justprompts: Ten ways to say goodbye.

[fast_max]

The part that he really did hate about the job wasn't the risk, he found out soon enough. It wasn't the danger to him, it wasn't the sometimes-grueling physical strain of having to stay alert, it wasn't the idiots he had to deal with occasionally, it wasn't the uncertainty whether, after this job was done, there would be another, of if it would be soon enough...

It was losing people.

Max was staring blankly across the location where they had been set upon, half a week earlier. It hadn't been exactly unexpected, he more or less chose the higher-risk ones, because they paid better. But right now, all he could see were the signs of a fight where their security had not been tight enough. Not for Bob.

He was moving around then, trying to recreate the night skirmish in his head, the objectives, the rights and the wrongs, to draw conclusions and correct future mistakes. Even through a part of him knew that they had done well, that the attackers had been a larger force, and even with the element of surprise working for them, hadn't managed to accomplish their objective, had been driven back - that part of his thought process couldn't get the upper hand. It never could, right after something was done with, debriefed, and paid for in full, and he was left to his own devices. Something clattered under his feet, and he looked down to find, of course, Bob's cooking ware.

Firelight, the hunched long-haired figure stirring the pot almost absent mindedly. For the fifth time, asking if Max wanted some. And a snap in return. "Told you no, Bob, I don't want beans stew. I don't even bloody like beans stew, never have. Eat it yourself and stop bothering me!" The grayed head shaking, enjoying his food.
Twenty-four hours later, gone.

He kicked away the damned pan, and it clattered more as it rolled. He could have been at least nice. Too late.

Didn't feel like getting drunk for Bob. Didn't seem right, he'd been careful. Probably how he'd lived that long on the job. Stay sober, stay alert, react quickly, stick to the plan unless it showed up to be unworkable, then for fuck's sake don't strike out on your own, work with the rest. But... perhaps it had been age creeping up on him, or something. Or simply, dance with it too long, and it will get you one day. Whatever.

He had gotten drunk before. The first time, three nights in a row. They'd lost three people then, and he'd known it was going to be a fucking disaster, but he needed the job. And he'd found out what 'fucking disaster' of a job meant to him. Getting to know and trust people, enough in their heads to be able to work with them under pressure - and seeing them bleeding out in the dust. Or worse, but that one had come later. That first time, he'd gotten drunk three nights in a row, once with each of their favorite brand of poison. Kind of as if they'd been there to drink with him. Or he was drinking in their stead. Something.

Those three times, and once after. He'd thought getting really drunk on beer would have been a challenge, no matter what the kid had said (just turned away after not managing to earn his stole. Not good enough. He had been good at his first go... very good. But in the end, not good enough to live through it...) but it took him surprisingly short time. And small amount of beer.

Then there had been the French job. Or rather, the Quebec one, but he still thought that part of the botch was half the party not knowing a word of French, and two people died for it. One of them had started teaching him a little bit; for him, he'd kept on working to pick up as much of the language as he could.
The other one had been the one who got them into the trouble. Max's thoughts shied away from thinking 'traitor', but... it was a word close enough. His things, Max had summarily destroyed. It hadn't helped, but it had been something.

None of it helped. He did it anyway.

Sara. There weren't many women in the trade. Not because they were worse, really, but because they went at some point and started dancing with death otherwise. Having children, guarding them. After that, cheap motels or camp fires and trudging through mud or sleet or hard sun for the sake of someone else's ass, or even their goods, seemed less attractive, probably.
Sara he couldn't let go of in forever. And then there was a woman somewhere who reminded him of Sara. Sharp-tongued Sara, who'd answer his wisecracks with sarcasm, good sarcasm, and his unreal (they WERE on a job after all!) advances with almost brutal iciness. He'd gotten that woman who reminded him of Sara into bed, somehow, and had tried so many of the lessons he'd learned as a boy to make her glow, content, as though nothing else mattered in the world.

With the first man he lost when he was actually in charge of a goddamn mission, he went and told his daughter personally. Been there when the woman cried. Wished, so much, he could undo that, and the other, and the third choices he's made. Somehow make it so Pete would have come home.

And then the only other full wizard he'd lost, on a job. A bloody stupid job it had been too - they hadn't been attacked for the object of getting the transported items stolen or destroyed. They'd been targeted, it turned out later, by mistake. Quick shots, cleanup. The grizzled man had been left in the dust with a shot between the eyes. He'd not had time to send off a death curse, even.
Well Max cursed people for him enough, that day. Picked up using one of his favorite spells too. Damn useful.

When he got home, Max cooked himself a beans fucking stew. It still tasted as bad as he remembered. But he never turned down any ever again