The Gift That Keeps On [GIVING!]

 

Lukas knew how his relationship with his uncle worked. While they were family, they were also business partners – and conniving ones at that. Whenever a family head or someone similarly high end in their organization mentioned they were having some trouble with something or mentioned maybe needing help, Vasha offered to see what he could do, proceeded to tell Lukas, who, being something of a jack of all trades, normally could take care of it, making sure to mention his uncle of course, and they got reputation and favors owed to both of them, all for the low low price of one favor. It was a flawless system...most of the time. There were, however, some instances where Lukas wondered how, exactly, Vasha came onto such problems for them both to 'share'.

“It's a turtle.”
“Yes, Lukas, I know, I may be getting older but I can still see.” he'd said, carefully holding said animal in one hand as he looked at his nephew expectantly. Lukas had raised an eyebrow.
“With a pink bow on it.”
“Yes.”
“You really think a pet is what I need right now pops?”
“Well I know you have a lot of free time on your hands and not a lot of hobbies-”
“Besides you know the two women I babysit and the endless errands you send me on-”
“and a little extra responsibility for a young man who still doesn't know his full way in the world can't hurt.”

Lukas had felt his eyebrow twitch slightly, not missing the gleam in his uncle's eyes and the way his mouth was upturned just a bit too much.

“Someone important gave it to you as a weird gift and you can't get rid of it out of obligation in case they ask to see it right?”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Yeah okay.”

And just like that the assassin had acquired a pet. That had been less then...what, ten hours ago now? Something around there. Vasha had literally just dumped the creature on Lukas without any word on how to take care of it, without anything for it to live in, nada. He'd dropped it in his nephew's hands and ran, the little shit. The redhead had spent some time poking it, ensuring it wasn't dead (it had been hiding in the shell the entire time), before proceeding to go about normal routine while carrying the little thing around with him, setting it on counters as he had to stop and do things. He even went down into the coffee shop with it, setting it on the counter as he told their part-timers a few things that needed done and helped them a bit with the large crowd they had, ignoring the looks he got for it.

Luckily, said part-timers did tell him what to feed the stupid thing, so when he had headed back upstairs he plonked it onto one of the end tables of the couch, bounced over to the fridge, grabbed several slices of lettuce, and dropped them next to it while he placed himself onto the couch to watch some television. It was about here that he completely forgot the thing existed, and the next few hours were filled with his TV relaxing, business calls, attempting to chase off the morons who almost gave away his cover when they saw him and starting pointing and speaking in blatant, loud Russian in the back alley behind the shop, back to more business calls...a pretty normal day, really.

By the time he remembered, the turtle was long gone, and probably had been for at least two hours.

When he went to the fridge with a sigh and a hand through his steadily fading red hair was when it hit him, and he spun on his heel to look at the table where he had left it. The lettuce was gone, and so was the turtle. 'Shit.' Immediately he forgot what he was doing, wondering how many favors he and his uncle would lose out on if they knew Vasha lost the gift they'd 'so thoughtfully' given him...who had in turn 'so thoughtfully' re-gifted it to his nephew, but still. 'It can't have gone far' he told himself firmly, and started to stealthily ghost around the edges of the main room of the apartment. When that yielded no results, he dropped to his knees amongst the living room furniture, scraping a hand under the couch haphazardly, making a frustrated noise as he did. 'This is fucking ridiculous'

DATED!: May 8th, 4-6pm     TAGS!: RAYNA KELLER