before letting out a full-hearted laugh, and the sound rang out around them. Michael took Tonks’ hand, as they moved away from the scene of the crime. Like shadows, the two moved through time to their next hit paying little attention to the lifeless body sprawled on the ground in front of a car, in a service lane, in a city death knew well.